Nuclear Power Related Media Thread, page-1508

Sewell - thanks for a sensible debate - this forum would be somewhat boring if we all agreed with each other - we all need to test our biases. I have been a supporter of nuclear energy long before I invested in Silex; I guess my support derives from the 1960's when we all thought that nuclear electricity would be so cheap that it would not be worth metering - I also did nuclear engineering & thermodynamics for my graduate degree many moons ago (however this was not my career). As you point out initial enthusiasm for nuclear power was overwhelmed by layers of complexity and regulation and thus since the 1980's production of nuclear power plants has reduced - both regulation, national designs/champions and reduced numbers have contributed to increased unit costs. A design such as at Chernobyl (with a +ve void coefficient and no containment vessel) would never (even in those days) received regulatory approval in the west, also Russian operating discipline was well short of adequate. It really is unfair to ascribe such standards to modern practice. Chernobyl - is by far he worst accident - all others did not result in fatalities (apart from someone falling off the reactor building in Fukushima). If society stopped development due to fatalities we would have very little in our modern society and definitely not hydro-electric power/pumped hydro where dam failure results in major devastation of whole communities.

Anti-nuclear interests keep on quoting cost of nuclear as a prime impediment but they are inconsistent. For example the quote you provided on 21/11 "Dispelling the nuclear ‘baseload’ myth: nothing renewables can’t do better!" by Mark Diessendorf (an ecologist who IMO has little knowledge of physics and engineering - he even goes on to quote Christine Milne!) says:

1. "baseload power is actually a good and necessary thing. In fact, what it really means is too much power when you don’t want it, and not enough when you do" - this statement is bewildering since base load is power when you want it not (like renewables) when nature decides to provide it subject to the vagaries of weather
2. "In fact it’s no such thing. All nuclear power stations are subject to tripping out for safety reasons or technical faults" - this is simply untrue the operating time (capacity factor) for nuclear power stations is unmatched by any other type of generation
3. "the only way to supply baseload power is from baseload power stations, such as nuclear, coal and gas, designed to run flat-out all the time whether their power is actually needed or not" - surely he must know that baseload power is designed to "load follow" (nuclear does this all the time in France).

He then goes on to quote a 2014 example of "South Australia had 39%" running on renewable - he of course doesn't quote the 2016 fiasco and he problems of renewable when you get about 60% penetration and then "The north German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein" - he refrains from referring to electricity prices in Germany, their emissions (i.e 6 times more emission in Germany (per Kwhr) than France) and tha they import (nuclear) power from France.

Further he goes on to say "the fluctuations in variable wind and solar PV are balanced by flexible renewable energy sources that are dispatchable, i.e. can supply power on demand. These are hydro with dams, Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs)" - this really is absurd as he ignores the system cost of these assets which are largely required for renewables (as I said earlier dams are a big hazard) and what does he expect in locations that are unsuitable for hydro. This author really does "want his cake and eat it" for renewables in ignoring the additional system costs required to mitigate their variability and then asserting that renewable are cheap compared to nuclear which does not need to be mitigated by "flexible renewable energy sources that are dispatchable" - it's also interesting that in this article "Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs)" come capex free (without maintenance/operating costs) and without fossil fuels (e.g gas) - no doubt they operate on hydrogen that also comes free and has no storage/freezing/gasification costs. Sewell - please provide articles with better arguments - this one has little credibility

In regard to HL waste - yes it's an issue but it is being properly dealt with (currently in pools/casks and then vitrification and repositories) - you may say that it's unacceptable due to a small part of the waste having long term radio-activity but that's also true of wastes such a mercury and cadmium which are far more widespread and poorly handled but their impact is for ever (i.e they do not decay). To be consistent mercury and cadmium (and here are many more) should be prohibited but like uranium/thorium and potassium 40 (in bananas) and carbon 14 are also every present in ores in our environment and as I pointed out in a past post represent a small proportion of the sea of radiation in which we all live (however I still stand by the evidence that a small amount is actually desirable) - surely climate change is the bigger problem.

I accept that SMR costs are as yet unproven but the prospect look encouraging and as I said in a previous post here in Australia we can afford to wait until they are proven in the 2030 and fill the gap with gas fired baseload generation and more renewals up to about 50% - 60% in the interim.