We could have about 4 of those `cheap`little Nuclear Power Stations if we cancelled HS2 . Better still build the Severn Barrage instead of HS2 , at least we could run all our electric trains then !
Talk about a crazy world...
- Thread starter Kudoscycles
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I certainly agree on the Severn Barrage, but would prefer us to go much bigger with two barrages there. That would supply very much more of our needs with better 24 hour consistency from multi-stage staggered time generation.
The present barrage completed first would start the generation, the second taking far longer to complete adding supplies for future larger needs. The numbers needed to complete such a vast scheme and the great length of time involved would create a need for new towns for the workers and their families for the very long life of the project, thus dealing with both unemployment and housing shortages in one.
The present barrage completed first would start the generation, the second taking far longer to complete adding supplies for future larger needs. The numbers needed to complete such a vast scheme and the great length of time involved would create a need for new towns for the workers and their families for the very long life of the project, thus dealing with both unemployment and housing shortages in one.
I worked for the old CEGB and, for a short while, one of its successors, Nuclear Electric. There was a lot wrong with the nationalised set up, but at least it was basically honest, it had a statutory duty to ensure security of supply and it was accountable, in the end to the UK goverment.
The current privatised set up is fundamentally dishonest, no-one has the duty to ensure supply and it is accountable to mainly foreign owned corporations or governments.
As far as Hinkley C is concerned, I am worried that the choice of the European PWR reactor may follow the footsteps of the AGR, where orders were placed for several stations before the first was even complete. Both the Finnish and French EPRs are years behind schedule and two to three times over cost. I cannot see that Hinkley will be any different. All non-state partners have pulled out as they cannot afford the risk. I have a suspicion that we will end up footing a very large bill for construction, followed by 35 years of subsidy. And the apportionment of costs and revenues will be such that we will probably never know the true position.
Wouldn't we be better seriously subsidising energy saving measures instead? Or are we so tied in to producing income that we forget that what matters is the distribution of wealth? After all, if I had a well insulated house, I wouldn't need to buy fuel, then where would British Gas be?
The current privatised set up is fundamentally dishonest, no-one has the duty to ensure supply and it is accountable to mainly foreign owned corporations or governments.
As far as Hinkley C is concerned, I am worried that the choice of the European PWR reactor may follow the footsteps of the AGR, where orders were placed for several stations before the first was even complete. Both the Finnish and French EPRs are years behind schedule and two to three times over cost. I cannot see that Hinkley will be any different. All non-state partners have pulled out as they cannot afford the risk. I have a suspicion that we will end up footing a very large bill for construction, followed by 35 years of subsidy. And the apportionment of costs and revenues will be such that we will probably never know the true position.
Wouldn't we be better seriously subsidising energy saving measures instead? Or are we so tied in to producing income that we forget that what matters is the distribution of wealth? After all, if I had a well insulated house, I wouldn't need to buy fuel, then where would British Gas be?
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Too right. I only fully realised how poor our insulation was in this country after a trip to sweden. 3 of us stayed in a "summer" holiday lakeside lodge in february with day time tempratures of -10 and as low as -20 at night. After first day the only heat we used to keep place warm was from cooking and our own body heat!!
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I agree on everything else you've posted above, but I'm not in the least concerned about this aspect. I'm quite sure more orders will be placed before completion, but with French company EDF running this show I see no problem. They are hugely experienced with nuclear stations in general and PWRs in particular, the latter I'm sure you know being being the safest and most widely built and understood in the world. It's also true that their Chinese partners have considerable PWR experience and are still the only nation to have tested PWR inherent safety factors to the limits
The situation with our AGRs at that time and the EPRs recently is rather different, both as you know building new technologies for the first time.
Hi If you think that is crazy read the link below This was released under the 50 year freedom of information act
Windscale fire: 'We were too busy to panic' - Telegraph
From what i understand the latest safety device if all else fails they have pressurised vessels contains
graphite powder and the release the powered total shutting down the reaction the reactor is now dead and cannot be restarted so if a coolant failure happens FAIL safe
Frank
Windscale fire: 'We were too busy to panic' - Telegraph
From what i understand the latest safety device if all else fails they have pressurised vessels contains
graphite powder and the release the powered total shutting down the reaction the reactor is now dead and cannot be restarted so if a coolant failure happens FAIL safe
Frank
That Windscale accident account is not completely honest Frank, a propaganda account possibly started by government to convince the industry had more control than they had. The article does admit that the government played down the accident and that the report on it was heavily censored.
In fact the leakage of radioactivity was discovered five days earlier by a "Wireless World" reading electronics enthusiast who was wandering in Cumbria with his home made Geiger-Muller counter and found alarming levels. He reported it to the police who treated him as a crank and did nothing, but he continued his monitoring and tried twice more over the following days to get someone to take notice of him. Eventually the police did contact Windscale who then realised to their alarm that they had been leaking streams of radioactivity for at least several days, no-one knows how long, due to a cracked graphite core and fire in the reactor.
No doubt the reported actions that followed are true, but it is not true that the Windscale scientists discovered the radioactive emissions first.
In fact the leakage of radioactivity was discovered five days earlier by a "Wireless World" reading electronics enthusiast who was wandering in Cumbria with his home made Geiger-Muller counter and found alarming levels. He reported it to the police who treated him as a crank and did nothing, but he continued his monitoring and tried twice more over the following days to get someone to take notice of him. Eventually the police did contact Windscale who then realised to their alarm that they had been leaking streams of radioactivity for at least several days, no-one knows how long, due to a cracked graphite core and fire in the reactor.
No doubt the reported actions that followed are true, but it is not true that the Windscale scientists discovered the radioactive emissions first.
Oh man, YES! I've often said we should privatise the Royals. Imagine, with proper manufacturing in place we could have a Royal Wedding every weekend and with decent planning a Royal Baby born every weekday, maximising return on all those centuries of public investment.
I can see Royals for sale in your local Cash and Carry and exported all over the world.
My Brother-in-law used to be a Sellafield (post re-branded Windscale) accountant, keeping track of nuclear materials during the 1980s. He would relate how the "books" would never balance, with masses of material simply mislaid. Either it genuinely did get physically lost, or the accounting system did not function correctly, but either case leaves me feeling more than a little uneasy about NP.
But then, what energy generation methods don't involve the possibility of thousands of years environmental damage and can be constructed relatively quickly? Oh wait, I can think of several generation methods that could even be financed by UK based companies.
Forgive the rather dramatic pun, but the thing I distrust most about NP is the inherent "Big Bang" approach to implementing any new nuclear power station. They have to be huge, and commit incomprehensible masses of funds for such a long lead time, way before coming on stream.
So, though I have some fears about the technology my distrust is centred mainly on ownership: these stations can only be owned (in the absence of any notion of socialist government) by big business. Very big business.
Few of us could possibly relate to the controlling forces behind EDF and its Chinese partners. Even if it could be shown EDF were wonderfully ethical and their partners (today and in the future) truly fair and charitable, the scale of a modern power station precludes any but the largest of organisations to take control.
We really should ensure that every massive renewable energy project, such as Hinkley C, granted permission, becomes partnered by thousands of small scale, locally owned initiatives, balanced to provide an equal or greater amount of renewable power. Otherwise the real power will end up in the hands of a small number of massive, remote and completely non-democratic conglomerates.
Hmm !!
"French regulator CRE said in June that electricity tariffs for households should rise between 6.8 and 9.6 percent this summer and that the gap between tariffs and EDF's costs was 1.47 billion euros ($1.92 billion) last year.
While the French government has ruled out following the CRE's advice, it will have to increase prices enough to stave off lawsuits by EDF's competitors, who argue that the artificially low tariffs distort competition.
"What matters for us, besides the level of increase in 2013, is a guarantee and visibility for 2014 and 2015," said Fabien Chone of the Anode association of alternative electricity producers that compete with EDF.
Anode has filed a complaint against the two percent 2012 tariff hike - 7.4 percent below what was recommended - and argues for a 5-6 percent annual increase the next three years."
We need to start digging the hundreds of years worth of coal laying under our feet and build CLEAN coal-fired power stations to use it. Tidal power generation can follow after. Kyoto is just an excuse for govt, and the EU another for not doing it ourselves, if 'investors' won't fund 'private' power. Remember when nuclear would be "too cheap to meter"? Guess what its costing to 'decommission' the last lot! Mikey
But it's still Europe's cheapest electricity! That's why they are able to export such vast quantities. If EDF's competitors can't compete, tough, that's called the market economy, and the consumer benefits.
We can build "clean" coal fired power stations in one sense, but we still don't know what to do with the immense quantities of CO2 emitted. And the ash going to landfill is still a problem, 12 million tons a year just from Drax for example. However, I agree it would be sensible in the shorter term to exploit this resource, but nuclear will have to play a major part.
Re Trains, Planes & Automobiles...Exactly, if they're in such a hurry that a 125mph train is not fast enough, why don't they all fly south "at 600mph in a tin can full of everybody elses farts" Mikey
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"The whole situation is an ugly short sighted spectacle of greed and there will be a day of reckoning to come. That day isn't going to be pretty either."
Quite right, we'll be down the polling booth in 2015 wondering which 'choice' is the * least * crooked!
Mikey
Quite right, we'll be down the polling booth in 2015 wondering which 'choice' is the * least * crooked!
Mikey
Too much emotion
There is so much emotion tied up in any debate on nuclear power, and it's refreshing to see it being discussed in a more or less rational manner. For many people, nuclear power really seems to be the modern 'bogeyman', something 'unnatural' and inherently sinister. Fears about the potential health issues are completely twisted just because the words radiation and nuclear are involved.
Yes, people have been killed or injured or diseased by the (mis?)use of nuclear energy as a power source, probably many thousands now. But how many millions have had their lives ended prematurely, or blighted because of the use of coal?
There is so much emotion tied up in any debate on nuclear power, and it's refreshing to see it being discussed in a more or less rational manner. For many people, nuclear power really seems to be the modern 'bogeyman', something 'unnatural' and inherently sinister. Fears about the potential health issues are completely twisted just because the words radiation and nuclear are involved.
Yes, people have been killed or injured or diseased by the (mis?)use of nuclear energy as a power source, probably many thousands now. But how many millions have had their lives ended prematurely, or blighted because of the use of coal?
By the by, how many fracking gas or coal stations have had catastrophic failures?
If EDF build nuclear in France, safely, & with their own money, why do we need China when the ??billions for HS2 are being raised without them?
Lastly how about putting this wonderful new Nuclear in Battersea power stn?
It'll be built quickly, safely & quietly with all those **** MP's across the river from it. And the waste heat will warm London, turning the Thames into an all year swimming pool! :-D. Mikey
D
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For about the last 20 years, when I vote, I tick all the boxes and write underneath, "I wouldn't vote for any of them because they're all crooked".
It's great when they read out the results:
Stan Bent, Labour - 21341
Reginald Snide-Crook, Conservative - 6429
Yvonne Pincher, Liberal Democratic -5655
Mick Nucklehead, Ukip - 708
Spoiled papers, 1
It's not so good these days though because more people are spoiling their votes.
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Nuclear is far safer than any other form of generation. You might be staggered to learn how many have lost their lives to wind power accidents and hydro accidents, and coal is a mass killer. The average death rate of those in China mining coal for power stations is 80 people per week and has been similar for many years.By the by, how many fracking gas or coal stations have had catastrophic failures?
If EDF build nuclear in France, safely, & with their own money, why do we need China when the ??billions for HS2 are being raised without them?
Lastly how about putting this wonderful new Nuclear in Battersea power stn?
It'll be built quickly, safely & quietly with all those **** MP's across the river from it. And the waste heat will warm London, turning the Thames into an all year swimming pool! :-D. Mikey
I'd be very happy to have a nuclear power station alongside me or for my area to be used for storage of surface nuclear waste. But I wouldn't want a coal fired station or it's millions of tons of ash waste, or it's 24 hours a day freight trains next to me.
Good idea d8veh. Didn't some guys suggest that in a true 'democracy' that as well as proportional representation, there should be a box for 'None of the Above' ;-). Mikey
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