Should we stop building nuclear power plants?

Can we control nuclear power if something goes wrong?
No.

Then what on Earth are we doing building more of what is beyond our control & runs the risk of SEVERELY damaging not just us but all of life around us.

Grrrr.

We must remember nuclear power stations have been around for a long time and in the main they have operated safely. Yes there have been one or two mishaps but technology moves on and mistakes are not generally repeated. There is bound to be a knee jerk reaction to the Japanese experience but rather than completely stop building nuclear plants we should incorporate the lessions learnt and make sure what we build is “super safe” and covers a wider range of dangerous eventualities.
Nuclear is the only short term way to significantly reduce Co2 and save us from the fossil fuel robber barons, so it must have a place in our future planning.
However there is no getting away from the fact that nuclear is inherently very dangerous. If things go wrong they go wrong in a big way. So I would only build as many as we really need and make sure they are tidal wave proof, earthquake proof and have automatic cooling systems that don’t rely on any outside services. And that is even for plants built in the uk where earthquakes and tidal waves are very very rare events, at least for now.
If we had more time to convert from fossil fuel we might be able to improve renewables in preference to nuclear, but we don’t, so there will have to be a nuclear element in our plans if we don’t want the lights to go out, we don’t really have any choice.
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything we can to make improvements to clean and inherently safer renewables, like wind, wave. tidal and PV, and perhaps gradually increase the proportion there of over time.

I’d be pleased to see us move to more renewable energy sources. However, many of the people who are anti-nuclear are also those who strenuously oppose things such as wind farms on the grounds that it spoils the view from their house or is in other ways damaging to their immediate environment. You can’t have it both ways!

How tragic that my sadness at the recent Japanese loss of life, the expulsion of raditation into the environment and the potential for massive future catastrophe is dismissed by some of the above readers as a “knee-jerk reaction”….

The direct answer to the question is ‘No, not yet’. Alternative clean power generation technologies are evolving but not yet sufficiently mature to replace the current mix of carbon/nuclear generators. With increasing risk of political instability within the major oil-producing countries and with the potential for conflict amongst customers over constrained supplies, the UK needs to take urgent steps to contain our consumption, diversify our current sources of energy and invest heavily in research for future sources, efficiencies and technologies. An off-shore island blessed with powerful tides and winds should be able to create and even export naturally derived sources of energy.

The risks associated with nuclear generation are, mathematically, already quite small and can be reduced further with careful choice of location and design. We mustn’t allow ourselves to be blown off course by the emotional aspects of nuclear dangers. The final report on the current problems in Japan will reveal some quite inexplicable elements of both design and response, as was also true of Chernobyl. Failure to take note of these will simply mean that Russians and Japanese people suffered in vain. There is absolutely no doubt that nuclear generation can be made safer, and it will provide an essential stop-gap until we develop more sophisticated alternatives.

Great Britain needs nuclear power for elctricity generation – there is currently no viable alternative. Global warming and the strictures laid down by the E.U. together with the desire to have less dependence on the oil and gas producers have been the drivers for producing the renewable generation systems but as everyone knows, their achilles heal is that they do not produce electricity on demand. We have spent huge sums of money investing in these systems and they will at times reduce the load on the non-renewable generators but we still have to have extra generating capacity in the non-renewable systems of generation to cover all of the generation capacity of the renewables for the times when they won’t work.
To hope/expect our demand for electricity to be reduced by some kind of unwritten common agreement to save the planet is, in my view, similar to hoping/expecting people to stop driving their cars for the same reason – not a cat’s chance in ****! Our lives and the standard of living that we enjoy are totally dependent on a 24 hour non-stop supply of electricity and at this time, in Great Britain, we have no option but to include nuclear reactors as energy sources for electricity generation.
My hope for the future (longer term) is (and has been for the past 25 years) for the equatorial countries to produce electricity for the world using solar generation. They are, in the main, poor regions of the world with the highest incident solar radiation and generating the planet’s electricity there would be of benefit to us in terms of energy supply and of benefit to these poorer regions in terms of a source of finance. There is more than enough energy from the sun to power the world – we must learn how to capture it and transmit it and maybe one day we will. I guess that the only downside to this will be that instead of trading with oil barons who currently have us by the throat, we will have to deal with a new breed of sun merchants unless the world really can pull together for once. Well, I can dream….

No potentially lethal technology should ever be used unless the human means of controlling or limiting its known dangers are also known or worked out in advance (as part of the R & D process). The George W Bush-type optimistic and ignorant belief that new technology will always provide a solution to anything (presumably ‘if the market conditions are right’) has been proved hopelessly wrong (pouring sea water by helicopter onto the reactor to try to prevent meltdown – god help us!). This view is as naive as my childhood justification for starting to smoke of being certain that a cure for lung cancer would be found by the time I might need it.
Fossil fuels will need to continue to be used – alongside the newer, safer technologies – for quite a while, together with drastic international reductions in energy use. This is not achivevable under the current form of capitalism that can only survive with continual economic growth. On the other hand, a steady-state economy is possible – but only with much greater equality within and between societies. Unfortunately, major steps towards equality have tended to follow major wars or other catastrophic events. Let’s hope it doesn’t take a nuclear holocaust to reverse the rapid increases in inequality of the past thirty-odd years.

Of course.
In the time and for the money it would take to build new nuclear, we could do much more with renewables and proper insulation. Nuclear is a 20th century response to a 21st century problem.

There are plans to build a tidal power farm in Scotland which I see will produce a mere 10MW at a cost of £40 million, the new 1.2GW nuclear powers station will cost £2.8 billion apiece which per unit of output is 40% less.

The argument that nuclear power stations are not really carbon neutral is also true of renewables, the materials for them also have to be mined, processed and brought to site.

I’d like to consider this from a non technical angle as a non engineer-bloke in the street.
Energy rationing would mean (among other things) not being able to put the kettle on when there’s a need for tea, cold houses, restricted use of freezers and food storage in Supermarkets, limited food choices, limited mobility and commuter journeying and a general reduction in the quality of life that we ‘enjoy’ today. It would also seriously compromise the ability of the country to run efficiently. Somehow, I don’t think Jo public will accept deprivation anywhere near this level before they make themselves felt. It is impossible to step back in time. Coal fires are environmentally damaging and ,at present, for the majority of us, there are no other forms of energy, since this all comes from a central universal source via grids and gas lines. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t use our energy as carefully as possible with insulation and conservation as a priority.

So to the alternatives. Every house, or group of houses having its/their own independent energy source via deep earth heat transference, solar/voltaic cells and wind. Leaving the national grid to run the country infrastructure. How many years/ decades would it take to do this, even assuming it became a national priority? Has anyone done a feasibility study on cost and whether this idea is economically sound? Would it make sense in terms of effort and use of energy, or is the central system we already have better at providing power where it’s needed?

Alternative energy seems to be a minor player in this field despite being heralded as a planet saviour. No one has yet tamed the sea, gathered enough cash and good will to build a Severn barrage or built enough Dinorwic power systems to use water power and gravity as an energy source. These, of course, use more energy than they create. Solar power is very thin on the ground in the U.K., though there are more sun farms on the way. We seem to be playing games with this type of power source. How many years/decades would it take to harness nature effectively, even if this was a national priority?

Traditional power stations are said to cause global warming, they use finite sources of energy and some rely on unreliable countries for this input. Carbon capture seems a great, but expensive idea and no one has said that woodchip and other quick grow fuel crops would answer our energy needs either. Not sure why this is, as they would appear to be as carbon neutral as anything else. Perhaps it’s the vast tracts of land needed to make them effective.

Last of all there’s nuclear. Great energy source, good carbon credentials but, like every genie, fatal if let out of the container vessel and, of course the indestructible waste is a moral problem we pass on to successive generations. But, can we do without it?

So far none of the alternatives on their own can supply the power we need and we seem to be at a crossroads of decision making. While we make decisions and implement them we need to sustain reliable power. A present every option plays some part in this. The government is going to have to decide, (and bring the public with them) that they will spend money on the power system of choice. While they, and future governments (who must still agree on the same strategy) do this we actually need nuclear power. Whether this is a few stations with a limited life or a whole block af them as a future, depends on what else is done. We can be horrified at nuclear accidents and, maybe wiped out by one of our own, but there are other mass death scenarios out there that will do the same thing on an equally probable scale. Man is a creative animal. Let’s embrace this creativity and not run away from it. There will always be dangers, what ever we do. This is a nuclear world now, that won’t change any time soon.

How many people have died or been injured in the production, distribution and use of fossil fuels since, say 1945? My guess is far more than those from nuclear power, including the toll from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is not a plea for “burn as usual”, but more one for a rational and calm assessment of the risk/benefits of the various energy alternatives including nuclear. Electricity cannot presently be stored, so some form of rapid generation to meet sudden demand is always going to be necessary, be it fossil or nuclear. Solar doesn’t work at night, and not very well at our latitudes anyway; wind does not always blow, or blows too hard for wind turbines sometimes, and harvesting and burning renewables is simply impractical due to the distinct shortage of sufficient land area. We MUST be able to generate our own energy within the UK to avoid over reliance on imports, be it oil, gas or solar from Africa etc or from areas with less than salubrious regimes. Or are we to fill up our valleys with pumped storage reservoirs so we can use wind.solar power? What will the nimbys have to say about that, let alone all those nasty wind turbines!
Yes, let’s get really efficient in our use of energy, but don’t rule out nuclear because of ill informed scare stories on t.v. or in what passes for our National Press. After all, France generates 70% of its electricity from nuclear, with one of their largest reactors sets at Gravelines, just a few miles from our coast. But do we lose sleep about it? No.
There has only been one major release of radiation from a nuclear station-Chernobyl, and that has had far lower consequences than feared, although I don’t minimise the damage and disruption both there and across Europe, nor the crass stupidity of the staff operating a poorly designed reactor.
3 Mile Island killed no-one and there was no catastrophic melt down, despite all the hype.
Windscale was serious, but adversely affected few, and was not from a commercial power station but a clandestine Plutonium production plant pushed beyond its limits by a stupid, vainglorious government intent on keeping its place at “the top table”.
Nuclear should be a part of our energy mix and it can be run safely too.

I notice that on 18/3/11 “Longley Shopper” commented that I was not completely correct when I stated on 16/3/11 that “carbon capture for fossil fuel is unproven and will be hideously expensive and what are we going to do if the buried CO2 leaks in a few years.”

“Longley Shopper” states that “clean-coal was proven in the 1980’s.

The work on clean-coal in the 1980s was concerned with burning coal in such a way that the efficiency of power production could be increased and that the products of combustion produced by the burning of the impurities (e.g.sulphur) in the coal could be safely recovered and not released as contamination into the atmosphere. It did not address the problem of capturing and storing the CO2 produced. Indeed, in the 1980s it was not appreciated that releasing large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere was such a significant problem.

The phrase “clean-coal” refers to a different process from carbon capture and storage and it is this latter process that remains unproven at present at any commercial scale.

It should also be particularly noted that the use of carbon capture and storage will very significantly reduce the efficiency with which electricity is produced.

I apologise for being pedantic, but these are important points.

One thing not mentioned yet ( I think – there are a lot of comments!), but part of the argument here questioning the likelyhood of electricity usage reduction.
Unless hydrogen cells or some other form of fuel is made safe and cheap, electricity is the future for vehicle power. However much we save in our homes, conversion of most vehicles to electrical power is going to put significant pressure on generation in the future. One possbile future is of < 19th Century-like 'staging posts' where instead of changing horses, we change batteries.

Personally, I used to be very anti-nuclear, like many, conflating the anti-nuclear weapons stance with anti-nuclear everything. Reading (and to some extent finding myself agreeing) with Lovelock has changed my mind on this. Nuclear is very far from perfect. Microgeneration can help a lot. But I can't see any other way to sustain a technologically advanced civilisation.

On a side note, there's some comments in the Solar PV thread asking why microgeneration isn't being promoted and subsidised in a way that benefits the end user as opposed to 'suppliers'.

Think you lot who agree with it should live in japan….

give me a solar pannel on my house any day…

Having tried to read all the comments thus far, I have a few perhaps unconnected observations.
The French reactors (PWR) are all almost upwind of us and have been operating for years as far as I know without signifcant problems. We import a little of that energy ourselves and so, ironically, will the Germans if they shut down their nuclear plants.
By far the most significant energy consumption domestically is heating, both space and water. The best way to use the fuels presently employed is in the home itself. Not electricity ! Gas used in electricity generation is scandalous when you realise that two thirds of it is thrown away in the process. I know about district heating schemes but have yet to hear of one that is a success, because I guess the companies price it too highly and maybe use it as a way of raising their efficiency figures. Even so, I would be surprised if they ever get much above 40%. A modern domestic boiler is much more efficient
Geothermal energy on the other hand seems the best bet for a CO2 free source of low grade heat siutable for such schemes when the heat itself would be the main commodity and not a by product. Much more investigation into the subject is needed I feel sure. A comment from someone in tthe business would be interesting.
Of course we should concentrate on reducing electricity consumption all the time and efficient lighting is important, but thermal insulation is more so, and on a simpler level, draught proofing is, in an old house like mine, more effective than double glazing.
I guess my comment boils down to this. If we heat our houses from the direct source and reduce our electricity consumption to a lower level, we would need fewer nuclear power plants that people are so nervous about.
The safety issue is a legitimate concern, but they are a different beast these days. I remember when there were crashes involving jet airliners quite regularly, but we are happy enough to use them nowadays. Most if not all of the nuclear plants having errors were built and designed in those days too and yes…..I would be happy to live close to a modern nuclear station, I wouldn’t want to sit and look at it all day, but proximity would not concern me other than the risk of it being run for profit by a private company financed by a bunch of venture capitalists…. but thats another argument.