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The Forum > Article Comments > Clean future in nuclear power > Comments

Clean future in nuclear power : Comments

By Barry Brook and Martin Nicholson, published 16/12/2009

We have the means to fix the climate and energy crises by dealing with the objections to nuclear power.

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The thing that troubles me about the standardised Integral Fast Reactor is that only a year or so ago people were saying the same things about clean coal; it will work because it has to. Now it seems the problems with clean coal may be insurmountable. If IFRs aren't ready in time then what? Post 2030 when all fossil fuels are in severe decline or heavily carbon taxed that leaves us with gas backed renewables and Generation III nuclear. Except that gas will be very expensive and even nuclear fuel will be relatively more expensive. By then we'll also need longer range electric cars or synthetic fuel for transport. Another two or three billion of the world's have-nots will want to join the middle class with home air conditioning and a car in the driveway.

I think a likely scenario is that, Copenhagen notwithstanding, we'll burn every ounce of coal and even make petrol from it. Desperation for energy may be so great that several countries will build fast reactors whether the bugs have been solved or not. Therefore we had better do the best job we can.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 8:36:22 AM
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The points you listed earlier in the article are valid and all good reasons for not going down the nuclear path, particularly in view of the short-term lifespan of nuclear power because of limited uranium resources.

Even if we were to use nuclear for the foreseeable future, we would still have to deal with the issue of energy sources again at a later date. And in the worst scenario possibly dealing with the fallout of another Chernobyl.

There is something very unnatural and concerning about having to bury radioactive waste in the nuclear solution, particularly if there is any leakage into the water table.

Part of the energy solution is learning to live with less as well as some back up from wind and solar at least at the domestic level.

Fossil fuels would not be the problem they are today if we stopped avoiding the issue of population sustainability but that road has already been travelled many times on OLO so I won't repeat what is easily found on other threads.
Posted by pelican, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 10:20:47 AM
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Yes, it is possible – that nuclear power has the potential to be of great benefit. Its proponents might be more believable than they have been in the past; perhaps. After sixty years of subsidy by piggy-backing on the world’s “defence” budgets the industry now wants more.

If it is so good, let its further development, and independent testing of safety and economic aspects, be done at its own expense.

Let future subsidies be removed (for the first time, and hopefully forever) from both fossil fuel and nuclear power generation. Transfer that expenditure to further development of less carbon-intense methods: wave, wind, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, geothermal including hot rocks, carbon-neutral biomass; all of which are proceeding with demonstrated potential, in total of all, to provide power competitive with properly accounted-for fossil or nuclear.

Let that be done in acknowledgment that, should ever there be cheap energy of infinite capacity to provide for human expansion, Homo sapiens will soon kill themselves off from both exhaustion of resources and poisoning themselves in their own waste. Strange that – all too similar to yeast proliferating in a wine vat. Homo sapiens – sapiens?
Posted by colinsett, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 10:43:01 AM
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At last some common sense re atomic power from people who can reasonably claim to know something about it.
The Copenhagen debacle is costing heaps and getting nowhere. The expenditure and effort would have been far better utilized in obtaining world-wide consensus on the nuclear option
and the standardization of construction methods, safety standards, disposal of waste etc. Go nuclear or return to the caves. Other options at this stage are pipe dreams.
Posted by GYM-FISH, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 11:06:35 AM
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I have been reading comments for many years about the imminent fast breeder reactors that will alleviate the nuclear fuel shortage. But when are they actually going to arrive? At the present rate of consumption, there is about 60-70 years of uranium up to about $150/kg. All of the reactors now being installed or on order are "conventional". It is hard to see a scenario where enough FBRs are installed before there is a critical shortage of uranium. But time and again the nuclear boosters gloss over this inconvenient truth.
Posted by Jedimaster, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 1:25:07 PM
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Given that this article was by journalists for a newspaper, it may be nitpicking to note that this was all nice sounding rhetoric with no hard facts.

However as has already been noted, the supposed new, better, safe, plants do not currently exist.

Reducing waste to background levels is no solution as radioactivity is not like adding salty water to the sea. If you add two cups of salty water together, the concentration does not increase.

If you add two cups of radiation together, the radiation increases.

If the proposition in the newspaper article, that we can use these new reactors and therefore we don't need more uranium mining, was true: the industry would be closing mines.

Notice also no mention of the cost of nuclear energy, of the regulatory apparatus, of waste disposal of current plants.

The other unspoken truth is our present crime against future generations.

If we place a small amount of waste in geological depository, (eg 1 tonne, plutonium-239, iodine-129 isotopes etc)but then have to provide for increasing waste in the future (based only on 2% energy growth), we bequeath to future generations a task of looking after 1*1.02^500 in 500 years or 20,000 tonnes.

The above was just for illustration of the principle. In fact the amount we produce now is much larger and the growth in energy demand is far greater.

So the real issue for all these nuclear industry pundits is to:

1) using actual industry practice - tell us what amount of waste is being sent into long-term storage
2) how will this grow
3) what does this leave for future generations in 100, and 500 years from now.
Posted by old zygote, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 9:48:48 PM
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