Thread: Nuclear

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Five earthquakes were recorded in Australia yesterday and 10 on Tuesday. So far today there has been one.

and none of them large enough to worry about

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Nuclear power stations are two to three times as expensive as renewables and gas and can't compete without massive government subsidies. Obsolete nuclear plants are closing and being replaced with gas and renewables.
It's just not going to happen.

Nuclear Energy in the U.S.: Expensive Source Competing with Cheap Gas and Renewables | Climate Nexus

Renewables aren’t as cheap as what you think when you start getting anywhere near a critical mass of it together - it becomes problematic and expensive to overcome these hurdles - I posted a video about this in Alternate Energies - you should go check that out.

Originally Posted by speleomike

Hi all

I particularly agree with ramblingboy42's comments about having country councils setting up and maintaining their own independent power generation systems. It gives us a lot more resiliency and local ratepayers get more control over operation and pricing. All really good points that he raises below.

Until the statewide power grid was organised most Qld. country towns had a small power generating plant. Fine if you lived in town. Not good if you lived outside on a farm or grazing property. The stations were typically a slow speed oil engine with an "engineer" who ran it and maintained it. Longreach had a gas engine and they railed coal in to produce gas for the power station. One small town had a private syndicate who owned the power station. To get electricity you had to join the syndicate by buying shares in it. It was rumoured that certain persons were refused shares because they were the wrong old school, religion, or lodge. I don't think our farmers and graziers would want a return to this system. Most in the west only got an electricity mains supply with the fairly recent Homestead Power Initiative using the single wire system.

Edit:- Typically these local power stations often did not provide a 24 hour service (like the manual telephone exchanges) closing for maintenance or overnight due to low demand. Think on this. If the oil engine stuck a leg out of bed the nearest spare parts were often in Manchester or Buffalo. Sorry folks. No power for 6 months.

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

We have several coal and other mines here with 100m+ deep pits. I often wonder why they don't plan for shaping the tailings heaps to create a reservoir as high as possible, then create pumped hydro setups when the mines close.

couple of reasons.

the mines arent always hydrostatically stable and the water pressing down can have interesting effects on seepage, local soil stability and the water table.

mines generally have one big pit which if you fill with water to make a pumped water storage system you then need to make another reservior to pump to or from.

before you think of askingAhh but what if we damn it half way along?

you run out of head height very quickly

(someone may or may not have looked into this as a school science/social studies project as part of studying the oconner pipeline to Kalgoorlie

Yes please but for base load only. Renewables can do the rest. We are gong to have to charge all those EV's at night when the sun sleeps & when the wind doesn't blow.

I worked on the control system on a plant which is re-packaging nuclear waste & learned that when correctly packaged, the waste is manageable & stored above ground.

Simply yes or no.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Simply yes or no.

Plenty of old underground coal mines around Bundamba to store the waste in and stop the back yards falling in.

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

Plenty of old underground coal mines around Bundamba to store the waste in and stop the back yards falling in.

GEE, Gritty East Express.