PowerSwitch

Catherine Mitchell - The Guardian - 11/03/11

The government's energy market revamp is for one reason only – to build more nuclear power plants.

Article continues ...

You needn't worry Catherine. Fukushima changes everything.

Catherine wrote:Another option would be to tender for two nuclear power station's worth of electricity, 2000 MW, via an agency, to see whether a nuclear bid would be cheaper than an alternative combination, including renewables and demand-side measures. But nuclear power would be unlikely to win that.

Quite.

Otoh, the nuke can produce up to 2GW continuously (near enough), renewables and demand-side measures (rota power-cuts? what else are you going to do!) aren't nearly reliable enough surely?

[quote="Aurora"]

[quote="cubes"]

Aurora wrote:

Catherine Mitchell - The Guardian - 11/03/11

The government's energy market revamp is for one reason only – to build more nuclear power plants.

Article continues ...

You needn't worry Catherine. Fukushima changes everything.

I'm not so sure it does, nor that the change is for the better if it does. If it means fewer nuclear plants are built in the future, it may mean more coal instead. Also, I think there is an argument that these particular nuclear plants had been built in the wrong place. It was always inevitable that an event like this was going to happen at some time in the not too distant future. We keep hearing how this is the biggest Japanese quake in living memory, but that fault must rupture like this at least once every couple of hundred years?? And when it does, it will be guaranteed to produce tsunami that devastate the east coast of Japan.

UndercoverElephant wrote:Also, I think there is an argument that these particular nuclear plants had been built in the wrong place.

Yeah, planet Earth, definitely the wrong place.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... CMP=twt_fd

Nuclear power station plans criticised by pressure groups
Campaigners call on India, China, Turkey, US and Indonesia to shelve proposals or raise safety standards

biffvernon wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Also, I think there is an argument that these particular nuclear plants had been built in the wrong place.

Yeah, planet Earth, definitely the wrong place.

[quote="RenewableCandy"]

RGR wrote:

RenewableCandy wrote:

biffvernon wrote:Yeah, planet Earth, definitely the wrong place.

You people are hysterical. Nuke bad! (while England makes what, 20% of its electricity from nukes?)

Go hypocrisy!

(excluded from my disdain are those capable of providing photos of their hand assembled mud hut, arrow slain local venison, small garden in the background while dressed in handmade loincloth, without using a camera made by the society they pretend to despise even as they enjoy its benefits)

You cannot hold people responsible for being unable to escape from the modern world. And you can't accuse people of hypocrisy for criticising nuclear power stations they already use if they opposed the building of those stations in the first place.

I regularly eat roadkill venison and teach people to forage for wild food. I'd love to live in isolation from the modern world but unfortunately this is only possible if you have a vast amount of money in order to buy sufficient land in the right place.

The sad truth is that even with a massive investment in renewables and a few new nuclear power stations we will still have trouble keeping the lights on in the UK much past 2020. Civilisation as we knew it depended on high-quality, easily-accessible (cheap) fossil fuels, and now we're screwed. Dams release methane and destroy natural habitat. Tidal schemes destroy lots of very precious natural habitat. Other renewables aren't consistent enough and cost too much. Nuclear is inherently risky (yes, even in the "right place") and costs way too much, especially to clean up after. And there isn't anything else, unless you believe the guy who thinks we can put solar power stations on the moon and beam the energy back to Earth as microwaves...

[quote="UndercoverElephant"]

This is what Craig Murray had to say on the nuclear reactor situation in Japan, before it became clear how serious it is:

Like Three Mile Island, the nuclear industry is hoping they will get away with it on a wing and a prayer (and, in this case, millions of gallons of sea water and boric acid). I certainly hope they do avert disaster. But to pretend everything is fine, and propagandise that to the Western world throughout which the nuclear industry is urgently seeking to regenerate itself, is both sickening an an insult to our intelligence. One of many reasons I am against nuclear power is that in practice it always brings with it government lies, secrecy and corruption.

The entire output of atomic power in the United States is exactly equivalent to the requirements of the clothes-drying machines.

So if that's true the USA could swap nukes for washing lines.

RGR wrote:
So why do you hang out at a peak oil site? Certainly the Brits not wanting to keep the lights on can't be blamed on lack of fossil fuels, why don't you hang out at a "lets go get all that shale gas!" site, or maybe a "British uranium for British reactors...no more uranium imports!" site? Heck, instead of eating roadkill, why aren't you using the success in the fossil fuel world you do have to build a windmill in your backyard? Combined with an acre of PV's attached to your electric car? Who cares if the Brits collectively are so stupid they'll let the lights go out, YOU will be SAVED!

You have spent too long living in the world's biggest nutjob nation. You mistake me for one of your own idiots. I am British. Go away.

RGR wrote:Horse manure.

RGR, you had all the dates of previous oil "peaks" before. What are they again?