Nuclear power

[stwat]

Even many of the greenies from the 70's/80's are now realising that nuclear power was/is the way forward! If it had been embraced to it's maximum potential, the CO2 gasses released into the atmosphere up to this point would be significantly less than the figures 'predicted' today.

The 'say no to nuclear', save the earth brigade had it massively wrong.


Discuss.

 

[WDB124066]

No I think you're wrong, dangerously wrong. Nuclear Fusion is the way forward.

 

[NDFR]

Nuclear fusion for sure.

However I think we will regret in the future letting foreign companies build our generating capacity.

 

[moonloops]

Definitely fusion, given recent breakthroughs in the USA.

 

[vealige]

Fusion is the way forward and its the only long term solution to sorting out the worlds power issues but until it becomes the norm fission reactors and a mix of other energy supplies will have to fill the gap. A lot of green energy is very inefficient in terms of cost and energy produced however technology is improving as time goes on, it should be law that all new builds are fitted with solar pv or similar to reduce demand on the current infrastructure although that's too much like forward planning or logical thinking for this country....

 

[flango]

Fusion wont happen in our lifetimes, Thorium reactors are the stop gap, Who builds the new breed of reactors has not been determined yet only the finance, theres no way you will ever see Chinese reactors in this Country, The only reactor that didn't fail in Japan was the British designed and built one, our government may be incompetent but fortunately their advisers are world class

 

[Druk]

Someone explain successful 'fusion' to me please. I thought that it was an improbable.

 

[Palfrem]

I remember in the '60s when nuclear power was going to be so plentiful and electricity so cheap we were told they wouldn't bother to meter our domestic use.

When did I fall asleep...

 

[grober]

I honestly feel that its pointless to look back so far because positions adopted by various groups at that time have been overtaken by events. At that time the choice was essentially between Nuclear and fossil fuels. The UK at that time was relatively rich in oil and gas from the North sea so it meant it was a no brainer as to where money for power generation would go whatever the environmental lobby might advocate. Nuclear took a further hit with the cooling of the cold war with the Communist block and Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and disarmament meant that UK developed technology like fast breeder reactors became much less relevant [ part of their design was to produce fissile material suitable for nuclear weapons] Breeder reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Then somewhat out of left field came global warming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now its pointless arguing about the rights and wrongs of the theory in this context except to say European governments including the UK have signed binding treaties to reduce their emissions over the first part of the 21st century meaning a move away from energy production by burning fossil fuels and we are apparently stuck with them. While the green lobby are strong advocates of renewable sources of energy it would appear the only "emission free" developed technology capable of generating reliable "on tap" baseload electricity at present is Nuclear.
Nuclear fusion may indeed be the answer in the future and research continues in the field with JET [ Joint European Torus] but barring a significant breakthrough it remains a distant prospect. Joint European Torus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So were the GREENIES wrong in the 70s and 80's ? well ---- not necessarily because of---- to quote a Conservative prime minister of the 60's Harold Macmillan
Event's dear boy Events

 

[Satch]

Viable Fusion powered generation is still still a long way off: 20-30 years minimum.

Conventional nuclear power is currently the only game in town to provide baseload (the Germans & Japanese are finding that out the hard way) but the things do have a fundamental flaw: all are built on the basis of managed risk and in the worst possible case there is nowhere left to go in engineering terms.

Ask a nuclear engineer what would happen if an Advanced Gas Cooled reactor lost all CO2 and could not be refilled and you will get a vast list of reasons why that is extremely unlikely. That is just as well because the real answer is that it would be very, very ugly indeed, making Fukashima look like picnic.

Thorium reactors are being seriously considered as the alternative to fill the gap, which is ironic because the original designs for the first reactors were based on the Thorium fuel cycle. However since they cannot produce the stuff required for nuclear weapons, got sidelined.

Thorium nuclear reactor trial begins, could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy | ExtremeTech

 

[flango]

India have had a pilot scale thorium reactor running for a while now and in 2016 will start on the full build of a 300 Mwe AHWR based on thorium fuels.

One of the reasons why India will start to become the new China from a natural resource consumption point of view

 

[grober]

India have had a pilot scale thorium reactor running for a while now and in 2016 will start on the full build of a 300 Mwe AHWR based on thorium fuels.

One of the reasons why India will start to become the new China from a natural resource consumption point of view

They evidently also have a large proportion of the world's Thorium deposits---- which is nice.

Reserve estimates

Present knowledge of the distribution of thorium resources is poor because of the relatively low-key exploration efforts arising out of insignificant demand.[62] There are two sets of estimates that define world thorium reserves, one set by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the other supported by reports from the OECD and the International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA). Under the USGS estimate, USA, Australia, and India have particularly large reserves of thorium.
India and Australia are believed to possess about 300,000 tonnes each; i.e. each country possessing 25% of the world's thorium reserves.[63] In the OECD reports, however, estimates of Australia's Reasonably Assured Reserves (RAR) of thorium indicate only 19,000 tonnes and not 300,000 tonnes as indicated by USGS. The two sources vary wildly for countries such as Brazil, Turkey, and Australia, however, both reports appear to show some consistency with respect to India's thorium reserve figures, with 290,000 tonnes (USGS) and 319,000 tonnes (OECD/IAEA).
Both the IAEA and OECD appear to conclude that India may possess the lion's share of world's thorium deposits.
The IAEA's 2005 report estimates India's reasonably assured reserves of thorium at 319,000 tonnes, but mentions recent reports of India's reserves at 650,000 tonnes.[64] A government of India estimate, shared in the country's Parliament in August 2011, puts the recoverable reserve at 846,477 tonnes.[65] The Indian Minister of State V. Narayanasamy stated that as of May 2013, the country's thorium reserves were 11.93 million tonnes, with a significant majority (8.59 Mt; 72%) found in the three eastern coastal states of Andhra Pradesh (3.72 Mt; 31%), Tamil Nadu (2.46 Mt; 21%) and Odisha (2.41 Mt; 20%).[66]