Nuclear-powered Electricity generation

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#2763268 19-Aug-2021 20:46

Batman: Is diesel or petrol more likely to be available in the long term? Say if I wanted to install a generator to charge my EV?

I'd go diesel - it's going to be really difficult to electrify things like fishing boats and farm machinery that have such a high duty cycle. And you can always use vege oil if desperate.

Having worked for a few years on the periphery of nuclear propulsion, I would say nuclear is far too complex and expensive for NZ, especially with our risk aversion in environmental things. Far more sensible to build a few more large hydro projects

Handle9

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#2763273 19-Aug-2021 20:56

Technofreak:

MadEngineer:

Put it this way. If we have nuclear power we’d also need an equal source of power and capacity (generation and distribution) at the ready for when it had to go offline.

I seem to remember reading several years ago that for primarily this reason if we had one nuclear power station we in practical terms had to have two, which then made it uneconomic irrespective of the debates around being nuclear free or the impact of an accident causing radiation to escape.

Having the required regulatory oversight for one power station is entirely uneconomic even without the technical issues. If there is one thing that is very clear it's that you can not trust private industry to operate one of these without intense supervision.

NZ doesn't have the population density or an energy mix where this makes any sense.

Geektastic

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#2763313 19-Aug-2021 22:59

gzt:
Lias: The reality is the only reason NZ has the nuclear ban is because David Lange was a two faced lying politician.

Du Fresne is entitled to his opinions and he has some very silly ones. I have too much respect for Lange to characterise the events depicted in that way. I disagree.

It's always struck me as faintly silly.

gzt

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#2763319 19-Aug-2021 23:32

Silly? Not at all. Let me take you back... American nuclear weapon testing in Pacific islands. French nuclear weapon testing in the Pacific was ongoing:

Handle9

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#2763320 19-Aug-2021 23:45

gzt:
Lias: The reality is the only reason NZ has the nuclear ban is because David Lange was a two faced lying politician.

Du Fresne is entitled to his opinions and he has some very silly ones. I have too much respect for Lange to characterise the events depicted in that way. I disagree.

Du Fresne is a dick. He thinks that NZ is like Cambodia under Pol Pot

Mattnzl

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#2763403 20-Aug-2021 07:38

So instead of leaving our descendants 100's of years of climate issues, we leave them piles of nuclear waste that require careful attention & storage for 500+ years?

It would be interesting to see which option future humans would choose if they could.... 🙄

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#2763408 20-Aug-2021 08:02

If there wasn't a Chernobyl or Fukushima, it could be on the table. But its not on many tables now, I think France and/or Germany are scaling back nuclear. Plus if we are 80%+ green now, why go nuclear for the less than 20%? Ring of Fire risk also. Solar or wind farms scattered around the country to top up local generation seems a better option

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#2763412 20-Aug-2021 08:19

Building a Nuclear is quite a different proposition in New Zealand if you consider a Travelling Wave Reactor. I agree that building a Fukushima era Nuclear plant would be bananas. Travelling Wave Reactors are quite a different kettle of fish to those.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

MikeB4

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#2763418 20-Aug-2021 08:31

I think we have done enough to screw life for future generations. We do not need to double down on the stupidity and flirt with Nuclear power just to join the big boys club.

1101

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#2763467 20-Aug-2021 09:19

every nuclear power station is 100% safe ..... untill it isnt
Should we learn nothing from past claims ?

The biggest issue for NZ is cost. NZ has no money
Look at japan to see what happens when private companies run them. Thats the only possible NZ model .
And we will need to build all the new infrastructure around it , agencies, govt depts, watchdogs, waste disposal & storage . Thats also a
huge hidden cost

Then we need somewhere to store the waste. Spent fuel, water used in cooling . In other countries they still have huge tanks of
contaminated water, sitting in tanks that are slowly rotting away .
Then facilities to process the waste : more costs

Going nuke power for a one off reactor isnt financially feasible .

networkn

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#2763482 20-Aug-2021 09:32

1101:

every nuclear power station is 100% safe ..... untill it isnt
Should we learn nothing from past claims ?

The biggest issue for NZ is cost. NZ has no money
Look at japan to see what happens when private companies run them. Thats the only possible NZ model .
And we will need to build all the new infrastructure around it , agencies, govt depts, watchdogs, waste disposal & storage . Thats also a
huge hidden cost

Then we need somewhere to store the waste. Spent fuel, water used in cooling . In other countries they still have huge tanks of
contaminated water, sitting in tanks that are slowly rotting away .
Then facilities to process the waste : more costs

Going nuke power for a one off reactor isnt financially feasible .

What opposed to the costs and requirements of extending our current system to cope with what is likely to be a massive increase in demand over the next 20 years as the ICE gets replaced by electric cars which all need to be charged.

OldGeek

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#2763488 20-Aug-2021 09:52

1101:

every nuclear power station is 100% safe ..... untill it isnt
Should we learn nothing from past claims ?

The biggest issue for NZ is cost. NZ has no money
Look at japan to see what happens when private companies run them. Thats the only possible NZ model .
And we will need to build all the new infrastructure around it , agencies, govt depts, watchdogs, waste disposal & storage . Thats also a
huge hidden cost

Then we need somewhere to store the waste. Spent fuel, water used in cooling . In other countries they still have huge tanks of
contaminated water, sitting in tanks that are slowly rotting away .
Then facilities to process the waste : more costs

Going nuke power for a one off reactor isnt financially feasible .

The article I originally cited is about Nuclear-generated electricity in a world threatened by climate-change. Under the heading 'The future of Nuclear': " The key innovation is the use of a proton accelerator to generate a high-intensity neutron source which induces fission reactions in the core. Yet as soon as the accelerator stops, the fission reaction also stops." That addresses safety - there can be no more catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl, Fukushima etc.

If we have 50 Billion to keep companies afloat during COVID, we can afford Nuclear. Whether that is financially viable is another matter and with the exception of Contact, all generators here are majority-owned by the Government.

I acknowledge the issue of waste. Radioactivity is long-lasting, but climate change may may lead to life extinction well before the waste from nuclear electricity generation is safe.

I am not an advocate for Nuclear, but neither am I an advocate of bans based on outdated nuclear technology.

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#2763502 20-Aug-2021 10:04

It seems to be a hard no from some on this thread based on their historic knowledge of 1950's nuclear technology.

This is like saying we should all be driving 1970's cars as there were less fatalities back then.

Like car safety technology Nuclear technology has moved on significantly since then.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

Dingbatt

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#2763505 20-Aug-2021 10:07

Maybe people need to read beyond a Greenpeace pamphlet or watching a re-run of The China Syndrome (which incidentally probably should be renamed) when talking about current nuclear technology rather than knee jerk reactions to past accidents.

Strange as it may seem, Japanese engineers had thought about the likelihood of earthquakes at Fukushima. In fact after sensing the seismic activity the 3 (of 6) reactors operating at the time automatically shut down. What wasn’t considered adequately was the subsequent tsunami. And even that wouldn’t have had any effect if the backup generators had been placed on the roof rather than at ground level (just above sea level) or even if they and their fuel tanks had been secured rather than sitting on skids. In fact reactors 5 and 6 are located on a plateau above the rest of the power station and were unaffected. The backup generators had been operating and supplying power to the cooling pumps (the grid had been knocked offline by the earthquake) for an hour after reactor shutdown when the tsunami struck. In fact The Radiation Effects Research Foundation stated that radiation exposure levels were so low an ongoing population study was pointless. There are definitely lessons to be learned from Fukushima, but one is not that nuclear power is ‘bad’ (imo).

Chernobyl was a disaster by any measure, but consider this. The RBMK reactors used at that site (and others in the then Soviet Union) were fast breeder reactors used for producing weapons grade plutonium that had been converted for electricity production. They had an insufficient ‘void coefficient’ and safety systems (to save money). The operators carried out unsanctioned and incorrect safety ‘tests’ that led to an uncontrolled chain reaction (not a meltdown), in effect a small nuclear explosion after only 8 seconds. There are still RBMK reactors operating in the former Soviet Union today, in fact the other 3 reactors at Chernobyl still operate. All have had safety system upgrades and the last RBMK is due to run until 2050. Nuclear technology has come a long way in the half century since those reactors were designed.

Germany has scaled back on nuclear power generation, France has not. Germans face higher energy costs and the country is a net importer of electricity and must use natural gas to make up the shortfall. France doesn’t seem to be suffering from the same problems. Germans emit 9 tons of CO2 per person, France 5 tons.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

MikeB4

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#2763507 20-Aug-2021 10:10

networkn:

What opposed to the costs and requirements of extending our current system to cope with what is likely to be a massive increase in demand over the next 20 years as the ICE gets replaced by electric cars which all need to be charged.

There are many alternatives that do risk the viability of our nation and hand future citizens of Aotearoa another nightmare scenario, Yes there maybe electric cars but it does not follow that every household will/should have one. Again there are viable alternatives to the car being the personal transport of the future.

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