nuclear energy!!! whats it worth to us? - Page 6

Kieken · #**101** 31-05-2006, 05:32 AM

First of all, I did not read the entire thread because it’s pretty large (and I have just 20 minutes) so I took a quick look. My apologies if I write something that has already been said or so.

Now, the situation here in Belgium is funny. Our politicians want to shut down every nuclear power plant before 2025 (if possible before 2015) but almost 60% of our own produced energy is generated by 2 big facilities plants (one with 4 cores is less then 10km from my place). The rest is generated by gas or coal plants. The amount of energy generated by wind or sun is less then 2%. In total we produce 22% of our energy; the rest is imported from France and Germany. Ironically France produces 75% of their energy in …… nuclear power plants.

Still, Groen! (the greenies in Belgium) want them away. I agree that nuclear energy is dangerous for us and our environment but we Belgians are not capable of replacing the energy of the nuclear power plants by windmills or solar panels. But if we don’t want to become completely dependent from other countries we must do something.

According to dr. Joris Soens we only have place for 350 midsize turbines (if we build them on the land). Enough for 200.000 inhabitants, or 2% of all the Belgians). If we really try we could build 700 turbines but then we would have to build them almost everywhere. Still that’s only enough for 400.000 Belgians. Luckily we have a coastline of 60km and some territorial waters which we can use for windmills if not for the people who live there. Most of them don’t want those things to be their since it’ll pollute their views. Anyway, if we would build them anyway we would be able to feed another 1 or 2%, so in total if we would build them no matter what we would be able to feed 5 or 6% of all Belgians.

Another option would be solar energy. The maximum to produce in Belgium would be 450GWh but in 2003 we had to produce 78.1TWh to have enough. So basically we need to find something else.

If you ask me we have to build more or at least keep these plants up and running. We have very good storage facilities some 600 feet under the ground (again not far from me but hey, Belgium is not big) and I think in the future we will be able to reuse what the produce or find ways to get rid of them in a better way + if we want to help Kyoto and ourselves we cant build gas and/or oil plants.

fringe_dweller · #**102** 31-05-2006, 03:21 PM

Kieken, thats very interesting read there mate, well said, you know your stuff, illustrates everybody is in the same boat world over! (I remember the price of electricity/energy/fuel in the UK *shudder*)
Wraithe, some good research and points there - but its not consumers that have to be convinced of renewables - its industry ect. that will decide it in the end I feel.
That wind/thermal tower concept was in the advertiser years ago (i think it was gonna built near renmark from memory?) - like most of this debate, includin that article from argo re A/C - we have been having this debate much longer than the other states, as we have been feeling the crunch first. I would say about 5 years easy we have been seeing in depth articles on this subject here in SA.
When you live at the end of a dying river/drain you are the first to react!
And Ian thats a very good point about houses being built to minimise energy use - do you think they ever will stop building those eave-less, veranda-less mcmansions now?

wraithe · #**103** 31-05-2006, 04:31 PM

Just a question kieken.. is there any swell generators being used in Belgium..I read a quite few years back that the dutch where experimenting with them..
Curious if there is enough swell from the atlantic to drive them..Another thing is they can be incorporated with a windmill, using the swell generator as a base...

gaa_ian (Ian) · #**104** 31-05-2006, 10:26 PM

I don't know about the houses Kearn, when I was in Vic recently I was surprized to see the number of new eveless houses ! Not real smart design !
Its not hard to work out where the sun moves & how U can take advantage of that

Kieken · #**105** 31-05-2006, 10:45 PM

To be honest I've never heard of any experiment here in Belgium or in Holland with swell generators. Perhaps some are already in use but I don't think that it'll be much.

There's one in Scotland though good for 75kW.

wraithe · #**106** 31-05-2006, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kieken

To be honest I've never heard of any experiment here in Belgium or in Holland with swell generators. Perhaps some are already in use but I don't think that it'll be much.

There's one in Scotland though good for 75kW.

dont remember enough about it to say much else...what i do remember is that it was some where near the sea walls they have...and i think thats a big area...sorry...couldnt find anything on swell generators on the net either...

Kieken · #**107** 01-06-2006, 01:15 AM

Then you must be referring to the Deltawerken. I've found a small text in Dutch where they mention swell generators but not that the are being used in the walls.

g__day (Matthew) · #**108** 04-06-2006, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starkler

Nuclear power appears to make a lot of sense considering our large uranium reserves.

We also have more space than virtually anyone for the safe disposal of nuclear wastes.

Did you know that solar photovoltiac cells have a break even point of 20 years to get back the energy used to manufacture them ?

Some data for you:

1. Safe disposal of an incredibly toxic and corrosive substance, that in minute quantities can pollute an entire ecosphere of a country - either as a water based pathogen or worse as a more mobile airborn dust - which can cause genetic mutations for 50 - 200 millennia, when so far we have knowledge how to store waste for about 0.05% of its half life so far - is a fallacy. In that timeframe plate tectonics would shift any site about 2,000 killometers horizontally and who knows how far vertically and over what fault zones.

Think nuclear is safe - visit kid of speed - its an amazing blog of Chernobyl 20 years on from the eyes of a biker chick whos dad worked on the main reactor http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

2. Space isn't the issue. A large leak or a terrorist attack resulting in an airborne pathogen would wipe out most of this hemisphere given a few decades for the trade winds to blow it around.

3. Even Japan with all its safety precautions, six sigma TQM and redundant backup systems only very narrowly averted a major nuclear disaster last year that could have killed (initially thousands if not ten or a hundred times more).

4. Did you know that in 1980s solar cells took 20 years to payback their installation? Today the figure is 2.5 ~ 5 years given rising energy costs and vastly improved manufacturing costs and cell efficency. Using thinner strained silicon techniques costs have fallen considerably and within a decade cells may be alot closer to the 80% theoretical maxium. On average for our longitude homes recieve 75 kilowatt/hours of energy falling on each house (which typically consumes on 20 - 30 kw/hr of energy a day). In labs today exotic materials have achieved 50% efficency. Typical high end cells of today reach 30% - compared to 15% for high end cells of 3 years ago, and 5 - 10% for cells made over 5-6 years ago.

I'd say its 5 - 10 years until solar is extremely viable commercially, plus you can trade pollution eliminated under Kyoto agreements for serious tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Few studies have factored that last bit in. If you use solar farms to generate the energy for a solar large cell production facility itself then the long term fixed and variable roduction costs plummet - with very little pollution.

I'd rather see heavy investment in solar until cold fusion was achieved. And any reactor built today should be a Thorium based one that can't go critical in the event of a coolant misfunction.

gaa_ian (Ian) · #**109** 04-06-2006, 01:50 PM

A very well though out response, G_day.
You point #1 is the Key factor!
While I appreciate Kiekens situation in his country, perhaps it is the case that not all nations can safely produce their own power ?
This is where transcontinental powergrids come into play ?
One key factor that has been pointed out to me (I have raised this debate in our local media) is the need for Zero population growth !
Arguably our Planet's Eco-System simply cannot cope with expodentially increasing population growth ?

mickoking · #**110** 04-06-2006, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gaa_ian

I don't know about the houses Kearn, when I was in Vic recently I was surprized to see the number of new eveless houses ! Not real smart design !
Its not hard to work out where the sun moves & how U can take advantage of that

Thats a very good point. We have these huge bland suburbs spreading from our capital cities and the overwhealming majority of the houses in them are not designed to take advantage of the natural evironment. houses like most things in our consume first/ live later society are based on the whims of fasion and keeping up with the jones'es.

wraithe · #**111** 12-06-2006, 03:36 AM

has anyone thought that if the people that live in the houses built today could use there roof space for more than just solar panels...ok i agree and would install them in a home in the burbs but this space could be used for other things too....design homes so you can put gardens on roofs and play areas...if they made these areas less reflective then they could reduce there heating and cooling costs....a lawn area on the roof isnt such a silly idea....

xelasnave · #**112** 12-06-2006, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adrian-H

the damage caused by fossel fules, makes regulated nuclear energy harmless.

There are two worlds the one we would like to be in and the reality of a world where errors do happen, shortcuts are taken and it is always someone elses fault.
Make some quick comparisions of accidents that have already happened in each industry to date. Oil does some major damage in spills that is for sure, and they should not happen, regulations say there will be penalties etc... but a regulation is simply man's effort to control things, regulations can never fix the mess.
A regulation as to disposal of waste, safety mesures etc cause added production costs and as such there is good enough reason that there will be times where those are the corners that will be cut.
You sound like the guy who came on the TV warning against "scare mongers" as thought these people were concerned over nothing... such an atitude needs to be pulled up so that meaningful debate can occure and folk who have genuine concerns are not painted as fools.
Anyone selling their product will only put a favorable light on its application for humanity and at the moment there is a lot of selling begining to take place.. dont expect to hear the con case get much air play.
Really if anyone was serious about the problem and not concerned about selling cake better alternatives can be made work.
I would rather a landscape of windmills etc than grandchildren who glow in the dark. Lets get real.
alex

acropolite (Phil) · #**113** 12-06-2006, 09:55 AM

One other factor is worth consideration. Consider the timing of this investigation into nuclear technology and our PM's return from a recent trip to the US. Our PM has aligned himself with a leader who, despite whatever your personal opinions are of him, is generally accepted to have successfully engineered the outcome of two presidential elections aided and abetted by the owner of the company that manufactures and supplies the electronic voting machines used during the election (for those interested there is this article in Rolling Stone magazine). I have seen several programs and read articles on the rigging of these elections and I have no doubt that the facts presented are true. Add to that the fact that any Nuclear power generation/enrichment equipment would be most likeley be supplied by US companies and the fact that our PM has been described by GoergeW as the regions "Deputy Sherriff" and you should hear alarm bells ringing. I don't believe the sudden concern on greenhouse emissions by our PM is genuine and is nothing but spin put on the debate, if he were serious about greenhouse emissions there would be a series of initiatives in place by now to efficiently use the energy resources we have and further the development of renewables Australia would have signed the Kyoto protocol.. There is no doubt in my mind that this nuclear agenda is being driven by mining interests coupled with US political and interests. The fact that our Government would engage in a debate on a technology that is accepted as extremely risky scares the hell out of me.

xelasnave · #**114** 12-06-2006, 11:51 AM

To me it is so transparent. But it is nice to be able to observe how a lobby group do their work. I have been noticing "little" things for a while now. The "greens" have been defused on the issue as they have helped cause the problem, or rather the issue to be at front of mind.
But politics is all about money, nothing else, so with an assett such as uranium it will get up. I doubt if a major explosion or melt down would change that because they will introduce regulations that prevent such things ever happening again... the power of paper over rock I guess.
In the environment they create with the threat of terroism it would seem prudent to be looking at ways we can get away from such dangerous things being common place... but where are the dollars in that approach?
AND I dont enjoy being old and cynical but near 60 years on the planet what do you recon.
alex

fringe_dweller · #**115** 12-06-2006, 01:45 PM

ok can see this debate becoming extremely one sided again - with the nuclear boogieman under the bed scaring everyone again.
oh only now with nukes are people concerned about Howards attatching his star to Bush's U.S. style star, and the morality of his government, geez!
To Howards credit, I loved his public rebuke to the U.S wanting to lease (LOL - that was hilarious) yellow cake and send it back afterwards, with the you buy it, you keep it line.
ok lots of stuff/debate has passed through the papers/media on this subject since my last post here, most interesting of all to me was the article by Tim Flannery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flannery (still unable to create hotlinks word/tags in safari) in the advertiser - and he is of the view that we simply do not have enough time to rely on emerging renewable technology dealing with the the problem of CO2 emissions, and we should go nuclear as fast as possible. He presented a strong case in my view.
someone suggested going back to carts/horses - sorry just more green house emissions - methane

dont laugh its very serious the contribution of livestock to this - specially when there are enough to feed billions of people lol.
In the debates I have seen ie letter to the editor ect, I see the same old weary chestnut of 'what about chernobyl' in my view this just discredits the anti-nuke arguement as it has been explained ad nauseum how that happened and they are disingenous to continue using it imo. basically smacks of baseless propaganda to keep using that one.
PS does anyone remember the hullabaloo/hysteria when microwave ovens came out in the late 70's/early 80's? man we were all going to die horribly if i rememeber correctly - this smacks of the same vibe to me.

fringe_dweller · #**116** 12-06-2006, 02:26 PM

I am surprised non of the anti-nukers picked up that bit of possible propaganda from greenpeace in the papers recently regarding contamination of groundwater from waste storage in the famous champagne region - not that we have that problem here - to much desert for that
http://www.greenpeace.org/internatio...pagne-30-06-06 thatll put a glow in the bubbly LOL
do i have to do your work for ya's hehe

anyway I go back to my dream of a terraformed arid australia ringed with nuke power staions powering huge desalination plants that turn the deserts into veritable edens

xelasnave · #**117** 12-06-2006, 05:36 PM

Explaining something makes it better?
The thing happened and no doubt there are many accidents waiting to happen no one has yet envisaged....thats why accidents are called such...they form a catagory beyond that of negligence. However I see little comfort in knowing what went wrong when couting the cost of the accident (or any accident)
Going back to horse and cart may not be the answer but logic does not dictate that as this is the case N power is the winner by default. Perhaps a little thing like "lets get the cities road system and public transport system more efficient, limit personal vehicles to 2 ltres or smaller" could help???. The number of 4wds that never see the dirt outnumber those that do...no lets leave all that in place and sell some cake....how can one accept we have a serious problem when hippocracy touches every aspect of our energy usage, if the problem is so great why is it that immediate action is not being taken...We see how easy it is for a Government to impliment laws suitable to its idealogy that can cause initial hurt without any concern yet here nothing..there is no idealogy here except go with the flow (of money that is)...sorry they do restrain us by taking about half our fuel budget in tax ..otherwise everyone would have those huge Jeeps the US army uses...does anyone really believe that?
But I suppose given the N powered stations world wide it will be difficult to turn back the clock so as the Treasurer would observe "why not" as if the fact that other are doing it is a reasonable justification. That is not leadership and as an addmirer of Peter Costello I am disappointed is his far to casual approach to a very serious issue.
I recall discussions that the real dollar cost of N power was such that it had no future yet there seems little coming up as to that aspect now.
And of course years down the track the vendor of the U will be put upon (as is the case now) to store the waste for "ever".
AND I do like Mr Howard and respect him and his leadership..but do you think we will not end up with the storage problem... all of that is just so much talk to spice up the debate. The issue will move from there to "we can do it safely new information to hand suggests we have been too hasty and we can store it after all.."
Its going this way.. "lets have a debate and then we will do it".. not "lets have a debate to see if we will do it"....that is what really is getting to me.
AND promises to the public mean zero unless we have seen every promise broken that ever will be and in the future a Government stands by its word without waver (an impossible political situation which I recognise but for some reason promisees dont).
Now if you want to know how I really feel dont hesitate to ask
alex
alex

fringe_dweller · #**118** 12-06-2006, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Explaining something makes it better?
The thing happened and no doubt there are many accidents waiting to happen no one has yet envisaged....thats why accidents are called such...they form a catagory beyond that of negligence. However I see little comfort in knowing what went wrong when couting the cost of the accident (or any accident)

granted no Alex, but twisting the facts and/or misrepresenting them by omission or otherwise is just plain wrong, and since this arguement/incident forms the basis of much of the objections I have read, I think it is worth mentioning again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Going back to horse and cart may not be the answer but logic does not dictate that as this is the case N power is the winner by default. Perhaps a little thing like "lets get the cities road system and public transport system more efficient, limit personal vehicles to 2 ltres or smaller" could help???. The number of 4wds that never see the dirt outnumber those that do...no lets leave all that in place and sell some cake....how can one accept we have a serious problem when hippocracy touches every aspect of our energy usage, if the problem is so great why is it that immediate action is not being taken...We see how easy it is for a Government to impliment laws suitable to its idealogy that can cause initial hurt without any concern yet here nothing..there is no idealogy here except go with the flow (of money that is)...sorry they do restrain us by taking about half our fuel budget in tax ..otherwise everyone would have those huge Jeeps the US army uses...does anyone really believe that?

no arguement here on that, hipocracy is alive and well i feel, and I would love to see city dwelling 4WD's taxed out of existence - I just see them simply as a freudian symbol of unbridled aggression

Quote:

Originally Posted by xelasnave

AND I do like Mr Howard and respect him and his leadership..but do you think we will not end up with the storage problem... all of that is just so much talk to spice up the debate. The issue will move from there to "we can do it safely new information to hand suggests we have been too hasty and we can store it after all.."
Its going this way.. "lets have a debate and then we will do it".. not "lets have a debate to see if we will do it"....that is what really is getting to me.
AND promises to the public mean zero unless we have seen every promise broken that ever will be and in the future a Government stands by its word without waver (an impossible political situation which I recognise but for some reason promisees dont).
Now if you want to know how I really feel dont hesitate to ask
alex
alex

The only thing I have seen howard and his cronies ever do is take the credit for the long lasting favourable world wide economics and resources boom - which again has nothing to do with him, and play the race card at election time - oh and slash the welfare state - which isnt a revolutionary rocket science thing to do imo, and practice thatcher economics by the numbers.
and your right - the pro nukes are quiet arent they - they know what the libs/big bizz say usually happens regardless, I mean during tampa ect. I never saw much from the silent partner majority of howard supporters, the anti's were the loudest and most prolific writers - non of which made not a lick of difference - they dont care what he does as long as their interest rates dont go up, she'll be right mate

mickoking · #**119** 12-06-2006, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acropolite

One other factor is worth consideration. Consider the timing of this investigation into nuclear technology and our PM's return from a recent trip to the US. Our PM has aligned himself with a leader who, despite whatever your personal opinions are of him, is generally accepted to have successfully engineered the outcome of two presidential elections aided and abetted by the owner of the company that manufactures and supplies the electronic voting machines used during the election (for those interested there is this article in Rolling Stone magazine). I have seen several programs and read articles on the rigging of these elections and I have no doubt that the facts presented are true. Add to that the fact that any Nuclear power generation/enrichment equipment would be most likeley be supplied by US companies and the fact that our PM has been described by GoergeW as the regions "Deputy Sherriff" and you should hear alarm bells ringing. I don't believe the sudden concern on greenhouse emissions by our PM is genuine and is nothing but spin put on the debate, if he were serious about greenhouse emissions there would be a series of initiatives in place by now to efficiently use the energy resources we have and further the development of renewables Australia would have signed the Kyoto protocol.. There is no doubt in my mind that this nuclear agenda is being driven by mining interests coupled with US political and interests. The fact that our Government would engage in a debate on a technology that is accepted as extremely risky scares the hell out of me.

I concur, couldn't put it better my self.

xelasnave · #**120** 12-06-2006, 09:13 PM

Just to clear something up.. my attempted humour (and this is not an attempt to get onside with those against John and Peter) was possibly missed but I confess I was trying to be "funny" when referring to my respect for the leadership etc etc.... but in truth I do I not like them and their policies their tricks and broken promises. The pursuit of idealogies engineered to benefit a minority at the expence of the majority is un Australian. For those liberals who took me under their wing as one of them I say sorry I am not... but I dont like the other bunch either I must confess as their performance in opposition is simply pathetic. If the Government has an open wound the opposition will argue on what colour the bandage should be.. the missed opportunity...they should be rebuked because they simply can not get it together... ten years and they still dont know who is their leader for the next election at any given moment..talk about uncertainty principle.
alex