Nuclear power: challenging the Green Party 12 August 09

That’s the thing with you climate change hysterics – you change your mind with the wind. First you and George Moonbat think nuclear power is one of the evils created by Mankind and poses a risk to the planet and then hey presto it’s not such a bad thing after all. I’d love to know the real reason for this road to Damascus moment.

At least those who consider Man-made global warming is a crock and a very expensive crock at that cannot be accused to being inconsistent. We have held onto our views steadfastly and consistently over many, many years.

Give it time and when the lights start going out and developed nations suffer from brownouts coal will be considered to be “not as bad” as We first thought. Let’s face it Mark once your laptop crashes halfway through one of your regular updates during a power cut as the wind fails to blow suddenly you find out what an energy shortfall really means. It’s not a subjective concept affecting those only in insignificant third world countries who, let’s face it, do not show on the radar of the average greenie it will affect you, me and our dogs.

You hold much faith in the nuclear option but havent really explained exactly why beside flinging a few simplistic examples of the perils of other carbon based energy sources. This smacks of desperation to me. You have finally realised that “alternative green energy” is a mere schoolboy pipe dream and will never serve as a realistic source of power.

Frankly there is nothing new here in this latest installment on the imminent demise of the planet. It’s simply a reguritated rant presumably to keep the green troops happy and in line in case their minds stray to more important dangers we face in the world. We wouldn’t want the climate disaster imperative to slide onto page seven would we so it makes sense to now and again type of a five minute piece to keep your obsession on the agenda.

So it appears that you have now joined with Moonbat and a minority of others the Hampsteadian Peoples front for the sake of the planet with nuclear power. Or is that the Peoples front of Hampstead for the sake of the planet with nuclear power?

Gaaaah! Same old same old. Move on people nothing to see here.

A genuine green party would be strongly pronuclear. Such a party would shine like a good deed in a naughty world; indeed, its nuclear advocacy would be exactly that.

I’m not sure, but I suspect the Russian nuclear material being fissioned in American nuclear powerplants is uranium-235, not plutonium. Formerly explosive, it is diluted far below the purity necessary for that for powerplant use. Also, Britain’s stocks of weapon-grade plutonium must be far below 100 tonnes. Any 100 tonnes it possesses must be power-plant-derived, junked up with heavy isotopes and therefore probably insufficient to blow up even the Falkland Islands. (But strewing the stuff around those islands, with detonations that leave all or most of it unfissioned, might suffice to make them as hot as parts of Cornwall.)

(How fire can be domesticated)

So basically Tony just because you have held dear your principles for a long time you must be right? ‘Greens’ and nuclear power have not been easy bedfellows, of that there is little doubt which I think is excatly Mark’s point? Go Nuclear now I say!

“So basically Tony just because you have held dear your principles for a long time you must be right?”....................

Erm, yes Carl this is the position of those who do not believe Mankind is under imminent threat from the weather.

Wouldn’t you trust more the person who is generally consistent in their beliefs rather than those who over a relatively short period of time on one hand believe that the World is doomed from massive cooling and then from massive warming?

This is exactly what has occured in terms of fashionable climate science over the past twenty years, which I’m sure you will agree, is a very short period of time indeed. Not only that but to fundamentally change your position on whether to use nuclear power as an option in order to keep the lights on in such a dramatic way that Mr. Lynas and George Moonbat has smacks of incoherence in terms of logical thought and a true belief in one’s argument.

The true test of this particular issue is when eventually (and inevitably) the Green Party are finally persuaded to the nuclear cause. This should in the minds of most sensible people put just another nail in the coffin of any public trust that still might exist in the green agenda these various wacko parties put foward as policy. Laughably, it was only thirty years ago that most right-on trendy lefties in the London suburbs of Hampstead and Highgate could be found driving Deux Chevaux cars with yellow and red back window stickers pronouncing the mantra “Nuclear power? No thanks”.

Of course these are the same liberal, urban middle classes who largely make up the membership of the Green party – hardly a manual worker in sight. I’m no class warrior, in fact I would consider myself middle class myself but reading through the list of activists in the party one can’t help but notice several names appear of whose first name happen to be represented by names similar to those found in rich boarding schools – Hermione, Charlotte, Constance, Toby, Sebastian, Sophia etc. etc.

Note that most activists appear to be female. I guess that now feminism is no longer considered to be de rigueur and left wing politics has been discredited to such a wide extent that the only opening into middle class rebellion seems to be environmentalism. The boys tend to enjoy strutting their stuff on the streets and getting involved in large demonstrations where, inevitably, they get the crap kicked out of them by the plod in overwhelming numbers. It’s just the way of the world and in times to come something else will replace the burning issues of todays environmentalists. Maybe these self same people in years to come will be campaigning to keep the lights on when the mass of the population can no longer afford the sky high prices they will be charged for their gas and electricity and they get thoroughly ticked off that they can no longer tune into radio four because the wind is not blowing.

Now that is something to demonstrate about.

Don’t talk to chicken-weasels, Carl. It isn’t just Gen4 reactors that remove worries about peak uranium. There has never been any genuine worry about this.

Had there been, those doing the worrying could have solved some other problems that might have been on their minds by an interesting method: buying up all the world’s low-cost uranium and dumping it into the sea.

It’s supposed to be only a few million tonnes, so it would never make a noticeable change in the composition of seawater that already, naturally, contains 4,000 million tonnes. Diluted there, the 4,00X million tonnes would be as irretrievable as the 4,000 are now. Or 4500 and 450X, maybe a little more accurate.

This would be within a few million affluent, concerned citizens’ collective financial means because a few million tonnes of U, although present-day reactors can get from it as much heat as oil burners can get from a few hundred billion barrels of oil, is only as expensive as a few billion such barrels.

(How fire can be domesticated)

Tony, if you are not some class warrior why do you keep referring to class? There are plenty of so called working class people on each side of your debate. Just as there are middle class people and upper class people. Actually I think your grasp of the socio economic makeup of society is a touch outdated. Your clinging to the denialist hope and attempts to bury your head in the sand I find frankly pathetic. But hey, it’s your opinion and you are entitled to it!

From the articles I have read it would seem to me that nuclear power generation is an entirely sensible part solution to our forthcoming energy problems and may also just help buy a little time in the battle against global warming. I am however not convinced that sufficient energy can be delivered quickly enough via the undertaking of the rapid building of Gen4 or any other type reactors to provide sufficient power for the world and certainly not in the timescales we may be looking at. The costs involved would require a global political consensus which is clearly just not there. Unfortunately I forsee the mass reopening of UK coal mines in the short to medium term particularly if we we’re faced with successive cold winters, given our reliance on Russian gas!

The future I fear is not bright for the planet, but I guess to take this debate full circle, mankinds future on this planet depends upon degrees in temperature rise and of course time.

I forsee for the UK at least, much higher eneregy costs 10 years from now in domestic gas and electricity prices and aslo at the petrol pumps. The reopening of many of the UK’s coal mines and the well intentioned but somewhat misplaced faith in renewables such as wind and wave power increasing. None of which will help reduce global warming or provide much needed energy at lower prices on a scale significant enough to make much difference. So in the UK the weather will become milder and wetter no doubt but with perhaps increasingly frequent short but devastatingly cold spells in the winter months and other extremes in weather patterns. For the rest of the world who knows?

This may sound very selfish and incredibly negative but there is little else that encourages me to be more positive. I am just glad I dont live on a small Pacific island or coastal area vulnerable to sea level rises or that indeed I dont live on the Indian subcontinent relying on glacial run off for fresh water, or indeed below the Andes in South America. I’m also glad that I dont live on the eastern seaboard of the USA as when the Canrarian island of La Palma falls into the sea the following Tsunami will decimate much of that part of the world. I am also glad that I dont live in the increasingly drought stricken parts of Australia and China, not to mention Africa. I am really pleased that I dont live in the Amazon region where the logging companies are destroying that particluar carbon sink at a rate faster today than ever despite all the attempts to stop it! I’m glad I dont live in lots of places really but that doesnt mean that we can ignore global warming or that we can do nothing to help anyone at all. We as a race have a duty to one another to try to stop global warming. It’s about time people stopped all the denial and started to act even in some small way on their own where they can. And as for those in postions of power, they need to stop talking and start doing. The best place to start is by attacking mans reliance on carbon for fuel. Go nuclear NOW!

Carl, people don’t change especially over such a short period of time. We still have the same social system we have had for many, many years and the structure of this system is unlikely to change significantly any time soon. If anything the classes are even more divided now than they have been for a long time.

You talk about increased energy costs over the forthcoming ten years. This is true and the main reason for this is this present Governments passing of the climate change bill. That along with renewable obligations and carbon trading will certainly lead to higher bills.

You seem to be somewhat of a heretic by not putting faith in alternative energy such as wind farms. How do you explain that one?

Incidentally if you researched a little more you would discover that those pacific islands you speak of are sinking and not under threat from rising sea levels. In fact research demonstrates that in those areas sea levels have in fact dropped over a period of time. They generally lie on tectonic plates which move up and down. Don’t ask me why they just do. Added to the fact that in those regions seismic and volcanic activity changes the topography in all ways shapes and forms AGW certainly cannot be blamed for any effect whatsoever for anything that might happen to those islands. In fact it’s in the interests of those who rule those islands to ensure that blame is laid to rest on Man. Watch carefully how much money they are asking for from the developed world in order to combat climate change. It runs into many millions.

By the way, what has a tsunami created by Las Palma have anything to do with the current debate? Are you seriously suggesting that we should blame global warming if indeed such an event took place?

You seem to be very concerned about the demise of the planet, more concerned than the Australian parliament who have recently voted no to their latest scheme to combat global warming. If they aren’t particularly worried why should you be?

Hello agan Carl, long time no speak, but I see that you are still lapping up the political propaganda (about the “significant human-made global climate change” hypothesis) as though there was no tomorrow. Stop worrying, there’s no looming human-made climate crisis (only possible natural ones, which we’ve always had to contend with) and there’s no looming fossil fuel crisis either (other than reliability of supply from unfriendly sources). Nuclear is one alternative energy source to be seriously considered, but that comes after coal and ther’s always that lovely natural gas stuff hiding in the seas and tundra waiting to be tapped by those devious energy companies. Thank goodness most of them are relatively friendly.

Keep on enjoying life. Best regards, Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Climate Change Agnostic

Another nitpick:

... geothermal power mostly derives from radioactive decay in the centre of the Earth – an entirely natural process…

Actually, most radioactive decay is now-a-days believed to occur in the continental crust. Certainly if the whole Earth were as rich in uranium, thorium, and potassium as is the ground immediately underfoot, we’d either never have existed, or have found some way of living at a much higher temperature than we do in fact live at. Maybe we’d have some chloride or chloride-bromide salt mixture running through our veins, and would get frostbite if we touched frozen lead.

“Neutrino geology” is a search key that might lead to more on this. The detectors have to be rather large, but if this is accomplished, with them we will see where all the bright regions - concentrations of radioactive materials - are. It is expected they will show a hollow sphere with skin about 40 km thick. The inside won’t actually be missing, it just won’t be shining with neutrino emission.

(How fire can be domesticated)

Hi Tony, aka ‘chicken-weasel’

No I am not a heretic just a realist. Wind and wave power will cost too much and produce too little to help in the coming energy crisis. That however does not mean that we should abandon it. I feel that we should merely concentrate our efforts, and money, towards nuclear as a priority.

Pete (Ridley) the next wars on this planet, and indeed you could argue some of the current ‘wars’ are going to be about energy. I dont share your optimism about supply. Not forgetting the rampant rise of National Socialism accross the world as people in the at risk areas of the planet spread out in search of food, fresh water and shelter. That will really put the cat among the pigeons!

This issue is quite complicated, but I’m interested to share some of my thoughts about the topic. They launched a nuclear power plant somewhere outside the city. Then, eventually the plant was closed due to different health problems of people living within the vicinity. Of course, this problem is caused by this nuclear power plant. As years passed by, people are getting aware of other alternatives to solve this need of energy. Alternatives like windmill, solar panels, biofuel, etc. However, none of these become successful because of lack of support from our government. Why? Because the government is after the money they could earn from tax collections of corporation. Well, they still need to make some moves to maintain the government. So basically, the government finds it very hard to support the campaign in saving mother earth because of that issue. I believe, the only key here is that, the government must think about something that can solve really solve our problems.I can’t see the logic of having a solution for now that can eventually result to another problem in the future. Everything would be useless if this is the case.

Nuclear power carries risks too – radioactive releases can potentially contaminate surrounding areas, harming people and nature. But we need a science-based approach to assessing these risks.

No-one has any problem with the science-based approach when it’s his or her own risk that is in question. It is only when one can get fossil fuel money without having to live near fossil fuel installations that one may become a loud repeater of two dishonest assertions. One, that nuclear plants are dangerous. (Since this is not absolutely untrue, the deceit is in the omission of evidence that alternative sources are much more dangerous.) Two, that their neighbours are afraid of them.

Consider arctic ice researchers who, eager to get off the arctic ice, want a ride on an icebreaker. Do they settle for the first available ride, regardless of whether it is an oil-burning diesel ship or a nuclear ship? Or do they hold out for the nuclear ship, since all reactors of the class that it contains, all of them together, have never harmed any neighbour at all? Well, obviously, they take the nuclear ride.

Now, what corporate or institutional sponsorship for these researchers would most decisively show that those who emphasise nuclear power risks over much greater alternative risks are cold-blooded snakes in a way no actual snakes could ever be? Guess who they were working for.

(How fire can be domesticated)

Carl, what on God’s earth is a chicken weazel?

The dinosaurs actually sort of did use nuclear power. 1.7 billion years ago natural nuclear reactors operated within the Earth at the Oklo mines of Gabon, Africa. Back then the concentration of fissile U-235 was higher, allowing water seepage to moderate the fission of natural light water reactors. Their wastes moved 10 feet from where they were generated over the 1.7 billion year period, and have since safely decayed away. Nuclear is a clean, green, and very natural solution to the climate crisis.

Perhaps it is possible to solve the problems of reactor operator error, waste, and terrorist attack. I support nuclear, and think it will be expanded in the future. But let’s keep in mind the economics. These things are expensive, take a long time to build, and only come in one size: extra large.

Yes, the pyrometallurgical system of electrorefining in the Integral Fast Reactor mixes actinides in with plutonium in such a way that fuel is dangerous to handle and not suitable for bomb production. Yes, centrifugal separation of IFR fuel is almost impossible. Yes, the IFR’s 300-600 MW modular design could allow it to be emplaced in our existing coal plants and use their grid infrastructure. But 4th generation nuclear is a symbol.

Clinton said it himself in his 1994 state of the union speech: unnecessary. A solar panel 100 miles on a side in the desert could power the U.S. RepoWEr America—WE can!

Perhaps it is possible to solve the problems of reactor operator error, waste, and terrorist attack.

Why would any honorable person want to suggest that these problems have not long since been solved? And then say,

I support nuclear …

Genuine support of the innocent includes not repeating false charges that have been brought against them.

(The waste problem has been solved in the sense that all the nuclear power plant waste in the world has been harmless to all of its neighbours. It continues to exist as a theoretical problem, while alternative wastes, such as carbon monoxide, do real harm. The fuels that produce them, however, are much more expensive than nuclear fuels, and bring in special tax revenues.)

(How fire can be domesticated)

Hey did anyone listen to Johnny Porritt on Any questions on radio 4 this Friday?

My skin is still crawling and that’s after two baths but still the intense feelings of a body polluted still plague me. Strangely enough during the eighties when Spitting image use to parody Michael Howard and others as slugs and slimey not to be trusted types one wonders how Johnny boy would be portrayed.

No, no the thought is too repulsive and I can feel my skin starting to crawl again.

Go listen and hear the unacceptable face of environmental extremism in the UK today. It’s truly an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy but someone has to get the word out.

Come gentlemen – a reality check. Australia has 6% of arable land and feeds 60 million people. Additional bans for uranium mining have been lifted in Western Australia which will leave more contaminated land tied up in perpetuity.

The history of uranium mining in Australia is one of concealment, spills, leaks and "incidents" not least when uranium miners were fed bathing and drinking water 400 times in excess of the "safety" threshold.

After sixty six years of nuclear, 16% of the world’s electricity is drawn from the atomic industry. The Irish and North Seas are contaminated with tritium, Caesium 137 and chemical discharges and the grim reapers have trashed the Gulf states with DU. And you call that “green?” Tut tut gentlemen!

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25943922-2682,00.html

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.792,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/18/nuclearpower.energy

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/environment/flood+threat+to+nuclear+arms+site/2513357

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Yucca_Mountain_cost_estimate_rises_to_96_billion_dollars-0608085.html

http://uranium-news.com/2009/08/13/482/

Ok, before anyone pulls me up, I put my hands up to posting ad hominem remarks on my last post. This does not further the debate and I apologise to all for that last rant, including Mr. Porritt who I’m sure is a very nice chap. However when the term flat earth or denialist is used my hackles to tend to get rather raised. I do not consider myself either of those things, merely someone who dislikes it when the opinion of those who I find interesting and nearer to the truth are described in such a way. I have made the mistake of personalising the subject and this is no help at all. Once again big sorry’s all round.

I must say that this whole issue seems to be reaching some sort of critical mass. The two sides are so polarised that I cannot imagine where the middle ground might lie. In fact there is, possibly, no middle ground. Either one side accepts the AGW theory or they don’t. It’s that simple.

This leads to prevarication, bitterness and puts the brake on any real development that is needed in terms of energy policy and all aspects of urgent economic plans that will take the world forward in the short as well as the long term.

This is why there HAS to be a “Once and for all” series of debates which will give people the opportunity to make their minds up once and for all. As it stands there has been one side providing stats and data to prove their own position followed by counter claim by the other side. This is getting us all nowhere.

Any ideas as to how this can be done? A worldwide coast to coast telecast where both sides can set their stall? There has to be some way to settle this once and for all. I’m lost for ideas but the sooner the matter is settled the better for all.

Another rant over.

I think Charlie Brown grew up, but apparently Lucy and her football did not.

the radioactivity levels of the remaining waste will be back down below the levels of the original naturally-occurring uranium ore within less than a thousand years.

That’s a bit of a wrong way to look at it. We have a big lake in these parts - Lake Superior - with a very low salt content. But because it’s so big, it still contains a billion tonnes of salt. On its shores are cities that salt their roads in the winter. The salt runs into the lake, and the lake takes ages to change its water once, so we’ll have to quit doing that before very long. But so far, we’re OK because in all history we haven’t put a billion tonnes in. Nowhere near that much. And hovercars are just around the corner. Of course they are. How could they not be? And when they come, we won’t have any occasion to salt the roads any more.

The radioactive waste case is a little different from the salt case. One difference that turns out to be minor is that in terms of our holdings versus Lake Superior’s, ours are a lot more, not a lot less.

This is minor because there are other bodies of water besides Lake Superior, and with some of them, the ratio is again in our favour: they hold much more radioactivity than all our radioactive waste caches do, just as Superior has more salt than the cities around it.

So Lake Superior is out of bounds, but not all water. And not all land, since it, in turn, contains vastly more radioactivity than does any water.

The major difference is that radioactive waste goes away on its own, like little disposable flashlights with no On/Off switches that nonetheless switch themselves on after a random delay. They do not then shine forever, and what we’re concerned about is their unpredictable light, not their inert remains after they have produced it.

So to make a permanent increase in the radioactivity in whatever deep and massive part of Nature it is that you plan to bury radioactivity in, you have to continue burying it on a permanent basis.

Just as it is acceptable to let salt flow into Lake Superior, as long as it’s on a short-term basis, and in that short term will hardly reduce the water’s freshness at all, similarly, it is acceptable to operate some amount of nuclear fission in perpetuity, and bury its waste radioactive atoms at, eventually, the same rate as they spend themselves, as long as that rate is small compared to the rate at which natural radioactive atoms buried in the same part of nature pop off.

With that limitation, the right way to look at burying nuclear waste that will still be a tiny bit radioactive a thousand years hence is not to think what a long time that is, but to understand that even then, even though burial continues throughout the thousand years, the steady-state that by then will have been very nearly attained will be a small variation on nature, and right now, just after we begin burial, it’s even less.