The Return Of Nuclear Power !?!

[mike os]

13% imported today? and we are shutting down how many power stations? this is a complete **Language**ing joke

 

[Munkul]

You don’t seem to realise that the imports are sustantially fossil-free. Power stations being phased out are fossil burners (coal fired) - horrid atmospheric polluters!

from the 11% imported atm:
6% French electric imported is mostly nuclear
3% Dutch import electric is half fossil fuels
2% from NEMO link which could be anything TBH

 

[My Old Landy]

I believe there are 32 gas fired and 3 coal fired power stations (Mr Google tells me) in the UK. He also tells me there are 8 nuclear ones. The ones I got involved with were being decommissioned as that is what I specialised in.
If we don't build new ones we may just fall behind (anyone else remember the power cuts of the 70's due to strikes?) as wind and sun conversion apparatus seem to take up a lot more room than a power station.........

 

[R Kraft]

False economy makes some people a lot of money.
In the states, a law was passed to make people use renewable energy.
Corn was re-purposed from food and livestock feed to alcohol production.
This drove the price of everything corn related up.
It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol.
The energy content of the alcohol is lower than fossil fuel, so more is burnt to get the same work done.
The alcohol blended fuel begins to deteriorate as soon as it is created, and ruins fuel systems, if not used rather quickly.
The whole thing is a fraud.

 

[Munkul]

False economy makes some people a lot of money.
In the states, a law was passed to make people use renewable energy.
Corn was re-purposed from food and livestock feed to alcohol production.
This drove the price of everything corn related up.
It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol.
The energy content of the alcohol is lower than fossil fuel, so more is burnt to get the same work done.
The alcohol blended fuel begins to deteriorate as soon as it is created, and ruins fuel systems, if not used rather quickly.
The whole thing is a fraud.

This is a commonly held opinion it seems in America. It's simply not true!
There are plenty of independent studies disproving this, some from decades ago.

 

[Dave-sparks]

You don’t seem to realise that the imports are sustantially fossil-free. Power stations being phased out are fossil burners (coal fired) - horrid atmospheric polluters!

The coal fired power stations being phased out are indeed not very environmentally friendly, but then they were probably built in the 70's or earlier when the technology or the desire to make them environmentally friendly didn't exist.

A coal fired power station built today with current technology would be far less polluting and would easily meet emissions standards.

 

[Lewis_RX8]

False economy makes some people a lot of money.
In the states, a law was passed to make people use renewable energy.
Corn was re-purposed from food and livestock feed to alcohol production.
This drove the price of everything corn related up.
It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol.
The energy content of the alcohol is lower than fossil fuel, so more is burnt to get the same work done.
The alcohol blended fuel begins to deteriorate as soon as it is created, and ruins fuel systems, if not used rather quickly.
The whole thing is a fraud.

Did you also watch the Real Engineering video on it , Very intresting

 

[Munkul]

Did you also watch the Real Engineering video on it , Very intresting

there are genuine reasons against biofuels, and plenty of them. But "It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol." is not true.

 

[Lewis_RX8]

there are genuine reasons against biofuels, and plenty of them. But "It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol." is not true.

Was just a passing interest as I had watched that video and it reminded me I am not educated on the subject unfortunatley

I went back to the video and the source for the corn stat was this https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11053-005-4679-8 and in the video

Fromm 2005 so may have changed

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Good for the EU supergrids for gas and electricity, no wonder they accelerated them in 1019 to get them finished; another stick to beat the UK with.

In reality no system is perfect, lessons from the past suggest we shouldn't be tied to one source of fuel/energy, and many of the cheaper options are ignored because there isn't sufficient profit for the few in it.

How many people remember the geothermal power stations from the 1970's?

Like they are still doing in Iceland.

They bored down to a steam void in the earth, tapped the steam and fed it through gas and rock filters to standard steam turbines to produce electricity, problems: they didn't know how long a steam pocket would last; they emitted a lot of gases when first tapped which were emitted to the atmosphere, and hitting a viable steam pocket was difficult.
One guy solved this by buying them all up and ran a second pipe into the steam pocket at a different location and recirculated the spent steam from the turbines by adding pumps to the end of the steam turbines and pumping the steam back into the void where it was reheated and used again in a sealed system.

Link to this.

 

[mike os]

You don’t seem to realise that the imports are sustantially fossil-free. Power stations being phased out are fossil burners (coal fired) - horrid atmospheric polluters!

oh I do…maybe we should shut them all down and import it all, how green would that be?

 

[Ross365]

Of the current nuclear stations still operating, the last two British-designed AGR's were ordered by Labour in the mid-70's and the very last last station is the American-designed PWR at Sizewell ordered about 1980 by the Conservatives- then - nothing, until the French PWR was ordered recently.

I thing that all the AGR's remaining have operated appreciably beyond their (30 year) design lives, but they now have a problem with cracking of the graphite bricks in the cores and that's the "straw on the camel's back" and so they have not got long to go.

Perhaps the Prime Ministers who have been in office since 1980 should be asked to explain what they were thinking about re power supplies?

 

[mike os]

I already know what they were thinking… it won’t be my problem when I’m retired and getting my ridiculous pension for running the country so badly

 

[Ross365]

I already know what they were thinking… it won’t be my problem when I’m retired and getting my ridiculous pension for running the country so badly

Probably so, those that remember will recall there had to be public inquiry in to the proposal to build Sizewell and it went on for months, and I think it's true that most of the public were (i) dead against it and protesting in the streets or (ii) didn't care. Of course, Thatcher wanted it, so it happened, but then she forgot about it. Sizewell has been a great success; there should have been 5 or 6 copies, that would now be in their mid-life operation.

 

[R Kraft]

there are genuine reasons against biofuels, and plenty of them. But "It takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of alcohol." is not true.

An analysis of the costs vs benifits.:

 

[mike os]

One shouldn’t import anything one relies implicitly upon …. Unless one absolutely must, and then there should be fervent planning on how to rectify the situation in the shortest feasible time..

 

[Munkul]

Planning? Our government? Are you insane?

 

[mike os]

Ps if you believe all that why are you using unnecessary power on a whim?

 

[mike os]

Planning? Our government? Are you insane?

We haven’t had one of those since the 50’s

 

[My Old Landy]

I will just leave this here.....

Nuclear energy: Fusion plant backed by Jeff Bezos to be built in UK

Canadian company General Fusion is set to build a $400m fusion demonstrator near Oxford.

www.bbc.co.uk