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

[Da Orky Man]

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.

In the U.K they speak english, in fact it's where words like yard come from , and nimby is an overused thrase here too .

Indeed we do speak ENglish, but in the North Amerian meaning of the word 'Yard', in British English we use the word 'Garden'. They mean exactly the same thing.

You forgot to add that green peace backs nuclear energy.

No, they don't. If I may redirect you to these links:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/nuclear/problems
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/

However, one of the co-founders does indeed support nuclear power. That was one of the reasons he split from the organisation.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Nuclear power is complicated and it seems people tend to shout down that which they cannot comprehend. Also, nuclear disasters get a fair amount of media attention whereas the thousands that die due to smog from coalplants get none.

It's fairly much the same as people who are afraid to fly but are okay with driving a car.

Germany shut down all it's reactors but it's facing massive energy problems now, having to build more coalplants (that's what I heard anyway) and having to pay the operators of these plants big fees for shutting them down earlier than agreed

If only there was a way to harness power from the sun! Like some kind panel that uses solar energy, we could call them panel-that-makes-electricity-from-sunlight panels or something. What am I saying? Such wondrous technology is a pipedream in the realms of science fiction!

For cereal, why aren't we putting solar panels on the roof of every building in the country? It probably won't power everything and certainly won't at night, but you'd offset a huge amount of electricity so we wouldn't need so many power stations. Then shut down the coal and gas ones and swap them for decent nuclear ones. If anyone has a problem with that then they can do without electricity. Arseholes to them.

As far as I know, solar panels require rare metals in their production and thus are kinda expensive atm.

There is a neighbourhood in my city where every house has solar panels - the local government wanted it to be the largest neighbourhood in the world fed by solar power ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stad_van_de_Zon ). They cut down a ton on the amount of energy they need from the Grid (panels generate 3,75 MW total) but they're not self-sustainable. So they added three wind turbines as well - now people near the turbines complain about the constant noise and the constant moving shadows when the sun shines through the blades.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Nuclear power is complicated and it seems people tend to shout down that which they cannot comprehend. Also, nuclear disasters get a fair amount of media attention whereas the thousands that die due to smog from coalplants get none.

It's fairly much the same as people who are afraid to fly but are okay with driving a car.

Germany shut down all it's reactors but it's facing massive energy problems now, having to build more coalplants (that's what I heard anyway) and having to pay the operators of these plants big fees for shutting them down earlier than agreed

Not to mention coal plants release more radioactivity into the surrounding area than a nuclear power plant.

 

[Tropicaz]

People are retarded, misinformed and scared. There's a fair few reactors already in the UK, not to mention Sellafield up nearish to where I'm from and we're yet to grow extra arms or gain superpowers (more's the shame). Also I cant believe people are talking about wind power, I'm pretty sure to power the UK by wind we'd need a square footage of wind turbines bigger than the UK itself, it's so crap. Nuclear is the only real viable option going forward so I'm happy to embrace it.

 

[TheHmm]

But Fukushima was old...

Three Mile Island just broke...

and Chernobyl was stupid in the way that plutonium was the product and energy a bi-product.

Also russian hierarchy and a blantant disregard for that the actual "Do and Do not" that came with the plant.

Stupid people...

 

[miketehmage]

People talking about earthquakes any tsunamis hitting them......

LOL ITS THE UK.

Personally I think that nuclear power is definitely becoming more essential and I'm not opposed to having more nuclear power plants.

 

[TheHmm]

Well, after Chernobyl, people are pretty scared of nuclear power, the effects of the explosion still remain.

But we have come a long way since then, nuclear power is very efficient and as long as they do what they can to make it as safe as possible, I am all for it.

And people tend to forget Chernobyl was caused due to severe incompetence. They literally disabled the safety nets during the test they were conducting. It's almost as if they were asking for the reactor to meltdown.

Those tests were supposed to be done before the plant even started operation, but they rushed it and had to do the tests while running the plant, THEN disregarded the safety regulations.

 

[Ziame]

Well we're on topic of power, so I have to ask for someone's knowledgeable input:

Are the wind turbines REALLY ecological? Aren't they very polluting in the construction process (I mean the parts, not the setting up )?

Also I read in a magazine that one turbine costs more power than it will generate in its lifespan...

Looking forward to being educated.

 

[Pinkamena]

But Fukushima was old...

Three Mile Island just broke...

and Chernobyl was stupid in the way that plutonium was the product and energy a bi-product.

Also russian hierarchy and a blantant disregard for that the actual "Do and Do not" that came with the plant.

Stupid people...

Wat. Source? And please don't tell me it's the new Die Hard movie.

Well we're on topic of power, so I have to ask for someone's knowledgeable input:

Are the wind turbines REALLY ecological? Aren't they very polluting in the construction process (I mean the parts, not the setting up )?

Also I read in a magazine that one turbine costs more power than it will generate in its lifespan...

Looking forward to being educated.

It takes many years (I don't remember exactly, but I believe it was about 5-10 years) before they've produced enough electricity to pay for its own construction. They're not very efficient.

 

[Frybird]

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!

Germany shut down all it's reactors but it's facing massive energy problems now, having to build more coalplants (that's what I heard anyway) and having to pay the operators of these plants big fees for shutting them down earlier than agreed

Not to mention coal plants release more radioactivity into the surrounding area than a nuclear power plant.

As a german, i can perhaps clarify:

The goverment plans the stop of nuclear energy since 2002, and has turned off two plants between 2002 and 2010.

Then, in 2010, the goverment actually EXTENDED the lifespan for the active nuclear powerplants due to some issues with the owners of the plans due to taxes and other things as well as to have a safe bridging between nuclear energy and clean energy.

But of course, Fukushima happened a year later, and of course, everyone wanted a satisfying solution NOW. So, the regulations were revised, the eight oldest plans were shut down, the rest will be taken off the grid between now and 2022.

This caused MASSIVE losses for the energy companies, who of course weren't prepared at all for the sudden shift. The household costs for electricity have gone up, and as of now, the proposed building of renewable energy plans has been lagging behind, creating the need for other, much more "unclean" powerplants to compensate (as people already stated).

---

While i personally think the end of nuclear energy will be a good thing in the end (after all, the plants cause nuclear waste that is only extremely hard to dispose of), the reactionary sudden shift due to Fukushima was a rather idiotic move that the citizens now have to pay for.

 

[bunnielovekins]

Actually, living in the north of the UK, in rural cumbria, Sellafield nuclear plant is right there in my back yard. Strangely enough I don't mind it, because aside from the fact that it creates hundreds of jobs and provides hundreds of times more power than a windmill they had the good sense to build it in a place that wouldn't be seen for miles around.
Now compare it to the wind farms in the village where my grandmother lives. Wherever you are in the village, you can see the windmills. There's no escape. Go to the side of the village closer to them, and you can hear them. What was once a lovely picturesque village has now deteriorated, and the reduction in the local house prices has meant lots of low-cost housing for lots of undesirable elements to move into.
This is not to say they're always bad, Lancaster University has a big windmill next to it and that's fine, because it's next to a city, a university campus and a motorway. The countryside there has already been covered up, the windmill doesn't make much of a difference.

 

[Nickolai77]

This is not to say they're always bad, Lancaster University has a big windmill next to it and that's fine, because it's next to a city, a university campus and a motorway. The countryside there has already been covered up, the windmill doesn't make much of a difference.

They'd have been more than one windmill if it wasn't for local nimbys who obstructed the whole process and in the end only one windmill was built, which is incredibly annoying because with only one turbine you're hardly generating much power. I'd have loved it if the entire campus could have been powered by wind turbine, you'd have huge long term cost savings on the electricity bill which could have been passed onto students.

Also, people in this country need to get over their dislike for wind-farms. Aesthetically i really like them, whenever my parents took me as a kid to see my cousins in Yorkshire we used to drive past this windfarm in the Pennines and that was one the highlights of the journey for me. To me they're symbols of modernity and technological progress. We should have more of them. The countryside is criss-crossed with motorways, farms, electricity pylons and enclosed fields. There isn't anything "natural" about the English countryside anyway, so i don't see why i can't include wind-turbines. And even if people can't learn to like them, the environmental and economic benefits i feel outweigh aesthetic dis-taste.

 

[Ironside]

Well we're on topic of power, so I have to ask for someone's knowledgeable input:

Are the wind turbines REALLY ecological? Aren't they very polluting in the construction process (I mean the parts, not the setting up )?

Also I read in a magazine that one turbine costs more power than it will generate in its lifespan...

Looking forward to being educated.

If you only take into account the construction process of the turbines it is estimated that it would take roughly 23 years of operation for you to reach a stage where you will be making energy savings. However if you take into account where they are placed then you essentially will never make any carbon savings - have a read of this http://www.naturalnews.com/039488_wind_farms_carbon_dioxide_emissions.html - it is most interesting. The turbines also use a fair amount of rare earth materials - especially the larger ones which require permanent magnet machines and whilst these materials are extremely damaging to the environment to extract nobody actually cares, because currently China is producing about 98% of them (that also happens to be why they are so expensive - one country basically has a monopoly on them.)

 

[Ziame]

If you only take into account the construction process of the turbines it is estimated that it would take roughly 23 years of operation for you to reach a stage where you will be making energy savings.

Thanks, and how long does a turbine last? Before it has to be scrapped?

 

[CriticalMiss]

If only there was a way to harness power from the sun! Like some kind panel that uses solar energy, we could call them panel-that-makes-electricity-from-sunlight panels or something. What am I saying? Such wondrous technology is a pipedream in the realms of science fiction!

For cereal, why aren't we putting solar panels on the roof of every building in the country? It probably won't power everything and certainly won't at night, but you'd offset a huge amount of electricity so we wouldn't need so many power stations. Then shut down the coal and gas ones and swap them for decent nuclear ones. If anyone has a problem with that then they can do without electricity. Arseholes to them.

So, let me get this right. you want to base the entire countries electrical infrastructure on a method that generates noting when most people want energy, 6-9:30AM and 5-11PM according to the government website, due to the fact the sun is too low in the sky by that time.
A method that doesn't work when it's raining, and this is meant for England so it's not uncommon to have a few weeks of rain at a time over 'summer'.
And a method that pollutes an incredible amount during production by releasing things like Silicon Tetrachloride and destroys ecosystems by tearing apart deep sea trenches and starting open pit mines to find the incredibly rare, and finite, minerals needed to make the panels.

So the power you'd 'offset' would be practically useless because of when it was produced, you'd need giant batteries or millions of big capacitors to store the charge until it could be used and most forms of them would produce large amounts of pollution in their production and not last very long. And by what you said you'd still have to build enough nuclear stations to supply the whole country so we won't suffer blackouts every time a cloud forms, so why wouldn't we just use them? Do you want to destroy the planet making unnecessary solar panels?

'GREEN' isn't Green

Solar power isn't going to produce ALL of our electricity but it is still going to provide some, which is better than nothing. And currently we are already destroying the planet to get at oil, coal, gas and fissionable materials for existing power sources, saying that production of solar panels will suddenly turn Earth in to a desolate wasteland of potholes is dumb. If we were serious about using solar power then people would start throwing money in to finding better panels that are less harmful and more productive. But apparently that is too much effort for some people.

 

[CriticalMiss]

If only there was a way to harness power from the sun! Like some kind panel that uses solar energy, we could call them panel-that-makes-electricity-from-sunlight panels or something. What am I saying? Such wondrous technology is a pipedream in the realms of science fiction!

Now if we could raise solar panels into space, then found a way to transfer the energy they collect down to Earth without it frying stuff along the way, that would be neat and would bypass a lot of efficiency problems like cloud coverage etc.

For cereal, why aren't we putting solar panels on the roof of every building in the country? It probably won't power everything and certainly won't at night, but you'd offset a huge amount of electricity so we wouldn't need so many power stations. Then shut down the coal and gas ones and swap them for decent nuclear ones. If anyone has a problem with that then they can do without electricity. Arseholes to them.

Still, the space stationed panels would be awesome. *nods*

But I suppose the catch here is that the production and disposal of solar panels does involve some rather nasty waste. I'm not too well versed on the subject yet, but while those things are clean while they work, they might not be so clean when they're being produced or disposed of once they go defunct...

If we built a space elevator then you could just put a mahoosive cable running in to space with an equally gigantic plug at the end Think how cool it would be!

 

[DRTJR]

News: Sanity reigns in the UK, their producing power that surprises is actually providing energy.

 

[Denamic]

But Fukushima was old...

The Fukushima power plant also endured an earthquake and a tsunami and still kept working. Don't forget that.

 

[Edguy]

It's funny how so many are oblivious to the simple little fact: Japan lies in the meeting area of FOUR continental plates; they are basically one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, when it comes to tectonic activity. The UK, however, as well as Germany, France and the rest of Europe, lies in the middle of a huge plate, and is thus not really in danger of any such natural catastrophes at all.

Nuclear power is the future, might as well put resources into making it safer and more viable sooner rather than later!

 

[Griffolion]

Please amend this if I'm wrong, but this is basically the summary of the anti-nuclear argument:

Look what happened at Chernobyl, Pripyat will be inhospitable for generations to come!

Yes, look what happened when a crazy government takes the fail-safes off a nuclear plant considered old and in need of de-commissioning even for back then, and then performs some ridiculous, unsanctioned experiments on it. That's very, very likely to happen today in 5, brand new, top of the line nuclear reactors under strict regulation by a government by-en-large not crazy...

Look at Fukushima!

Yes, look at an old nuclear power plant that got hit by the Earth literally cracking and sending an immeasurably massive body of water straight at it at 200mph. I mean, we in Britian, where the nearest fault line (of any size) is a couple of thousand miles off coast are likely to be getting this all the time.

I'm all for pursuing wind, sun and sea as far as is reasonably possible, but there comes a time when we need to supplement the rest with safe, modern, nuclear power.