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The Forum > Article Comments > Nuclear power's deepening crisis > Comments

Nuclear power's deepening crisis : Comments

By Jim Green, published 16/10/2017

There are clear signs of a nuclear slow-down in China, the only country with a large nuclear new-build program.

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1. An excellent article by Jim Green - detailing the undeniable downturn in the nuclear industry.

Added to the burden of building reactors is the usually unstated, unplanned cost of eventually decommissioning reactors for many extra $billions.

2. Before the usual devotee starts arguing about Thorium Being Australia's Answer. Australia has no experience even building standard U235 electrical energy reactors. Hence Australia is in no position to risk its economy developing and economically producing Thorium electrical energy reactors.
Posted by plantagenet, Monday, 16 October 2017 6:07:26 PM
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Dr Jim Green is, as he says, professionally committed as an anti-nuclear campaigner and has been for many years. Essentially he is gloating about his successes in damaging the progress of nuclear energy. His commentary is probably accurate with its facts (I only skimmed his predictable material as I like learning new things) but his tone is distasteful. The low-emissions energy he advocates, sun and wind, are on the balance of probabilities unlikely to be able to fulfill the world's future needs for energy (he might do something useful and figure out what the quantum of electricity an all-electric world will require. He can start with the present figure, 87 exajoules). In the mean time I suggest he hedges his bets a little. The real potential of solar and wind should become evident in around 20 years or earlier. He looks young enough to still be around then. If I am right he will have much to answer for.
Posted by Tombee, Monday, 16 October 2017 6:10:26 PM
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Tombee
" His commentary is probably accurate .. but his tone is distasteful."
Accuracy is tasteful . Or are you saying he has distaste ?
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 16 October 2017 6:24:48 PM
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A deepening crisis in nuclear power?

Friends of the earth would say that, wouldn't they?

My information seems to say something else And that something else is 50 new nuclear power stations being built in China currently?

Where the lead contractor is Westinghouse?

Q: Who is exposed to more annual radiation P.A?
An airline pilot or the naval lieutenant in charge of the reactor in a nuclear sub?
A: The airline pilot!

Most of the fiends of the earth probably would be amazed if they found, folks living in Denver are exposed quite routinely to similar radiation exposure as squatters squatting in downtown Chernobyl?

There is a deepening crisis for companies like Westinghouse, whose business model is built around fuel fabrication, rather than building the reactors that use them.

Fifty new Chinese reactors possibly built at cost? Have clearly tested their solvency? And may fear that they may not have a captive fabricated fuel market anymore? Their principle business model!?

And may need to seek shelter in chapter 11, if the Chinese can get their prefabricated fuel elsewhere, like say Russia?

Also the chinese are investing heavily in walk away safe molten salt thorium power! Rather than gold plated poles and wires.

Our energy prices were reasonably stable when they were our public property and the energy was cheap enough to quite massively grow our manufacturing sector. And could again if the ignorant stopped spreading their fact free fear mongering!?

Simply put there is a place for renewables, wind turbines where the wind is fairly constant and enables the turbine to pay down the CO2 created during their manufacture! And solar panels where the sun shines more days than anywhere else, like the desert regions of northern Chile.

As for 24/7 baseload power, we cannot go past, carbon free, nuclear power!

As the prototypes have demonstrated, walk away safe molten salt thorium power is very safe. The fuel abundant and cheap, and looks very likely, as being able to be produced as virtually ready to use modules.

Read Richard Martin's book, Super Fuel, sub titled, green energy.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 16 October 2017 6:31:03 PM
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In a nuclear war I think nuclear power stations would be a prime target in order to unsettle the enemy's population.
Posted by JF Aus, Monday, 16 October 2017 7:01:31 PM
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Alan
Draw a line down the middle between you and Jim Green.
world-nuclear.orgChina: Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power in China September 2017
Mainland China has 37 nuclear power reactors in operation, about 20 under construction, and more about to start construction.
70% increase of nuclear capacity to 58 GWe by 2020-21. Plans are for up to 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.

. By 2030 nuclear capacity will be 120 to 150 GWe, and nuclear will provide 8% to 10% of electricity.. . 2016 nuclear generation was 24% up on 2015. 2016 , nuclear capacity was 33.6 GWe gross, 2012 target of 58 GWe nuclear in 2020, with 30 GWe more under construction. In the 13th Five-Year Plan from 2016, six to eight nuclear reactors are to be approved each year.
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 16 October 2017 7:14:50 PM
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Enthusiasm for walk away safe, molten salt, thorium reactors, was created when I learned they could operate independently for 120 days?

Another being their ability to create bismuth 213. An alpha particle isotope, miracle cure nuclear medicine! And molten salt nuclear technology allows it to be removed from a fully operational system and the fuel to be circulated around through a chemical reaction which allows the fuel or reprocessed waste to be completely burnt!

Waste added and burned at least until the remaining untapped energy is consumed, around 90% of it, until what can't be burnt has a half life of just 300 years!

Pete, hard to critique something you obviously know absolutely nothing about?

Being first to try something new is not our particular forte eh Pete? And what about the mountains of toxic waste, photovoltaic solar panels are creating in their manufacture?

That said, we're doing some of the molten salt thorium research in partnership with the Czechs. Who apparently have fairly recently taken delivery of quite a few tons of FLIBE?

Who are much much bigger and far better resourced than us!? LOL!

I read wikipedia and noted the countries now involved in the research. And a surprisingly long list!

I know they can't all be fools governed by manifestly moribund morons? Or a house divided against itself!

Maybe they get that climate change is real and therefore, the only choice as clean, cheap, safe, carbon free, baseload power, is nuclear energy and entirely unsubsidised renewables!

Arc furnaces, running 24/7, where the price for industrial power is just 1.98 cents PKH as the median? The promise of thorium!?

Hydro, just not portable enough and like renewables or backup options, needing transmission lines and all the problems inherent in reticulated conventional power and a model already over 100 years old!

Then we wonder why the last Australian made car rolled off and failed to connect the dots. Or loss of appetite is connected to costs, purchasing and running! And where that's real? Linked directly back to the cost of energy, impacting manufacture viability!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 16 October 2017 8:49:51 PM
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Nick, you surely don't expect anyone to take anything you say seriously!?

Unless it goes like this?

The night was dark and stormy, the air was full of beer.
Someone took the bridge away and left me standing there!

That's the fifth time to night! Mummy!
Stop trying to flatten daddy's tummy.
It's a complete waste of time.
The Lady next door will be over a half hour after you've gone,
to blow it up again.

You'll Have a nice night now y'hear.
Cheers, Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 16 October 2017 9:05:16 PM
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'Nick, you surely don't expect anyone to take anything you say seriously!?'
Of course not . That's why I pasted from the website given.
Promise of 1 cent a giga whizz? That's an election promise?
Posted by nicknamenick, Monday, 16 October 2017 9:12:58 PM
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Guys I wonder if the reason the salt based reactor won't happen is because no-one will invest in something that they can't gouge or find ways of making ludicrous amounts of money off. This is why these ideas will not take off. I do in fact demand that our bloody govt's start buying back our utilities. These are essential services and should not be in private hands so that we can be held at ransom at their whim. South Australia had nothing to do with downed power lines and everything to do with the power generation bastards holding the govt to ransom by trying to extort unreasonable charges out of them, or the power was not going on. And it didn't. The first thing that needs to be done is grab Di-Natale and his blind, deaf and dumb followers, by the throat and throw them off a very high place, then we can begin a contamination free discussion and with some luck, begin establishing some old fashioned technology base load power generators, and I don't care if they are coal fired in the short term.
Posted by ALTRAV, Monday, 16 October 2017 9:27:46 PM
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Salt based reactors will happen and surprisingly soon! And when that day dawns what's left of Australian manufacture will disappear to China or anywhere else but here?

Where self serving morons can't wait to sell what's not nailed down or what someone else sacrificed, so those who followed could have better life!

If Politicians don't get that cheap abundant energy created post war Australia and took a war torn basket case economy and turned into the third wealthiest in the world and a creditor one at that! Replete with an education system that turned out a smaller percentage of illiterate innumerates and still affordable housing! Then when will they!?

When we are buying our LFTRS from China along with our cars, ships, subs and anything manufactured?

And completely devoid of energy independence and the security that alone guarantees!

It's all very well for solar panel installers to feel threatened Pete. by walk away safe, molten salt thorium.

But if we had base load as cheap as 1.98 cents PKH, as the median. We'd import none but make where they were thought up and designed, the place of manufacture. Minus the mountains of toxic waste permitted by slack or non-policed regulations in China.

We need to stop fighting ourselves! The fight we need to have is out there!

Our future, if we are to have one? Is a nuclear powered one and a return to publically owned and operated power provision? Or one if privatized then operated as competing Australian co-ops! To bring back affordability, sanity and rationalized delivery service that we still own!

Shop around.

Why, when large swathes of rural and regional Australia has only a single provider!

Gone are the days when the local council provided the poles and wires at cost and made their money selling all manner of electrical goods!

And made to a standard, not a price and designed obsolescence!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Monday, 16 October 2017 11:30:23 PM
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Alan baby
Will you be investment manager for your local aerospace complex?
Your figure on new Chinese nuke plants is out but you insist on $1.98 to 2 decimal places when Th tech is not yet complete. You're not a Nigerian scam as you didn't take my credit card details when I offered to buy a kg of Thorium from you. But pushing the scheme for junk salt walk-away fast-fission chain - what's the game? KFC had to find the herbs and spices in 10 years but Thorium has had 50 years already.
Posted by nicknamenick, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 3:05:07 AM
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As I had expected, Jimbo has cherry-picked information favourable to his cause and neglected the rest.

1 50 reactors are presently under construction and within a decade global nuclear power generation will be at an all-time high.

2 Chinese reactor approvals are dropping more because the growth of energy consumption has slowed faster than anticipated, and the growth of coal and renewables has also slowed.

3 Though approvals in China have slowed, China will still be building 3-5 new reactors per year after 2022.

4 The article neglected India and other countries where reactor approvals have not slowed.

5 Finally, countries where reactors are not being built and reactors are closing, the bulk of the new power is coming from coal and not renewables, mainly due to the unreliability of renewable supplies.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 12:14:02 PM
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"the article neglected India and other countries where reactor approvals have not slowed."

The article includes India "India's nuclear industry keeps promising the world and delivering very little - nuclear capacity is 6.2 GW and nuclear power accounted for 3.4% of the country's electricity generation last year."

Then approvals in past major users Germany, France, UK, US, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Canada are obviously slowing.

Maybe North Korea, Israel and Iran are the only nuclear "success stories" - for nuclear bomb uses.
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 2:33:30 PM
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Plant,

India presently has 22 smaller reactors running at roughly 6GWe with 6 reactors under construction. It's true that its original stated goals of 63GWe by 2032 have been pared back to 27GWe by 2032, but at a 500% increase over 15 years, this is hardly a slump.

The kick in the pants will come towards 2030 when CO2 emissions are continuing to rise and renewables can't make up the difference.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 3:02:48 PM
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Like many others I depend on OLO for factual news with no fakes . So of course it was disappointing to see Alan's $1.98 and Shadow Minister's "50 new reactors" without reference sources. Facebook and Playschool are respected but wider authority is needed in this situation . Alan has been in a Thorium trance for many days , typing robotically , but $ 2.035 Kwh is the latest price from Shanghai Ice and Barbiturate Salts .
Posted by nicknamenick, Tuesday, 17 October 2017 8:20:33 PM
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Nick,

Don't be so childish. This is a discussion forum, not a dissertation. Entering "reactors under construction" into google instantly gave me this link:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx

If you have a brain, use it.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 18 October 2017 5:03:48 AM
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Alan wrote :
"Fifty new Chinese reactors possibly built at cost?"
Shadow Minister wrote

"50 reactors are presently under construction and within a decade global nuclear power generation will be at an all-time high.

2 Chinese reactor approvals are dropping more because the growth of energy consumption has slowed faster than anticipated, and the growth of coal and renewables has also slowed.

3 Though approvals in China have slowed, China will still be building 3-5 new reactors per year after 2022."

So 50 is not meaning China. Shadow Minister is correct .
Alan's $1.98 is the problem.
Posted by nicknamenick, Wednesday, 18 October 2017 6:17:07 AM
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Thanks Nick,

Jimbo has been predicting the failure of nuclear, and its "horrors" with little reference to the facts for a while.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 18 October 2017 8:25:11 AM
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Jim wrote, 'Chinese government agencies note that in the first half of 2017, renewables accounted for 70% of new capacity added (a sharp increase from the figure of 52% in calendar 2016), thermal sources (mainly coal) 28%ŕ and nuclear just 2%.'

Quoting renewables 'capacity' rather than 'production' is a common trick of climate alarmists. It makes renewable installations sound so much more impressive. But it is mileading.

My roof solar panels have a capacity of 4.5kwh but are currently producing 0.0kwh because it is night time, which makes up half the 24hr day. My panels are ideally facing north at the ideal angle, but at the sun's peak today it was producing just 1.5kwh because it was cloudy. This is just 30% of production capacity and cloudy days are very common in winter and somewhat common in spring and autumn. Over an entire year, taking out nightime and accounting for cloudy days and the inclining and declining angle of the sun, most solar panels are lucky to achieve an average of 20% - 30% of capacity - more with solar tracking.

The average production of wind farms is around 30% of nameplate capacity. Though a study of over 3,000 wind turbine installations showed that production falls as much as 50% due to wear and tear over half the turbines expected life.

We can also expect that solar and wind productivity will decrease overall as the best locations for siting major installations are quickly running out.

Coal and nuclear installations accounted for 30% of new capacity in China for first half of 2017. We know that they will produce at close to 100% of their capacity, if required.

Renewables might have made up 70% of installed capacity, but they may only be able to yield at best an average of 30% of their name plate capacity.

So to compare apples with apples using simple arithmetic, new production capacity installed in China in the first half of 2017 was more likely 59% Coal/Gas/Nuclear, vs 41% renewables.
Posted by James Doogue, Monday, 30 October 2017 3:24:54 AM
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Some of us knew about availability of sun and cloud and wind before the called 'renewable' BS was suggested. LOL
Posted by JF Aus, Monday, 30 October 2017 3:39:31 AM
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