Dick Cheese

A fast breeder, yesterday.

bexxx

Thing is we are going nuclear because we are running out of fossil fuels yes?

But aren't we going to run out of uranium eventually?

EddScott

No pokey sticker for you eh!

Jammy git

EddScott

From what I remember of the article, its not so much running out of fossil fuels, its the damage they do to they atmosphere thats the problem.

Dick Cheese

Nope, we'll just buy it from Iran when we run out

bexxx

Who cares about when it runs out or how the environment ****s up. I'll be dead by then.

Think I'll abuse fossil fuels as much as I want. Hahaha.

logiclee

Please read my post earlier. The energy review puts us on track for the next 50 years, the new Nuclear plants are intended to replace the existing nuclear stations with perhaps some more capacity if CCS isn't succesfull.
The UK is not going anymore nuclear than it is already but will need new stations to replace the existing ones.

There is going to be massive competition for fossil fuels but there's enough left for the medium future. The main reason we don't want to burn it is CO2 and greenhouse gasses, if CCS is economical then fossil fuels will be burnt well passed 2050.
But the UK isn't the main problem, half our generation last winter was from coal, we may be able to burn our 30million tonnes cleanly or convert to other generation but China alone burns 1.5 Billion tonnes in old technology stations. Look at it globaly and the UK is a drop in the Ocean.

Cheers
Lee

bexxx

I'm all for nuclear. Provides alot of jobs too.

Plus its perfectly safe if done properly.

logiclee

Unfortunately British Nuclear Group consistantly fail to maintain safety standards. The HSE announced in March that it is to again prosecute Briish Nuclear Group. This time it's for three failures of it's safety licence which led to a leak at Sellafield last year.
The new stations are likely to be owned and run by the French firm EDF.

The new Nuclear stations will displace old stations so the likely effect is for a cut in Jobs once the stations are built.

Cheers
Lee

^Qwerty^

I asked a contact I have about that, and I just got his reply. The bottom of the shafts, i.e. the linings were taken out prior to the shafts being filled with crap from Kellingley, so they are pretty much knackered now, even if you did want to dig them out.

hades

There was a bitmore to Chernobyl than all that. Several positive temperature co-efficints of reactivity and boron (moderator) lead in sections on the control rods I'd accept fit into poor design. As I understand it, the "buggering about with it" (running some tests) wasn't really the problem - it was the orders from govenment to get the power back on before the tests were finished. Throw in a few "manual over-rides" of safety systems, plus a complete lack of understanding of the Nuclear Physics involved with e.g. Xenon poisoning (nuclear poison, not toxic to humans poison) and you begin to build up part of the long list of issues that contributed.

Whilst I'll accept the artistic license of the "soup of fuel, concrete and metal" - or at least molten down parts of the reactor, I'd be interested to learn how and why you believe it is "to this day white hot". I was involved in putting a tender together a few years back for some work at Chrnobyl relating to the "soup", and it's news to me that its still white hot. Decaying fission products do still produce some limited amounts of heating, but it is very limited by now.

hades

Eventually, yes. However, uranium is not that rare and fission yields many thousands of times more energy per tonne "burned" than fossil fuels. Therefore running out of Uranium is a very long way in the future compared to running out of oil / gas etc You've also got the benefit that as the "active" part of natural Uranium (U-235) is used up, some of the passive bits (U-238) will turn into Plutonium (Pu-239), which is in itself a nuclear fuel.

hades

That's somewhat one side of the story. Look at any large, hgihly regulated company, I'd be interested to find one that has never been prosecuted by the HSE. If you also look at what the prosections are for,(a) they're at Sellafield which is not in itself a power generating site, (b) they aren't relating to potential reactor meltdowns/accidents. I could go on, but don't know the specifics of the case. However, I'd guess they'd be for relatively small amounts of contaminated material being released into the environment beyond certain EA or license condition limits. This isn't going to be dis-similar to other prosecutions for chemical companies.

I'm not claiming BNG are flawless, no large company is. I'm just pointing out that they do have a lot of things in place, and are extremely highly regulated, so are a lot safer than your statement might suggest.

Iwan

I'd be interested to see how the experiments are going into fusion reactors at the new facility in France. I'm sure I read that they expected to have a demo reactor up and running by 2020 and a working version running by 2040, i.e. one that produces a net surplus of power. 60 years ago we were at about the same stage with fission reactors, will be interesting to see what happens in another 60 years.

I'd have no problem working in a fission/fusion power station, I had a tour round a magnox reactor many years ago and it was like being in a hospital - much safer than working in say, a steel mill.

hades

Iwan - agreed on all counts. In the longer term, fusion has to be the way ahead, but trying to predict how long it will take to be commercially successful is tricky at best. Things that have been successful in a tokamac (sp?) do suggest the technology is fundamentally viable

I did work for ~11 years on Magnox reactors and they are generally very safe for an industrial site. Improvements can always be made on everything, though.

Also interesting point, as put to me by an NII (nuclear regulators, part of HSE) site inspector for one of the power stations in a pub/canteen/restaurant or something (yes, we did try to work with them rather than being a "them and us"!). The most dangerous type of power generation on injuries per employee and injuries per Megawatthour is/was offshore windfarms. You have to get out to them by boat (choppers and turbine bades don't mix!), and there have been a relatively very high percentage of broken legs, etc, with people trying to get from boat to turbine for maintenance/inspection.

Iwan

Yeah once they get fusion working economically the possibilities will be endless, absolututely incredible amounts of energy from even just a few atoms. I think it's right that they should throw lots of money at it, it's one thing that's truly an investment for the future.

Ah, it seems it's 2040 they're hoping to have the demo reactor running.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5012638.stm

Leslie

So fusion is the opposite to a nuclear reaction, or it sounds like it anyway. Very interesting.

Les

Iwan

In a nutshell nuclear fission is splitting atoms apart to make smaller atoms, nuclear fusion is forcing atoms together until they join to form something new. Both cause energy to be released, but fusion reactions are much harder to contain and harness due to the extreme temperatures involved.

The first nukes were purely fission reaction bombs, then hydrogen bombs were invented which start as a fission reaction and then use the fission reaction to start a fusion reaction.

Per kg of "fuel" a fusion reaction will produce a lot more energy, fusion is the reaction going on in the sun.

Btw this is all from my hazy memory of doing physics at uni, I haven't thought about this stuff in detail for years.

David Lock

Slightly of topic I know but is it feasible to make a "small" nuclear bomb? i.e. one that will destroy a small town or military base without wiping out everything within 50 miles?

Iwan

Indeed it is, this was the smallest ever made apparently - approx yield the same as 22 tons of TNT.
http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM

They used to make nuclear artillery shells, as well as nuclear torpedos and depth charges. All with considerably smaller yeilds than the Hiroshima/Nagasaki devices.

David Lock

Thanks Iwan, a very interesting link. At the back of my mind was the implications of someone in Middle East getting hold of a few of these. dl