The 2012 London Olympic Games could be hit by electricity blackouts as energy supplies fall off, according to a poll of scientists and other eminent folk in this story by the BBC. Well, pole vaulting and javelin throwing have not been done in the dark before, but I guess it might have a certain novelty.
Seriously though, how should one take these jeremiads about impending shortages to electricity generation? This excerpt from the BBC story makes it clear that many analysts believe that solutions must embrace technologies including nuclear power:
All 140 respondents to the survey said that the best way to ensure energy security for the future lay in a diversified mix of electricity generation, including renewables, coal, gas and nuclear
This story of a few days ago suggests the opposition Tories might, in their quixotic desire to appear Green, ditch the nuclear option. This seems rather ironic given that some figures in the environmentalist movement have started to embrace nuclear energy as a way to cut carbon emissions (while not being blind to the problems of nuclear waste disposal and the large capital outlays involved in building nuclear powers stations).
I am an agnostic on nuke energy. If it can, in a free market, hold its own compared with other energy sources, fine. But given the vital importance of electricity to our modern, information-age economy, it is madness to tempt disaster by shutting down options now.
Did any of these savants mention letting the price rise?
Axel, I don’t know but somehow I doubt it. Good point to make, of course.
A great deal of energy gets used putting planes in the air and cars on the road; much of this could be used instead to create electricity. It is not just how much we use, it’s what it’s used to do.
Oh, god, sudden electricity outages during the Olympic Games! If it happens, I am going to take it as irrefutable evidence that there is indeed a diety – and one with a cracking sense of humour, at that.
I’m far more concerned about having no electricity at home than a few athletes don’t have floodlights!
Nuclear is getting cleaner all the time and there’s no real argument against it now except economics.
Nuclear Power… YES!
Is there even an economic argument against it? The way I understand it, nuke is cheaper anyway. The only real hurdles are two: (1) HUGE capital outlay required to get the ball rolling and (2) no profit in proper disposal (OK, I admit, that’s not a proper economic argument, but it has been used to effectively shut down discussion of fully private nuclear plants so is obliquely related).
No, not at all. The outlays are not that huge, as shown on tonight’s Newsnight (available within 24 hours online), where a private consortium is buying one of the new EWR (European Water Reactor) systems in Finland. Both the EWR and its LWR (Light Water Reactor) cousin are very cheap to buy (less than US$1.3Bn turnkey), generate 1000 MWe (megawatt electrical), have a fast construction and test period and can be interred for safety or aesthetic reasons.
One of those small stations could be neatly placed at Stratford and supply both the Olympic village and a goodly section of the Docklands and East London with power. Of course with Livingstone in office that ain’t going to happen.
There are no technical problems with building, operating, and decommissioning nuclear power plants. It’s a very old technology, and modern digital control and protection systems are more than adequate for efficiency and safety.
The problems with nuclear are political, pure and simple. The word nuclear itself gives rise in most people’s minds to visions of mushroom clouds. The luddite left exploits the public’s fear of the unknown to throw up as many bureaucratic obstacles as possible, greatly increasing the cost of construction and operation.
Still, a reasonably well-run nuclear plant provides a great deal of electricity at capacity factors above 95%, at less than US$ .02 per kilowatt-hour. Currently in the U.S., it’s the cheapest power available, less than coal by about a mil.
Economically, nuclear works just fine, if it didn’t draw so much nutter opposition.
F
Rock and a hard place…. a bunch of blazers and their chemically-enhanced protégés deprived of limelight? The BBC cast into darkness?
What could be wrong with that?
As a compromise, how about turning the key on the first new nuke, the day after the corrupt yawnathon has folded its tents and slunk off to vampirise some other city?
Personally, I’m more worried about people who invest their emotional energy in sport than I am about nuclear powerplants.
I might be sounding a bit naive here, but isn’t there a security argument against nuclear as well?
I don’t just mean in the current climate of paranoia, where the Government is foiling a plot to RPG Sizewell B every other week, but in the long term as well.
With non-nuclear energy production, it seems that despite our unwillingness to control it, we can still predict its effects on future generations. With nuclear, it seems much harder to do that, because it is a political football. How can we guarantee the safe storage of high-level nuclear waste in the future? I understand just how little of it there is, but I also understand how harmful it could potentially be as well.
I’m not sure I want to be leaving future generations such a nasty inheritance, particularly when it is entirely possible that their political climate is much more heated than it is today.
*Runs for cover from the impending flames*
The security argument against nuclear power looks weaker by the day — that’s because China, Russia, India, Pakistan and a whole bunch of other countries are already building nuclear power plants at a great rate. Something like 56 countries currently have nuclear reactors for power and “research”.
From a security point of view, the horse is already out of the barn. The hand-wringing western liberal is officially obsolete. The only practical option is to start designing & building the kind of nuclear plant that we would like North Korea & Iran to have — and selling those plants to them at a price they are happy to pay.
Rock and a hard place…. a bunch of blazers and their chemically-enhanced protégés deprived of limelight? The BBC cast into darkness?
What could be wrong with that?
Gosh, GCooper, I’d have to think long and hard ….
GCooper says: As a compromise, how about turning the key on the first new nuke, the day after the corrupt yawnathon has folded its tents and slunk off to vampirise some other city?
This, I don’t understand. Why the day after? Why not the day before? I don’t understand your reasoning here.
If the first nuke went – tragically – wrong, we would be spared long-jumpers, short-jumpers, pole vaulters, foolish adolescents on gym “horses” who have been persuaded that pointing your toes and doing sudden summersaults is a better career than doing media studies.
“High-level” nuclear waste? I take that to be spent fuel rods and other materials that emit radiation?
Well, if they can get the Space Elevator concepts working, we could always just chuck the debris into the Sun. I doubt there is enough radiation coming out of the material to effect the Sun in any manner.
Or it could be entombed somewhere nice and deep, like the Marianas trench. I would be surprised if future generations would be living down there.
If it can, in a free market, hold its own compared with other energy sources, fine
There has never been a free-market in nuclear energy. It has always been a state-enterprise from get go. The capital intensive nature of plants to date is not a function of the technology itself but of the top-down, bigger is better mentality that dominated the middle-half of the 20th century. When we look at the problems of nuclear power, we are actually looking at the problems of socialism in general.
The real question is how to reset the legal and political environment to make it possible for a real free-market in nuclear power to operate. At present, I really have no idea how to go about doing that.
James,
I’m not sure I want to be leaving future generations such a nasty inheritance, particularly when it is entirely possible that their political climate is much more heated than it is today.
The nasty inheritance has already been laid down. In fact, there were megatons of radioactive waste piled up by the 1945. We use radioactive materials for a wide variety of uses besides power generation and all those materials must be dealt with as well. Adding small amounts of waste from power generation won’t cause much additional burden.
Besides, not using nuclear power also leaves our dependents with issue. If greenhouse gasses are actually a problem then leaving large amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere would be much worse than a physically small pile of radioactive waste. Or alternatively, we could forgo energy use and leave our decedents materially poor. What’s worse, a small chance that a small number of people will get radiation poisoning or the near certainty that you won’t have access to advanced medicines and other energy intensive life saving technologies?
I would hate to think that someone would have aborted the industrial revolution circa 1800 because they worried that their decedents in the 21st century couldn’t deal with huge piles of coal slag.
Michael Crichton has an interesting speech posted on his site from November 6, 2005, where he claims that the total deaths known from Chernobyl – the worst imaginable nuclear accident with the most incompetent and stupid handling of the most fragile and vulnerable nuclear technology imaginable – are 56. Not 2000 or 10,000 or 1,000,000. Just 56. So, in truth, nuclear is MUCH safer than any other means of producing electricity. PR is the only problem. And finding rational human beings to aim the PR at.
Shannon Love – Thanks for such an intelligent and informed post.
How do we dismantle the edifice, brick by brick, of leftist thinking over the last 100 years?
Can we do it? Their plan was to embed it. They have done this. It took them a hundred years, but they’ve done it. (Why, by the way?)
“How do we dismantle the edifice, brick by brick, of leftist thinking over the last 100 years?”
THAT is the most pertinent question of our time.
I’d prefer a 10 pound sledge. Up close and personal. But that’s just me.
F
I imagine that the story has already engaged the attention of a Cabinet Office working party, which is currently working out how best to cut off power to ‘inessential’ population while ensuring bright lighting for Olympic venues, Olympic broadcast facilities, government offices, and the districts of London that will be accomodating any foreign VIPs.
Several years ago I heard a lecture by a Stanford physicist who said the best place to put nuclear waste is in the ocean right above a subduction fault. The natural movement of the earth’s plates would take the waste deep into the earth and it would not come to the surface for a million years or so. Then of course the radiaoactivity would be totally dissipated.
The lecture also persuaded me to buy uranium stocks, a very worthwhile couple of hours spent on a Saturday.night
Surely the Olympics will be touted as solving the energy crisis. All that extra methane due to tourists and the athlete’s entourage can be burned off as energy. Then there is the athletes.
3 words:
Giant Hamster Wheels
Michael Crichton has an interesting speech posted on his site from November 6, 2005, where he claims that the total deaths known from Chernobyl – the worst imaginable nuclear accident with the most incompetent and stupid handling of the most fragile and vulnerable nuclear technology imaginable – are 56. Not 2000 or 10,000 or 1,000,000. Just 56. So, in truth, nuclear is MUCH safer than any other means of producing electricity. PR is the only problem. And finding rational human beings to aim the PR at.
-Robert Speirs
Mm.
Speaking as someone who generally considers Official Soviet Statistics to be risible, I strongly suggest being highly skeptical of that one in particular.
The Soviets would not have evacuated and abandoned an entire city without a good reason, and the measures taken to minimize the casualties must be taken into account along with the body count.
With that said, I have no particular objection to nuclear power as such, and detect more than a whiff of 1960s vintage ‘no nukes’ lefty radicalism in the current batch of anti-nuclear propaganda… but I am very much of the opinion that if we use this technology, the people running the plants must be competent. Furthermore, it would not be a bad thing if the plants themselves were located as far out in the boonies as possible- I would prefer to pay a slightly higher charge on account of reduced efficiency of transmission than run the (admittedly minor) risk of losing all of my property in the event of a catastrophic failure.
Shannon Love makes the correct point about nuclear energy. Whatever your views about nuclear waste, the fact is that a new generation of nuclear power stations would produce very little waste compared to that which already exists – such have been the advances in nuclear technology. And it may be cheaper and easier to deal with the consequences of nuclear waste disposal than of the environmental consequences of other methods of energy generation. Mining subsidence, for example, has cost us in the UK billions.
Like Johnathon, I am agnostic about nuclear energy. The economic and ‘national security’ considerations in favour or against it compared to other energy sources (or conservation) are incredibly hard to estimate for the very simple reason that we are talking about very long term decisions based on all sorts of variables and assumptions that really can’t be forecast with any confidence of accuracy (who forecast that gas prices would rise so fast this year – so try making 20 year estimates of relative costs of energy sources). This is true regardless of whether you advocate a free market or a regulated market or a government planned system (that’s not to say that I regard these systems to be of equal merit, before anyone flames me)
As for the safety/terrorist argument against nuclear – some would argue that the more diverse the energy sources the less likely of wars and other conflicts over energy supplies from just a small number of (possible unstable) areas of the world.
One more thing about nuclear energy and waste – it attracts very emotional responses. There is a fear of ‘radiation’ without much understanding of the real risks of the dangers and exposure to different types of radiation. You will be exposed to rather less nuclear radiation living next door to Sellafield than if you live in Cornwall (where the granite rock contains uranium), eat Brazil nuts (the world’s most radioactive food) or live anywhere near a coal fired power station (there is uranium and thorium in coal some of which goes into the atmosphere when coal is burned). Even this is not to say that the risk of living near a coal power station in Cornwall whilst living on a brazil nut diet is particularly high compared to other hazards you face daily.
The fact is that if you are burying the waste deep enough down in bedrock what is the worst that will happen? An earthquake that pushes a number of concrete and glass encased drums toward the surface? We’re not talking about some 1980’s Greenpeace notion of rusting oil drums lying scattered around in a disused mine, like something out of an episode of The New Statesman, but about secure, glass-encased, very large containers of compacted waste containing anything from used tissues to the lead fuel rod wrappers. Those containers are then placed into a deep concrete vault (average 500 yards depth in bedrock) which is then sealed off. As for the actual spent fuel rods themselves very little residue is ‘waste’ per se. After the extraction of enrichened Uranium 235, 238 and Plutonium 239 there isn’t much radioactivity left over – the dissolved remnant either gets reprocessed for various weapons or industrial purposes and the final small amounts of HNO3 and UO3 waste get encased and buried.
As is so often the case in that particular industry the French are way ahead of the rest of us on disposal; their plant at La Hague is a model of reprocessing, unlike the UK THORP which sadly suffers from being surrounded by political naivety and ignorance at the highest office. It has been suggested that the France see reprocessing as ecologically sound, economical and profitable and as demonstrating scientific leadership on a world stage, although I do notice that the La Hague site is situated as close the UK as it can be without being in a populated area …
I think not being able to be bombared with the bloody Olympics is a good thing.
I am not a scientist, but I think it is a mistake to just show contempt for the judgments of the vast majority of scientists in a given field of research.
For example, the Cato institute regularly pretends that there is no problem with C02 emissions.
This just makes us (libertarians) look either silly or dishonest. It helps the leftists convince the public that free market people are either fools or in the pay of the corporations.
There is no need for this. For example, “free” (i.e. tax and government borrowing financed) roads are no part of the free market (as the rather unfairly remembered President Warren Harding pointed out in reply to Henry Ford’s demands for the feds to subsidize more road building) – and without the vast network of “free” roads car and truck use would not have grown as it has done over the last century.
Also President Carter’s ban on fast breeder reactors (as James Lovelock points out in “Gaia’s Revenge” the Three Mile Island accident was absurdly exagerated by the antiatomic power people – not that Three Mile Island had anything to do with fast breeder work anyway).
As so often in the United States (and so much else of the modern world) the government people can not make up their minds if they want a vast web of regulations or tort law (being sued in court) to govern the atomic power industry – so they have both.
The costs of either regulations (which do not make power stations more safe – if anything they make them less safe, by mandating certain forms of design, as well as more expensive to run) or tort law could be accepted by the power companies – but BOTH do make atomic power expensive.
In the long run fusion power will replace fission power as the main way of generating power – but this is not the long run.
Over the next few years a large number of atomic power plants will be needed. They may be new designs of plants (for example scientists are working on new ideas to provide the same advantages of a fast breeder reactor without being a fast breeder reactor).
As James Lovelock, David Bellamy and other real environmentalists (as opposed to rent-a-mob “Greens”) have pointed out again and again, “wind farms” and other forms of “natural” energy are not real alternatives for producing the bulk of electricity needs (and even if one has hydrogen powered cars and trucks, one still needs power to “crack” the raw material to get hydrogen – and visions of solar cells cracking sea water to gain hydrogen and to provide electricity just do not add up to the bulk of power needed).
There is a hidden agenga on the part of the Greens.
They know perfectly well that solar, water and wind power can not provide enough energy to sustain modern civilization – but they do not want this civilization to be sustained (remember their horror when it was thought that “cold fusion” had been discovered – it is not pollution they oppose, cold fusion would have dealt with that, it is industrial civilization they hate).
The reason that their former hero James Lovelock (and others) do not support them is because they (Lovelock ant others) understand that with a population of sixty million a more “natural” society would mean mass death in Britian (only a small minority of the population could be sustained in a pre industrial civilization), and Lovelock and others reject a policy of mass death (I am not saying that James Lovelock and others would not welcome a smaller population, but a policy of radical population reduction over a few years is not acceptable to them).
The Greens also welcome the position of the Cato Institute style libertarians – “there is no problem with C02 emissions”.
This enables them not only to discredit us in other debates, but it enables them to prevent development of atomic power till it is too late.
Their hope is that widespread climate change (rising sea levels and so on) will help them stir up a popular crusade against industrial civilization – i.e. that people will so horrified that they will accept the full Green agenda (without understanding what it means for most of the population).
It is still not too late for atomic power (in its various forms) to prevent massive climate change (it is too late to prevent some problems), and thus head off the whole radical population reduction Green agenda (hard though it may be to believe, the sort of attitudes depicted by T.C. in “Rainbow Six” are quite common amongst the Greens).
However, if we continue to pretend that there is no problem, then they will continue to pretend to be shocked and upset by us in public – whilst robbing their hands together with glee in private.
“Economically, nuclear works just fine, if it didn’t draw so much nutter opposition.”
You must understand those nutters. They don’t oppose only nuclear plants. They oppose also coal burning plants, oil burning, refineries, new factories – just about anything. No point in debating the alternative methods of energy production – they oppose energy, all energy.
They oppose economic developement, human wellbeing, prosperity, a raise in standards of living. You see – it’s “unsustainable”.
Energy generation is a political-ideological issue, not a technical or economic issue.
Lamentably the nutters are not a fringe group – they are the rulers in most countries. And some of the oposition (Tories) are no better. We need to worry about a new Dark Age, not about dark Olympics.
Alice,
you are 100% dead wrong. The Ayatollah and the Dear Leader don’t want nuke plants for electricity. They want nuclear technology to make bombs so that they become invulnerable to friend Saddam’s fate. Frankly, I wouldn’t sell the Iranians a box of matches.
“For example, the Cato institute regularly pretends that there is no problem with C02 emissions.”
Maybe there is some problem with the CO2, but surely it is far less catastrophic than the greens depict it. And the remedies they put forward are far, far worse than the problem.
We do not live in an ideal world where there are no problems, or satisfactory solutions to every problem.
The green’s catastrophe mongering is the worst environmental problem we face.
“…to prevent massive climate change …”
Do you beleive this is happening ? That the 0.6 deg (celsius) of temperature raise in the last century is “massive climate change” ? I don’t.
Jacob,
You’ve hit the nail on the head. There is a very strong feeling amongst a large luddite group that technology is the problem. As someone with a MSc in Astrophysics I tend to see technology as the solution. One of the problems these people have is a naive tendancy to be risk averse.
They think because nuclear power or jet engines have killed people they must be bad and therefore banned. They don’t see the upside. Some of these people are “honestly misguided” but others are total gits. I don’t want the likes of Blandplay’s Chris Martin telling me that I’m too rich and use too much energy and I ought to share this with Africa and we can all walk off into the sunset in a scene from a 70s Coke advert.
And just don’t get me started on the Prince of Wales, our future defender of faith. As far as I’m concerned the future King of England ought to make Santa Claus himself vomit with rage.
Apologies to Krusty the Clown.
And Gwyneth Paltry (sic) is the poor man’s Cate Blanchett. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it Martin.
By 2012 we will probably be living in an Islamic state, the UK Taliban will have outlawed most (if not all) electrical devices, we will be living in the 7th Century. We will not need electricity at all, other than a small amount for the torture of raped women, apostates, suspected bacon eaters etc.. This small amount can easily be supplied by existing renewable sources, i.e. by burning jews, churches, bibles and flags.
Problem solved!
How much CO2 does a Danish flag emit on burning?
I think some people have misunderstood the underlying question in my post (in typical knee-jerk fashion).
I’m not taking sides on the nuclear issue, because nobody seems to be able to answer my questions:
1) Can you guarantee that the waste storage facilities that we have access to and use will be safe, secure an inaccessible for the period required for materials to be considered safe?
2) Are the alternative storage ideas supposedly guaranteeing safe, secure and inaccessible storage/ disposal realistically possible in our lifetime or are they the stuff of fantasy?
3) Why is it that many people on here only want to consider the nuclear option and proscribe that it is the only viable option?
Guarantee against what though? Against a single 50k warhead groundburst detonation, yes – 500 yards depth would be sufficiently deep even though the surface would by then be heavily contaminated. If we are talking half-life radiation then I would presume that the current storage facilites at Sellafield and La Hague and (from this year) in the USA were built to take into account both security and the probability that in the future the technology will exist to deal with the disposal problem. Unless of course we are reduced to a global state of Dhimmitude, in which case if all that nuclear waste blows up then we can just say “Ins’Allah” and go back to beating our wives and goats some more.
Jacob – Excellent point.
James – 1) Yes. 2) Realistically possible in our lifetime.
3) Because it makes sense. Feel better now?
James,
First, nukes are the only generally available option for The West. Iceland has geothermal to spare, some countrys have plenty of hydro capacity. This is all useful and should be exploited. It’s a disgrace that the UK hasn’t built the Severn tidal barrier which was first mooted in the 30s and hasn’t been built over concerns about it’s negative effect “on the habitats of wading birds”. Whatever.
The point is that all of the alternatives to nuke power are usually located in the wrong place or are not reliable come rain, hurricane or shine. Nuke plants are feasible. The idea of running a 1st world economy on windmills is, frankly, bonkers.
Right, downside to a massive nuke plant program. The waste needs to be stored/disposed of. There is a cost to this. My point is we have to bite this bullet because the alternative is that my girlfriend would have to be running in a hamster wheel while I post on Samizdata. Nuke waste is not pleasant, but it’s not that bad and the alternative (the juice running out) is unthinkably awful. Australia has offered the world geologically stable disposal sites in the Outback (near enough the middle of nowhere). Stick the fuel rods etc. there.
OK, two more interesting points. The biggest, commonest radiological risk most people experience is a flight in a thin skinned plane at high altitude. Flight attendants experience more of a radiological risk than nuke workers. For obscure reasons of geology, small (i.e. uneconomically exploitable) deposits of U235 are found alongside coal. Coal burning stations put more radioactivity into the atmosphere than nuke plants.
10 grams of Uranium and Plutonium being converted to energy ended World War II. The physics is beautiful, the effect iconic. What is there not to like? I’ve stood on the reactor plate at Calder Hall and the future isn’t now, it’s back in the 50s.
Ideas of sending the waste into space are Category A Mentalist. It would be phenomenally expensive and it would be really fun if the rocket exploded in the atmosphere spreading radioactive waste across a very large area.
I’m also a physics graduate and it would be “jobs for the boys”.
James:
No. Ask an engineer to guarantee whether the bridge s/he designed that you drive over to get to and from work five days a week will serve its purpose until we don’t need it any more. They won’t. They’ll give you a probability of failure. Our infrastructure is an intricate and intertwining web of risk. Very occasionally, your unlucky number comes up. Overwhelmingly, you’ll find that it doesn’t. If you demand zero risk (which many environmentalists do), literally nothing will be created. This is probably what the environmentalists want.
I don’t know. Ask an expert in the field. Are you one?
Because it seems to encompass the requirements and concerns of all camps, bar the environmentalists’ irrational objection to it. Perhaps you’d like to inform us of the alternatives you’ve unearthed?
Ideas of sending the waste into space are Category A Mentalist. It would be phenomenally expensive and it would be really fun if the rocket exploded in the atmosphere spreading radioactive waste across a very large area.
Bah. We do all kinds of phenomenally expensive crap all the time, and I’m getting to the point of thinking it’d be worth it if it would shut up the greenies.
I’m fairly sure that engineers could design a casing that could survive a launch failure- we’re talking about a chunk of radioactive metal here, not the raw egg used of high school physics/engineering experiments.
I am in favour of nuclear power due to what I see as the inescapable fact that, without it, the UK will not be able to generate all its energy domestically and thus be beholden to outside events, be they temptation for warmongering or being ‘mongered against.
The UK MUST move rapidly to being self-sufficient in energy IMHO. I do predict that in the next 10-15 years we will not require fossil hydrocarbons to power any of our vehicles if the battery advances now coming on stream via nanotech lithium and even lead-acid come to fruition.
To me the challenge is to increase dramatically the electriciy trunking into cities and provide the charging infrastructure so that electric vehicles can be replenished.
Well, thanks to Nick M for the most informative and least facetious response. Sorry folks, but I’m going to stick my neck out here and question the nuclear option; I’m not going to play dhimmi to most of your ad hominem replies.
I merely ask why nuclear absolutely must and always obligingly should be the only answer, because- at least in the form of production that I know of- it is wasteful (as are the other domestic forms of energy production).
I’d have thought a much more thoughtful approach would be to take energy production to a metropolitan level and distribute it less wastefully.
This seems to be emerging in Japan at least, where several of Rolls Royce’s new(ish) gas-powered turbines have been purchased for energy production at this level. From what I remember being told, they have around 80% efficiency at the point of distribution.
The only reason I question the security of the waste is that surely storing it is an expensive, timely and specialised business? I’d like to be kept buried in the same plot for the next thousand years, though I somehow doubt the few hundred quid my estate will pay the council for it will guarantee this for me.
Is it not possible for anybody here to address that point without being so facetious? It’s a genuine question that deserves a genuine answer- if you’re going to advocate and push an agenda, at least respond to questions in a civilised manner.
rosignol,
You’re talking nonsense. We’re talking 11USD a gram to low earth orbit – much more to the sun. Do you have the slightest idea how dense uranium is?
The idea of designing a container that could survive a rocket accident is 100% fruitbat. Do you have the slightest idea of the horse power of an Energia or Ariane 5? Or quite how big a bang you get when one fails? These are very, very serious pieces of kit.
Also the green mafia hate rockets because they put out phenomenal quantities of CO2.
And before anyone comes out with that old saw that it’s technically possible and merely and merely an engineering problem I think they oughta check out travel options between Europe and the US. I don’t see a transatlantic bridge being built anytime soon and that’s just an engineering problem
As far as “shutting up the greenies”, depleted uranium is a by-product of the nuke industry and a well-aimed 20mil shell will vapourise Jonathon Porritt’s abdomen. Problem solved.
I like the idea of a massive power failure during the Olympics. If it was chaotic enough, it might finish off the games forever. They are way, way dated. S-o-o-o 20th century. All those twerps in blazers. It just doesn’t bear thinking of. I think I would like the failure to be during the opening spectacular. That way, even if the games went on, everyone would be twitchy that there would be a recurrence.
I’d like them to go out on an overwhelming failure, with Ken Livingston and Tony Blair looking foolish, incompetent and self-serving.
James,
I merely ask why nuclear absolutely must and always obligingly should be the only answer…
A real-world, viable replacement for fossil fuel power generation must have the same attributes as those fossil fuels. It must be reliable, on-demand and provide concentrated power. At present nuclear power is the only technology on the table that can provide that.
Solar, wind and all other forms of “alternative” energy simply won’t work because they are unreliable, not on-demand and not concentrated. There is not a single factory, transportation system or other important system running on an alternative energy source anywhere. Alternative energy is, virtually without exception, toy technologies that will never make a major contribution to the planets energy needs without some kind of unforeseen technological breakthrough
If greenhouse gasses are a serious problem (and eventually they will be if we try to raise everyone’s standard of living to that of the developed world by burning carbon) then we need a major energy source that does not emit carbon. The only technology that we know can do that is nuclear. Anyone who has done even the most preliminary calculations knows this is true. If we do indeed need to make significant reductions in our CO2 emissions then nuclear power is our ONLY real choice. It would be wildly irresponsible to make plans based on any other technology.
The asperity you encounter when ask these questions comes from people like myself having to explain what should be rather basic concepts over and over again. It is so damn exasperating to have debates with people who seriously think you can run an advanced power hunger post-industrial civilization off a power source that goes away when the sun goes down, the wind stops blowing or the cows stop farting. (not to say that you are making that mistake)
Because of the problems (potenial of catastrophic failure, limited lift capacity) associated with using rockets to lift radioactive waste into orbit, I suggested that option only if an alternative was available – such as an elevator. Is such a method feasible? I don’t know, but some very smart people are working on it.
Personally, I like the dumping the waste into a subduction zone plan. The mantle of the Earth is almost as perfect a place for the waste as the Sun, and it is much easier to get to.
Shannon,
I still think you’ve missed the point of my line of questioning.
The point you quote isn’t questioning nuclear power itself, rather the blind necessity to only follow the nuclear route.
To be clear from this point onwards, I’m not against nuclear power in principle, so long as it can be proven to be safe, efficient, secure and viable in the short term as well as the long term. However, I do prefer to keep an open mind to any other methods of production, whatever they may be.
As it is, a genuine answer to my previous questions still hasn’t been provided. This isn’t a challenge to people, but is borne out of a real curiousity on my part.
A question I’d like to put some of the commenters here – most of which I have found very informative, thanks – is whether we can move to a more small-scale form of power generation, such as “mini-nukes” or small-scale gas turbines, etc. Why, for instance, does electricity generation have to be carried out in massive buildings, etc? Yes, safety is clearly a key factor in nuclear power stations, but it seems that power generation has not really kept up with some of the minaturisation we have seen in consumer electronics, etc.
Thank you, Jonathan Pearce!
This is the direction I’m moving in: Decentralised energy production, away from large, centralised sources of electricity via the National Grid, towards localised and far more efficient means of supply and production.
This is what is being done in Japan, as I mentioned before.
With a shift in focus from the ‘cure’ to the ‘treatment’ of this problem, I think we can address it far more concensually and viably.
For a brief overview of one of the organisations in this area, have a look at http://www.localpower.org/
James, thanks for the link.
Johnathon,
In fact many such local schemes have been advocated in recent years and some implemented, such as local gas powered generation schemes, but there are issues around delivering the fuel (new pipelines, for example).
The point is to balance whether possible higher costs of generation in small schemes is less than the extra cost and losses inherent in distribution from larger plants(bearing in mind that some grid sytem will always be necessary to iron out variations in demand and cover for local generation failures). Ever higher voltages, for example minimise distribution losses.
What is potentially very interesting (and is already used in some countries) is combined heat and power plants. Electricity generation is necessarily inefficient and a majority of the energy is wasted and given off as heat (hence cooling towers). This heat can be used to directly to heat home, offices, factories etc. by pumping the hot water used to cool the electricity generation plant directly to whatever you want heated, thus giving a much more efficient use of energy. This naturally favours more local schemes.
Johnathan, James,
Nuclear power plants have historically taken the form of large plants because they were big government projects. There is nothing inherent in the technology that requires it to be built on big scales. Again, what we think of as commercial nuclear power to date is actually socialized nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the only major technology developed totally by the state. Every other major form of technology started out small scale in the free market and grew large overtime. Had nuclear technology developed in the free market we would have seen the gradual evolution of small special purpose reactors into larger scale ones. Instead, we went from mid-sized research reactors to giant commercial reactors within a decade, due largely to reasons of national prestige.
There are many designs for small scale reactors, pebble beds being the most commonly known. Had the government never gotten involved, we probably now would have a much larger percentage of power generated by numerous smaller reactors.
The other issue is that we need lots of power. A lot of people think of energy use in terms of powering a household but consumer level use of energy accounts for less than third of all energy consumption. Most of the energy we actually use is involved in the manufacture and distribution of material goods. Smelting aluminum, for example, requires large amounts of concentrated power. That in turn requires some type of large, dense reliable energy supply.
The next time you see an article about some kind of alternative energy source, ask yourself: Could you run a factory with it. Could you power a container ship or run trains? If you can’t, then it will never be a major energy source.
Working with known technologies I would say that nuclear power will have to provide 60-80% of our power by mid-century if we want to make a serious dent in carbon emissions. Nukes must be the core around which all energy production will be based just as fossil fuels are now. All other forms of energy will just be icing on the cake.
Unfortunately, right now, most people believe that can just eat frosting.
Shannon – What a fascinating post! I hadn’t realised that nuclear power was a totally government project, although to look at the power plants, of course one should have realised, given the Sovietesque appearance and scale.
Shannon –
I liked your post, but I have some questions too. What kind of expense was involved in the early research? I always had the impression the figures were staggering, and that that’s why the government played such an overpowering role. Were there early private ventures and the government just siphoned away all their researchers?
Well I only read about 75% of the comments above so I apologise if someone has already made these points but no one had within the ones I did read.
Firstly the original posting was made as a result of a BBC story based on a poll. Checking the BBC story itself reveals,
Well at that point I rather dismissed pretty much anything they might say as being statist baloney. I’d be much more interested in what energy business people had to say about it.
I would just like to see a free market in energy. Completely and totally free. That’s all.
I saw a remark somewhere above that it “isn’t profitable” to dispose of hazardous waste products safely. What complete and utter poppycock. I see no need to explain that but if you think I should I’m more than willing.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“Yes, safety is clearly a key factor in nuclear power stations, but it seems that power generation has not really kept up with some of the minaturisation we have seen in consumer electronics, etc.”
The dream of ‘tennis court’ sized reactors supplying local needs goes back to the 1950s. Mathematically, it makes sense, as others have suggested.
Sadly, it doesn’t stand the ‘bearded crazies’ test and it will never happen, because of that.
Joshua,
Were there early private ventures and the government just siphoned away all their researchers?
What happened was WWII. The possibility of fission was discovered in 1938 and the war started so soon afterward that no substantial private development took place. Virtually, all nuclear technology came out of the Manhattan project. After the war, the Atomic Energy Commission owned all nuclear materials and controlled all nuclear research in the US. Other countries adopted similar systems.
The initial investment in nuclear technology during the war was huge but the goal of that investment was the creation of weapons in the shortest time possible. Without such military investment, functioning reactors would have been developed five to ten years later and would have been much smaller but they would have been built. The first reactor at the U of Chicago wasn’t that big or that expensive and was well within the capability of a corporation to produce.
Governments controlled nuclear power because (1) it was related to nuclear weapons and (2) during the era 1945-1965 atomic anything was the prestige technology. Politicians scrambled to show that their country was on the cutting edge. The first generation of American production reactors were upscaled submarine engines rushed into use in order to beat the Soviets. Other nations made the same mistakes.
The evolution of nuclear power technology looks nothing like the development of cars, aviation, computers etc. Other technologies started small and grew over time. Nukes started big due to artificial state involvement and then stayed that way.
I showed this thread around the office at my current place of employment today. We all agreed you people are surprisingly well informed for “a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati . . . ”
James, don’t take the lack of thorough response to your questions too seriously. Just think how long it would take to answer if someone asked you “Just what does a computer chip do?” For complete answers, you need a lot of background.
For some general info, do some googling. Or, start with the NEI, or EPRI. There are several amateur sites that are quite informative, like Nuclear Tourist . One of the next generation of smaller, safer reactors is the AP600. For some solid info about Three Mile Island, the USNRC has a good writeup. And, Nuclear waste disposal won’t take a lifetime. A few weeks will do.
Shannon, I don’t agree that Nuclear is a socialist endevour, at least not in the U.S., where many plants were built by investor owned utilities. Regulated, yes. But that is not government run. (In California, heaven help us if the Government ran them). By the way, you’re not related to a guy named Mike, are you?
F
A question I’d like to put some of the commenters here – most of which I have found very informative, thanks – is whether we can move to a more small-scale form of power generation, such as “mini-nukes” or small-scale gas turbines, etc. Why, for instance, does electricity generation have to be carried out in massive buildings, etc?
Two reasons come immediately to mind- one is economy of scale- large electrical generators tend to produce more power for less cost per kilowatt than smaller generators (obviously, a newer generator will be more efficient than a decades-old one), which creates a very real incentive to build the largest generators avaliable. There’s a good reason nobody produces power using hundreds of small generators in parallel without some kind of subsidy- the electricity those generators produce is unreasonably expensive.
The other reason is that building a huge electrical generator is very expensive, which means that only large organizations can afford to do so.
I would dearly love to be able to buy a home generator and somehow produce my own electricity for less money than the local power utility charges, but the technology does not yet exist, and I don’t know if it ever will.
Some nuclear plants are small, like the generators used in the Polaris Class submarines etc in the Navy.
GCooper, I think you may have got it the wrong way round. Smaller nuclear plants may actually be easier to defend against nutters than the larger ones.
James :
I’m not sure if you’re including my answers to your three questions amongst what you consider “ad hominem replies” – if so, I’d suggest you’re a little sensitive.
Anyway, you go from
in one post to
in your next. Now if you had micropower in mind right from the start, why not just come out and say it, rather than all this silly Socratic questioning? We’re not in the classroom.
Anyhoo, The Economist was onto micropower several years ago – when it was a much more interesting publication. Click here for an overview, and here for something more in-depth.
rosignol,
You’re talking nonsense. We’re talking 11USD a gram to low earth orbit – much more to the sun. Do you have the slightest idea how dense uranium is?
My government is currently spending round $1,000,000,000 USD a week in the hope of bringing democracy to a small part of the middle east, and has been known to purchase aircraft that cost more than their weight in gold. Suffice it to say that my tolerance for big numbers is somewhat higher than yours.
IMO, at the Space Shuttle’s rate of roughly 1 failure per 50 launches/re-entries, boosting nuclear waste out of the planet’s gravity well is far more certain to produce a positive return on the investment.
The idea of designing a container that could survive a rocket accident is 100% fruitbat. Do you have the slightest idea of the horse power of an Energia or Ariane 5? Or quite how big a bang you get when one fails? These are very, very serious pieces of kit.
Why does it matter? The total output of the booster isn’t going to be directed at the container, and we’re not talking about raw eggs here. As you just said, ‘do you have any idea how dense uranium is’? Takes quite a knock to put a dent in the stuff, and even if something did go wrong, it’s not like I’m proposing that the launch site be in London (or even Paris).
Also the green mafia hate rockets because they put out phenomenal quantities of CO2.
That’s a feature. I suspect that the real long-term environmental problem we’ll have to deal with is going to be an ice age. 😉
And before anyone comes out with that old saw that it’s technically possible and merely and merely an engineering problem I think they oughta check out travel options between Europe and the US. I don’t see a transatlantic bridge being built anytime soon and that’s just an engineering problem
There are more cost-effective options for getting between Europe and the US than building a bridge. The expense of long-term storage of nuclear waste is very difficult to assess, as we don’t know what’s going to happen in the extreme long term.
As far as “shutting up the greenies”, depleted uranium is a by-product of the nuke industry and a well-aimed 20mil shell will vapourise Jonathon Porritt’s abdomen. Problem solved.
-Nick M
Greenies seem to have somehow gotten added to the local ‘endangered species’ regs in my jurisdiction- damned if I know why, there’s no shortage of them.
James Waterton,
How is it not possible to keep an open mind whilst having a preference for something?
I’m interested to know, because up until now, I’ve found it to be a fairly sensible approach to nearly everything.
Johnathan Pearce writes:
“GCooper, I think you may have got it the wrong way round. Smaller nuclear plants may actually be easier to defend against nutters than the larger ones. ”
Surely common sense alone would tell you that cannot possibly be the case?
If nothing else, you are multiplying the chances of a breakdown in security. A smaller number of facilities can be guarded by the most stringent means (sensibly, the French have ringed theirs with SAMs). A nuke on every corner will end-up with Securicor in charge, particularly here in the UK where we are desperately lax about such matters.
Compare the security at Fort Knox with that in the average High St bank.
If you were talking about ensuring continuity of supply, then a greater number of facilities might have something going for it. But not for security – not in a thousand years!
You might want to look at this from Monday’s Newsnight – link will disappear within a week or so by the way.
Oops, this should correct that (Realplayer needed).
Frogman,
” I don’t agree that Nuclear is a socialist endevour, at least not in the U.S., where many plants were built by investor owned utilities. Regulated, yes. But that is not government run.”
Public-utilities and especially the PUs up until the mid-80’s were a socialist enterprise in all but name. The state granted them a legal monopoly, set their prices and guaranteed a return on their investments. We can quibble about taxonomy but no nuke building PU ever operated within anything like a free market.
Nuclear power developed more like a military technology (which is were it started) than a market driven one. Private companies were involved but the impetus and real decisions came from the government. The government developed all the technology, owned all nuclear materials, regulated all facets of research and deployment. The government made all the final decisions about every facet of every plant. If nuclear power plants are a products of the free-market then so are nuclear armed ballistic missiles.
I would argue that our perception of nuclear power as a product of big corporation is a fiction generated by the anti-technology Left. Since they hate nukes it must follow that they were created by their evil capitalistic foes and not their beloved state.
James – by the way your posts flowed, I was reminded of a teacher feigning ignorance on a topic, asking for a show of hands and waiting for the “right” response so he could launch the lesson.
Shannon,
“We can quibble about taxonomy . . . ”
We only disagree on a definition.
All utilities in the U.S., including electric power (from all sources), natural gas, and telephones, have been regulated, granted monopolies, and guaranteed a profit. As you alluded to above, that’s been changing since the early ’80s.
“Socialized,” by definition, means Government owned (like the NHS in the U.K). The majority of power-generating Nuclear plants in the U.S. are majority owned and run by investor owned corporations (TVA being an exception). Complete Government control, by regulation, of privately owned companies would be closer to Merchantilism (or in a sense, Fascism) than Socialism.
F
If there were an Ice Age again then all that is going to happen is that the stored nuclear waste is going to be even safer. Being covered by a significant cap of ice which will then slowly form into yet more rock is just providing yet more security.
Quite. Yet what we do know is how to make this waste secure within our age and for our foreseeable future. We certainly can not predict that in 2000 years time a dictator will dig up all the stored nuclear waste in the UK and order it to be dropped upon his enemies, so why bother?
I still remain unconvinced that there are sufficient environmental arguments against the long term storage of nuclear waste and repeat that we have indeed come a long way in the treatment and storage of hazardous waste, from the “if you want your kids to glow in the dark, then move to Windscale” of the late 70’s viewpoint. People do not seem to comprehend that this waste is not just buried and forgotten, it is constantly being dug up and reprocessed or reinterred in more secure methods as the technology and the management systems advance and are refined.
I do not believe that the vast majority of scientists in the field are telling lies.
C02 linked climate change is a major threat – and whilst we pretend it is not we leave ourselves out of the debate. So the Greens win by default.
Till someone solves the problems with fusion, fission (in one form or another) is the way to go.
One thing to keep in mind.
As the high priest of the environmentalist movement James Lovelock (well he was high priest till they remembered he was pro atomic power then the Greens turned on him as they turned on David Bellamy and every other enviromentalist who has a brain) is fond of pointing out.
The radiation level in the main waste storage building in Cumbria is lower than the radiation level on the High Street of St Ives in Cornwall.
NUCLEAR POWER is bad for all and anyone considering it has not considered every single fact. It may be true that the emissions frorm a nuclear power plant are considerably less than those of say a coal power plant but have you asked yourself what would be done with the nuclear waste?? Where would it go and what sort of damaging effect would it have on the environment?