A low carbon nuclear future:

[rondurrans]

This report has just been issued:-

http://s3.oxforddigital.tv/SSCH/nuclear/nuclear_study_sm.pdf

(Martin have a look at the first paragraph of the Executive Summary 'while incomplete'.................)

[smegal]

It is such a difficult choice when it comes to nuclear. No one can deny that if accidents happen they are horriffic especially as a large amount of the problems occur later.

On the other hand I saw a statistic today that France's electricity CO₂ footprint was 88g per kWh, compared to the UK's 571g per kWh. I think that the idea someone posted here about the submerged reactors may be a winner. It isn't as far fetched as it sounds, nuclear submarines do the same thing.

[rondurrans]

It seems to me we are making decisions for new nuclear plants based on CO2 emissions - what if (I hope Martin does not read this  ) the models for the armageden scenario in 2100 are wrong - we and many generations to come are left with the nuclear waste legacy. It would be handy if CCR or Hydrogen could come to the saviour sooner rather than later!

 

[martin]

Oh yawn! - this is the entirely tiresome King doing his sales job again - a little snippet from Private Eye puts that charlatan's motivations into perspective

"Professor Sir David King - Chief scientific adviser to the government (2000-2007)

"In April, Professor Sir David King, who retired from his post as the government's chief scientific adviser in December, became a consultant on an undisclosed salary for UBS bank.

Sir David went beyond his remit to support the stepping up nuclear power generation, his apparently authoritative endorsement duly bolstering the government's rigged case for more nuclear build.

UBS has lost $40bn in the credit crunch but can still afford a man with the right contacts. UBS also, as it happens, has a burgeoning interest in the nuclear business and advises Business Secretary John Hutton on "commercial and financial aspects of the strong and growing interest in nuclear" and on the sale of partly taxpayer‑owned British Energy. Its long‑time investment banking clients include German energy giant RWE, which is eagerly eyeing up the British nuclear scene."

And if people actually read the report, he is suggesting the most potentially dangerous form of nuclear energy going - reprocessing waste....... pure commercial interests dressed up in a thin veneer of the "respectability" of wackademia - all designed to impress the unwary and assorted refugees from homes for the partially bewildered!


(Does noone else remember "The King's New Clothes?" - which is rather apposite to his pronouncements...........)

 

[martin]

ps, he's also strongly pro GM - with his connections, that'll be a double Kerrrching then!

[dhaslam]

This is a quote from  a similar  discussion on politics.ie today.

From what we hear in the reports, nuclear is coming to Ireland, just not in the way you would like.

[desperate]

Funny how everyone who does't share Martins views are corrupt..........what an amazing coincidence

Desp

[martin]

I'm merely pointing out what Private Eye had already spotted, and in the face of what I deem to be hardcore lobbying by the pro-nukers, quite reasonable, and hopefully helps people make a balanced judgement.....

I personally think the bloke is what the yanks call a "shill" and is using his position to con people into accepting a very dodgy technology - as to what his motivations are, we can only conjecture (as Private Eye has already done....)

[billi]

i guess  Desp   your informants are highly corrupt   , cause that lead you to this bet to compare the expected  damage in Japan in relation to the Nuclear power plants in trouble  over there   on the 11 of March

I've  a tenner that says it will be less damaging than the oil refinery that's on fire stir

 

Billi


I guess  that tenner would have made a sad fortune  at the book makers   , if i placed the bet 

[stuartiannaylor]

Conclusions
This study has examined and derived example costs
for a range of Scenarios addressing the UK stocks of
nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel. The study has
also identified issues and sensitivities which would need
to be evaluated alongside the cost profiles. The main
conclusion is that the structure of the UK nuclear industry,
having been designed to address the rundown of nuclear
power in the UK, is not well suited to the changed situation
involving new nuclear build and an expanded UK nuclear
role, and that there is a need for realignment of policy
across the sector.
It is also clear that, in the UK, there is now an opportunity
to develop an holistic approach to nuclear power -
combining the assessment of backend legacy materials
with the opportunities offered by new-build development.
The challenge is to seize this opportunity, maximising value
for the UK, creating jobs, improving non-proliferation,
reducing carbon emissions, increasing energy security,
and addressing the long term management of nuclear
materials and spent nuclear fuel.

Sounds like bull to me

[Ivan]

Whether you agree it's safe or otherwise, reprocessing nuclear fuel is something that we've never managed to do profitably, despite many years of trying to get it right at Sellafield. Hasn't it made a loss every year (unless you include the government support as 'profits')?

[desperate]

Private eye certainly has a place in the boglean library at cactusville, but for real information the Bodlean is a better bet.

Oxford colledges are not about to risk their reputation by producing reports "to order" for UBS or anyone else.

Desp

[rt29781]

Nuclear power stations will never be safe because people design and run them.  Accidents are always going to cost a fortune to clean up even if millions of people do not die.

So the Fukushima plant did not survive the earthquake then. Now how many more cracks are there? If the leaked water gets into the water table, as opposed to the sea, then there will be a real problem.

News Flash
According to CBS news the groundwater underneath the Fukushima nuclear power facility is now showing 10,000 times the level of radiation normally allowed by government authorities. This is from iodine-131 measured at 15 meters below one of the reactors.

How did this happen? (Quotes from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists- real nuclear scientists- http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/fukushima-risk-and-probability-expect-the-unexpected)

The Nuclear Safety Commission, the Japanese equivalent of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, had never officially recognized the tsunami issue. In 2002 a Japanese engineering group concerned with safety issued a warning, and the group revisited the topic shortly before last month's tsunami. But the word "tsunami" did not appear in government safety guidelines until 2006. Those guidelines PDF, updated in January of this year, merely recommend that utilities take the danger into account. The commission reassuringly concluded: "Even for a nuclear plant situated very close to sea level, the robust sealed containment structure around the reactor itself would prevent any damage to the nuclear part from a tsunami, though other parts of the plant might be damaged. No radiological hazard would be likely."

Consider this statement by Tsuneo Futami, a nuclear engineer who was the director of Fukushima Daiichi in the late 1990s: "We can only work on precedent, and there was no precedent. When I headed the plant, the thought of a tsunami never crossed my mind."

Now do you feel safe people?

[dhaslam]

It seems that vibration at two of the reactors exceeded the  design limit  for vibration and that was  for an earthquake  quite a distance away.  There are fault lines much closer to the site.     

There are reports  that there were practically no individual  radiation monitors for the workers because they were destroyed initially and they had no backup supplies.