New nuclear power plants in the UK, and the downfall of humanity

[Loop Stricken]

Okay, I admit it's a somewhat sensationalist title, but hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about soon enough.

So, if you follow UK news at all (and frankly, even if you're in the UK you probably don't because it's all fearmongering shite nowadays) you might have heard that the politicians have decided that, yes, we might actually find nuclear power useful, and maybe we should get in on that.

The first of a planned new generation of nuclear power plants in the UK has been given approval.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey told MPs in the Commons that he was granting planning consent for French energy giant EDF to construct Hinkley Point C in Somerset.

The proposed £14bn power plant would be capable of powering five million homes.

Mr Davey said the project was "of crucial national importance" but environmental groups reacted angrily.

Source [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21839684]

Hooray! Energy for all! Wave of the future and all that!
... but of course, it's not that simple, is it?

See, there's this term we use in this country. NIMBYs. It stands for "Not In My Back Yard"s, which I find odd since we Brits don't particularly use the term 'yard'. but I suspect 'Garden' wouldn't be so pithy an acronym, but I digress.

I don't usually do this, but on this occasion, and as someone who vehemently believes nuclear power is a rather pressing necessity for the UK, I decided to check the comments for this article.

Oh... that was a poor decision.

Speechless! Only in the UK could we be stupid enough to dislike wind farms yet like Nuclear! The German people/government/industry were smart enough to take one look at Fukishima and kill nuclear once and for all. Yet us - an island nation - supposedly can't live without it! To use the term of Homer Simpson - the worlds most famous nuclear power employee whose standards sum up the industry - Doh!

The combination of Tsunami risk and terrorism makes nuclear a very costly option. Onshore and Offshore Wind is by far the cheapest and quickest technology to expand. Hopefully most investment will go to wind and hopefully in the long term DESERTEC vision may be realised.

"For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity."

There are many more, but these had the best overall legibility.
It seems the general public learned nothing from Fukushima, except that things tend to go tits-up when a region is hit with a massive earthquake and a tsunami. Maybe nuclear reactors are like lightning rods for natural disasters?
Damn! Maybe we should think twice about building it in a country so overwhelmed by all these damn tsunamis like the UK.

In 1607 a massive sea water flood hit the Bristol Channel. It is thought that this may well have been a Tsunami caused by a landslide under the sea. Many people were killed and some churches still have the flood markers to indicate just how high the waters rose. Will Hinkley Point become another Fukushima ?
Nuclear Power - No Thanks. Build coal powered stations.

We can barely go a mere four hundred years without suffering one of the damn things!
I despair sometimes. I really do.

Also, the terrorism comment was particularly terrifying. It reminded me of that one day, quite a few years ago, where a couple of buses exploded. And of course, all the terrorism that's happened since, like...
... The, err... the thing. Remember the thing? Yeah, it was chilling. All those subsequent buses were horrifyingly late.

TL;DR
Nuclear power still scares the crap out of stupid people​

 

[kailus13]

Homer Simpson is apparently a real person now. Also wind farms are inneficient, ugly and noisy.
I don't generally check the news so thanks for pointing this out.

 

[Savryc]

Because fuck clean air and efficiency right? As long as the slobbering mob feels safe and secure.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity."

I'd laugh at the stupidity if I could, but having grown up around nuclear power and having friends and family in the business (dad is reactor engineer, so when politics goes down, I unfortunately have to endure the rant), I just don't have it in me anymore.

 

[warmachine]

We can always rely on gas from fracking with the Health and Safety Executive who don't inspect well integrity and are underfunded anyway.

 

[Weaver]

Nuclear is a far better alternative to gas and coal. What do people think would happen to a gas power plant if it were hit by an earthquake and a tsunami? Granted, there would be no radiation.

I agree a distributed wind turbine system would be fantastic, but most people seem opposed to building one near their house. The amount of wind turbines needed to power 5 million homes would be massive. For reference, offshore wind turbines produce about 5MW, about enough for 4000 - 5000 homes, assuming peak wind conditions and regular usage.

 

[repeating integers]

I have no tolerance for these people anymore. Throw them into the seas and let sharks eat them. We need nuclear power, because wind energy just won't cut it for our demands in terms of efficiency. Hell, we've already left it late enough that rolling blackouts could well be on the way in the future.

But obviously that would be better than a nuclear power plant, which could, um, fall victim to the tsunamis that hit us SO OFTEN. Oh wait.

 

[Quaxar]

I don't know what's to say against <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor#Advantages_and_disadvantages>Generation IV reactors.


> Nuclear waste that remains radioactive for a few centuries instead of millennia
> 100-300 times more energy yield from the same amount of nuclear fuel
> The ability to consume existing nuclear waste in the production of electricity
> Improved operating safety


If anything, they are actively combating existing nuclear waste dumps.

 

[Fappy]

Don't the French owe like 70%+ of their nation's power to nuclear energy? I've never heard of shit getting real in that regard over there and that's right across the pond from you guys.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Nuclear isn't perfect but it's a much better option than coal and more viable than wind/solar. Until we can develop a better source (cos Nuclear isn't renewable anyway) it's probably out best option. I'm banking on geothermal being the energy of the future.

I really don't know what people want though, no source is currently that great. Coal and gas pollute, nuclear has dangerous waste and the potential of serious accidents and renewable resources are expensive, inefficient and nowhere near ready to supply the demand for all the energy we currently need. But people'll never be prepared to sacrifice things of their own to take that into account.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Don't the French owe like 70%+ of their nation's power to nuclear energy? I've never heard of shit getting real in that regard over there and that's right across the pond from you guys.

Yeah we/they have loads. It's something like 79%, highest percentage in the world apparently.

 

[Andy Shandy]

To be fair, it scares the crap out of a few idiots. And for a couple of them at least, they are certainly in the minority as their comments have been downvoted to and are some of the lowest rated comments.

Whereas some of the highest rated comments are backing the nuclear power plant idea. So yeah, there's a few dafties but there are many more sensible people, who want nuclear power.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Considering that the UK has already been using nuclear power (albeit sparingly) since the 50's, and in that time we haven't even produced enough high-level radioactive waste (i.e. The stuff that can't just be burned or buried safely, and has to be stored underwater for decades before it's safe enough to dispose of) to fill one Olympic-sized swimming pool at Sellefield, and we've so far managed to do this with no major incidents of any kind, I reckon we're ok to build a few more. Unless, you know, we might be hit by one of those earthquakes/tsunamis/hurricanes/volcanic eruptions that we're so famous for having. ¬_¬

I envy the Icelandics. Must be pretty sweet living right on top of an infinite and completely clean supply of geothermal energy.

 

[Quaxar]

Don't the French owe like 70%+ of their nation's power to nuclear energy? I've never heard of shit getting real in that regard over there and that's right across the pond from you guys.

There have been some minor problems in <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadarache>Cadarache, but to be fair that is amongst the largest nuclear research facilities in Europe.
And in 1980 in the Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant a uranium rod began melting, which lead to a whopping 4 on the <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale>INES scale, the lowest category classified as "accident".

There have actually been very few INES ratings of 4 and above. Chernobyl as 7 and Kyshtym (RUS) as 6 being the only ones in their respective category, and 5 only Fukushima (JAP), Three Mile Island (US), Windscale Pile (UK) and Chalk River (CAN). And most of these happened in the 50s.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Nuclear power isn't the answer.

Its just trading one finite resource (oil/coal) for another (fissile material).

It's reliance on water to cool the plants can be a weak point during heatwaves/droughts, although this issue can be mitigated somewhat.

 

[Galletea]

Unfortunately big disasters make people very afraid of stuff, and there aren't many disasters that come bigger than nuclear ones. Never mind the benefits, or even the facts for that matter.

 

[Esotera]

Concerns about the safety of nuclear power are legitimate when the plants are being built by the lowest bidder for the cheapest price. Fukushima wouldn't have been much of an issue if they'd built the sea wall 1m higher as was recommended by one of the scientists...

We should be concentrating on renewables instead, most specifically for the UK offshore wind & wave power. Nuclear should be transitional only.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Nuclear power isn't the answer.

Its just trading one finite resource (oil/coal) for another (fissile material).

It's reliance on water to cool the plants can be a weak point during heatwaves/droughts, although this issue can be mitigated somewhat.

You mean like building it near an ocean?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Nuclear power isn't the answer.

Its just trading one finite resource (oil/coal) for another (fissile material).

It's reliance on water to cool the plants can be a weak point during heatwaves/droughts, although this issue can be mitigated somewhat.

You mean like building it near an ocean?

Yep, just watch out for tsunami's and freak storms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

I was actually thinking along the lines of placing any reactor in the cooler parts of the country so events like this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/12/france.nuclear

don't happen.

 

[Cabisco]

I find the wind power suggestion equally hilarious because I know many areas around Yorkshire who don't want them because they would destroy the local area/ no one wants to look at a big ass white windmill while on lovely country walks (you might, most people in the area don't). The amount of windfarms we would need would destroy the few beautiful parts of the countryside we have left

I think Nuclear is the way forward, just get it built and everyone will move on to complain about something else.

That or the whole tidal power thingy.