OT: Ramblings on Tidal Power (long)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thorium is even cheaper.

Look current U235 yellowcake used to be $80-$100 a kg IIRC. its now now around $20 from memory

Seawater is around $200/kg.

India I think has some uranium reserves , but significant thorium deposits. 20% of world total. The most of any country.

Its all down to current economics and politics.

It's not too hard to use thorium in a semi-breeder setup. mixed with U-235 or plutonium

To be honest, if it weren't for the massively hefty regulatory stuff you could simply chuck a load of fissile and fertile shit in a pot and stir it and tap the heat off.

AS it is, there is a lot of process involved in separating out the hot shit afterwards and dealing with it, so that becomes a major feature of the design which is therefore geared towards a specific fuel type.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you actually do the complex analysis of what the radionuclide is, how likely it is to get into the food chain, and how long it hangs around bodies after ingestion, frankly 95% of all 'nuclear waste is dangerous' is bunk.

Its totally spun by interested parties to make a scare where none exists. Some isotopes are nasty. Iodine, Caesium mainly. Maybe Radon and Xenon.

The long lived shit isn't biologically active and isn't very radioactive.

Its the medium term shit that is an issue - the 30-3000 year stuff.

Of course Carbon 14 produced naturally, is just as much a hazard, and is in everything you eat and the air you breathe, but for some reason no one worries about it, or the radioactive potassium in bananas. etc etc

Carbon 14 has a half life of 5000 years more or less. Its the most bioliogically active radioisotope, and tons of it are produced every year.

"The beta-decays from external (environmental) radiocarbon contribute approximately 0.01 mSv/year (1 mrem/year) to each person's dose of ionizing radiation.[37] This is small compared to the doses from potassium-40 (0.39 mSv/year) and radon"

The contribution from nuclear waste is well below that .

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The majority of the power generation 'experts' on here don't give a stuff about future generations.

[Roger Mills]

One thing which I don't think anyone has mentioned so far is the concept of *storing* energy. We're not currently(!) very good at it - but the technology is fast developing, not least because of electric vehicles. We need to get a lot better at this if we are ever going to make any headway with renewables. If we could store the peak energy produced by tidal and solar systems, and then release it into the grid at a steady rate, we could reduce not only the size of the conductors needed but could also reduce the need for baseload produced by other technologies.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The principle is just fine. Same sort of thing as developing a battery which will store the same sort of energy as a tank of petrol. The Holy Grail.

[harry]

Because the present power stations are in different places. Eg,nesar coal mines, centres of industry etc.

[harry]

No they aren't. Firth of Forth and Tay. Wash. Humber.

[harry]

It's not the same stuff that was dug out. It's far more dangerous and concentrated. And digging a hole to bury something does not isolate it from the surface. There has been several spactacular failures.

[harry]

[harry]

Bollix.

[Tim Streater]

It seems to be time for another, different set of know-nothing fools to ask why we don't develop a perpetual motion machine. Tap the anergy off that - job done! Simples.

[Chris Hogg]

Ever heard the phrase "If if's and and's were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers"?

As has been said elsewhere, it's very easy to throw out 'good ideas', that are actually totally impractical in reality. If you think battery storage is a good idea, think it through and put some numbers together to make your case, based on the sort of battery capacities available now and in the not-too-distant future, the amounts of excess energy you envisage on the grid from time to time from renewables, and the capacity of the grid to handle it.

[GB]

Can you explain where I can get U235 yellowcake from, with none of that naughty U238?

I can do you seawater at a bargain $100/kg. How much do you want?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its called 'cat belling'.

The radical progressive Left is all cat belling.

[The Natural Philosopher]

OOOPs. My mistake. :-(

Probably out of a north korean centrifuge.

[Chris Hogg]

I like it!

The fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat. One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat. All of them make excuses. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan not only on how desirable the outcome would be, but also on how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan.

[Fredxxx]

It says more about the number who die from accidents with radioactive waste when they are named individuals.

The numbers who die from fossil fuel exploration and extraction are so many and deaths so commonplace they don't get any mention in the media. Even green energy kills more.

[charles]

{ower stations used to be near their load: Battersea, Bankside (now Tate Modern) in Central London for a start. Then the Grid got better.

[charles]

They aren't very deep. How about using the Thames?

[Tim Streater]

What for? And details of your worked out and costed plan, please.