Thread: Nuclear Power - debate / poll

Originally Posted by vnx205

I think you are right that we should be worried about rapidly diminishing oil stocks, but very little electricity is generated using oil, about 2% in the US.
Your statement above reads to me (and I apologise in advance if I have misunderstood you) implies that nuclear power is the only way to save the planet.
It isn't.
It also seems to assume that we will continue to consume energy as wastefully as we do at present.
We don't have to.
Are you aware that a 2005 Rocky Mountains Institute study using industry and government data showed that globally, nuclear power was being outstripped by other decentralised low-carbon or no-carbon sources of electricity production? About one third comes from renewables (wind, biomass, solar) and about two thirds from co-generation which uses waste heat from industry.
Even though these decentralised sources have not attracted the subsidies the nuclear industry has enjoyed, by 2004 they provided three times the output and six times the capacity of nuclear power.
We need to do something to save the planet.
Nuclear power is not the way to do it.
It can be done with energy efficiencies, co-generation and renewables.

Apology accepted.

I am not advocating Nuclear power simply for the sake of it.

We have a problem..........Global warming, rapidly diminishing fossel fuels, increasing population etc.

Even if we all cut back in power consumption, then we are still left with the need to generate more as our population grows increasing the demand on power supplies. When I left PNG in 1990 the population was 4 million, now it has risen to 6 million, I have not checked India or China but could guess that they have increase their population by that each year.

When I started school we had a population of 7 million, when I finished school it had risen to 14 million, it now stands around the 20 million mark, certainly has slowed over the past few years, which has the Government worried, hence the baby bonus to encourage the production of more babies to offset our aging population.

For decades we have relied on fossel fuels to generate electricity, as has industry in the production of plant and equipment, food stuffs etc with the result that we have seriously upset the balance of the eco-system we all live in. FACT, The world is getting warmer. FACT. Polar ice caps/glaciers are melting. FACT. World population is spiraling out of control.

What do we do? I am not sure, I certainly do not have the answers, if I did I would be running the joint .

I do know that what i have read and seen for myself in relation to global warming, melting of the ice and subsequent rise in sea levels has scared the pants off of me. I can show you where an Island once was, Oh its still there..... only its under water now.

What I do know is we have to break ourselves of this habit of relying on fossel fuels and the subsequent release of carbon and other pollutents into the atmoshere. If we give the earth a break, she will heal herself.( Hopefully)

Electricity and the reliance on it is here to stay, and the demand will grow given that the population will grow.

All other eco-friendly methods of generation are really only stop gap and certainly the infrastructure required to generate anywhere near what is required would be enormous. Renewables would only add to our problem and besides I rather suspect could not be sustained. Takes 15 - 25 years to grow a tree to the size and quality needed to be consumed in the furnace in ....20 minutes. Other methods rely upon burning something to create heat, to create steam to dive turbines....its this burning we have to eliminate.......its burning things that is causing the problem.

I am not a great believer in thermo generated power. I think if we start sucking heat from the earth's core, we are going to finish up with even greater problems....I read on this forum... that such a plant in Swissland resulted in an increase in earthquakes.....this could have the potential to be earthshattering (no pun intended).

So what do we do........the lesser of all the evils...to my mind...is go nuclear......someone wrote here that since the nuclear age started we have generated 1500 ton of waste........how many tons of polutents have we pumped into the atmoshere from burning fossel fuels ? Got to be more than that. I have an airconditioner outside and if I was to go out and release the gas in it I would put the equivalent of 40 tons of carbon into the atmosphere...according to the tech. who installed it. So 1500 tons of waste that can be controlled is very minimal in the scheme of things.

This is obviously going to be a very emotional subject and I will add no more after this post.

But we need to start to consider what to replace our present system with because what we have at the moment is destroying our home.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Here one more point of interest, there is a power source that is available almost everywhere on earth that could be producing electricity tomorrow but for some unknown reason ( to me ) is used very little and thats Thermal heat from the earth’s core, why not.

Cheers.

Because of this,

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/d...=1168251552000

When are we ever going to learn??? Take no more than you need, Leave it as you find it.

Originally Posted by RobHay

...............

It has taken nature millions of years to place the coal and oil in the earth and we are digging and pumping it out faster than it can be replaced. Unless we start to conserve our resources, in the not too distant future, and I mean in our lifetime, we are not going to have any left.
..........

See my comments above about reserves - there is no prospect of a coal shortage. There is some evidence to support the prospect of a real oil shortage by analysing discovery rates, but the methodology suffers from the problem that a lot of the numbers going into it are suspect.

In any case, the way things work, we will not "run out". Once demand exceeds supply (and we are a fair way from that), what happens is twofold - prices go up, and buyers start finding ways to use less. Again, the effect of increase in prices on available commodity is twofold - as soon as the price goes up, the reserves increase because more money can be spent on producing each barrel or tonne (in a typical oil field only 10-50% of the oil in place is recoverable - but the actual figure is very price dependent); and more is found because it is worth more so more money is spent on exploration. And note that since the proportion of the price going to the producer is small (in most places most of it is tax - up to 90% or even higher in some places, typically around 70% in Australia) there is a lot of scope for this effect to increase dramatically.

In summary - it won't run out, ever! It just gradually gets more expensive, eventually to where it is rarely used.

John

Originally Posted by vnx205

Such a gross oversimplification is either the result of a lack of understanding of the full picture or else is downright dishonest.

I'd settle for the latter on this one.

Originally Posted by RobHay

We help the earth to cool alot more rapidly than what it is doing now, once the core is cool and solidified, we are dead in the water....have to go find another planet to polute.

It was established about 100 years ago that the central heat of the earth is sustained by radioactivity, and is not a result of the heat of formation of the earth. It is inconceivable that anything we do with geothermal will affect the rate of cooling - the deepest hole man has ever dug or drilled is way under 1% of the earth's radius, so even if we reduced the temperature worldwide at this depth to the surface temperature, the earth's heat loss would still be over 99% controlled by the rest of the crust and mantle and outer and inner core.

Surface temperature is hardly affected by the internal temperature of the earth - what we have to worry about is the sun and the atmosphere, not the interior of the earth. Even if the core was cool and solidified the only way we would know is by the lack of earthquakes and volcanoes. Eventually the continents would wear down and the oceans get shallower - ultimately the earth would be uniformly covered in water, but this would be a very slow process once the mountains had gone.

John

Originally Posted by RobHay

Apology accepted.

I am not advocating Nuclear power simply for the sake of it.

We have a problem..........Global warming, rapidly diminishing fossel fuels, increasing population etc.

Even if we all cut back in power consumption, then we are still left with the need to generate more as our population grows increasing the demand on power supplies. When I left PNG in 1990 the population was 4 million, now it has risen to 6 million, I have not checked India or China but could guess that they have increase their population by that each year.

When I started school we had a population of 7 million, when I finished school it had risen to 14 million, it now stands around the 20 million mark, certainly has slowed over the past few years, which has the Government worried, hence the baby bonus to encourage the production of more babies to offset our aging population.

For decades we have relied on fossel fuels to generate electricity, as has industry in the production of plant and equipment, food stuffs etc with the result that we have seriously upset the balance of the eco-system we all live in. FACT, The world is getting warmer. FACT. Polar ice caps/glaciers are melting. FACT. World population is spiraling out of control.

What do we do? I am not sure, I certainly do not have the answers, if I did I would be running the joint .

I do know that what i have read and seen for myself in relation to global warming, melting of the ice and subsequent rise in sea levels has scared the pants off of me. I can show you where an Island once was, Oh its still there..... only its under water now.

What I do know is we have to break ourselves of this habit of relying on fossel fuels and the subsequent release of carbon and other pollutents into the atmoshere. If we give the earth a break, she will heal herself.( Hopefully)

Electricity and the reliance on it is here to stay, and the demand will grow given that the population will grow.

All other eco-friendly methods of generation are really only stop gap and certainly the infrastructure required to generate anywhere near what is required would be enormous. Renewables would only add to our problem and besides I rather suspect could not be sustained. Takes 15 - 25 years to grow a tree to the size and quality needed to be consumed in the furnace in ....20 minutes. Other methods rely upon burning something to create heat, to create steam to dive turbines....its this burning we have to eliminate.......its burning things that is causing the problem.

I am not a great believer in thermo generated power. I think if we start sucking heat from the earth's core, we are going to finish up with even greater problems....I read on this forum... that such a plant in Swissland resulted in an increase in earthquakes.....this could have the potential to be earthshattering (no pun intended).

So what do we do........the lesser of all the evils...to my mind...is go nuclear......someone wrote here that since the nuclear age started we have generated 1500 ton of waste........how many tons of polutents have we pumped into the atmoshere from burning fossel fuels ? Got to be more than that. I have an airconditioner outside and if I was to go out and release the gas in it I would put the equivalent of 40 tons of carbon into the atmosphere...according to the tech. who installed it. So 1500 tons of waste that can be controlled is very minimal in the scheme of things.

This is obviously going to be a very emotional subject and I will add no more after this post.

But we need to start to consider what to replace our present system with because what we have at the moment is destroying our home.

Yes, yes, yes n yes! (Does that make me a"yes" man)

This is what I was trying to articulate in my first post which now reads like Goom n Gloom.

Originally Posted by Stevo_62

Because of this,

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/d...=1168251552000

When are we ever going to learn??? Take no more than you need, Leave it as you find it.

Please, this is the results of tests carried out in one single location.

I take it then by your post we will never be able to use geothermal heat to produce electricity.

Boy are you about one hundred years behind the times.

A number of countries have been using geothermal heat for many many years and New Zealand is planning to expand their operations even further so you better let them know they are going to cause an earthquake by doing so, oh that’s right, they already had earthquakes BEFORE they started using the geothermal power.

Oops there goes your theory.

Geothermal electricity production is not readily available to many places at this time, but most definitely has the potential to provide large amounts of pollution free power.

I don't really want nuclear power, but it may need to be forced upon us.

The geothermal idea is very interesting, and is probably the ultimate answer to our energy problems.

Some of the comments on this topic seem to imply that the earth's core is cooling, but this is not necessarily the case. When I studied earth sciences in my student days, it was fascinating to read some of the work that has been done, which suggests that the earth could be heating up from the inside!

Maybe we are only looking at half the global warming problem!

While I agree that we need to reduce CO2 emissions, it is very likely not the complete cause of global warming. There are so many periodic, climate-influencing things happening, such as solar particle emissions, that we are in the awful situation that, even if we spend billions in reducing CO2, we may find that it makes very little difference!

The other depressing thing is that whatever we do in Australia is insignificant. Until the US comes to its senses we will get nowhere, and China & India may have other ideas as well! All we will do is shoot ourselves in the foot, like we did with free trade in the 80's

The fact that it was only comparatively recently that the Australian states could agree on speed limits (partially!), makes it impossible that any agreement can be reached on where to place nuclear stations, or even large numbers of wave generators, or solar collectors. Look at wind farms - these are controversial enough. It will take major power shortages before people will come their senses on these matters. Meanwhile, the Greens continue to oppose everything, with obvious determination to return us to the Stone Age.

I remember arguing with a Green door-knocker before the last federal election about their obstructive attitude to power generation, and the best she could suggest was legislation to force industry to reduce energy consumption, plus carbon taxes (which I DO agree with). She seemed flabbergasted when I said that all the attack on industry would do would be to force them offshore to China, who couldn't give a rat's ar*e about global warming!

Until multi-national corporations accept the need to reduce CO2, then nothing will happen. Legislation will NOT fix the problem.

Cheers,

Lionel