Time for nuclear power in NZ?

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20181 posts

Uber Geek

#1805333 22-Jun-2017 17:28

TimA:

MikeB4:

SaltyNZ:

DarthKermit:

I'm opposed to nuclear power mostly because all that nuclear waste is simply dumped on future generations to sort out WTF to do with it.

As opposed to CO2 and every other form of pollution? The facts are that nuclear is far cleaner and safer than every other form of energy we have, even with Fukushima and Chernobyl factored in.

Wind?? seems safe unless you are a bird or Sky Diver

Nuclear waste is something that we can contain, It doesnt matter if we can't deal with it now or in 50 years. we can contain it at least. We cant contain the C02 and emissions of a coal or gas power plant can we. Now you tell me what one is short sighted. If it means we get down the path and have all this nuclear waste contained its not going to be the end of the world. But if we continue on and turn this earth toxic as we are we will get down the road and go. Well F*&K what do we do now, its too far gone.

Anything discharging CO2 is not a sustainable option though either, and shouldn't be used unless in an emergency situation. SO coal, gas etc, aren't the type of power plants we want in NZ. CO2 wouldn't be so bad though, if we weren't cutting down so many forests every day, as they absorb CO2, and convert it to O2. So I think the removal of forests is also linked to this. We do also have access to geothermal in NZ, although they do still offgas some CO2 and other gases.

SJB

2945 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1805334 22-Jun-2017 17:29

I read somewhere recently that South Korea is phasing out all their nuclear reactors in favor of renewables.

And they are one of the countries with the most nuclear plants in the world.

Just building a nuclear plant is hugely expensive let alone disposing of it. Ask the Brits, they have had to get the French and Chinese to fund their next one.

We could never afford it. End of story.

Stick a wind farm in the Cook Straits. It's always windy there isn't it?

mattwnz

20181 posts

Uber Geek

#1805335 22-Jun-2017 17:33

Fred99:

Jonski:

Fred99:

The cost per MWh for nuclear power is quite high relative to hydro, coal, gas - even in countries with an established large-scale nuclear industry.

For NZ, then only small-scale production would be needed to satisfy demand, infrastructure costs to deal with fuel, waste, safety/security would be relatively much higher, so it would presumably be very expensive indeed.

Long term though it may be an option, but then there may be other options - fusion, cheap solar etc.

Apart from the political "fallout", it's not really the time to discuss nuclear seriously as an option for NZ.

Sydney has a nuclear power reactor. Would not these arguments be against that installation as well?

No it doesn't - they have a reactor at Lucas Heights, but purpose apart from research is production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial use, and doping silicon ingots (for use as semiconductor material).

I had dealings with them wrt methods for encapsulation and long-term storage of high-level waste from their old reactor when it was in operation. Despite their mining of uranium ore, and abundance of apparently ideal disposal sites, most Aussies are every bit as titchy about nuclear waste as NZers are.

According to this below NZ also has (or at least had) something similar too, in Upper Hutt.

Co60 Irradiation Plant in Whakatiki St, Upper Hutt

https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/bombs-and-boffins-0

mattwnz

20181 posts

Uber Geek

#1805337 22-Jun-2017 17:38

SJB:

I read somewhere recently that South Korea is phasing out all their nuclear reactors in favor of renewables.

And they are one of the countries with the most nuclear plants in the world.

Just building a nuclear plant is hugely expensive let alone disposing of it. Ask the Brits, they have had to get the French and Chinese to fund their next one.

We could never afford it. End of story.

Stick a wind farm in the Cook Straits. It's always windy there isn't it?

The thing that may however drive the need for nuclear, or other cheap power, is our vehicle fleet going electric, as that will need a lot of power. I wonder if there has been any cost benefit done on us increasing our population, and the need for additional infrastructure, vs keeping the population static, and using infrastructure what we already have. Increasing seems to make the governments books look good for the short term, but who pays for it down the track when we have to build more resources?

So the decisions we are making now on immigration and population growth, could force us to go nuclear in the future, as power needs will only increase due to vehicles.

UncleArk

110 posts

Master Geek

#1805340 22-Jun-2017 17:45

Is New Zealand geologically stable enough for this type of power generation...

rphenix

985 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1805342 22-Jun-2017 17:52

Build more Hydro stations the Clutha Dam is quite a vista and makes a good tourist attraction other than manageable flood risks there are few downsides.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1805360 22-Jun-2017 18:02

mattwnz:

Fred99:

Jonski:

Fred99:

The cost per MWh for nuclear power is quite high relative to hydro, coal, gas - even in countries with an established large-scale nuclear industry.

For NZ, then only small-scale production would be needed to satisfy demand, infrastructure costs to deal with fuel, waste, safety/security would be relatively much higher, so it would presumably be very expensive indeed.

Long term though it may be an option, but then there may be other options - fusion, cheap solar etc.

Apart from the political "fallout", it's not really the time to discuss nuclear seriously as an option for NZ.

Sydney has a nuclear power reactor. Would not these arguments be against that installation as well?

No it doesn't - they have a reactor at Lucas Heights, but purpose apart from research is production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial use, and doping silicon ingots (for use as semiconductor material).

I had dealings with them wrt methods for encapsulation and long-term storage of high-level waste from their old reactor when it was in operation. Despite their mining of uranium ore, and abundance of apparently ideal disposal sites, most Aussies are every bit as titchy about nuclear waste as NZers are.

According to this below NZ also has (or at least had) something similar too, in Upper Hutt.

Co60 Irradiation Plant in Whakatiki St, Upper Hutt

https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/bombs-and-boffins-0

No - that's an irradiation plant using radioisotopes from a reactor. I'm not sure if the Cobalt 60 comes from Aus/Lucas Heights. Possibly. But it's not similar to a reactor - it's more similar to other radioisotope sources used for a variety of industrial and medical purposes.

AFAIK they don't do food irradiation there - medical supplies, sterile dressings etc.

There is irradiated food imported though - I believe many herbs and spices are irradiated - with no requirement to label as such (and no practical way to test anyway).

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18668 posts

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#1805361 22-Jun-2017 18:03

Fred99:

I had dealings with them wrt methods for encapsulation and long-term storage of high-level waste from their old reactor when it was in operation. Despite their mining of uranium ore, and abundance of apparently ideal disposal sites, most Aussies are every bit as titchy about nuclear waste as NZers are.

Well, they did get plenty of it when their colonial masters were using them as guinea pigs for their Radioactive Man experiments.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1805362 22-Jun-2017 18:10

The future may be in small modular reactors, basically "sealed from factory", shippable, mass-produced. Once fuel is expired, then a new one gets delivered , and the old one gets shipped back to the manufacturer for salvage/reprocessing.

Solves the problem with shipping / handling fuel and waste separately, but there's still that nagging "what if" - a shipment sinks in the sea, some lunatics hijack it, it gets buried in volcanic ash etc.

shk292

2858 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1805385 22-Jun-2017 19:29

rphenix:

Build more Hydro stations the Clutha Dam is quite a vista and makes a good tourist attraction other than manageable flood risks there are few downsides.

This gets my vote. As well as clean, reliable power you get scenery and a fantastic recreational resource - I spent many happy days sailing, camping and catching trout on/in Lake Benmore as a kid. Not sure if we need more power looking ahead to 10 years plus, but if we do, let's have one or two more great lakes

blakamin

4431 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1805403 22-Jun-2017 20:54

shk292:

rphenix:

Build more Hydro stations the Clutha Dam is quite a vista and makes a good tourist attraction other than manageable flood risks there are few downsides.

This gets my vote. As well as clean, reliable power you get scenery and a fantastic recreational resource - I spent many happy days sailing, camping and catching trout on/in Lake Benmore as a kid. Not sure if we need more power looking ahead to 10 years plus, but if we do, let's have one or two more great lakes

Shame about all the history they flooded when they filled it. I was there about 2 years before it was finished. Some beautiful landscape and history gone forever.

Scott3

3982 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1805415 22-Jun-2017 22:35

mattwnz:

The thing that may however drive the need for nuclear, or other cheap power, is our vehicle fleet going electric, as that will need a lot of power. I wonder if there has been any cost benefit done on us increasing our population, and the need for additional infrastructure, vs keeping the population static, and using infrastructure what we already have. Increasing seems to make the governments books look good for the short term, but who pays for it down the track when we have to build more resources?

So the decisions we are making now on immigration and population growth, could force us to go nuclear in the future, as power needs will only increase due to vehicles.

The impact of electric vehicles on the power grid is smaller than most would expect:

Meridian estimates that if it was possible to immediately convert the country's entire light vehicle fleet - which numbers more than three million - it would add around 7000 GWh to the electricity sector or the equivalent of 17 per cent of generation.

''If you spread that demand growth over say 30 to 40 years it becomes incrementally a relatively small number. The country can cope comfortably with delivering new renewable generation to meet this potential demand growth,'' he said.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11851629

Regarding population growth and its impact on power consumption, note that power use in NZ has pretty much flatlined for the past decade, despite substantial population growth in that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zealand#/media/File:NZElectricityByType.svg

The wikipedia graph shows up to 2014. Our consumption for the 2015 & 2016 hasn't broken the flat line trend. In short energy efficiency measures such as CFL/LED lighting replacing incandescent light bulbs, and the sad decline of our industrial sectors has offset the usage due to a higher population. I have yet to see any evidence that this trend will break in the near future.

Note that there is a massive amount of consented power stations that have not been built because the power companies aren't able to project enough demand to justify them. (Labour's comments before the last election also scared the industry - Hard to justify hundreds of millions of expenditure when a major political party is promising to drop your return on investment to the floor if they are elected)

Regarding Nuclear, regardless if NZ's Nuclear free stance it is very expensive to build modern nuclear power plants (The level of engineering needed is extreme.). As such a nuclear plant would not be cost competitive in NZ (or most of the world for that matter, this is why very few have been built). NZ is blessed with particually good energy resources, both renewable (Hydro, Wind, Geothermal), and fossil fuel (particularly our gas reserves. We have lots of coal, but the quality is too high to burn for electricity, so we export our steelmaking coal, and import cheap low quality coal for huntly)

One big issue with nuclear is the size of the units. Units are typically in the 500MW - 1.2GW size range (per unit, most nuclear power plants have multiple units). NZ total demand runs at about 4GW to 6GW. Providing reserves (so the lights stay on in auckland if there is an unscheduled outage at the nuclear plant) is expensive for such large single point generators.

Pro-nuclear countries are decommissioning reactors often not to be replaced. Actions do speak louder than words.

Geektastic

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#1805416 22-Jun-2017 22:36

blakamin:

shk292:

rphenix:

Build more Hydro stations the Clutha Dam is quite a vista and makes a good tourist attraction other than manageable flood risks there are few downsides.

This gets my vote. As well as clean, reliable power you get scenery and a fantastic recreational resource - I spent many happy days sailing, camping and catching trout on/in Lake Benmore as a kid. Not sure if we need more power looking ahead to 10 years plus, but if we do, let's have one or two more great lakes

Shame about all the history they flooded when they filled it. I was there about 2 years before it was finished. Some beautiful landscape and history gone forever.

That's not uncommon. I used to live near Rutland Water, a big reservoir in the UK (26 mile circumference) and when the water level falls, you can see the church spire poking out showing where the village was. As a child we used to ski in Tignes every year on a school trip and the big dam near there also has a village under the resultant lake.

Progress. Can't keep everything in aspic.

mattwnz

20181 posts

Uber Geek

#1805420 22-Jun-2017 23:14

Scott3:

mattwnz:

The thing that may however drive the need for nuclear, or other cheap power, is our vehicle fleet going electric, as that will need a lot of power. I wonder if there has been any cost benefit done on us increasing our population, and the need for additional infrastructure, vs keeping the population static, and using infrastructure what we already have. Increasing seems to make the governments books look good for the short term, but who pays for it down the track when we have to build more resources?

So the decisions we are making now on immigration and population growth, could force us to go nuclear in the future, as power needs will only increase due to vehicles.

The impact of electric vehicles on the power grid is smaller than most would expect:

I hope so. I do wonder why we are polluting the earth with excess CO2 and over chemicals from petrol cars, when we could be all electric, generated from wind, sun and water. But I guess oil companies don't make money if they don't sell petrol. But the end resolve is that we have caused damage to the earth, and more cost due to global warming, extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. We can thank the generations that came before us that started that off, as I believe electric cars were around before petrol cars.

driller2000

935 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1805460 22-Jun-2017 23:59

Short answer - NO.

Because we are blessed with a substantial amount of renewable based generation already. Furthermore nuclear energy is stalling elsewhere around the globe because it is uncompetitive.

Long and much better qualified answers:

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-data-modelling/publications/energy-in-new-zealand/energy-in-nz-2016.pdf

https://www.sbc.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/99424/Energy-2050-report.pdf

https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2017/02/16/will-nzs-future-energy-be-clear-expert-qa/

So while as an engineer/scientist I think nuclear should be assessed on it's merits - and not on an emotional basis as many do - it simply has limited to nil use in NZ now or in the foreseeable future.

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