Labor MP's want nuclear power debate

[Mythor]

Yes, sorry, my fault. So used to writing Greens and I knew it was Green related.

Its not a nuclear power reactor, its a medical reactor. As far as I can tell they aren't particularly similar.

The goals are different but either way it requires criticality, produces waste, has radiation dangers, etc.
(Edit to note: I'm all for nuclear power and the Lucas Heights reactor is a very valuable asset to the country, etc. Enviro-nuts often don't know we already have a nuclear reactor in the country and have done for many, many years. )

[TRB]

I feel that nuclear power is the way to go for Australia with regards to meeting our base load. Renewables can then be used for peak power loads.

What are your thoughts? Rational discussion, not emotive.

Nuclear power is only considered by people who don't know much about it.

Firstly, there is only 1 foundry [last I checked] that is capable of making the 15 ton reactor cores, its booked solid for the next 10-15 years already.

Secondly, there is a very limited supply of high grade fuel, about 50-70 years worth at current consumption, less as more reactors are built [there is a reason why china is building coal plants and not nuclear.], after that runs out you're the looking at refining the low percentage ore, which will make the fuel many many times more expensive, thus make the power it generates many many times more expensive, it'll make the various current renewables look cheap.

Third, it'll take about 20-25 years to actually build these reactors, there is a lot of work to be done before anyone even considers laying the first foundation. then after that current reactor designs give that reactor about a 25-30 year lifespan before you have to build a new one.
I believe russia has in the last few years been shutting down their oldest remaining plants, such as the few that had still been operating at Chernobyl.
then its time to build new plants again.

Finally, reactors need a massive body of standing water for their cooling towers. hands up everyone who lives on a river or lake who wants to have it ruined by a powerplant.



nuclear is a pointless and dead end power source for terrestrial electricity.

instead of wasting billions on building that ****, why not use that money to build deep bore geo-thermal.
we know it works, we are capable of doing deep bores, at least 5km in thin areas of crust, 10km in other areas, so we can get high quality steam out of it.
there is no dangerous waste from geo-thermal and the only difference to nuclear power is that instead of making steam from the heat of uranium fuel you're doing it from the heat from deep in the earths crust.
the generating sets can be exactly the same, though reciprocating engines would be more efficient then turbines, turbines are either running at full speed or they aren't working.

Nuclear is a stupid idea without even taking any environmental or dangers from accidents into consideration.

[Wyld]

Finally, reactors need a massive body of standing water for their cooling towers. hands up everyone who lives on a river or lake who wants to have it ruined by a powerplant.

1. Ever visited the open cut in the Latrobe Valley? Ever looked at the pondage?

2. Emotive arguments make Raptor Jesus cry.

[skitzor]

Greens? That was quote was from Greenpeace, which is an NGO, not a political party.

Not to say that the Greens aren't also outspoken about nuclear power as well (it's one of their policies I happen to disagree with).

ah. my bad. skimmed the article and saw green and just assumed.

although, as you say, greens will be a fairly big hurdle before we get nuclear power.

Firstly, there is only 1 foundry [last I checked] that is capable of making the 15 ton reactor cores, its booked solid for the next 10-15 years already.

i'm sure someone can make another one. where there's a will there's a way.

Secondly, there is a very limited supply of high grade fuel, about 50-70 years worth at current consumption, less as more reactors are built [there is a reason why china is building coal plants and not nuclear.], after that runs out you're the looking at refining the low percentage ore, which will make the fuel many many times more expensive, thus make the power it generates many many times more expensive, it'll make the various current renewables look cheap.

from what i remember, that figure was quoted in the context of if everyone stopped using every other power source, and only used nuclear, that would be the length of time we would use it for.
another thing is modern reactors are more efficient, and reusing "spent" fuel is becoming possible (afaik). so that figure is probably already outdated.

Third, it'll take about 20-25 years to actually build these reactors, there is a lot of work to be done before anyone even considers laying the first foundation. then after that current reactor designs give that reactor about a 25-30 year lifespan before you have to build a new one.
I believe russia has in the last few years been shutting down their oldest remaining plants, such as the few that had still been operating at Chernobyl.
then its time to build new plants again.

as i said before, where there's a will there's a way. if people are serious about reducing the amount of **** we are putting into the atmosphere, i'm sure they wouldn't mind spending a bit of money on creating a better power source. something like the carbon tax puts a price on something that needs to be taken into account. people need to stop thinking that money is the be all and end all. pollution needs to be considered.

old reactor designs. times have changed.

Finally, reactors need a massive body of standing water for their cooling towers. hands up everyone who lives on a river or lake who wants to have it ruined by a powerplant.

hands up if you would prefer a pristine lake for 50 years over a healthy planet for thousands of years. this **** is long term.

nuclear is a pointless and dead end power source for terrestrial electricity.

from what i know, i disagree. fission with renewable energy is a great short term power source until we crack fusion (yeah yeah i know, it's been 10 years away for decades, but it's starting to get somewhere with the planned plants).

instead of wasting billions on building that ****, why not use that money to build deep bore geo-thermal.
we know it works, we are capable of doing deep bores, at least 5km in thin areas of crust, 10km in other areas, so we can get high quality steam out of it.

there must be a reason why this isn't being used. saying that, i don't know much about it. if it's as good as everyone says, go for it.

Nuclear is a stupid idea without even taking any environmental or dangers from accidents into consideration.

please join us in 2010.

[r107]

Skitz

I agree with Skitz here, we need to for once take money and put it second to the environment. Just chucking a tax on things doesn't really help it just makes companies want to produce less to spend less.

Also peddling the whole Nuclear power is bad for the environment *please excuse this* **** is old and completely wrong. It isn't that bad, we consider it bad because we know if we go anywhere near it we will die. However if Chernobyl is anything to go by then other animals will just keep on living and deal with it. We have the room for nuclear waste as well. If we can get over being so pissy about transporting it we can store it without it being a real effect on people. I know people hate it when you say this but a lot of the country is a desert.

And last but not least if we take newer Nuclear Reactor designs into account we can have a much longer lasting supply than 50 - 70 years. Anyway you can't say within those 50 - 70 years we wouldn't have gotten a solution to the problem anyway. We are progressing with technology way to fast to rule out the idea that in that time it won't be solved.

But anyway this is my opinion. Pick it apart if you must.

[TRB]

instead of wasting billions on building that poop, why not use that money to build deep bore geo-thermal.
we know it works, we are capable of doing deep bores, at least 5km in thin areas of crust, 10km in other areas, so we can get high quality steam out of it.

there must be a reason why this isn't being used. saying that, i don't know much about it. if it's as good as everyone says, go for it.

Because its very difficult to get funding/support for new things, just look at how hard it is to get R18, when every other western country already has it.
Look at perma-drive or Metal storm.
they both had a really hard time getting support anywhere and Australia wouldn't even look at them.
or look at origin energy's sliver cells system and how hard it was for them to get any kind of government support.

then consider that deep bore geo-thermal is as expensive as a coal power plant to build and you no longer need to wonder why they are having trouble getting going anywhere.
I believe all they could afford was a 2km bore, which while it works to a degree, is no where near the heat needed for high quality steam such as would be made in a coal or nuclear power plant, you really need to be 3 to 5 times deeper down to get that sort of heat.

really, why invest in some 1950's energy idea like nuclear when we could put the same sort of money into geo-thermal and have a better solution.


as for building a new foundry, you have any idea the cost of that?
to do something like that you need to have reliable work for it, which is why the existing one is booked up so far in advance.
its not uncommon for high value projects in various industries to be booked years in advance.
you can't just say "oh we need a new 30 ton drilling rig column, nip down to the hardware store and get me a pack of 3.".

[Agent_Dark]

Finally, reactors need a massive body of standing water for their cooling towers. hands up everyone who lives on a river or lake who wants to have it ruined by a powerplant.

so do coal power stations, and they're still building those everywhere. From the actual electrical generation side of things, there's not much difference between a coal and a nuclear power plant - one uses coal as the fuel source to superheat water into steam to drive the turbines, the other uses a nuclear reaction.

To go back to renewable energy sources though, you guys should check out developments with Solar Towers. They've been using molten salt, rather than water, which gives a Solar Tower the ability to deliver 'dispatchable' baseload power. Its not baseload in the traditional sense of a coal/nuclear station being able to deliver max capacity 24/7, but it gets around the problems of a solar cell or a water based Solar Tower not being able to deliver on demand peak generation when you actually need it.

It's pretty cool actually - the molten salt they use is able to remain at temperature (weeks from what I've read, months even) after being heated by the solar tower and they simply pump it through a heat exchanger which generates the steam for the turbine. The problem with a solar cell is that peak demand usually lasts into the evening when the sun isn't out to make a solar cell work, but with the solar tower the molten salt is still hot and able to be used. Apparently they're building a heap of them in Spain atm, so the tech is there to be used.

There's an article here about it, but I heard about this from some guys who'd been to a conference just recently where they were talking about it.

[André Axe'm]

Only 1 foundry capable of making 15 ton reactor cores? Who says we need one to build a nuclear reactor?
In any case we could just make a new foundry. Sounds like they are in demand.

50-70 years of fuel remaining is ****.

A nuclear reactor could be built in under 5 years. They aren't that big and don't contain much in the way of fiddly little bits.

Geothermal requires new bores to be created every couple of years.
And requires large amounts of water...

Nuclear energy has a smaller environmental impact than a city.

[skitzor]

Nuclear is a stupid idea without even taking any environmental or dangers from accidents into consideration.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18849_6- ... pe_p2.html

see number 1.

[TRB]

Geothermal requires new bores to be created every couple of years.
And requires large amounts of water...

no and no.

its only the case if you cheap out and do it the shoddy way.

if you use deep bore, 5-10km they will not cool within the life of the plant.
and if you don't use the shoddy method of pumping water into the hole and hoping it comes back out as steam and instead insert a fully enclosed steam flash coil then fill in around the coil with a suitable material like lead or similar soft but not liquid highly heat conductive material to transfer the heat to the coil efficiently, then add in a condenser you can then have a fully closed system without integrated heat exchanger which requires almost zero water replenishment.

in fact if you use a proper condenser with a reciprocating quintuple compound engine, you can actually draw the vapor out of the last stage in a slight vacuum, below atmospheric pressure, increasing the efficiency many many times above that of a turbine.

Between 5km and 10km the temp should be several hundred degrees C, if you use a large flash coil [containing many km of actual tube length] then out the other end you will get high quality steam, in excess of 1000psi 'dry' steam.

so far as I know, there hasn't been any really deep bore projects like this, since as I said earlier in the thread, getting these projects into test build phase is very difficult.

[Wyld]

so far as I know, there hasn't been any really deep bore projects like this, since as I said earlier in the thread, getting these projects into test build phase is very difficult.

Sounds like a much better option then.

[Nimbot2506]

Every nuclear debate on this forum I post this link but I absolutely love it.

http://nuclearinfo.net/

This website was developed by a group of Physicists from the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne in Australia. The aim is to provide authoritative information about Nuclear Power. The group has no particular vested interest in Nuclear Power other than to ensure that people fully understand the risks and benefits of both employing or not employing Nuclear Power for energy generation. The information has been obtained with quantitative analysis and has been subject to peer-review following the Scientific Method. To this end Scientists and Professionals from different fields were invited to review the site. We have strived to make our conclusions as transparent as possible and have made sure that readers can obtain the source materials and can repeat the calculations that underlie our text. This site is under continuous revision and is updated as more information becomes available.

And TRB I don't know where you get your info but 25 years to construct?

The General Electric ABWR was the first third generation power plant approved. The first two ABWR's were commissioned in Japan in 1996 and 1997. These took just over 3 years to construct and were completed on budget

Lets hire these guys asap.

[André Axe'm]

Geothermal requires new bores to be created every couple of years.
And requires large amounts of water...

no and no.

its only the case if you cheap out and do it the shoddy way.

if you use deep bore, 5-10km they will not cool within the life of the plant.
and if you don't use the shoddy method of pumping water into the hole and hoping it comes back out as steam and instead insert a fully enclosed steam flash coil then fill in around the coil with a suitable material like lead or similar soft but not liquid highly heat conductive material to transfer the heat to the coil efficiently, then add in a condenser you can then have a fully closed system without integrated heat exchanger which requires almost zero water replenishment.

in fact if you use a proper condenser with a reciprocating quintuple compound engine, you can actually draw the vapor out of the last stage in a slight vacuum, below atmospheric pressure, increasing the efficiency many many times above that of a turbine.

Between 5km and 10km the temp should be several hundred degrees C, if you use a large flash coil [containing many km of actual tube length] then out the other end you will get high quality steam, in excess of 1000psi 'dry' steam.

so far as I know, there hasn't been any really deep bore projects like this, since as I said earlier in the thread, getting these projects into test build phase is very difficult.

Okay, this is some sort of geothermal that requires a 5-10Km deep hole? I think I can see why there aren't any at the moment. I was thinking you meant conventional geothermal.

Surely 5-10km of water is a lot though?

[TRB]

And TRB I don't know where you get your info but 25 years to construct?

yes, by the time we get through finding a spot to put them [there is going to be strong opposition no matter where they go] it'll have been 10 years and then by the time we finish the tender process to find the company who quotes the lowest price [but will then have massive budget over-runs] it'll have been another 5 years.

then in the last 10 years you can actually get on with building and ordering equipment.

if japan were some example that were valid here we also could have had a top of the line rail network.
guess that went for us?

[TRB]

[quote="André Axe'm"Okay, this is some sort of geothermal that requires a 5-10Km deep hole? I think I can see why there aren't any at the moment. I was thinking you meant conventional geothermal.

Surely 5-10km of water is a lot though?[/quote]


its a closed system.
once the steam is used back down to atmospheric pressure its condensed back into water ready to go for another cycle.
it requires a lot less then a non-closed loop system.