Swiss stand in support of nuclear power

[Technoid]

Originally posted by James_D
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993745

A new pill to protect against radiation sickness is in development. Seems rather interesting.

The US bury their waste in big underground chambers. And its pretty smart, for perhaps some day, you need some of the Isotopes, then you can bring them up to the surface again.


James.

Same thing we are planning to do here In Sweden if we find a place that is suitable and hasn't had a wisit from greenpest

[James_D]

I thought Borsebekk was to be closed soon anyway or was I totally mistaken?

James.

[K6-III]

Originally posted by az
A serious question: If there is only a very small amount of highly radioactive waste, why don't we shoot it into the sun?

Many reasons.

For one, what we consider waste could actually be useful to future generations.

Another reason is that launch vehicles are not presently sufficiently reliable for frequent launches of nuclear waste. On the other hand, a few one-time launches of nuclear reactors for space applications could in fact be a good idea.

Lastly, it takes twice as much delta V to get into the sun then to escape the solar system.

[K6-III]

Originally posted by GuchiGuh
Thats where enineers jump in and find a way to make energy, without all that nuclear splitting...
Eg. Taiwan's island Penghu is currently installing Windmiles imported to germany~ Everyone use renewable energy !! yay

As for wind, I commend it in areas where it makes sense. Only if there is sufficient wind can wind power be considered.

Also, seeing as wind power is an inconsistent power source, it cannot account for more than appx 15% of total energy output, as the Netherlands well realized.

In the case of the United States, the states that stand to benefit the most would be North and South Dakota, Iowa, Montana, and to a smaller extent, Minnesota.

In all these cases, ideal wind sites are far from major population centers, and due to loss of efficiency of power transfer over long distances, it leaves wind power as a viable source only for a few select rural communities.

I'm not arguing against wind. I'm just saying there is no way it'll ever meet all the demand.

As for solar, it is difficult to do at present due to the sheer cost of the solar panels. They never make an economic return during their lifetime that outweighs the initial investment, assuming their is no government program to partially subsidize solar, as is the case in many European countries.

Where solar does make considerable sense is on the moon. At the World Space Congress, a method was demonstrated for an automated robot to make solar cells out of the lunar regolith.

These are terribly inefficient solar panels, but what difference would it make??? They cost you nothing more than the initial cost of the robots that make the panels.

Maximize surface area on two opposite sides of the moon, as to have constant coverage and use massive microwave rectennas to beam back power.

That, nuclear, and Ocean Thermal Energy Converters should well hold us until the age of nuclear fusion (He3-Dt)

[MultimediaMan]

I have a friend who works at San Onofre Nuclear power plant in California. Nice Place. I used to live out there...although the doomsayers were saying a lot of bad things, not one bad thing has happened there.

Chernobyl, is, well Chernobyl. When Soviet Russia screwed up, it usually did with gusto. Nobody in the Western World builds graphite core reactors anymore.

Their Nuclear Navy is/was nothing more than dozens of disasters waiting to happen up until the late 70's/early 80's (and often as not actually occuring).

Strontium 90 in the North Sea? Don't blame the Brits...blame the Russians. They dumped everything from low level wastes, up to and including spent fuelrods and reactor cores for years up there.

The U.S. covertly "Salvaged" a few pieces over the years to look at the progress of Soviet reactor technology - we weren't impressed.

The pressurized water reactors we run here in the U.S. have pretty decent safety, when looked at as a whole - there are individual plants that have poor safety records but no accidents. There are plants with excellent safety records and many accidents. Aside from Three Mile Island, which really didn't amount to anything more than a ruined reactor, there really haven't been too many problems.

There have been 5 fatalities at nuclear powerplants in the U.S. inside the containment unit, all were industrial accidents: none of the deaths resulted from radiation exposure.

What happened in Japan a couple of years ago was outright stupidity. There were cultural pressures that made the practice of ignoring protocols routine - unfortunately, their high production standards ran into mother nature rather forcefully. The subsequent criticality proved fatal to two workers: Nuclear Science can be brutally Darwinian.

Some of the newer reactor designs are quite fail safe, but sadly, they have never been built. The only reactors currently being built here in the US are General Electric and are for military naval vessels.

[K6-III]

As I understand it, some of the newer US designs are being built in Japan.

[Technoid]

Originally posted by James_D
I thought Borsebekk was to be closed soon anyway or was I totally mistaken?

James.

Yeah, "miljöpartiet" (enviromental party) is pissing their pants in joy of it

Instead we are to import coal powered electricity at cutthroat prises

I never fail to understand how they can shose a uncontasined polution into the air instead of a controlled and contained waste that will probably never come out into the nature

Well, they have probably smoked to much grass

[az]

Originally posted by James_D
A new pill to protect against radiation sickness is in development.

Sorry, this is just stupid. Instead of tackling the problem at its root, we fight the symptoms, and introduce even more problems (it WILL have side effects). It's like bringing rabbits to Australia. I'm not saying this doesn't have its uses IF something happens, but we should see to it that nothing happens in the first place

AZ

[Nowhere]

btw az, AFAIK (or remember rather) coal power plants emit to biospher more radioactive material than any modern nuclear power plant would during its lifetime.

[az]

This might well be. I'm not commending coal power plants - they've created far too many problems already, and because of stupid politics they still do.

AZ

[Wombat]

Nowhere is quite right. Tons and tons of radioactive thorium and other nasties, all nicely dispersed into your breathing air.

Give me fission power any day.

[Brian Ellis]

I fully agree with K6-III as far as wind and solar are concerned. Where I live, wind is out of the question as most places have an annual average wind speed of ~ 3 m/s, while it needs 10 m/s to get 50% capacity output. Solar would be ideal, but for the cost. In fact the government is offering a 40% subsidy on capital costs and a buy-back of surplus electricity at 3 x the purchase price. Even so, a typical household rooftop installation will take about 12 years to reach payback, not counting interest on the initial capital outlay. And this is in a country with a supposed 320 days sun/year.

Another renewables possibility is biomass, provided that surround each 1 GW power station by ~200 km2 of land to grow fast-growing timber (at least three species on a 10 year rotation basis) and that you have plenty of natural water supply. These conditions are available in few places. The amount of methane produced by composting green vegetation is not viable as a principal energy source, nor is alcohol from fermenting sugar-rich crops.

It is perfectly true that variable energy sources (solar and wind) should never exceed 15% of the total. The Danes have demonstrated this practically, as they nearly had a major catastrophe when they reached 18% with offshore wind farms. The Danish government have stopped all subsidies for renewable energy as a result.

Much is being said about hydrogen fuel cells, especially for automotive transport. IMHO, this will never take off because of the safety and infrastructure issues. Apart from this, 99% of hydrogen today is produced by cracking fossil fuel natural gas. There is a by-product from the reaction CO2: back to square one! It is possible to produce hydrogen by the electrolysis of water, if you like, the reverse of a fuel cell, but the overall efficiency from the fuel required to produce the electricity to the energy available at the car wheels is only about 10-12%, worse than a petrol engine! Of course, if wind power is used for the electrolysis, then the process could be classed as renewable, but one large (2 MW) windmill could provide enough hydrogen to feed about a dozen cars at world average wind speeds. Divide the number of cars on the road in your country by 12 to see how many windmills you will need and remember each one requires a space of about 200 m x 200 m in a windfarm, whether onshore or offshore.

And who wants a cylinder with 30 kg or so of compressed hydrogen in the back of your car when you are rear-ended? Boooom It would make Palestinian suicide bombers look like amateurs.

[GNEP]

I thought hydrogen burnt with a "squeaky pop"?

[Brian Ellis]

If you put a little bit of zinc in the bottom of a test tube and add some sulfuric acid, presenting the end of the test tube to a flame may produce a "squeaky pop". A test tube will contain, at the most, a milligram or two of H2. This is a far cry from 30 kg. I have seen a 250 ml flask of H2 blow up in our school chemi lab and believe me, that was more than impressive, with probably less than 1/4 g of H2. Happily, no one was hurt worse than a cut or two on cheeks, shock at the detonation, the teacher's waistcoat slashed by a shard and glass in the farthest corners of a largish lab. H2 is no fun when it goes up. The worst scenario I could imagine would be the hydrogen escaping into the passenger compartment of a closed car. The smallest spark and instantaneous kingdom come for all the passengers.

[K6-III]

As far as future fuels for cars go, I've mentioned this before and I'll mention it again: compressed air/nitrogen.