The End of Nuclear

mr brightside · Post by **mr brightside** » 15 Jul 2011, 12:29

Bandidoz wrote:I would have thought that fission plant would be needed to provide the current to get a fusion reactor started?

The most up to date estimate i can find it that an output of 500MW would require an input of 50MW.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 16 Jul 2011, 07:33

Ohi power station closed:

Japan's Ohi nuclear power station is being shut down, after a technical fault.
Pressure in a safety tank fell for no apparent reason, and although it is now back to normal, the plant's operators said they would "give the top priority to safety and find out the cause".
There was no release of radioactive material.
The closure will compound power difficulties in the wake of March's earthquake and tsunami.
There has been growing public disquiet over the continuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was damaged by the disaster.
Fukushima continues to leak radioactive material.
Pressure in a tank containing boric acid, which is used to slow down nuclear fission in emergencies, dropped on Friday at Ohi's No 1 reactor.
The pressure levels have since returned to normal, but the reactor will be completely shut down by 2100 (1200GMT)
The reactor, 350 km (220 miles) west of Tokyo, has a capacity of 1.18m kW.
With the closure at Ohi, only 18 of Japan's 54 reactors remain operational.
The Kansai Electric Power Company, which operates Ohi, could not say when the reactor would be restarted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14171962

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 24 Jul 2011, 08:39

A sober reflection in the New York Times about the state of US nukes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opini ... 4sun1.html

Whoops:

EDF’s Flammanville delay puts the end nuclear electricity price up 33-45%
July 22, 2011 Nuclear
So Dr Jim Watson of SPRU calculates for the Guardian. The assumptions, beyond the new cost estimate: a lifetime (the number of years to pay off the capital) of 20 years, a high load factor (the percentage of the time the station will operate) of 85%, a discount rate of 12% (not the 10% the UK’s Committee on Climate Change uses) and a construction period of five years. That ends up with a rough generation cost of 11p per kWh. The CCC range in their Renewable Energy Review was 5p to 10p/kWh. If you assume the same conditions as in the first case above, but put in an earlier construction cost estimate of €4bn, you get a cost of electricity of between 5.5p and 6p/kWh instead. [Hence, the price has risen 33-45%]
Tags: EDF, France
EDF’s French next gen reactor delayed another two years.
July 20, 2011 Nuclear
EDF says completion of its first French next-generation EPR nuclear reactor will now be in 2016, not 2014. In July 2010, if delayed the start of the 1,600 megawatt nuclear reactor from 2012 to 2014 and raised its cost estimate from 4 to 5 billion euros. It now expects the cost to rise to 6 billion euros ($8.52 billion). EDF blames complex engineering and Fukushima. The project will take almost twice the time originally announced and nearly twice the budget. The company hopes to build two of these at Hinckley Point and two at Sizewell.
Tags: EDF, France

http://www.jeremyleggett.net/category/nuclear/

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 24 Jul 2011, 10:05

Apart from the odd slip of hysteria, the NY Times seems to be reporting that the USA is progressing a sensible review of the safety of its nukes in the wake of Fukishima.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 03 Aug 2011, 16:15

Peace by piece, we see the nuclear industry closing itself down.

Sellafield plant set to cut 600 posts.

A nuclear fuel manufacturing plant at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria is to close, putting 600 jobs at risk.

The Mox plant, which recycles plutonium into mixed oxide fuel, is no longer viable because of uncertainty in the Japanese nuclear industry, the plant's only customer, officials said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14391086

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 03 Aug 2011, 16:24

Ah, but that's nothing to do with nuclear directly, just good ol' capitalism hard at work giving people unnecessary jobs one day then whipping 'em away the next.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 03 Aug 2011, 16:51

biffvernon wrote:Peace by piece, we see the nuclear industry closing itself down.

Sellafield plant set to cut 600 posts.

A nuclear fuel manufacturing plant at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria is to close, putting 600 jobs at risk.

The Mox plant, which recycles plutonium into mixed oxide fuel, is no longer viable because of uncertainty in the Japanese nuclear industry, the plant's only customer, officials said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14391086

I'm not so sure. This particular piece was always vulnerable to becoming useless overnight. Having only one customer isn't much of a business plan.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 03 Aug 2011, 16:56

Which is a shame, really. Because MOX fuel is, as far as I know, the only relatively safe way to dispose of plutonium, which is probably the most dangerous substance on the planet, as it is highly radioactive, chemically highly toxic, and extremely easy to turn into a nuclear weapon.

The end result may be more high level nuclear waste, but at least it does not by itself go bang so readily (once it has cooled down).

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 03 Aug 2011, 17:05

A more balanced view perhaps:

http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.co ... -and-after

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 03 Aug 2011, 18:34

RalphW wrote:Which is a shame, really.

There should be shame. About twenty years ago we campaigned against the MOX plant being built, one of our arguments being that it was a waste of money and would never be commercially viable. According to the beeb just now is produced a total of 13 tonnes of mox instead of the designed 120 tonnes per year and cost £1.4bn making it the country's biggest industrial commercial failure ever.

We got it right. Shame on the nuclear industry and their supporters who got it wrong.

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 03 Aug 2011, 19:55

biffvernon wrote:According to the beeb just now is produced a total of 13 tonnes of mox instead of the designed 120 tonnes per year and cost £1.4bn making it the country's biggest industrial commercial failure ever.

We got it right. Shame on the nuclear industry and their supporters who got it wrong.

Figures not unlike those for any offshore windfarm of similar cost. And which we seem hell-bent on repeating!

Anyway: MOX will be back. The plute's too valuable as a nuclear fuel.
http://environment-analyst.com/3849/nuc ... n-stimulus

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 27 Aug 2011, 14:08

Japan is introducing feed in tariffs for renewables to support move away from nuclear.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-2 ... ation.html

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 01 Nov 2011, 14:14

Belgium agrees on conditional nuclear exit plans

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/ ... YY20111031

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 01 Nov 2011, 14:52

That Reuters piece trolls the myth "Atomic generation is carbon free".

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 14 Nov 2011, 13:36

Bad news for nuclear, good news for wind?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-s ... s-15711200

It suggested the access charge for wind and marine power from the north of Scotland would fall from £24 per kilowatt to less than £5.

Sharing the costs equally across the UK would remove the financial incentives to build any new nuclear power stations, and shift a projected £17bn of nuclear investment to other technologies.