Blair to recommend new nuclear power stations
Discussion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4478946.stm
Much as it pains me to say it, for once it seems the Blair government has come up with a good idea. However I’m assuming this decision is based on recommendations from the back room boys rather than the man himself. At least this time he has listened to, and accepted, sound advice.
Renewable energy sources are a bit of a white elephant and will never produce significant amounts of energy IMHO. Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive and will run out eventually. Modern nuclear power stations would be several magnitudes, safer, cleaner and more efficient that the current one’s built in the 50’s and 60’s. So I really see it as the only sensible option.
Let’s hope the sanadlist Labour back benchers don’t scupper it. And for that matter I hope the Tories don’t oppose it just for the sake of opposition.
Much as it pains me to say it, for once it seems the Blair government has come up with a good idea. However I’m assuming this decision is based on recommendations from the back room boys rather than the man himself. At least this time he has listened to, and accepted, sound advice.
Renewable energy sources are a bit of a white elephant and will never produce significant amounts of energy IMHO. Fossil fuels are becoming more expensive and will run out eventually. Modern nuclear power stations would be several magnitudes, safer, cleaner and more efficient that the current one’s built in the 50’s and 60’s. So I really see it as the only sensible option.
Let’s hope the sanadlist Labour back benchers don’t scupper it. And for that matter I hope the Tories don’t oppose it just for the sake of opposition.
"...Tony Blair is likely to use a speech to business leaders at the CBI to launch a review of UK energy policy which could lead to new nuclear power stations."
He will launch a 'review' and then perhaps we will have another review after that. The trouble with Tony Blair is he likes to give the impression of perpetual motion while actually doing sod all.
By 2020 many of the current generation of Nuclear power stations will have ceased operation. You might say oh there's plenty of time left, but once you take the planning system into consideration it will take that long to build the new ones.
He should have done something a long time ago. The only reason he is trying to appear concerned about the issue is that people are starting to realise his environmental policy is total cr*p.
He will launch a 'review' and then perhaps we will have another review after that. The trouble with Tony Blair is he likes to give the impression of perpetual motion while actually doing sod all.
By 2020 many of the current generation of Nuclear power stations will have ceased operation. You might say oh there's plenty of time left, but once you take the planning system into consideration it will take that long to build the new ones.
He should have done something a long time ago. The only reason he is trying to appear concerned about the issue is that people are starting to realise his environmental policy is total cr*p.
dakkon said:
There is no problem with nuclear waste, why they don't put it on a rocket and fire it at the Sun is beyond me, it's just a huge nuclear reactor itself.
People will say cost, but how much does it cost to dispose of nuclear waste anyway?
I used to think that too, until I met some people who work for UKAEA.
beanbag said:Er, you're sounding like someone in a 50's sci-fi flick there mate.
The only problem is what to do with the waste.....high radioactive and highly dangerous......
Lookee here - 300 years ain't so long.
More info at Integral Fast Reactors: Source of Safe, Abundant, Non-Polluting Power
If we had not listened to your sort of knee jerk "I don't understand so it can't be good" reaction 20/30 years ago, we could all be enjoying the benefits of effectively free power generation by now - pretyy much free of cost, and free of pollutants.
The only better source of energy I can imagine would be one that generates power from "Greens" and in the process consumes 100% of the fuel source. They have to be useful for something.
Edited to add: for those who can't be bothered to follow the links above, IFR's are a new breed of reactor which basically use spent nuclear fuel (i.e. the waste everyone harps on about) as their fuel, and process there own waste into much lower volumes of nuclear isotopes with a very short half life (that's the integral part of IFR, built in reprocessing - no hazardous waste transport).
>> Edited by victormeldrew on Tuesday 29th November 09:16
Already running...
www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?p=1&f=141&t=223553&h=0
www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?p=1&f=141&t=223553&h=0
beanbag said:
The only problem is what to do with the waste.....high radioactive and highly dangerous......
The French manage to lose it somewhere.
Nuclear waste or global warming - there's always a price. Seems like the 'environmentalists' have made such a fuss about GW that they've rather boxed themsleves into a corner...
victormeldrew said:The problem is they will be traditional uranium type reactors. Not for lack of plutonium though, for some obscure reason the UK owns some 90 tons (only 11 tons of which is for military used and even less weapons grade).
...stuff...
While I’m far from being sold on uranium reactors or the idea of BNFL being allowed to “maintain” more reactors (let alone build new ones), the construction of plutonium reactors seems like a good one as a long-term decision IMO.
I love fusion, as far as I know no one had even got a reactor working and people are already saying “it will be at least 20 year”…Yeah assuming it works! This is reality and not the columns of “New Scientist”, it’s wishful thinking to think even with 50 billion down the black hole they will be able to make a reactor that works.
speedy_thrills said:I'm not sure I follow your thinking. They've announced a review; I know this is often a smokescreen for "we have made a decision but we don't want to admit that yet", but I don't see anything that would rule out IFR's as yet. They had some very successful trials of IFR's in the US, but the research was closed down by pressure from lentilists. Oh sweet irony.
...stuff...
We should be lobbying for UK research into this type of reactor, or at least supporting renewed US research in the field. Even if we do go with current (relatively clean) reactor designs, we should be aiming to supplement these very quickly with IFR's to consume the waste.
edited to add correction: The IFR program was in fact closed down by the anti-proliferation lobby, which is no less ironic.
>> Edited by victormeldrew on Tuesday 29th November 13:21
victormeldrew said:
The only problem is what to do with the waste.....high radioactive and highly dangerous......
Lookee here - 300 years ain't so long.
More info at Integral Fast Reactors: Source of Safe, Abundant, Non-Polluting Power
If we had not listened to your sort of knee jerk "I don't understand so it can't be good" reaction 20/30 years ago, we could all be enjoying the benefits of effectively free power generation by now - pretyy much free of cost, and free of pollutants.
The only better source of energy I can imagine would be one that generates power from "Greens" and in the process consumes 100% of the fuel source. They have to be useful for something.
Edited to add: for those who can't be bothered to follow the links above, IFR's are a new breed of reactor which basically use spent nuclear fuel (i.e. the waste everyone harps on about) as their fuel, and process there own waste into much lower volumes of nuclear isotopes with a very short half life (that's the integral part of IFR, built in reprocessing - no hazardous waste transport).
>> Edited by victormeldrew on Tuesday 29th November 09:16
Bloody 'eck! I understand why your called victormeldrew! Take a deep breath and.....Chill!!!
I was asking about the waste disposal. That website is more 50's than my suggestion since it wasn't even put into production!!!
Current nuclear energy methods create waste that has very very high levels of radioactivity and a very long half-life.
Let me enlighten you on a 100% trusted website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/ This is the sort our bLiar wants to roll out. Now i'm all up for nuclear energy but I'm also up for keeping our planet just a wee bit safe.....
beanbag - why were IFR's not put into production? Not because of any intrinsic problems, just purely to pander to (green) public opinion. Absolutely no reason to suppose they wouldn't work, lots of evidence that they will. And as for safety, these reactors are built to passive failsafe - cut the power to all controls and the reactor will shut down entirely of its own accord.
BBC 100% trusted? Still in the 50's there fella.
BBC 100% trusted? Still in the 50's there fella.
victormeldrew said:
beanbag - why were IFR's not put into production? Not because of any intrinsic problems, just purely to pander to (green) public opinion. Absolutely no reason to suppose they wouldn't work, lots of evidence that they will. And as for safety, these reactors are built to passive failsafe - cut the power to all controls and the reactor will shut down entirely of its own accord.
BBC 100% trusted? Still in the 50's there fella.
When they're talking about facts, I'd trust the BBC.
There's also no such thing as a 100% safe nuclear reactor! However what you are describing (passive shutdown) is built into all modern reactors apart from the old RBMK Soviet designs, which is why Chernobyl was such a catastrophe.
They used a positive void co-efficient design which basically means they have to be shut down by inserting boron rods. Negative void co-efficient designs (which is what you've mentioned), will shut down silently by themselves if there is no human intervention making them a lot safer.
Anyhow....you still have the nuclear waste problem
victormeldrew said:
The review would Blair said:New generation? What could he mean?
include specifically the issue of whether we facilitate the development of a new generation of nuclear power stations
Well.....the old ones are about to be decomissioned....so we're building a new generation of plants
beanbag said:But wasn't that the point of the IFR?
... Anyhow....you still have the nuclear waste problem
several retired US nuclear physicists said:OK, less than 500 years is still a long time, but its not hundreds of thousands of years. It's manageable.
Fast reactors have advantages in addition to a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle. They can consume plutonium and other long-lived actinides, reducing to less than 500 years the required isolation time for waste in a repository, postponing indefinitely the need for more repositories. They can get more than 100 times as much energy from uranium as the profligate once-through fuel cycle, and more than 50 times as much as thermal reactors with aqueous recycle.
Most people when they think nuclear think that the wastes will be around for hundreds of thousands of years. This just isn't the case any more.
Factor in the recycling of all the nuclear waste we already have that can simply be used as fuel for these new reactors and surely its a no-brainer? Keep it for those hundreds of thousands of years, or use it up and bring it half life down to manageable timescales.
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