Nuclear Power - Devil or Saint?

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 21:40

I was amazed when I noticed someone saying that he was happy their country said no to nuclear power... Even more amazed I was when I noticed they do even have a day to celebrate that decision O_O

Well, I will write some arguments later... I think you will have some too

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 23:20

Oh, since it looks like no one else is going to write in this thread, I will.

Currently I'm 100% for the nuclear power. I know nuclear power is not perfect solution, but IMO it's far better than any alternatives. In fact, I would love to know what energy source do those countries use, who do not use nuclear power? I assume that if there's ethical reasons for not choosing to build Nuc power plants, then you do not buy your electricity from the countries using Npower either... Or if you do, I think I will just rtandomly select a word, and write it up.... *rolls random word generator* hypocracy.

Okay... What are the alternatives to Npow?

I can only think following real alternatives:
oil/coal/gas (fossil fuels)
wood, biogas etc ([sarcasm]green power[/sarcasm]

)
water / solar / wind power.

Let's face it folks. All of those are much worse than Npow. (except the two latest options in the last line perhaps, but they're no real answer.. I'll explain later)

fossil fuels:

A:

They do much more pollution than Npow. Dust, tar, etc. How's the air quality in areas with lot's of powerplant's burning some fossil fuels? How are the statistics considering lugn diseases? Find it out... Greenhouse effect, which people tend to not take too seriously will eventually be a real problem. Perhaps my son will face quite a different world at his old age... even just couple of degrees increase in average temperature would

1. cause floods. If I lived in Neatherlands, I wouls start constructing an arch. (same goes to many other countries, Bangladesh, etc...

2. make the nature quite different. Good bye willowgrouse hunting here in Finland, this would be more like central europe now is...

3. affects I cannot predict, or am not aware of. There's certainly some surprizes, and I bet most of those would be not too pleasant... Imagine what would happend in Africa? How would rain forests do? I do not know... But certainly some now habitable areas would turn out to be inhabitable (for other reasoons but floods too). What would people there do? Well, move to less hostile areas... And what would this cause? Wars, racism, violence, deaths. That's just how human nature is. If you go to someone else's revire, and start using "his" resources there, you will not be tolerated. History has taught that to us at million times.

B:

Those resources are not unlimited. It takes (thousands? millions?) of years to make gas/oil out of coal. And as everybody should have noticed, for example oil prizes have already been rocketing up. When I got my driver lisence, gasoline costed around 0,5 Eur in finland (actually about 3 fin marks, which roughly equals to 0,5 eur). Now it costs around 1,20 Eur... Some people are realizing that resources are growing faint. This means that at some phase your country will be in huge troubles, if it's electricity depends on these resources...

Wood/biogas etc.

Well, a bit better than fossl fuels, the section B is almost neglected... But pollution and Greenhouse effect stays as same. Also cutting down forests do kill animals. Do you know that the famous grouse was once quite common bird around central europe? After the woods were cutted to the point, when there was no longer large areas of woods, that bird disappeared from there... Same will happend with lot's of other animals. Couple of woods left is not enough for majority of animals. Most of them do need larger revires, with enough shield and peace. Changes are never good for those animals who cannot change themself. Also I am not sure how much we do still have wood to cut/biogas to produce. I am not sure if all nations could keep their energy consumption rate same as it is now, if this would be the only powersource...

Water/solar/wind.

They are often said to be nature friendly, pure energyforms. Bollox.

Solar:
Have you ever calculated how big areas do you need to cover with solarpanels to make decent amount of electricity? A big. Bigger than we can afford to use for energy production. Also this is expencive. And technically hard to achieve (you need some strange devices to store electricity for nights/winters/cloudy days...) I would call solar panel forests as visual pollution.

Wind.
Pretty much the same with solar panels. You need more windmills than you can imagine. Windmill forests are not any more pretty than solar panel forests. And also buildin all of these windmills do take too much money. And so does the repairing (as with solar panels).

Water.
I would hate to be a salmon in Finland. We have couple of waterplants, and those dams, no matter if there's some routes for salmon left do drop the salmon population in the rivers to a fraction of what it used to be. Also waterplant's do not prosuce enough energy, no matter if we would make a dam to wvwry frigging river we have in Finland....

Okay, what about the Npow then?

I admitt, there is always a risk of accident. But if the risk is akcnowledged, it can be minimized to almost non existent. Did you know that Chernobyl accident was not caused due to technical failure, but due to wrong using of the plant? There were a test going on that how long could the energy be produced after the plant was shut down. And due to the test, some safety systems were turned off... Everything runned smoothly untill at some point the powerplant's efficiency dropped to a level when coolingwater stopped going around properly. I can't remember how it exactly went, but something made the coolinwater to flow to hot reactor, steaming up and blowing something up... That resulted even bigger blow... And what is the saddest thing, the actions to evacuate people were not taken fast enough. There were also firefighters trying to stop the fire.. Without decent suits to stop the readiation. (Well, gammas could not have been stopped anyways, no matter what kind of suits they used). I think I read it took 2 days untill they flew to there with helicopters, covering the place with mud and mm... whatchamacallit... the thing they use to make basements of buildings...

Well, the chernobyl story I presented here was read from some book ages ago. So there is a chance that there is some false information, but I do believe that there was humane error behind the accident... It could have been prevented with proper planning.

Okay.. One question is the waste. I think we can store the waste coming from plants. Of course not waste coming in infinite use, but for decent amount of time. Researchs storing the waste deep underground at stable areas has been done, and it looks promising. I heard you yelling that it's not good, since the waste stays active for thousands of years. True, it does but...

Do you know what 'activity' is? It's decaying of the atoms which transforms the uranium /other active matter) to another matter. Eventually ending up to some stabile (non active matter). Where's the danger? Danger is in decays. Everytime the decaying occurs, decaying sends a particle that is the danger. If the particle hit's to human tissue, it can kick out some electrons from atoms in human body, which of course makes that particular atom to not work as it should. Of course one or two atoms means nothing, but if there's enough those particles... How do we produce enough of those particles? Well, simply by making enough of atoms to decay. Well, what does it mean that some matter stays active for thousands of years? It means that after a while, it transforms to almost stabile form, which will produce only small amount of decays in large amount of time. That means that there will not be lot of harmfull particles flying all the time (unless there's terribly huge amounts of active matter), but only some particles flying at same time, although new ones being produced for thousands of years. This means that you can safely spend some time near such a radiation source...

Okay. If I had the power, I would make npow plant's here and there. Yes, it is costy to build one, but it is rather cheap to maintain (unlike fossil fuel plants for example). Npow plants do not need much of uranium/plutonium in a year, so resources are not a problem. The money spared by not buying/digging oil/gases/something I would use to
a: educate people working in those npow plant's/people making plans to act on accidents
b: research for fusion/other alternative.

There is constantly fusion research going on, although people seem to have forgotten it. ITER and other projects are interesting, and I do dare to say even promising. I would not be surprized if with the funding given for those projects now would result first fusion power plants in middle of this century. And if we increase fundings, I bet results will be seen sooner...

So I'm for Npow while researching for fusion.

fingerpower exhausted, starting reactor 2 to produce amount of energy needed to press submitt button...

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 23:23

Bollox! I'm no frigging guest! It's not nice to log me out while typing

Damn! I need a

to cope with the frustration!

Heimnar · Post by **Heimnar** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:12

Nice topic.
I agree in most of the items, but...

1. Biomass.
This emit really low (almost none) greenhouse gases. It has zero CO2 emission, close to zero SO2 emission. Only problem is the emission of NOx, which is a bit high.
If we consider burning biomass coming from willow plantations it is not that bad. We can see it to be in fact a really efficient (and cheap) solar plant. If we look at the energy balance.
In fact - if used wisely, it is the only source of energy which is 100% renewable on Earth, and at the same time reasonably cheap and efficient.
As long as there is sun, water and CO2 in atmosphere, as long the plants will grow. A sort of natural recycling.

2. Solar and wind.
Clumsy and uneffective. For every 1 MW of wind or solar power a country has to keep a reserve of 1 MW in coal/gas/oil power plant. Because you have to be safe and supply electricity when the wind abruptly stops and the wind turbines as well.
So, taking this into consideration wind power, country-wise, is not emission free. Because the other plant, which is a fossil fuel fired back up has to operate all the time. And what is even more - since it is a back up, it cannot operate at nominal power (but below), thus its efficiency is lower. And by that - average emission of atmospere pollutants per 1 MWh of produced electricity - higher.
And I am not speaking about the pollution with noise, which is quite considerable.

Speaking of nuclear power. I am 100% for it. But still this is the technology which is using depletable resources. The fact is that these resources will last for a very long time - but it is not perspective in the long time horizon. But maybe in 100 years we will have fusion power. Who knows?

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 13:05

Biomass and CO2? I wish to know where did you dig the information that biomass thingee does not emit CO2? mm.. What kind of biomass power you were talking about? I was thinking of burning biomaterial, and since base of all biomaterial is C, burning it surely produces CO2.. So you're not burning anything?

EDIT:
Thanks for telling the topic is nice, you're just too polite

Heimnar · Post by **Heimnar** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 14:40

Here comes the explanation:
First of all - what is biomass in my oppinion?
Lets include in this term all plants that grow right now.
Crude oil is also a biomaterial (same as coal) since once (a long time ago) it was alive. But it is NOT biomass. It is a fossil fuel. By definition only.

So, since we know what 'biomass' means, let's continue:

Think of where does this carbon (which is a chemical component of celulose in wood) come from?

Any plant while growing "breathes" with CO2 in the process of photosynthesis. CO2 disassembles into C and O2. Most of O2 is emitted back to the atmosphere while C, and some other components (nitrogen, sulphur - from fertilizers for example, also - calcium, potassium, sodium etc.) builds the "body" of the plant: wood, bark, leaves.

When we burn biomass we "set free" the carbon that was built into the body of the plant. No other carbon dioxide is being emitted to the atmosphere (where would it come from? - plants don't suck carbon from soil). The plant accepts a certain amount of CO2 to grow, and the same amount is being released to the atmosphere when it is burned. So the balance is zero.
And that is why it is being considered that burning biomass is CO2 free. This is also how it is being treated in various governmental regulations. For example - while burning biomass you don't have to buy CO2 emission certificate (which in Europe costs approx. 20 euro/ton CO2).

The difference between biomass and fossil fuels is time-related. Some might say, that fossil fuel was once biomass. The whole point is that - presumably once there was a lot more CO2 in atmosphere that it is nowadays. The mass balance of C and CO2 in litosphere and atmosphere must be constant (carbon cannot come from space with meteorites for example - or even if - not in a considerable amount =).

The issue with CO2 emission should be looked at as the violation of the CO2 balance in the atmosphere. And from such point of view - burning coal and other fossil fuels is a violation of CO2 balance. We shift the carbon from C to CO2, while burning biomass is not - the process shifts carbon from CO2 to C and then back to CO2 - so it is emission "neutral" as I explained above.

Here appears another issue...Does really burning of biomass not shift the balance of CO2? What if we start to burn lots of old trees? Well, as long as we will be able to replace their potential of CO2 reduction it is ok - by planting a lot of new plants. But when we are just using up the wood reserves by the devastation of the forest - this is a different story, since then the violation of the CO2 balance occurs - in a short time we release the amount of CO2 which was assimilated in wood for 30-40 years. According to the rule that forests grow slow but burn fast.

But the tendency in biomass industry, and governmental regulations is to promote the biomass plantations, where the crops rotate and are being used as fuel. Which is a perfect example of CO2 emission free cycle. As for now - I haven't heard of the fact that biomass was acquisited from the living forest. It could be from the forest production waste, which anyway would be burned, but in less efficient and clean way (on site). Also - its price will be probably to high to justify its use as fuel. It is better to produce paper or construction wood for example.

I hope this answers your question. =)

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 16:36

Okay Heimie

Now I got it. It is true that total amount of C and O atoms is almost constant on earth. And as you say, it is the balance that matters with GH effect. But I find it odd thought that one thinks he can burn wood etc. with the same rate as grow it, in order to produce enough electricity... If you cut down one forest, and plant one forest of young wood, the balance is not kept. You should be able to plant so much new wood, that they grow their mass at same rate as plant burns wood... This is hard to achieve as far as I know... But yes, theory behind your post is something I fully accept and understand, I just cannot see how it is possible in practice. At least the wood should be replaced with some other plant growing faster... And planting huge areas of whateverplants will again affect on surrounding nature.. Some animals will get bigger advance than others -> animals eating those will get bigger advance than others -> perhaps the favouritefood of those predators is something that suffered from planting the whateverplants... The consequences are hard to predict, at least on local scope... :/

So anyways, I am still 100% for Npow ^_^

(SGSW, you git, where are you lurking! I am waiting for your fiery reply to tear down my castles of Npow

)

Heimnar · Post by **Heimnar** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:21

Since the topic is really interesting, I shall write more (please forgive me =).

If you cut down one forest, and plant one forest of young wood, the balance is not kept.

Sure. But this is not the way the biomass should be looked at. Not the right way in fact.
There are basically two methods of biomass fuel acquisition. One is plantation, second is waste.

The first one involves planting trees that grow really fast (like willow salix viminalis for example). It can grow a few meters high in one season. And then using the crops for fuel and replanting. It is quite easy, as replanting requires cutting a few trees into 20cm sticks and putting them into soil again (the right side up, of course=). The rest can be burned. Here the balance is kept 100%. No infringement.
You can plant willow instead of wheat for instance - since there is too much of this in Europe.
Also - other types biomass can be used - like straw for example. Denmark is a place where burning straw for district heating became very popular.

The second method - waste burning - is a way of reclaimation of some of the energy that otherwise will be wasted. This involves the utilization of wood waste from wood, pulp and paper, or furniture industry mainly. While cutting trees for paper (to have normal books=) produces a certain amount of waste - mainly bark, which cannot be used in the paper production. Same is in the case of wood used to produce furniture or construction components.
Some of this waste wood was separated in the forest, where it can either be left (thus making the forest ugly and rather difficult to live for some smaller plants, then it may decay alllowing some not nice compounds to form, like methane etc.) or burned - which emits a considerable amount of soot, CO and other pollutants (which will not be emitted while burned in a boiler), and which also is potentially dangerous for the forest (fire).

No one says that wood coming directly from cutting trees will be ever used as biomass fuel. So far it is way too expensive to make it profitable, so - there is really no problem. The only danger is that some of the waste wood should be left in the forest. Not all, of course but the amount that will help animals like hedgehogs for instance. Also - to the certain degree it helps to retain moisture. And this is being fight with. Nowadays regulations impose an obligation on power generation companies to burn waste from both forest and agricultural production, to somehow diminish the effect of cleaning up of the forests completely.

====
If you got that far with reading...well, thank you =)

SGSW · Post by **SGSW** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 20:40

Here I am Maz, Prepare to be destroyed

OK I don't have all the data in my power right now, so I will just summarise the points against Nuclear power to start with and for other forms of energy.

Arguments against Nuclear power

1- You talk about the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases - well the enrichment/centrifugation of the Uranium athoms, produces greenhouse gases (and from a person which I know, it's not a small amount)

2- It's not competitive, unless it's heavily subsided by the State (usually connected to a nuclear weapons program) it costs much more to produce a KW of energy in a nuclear power plant, then in a wind power plant

3- It costs a ton of money to buid a new nuclear power plant from scratch which in a case where everyone is fastening the belt it's not a bloody option, especially when a NPP will only produce 4% of the consumption (besides the process of construction will create a lot of greenhouse effects

4- The problem with electricity is that it's needed in the right amount at the precise time, if you don't have accumulators? (not sure how it's spelled) like in Wind Power stations, you must have exactly the same amount that it's required (less induces shortage, more induces waste), so A Nuclear power plant who produces a gigawat or so with few regulation on the amount is a crap, if it's working it may very well produce in excess, if it's not working there will be a severe lack of electricity avaiable (which causes you to build two or more plants)

5- The entire place will be contaminated and the plant itself (or the reactors) must be encased into concrete, the entire ground/soil will be so heavily contaminated that will be unsuitable for anything else

6- The Decomissioning of a nuclear power plant is a hugely expensive matter (and nearly all Power plants don't last much more than 50'/60 years)

And trhat's all for now, I will add the links anfd more data when I can

Heimnar · Post by **Heimnar** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 10:48

4- The problem with electricity is that it's needed in the right amount at the precise time, if you don't have accumulators? (not sure how it's spelled) like in Wind Power stations, you must have exactly the same amount that it's required (less induces shortage, more induces waste), so A Nuclear power plant who produces a gigawat or so with few regulation on the amount is a crap, if it's working it may very well produce in excess, if it's not working there will be a severe lack of electricity avaiable (which causes you to build two or more plants)

The "state-of-the-art" approach to that problem is that nuclear power plants (which produce cheapest energy) should operate as a base of the power system. So - their total power supply should not exceed the minimum power demand of the system. This way - they can operate 8760 hours/year at full power, and thus - maximum efficiency. Other plants (which are more flexible) can cover the peak demand.

Railwaymodeler · Post by **Railwaymodeler** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 10:57

The 'peaker plant' idea is being experimented with here in the Midwest a bit. I know they have some wind turbines in Wisconsin, and a peaker plant (Not sure what type) along I-80 as you head west. It is sound, and would A: give a good power baseline to work with and B: minimize land waste from wind turbines and solar panels. Anyone play SimCity2000? This is reminding me of the power plant decisions you had to make in that game right now.

Zandrav Ibistenn · Post by **Zandrav Ibistenn** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 13:41

I think a balanced energy policy is the best choice. That way you can get the most from the available resources and at the same time secure high-tech expertise in all fields, helping to develop the technology into more economically competitive refinements - and the maybe produce some technological spinoffs too. The central point is: We need to become much more advanced in preparation for the depletion of fossile fuels.

Nuclear powers plays a central role in such an energy policy, as a clean, reliable and efficient power source (which is a good example of why technological refinement is so critical (with todays nuclear powerplants, no more Chernobyls are likely to happen)).
Uranium is an element not good for much else than powerproduction - why not use it? Sure, there's the waste disposal problem. - Or is it really that much of a problem? Just deposite the waste deep in the rock beneath Sweden. End of story.

The fusion variety of nuclear power is of course what we invest much hope and money in. However, since it's not ready yet and we can't be sure if it'll ever be, we must prepare for a post-fossile power era and we do that best by advancing all power production technologies, including fissile nuclear power.

SGSW wrote:1- You talk about the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases - well the enrichment/centrifugation of the Uranium athoms, produces greenhouse gases (and from a person which I know, it's not a small amount)

But that's only because the process requires much electricity, right?
Thus this is actually an argument against fossil fuel power production.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 21:58

If your profile didn't say you're a male Z, then I would fall in love with you

I think I agreed with you in most of the topics you posted i here ^_^

SG, I wish I knew where did you find the information about costs of Npow etc? I cannot really argue with you if the information you believe in is correct, but for some reason I doubt it is...

As far as I know, Nuclear power is cheap. It's expencive to build the plant, true, but producing electricity with it is cheap.

NPP producing only 4% of consumption? ... 4% of what my friend?

point 4:
I did not think of that, but I believe it's not so major problem.. We can do as Heimie stated, or perhaps just sell the extra electricity to some other country?

point 5. I again doubt you're 100% correct. Of course the reactor itself will be contaminated, but the waste/radiation (except gammarays) should not be able to get out of the plant. It must surely be possible to isolate it so well...

6. Yes. But I think it's still generally cheaper & better option than building the amount of windmills/solarpanels... Or depleting fossil fuels & making GH effect even worse.

SGSW · Post by **SGSW** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 22:50

Sorry for the long delay, most of my sources are portuguese tough, so learn the bloody language

and read the following summary http://jddomingos.ist.utl.pt/ - the file you want is EnergiaNuclear_2006 pages 18 to 34 are international (English and some french)

http://www.stormsmith.nl/ is a good ennglish site

and Maz old friend, the 4% are reffering to the national total consumption

mistergreen77 · Post by **mistergreen77** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:42

It think it is possible to build houses that produce their own energy. They can generate power from natural resources like solar and wind and even put unused power back in to the grid for consumption. I haven't researched this much but I know that in my country you can even get credit from your electricity company for doing this. If we built all houses like this then we would only need to generate power for industrial purposes.

mistergreen77 · Post by **mistergreen77** » Mon May 22, 2006 12:51

Chernobyl Reports

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

Yes this was a bad accident - but not as bad as opponents of nuclear energy have made out. There have been very few accidents with nuclear reactors. Considering the UN report in to the chernobyl accident - do the benefits of nuclear power outweigh the unlikely possibility of a nuclear accident?