'No quick fix' from nuclear power

[pedro san pedro]

'No quick fix' from nuclear power

Building new nuclear plants is not the answer to tackling climate change or securing Britain's energy supply, a government advisory panel has reported.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035.

The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this must be set against the potential risks.

The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs.

It regards building nuclear capacity as an alternative to reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.

As North Sea supplies dwindle, nuclear is seen by some as a more secure source of energy than hydrocarbon supplies from unstable regimes. Proponents say it could generate large quantities of electricity while helping to stabilise carbon dioxide CO2 emissions.

But the SDC report, compiled in response to the energy review, concluded that the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its advantages.


FULL STORY (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4778344.stm)


This occuring at the same time as the amount of power produced by wind passes the amount produced by nuclear within Germany :)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

He said that the SDC had concluded that the long-term target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions could be met without nuclear power.

Only if we all wore sandals, ate tofu, and walk to work even if it's 20km away. :rolleyes:


"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it keeps working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would agree that some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."

Read: you don't get powercuts on calm, cloudy days.


But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs without nuclear power.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Where the fuck do these quangos crawl out from anyway?

[TomRK1089]

I gotta agree that fission power won't solve everything. However, it'll do a hell of a better job right now at preserving dwindling oil reserves. Build these things in the middle of New Mexico or an equally empty local, so there's no possibility of a Chernobyl.

Another method is to step up fusion research. Fusion creates no longlasting waste like fission.

Or if you really wanted to get crazy, some sort of microwave assembly in orbit; possibly a moon-based nuke or a solar array. Beam the power back to Earth. Just make sure no satellites get in the way of that beam, and that there's no overload. It'd be ridiculously expensive, but theoretically a great solution.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 08:17 PM
I gotta agree that fission power won't solve everything. However, it'll do a hell of a better job right now at preserving dwindling oil reserves. Build these things in the middle of New Mexico or an equally empty local, so there's no possibility of a Chernobyl.

"Another Chernobyl" is physically impossible in modern reactor designs. They are kept "hot" by "dead man's switch" style systems that mean if something fucks up, the reactor poison is dropped in the reactor and the reaction is killed.


Another method is to step up fusion research. Fusion creates no longlasting waste like fission.

Quite so. Things like the "Z-Machine (http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2006/physics-astron/hottest-z-output.html)" are helping us on the way to sustainable fusion reactions.


Or if you really wanted to get crazy, some sort of microwave assembly in orbit; possibly a moon-based nuke or a solar array. Beam the power back to Earth. Just make sure no satellites get in the way of that beam, and that there's no overload. It'd be ridiculously expensive, but theoretically a great solution.

Until we get some heavy lift launch vehicles, ludicrously impracticle. But something to consider if we ever get a significant presence in space.

[TomRK1089]

True, fusion won't be practical in our lifetimes. But unless someone actually works on it, it never will be.

[Wilfred]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2006 08:01 am

He said that the SDC had concluded that the long-term target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions could be met without nuclear power.

Only if we all wore sandals, ate tofu, and walk to work even if it's 20km away. :rolleyes:


"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it keeps working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would agree that some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."

Read: you don't get powercuts on calm, cloudy days.


But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs without nuclear power.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Where the fuck do these quangos crawl out from anyway?
cycling is more efficient than walking, you know that right? :-)
At the moment the french use hydro to balance their nuclear power, and with wind we would do the same. Noxion, you are so full of shit when you talk about the intermittency of wind and solar.

[Sleeping Dragon]

Nuclear power could instantly solve all energy problems in our lifetimes if inertial electrodynamic fusion reactors work out. They would only take 4 to 6 years to construct and the model constructed by Bussard was very promising. The technology was developed over the past ten years by the US department of defense in secret for fears the department of energy would squash the project. If such a device was every constructed it might collapse capitalism which is why they are not being funded. They only cost 300 million dollars. They are claimed to give out 100 megawatts of electrical power per reactor.

[MarxSchmarx]

:
But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs without nuclear power. Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Not to be a douche, but have you read the report?

[jake williams]

Nuclear power could instantly solve all energy problems in our lifetimes if inertial electrodynamic fusion reactors work out. They would only take 4 to 6 years to construct and the model constructed by Bussard was very promising. The technology was developed over the past ten years by the US department of defense in secret for fears the department of energy would squash the project. If such a device was every constructed it might collapse capitalism which is why they are not being funded. They only cost 300 million dollars. They are claimed to give out 100 megawatts of electrical power per reactor.
That sounds like nonsense, though it's certainly conceivable. Source, comrade? I'd be interested.

Like I regularly take the chance to say whenever nuclear comes up, I think it's a necessary albeit incomplete part of short-term energy-catastrophe solutions that are going to become civilization-defining petroleum depletion. Like this is really emergency level, and it gets drowned out a bit with climate change talk, which is completely necessary but not the whole picture.

I do think we need to seriously pursue things like fusion and such though. And probably several more long-term solutions.

[apathy maybe]

Yay a thread from 2006!

Anyway, when we can build a nuclear power plant in just a few years instead of 30, maybe it will be worth it.

But anyway, I disagree that uranium fission is a good idea, though it might be the lesser of a choice of evils.

(The best options are more efficiency, such as fluro light bulbs and insulation, and decentralised power distribution, everyone having solar panels and solar hot water systems, which then feed back into the grid when the power isn't being used. Efficiency means we don't need as much power, and thus a greater percentage of power can come from sustainable sources. Distributed power systems are cheaper in that it is a heck of a lot easier to bung a couple of solar panels on the roof then it is to take over a square kilometre of land. Also if the grid goes down, at least people will still have a little bit of power. (Oh, and the technocrats can't arbitrarily cut power :p)

[Sleeping Dragon]

I first became aware of inertial electrostatic confinement of plasma (also known as inertial electrodynamic fusion or IEF for short) researching alternating current high voltage transformers known as Tesla coils. One of the most advanced builders was named Richard Hull and he performed experiments on Tesla magnifying coils with an organization called the Tesla Coil Builders of Richmond. He was at the same time building these interesting nuclear fusion reactors he claimed were first invented by Farnsworth, the inventor of the television and these were also experimented on by Hirsch. So for many years I knew of such devices existing, he had pictures of miniature suns he formed from fusing deuterium atoms (hydrogen with an extra neutron) by running high voltage through this metal grid in a near vacuum.

Anyways these devices couldn't achieve net power because of these grids, they limited efficiency dramatically. Eventually due to research carried out by the late NASA scientist Dr. Robert Bussard, highly respected scientist and inventer of the theoretical Bussard ramjet while working for the United States Department of Defense for ten years these grids were replaced by these toroidial electromagnetic coils that were arranged in a cube. I believe the final design would use another polyhedron, I forget which. He claimed that right before he was forced to tear his laboratory down because funding was withdrawn to free up money for the war in iraq his team achieved 100,000 times the neutron radiation levels Hirsch and Farnsworth had ever achieved. This is very exciting as these former experiments were the closest anyone had ever come to solving nuclear fusion.

This is not cold fusion or nonsense, this is empirical research that has been done for over a decade. It is very real and if it is true it is very important. If you would like to hear a speech given by the inventor simply google should google go nuclear? His speech is fairly technical but at one point he shows pictures of the reactor he constructed and tested and describes the results of his experimental work. Tokamaks can't work and are very far off, if they could ever work and are expensive to build. This is far cheaper and is an elegant machine that can manifest a miniature sun on the surface of the earth and gives off 100 megawatts of electrical power. It fuses boron and boron 11 I think. He claims it is the only nuclear fusion reaction that is totally nonradioactive, the only exhaust being 3 atoms of helium for every fusion reaction. He also said that it can perform continuous fusion and he was pursuing other countries including brazil and china for funding but he became ill and died, unfortunately. His work was very significant.