nuclear power....
Discussion
It was almost depressing that program - its just another example of a field that the UK where pioneering, just to let it all slip away. Mistakes are made in every industry, you learn from them and improve. No-one ever gets everything right 100% of the time. Granted a nuclear mistake could have serious consequences, but in comparison the first plane crash didn't mean we suddenly said, right - lets never try that again! And if you say nuclear power will leave an environmental mess for generations to come, well so will us lot hooning around (or sitting in traffic-jams...) with big petrol-guzzling engines.
Back to a debate on another thread on here recently - at one point the program referred to the well educated scientists and engineers - kind off implying engineers as the paper-wielding designers. Next time they talk about the engineers, its about a welder. While I'm not saying welding isn't a respectable job (its something I certainly can't do!), a welder is a welder and an engineer is an engineer. it has devalued the term now that all plumbers, welders and sparkies are also engineers.
Back to a debate on another thread on here recently - at one point the program referred to the well educated scientists and engineers - kind off implying engineers as the paper-wielding designers. Next time they talk about the engineers, its about a welder. While I'm not saying welding isn't a respectable job (its something I certainly can't do!), a welder is a welder and an engineer is an engineer. it has devalued the term now that all plumbers, welders and sparkies are also engineers.
To put some context on Dounreay, it stopped producing nearly 2 decades ago. There are still stocks of fuel rods that need to be dismantled, alas the processing line fell into disrepair and human doseage limits mean that the contaminated hot calls cannot be recommissioned by humans. The 'engineers' will have to design robots to go in there and repair the damage so that the hot cells can be used to process the fuel rods. Meanwhile a storage and decontamination facility will have to be built to handle the now-contaminated robots. Which will create more contaminated equipment etc etc.
Meanwhile, the rest of the plant similarly has to be dismantled and 'processed', cleaned up etc.
Not only that, but there is (supposedly) a dumping pit that was used for low-level stuff from the early years. Unfortunately nobody stopped to consider that the cliffs are eroding.
So the site will get a lot bigger before it gets any smaller.
As one guy up there said to me: "There are people as yet unborn who will spend their entire working lives at Dounreay and still it won't be finished" (IIRC BNFL had given the government a 40-year schedule for the site to be returned as brown-field: allegedly you should add 100 to that to get a realistic estimate)...
Meanwhile, the rest of the plant similarly has to be dismantled and 'processed', cleaned up etc.
Not only that, but there is (supposedly) a dumping pit that was used for low-level stuff from the early years. Unfortunately nobody stopped to consider that the cliffs are eroding.
So the site will get a lot bigger before it gets any smaller.
As one guy up there said to me: "There are people as yet unborn who will spend their entire working lives at Dounreay and still it won't be finished" (IIRC BNFL had given the government a 40-year schedule for the site to be returned as brown-field: allegedly you should add 100 to that to get a realistic estimate)...
cj_eds said:
Back to a debate on another thread on here recently - at one point the program referred to the well educated scientists and engineers - kind off implying engineers as the paper-wielding designers. Next time they talk about the engineers, its about a welder. While I'm not saying welding isn't a respectable job (its something I certainly can't do!), a welder is a welder and an engineer is an engineer. it has devalued the term now that all plumbers, welders and sparkies are also engineers.
It makes me want to write to them to point this fact out to them but sadly I fear if I did that every time the word 'Engineer' was abused, id be forever writing letters.
The majority of the public have no idea what a graduate engineer is anyway... When I was at uni and told people I was doing electronic and communication engineering they thought I was either a tv repair man or the bloke who installs phone lines for BT...
Remember folks, mobile phones, the iPod and the flight control computers on board the space shuttle just fell out of the technology tree. No-one actually designed and tested them surely? It's all way above the comprehension of your average Joe who has troubled setting the video...
Remember folks, mobile phones, the iPod and the flight control computers on board the space shuttle just fell out of the technology tree. No-one actually designed and tested them surely? It's all way above the comprehension of your average Joe who has troubled setting the video...
wedg1e said:
To put some context on Dounreay, it stopped producing nearly 2 decades ago. There are still stocks of fuel rods that need to be dismantled, alas the processing line fell into disrepair and human doseage limits mean that the contaminated hot calls cannot be recommissioned by humans. The 'engineers' will have to design robots to go in there and repair the damage so that the hot cells can be used to process the fuel rods. Meanwhile a storage and decontamination facility will have to be built to handle the now-contaminated robots. Which will create more contaminated equipment etc etc.
Meanwhile, the rest of the plant similarly has to be dismantled and 'processed', cleaned up etc.
Not only that, but there is (supposedly) a dumping pit that was used for low-level stuff from the early years. Unfortunately nobody stopped to consider that the cliffs are eroding.
So the site will get a lot bigger before it gets any smaller.
As one guy up there said to me: "There are people as yet unborn who will spend their entire working lives at Dounreay and still it won't be finished" (IIRC BNFL had given the government a 40-year schedule for the site to be returned as brown-field: allegedly you should add 100 to that to get a realistic estimate)...
Yet in contrast the reactor core at Trawsfyndd can be entered by humans with no protective gear needed and the most unfortunate thing about its decomissioning is that the tropical fish in the lake it used as a water source are all dead. Nuclear power was bound to be a learning curve. It looks as though we are going to build a load of American or Japanese power stations now cos silly windmills have been cancelled. We will do this on the back of bottom lip quiverring public support created by Global warming fear. Once built of course, Global warming will be cancelled and then interest rates will rise so we all vote for the Euro. All made possible by scrapping education in 1990.
I figure it this way, there are too many people using too much energy, the resources are depleting, a pinch point approaching. There is a solution, either use less energy or reduce the population. Despite the yoghurt weavers banging on about sustainability and yoghurt electrolysis powered cars, it's not changing the fundamental point above. Since we have to get our energy from somewhere, because we HAVE to use this much energy, nuclear is the only option. We have to realise that and make sure it is achieved in the safest most effective way.
Since the UK has basically gone down the tubes, there is scope for it to lead the world with waste processing and yes, perhaps even be Europe's nuclear dustbin. The hippies won't like it but
them, it's got to be done.
The government need to get the problem across more, looking at the life cycles of the alternatives, you realise that it's a joke. Even assuming the wind blows all the time or the swell is there. No amount of wishing is going to make some magic solution appear. Fusion is a waste of time and Fission is the go. Time is ticking and action needs to start now as allready, we are heading for a pinch point.
There is no counter argument to this.
Since the UK has basically gone down the tubes, there is scope for it to lead the world with waste processing and yes, perhaps even be Europe's nuclear dustbin. The hippies won't like it but
them, it's got to be done. The government need to get the problem across more, looking at the life cycles of the alternatives, you realise that it's a joke. Even assuming the wind blows all the time or the swell is there. No amount of wishing is going to make some magic solution appear. Fusion is a waste of time and Fission is the go. Time is ticking and action needs to start now as allready, we are heading for a pinch point.
There is no counter argument to this.
GreenV8S said:
I reckon it is just a matter of time before somebody gets a working hot fusion reactor - but quite a long time from the look of it.
Indeed. This bull about "it takes more energy then provides" isnt valid as the first fission reactors did the same. The trouble is that it costs so much to develop and build. Shame the first fusion reactor will be on french soil...
GreenV8S said:
I reckon it is just a matter of time before somebody gets a working hot fusion reactor - but quite a long time from the look of it.
There is a paradox involved in the stability of the plasma and actually getting the heat out of it. I'm sure they will come up with a solution but it strikes me as being a virtually impossible challenge. I desperately try to avoid my own dogma but this paradox prevents a straightforward solution. The solution must also be radiation proof!!! (which is a big snag)
It's basically a matter of creating enough heat and pressure, isn't it? Nature achieves it using gravity, but we need to find something that will work on a much smaller scale. It seems to be achievable in principle, 'just' a matter of solving the immense practical difficulties. But looking at the way the world wide energy consumption is going up, the potential financial reward seems immense too. I hope and expect that the research will continue, it might be decades before they crack it but surely it is only a matter of time. Until then, we still have fission energy and it is only a matter of time before we are desperate enough to use it. I expect it would only take a few months of blackouts before the same people who condemn nuclear power now start demanding that the government 'do something about it'.
F.M said:
Although I like the efficiancy of nuclear power, a power system where the waste product takes 10 000 years to decay is a horrendous problem...unless you pay a nother county to bury it for you .. Madness!
Why is that a problem? You just shove it in a big hole in the ground. Its not like theres a shortage of places to do this.
F.M said:
Although I like the efficiancy of nuclear power, a power system where the waste product takes 10 000 years to decay is a horrendous problem...unless you pay a nother county to bury it for you .. Madness!
Have you actually seen how much waste nuclear power produces, go to Sellafield and see their storage tanks in the Thorpe plant (I'm not sure they do this access all areas tour anymore though).
The nuclear wase fills a pool large enough to sail a destroyer in. Which sounds like quite a lot of waste. However when you consider that this is all of the UK (and other nations) spend nuclear fuel you that realise that in the grand sclae of things the amount of nuclear waste generated by the nuclear industry is tiny, it fits in a single room.
The French have developed quite a good long term storage system, they plan to simply put in in a secure above ground building and watch it until somebody comes up with a better idea. If it leaks you find out about it straight away and clear the leak and restore the waste in another container. One of the guys at a Sellafield (semi seriously) suggested that the best solution would be to store the nuclear waste in a full scale concrete replica of the Pyramids of Giza. The concrete Pyramid would be good long term protection and you could fund the storage of the nuclear waste with the tourist revenues derrived from people coming to see the "Nuclear Pyramids of Cumbria".
I always think that nuclear power issue is a very
ed up issue with rather odd priorities. The best example of this would be the famous nuclear storage container test. In it they run a train at 100mph into a waste container. There is a huge fire ball as the train is completely written off, hundreds of people would have been killed on the train.
So the storage cell protects the nuclear waste at the cost of a few hundred people killed. Of course the spillage of about 1 cubic ft of spent nuclear fuel would kill a few hundred people...
Of course it wouldn't in fact it would be fairly inert and would be recovered by a team in a few hours and wouldn't kill anyone unless they went over and played with it.
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