UK's Chief Scientist Backs Nuclear Power Revival 438
Timbotronic writes "The UK government's chief scientific adviser has sent his clearest signal that Britain will need to revive its nuclear power industry in the face of a looming energy crisis and the threat of global warming. In an interview with the Guardian, Sir David King said there were economic as well as environmental reasons for a new generation of reactors." From the article: "His remarks come in the build-up to international talks in Montreal on how to address the threat of climate change when the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. He denied suggestions - sparked by comments from Mr Blair that he was changing his mind on whether international treaties were the best way to tackle global warming - that Britain was moving closer to the stance of the US, which has refused to back Kyoto-style emission reductions."
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:right.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Short Term Answer with long term repercussions (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying Nuclear power might not be the best answer for a short term emergency, but short term solutions tend to become long term ones when government is concerned.
Let's go for it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good on him (Score:2, Insightful)
What we need here in the States (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk about the new technologies.
Re:Short Term Answer with long term repercussions (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, really?
*Everything* has problems. I mean, come on, just wave your hands and come up with your ideal hypothetical, theoretical scheme for energy production, and I guarantee it will have some sort of problem.
The suggestion that we should wait to fix our current problems until we've figured out a way to eliminate *all possible* problems is not only silly, it's dangerous.
all the while destroying the very planet we live on.
Please. The planet has withstood enormous meteor impacts, global firestorms, earthquakes, enormous floods, and devasting environmental shifts far beyond our ability to cause, like the development of organisms which excrete oxygen as a waste product (You know, "plants").
The *planet* is doing just *fine*. The planet's survival is not at issue.
Other environmental effects. (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the enrichment though? What about all the noxious chemicals involved in separating the fissile isotopes from the 99+% useless U-238? What about the huge piles of toxic and somewhat radioactive U-238 that you get at the end? Nobody ever seems to bring that up.
I'd like to see what the pro-nuke side has to say about dealing with the environmental effects of this part of the system.
Solve the War on Terrorism. (Score:4, Insightful)
The public's general reaction... (Score:4, Insightful)
A bad reputation is very difficult to eliminate. Whereas a good reputation is ruined by one bad action, the same cannot be said for the converse. Nuclear power has clear advantages as well as disadvantages; technology has improved. But if we can't deal with mercury, toxic chemicals, and other pollutants, what are we going to do with nuclear waste? If we have a plan and are ready, then go ahead, but we should still look for alternatives and improvements.
The problem with nuclear power... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Solve the War on Terrorism. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's certainly a lot of domestic opposition to Chavez, but there's a lot of domestic opposition to Bush too - the fact remains that both were democratically elected by the people.
Environmentalists are Coming Onboard (Score:3, Insightful)
"Lovelock was among the first [wikipedia.org] researchers to sound the alarm about the threat of global warming from the greenhouse effect. In 2004 he caused a media sensation when he broke with many fellow environmentalists by pronouncing that "Only nuclear power can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that has the capacity to both fulfill the large scale energy needs of mankind while also reducing greenhouse emissions."
As an environmentalist, though not a proponent of Dr. Lovelock's Gaia theory, I endorse the development of nuclear power. Further, I think, environmenatlist should step up, admit their error in attacking nuclear power, and, actively push a nuclear power agenda.
Re:Other environmental effects. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can centrifuge so you don't really need any chemicals, and so little fuel is needed to get a given amount of energy that the amounts used are miniscule compared to what would be used digging up the same amount of coal/oil/etc.
What about the huge piles of toxic and somewhat radioactive U-238 that you get at the end?
Ever seen a slag heap? The amount of waste is again going to be miniscule compared to what you'd produce getting the coal or oil needed to get the same amount of energy, the radiation danger is a tiny fraction of what you get from the radon you'll release mining coal. The toxicity is overstated, it's not really any worse than lead - yes it's not something you'd want to be too near, but neither are the much larger piles of stuff used for mining and oil-drilling.
If nuclear power is so great ... (Score:3, Insightful)
So we must encourage Iran, North Korea and so on to build as many nuclear power stations as they like.
Organisms are not as durable as planets. (Score:3, Insightful)
The *planet* is doing just *fine*. The planet's survival is not at issue.
Absolutely correct. The planet will be fine.
Human beings, however, may not fare quite so well.
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I already do a number of the things from that page, personally, and I push for them at my workplace. It looks like it's a good organisation. I think we *should* go for conservation and efficiency, but ultimately those are only going to give us a temporary reprieve.
I really doubt that renewable sources will give us the amount of energy we need, though. They aren't efficient and many aren't reliable for production. Solar and wind are especially bad for that, and they really are supplementary generation methods. Solar has issues of its own, with the very toxic process needed to create photovoltaic cells. The solar convection method is better for that, but it generates less power.
I think if we're getting our heads together over something, researching power productions methods is just as important as efficiency and conservation. Neither should supplant the other.
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only that, but I'm also curious as to how much waste (both radioactive and chemical) would be released into the air by the equivalent amount of fossil fuels?
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though I am a fan of nukes, I have to say that is patently false. In fact, just read some of the earlier articles here to find out that wind alone can put out more than double what we use (That is total energy, not electricity), let alone the other alternative energy (solar, geo, wave, etc).
In fact, you will find a number of companies who are creating wind energy plants all over the world and then selling the energy. More importantly, they are making LOTS of profit at it. [windustry.com]
The real issue is how to deal with varying power. Instead of focusing on power generation, we should focus on how to store it. Right now, Colorado is testing conversion of electricity to H2 and then use the H2 to drive an internal combustion engine to drive a generator (how inefficient can you get). The one nice advantage of researching storage is that it will allow a mixture of alternative a nukes to generate electricty/other energy that is stored close to the site of usage.
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, we have. And you know what? Solar power is, inflation-adjusted, a quarter the cost it was in the 1970s. In short, the predictions of notably reduced cost have been *accurate*. If they keep remaining accurate, solar will become the cheapest power source available.
The physics are sound, and there are many potential approaches, for not just nanocrystalline solar, but efficient organic solar. Low efficiency organic solar is due to random scattering of the electron donors and recipients. There are at least half a dozen companies out there working on nanoscale assembly, so that it's not random, and thus should get silicon-level efficiency at the cost of plastic sheeting. The odds of none of them succeeding seem extremely slim.
Uranium is quite a bit more abundant than is often depicted
False. For example SK's known deposits will be fully extracted in 25 years (Australia will last loner). At current power consumption and efficiency, if we produced all of our power from uranium, and assuming new deposits are found, we've probably got about as much uranium left as we do coal.
The problem is not only that uranium isn't an incredibly common element on the surface. The fact is that only 0.7% of natural uranium is U-235, which is what is burned in the vast majority of reactors worldwide And you'll usually only get half of that out. What we *really* need are safe breeders (for example, lead or lead-bismuth). Also, thorium breeders allow the use of a completely different, not to mention more common, fuel.
Additionally, there are many types of solar beyond PV; PV is just the most convenient for small-scale application. For large scale, your most economical options are solar thermal and (possibly) solar chimneys (it's a relatively new concept, so it's too early to say). With solar thermal, you don't need silicon - you can use any decent infrared reflector, along with a heliostat, and you point it at a dark-colored tank housing a working fluid. Even if you're just looking a PV, small-scale heliostat arrays that direct light to small high-efficiency silicon cells are just about to start hitting the market, promising rooftop-mounted grid-price PV solar (cheaper in sunnier regions, more expensive in shady regions).
Lastly, solar can displace electricity/natural gas consumption. For example, not only can you have solar water heating and solar house heating, but you can even have solar-powered air conditioning (it's currently only cost-effective for large facilities due to the cost of the evaporators, however, since they're not mass produced).
Re:Nuclear Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Mods: Sure, you can call this flamebait (got karma to burn, who gives a shit). The vast majority of comments are pro-nuke, and everyone is going on about safety when the REAL REASON so few nuke orders are going through is cost.
Oh, and parent is 100% correct with regards to solar prices going down. See also Earth-policy.org's Wind Power Set to Become World's Leading Energy Source [earth-policy.org] and accompanying data [earth-policy.org] (pay close attention to the last graph on that page). You just can't beat those types of economics- right now it's a race between solar and wind; nukes can't even come close.
needs to be contained for several * 1e4 yrs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:what will happen to the middle east if (Score:1, Insightful)
What eats up the oil most is cars and trucks. Not plastic/rubber.
You had gave some interesting information, but were a little misleading to anyone who isn't familiar with the numbers. The middle east won't become the worlds premium plastics supplier, but even if it did, there would be no wear near the amount of oil needed from the middle east as there is today.
So where does that leave us? At my original post.
Re:Solve the War on Terrorism. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Solve the War on Terrorism. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are powerful lobbies within the USA that would fight "tooth and nail" against either widespread semi-autonomous power generation (energy & power companies), cheap fusion power production (energy & power companies), or a reduction in worldwide conflict (military-industrial complex). Considering the influence that these groups have with the central government (both main political parties), there will be very little headway made in the USA's energy independence until either (1) these lobbies have determined that they have extracted all available monitary resources, or (2) there is a near-armageddon-like event that spawns a revolution against the status quo.