nuclear thoughts

[pagan prospector]

I was having a discussion with the family the other night about the high cost of electricity. My dad aged 85 reckons the only way is nuclear my sister 61 says no nuclear ever solar is the only possible future but cant give an environmentally friendly base load power. I see the future in free solar but we are yet to get an environmentally sound solar generation system so i decided to you tube the question "advances in nuclear".
The answer i got blew my socks off a "Thorium molten salt reactor" would be walk away safe, could turn 20 tonnes of nuclear waste per year into 3 kilos of waste that you only have to contain for 300 years rather than 10-30thousand years and the list goes on. i then googled and found lots of info about using thorium in normal reactors and the answer seems cos it negates the new technology.
So i put this on the forum to gauge whether my reaction is just wishful thinking or do you people think there is a strong contender for environmentally sound power
Pagan P

 

[Occasional_panner]

I very much doubt there is anyone remotely qualified to answer that question here.

Not too many nuclear physicists hang out here that I'm aware of.

And once again I can't actually say why it has no hope of ever happening here even if it was sensible, because political conversations are not allowed here.

 

[Magilla]

Everyone wants environmentally sound, cheap renewable energy, except those that have all their money invested in oil, coal and the machinery that runs off them.

 

[pagan prospector]

I very much doubt there is anyone remotely qualified to answer that question here.

Not too many nuclear physicists hang out here that I'm aware of.

And once again I can't actually say why it has no hope of ever happening here even if it was sensible, because political conversations are not allowed here.

Yes I realise that there may not be nuclear physisists on this forum but i believe that most members here are reasonable individuals who have an idea at grass roots level of what is going on in the world this post was never meant to be political but was meant to be thought provoking as this issue has definitely been for me if it does go south mods please just delete
Pagan P

 

[Ded Driver]

staying away from the politics of it, I work for a company that has a heavy involvement with nuclear power throughout Europe.
Solar power is not as 'green' as some groups would have you think, due to the environmental foortprint in digging up the silica sand & other materials required, & then the smelting process & the huge amount of electricity used, & that's just the start of the process. Uranium mining & refining isn't much better in this regard, but once built, it provides a steady base load power source for a long time.
A reality here is that Australia has political stability (oops dirty word) & geological stability that is conducive to hosting a nuclear power plant.
The biggest issue is justifying the capital cost to build it for a relatively low population, especially in WA.
I also see a future in recycling radioactive waste. Todays waste could be tomorrow's fuel or other useage (a fair way forward in time maybe).
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Im not actively supporting it, but Im not discounting it as a future industry either.
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ok, you can chuck rocks at me now

 

[madtuna]

What about that thing Ironman has on his chest? Surely something that small couldn't be too expensive?
One of them on your roof wouldn't look as ugly as a stack of solar panels :Y:

 

[Rockhunter62]

I'll vote yes to nuclear power plant and stuff the environmentalists. :Y: :Y: :Y:

Cheers

Doug

 

[Goldtarget]

Nuclear only has two drawbacks. Waste and worst case scenarios.

Ill sleep a little better is we stay nuclear free personally. Sure we can argue that Chernobyl or Fukishima wont happen here, but if is does...

Watched a netflix program called dark tourist where they went to Japan in the disaster zone, and another doco on Chernobyl, once the cat out of the bag you cant stuff it back in. The orphanages in this area makes me vote with my feet.Truly eye popping, not to mention just inhaling some of that dust is like instant cancer. *Shudders*

Im not against progress just the adult in me says we can do better. Nothing in the upside weighs up against that downside.

 

[Mr Magoo]

I think the reduction in overall pollution and there fore health benefits using nuclear is immense with some countries having targets of removing the sale of new fossil fuel vehicles off the road over the next twenty years or so, although I suspect the final result will be a compromise.
Also the cost is relatively cheap compared to coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

One thing that did surprise me on my visit to the Scotland last year was the number of wind turbines in the incredible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in_the_United_Kingdom
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I also see a future in recycling radioactive waste. Today's waste could be tomorrow's fuel or other usage (a fair way forward in time maybe).

You're probably right in the long term. This was a prediction the UK made many years ago and asked other nuclear waste producing countries to sign an agreement where they would promise to send the UK their waste which the UK could reprocess. Unfortunately Uranium became more freely available and the UK has ended up as an expensive nuclear waste storage garbage can.

Nuclear gets my vote also. Fantastic stuff. erfect:

 

[Mr Magoo]

Ill sleep a little better is we stay nuclear free personally. Sure we can argue that Chernobyl or Fukishima wont happen here, but if is does...

That is one of my reasons for supporting nuclear. We could also argue weather human induced global warming through CO2 production is true or not. It may not be but what if it is?

 

[jethro]

I think Australia will continue to go down the road that it has in the last 50 yrs. Being the supplier of raw materials to those brave enough to develop and apply the technology that will power our lives. Then when things get really tight we will allow foreign companies to come in and set up power generation plants and use our raw materials to make huge profits off us.
Im not anti nuclear but I think that private enterprise should not be the controlling entity on anything that requires a high level of safety and maintenance to negate public risk. Private companies are always looking to improve their margins and this inevitably leads to cost cutting in areas that really shouldnt be tampered with. I read a book on all the nuclear plant near misses some yrs ago, and the underlieing cause of all nuclear power generation accidents up to Chernobul was letting bean counters overlord the scientists.

Id rather see development in wave hydo generation as a base load alternative.

 

[Theduke]

Theres enough power sources that are environmentally friendly that we shouldnt need to go down that path. Wave, wind, hydro and solar should be where our future investments should be focused

 

[Manpa]

There are over 510 nuclear power plants currently in operation around the world, Chernobyl and Fukishima were relatively old technologies. As we move from fossil type fuels we need to explore nuclear in this country, we have high grade uranium and the advantage of the latest available technology combined with a relatively geological stable land mass.
Unless we can come up up with stable base power alternatives I think it will be inevitable, may be not in my lifetime though.

 

[pagan prospector]

Ok the technology i am talking about has been canned for 40 odd years due to many reasons all seem to be due to the existing nuclear industry but it is walk away safe ie no melt down issues the system operates on a high temperature low pressure basis as in the molten salt it can recycle current nuclear waste.

It can be built in a factory instead of onsite. it doesn't require vast amounts of water for cooling.If there is a failure in the system the molten salt is dumped into a containment tank and the process stops as it cools over a few days. they are saying the cost to build would be less than a coal fired station

These are the things that have gotten to me also watched a program by Michael Shellenberger an environmental activist on nuclear very interesting

Pagan P

 

[davent]

.....just thought of a huge benefit if you worked in a nuke power station in Australia, you could name your price as an employee......just threaten to strike, and worry about who's Manning the station while the employees are out on strike.

 

[LONEWOLF]

Japan was reliant on Nuclear Power till the Tsunami.... Now they are returning back to Coal fired energy.... The new generation of coal fired power stations are far more efficient than they were 20yrs ago....

As for Nuclear Powered Stations.... NOT IN MY BACKYARD...

LW....

 

[Greenhornet_au]

I vote YES for Nuclear, as long as it is on the Great Barrier Reef, keep that Coral glowing at night, increased tourism, night diving and unique fish species...

cheap power for QLD.

erfect:

 

[Goldfreak]

I vote YES for Nuclear, as long as it is on the Great Barrier Reef, keep that Coral glowing at night, increased tourism, night diving and unique fish species...

cheap power for QLD.

erfect:

Need to also blast a 50 km hole through the reef too so we can go surfing in cairns. I Like the idea of surfing in warm water. It would also allow the oil tankers and coal ships too pass through more easily.

 

[Ramjet]

Two words.... Chernobyl, Fukushima!

It's a NO from me.

 

[SWright]

I have worked in this area recently. As for Thorium power plants several countries are researching it. India in particular as they have have large resources of thorium for which there is little current use. So do we and it's all put back in the ground when its main products are extracted. All comes from minerals sands mines for titanium, zircon and rutile. We have a research agreement with India on this. problem is it currently needs fission power to get the reaction going. Sort of defeats the purpose. as for fission power there are much more advanced reactors that can reuse its wastes but they are expensive. The Russians and Chinese are currently using much more advanced systems but good luck trying to get those here. The holy grail will be fusion reactors. These potentially have no waste products but even though there is a lot of research going on we cannot as yet get more power out of it than is required to run the stuff. Containment of the reaction is also very difficult and the materials engineering science for than has not been developed. it will be many decades before we get there.

Regardless what the Greenies say we are going to be stuck with coal and gas for some time yet.

Araluen