Nuclear Power

[Seos]

[quote=John_C][quote=Seos][quote="John C":3b16jlgl]Ditto, replace the word 'nuclear' with 'wind' and 'fission process' with 'spinning around of blades'.[/quote]correct, however there is no mining involved with wind and no need to transport uranium to or waste from wind turbines so the whole process emits much much less carbon dioxide(low enough to be reasonably offset with planting trees I would imagine).[/quote]I'm skeptical of this. The iron wind farms are made of needs to be mined and transported and there's a lot more of it than uranium in a nuclear plant but neither of us seem to have any numbers so we can't draw a conclusion.

Either way, neither is completely carbon free but very few large industrial projects are.[/quote:3b16jlgl]
I'd like to find out how much cement and steel a nuclear power plant uses and compare it to wind farms, I don't think they'd end up to be that different. On the transport side of things it's important to know just how much is done and they can only transport realtively little of radioactive material at a time. I found that out when making the reply to ivnryns post see below.

[quote=ivnryn][quote=Seos]
correct, however there is no mining involved with wind and no need to transport uranium to or waste from wind turbines so the whole process emits much much less carbon dioxide(low enough to be reasonably offset with planting trees I would imagine). Only the building and maintaining which wouldn't be much. Some mining methods can be very big green house gas emitters and very environmentally damaging other ways too.[/quote]

Do you have figures for that ? Nuclear power is massively efficient in terms of power per kg of fuel/waste. I wouldn't go betting on transport costs without clear numbers. Wind also generates very little power per turbine, relative to a major power plant. What is the MW per kg of the plant values for nuclear and wind turbines ?[/quote]
Unfortunately no reliable figures. Only figures biased by anti-nuclear or by pro-nuclear.
The pollution caused by mining would mainly be because of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Heap_leaching]Heap leaching[/url] I think.

Transport to the plant would be the next thing,
[url]http://www.world-nuclear-university.org/transport/html/what_is_carried/index.htm[/url]
According to that the uranium goes from
1. the mine to the mill,
2. to the conversion plant,
3. to the enrichment facility,
4. to the fuel fabrication plants
5. and then finally the power plant.
(I didn't even know it was that complicated before now.)

And then transportation of the waste:

Low and intermediate level waste which is generated throughout the cycle goes to waste treatment facilities and then storage

Spent fuel goes to be reprocessed, the high level waste goes to storage after this, the other component of the waster will be used in breeder reactors when they become commercially available(not yet) until then storage)

Now building the nuclear power plant requires a lot of cement and steel, I can't seem to find out how much, probably don't give too much info on how they're built to stop people planing attacks or builiding them.
[url="http://www.nucleartourist.com/areas/areas.htm"]http://www.nucleartourist.com/areas/areas.htm[/url]
That shows the "key areas". The containment part is the part I think of when I say a lot of concrete.

Then decommisioning the nuclear power plant.
http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=3&catid=278
Too tired to provide a summary of the relevant form that.

Wind power (Off shore as it's the most poluting):
Construct foundations, construct the components, transport to shipyards, from shipyards to foundations, build. Maintain, then demolish and replace.



We have a nuclear power plant at 600MWh or 1000MWh and a single offshore turbine at 5MWh (the ones being built now).
120 turbines for 600MW or 200 turbines for 1000MWh.

or 1MWh is I think the electricity from one onshore.


Found this about an onshore wind turbine:
http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/windlcva.pdf
It says 13 kg CO2eq per 1,000 kWh (1 MWh) so 13,000 kg for 1000 MWh

[SPN]

The World's biggest Nuke is shut down and leaking radiation.

Problems found at quake-hit nuclear power plant in Japan

TOKYO (AP) - A list of malfunctions at the seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariya nuclear power plant in northwestern Japan following a powerful earthquake this week
_ Fire at an electrical transformer facility.
_ 1,200 liters of water containing radioactive material leaked into sea.
_ About 100 barrels of radioactive waste knocked over in storage facility.
_ Duct knocked out of place
in major vent; possible leak of radioactive cobalt-60 and chromium-51 from five of the plant's reactors.
_ Water leak inside buildings housing all seven reactors.
_ Malfunctioning of water intake screening pump at two reactors.
_ Blowout panel knocked down at turbine buildings at two reactors.
_ Oil leak from low-activation transformer waste oil pipes at two reactors.
_ Loss in water-tight seal at reactor core cooling system.
_ Water leaks from diesel generator facility, burst extinguisher pipe, burst condenser valve and filtration tank.
_ Broken connections and broken bolt at electric transformer.
_ Loss of power at control center for liquid waste disposal facility.

_ Oil leaks from damaged transformer and magnetic transformer facility.
_ Oil leak at reactor water supply pump facility.
_ Disrupted electrical connection at magnetic transformer facility.
_ Cracks in embankment of water intake facility.
_ Air and oil leaks at switching stations.
_ Land under parts of plant turned to mud in quake-caused process known as liquefaction.

Yep! We don't have earthquakes in Ireland!

[david]

Seos

This is a useful website for you: http://www.stormsmith.nl/

Anybody got a view on fourth generation reacors / pebble bed reactors. I am led to believe that :
1. The fuel can't be used in weapons.
2. They can't go into a chain reaction like chernobyl.
3. The spent fuel is much easier to contain and dispose of.
4. They are smaller and so can be more distributed meaning that grids are les vulnerable to failure.

[renewal]

The World's biggest Nuke is shut down and leaking radiation.

Problems found at quake-hit nuclear power plant in Japan

TOKYO (AP) - A list of malfunctions at the seven-reactor Kashiwazaki-Kariya nuclear power plant in northwestern Japan following a powerful earthquake this week
_ Fire at an electrical transformer facility.
_ 1,200 liters of water containing radioactive material leaked into sea.
_ About 100 barrels of radioactive waste knocked over in storage facility.
_ Duct knocked out of place
in major vent; possible leak of radioactive cobalt-60 and chromium-51 from five of the plant's reactors.
_ Water leak inside buildings housing all seven reactors.
_ Malfunctioning of water intake screening pump at two reactors.
_ Blowout panel knocked down at turbine buildings at two reactors.
_ Oil leak from low-activation transformer waste oil pipes at two reactors.
_ Loss in water-tight seal at reactor core cooling system.
_ Water leaks from diesel generator facility, burst extinguisher pipe, burst condenser valve and filtration tank.
_ Broken connections and broken bolt at electric transformer.
_ Loss of power at control center for liquid waste disposal facility.

_ Oil leaks from damaged transformer and magnetic transformer facility.
_ Oil leak at reactor water supply pump facility.
_ Disrupted electrical connection at magnetic transformer facility.
_ Cracks in embankment of water intake facility.
_ Air and oil leaks at switching stations.
_ Land under parts of plant turned to mud in quake-caused process known as liquefaction.

Yep! We don't have earthquakes in Ireland!

But we do have managers and leaders who don't tell the true story when accidents occur - in the same week as there is an earthquake by a Japanese plant. Unlike in Germany when they're found out don't resign here.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,214 ... 09,00.html

The nuclear industry doesn't seem to be that honest. More than likely not the only industry like that I must add. It is the fact that the residue from their accidents may last thousands of years to me does make the nuclear industry that bit different.