h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

10 years ago this would have been an easy queastion to answer, we had endless North Sea oil/gas, alternative energy was the next big thing and nuclear was a dirty word.
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Now though it is not so simple, North Sea oil is running out, gas piped from France is costing more every day, forcing our bills up, wind farms are ugly and the man on TV today said his home's Solar cells and small wind generator cost over £20,000, so hardly for everone.
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......We may hate the idea of nuclear power, indeed some stations were closing, but is it going to be our only realistic choice for the future?

Late hour. Great Minds Thinking Alike.

F135418?thread=1523252

....that is strange, 2 new threads about the same thing at exactly the same time!
....think yours is more technically based than mine though!

particles of inspiration sleeting through the upper atmosphere...

We both must just be peculiarly receptive this evening.

I'm an insomniac - what's your excuse?

That is the oddest simulpost I have ever seen. Did you two watch the same TV programme or something?

Ste

Nope.

I'd been discusing it with a maths teacher earlier in the day (who has a background and interest in geology) conversation wandered to this business about how do you supply cheap energy after a tangent from discussing how to win wars by economics. and the issue of the longevity of Nuclear power was brought up. I'd not thought of nuclear power like that before.

That sat perculating in my brain, and before I went to bed I thought I'd post it in the forum and see what response I got.

I don't think Nuclear was in the news prominently last night, though it may have been in the papers a day or so ago.

....was there a TV programme about it?
Nope didn't see one, Teletext were running a simple yes/no survey on are you in favour of N.power. There has also been talk of restarting Nuclear Power station programme by Tony Blair, rising gas prices are partly controlled by the cost of gas through the pipe from France, and falling North Sea gas production, a complicated mix that is making an unatractive thing like Nuclear Power more attractive, now I might be wrong here, but doesn't 60-70% of Frances power come from a Nuclear source?
.....by the way, I am hardly some Greenpeace type person, I will go with anything that brings lower power bils, selfish maybe, but honest, and when I retire I will care even less about the niceities of going green if I have big power bills and I am cold as can't afford to have heating on all the time.

Advantages of Nuclear power (fission):

1. fuel not likely to run out any time soon
2. doesn't give out CO2 so doesn't contribute to global warming

Disadvantages of Nuclear power:

1. Waste is not easy to dispose of - remains dirty for thousands of years
2. Accidents in a NP station can be catastrophic
3. From an operating point of view, nuclear stations are not easy to turn up or down - they have to produce a constant level of power, so you need other types of power station as well, to match the demand.

I've been a fan of Nuclear for many years. I think the level of safety engineering is probably higher than the aircraft industry and the number of catastrophic failures overated. I can think of only three off the top of my head; Three Mile Island, Windscale and Chernobyl. I am confident that the number of people killed associated with mining and burning coal far outweighs that assosciated with Nuclear power stations.

Nuclear power will give us security of supply and time to develop tidal power .

Disposing of nuclear waste is improving as will decommissioning techniques and costs.

I think that nuclear power is a good idea, and I am in favour of it in theory. However, whilst I am sure that the engineering can be built so that it there are no problems, in the privatised, cost-aware Britain I think that the building will be given to the lowest cost option. Which does not go well with 'the best engineered solution'.

This then also tallies with the other problem with nuclear - it is meant to be zero emissions, but with beaches being shut near Dounray - even as far down as Aberdeen - and the whole Irish Sea almost glowing in the dark, it hasn't been so far. Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

My chemistry professor claimed in lecture a few weeks ago that there isn't enough U235 on the planet to last for more than 50~100 years if we were to replace fossile fuels with it. Running breeder reactors is another story, but that implies lots of plutonium production.

That's fantatic news. Enough U235 to bridge the gap to fusion, and little enough to prevent much future nuclear weapons construction.

The problem is, any hint of running out of U235 and a lot of nuclear powers will get significantly more interested in producing lots of plutonium for weapons--even fusion bombs require a fission core, and do you really think countries that built fission bombs will be very happy about giving them up?

This is plutonium produced from U238?

OK so if that is largely substitutable, then the abundance of U235 is not an issue.