Compact fluorescent lamps failing

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well a quick google has it that energy desnsity of Uranium is about 20 times that of coal. Not clear as to whether thats raw uranium or refined. I suspect raw mined.

interesting. Very interesting, especially in its rebuttal of the Storm van Leeuwen & Smith papers, which are shown to not only be wildly innacurate, but even to draw the wrong conclusion from the data. I.e. het call a 20-50 fold reduction in liftime CO2 over fossil fuel to be 'insignificant'

It also makes the point that uranium costs are more or less insignificant in the context of a normal power station, and that in any case fast breeder reactors would become economic if fuel prices were to rise.

Those make more fuel than they burn.

To get the uranium and the power station running takes 1.35% of the energy it generates.

In fact apart from hydro power, ts about the least energy wasteful of anything.

"Rashad & Hammad conclude that the life cycle CO2 emission coefficient for nuclear power, on the basis of centrifuge enrichment, is 2.7% of that for coal-fired generation. This is consistent with other figures based on fossil fuel inputs."

So, by going all nuclear electric for power generation and transport we could essentially get rid of abut 85% of all our carbon emissions.

(Accepting that aircraft need fossil fuel and a proportion of transport will always need it).

Now, what other here now cost effective technology can do that?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Heres an interesting paper

a 7 times hike in uranium prices would just about keep pace with oil prices as they were Feb2007 say 14-20 times upside is possible before Uranium s 'more expensive than oil' at projected prices next year (up to $120 a barrel)

If raw uranium is - say - $400 a pound (its around $70 now) and its energy density is 560,000 GJ/tonne.. then we can do the sums.

At £35 a lb ($70 lb), that's around £70,000 a tonne or about 12.5p a GJ raw.

assuming a 50% power station efficiency thats 25p a GJ. or 25p for

277.8Kwh..less than a tenth of a penny per unit electricity generated.

I estimated that 50Kwh was about what you needed to fill a small car up battery wise. So in raw uranium costs, about 5p to do a hundred miles or so. Estimatd CO2 about 2% of equivalent car with diesel etc.

There is plenty of Uranium, is just not especially high concentration. At ten times the price its worth exploiting the less concentrated sources - like seawater!

Nuclear power scores top on just about every box bar one. What to do with the waste.

[tinnews]

? That doesn't make sense in the context of what you say below.

That's what I would expect.

[Adam Aglionby]

Cripes, its like being in the 50`s Smiling Sun and Electricity too Cheap to Meter.....

Coal scores well on the availbilty stakes but its got a waste problem as well.

If nuclear was so efficient investors would have lept in, but 30 year lifespan of reactor comes with 100 year cool down before cutting bits up that have a a few more hundred years to cool down to safe.

Adam

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly: they are required to lay down a lot of cash to deal with decommissioning and dealing with waste to incredibly high standards. With cheap oil ad nobody worrying about CO2 that made them uneconomic.

That is not the case today.

We will be[paying the price of cheap fossil fuel waste for thousands of years..

[Andy Hall]

and?

Which is exactly the same situation as for all other viable forms of energy generation

Seen the price of oil lately?

[Andy Hall]

In comparison with the "what to do with the waste" from all other viable forms of energy generation, it's much more of an emotional problem than a practical one.

[Andy Hall]

So, would I, assuming that the government lasts that long. However, given their current "little difficulties" they may not wish to be quite so adventurous.

[Andy Hall]

I was talking about viable options.

This is also ultimately pointless. It becomes then a question of is the technology well enough developed and deployed. How do you propose to persuade the Chinese and Indians to use it?

All of which is a pointless argument. Civilian use of nuclear technology has had a lifespan of 50 years to date with substantial improvements at each new generation of reactor.

Compare and contrast with coal and oil which have been used on comparable scale for 200 years and we are still struggling with trying to use them in a clean way.

It's a very much easier problem to solve than anything required to deal with the effects of fossil fuel use - assuming that one does need to do such.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:19:58 -0800 (PST) someone who may be Adam Aglionby wrote this:-

Indeed. There has never been a ban on new nuclear power stations. Since privatisation they could have been built whenever companies were able to get the finance and approvals for them.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:29:57 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Ah, you seem to have added mind reading to you "skills".

I note that you did not offer anything other then loud assertions in response to the report.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:50:34 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Except that all nuclear electric generation is not possible, due to the inflexibility of the plant [1].

One can try and sell the surplus overnight electricity elsewhere, one can store it, or one can encourage people to use it overnight. All of these have been tried and work to some extent. However, as one goes over the night load with inflexible generating plant that introduces a number of unnecessary difficulties into the system.

Not only is the inflexibility a problem for load following, it is also a problem for backup. The system used in the UK is to use the rapid start of hydro electricity to provide instant backup for sudden failures [2]. The plants concerned cannot maintain full output for long, but it does give time to adjust the output of other non nuclear generation in order to avoid the lights going out.

[1] I am aware of claims by the nuclear lobby that modern designs of reactor are rather more flexible than older designs in this respect. [2] depending on circumstances a proportion of the turbines are kept synchronised with the grid, either drawing a little electricity from it or using electricity from another turbine to do so. Should the grid frequency fall then that is a sign that there has been a major generating failure. The inertia of the grid will keep things working for only a short period. Within a few seconds the turbines are automatically generating electricity to keep the lights on.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:10:54 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

We are often told that we cannot rely on Johnny Foreigner for raw materials. Whatever one's view on this it is hypocritical for the nuclear lobby not to mention that this is exactly what they propose.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:18:25 +0000 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

People have done the sums. The answers are not what you imply.

[Andy Hall]

It really doesn't matter, since it's pretty obvious that there are not raw materials available in the UK. So what? As in times past, there will be trade in them - people having them and others willing to buy. These may not be the same sets of people as before, but life's like that.

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:31:19 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

For a start, party politicians and public relations bods representing the nuclear lobby. I'm not going to spend time looking up any quotes, but I have heard them often enough on the radio.

might have some quotes should anyone wish to look.

[Andy Hall]

It is somewhat foolish to take too seriously anything from PR bods and from most politicians.

Not really. The discussion isn't really about whether, but how much and by when.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I agree. But sadly we are not in the majority - yet.

[The Natural Philosopher]

..If they hadn't been crippled by legislation that required them to gve all of their profits to a decomissioning fund.

..if North Sea Gas and oil hadn't popped up and allowed dozens of dirt cheap completely unregulated not very efficient power stations to be built far more profitably..

..if sucessive waves of dimwitted greenies and lefties hadn't confused 'atomic energy' with 'atomic bombs'

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually i another post I provided a link to a reasonably level headed refutation of its basic premises and conclusions.