Nuclear Energy yes or no.

I like your style, you appear to have a good grasp of the situation(s), am I asking too much to hope that you are as near as possible to being 100% right, I hope not.

Stay online, we need you!!

Nice post, Ray8. One wonders, if Iran and China become kissing cousins again, whether Iran would export a device to the hinterlands of China, or N. Korea, for testing. There's a couple of shady characters, Iran and N. Korea. When the Seabrook (NH) nuclear station was being built, I took my U Mass college classes thru the plant until they installed the reactor vessel and were ready for fueling. The containment building at Seabrook was designed such that the largest Air Force plane at the SAC base, very near-by, could not penetrate the integrity of the containment in a direct impact. The construction corp. had to use thermite to "weld" the 3-inch diameter re-bars, because they carried the welding heat away so fast that conventional welding didn't work.

Ray8

It is nice to see an informed and articulate poster get the thread back on topic.

Kudos to you.

Thanks Andy Germany, Cardio07 and Ace Boeringa for the kind words!

Not trying to stray from the issue, but Cardio07 brings up the interesting notion that some non-nuclear countries night collude with other "nuclear" countries to farm out testing. Arrangements like these are always possible, but I think the grave potential of Nuclear Bombs will tend to keep most nations fearful enough of each other to opt out.

This interesting twist also demonstrates that there are probably an infinite number of ways for Nations to make War, and that technological expertise in general is racing way ahead of our social abilities. Without belittling them, I tend to divorce these "political" concerns from the issue of Nuclear Power Generation. I see them more as separate, but critically serious problems of an immature Humanity struggling to carry on as the shrinking globe crowds diverse cultures together.

We are both singing from the same page of the hymnbook but we don't need to wait for the sermon to start. Many of the things that you think are in the future are already here.

Here I go on the CANDU again. It will breed fuel from thorium, it will burn sppent fuel from conventional light water reactors, and the loss of moderator/cooling water results in a shut down, not a melt down.

Take a look at Jeremy Whitlock's excellent web site www.nuclearfaq.ca on the CANDU and request the ACR-1000 booklet from Atomic Energy Canada Limited www.aecl.ca, it not only describes the next generation of CANDU technology but compares it with the current generation. It includes lots of pictures. I appologize for the number of times I have included these URL's in this thread but there is much to be said for a technology that already provides what many are waiting for.

Yes to nuclear power. If you want energy for your wife you must put up with nuclear as your mother in law!

It may not be 100% trouble free but what is?

Thanks to mishaps safety etc seems to be improving.

Nuclear power however deserves dedication and research.

Alternatives MUST also be researched and exploited when available.

I am going to go off track a little here, please bear with me for a moment or two:-

We all know that so called "Green Party" politics is against Nuclear energy (as well as many other things), and that they cannot put any thoughts into a proper replacement that would actually work on the scale, in this case, of energy needed.

In Germany, the green party politicians are some of the worst sorts of humanity around, basically because they want to manage to get voted in just once, and then they do not have to work for the rest of their lives as they have then a state pension for ever! Whether they are ever in office again or not!

Some years ago here (early 1980's), the green party representative for the environment, was driving around in a state funded limo with chauffeur, was ranting on about all cars needing to have a catalytic converter (he is right on this point) but his own car was an ancient Lada (Russian built) without the slightest thought for the environment and ecology!!!

I would just like to point out that the color green used to mean in my youth, someone who was still "Wet behind the ears", who didn't have a clue etc etc.. I feel that it still does mean exactly that!!! Green does not mean automatically good!!

Don't forget the old German joke:-" If you have 100 members of the green party and 100 lawyers all lying dead, chained together at the bottom of the sea, what is that?"

The answer being " a damn good start!"

I am not really that radical, I just like the joke!

So that ends my complaints about some members of the green party here, sorry about that. I know that green party members in other countries do not have such aims or such a gravy train either......they are just honest, mostly misguided politicians.

One point that many of the contributers have missed is the economic aspect - for nuclear, vast investment must be made up-front, with any financial benefit coming many years later.

In Scotland, 5 major power stations supply more than enough electricity for Scottish needs - when they are all operating. The removal of one station for any reason is acceptable, but when 2 are down, there is a risk of blackouts. We only survived last winter due to the mild weather.

For our requirements, more and smaller is better, thus excluding nuclear from the feasable options.

Can all US States produce their own nuclear power? Or will the landlocked states have to find alternatives/ buy from their neighbours?

Aren't Scotland, England, and Wales all interconnected on a common grid?

If they are interconnected then large power plants are a very real option. You would have the number of plants that are required in the case of plant failures or plants taken out of production due to routine maintenance. There would also be buying and selling of power among the different companies involved.

Nuclear solutions need not be automatically ruled out for Scotland if you are on a big enough grid. Common sense would indicate that you should be for purposes of load sharing recovery from failures without black or brown outs.

You could also consider the CANDU ACR-1000 which will come in a version with two independent plants on one plot of ground. For more information on the CANDU systems look at www.nuclearfaq.ca and send an e-mail to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and request a copy of the ACR-1000 literature which consists of a 40 page document comparing current and future generations of CANDU power plants. CANDU's are currently operating in Canada, Argentina, Romania, Korea, India, and China.

The CANDU is the best thing to come out of the colonies since the beaver pelt and maple syrup. Take a look at the web site and request the brochure, I sure that you will find it to be as educational as I did. For the record I live in the Canadian province of Alberta, also known as Saudi Arabia North because of our vast fossil fuel reserves. I personally believe that we should be using nuclear power to refine petroleum products and to extract them from the oil sands.

Yes, The_curious_one, they are connected, but the majority of demand is in the highly populated SE of England so the losses over 500-800miles are significant - even the nuclear power companies have said they would prefer a SE England location. map

It does make sense to generate the pwer where the demand is highest. In Canada we take long distance grids as a matter of course. Hydro-power generated in Northern Quebec and Labrador is exported to the North Easter United States.

The Alberta Power Grid is conected to the Grids of Saskatchewan and British Columbia on both sides and plans are to cross the US Border into Montana. I think that it is only a matter of time until we see a fully integrated North American grid including Canada and the United States.

Talk to AECL or The "Canadians"

They have nuclear reactor and system design sorted out evolving from the CANDU system.

Recent reactors include Darlington and Bruce with a revamp of Pickering.

They use heavy water as the moderator.

As far as an alternative future source of power, I believe it to be viable but also feel that wind, hydro and solr should be ranked above it.

We must eliminate coal and gas fired. It is way too hard on the environment.

Here is another look at nuclear power, have a peek at this and say what you think. This is nuclear power on a much smaller scale http://www.atomicinsights.com/AI_03-20-05.html

Very interesting project.

That certainly looks like it has some good promise. And, as with any promising energy technology, some significant technical hurdles.

I looked a little more into liquid metal cooled reactors. The wiki sites summarize the technology's history well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_cooled_reactor ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_cooled_fast_reactor). Both the US and Soviets had subs powered by liquid metal cooled reactors in by the 60s.

(I don't think I've posted a single link that wasn't wikipedia - I feel like some kind of wikiwhore, but it's usually great for summarizing and providing links to 'real' resources.)

Yes I am in favour of nuclear power. I see that the point of increasing the system capacity and storage was raised. The following is copy from a Queensland Electrical education site.

Some new hydroelectric projects are the pumped storage type, for example the Wivenhoe Dam in Queensland. This type of power station stores the water that has passed through it in a dam below the station. During off-peak times this water is pumped back to a storage dam above the power station, using power from fossil fuel power stations. In some countries nuclear power is used for off-peak pumping. The use of pumped storage increases the peak power generation capacity of the power station. This increase is not renewable energy because the pumps use non-renewable energy to raise the water. However, pumped storage allows excess electrical energy to be stored as the potential energy of water raised to the height of the storage dam.

Hope you find it interesting.

_____________________________________________________________________

retired: Marine engineer, power plant controler, methods and plant engineer.

Ho! and grandfather.

Hi, All

Interesting link http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/the-convenient-solution-20070718

REgard's