Nuclear energy

[Marina]

I think there is some kind of international agreement to prohibit the re-use of reactor-grade plutonium because it then becomes weapons-grade plutonium. This decrease the efficiency of power stations and increases the amount of radioactive waste but is meant to prevent proliferation.

You can use materials other than just plutonium and uranium. There's a new generation of thorium reactors on the drawing board, which should have considerable advantages.

The Aussies are currently looking into this in a big way. See conversation here, where it's claimed thorium reactors can never explode or meltdown.

P.S. A web search for 'thorium "nuclear reactor"' throws up over 100,000 links on Google.

[dang65]

There were many people very unhappy about the impending canals and even more were unhappy about the upcoming railways.

The Dragoons usually solved any dissension problem.

Yeah, that's true, but with the canals and railways at least the Government and industry were in favour of it and didn't shrink from making new laws to seize land etc. When it comes to stuff like wind farms, it seems like the regional NIMBY society can get the whole thing cancelled with a letter to the local paper.

It's funny how the Government is happy to force through ID Cards and anti-terrorism laws against any amount of protest, but they cower away from the issue of the future power supplies of the country.

One might almost wonder if there was some kind of conspiracy going on, perish the thought.

[RichardCranium]

Yeah, that's true, but with the canals and railways at least the Government and industry were in favour of it and didn't shrink from making new laws to seize land etc. When it comes to stuff like wind farms, it seems like the regional NIMBY society can get the whole thing cancelled with a letter to the local paper.

I see what you mean now.

It's funny how the Government is happy to force through ID Cards and anti-terrorism laws against any amount of protest, but they cower away from the issue of the future power supplies of the country.

One might almost wonder if there was some kind of conspiracy going on, perish the thought.

It is weird, innit? But I am now sure it is not a conspiracy. I have spent long enough in the private sector and now the public sector too to know conspiracies cannot be pulled off once there are two countries, three agencies or six people involved. Everybody is too crap.

I reckon it's just incompetence and back-handers. That's what comes of having politicians in charge.

[gingerjedi]

Flip, if I were in charge all the unemployed and public sector workers would be starting work on building the Severn barrage tomorrow and we'd get people trained up to be world leaders in leading edge nuclear reactors too.

I live right by the UK end of the proposed site, a few BTL's could net a healthy income which in turn could buy me nice yacht to put in the newly created marina.

Boomed!

It was talked about 15 years ago and I think 15 years before that so I won’t hold my breath.

[TimberWolf]

Thorpe

The safety of nuclear operations in Britain remains a concern. The THORP reprocessing facility at Sellafield, created in 1994 at a cost of1.8 billion, had a growing leak from a broken pipe from August 2004 to April 2005. Over eight months, the leak let 85 thousand litres of uranium-rich fluid flow into a sump which was equipped with safety systems that were designed to detect any leak of just 15 litres. But the leak went undetected because the operators hadn’t completed the checks that ensured the safety systems were working; and the operators were in the habit of ignoring safety alarms anyway. The safety system came with belt and braces. Routine safety-measurements of fluids in the sump should have detected the abnormal presence of uranium there within one month of the start of the leak; but the operators often didn’t bother taking these routine measurements, because they felt too busy; and when they did take measurements that detected the abnormal presence of uranium in the sump (on 28 August 2004, 26 November 2004, and 24 February 2005), no action was taken. By April 2005, 22 tons of uranium leaked, but still none of the leak-detection systems detected the leak; the leak was detected by accountancy, when the company noticed that they were getting 10% less uranium out than their clients claimed they’d put in!
http://www.withouthotair.com/

[meridian]

I live right by the UK end of the proposed site

There's an end in another country?

[TimberWolf]

Yummy seawater

Contains 3.3mg Uranium per m^3, or 8 trillion Uranium atoms per cubic millimetre. Enough per m^3 (using a fast breeder reactor) to release 600 KJ of electrical energy. Makes you wonder how many atoms of Uranium there are in the average water sifter/bottom feeder.

Shame we can't live off seawater though cos it's crammed full of natural energy.

[Churchill]

Contains 3.3mg Uranium per m^3, or 8 trillion Uranium atoms per cubic millimetre. Enough per m^3 (using a fast breeder reactor) to release 600 KJ of electrical energy. Makes you wonder how many atoms of Uranium there are in the average water sifter/bottom feeder.

Shame we can't live off seawater though cos it's crammed full of natural energy.

And gold...

[expat]

Yeah, that's true, but with the canals and railways at least the Government and industry were in favour of it and didn't shrink from making new laws to seize land etc. When it comes to stuff like wind farms, it seems like the regional NIMBY society can get the whole thing cancelled with a letter to the local paper.

NIMBY must be an appealing idea to those who look, for example, at the far north of Scotland, which now has bits of radioactive material lying around on the beaches, from nuclear reactors that the people of that area have no real need of.

Or the south of Scotland, which has 4 reactors now being decommissioned. They too were for the English demand, but were built in the South of Scotland Electricity Board area, so the consumers of that area paid for them to be built.

Or the area in the Highlands where they are going to get huge power lines to carry the wind power south....

I'm sure there are abundant examples from around England too, I just happen to know about those. They make me sympathetic to NIMBY people. Except those who consume but put the cost elsewhere: if nuclear power is safe, build the plant in Essex and Kent. If not: NIMBY!

[NotAllThere]

... if nuclear power is safe, build the plant in Essex and Kent. ...

Can't do that. The land's too expensive.