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Nuclear power stations.

(28 Posts)
jO5 Wed 31-Oct-12 10:26:54

I'm not sure I'm happy about the Japanese building three of these in the uk? It seems their own people have given them a big fat no. So we get them. I realise they will be the latest generation of nuclear reactors, but can we be sure that absolute safety will be built in? I know they will provide jobs, but is the economy the be all and end all?

I wonder.

jO5 Thu 01-Nov-12 21:32:30

"Two of the victims were 18 years old, while the third was 25".

Very sad.

Jodi Thu 01-Nov-12 18:20:29

bags grin !!'

JessM Thu 01-Nov-12 16:49:15

No i was not joking. A lot of lessons have been learned about design and operation of all kinds of things in the last 50 years! In the 1950s when the first plants were built it was still experimental technology.
I don't welcome the idea of more NPSts but - do I want us to be totally dependent on russian gas? No. Do I think we should be burning the more polluting coal or oil (also imported) ? No. Do I think we could ever rely completely on renewables? no.
Do I think we will cut our energy requirements voluntarily - or do we think that energy use will carry on going up and up. Yes.
Successive governments have been completely wimpy about mandating energy efficiency improvements and at the same time they have tried to keep energy costs low (not full VAT for example).
Which leaves me with the lesser of the evils - nuclear.

Bags Thu 01-Nov-12 10:33:25

Just going to a public Hallowe'en party can kill you prematurely

Bags Thu 01-Nov-12 09:17:12

BTW, jodi, happy to tell those people if you give me a means of communication wink

Bags Thu 01-Nov-12 09:16:37

People are always dying prematurely. Dangerous thing, this living lark. It's silly to think we can eradicate all risks. We can do our best to reduce risk which, on the whole, I think we do, gradually, but there will always be risks while ever there is life. Risks from nuclear accidents are not high in real terms, not like road accidents and heart attacks.

Jodi Thu 01-Nov-12 08:58:58

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents

Jodi Thu 01-Nov-12 08:55:33

Tell that to the estimated 33 people who died prematurely bags and the methods used to put it out were a gamble that luckily paid off or it could have been much worse.

www.lakestay.co.uk/1957.htm

jess ??? grin you're joking of course?

JessM Thu 01-Nov-12 08:50:19

And safety standards have improved a tad in the last 50 years.

Bags Thu 01-Nov-12 08:37:15

The long term effects of the Windscale fire were not dire, not even statistically significant, according to this article in New Scientist in 1981

Oldgreymare Thu 01-Nov-12 08:22:15

.... and they renamed it Sellafield so that we would forget!!! hmm

Jodi Thu 01-Nov-12 08:11:54

Windscale fire 1957 jess?

Bags Thu 01-Nov-12 07:42:54

nfk, "wind farms winding down" – like the poeticism wink

NfkDumpling Wed 31-Oct-12 22:18:34

Impressive! Fingers crossed for thorium.

annodomini Wed 31-Oct-12 21:52:22

Apparently there is another source of nuclear energy - thorium, which is more plentiful than uranium and safer to utilise. Can't pretend to understand all the science but here's some info

NfkDumpling Wed 31-Oct-12 21:42:06

last winter I went to a very interesting talk by an environmental scientist who said there was reasonable confidence in scientific circles that nuclear fusion would be a viable alternative by 2040. Just as the present wind farms are winding down.

jO5 Wed 31-Oct-12 19:18:18

I know Sellafield isn't a power station. But they deal with the waste there.

jO5 Wed 31-Oct-12 19:16:48

Sellafield has had problems jess.

I guess you are right NfkDumpling. As I said on the wind turbines thread, I wish they could speed up nuclear fusion.

NfkDumpling Wed 31-Oct-12 19:07:44

I fear we have put up with a couple more nuclear power stations to tide us over until something better comes along.

JessM Wed 31-Oct-12 18:55:36

We have had nuclear power stations for rather a long time in this country without any problems. They will build new ones near old ones. They are I think the least bad option. Otherwise it is a case of burning oil/gas/coal all of which we will have to import. Cos we have pretty much used up all our own.
It doesn't matter what companies build them really does it.

harrigran Wed 31-Oct-12 18:53:50

Cheer us up, why don't you grin

jO5 Wed 31-Oct-12 18:18:00

But what will we do with the nuclear waste? would you want it buried near you

And what about terrorist attacks?

And the tiniest amount of plutonium could make a lethal dirty bomb.

FlicketyB Wed 31-Oct-12 16:57:24

oh, and building them - see Hoover dam and *** the American civil engineering firm that built it and threaten tosue you if you dare to mention them in relation to it.

FlicketyB Wed 31-Oct-12 16:56:18

According to James Lovelock of the Gaia theory, the most (humanly) destructive method of power generation is hydro power. Collapsing dams have killed far more people than nuclear power generation.

Bags Wed 31-Oct-12 16:41:59

Nuclear power is green insofar as it is 'carbon' free. Quite prominent environmentalists support it for that reason.