No time to waste on going nuclear

[riven]

It has serious quality control issues. Maybe it'll eventually be commissioned, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Really you dont think flamville will finish. On what grounds, you still ave not backed up your overbudget claim yet either?

It's 77%, not 87%, and wind is growing. The French will start learning from the Spanish. Why are the Spanish not building new nuclear?

We are both wrong, it is actually higher. You should study the likes of EIA - International Energy Data and Analysis
The figures you quote are from 2002.

Huh? Where do you think the French plutonium came from?

Your lack of knowledge is astounding. Weapons grade plutonium is make by special military reactors. To get enough Plutonium from one large power plant for one low yield device would take over 6 years. Nuclear fuel is removed from the reactor after 4 years. You could never supply the plutonium from nukes from power plants. The military plants are usually on bigger than 50MW.

That is deluded thinking.

Why? Would you mind actually providing a counter arguement.

Hard to take you seriously at this stage.

Since you have not provided even a single cohesive arguement I am not worried about what you think.

Do you know what's happening in Sellafield and La Hague? Any idea of the economics of those plants?

Sellafield is a bad example but even the 2005 leak was contained though the operations manager should have been shot. It is not the technology that was at fault. It was the shoody managerial and safety ethos at the plant. Such actions are also evident see Bophal for example. What proble do you have with La Hague.

With increasing energy demands we need all alternatives on the table. Renewables like wind need backup but are simple to use. Solar's best effciency still hovers around the 15% and needs to be increased. The water usage and waste management issues are also a concern.

[soubresauts]

Really you dont think flamville will finish. On what grounds, you still ave not backed up your overbudget claim yet either?

No, I don't think Flamanville will finish. Look at yesterday's report in The Guardian: Areva chairman quits and adds to troubles at nuclear group.

That states:

Areva, which part-controls Sellafield and wants to be at the forefront of Britain's atomic renaissance, is set to lose its chairman within the next seven days in what would be the latest of a series of blows to befall the French nuclear engineering group.

... The shake-up at the top could not come at a worse time for Areva, which is already nursing €3.5bn (£3.2bn) of net debt and needs a further €14bn to meet ambitious expansion plans at a time when it is parting company with one of its major investors, Siemens of Germany.

Areva is also fighting to stem a public relations disaster at Olkiluoto, in Finland, where the first nuclear plant under construction in Europe for nearly 30 years is running three years behind schedule.

The group's operating income plunged 45% to €417m in the 12 months to 31 December but that was without taking into account the €750m write-off from the Finnish reactor delays and cost overruns.

Some people refuse to face the facts: the nuclear industry is a basket case. It just doesn't make sense economically, whatever about all the other considerations.

The Guardian also states:

Areva is keen to project a positive image as it presses the UK authorities to agree to adopt its EPR design, used at Olkiluoto, in Britain. The company, which is already a part-manager of the Sellafield atomic site in Cumbria, works in close co-operation with the French power group EDF, which has just taken over British Energy, the UK atomic power provider.

The partial takeover in Britain by the French nuclear people does not reassure me at all.

Your lack of knowledge is astounding. Weapons grade plutonium is make by special military reactors. To get enough Plutonium from one large power plant for one low yield device would take over 6 years. Nuclear fuel is removed from the reactor after 4 years. You could never supply the plutonium from nukes from power plants. The military plants are usually on bigger than 50MW.

Please stop trying to mislead us. The military nuclear industry feeds off the civil nuclear industry. In France as in the U.S., Britain, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. And if Flamanville gets finished, it'll probably be because of extra funding shrouded in military secrecy.

Would you mind actually providing a counter arguement.

See above.

Sellafield is a bad example but even the 2005 leak was contained though the operations manager should have been shot. It is not the technology that was at fault. It was the shoody managerial and safety ethos at the plant. Such actions are also evident see Bophal for example. What proble do you have with La Hague.

Economic madness. Pollution of water and air. Appalling, unsafe practices, shrouded in military secrecy.

A 1964 French Government document, which introduces defence-planning
legislation for the following years explains it unambiguously:
"... the operation of the plutonium extraction plant at La Hague, since that plutonium, extracted from fuel irradiated in EDF reactors, will be used for military purposes.
"- the costs incurred from the production of military grade plutonium in EDF reactors." (Quoted in the Schneider study)

As Schneider put it: "Civil military cross subsidizing has been a principle throughout the entire French nuclear program."

So, riven, do you want a nuclear power plant in Ireland? And do you want it built by Areva? And how many billion Euro should the Irish people pay up-front to keep Areva happy? And should the nuclear waste go to La Hague?

Do you really want us to discuss that sort of thing?

[Akrasia]

Scaremongering of the highest order. Typical Green!

They could build it in my garden if they want! Modern nuclear power stations are incredibly safe and scare mongering of this type is disgusting.

And we have the most radioactive sea in the world on our east coast..
We all know the reputation radiation has for being 'incredibly safe'

[riven]

Some people refuse to face the facts: the nuclear industry is a basket case. It just doesn't make sense economically, whatever about all the other considerations.

And so the wind energy industry which gets $18 per megawatt hour (America) along with the structural tax breaks is?
What about the dames and their biomass CHP plats which get EUR700,000 per year on top of investment?
http://www.opet-chp.net/download/wp2...chnologies.pdf
What about solar which currently receives similar discounts?

The point is none of the existing energy sources make economic sense compared to oil. But change must occur primarily due to dwindling oil reserves. Solar's next big advance will perhaps be to increase efficiency by two percent on commercial cells. The hype on cheap solar from cheap silica is just that. I am no expert on solar but my collegues at ECN are and silica processing/mining/yields are not going to increase drastically in the near future. Wind is going to experience marginal increases in power output unless larger and more mechanically strong turbines can be invented. Biomass short of developing a new strain of process will not produce large amounts of energy.

Please stop trying to mislead us. The military nuclear industry feeds off the civil nuclear industry. In France as in the U.S., Britain, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan. And if Flamanville gets finished, it'll probably be because of extra funding shrouded in military secrecy.

The facts
Plutonium 239 suitable for weapons grade at 90% purity is produced in a nuclear reactor by the absorption of a free neutron by Uranium 238. It then itself undergoes fission when it absorbs a neuton and about 1/3 of the power from a reactor plant comes from this reacton.
The plutonium does not leave the nuclear fuel as it is fissioned in the fuel itself. Even if the reactor is run for long period producing little power (limiting the amount of neutrons, hence increasing survivability of Pu239) it would take six years to build just one low yield device. Furthermore it will be contaminated with Pu240 which will cause Pu 239 to fission due to itself fissioning.
The RMBK reactor is the exception to the above and can provide Pu 239 for weapons processing. That is where the weapons grade Pu link and reactor grade comes from. There are a handful of these reactors in the world all build by the Soviets.
IEEE Spectrum: Nuclear Wasteland gives an interesting point on how much Pu 239 is generated from civilian reactors.


As for your 1964 star
Again with the old car anology. That was a plan that occured? Hardly as the development of fast breeder reactors for Pu production was expanded.

As Schneider put it: "Civil military cross subsidizing has been a principle throughout the entire French nuclear program."

So, riven, do you want a nuclear power plant in Ireland? And do you want it built by Areva? And how many billion Euro should the Irish people pay up-front to keep Areva happy? And should the nuclear waste go to La Hague?

Yes I want a third gen plant built in Ireland in the same way as I want us to stop exporting all of our so called recycled waste and increase our capacity in wind tidal and biomass. I want us to produce our own power and if we persue the electrical economy, we will not be able to fill that gap in 20 years with wind or biomass. And instead of La Hague I would happily see Ireland reprocess its own waste.

[soubresauts]

Yes I want a third gen plant built in Ireland...

Yeah, but Why, How, Where, When, Who, How Much?

Big questions, y'know? You haven't answered them.

[soubresauts]

More evidence that the nuclear industry is up the creek, here:

A £1bn nuclear white elephant
Exclusive: Call for public inquiry as Sellafield recycling plant is costing taxpayer millions every year

And that's just one small part of the Sellafield disaster, which is one small part of the global nuclear industry disaster.

[An Gilladaker]

are their any grants for a diy mini nuclear reactor it would be handy when the lights go out