Environment

Nuclear Power

Environment

Posted by: Heldwyn

24th Oct 2009 11:50pm

People claim nuclear power mitigates CO2. What these people do not look at is how much CO2 is emitted in the mining of the ore, transporting of the ore, processing of the ore into yellow cake, transporting the ore and then making the reactor rods, transporting the reactor rods. Then these people do not consider how long the waste material takes to decay in a half cycle. Its something like 500,000 years. A very long time.

Comments 20

wendel
  • 15th Dec 2012 12:47pm

It is a bit of a quandry...most power sources have their downfalls...solar is the cleanest and I think in Australia it is the best way to go. Fossil fuels will run out eventually and nuclear waste will pile up and up and have to be put somewhere and as you say the waste lasts for a very long time and have deadly side affects. If the government is smart it will assist all homeowners more in getting our power from the sun.

Anonymous
  • 23rd Dec 2011 03:40am

That is a very good point Heldwyn, and certainly a good few things to consider if environmentally friendly, nuclear fission power generation is ever truly desired.

Nuclear fusion, however, might seem a more attractive method of power generation in the coming weeks, months and years as our society grows and learns more and more of cosmic wonders and terrestrial splendors which, do sometimes seem not all that far away.

Big peter
  • 12th Sep 2011 05:18pm

CO2 Is not a pollutant! CARBON is,Istall decent scrubbers, No carbon.

R I O
  • 10th Dec 2010 11:34am

CLIMATE CHANGE MUST BE TACKLED WITH DRASTIC MEASURES LIKE

" DECOMMISSIONING OR SHUTTING DOWN AT LEAST 1 OR 2 OF THE TOTAL 5 TO 6 CO2 / CARBON EMITTING TOWERS !!!

THIS WILL GO TO ' NIP THIS MENACING PROBLEM IN THE BUD ' !!!

AND IMAGINE THE DIFFERENCE THIS WILL MAKE TO THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT IF THESE DRASTIC MEASURES ARE ADOPTED GLOBALLY BY , SAY , CHINA & INDIA !!!

SO LETS TAKE THIS BULL BY IT'S HORNS & NOT ACT LIKE A BUNCH OF COWARDS !!!

NATIONS AROUND THE WORLD CAN SWITCH TO SOLAR ENERGY A.S.A.P.
AS THIS IS BOTH FREE & ABUNDANT >> SO WHY THE 'LETHARGY' & INACTION GIVEN THE FACT THAT TIME IS RUNNING OUT ON THE PLANET!!!

TAKE THE EXAMPLE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL >> HERE EVERY HOME CARRIES A SOLAR PANEL FITTED TO IT & WATER GETS SUFFICIENTLY HEATED BY SOLAR ENERGY !!!

SO LET AUSTRALIA GIVE UP THIS ' LETHARGY ' TOWARDS ADOPTING EXCELLENT SOLAR ENERGY ALTERNATIVES TO HAZARDOUS COAL ONCE AND FOR ALL !!!

lpullman
  • 8th Dec 2010 06:29pm

The obvious flaw in your argument is that compared to other energy souces (against which you can make the same argument) you are dealing with much lower volumes because uranium contains much more energy per weight.

Actually "these people" do consider the waste material. The term you are looking for is halflife not half cycle. This is the time in which there is 50% chance that any given molecule will decay by emitting a particle. Thus after one halflife, one half of the fissionable material will have decayed. The two most dangerous components of nuclear waste (a catch-all by the way that is so broad as to be nearly meaningless) are strontium and cesium isotoopes. These have halflives around 30 years from memory. Where did you get the figure of half a million years?

The problem with nuclear power plants is that we keep talking about the types built in the US thirty years ago which are basically scaled up maritime units. In a ship (or submarine) you have a small reactor surrounded by an enormous source of cooling water. In a power plant you have the opposite. Added to that, the reactor design does not scale well.

There are a number of better designs in use and development. Liquid metal breeder and pebble bed reactors are amongst the most promising. There is far too little space to go into technical detail here, but if you are interested there is a vast amount of knowledge at the end of a Google search (I hate to admit it, but Wikipedia has several quite good beginner articles). If you are not interested you can keep on repeating the same tired nonsense while the world passes you by.

Vasco
  • 1st Jul 2010 12:15am

For a slightly different perspective on the nuclear debate...
According to a 2007 Scientific American article "Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste".
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
The biggest problem we face is our voracious appetite for 'cheap' energy. Solar, geothermal, tidal, hydroelectric and others just aren't up to satisfying us so we either learn to change or suffer the consequences.

mortgageblues
  • 29th Apr 2010 04:16pm

Most reliable studies do take these factors into account, the reason Nuclear isn't going anywhere is the COST. Try putting a finance proposal together on a nuclear power station and see what risk rating it gets....there is no cheap money here. The truth, glossed by the Nu-clear energy people, is that nuclear power stations take a long time to build and have fairly short life spans, in a high capital low return environment they just don't stack up...

stratman
  • 3rd Apr 2010 10:54am

What is the future for nuclear?
Well, I follow the money and the money not so long ago sent the price of u3o8 to $150/lbUS.
The contract price at the moment is about $60-65US/lb.
The big elephants in the room when it comes to global growth are China and India and they have both huge numbers of nuclear pants either in operation, under construction or on the drawing board.
This is an energy hungry world and despite the best intentions of environmentalists and comments that alternatives like wind/solar etc can provide the base load power we need now and in the future, these are fantasy.
Nuclear will play a major role for electricity generation in the future and consequently the CO2 footprint it produces will be lower but make no mistake as a society we are still very mucha ddicted to oil and coal and human nature bein what it is we will consume this at increasing rates first then, fght wars over the diminishing resource then turn to alternatives.
Whether we like it or not nuclear will be the next big thing.

karlenesoh
  • 31st Mar 2010 11:25am

We do need to cut out nuclear power of all kinds and not just because of the Co2 levels even though this is bad why not just put us all on Solar they still can make money of it if that is what they are worried about and hey there is no emissions and the only thing we need is a roof full of solar panels to charge our houses or the government can arrange a solar farm where they can feed the power from it into homes put a couple in every state this would fix more than half of the problems we are having with Co2 levels

dingodan
  • 30th Mar 2011 03:43pm
We do need to cut out nuclear power of all kinds and not just because of the Co2 levels even though this is bad why not just put us all on Solar they still can make money of it if that is what they...

I agree but where is the vision that gave us the Snowy Mountains Scheme ? . I think Austraslia has more usable Sunlight pe hectare (Unused ) than Death Valley . Ifthe government supported every house having Solar Panels feeding into the Grid there would be no need for new Power stations Think of a massive Solar farm in the North driving a massiveDesalination Plant filling a Hydroelectric System with the outflow feeding the Murray ..

lpullman
  • 30th Mar 2011 03:07pm
We do need to cut out nuclear power of all kinds and not just because of the Co2 levels even though this is bad why not just put us all on Solar they still can make money of it if that is what they...

We can't just all use solar as things stand. I don't think you grasp the amount of power we use as a country or just how little solar produces. The gap is about two orders of magnitude - see the example of tidal power above.

We have about 5 square metres of solar array on our roof and it produces a peak of about 1.5kWh. In reality, it delivers about 3kWh per day. This is more than enough for us, but we are a very low use family by current standards. I live in Adelaide and am fortunate enough to have a house with a north facing roof angled at about 15 degrees, all of which make it about as good as you get. Including a sizable government subsidy, our amortisation is about 5 years.

The average Aussie family uses 18kWh a day (source: Choice).

The most recent number I can find for the number of dwellings in Aus is something over 7,000,000. Let's use 7 million 'cause it's a nice round number. We''ll also assume that they are evenly distributed across the country, all locations have the same solar potential as mine in Adelaide, demand matches supply and there are no transmission losses. That makes for a something 21 million kWh potential.

But we need 126 million (7 million houses at an average of 18kWh), so those solar farms are going to have to supply 105 million kWh. At 0.6kWh per square metre (what I reckon I'm getting) that's 175 million square meters of arrays. At 16 farms ("a couple in every state" and I've included the ACT) that's 10 square kilometres each plus a bit. Even at 10 per state, that's the Adelaide CBD completely devoted to power generation 160 times over for the country.

All of which ignores the cost of making those solar arrays and their replacement. If you think that mining uranium is a nasty business, wait till you see what's needed for making electronic components and batteries. It also only accounts for domestic use: no commercial or industrial.

All along in this exercise I've erred on the side of helping solar. The real world is very different. Even if we all reduced out power consumption to a tenth of what we use now, how long do you think it would take for the first council to refuse permission for an array because the neighbors think it's ugly?

dingodan
  • 30th Mar 2010 02:05pm

When you consider theTidal rise and fall on Kimberley coast becomes an excellent area for Tidal Generation.. Regarding Nuclear Waste it appears they are developing a method of destroying it .

lpullman
  • 30th Mar 2011 03:12pm
When you consider theTidal rise and fall on Kimberley coast becomes an excellent area for Tidal Generation.. Regarding Nuclear Waste it appears they are developing a method of destroying it .

Pity there's nothing in that corner of the country that needs it and the transmission losses would be massive. There's also already the Ord River Scheme which could generate far more from hydroelectric than tidal power could ever do.

The methods for destroying it generally involve using it to generate electricity. After all, if it's radioactive then you have a source of energy to tap.

Sweetchilliphilly92
  • 25th Feb 2010 11:31am

The process you have suggested is actually not much more than the mining of coal ore products and the readying of coal ore products in preparation for use in coal fired plants - only coal fired plants produce much more CO2 on TOP of the readying process, whereas Nuclear Reactors produce much less. Nuclear power may not mitigate CO2, but it does a hell of a good job in reducing those emissions. Furthermore, look at the amount of energy produced per metric ton of uranium, compared to coal, then look at the amount of energy required per tonne to turn into power for us to use. I can assure you that Uranium enrichment, on a per ton basis, is MUCH less harmful emissions-wise.

All people consider how long the waste material takes to decay, it would be reckless and irresponsible not to. Yes, 500,000 years is a long time - but from where has humanity grown in the last 500,000 years? In what state will the earth be, regardless of the method of power use (even "sustainable sources"), due to overpopulation and increased power requirements in the next 500,000 years? The uranium which is being placed deep underground will be the least of our concerns at that point, unless we move to find a stopgap measure to combat the process of Climate Change.

Koringanal
  • 17th Mar 2011 10:39am
The process you have suggested is actually not much more than the mining of coal ore products and the readying of coal ore products in preparation for use in coal fired plants - only coal fired...

I think many people are overly concerned about climate change. Over the period since human habitation of this world the climate is continualy changing and we have adapted to suit whatever the climate has to throw at us. Yes, we have disasters like flood, fire, earthquake, volcanic eruptions and Tsunami's. Maybe this is the earths way of compensating for the activities we have created for our comfortable survival. We have times of flood, famine and plenty. Perhaps the flood and famine combat the times of plenty. It would also seem that the problems caused by over population are not being addressed as they should be. So much research is being made into beauty,longevity of life, weapons of war and space travel that no money is left to research the problems of over population and the survival of the human species. It is us that will kill us off, not the changing of the climate.

Heldwyn
  • 1st Nov 2009 01:12am

Base load power can come from solar thermal technology. I think that is a better way forward with the addition of tidal power, wind power and solar photovoltaic systems on peoples rooves. A look at a 24 hour tidal power station in the North West of Western Australia is a feasable solution to the Northwest's power supply solution. There was some debate on this a few years ago. The tidal power station would have been able to supply all of the northwests power. There is one 12 hour tidal power station in the world but I can't remember where is that one.

Sweetchilliphilly92
  • 25th Feb 2010 10:48am
Check out Wikipeadia...
Operating tidal power schemes

* The first tidal power station was the Rance tidal power plant built over a period of 6 years from 1960 to 1966 at La Rance,...

Therefore, in these particular examples, there is no feasible way to use tidal power, at least on the scale listed in wikipedia. NSW (containing close to 7.1 million people) has an energy requirement of between 14,200 and 14,500 MW of energy at peak demand. In what way can this area, or any other of substantial size, be run by tidal power when power output is limited to, in the above case, only 240MW? Furthermore, what effect will climate change have on the proper function and maintenance of these tidal generators?

werd
  • 5th Feb 2010 11:24am
Base load power can come from solar thermal technology. I think that is a better way forward with the addition of tidal power, wind power and solar photovoltaic systems on peoples rooves. A look...

Check out Wikipeadia...
Operating tidal power schemes

* The first tidal power station was the Rance tidal power plant built over a period of 6 years from 1960 to 1966 at La Rance, France.[54] It has 240 MW installed capacity.
* The first tidal power site in North America is the Annapolis Royal Generating Station, Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, which opened in 1984 on an inlet of the Bay of Fundy.[55] It has 18 MW installed capacity.
* The first in-stream tidal current generator in North America (Race Rocks Tidal Power Demonstration Project) was installed at Race Rocks on southern Vancouver Island in September 2006.[56][57] The next phase in the development of this tidal current generator will be in Nova Scotia.[58]
* A small project was built by the Soviet Union at Kislaya Guba on the Barents Sea. It has 0.5 MW installed capacity. In 2006 it was upgraded with 1.2MW experimental advanced orthogonal turbine.
* Jindo Uldolmok Tidal Power Plant in South Korea is a tidal stream generation scheme planned to be expanded progressively to 90 MW of capacity by 2013. The first 1 MW was installed in May 2009.[59]
* 1.2 MW SeaGen system became operational in late 2008 on Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.[60]

Anonymous
  • 27th Oct 2009 02:16pm

In the US an estimated 48% of generated power is lost in transmission, we must look at the network as a whole and develop a smart grid, put solar cells in the corridors of the high tension lines, legislate that all new homes must have a solar array, turn entire streets into mini solar power station, more use of turbines where solar is impratical, more research into methods of storing the energy produced. We got a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before we decide what type of power source we're gonna plug it into

lpullman
  • 8th Dec 2010 06:33pm
Base load power can come from solar thermal technology. I think that is a better way forward with the addition of tidal power, wind power and solar photovoltaic systems on peoples rooves. A look...

A good arguement for dectralisation of generation. The encumbent generators hate this idea because it cuts at the base of their business. it's the reason they are currently spending so much effort lobbying against government rebates for solar instalations.

If you want a good laugh, look up Nicolai Tesla's experiments with transmitting power wirelessly using high voltages and high frequencies. I think the description from one eye witness of having sparks coming off his boot nails several miles from Tesla's lab is particularly amusing.

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