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Michael norton, 17:38:
– “I suspect the ramming through of this project in the Bristol Channel was partially about having Nuclear Power but also weapon grade stuff for our Trident missiles“
No. Reactors use up (low enriched) uranium, and cannot produce highly enriched uranium. There is some plutonium in the spent fuel. To make it into weapons it would need to be extracted by reprocessing, but the UK already has a stockpile of over 100 tonnes of quite pure plutonium. It only takes a few kilos to make a bomb, so 100 tonnes is an immense amount. It is considered a liability because it needs to be constantly guarded. The UK has no need of any more weapons-grade material; quite the opposite.
On the other hand, having nuclear experts and expertise certainly is associated with nuclear weapons, but the naval reactor facilities offer opportunities for those.
– “Then what do you do with the poison?”
It is possible to use it up in “fast spectrum” reactors and get a vast amount of energy from it, but comparatively very few such reactors have ever been built. Theoretically you’d be left with waste that would decay to background radiation levels in about 300 years rather than tens of thousands. This has been started in multiple countries, but funding has always been cut off so it has never been carried to completion.
So instead you reprocess it to reduce its volume and recover the useful stuff that’s in it, make it into a type of glass so that it can’t dissolve or otherwise spread, and bury it deep underground in a geologically suitable place. This should actually work safely; there really isn’t a huge amount of it in industrial terms and some chemical and biological agents etc. are far more dangerous, but due to widespread fear of all things nuclear, local communities always object.
You can see from my earlier comments that I disagree with using typical nuclear reactor designs to make power, but the problems are misunderstood and popular objections are based on fear rather than reason. Both the pro- and anti-nuclear lobbies have polarised the issues and thereby misled and confused the public. I myself had to work out the truth by comparing claims against the general principles of nuclear physics. I am in favour of prototyping reactors that could cook down nuclear waste and produce power in the process. This seems much better than burying reprocessed waste and thereby leaving it to future generations.
Clark, so why do you think different governments have not been in favour of a Severn Barrage?
It would, for three hundred years, produce renewable electricity of 1/20th of the entire needs of the U.K.
It would help prevent up-river flooding, at times something that can be devastating.
Most of the turbines would turn most of the time, this could be envisioned as base load. There could be road and rail links along the top between Somerset and South Wales. It could be associated with wind turbines for extra pumped storage.
Yes, it would use an awful lot of Limestone, a downside and it might take fifteen years to complete.
It would provide a model that could be used in other parts of the World.– “so why do you think different governments have not been in favour of a Severn Barrage?”
Michael, I do not know. Possibly governments have dismissed it on grounds of cost and its novelty, possibly due to lobbying by the nuclear industry which is very powerful due to its connection with weapons and the military, possibly due to pressure by environmentalists; a barrage would surely have extensive effects upon ecosystems in the estuary, the nearby coast and upstream, though I expect all could be addressed in its design. Probably a bit of all three. It is something I have not investigated, neither politically nor environmentally.
“Is this still looking practical?”
I don’t know Clark. As far as any infrastructure project goes, renewables or nuclear, I suspect all of them have a manufacturing and operational time lag. Nuclear has many issues and I have no idea of the availability of the fuels that would be needed. You demonstrate a superior knowledge in that regard. Can you point to sources that might help to educate us?
I look at the energy mix and approx 16% total comes from low carbon sources, nuclear and renewables. Hydropower produces the largest proportion of that. Even though low carbon sources account for a bigger percentage of total energy over time we are still burning more fossil fuels year on year. If we require to reduce emissions we are not doing that so far and in reality our total emissions are increasing.
In terms of deaths per unit energy produced nuclear is far safer than fossil fuels even considering the disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima (so far).
I don’t think nuclear is the only solution more that it needs to part of the solution along with judicious deployment of renewables. Wind suits the UK and Ireland better than solar for instance. Wouldn’t it be more efficient for solar to be deployed where it’s liklier to be more efficient and produce more power at least at the national power generation scale. I don’t know what the answer is but I think the exclusion of nuclear is a mistake.
ET, Wikipedia citations are a good source of links because editors tend to edit subjects they know about, so they cite good sources. There are some crap sources cited too, but Wikipedia is generally better than the search engines because the citations have been sifted by human intelligence. You can also check articles’ Talk pages (tabs at the top), and for less mainstream opinions, scour article History pages for large sections and citations that have been removed. Shills are busy at Wikipedia, but their tracks remain visible and can be a very useful give-away. Scan down the History of a subject you’re interested in noting the bright red markers eg. “-1536 bytes”, then click “compare with previous revision” on the left to see what someone didn’t want you to see! Often it was removed because it was nonsense, but occasionally you hit gold. Alisher Usmanov’s PR company got caught this way (by me! With help from the Wiki community).
There is vastly more uranium than just the “conventional sources” I mentioned, but it’s all more diffuse. There is a vast amount dissolved in the oceans as uranium salts, so much that dispersing all our depleted uranium into the oceans would raise uranium concentration by about 1%. But extracting and refining this uranium is untried at large scale. After that, it would still need enrichment.
– “In terms of deaths per unit energy produced nuclear is far safer than fossil fuels even considering the disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima”
Whether this is so depends upon what proportion of cancer etc. is produced by radioactive pollution. Certainly the adoption of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for nuclear weapons indicate that it was regarded as a significant health danger – and bombs have only kilos of nuclear fuel in them, whereas power reactors contain tonnes. However, on any matter concerning effects of radiation upon health, UN rules require that the WHO defer to UNSCEAR, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. This committee has been accused by anti-nuclear campaigners of being comprised of advocates for the nuclear industry, which itself of course has deep connections to the military and the secret services. Few people have even heard of UNSCEAR, and there is very little information about its deliberations or how it comes to its decisions. For such an important body it has a remarkably uninformative Wikipedia page, and note the “multiple issues” and “relies too much on primary sources” tags at the top:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Scientific_Committee_on_the_Effects_of_Atomic_Radiation
I have a vague memory that UNSCEAR was set up because of nuclear industry objections to the WHO’s much higher estimates of radiation risk in the 1950s. Mainstream estimates of the health effects of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters etc. are, of course, based upon UNSCEAR’s figures.
– “I think the exclusion of nuclear is a mistake”
I agree. Nuclear has its place, which I think is amid heavy industry, providing process heat to smelt steel, produce glass and many other things like that. A typical nuclear power station converts only about a third of the heat produced into electricity. It would seem sensible to use the heat more directly, thereby relieving other power sources of that demand.
Investment Consultants With $10 Trillion Make Net-Zero Pledge
Which is hopeful, of course, but the initial reductions are crucial; we have to halve emissions in the next ten years. “2050, 2050, 2050”, everyone always make promises about 2050. But what about now?
And both UK and EU gas hit all-time highs. Javier Blas, Chief Energy Correspondent at Bloomberg News:
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1439986043554607104
Very steep rise at the right of that graph!
…which is why I’m gong to continue making a nuisance of myself with Extinction Rebellion despite all these promises about 2050.
It’s like trying to pull up out of a nose-dive. It’s all very well saying “yes I’ll pull back harder on the stick pretty soon” but it’ll be too late by then ‘cos we’re gaining speed towards the ground with every passing second.
Of course a cynic would say that promises about 2050 are just a way of kicking it into the long grass…
The U.K. government want us to bin our Natural Gas heating systems and replace them with Hydrogen boilers. |¦| Maybe they forget that the Industrial way of producing Hydrogen is to use Methane as a feedstock.
Methane is now very expensive. |¦| Surely this vast increase in the cost of Methane will put the Kibosh on Hydrogen technologies for the near term. |¦| Meaning we will not turn the climate around in time, if we mess about using Methane to produce Hydrogen?If we are to quickly move to battery vehicles, where will the electricity come from to charge our new battery World?
All highly relevant points michael.
I see the hand of disaster capitalism AKA neoliberalism in this, deploying copious greenwash. There are huge profits to be made by impinging upon people’s consciences, persuading them to replace things that still work with brand new “more ethical” versions. Richer people will be able to acrue more false virtue than those who can’t afford to replace things, driving the cycle yet harder, as the money to purchase such pseudo-virtue will have to be earned, stimulating production along with the inevitable extraction and pollution it always produces.
In the Second World War, Britons and others economised intensively to defeat Nazism. Six years later, that very demanding goal had been achieved. Like lockdown, the sooner we start the quicker we can get it over with.
Clark,
so why do we think we need so much more electricity than we needed thirty years ago. Well, our population has increased but mainly we have so many gadgets, that we did not before.- Mobile phones, have to be charged.
- Battery scooters have to be charged.
- Battery cycles have to be charged.
- Battery power tools have to be charged.
- Laptops have to be charged.
- Electric cars have to be charged.
Fifty years ago if you wanted a cup of tea, you would boil the kettle on your range or gas stove, now most people use an electric kettle, which is much less energy efficient. Electric tooth brushes, electric carving knives, curlers, t.v., radio, juke boxes, Karaoke boxes, x-boxes, P.C.s.
- Electric surveillance systems.
- Electric lifts, electric escalators, electric trains, electric trams C.D. players.
- Electric beds and armchairs.
Perhaps we should have less stuff?
M N 77985
When I was young and Idealistic I read a book by Erich Fromm and what stayed with me was something like this:
The market economy is believed to satisfy humans needs but the market economy (marketing and propaganda) creates needs!
Michael norton – “Perhaps we should have less stuff?”
Yep.
People living alone and in smaller groups too. So many with their own washing machines and tumble driers.
But UK electricity demand has fallen in recent years if I remember rightly. Lots of the gadgets (as opposed to appliances) are low power. LED lamps, radios, TVs and other screens – the colour telly my dad bought was about 250 watt I think – it certainly gave off a lot of heat, needed major ventilation slots and smelled of burning dust when you started it up. Your laptop wouldn’t run long on a charge if its screen was as power hungry as that.
Pigeon English: yep. The market – advertising etc. – indeed creates needs. One common marketing technique is to induce a sense of inadequacy in the target (audience), and then suggest that the product will rectify it. Then there’s induction of habit, eg. Pringles snacks; “once you pop you can’t stop”. It’s literally an addiction and emotional illness generator.
Avro Energy and Green ceased trading on Wednesday and their 830,000 combined customers face being switched to a new, potentially more expensive, provider.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58657802
It is thought that in a short time, mseveral million Natural Gas customers will have to get their gas from one of the Big Six providers, at a more expensive tariff.
How have we got here?
As Clark has said our U.K. storage ability has recently been greatly reduced, so we are in a “Just in Time” mode, not a bright idea. It is also suspected that Russia has reduced the Natural Gas flow through Ukraine, this is partially to prepare for opening the second pipe of Nord Stream, into Germany.
Part of the Methane shortage is the suppression of LNG from Iran, by American sanctions.Part will be the troubles of the War on Terror. Part will be Brexit. Part will be the pandemic.Is there a strategic thinker in our government, who was supposed to be overseeing Natural Gas supply.
It seems they have taken their eye off the ball.The other possibility is that the pandemic killed the price of Methane.
Thus the American Fracking dream, hit the buffers, essentially American Fracking stopped exporting of LNG.Michael, the reduction in demand due to the pandemic caused Russian wells to be closed. Wells don’t like that; you have to keep them flowing. When vaccination permitted demand to pick up not all of them would reopen properly.
I see there’s now a liquid fuel shortage too. Lots of empty shelves in my local Co-op. All I’ve heard so far is that a shortage of HGV drivers is the cause, but I strongly suspect there’s more to it than that because shortages are too widespread.
– “Is there a strategic thinker in our government[?]”
Well it certainly doesn’t look like it. Actually there are, but for too many decades money managers have been given seniority over engineering-type minds. Same as with the pandemic, where scientists and doctors were ignored until it was too late. Twice.
Money rules in politics, but nature couldn’t care less about money.
ET, I said I agreed with you that nuclear power had a place, but I had again forgotten something.
We’ve got a gathering crisis, and in the case of civil disturbance, or economic or societal collapse, even temporary, nuclear power reactors are likely to become a major liability. As I mentioned earlier, a warhead contains kilos of nuclear fuel whereas a power reactor contains tonnes. But reactors have to be tended or they will melt down, blow up, leak or get interfered with by unsuitable people.
When I consider the immense quantity of shit we can see heading rapidly towards the fan, I’m extremely nervous about building a lot more power reactors. If society breaks down badly enough, it would be a tragedy if, just as we started pulling ourselves back together, everyone started getting clobbered by iodine-131 etc.
Clark, you are correct, it would be a disaster. However, we are at a point where we have to shift our power generation from emissions generating to clean. If we don’t do that we arrive at the same destination.
So we need to buy time by economising.
Same as the pandemic. We need to re-localise, cut back on the unnecessary stuff, unnecessary transport, save what carbon budget and liquid fuel is left for essentials like agriculture.
Michael norton, Sept 23, 13:55:
– “…the pandemic killed the price of Methane. Thus the American Fracking dream, hit the buffers, essentially American Fracking stopped exporting of LNG.”
That’s the information I’ve been getting too; fracking proved uneconomic so it wasn’t developed, so now the US can’t increase production, hence the shortage.
And here’s what got us into this mess; not starting early enough – the energy trap:
Clark, that would need a brains trust of “Strategic Thinkers”.
The Natural Gas shortage, shows that this part of government, is not working.North Sea Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link
“From 1 October, Norway will be able to export electricity to the U.K. via a “North Sea link” of underwater high-voltage electric cables connecting the two power grids.”
BBC News – Gas crisis leaves Europe searching for solutions (24 Sep 2021)
I have mentioned this before, several times, this is because I think it is relevant. Almost all power in Norway is produced by renewable means, most of that by Hydroelectric. Some of this Hydroelectric potential has been installed to feed to the United Kingdom.
This is win, win.It is estimated that the U.K. is short of about 100,000 HGV drivers – with gaps made worse by the pandemic and Brexit.
Downing Street said there was “no shortage of fuel in the UK and people should continue to buy fuel as normal”.
Reports in several newspapers have suggested that the government is considering getting soldiers to drive fuel tankers under emergency plans.
This is rapidly working up to a Winter of Discontent.
– “From 1 October, Norway will be able to export electricity to the U.K. via a “North Sea link” of underwater high-voltage electric cables connecting the two power grids.”
Michael, thanks for some good news; it is sorely needed.
– “The Natural Gas shortage, shows that this part of government, is not working”
… and hasn’t worked for decades. The long-term storage at Rough was sold off in the Blair era, and closed and shut down in around 2016 I think. And of course, that long term storage infrastructure has not been replaced during the five years since then. It still wasn’t replaced even after gas hit empty during the Skripal fiasco, which should have been impossible to overlook.
