9.0 quake hits Japan

[TheDon]

It is.

"Plant officials previously said more than half of the melted fuel had breached the core and dropped to the floor of the primary containment vessel, some of it splashing against the wall or the floor."

Is just scaremongering.

That's the entire job of the primary containment vessel after all. "some of it splashing against the wall or the floor" oh noes, not the wall and floor of the thing designed to contain it in the event of a meltdown! However will we cope.

Writing about the fact that people can't enter the core of a nuclear reactor that has melted down is like saying you can't breath underwater.

Sure there's some things that didn't go to plan, leaking radioactive water is never something you want, but it's also not the end of the world. It'd be very quickly diluted to the point where it's a non-issue.

The clean up was always going to take a long time, it was never going to be a case of a quick once over with the scrubbing brush and it's back up and running. But the clean up will still take less time than it's going to take to repair the damage coal powered power stations do.

[leviramsey]

+1 TheDon

[Bazdavies79]

Aww, there was me all fretting n'all. Some things just didn't go to plan, ahh well, not to worry.

[mjmooney]

The argument about the relative safety of nuclear power is like the one over the safety of air travel. Statistically, flying is much, much safer than driving a car. It's just that when the less frequent accident DOES happen, the effects are potentially so much more devastating.

[Bazdavies79]

There are viable alternatives to Nuclear though.

[legov]

Such as?

[MrDuck]

There are viable alternatives to Nuclear though.

Ridiculous. You sound like one of those pinko green communislamists to me.

[Bazdavies79]

Such as a combination of renewables, in this country at least.

[TheDon]

Such as a combination of renewables, in this country at least.

Do you want to actually elaborate on that or do you just want to go round in circles rephrasing the same thing?

It's all well and good throwing "renewables" out there as a solution, but the reality of them is a stark contrast to the demands of our power usage.

Solar? Expensive and uneven generation, wind? Expensive and temperamental, tidal? expensive and causes MAJOR environmental damage.

We need power that we can turn on and off to cope with spikes in demand as storing power is ridiculously expensive and inefficient, and that is cheap. People don't like their energy bills at the moment, they'd probably jump off the nearest bridge if they got one that was generated purely from renewables.

Trying to keep up with spiking demand when your generation spikes as well, is a recipe for disaster. Renewables are not a viable replacement for nuclear or coal, they're ok as a supplement, but they fail miserably at having the scalability to provide our entire output until someone invents a decent way to store large quantities of power and manages to bring down the cost of generating.

[Tegis]

Fusion power but that is a looong way off if I understood things correctly (40+ years), as it is tricky to maintain a fusion.

[Bazdavies79]

Rephrasing the same thing??

OK elaboration.

Solar? Expensive and uneven generation, wind? Expensive and temperamental, tidal? expensive and causes MAJOR environmental damage.

And Nuclear is what? Cheap and clean? I don't think so.

Spiking demand, how about more hydro electric stations like Dinorwic?

A combination of wind, solar, tidal, in conjunction with energy saving measures, is better than nuclear.

And here we get into the 'it's not possible, it is possible' tit for tat, where it's very difficult to find reliable info to back up each opposing view.

But Nuclear is NOT clean or safe. The plant itself is always as safe houses until it **** up, then it's 'oh we didn't foresee that happening'. Is Fukushima currently earthquake and tsunami proof? It blatantly never was and it certainly is not now.

[TheDon]

Rephrasing the same thing??

OK elaboration.

Solar? Expensive and uneven generation, wind? Expensive and temperamental, tidal? expensive and causes MAJOR environmental damage.

And Nuclear is what? Cheap and clean? I don't think so.

Spiking demand, how about more hydro electric stations like Dinorwic?

A combination of wind, solar, tidal, in conjunction with energy saving measures, is better than nuclear.

And here we get into the 'it's not possible, it is possible' tit for tat, where it's very difficult to find reliable info to back up each opposing view.

But Nuclear is NOT clean or safe. The plant itself is always as safe houses until it **** up, then it's 'oh we didn't foresee that happening'. Is Fukushima currently earthquake and tsunami proof? It blatantly never was and it certainly is not now.

It's cheaper and cleaner than the alternatives.

Solar isn't effective in the UK, we just don't have the daylight hours year round to enable it to provide more than a minority of our power needs.

Wind power isn't viable. The wind power generation schemes cost an absolute fortune compared to their output. The huge turbine at the reading technology park for instance is just a publicity stunt that doesn't achieve higher than 15% of it's maximum output.

Tidal just absolutely destroys marine ecosystems. We could use it, but, we'd end up killing a hell of a lot of marine life to do so. But when you're looking for "safe" most people only care about safe on land.

Hydroplants like Dinorwic are great, but they have limited capacity, and high costs in relation to their output. They essentially trade "cheap" off peak power for peak power, so you still need a method of powering them to be able to shift the water back up hill. They aren't exactly perpetual motion machines, it uses more energy to move the water back up hill than they generate from it going down hill, so like I said, storage is inefficient.

Nuclear plants are designed with failure in mind. Modern plants are pretty damn secure with multiple levels of failure. It needs a catastrophic failure before people need to start worrying. You can't say the same about tidal where it destroys a natural habitat just by being there (but hey, we can't see it, so who cares right?)

[trekka]

In the UK, we're not likely to suffer catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. Sadly, the Japanese were always at a risk from both events and tragically, they deemed the risk in the technology fine until something changed that, something that was so catastrophic (but was always going to happen one day).

Fukushima sits on one of the world's most active tectonic plate movement zones in the world and sits on the coast - there was always a risk that a huge earthquake, coupled with a monster tsunami was going to impact it. Nobody could have foreseen the devastating effect that the tsunami was going to have but I'm frankly amazed that the plant still exists at all.

Comparing potential new UK nuclear sites to Fukushima is bonkers.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

the obvious answer to the energy crisis is poo. there will always be poo, and we may as wel do something with it.

[Bazdavies79]

In the UK, we're not likely to suffer catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. Sadly, the Japanese were always at a risk of both events.

It's always the unforeseen though, 'oh we didn't plan for that event'.

The Don:

Cheaper? Really? Construction, operating, management, decommissioning and waste management costs are very high with nuclear.

Clean? If you know how to bury the waste somewhere safe that will remain intact for thousands of years. Where and how is the question.

Tidal barriers can damage Eco systems, but tidal generators don't. Wave energy is fine. It's very hard to cut through the bullshit and find the truth regarding wind turbines, they are certainly not a one hit answer but part of a package of renewable's working together.

Dinorwig was given as an example of how spike demands can be overcome in a green way. I'm well aware of the energy costs of pumping the water back up.

[TheDon]

In the UK, we're not likely to suffer catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. Sadly, the Japanese were always at a risk of both events.

It's always the unforeseen though, 'oh we didn't plan for that event'.

The Don:

Cheaper? Really? Construction, operating, management, decommissioning and waste management costs are very high with nuclear.

Clean? If you know how to bury the waste somewhere safe that will remain intact for thousands of years. Where and how is the question.

Tidal barriers can damage Eco systems, but tidal generators don't. Wave energy is fine. It's very hard to cut through the bullshit and find the truth regarding wind turbines, they are certainly not a one hit answer but part of a package of renewable's working together.

Dinorwig was given as an example of how spike demands can be overcome in a green way. I'm well aware of the energy costs of pumping the water back up.

Cheaper than renewable yes. The only thing that comes close is hydro, but often at a huge environmental cost.

Easier to store nuclear waste than the emissions from coal and gas, which are the only real alternatives. Renewable energy is a pipe dream at the moment. We're way behind our targets for it (targets that have been vastly reduced already) because near enough every single renewable energy scheme has under achieved.

There haven't really been any large scale studies into the effects of tidal generators, other than the fact that when they are in place sea life avoid them (which is probably due to them being noisy as hell), that they don't outright kill everything is only part of there issue. I'd wait for large scale studies into the long term effects they have on migration and breeding before announcing they have no effect.

The problem with Dinorwig is obvious though, you need to put more power in than you get out, it's only something like 66% efficient. That means that to use renewable and storage we need to generate way more than what we currently do to get the same output we have now. It's simply not possible when we can't even replace out current output with renewable.

Renewable is never going to happen as a main energy source without some major advances in the technology, or massive government subsidies (more so than they already get). The only reason we're going for it is to try to look good. From a practical standpoint there is no reason at all, and in an unrigged marketplace with no subsidies or government grants, I guarantee not a single renewable generator would get built.

[MrDuck]

Germany now produces 20% of it's electricity with solar. By 2050 it will be 80%. So far as a result the electricity bills are on average 40% cheaper. Solar is perfectly viable and much cheaper if the motivation is there.

As for banging on about the safety of nuclear power... um, how many thousands of years does the waste hang around for again? Oh, but it's ok, cos we bury it really really really deep, so future generations can deal with that eh?

[Bazdavies79]

I understand, that nuclear is not cheaper than renewable, if you take into account all factors, and getting more expensive. So I cautiously disagree. I also disagree on the storage issue, it's difficult and expensive from a technical and planning perspective.

Yes, as previously stated, Dinorwig has a net loss, but is good for spikes. It's about 75% efficient, and pumps water at low demand between 3 and 5am. I don't understand the point about needing to generate more energy?

Renewable should happen, Denmark are aiming for 55% wind energy, they're a country with much lower wind resources than the UK. The problem getting a constant reliable supply. That can be tackled by adopting multiple systems.

[TheDon]

I understand, that nuclear is not cheaper than renewable, if you take into account all factors, and getting more expensive. So I cautiously disagree. I also disagree on the storage issue, it's difficult and expensive from a technical and planning perspective.

Yes, as previously stated, Dinorwig has a net loss, but is good for spikes. It's about 75% efficient, and pumps water at low demand between 3 and 5am. I don't understand the point about needing to generate more energy?

Renewable should happen, Denmark are aiming for 55% wind energy, they're a country with much lower wind resources than the UK. The problem getting a constant reliable supply. That can be tackled by adopting multiple systems.

It is getting more expensive, but comparing subsidy free nuclear to subsidy free renewable is still pretty one sided. It's hard to get a clear picture due to the amount of subsidies being thrown at everything, but it's not just in the costs of generation, as renewable has hidden costs in storage too.

You need to generate more energy because it's a net loss. I don't understand how that is hard to understand? Currently at peak times we just switch on another power plant, with renewable we'd have to turn on a stored supply, which gives you less energy than you put into it. So to handle that 1000Mw spike you get you'll need to have already generated ~1300Mw of energy to pump all that water uphill.

Hence to get rid of our coal and gas we need to generate more power just to get the same level of output.

Denmark can get more of their power from renewable because at peak times they simply buy in power from their neighbours, and when there is excessive generation they export it (often selling it at next to nothing). They aren't storing it, they cope with peak demand by buying power. We don't have the same capacity in HVDC links to do the same, and even if we did it's just moving the requirement for immediate generation from here to somewhere else, which will just use coal or gas to meet the demand anyway.

This is an interesting read when it comes to Denmark's wind energy. Again it shows that without subsidies Denmark wouldn't have wind power.

[peterms]

This is an interesting read when it comes to Denmark's wind energy. Again it shows that without subsidies Denmark wouldn't have wind power.

CEPOS is a right-wing think tank.

Many such have been shown to be funded by the Koch brothers, and similar nut-jobs. In many cases, there has been a direct financial benefit from funding "climate change denial" work.

Pardon me if I take their findings with a quarry full of salt.

The latest from Scotland is that the truly appalling and slimy autocrat Donald Trump has been given the green light to spread lies and nonsense about energy issues. A sad day.