Since we alread have all the weapsons grade material needed, it makes little difference. It would make a difference if it were our first nuke plant, but of course it isnt.
that gives decades in which to find more. People dont spend on exploration until theres a need to.
NT
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:58:14 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote (in article ):
That's a very thin argument along the lines that one shouldn't process oil products because of the possibility of making explosives.
Hmmm..... reports on that vary widely and are based on a number of inter-related and more complex factors than are involved in oil discovery and production. The mid-field view is that there is supply of nuclear fuel (including all means to produce it) well into the 22nd century.
You misunderstand my posting.
I simply observed that FBRs are associated with weapon production, and when challenged gave the above quote.
FBRs are not in fact regarded as a good prospect for energy production for other reasons, in particular the vastly increased high-level waste production.
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:55:03 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote (in article ):
That would appear to depend on the particular implementation.
"Associated" - by whom? Certainly not by the weapons producers themselves. As I keep trying to tell you, FBRs are not, have never been, and never will be the practical way to make weapons-grade plutonium.
Even if you had said that a fully developed FBR fuel cycle would put a lot more plutonium into circulation, that still wouldn't be a valid point because the material would not be in an accessible or usable form.
If you want something to worry about, make it the amount of Pu-239 that already exists without benefit of FBRs.
The cumulative amount of high-level waste produced by *any* fission reactor system is almost exactly proportional to the cumulative amount of heat energy that has been generated. There is no significant difference between thermal reactors and fast reactors in this respect.
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:04:58 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
I'm glad to see that you didn't have any real answers to the points raised, other than moaning about biased sources. Excellent.
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:45:54 GMT someone who may be "Brian Sharrock" wrote this:-
It is always reassuring when all the opposition can do is come up with junk that was discredited long ago.
"The comparison of energy used in manufacture with the energy produced by a power station is known as the 'energy balance'. It can be expressed in terms of energy 'pay back' time, i.e. as the time needed to generate the equivalent amount of energy used in manufacturing the wind turbine or power station.
"The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months."
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:24:33 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
Wind mills mill things, generally turning grains into a relatively fine powder.
Wind pumps pump things, usually water.
Wind turbines produce electricity.
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:01:34 +0100, David Hansen wrote (in article ):
Hardly.
It really isn't worth wasting time when the sources are so unbalanced.
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:09:04 +0100, David Hansen wrote (in article ):
Use whatever term you like in attempting to package this.
They remain industrial in appearance and nature.
Unfortunately I 'lost' David's post ... due to a loss of power at my pc ... :)
however, if I recall correctly he pointed at a URL
'The average wind farm in the UK will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within six to eight months, this compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months'
Hmm; talk about 'hand-waving'; Where's the _numbers_? Fr'instance; a typical wind turbine installation contains n tonne of steel, n tonne of aluminium, produced from n tonne of ore, x miles of copper .... y tonnes of concrete ... requiring XXX MegaJoules of input, the power generated (output) _averages_ at YYY MegaJoules. YYY = XXX at n months.
Ding, bloody Dong! Even the _claim_ from the British Wind Energy Association - no hint of bias there! - has a variance of thirty-odd percent ! Six months - eight months! Which is it?
I expect next that David will croon 'Things can only get better!'
There's lies, damm lies and very dodgy statistics .... ;) six months ... eight months ... ! Imagine an _Engineer_ saying; - "the bridge will span the gap ... or stop three quarter of the way across" .... "this aircraft will rotate at 120 Kts ... or it might need 180 Kts' ... ! Yet because it's 'green'; we're expected to gloss over these 'facts', with a sigh of 'they mean well, Bless them' ?
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:05:15 +0100, Brian Sharrock wrote (in article ):
Exactly. If there were a greater degree of honesty rather than trading on green perception, this would all have more credibility.
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:05:15 GMT someone who may be "Brian Sharrock" wrote this:-
Feel free to look them up, there are a number of reports on the subject should you wish to do so. The SDC report on the subject is a good starting point and has the references.
You are assuming that all wind turbines are the same. However, they are not and they are not all installed in the same location either. As a result there is some variability.
The BWEA claims thus reflect the complications. Personally I would be suspicious of one figure, it would suggest that an Alastair Campbell had sexed up the output of the experts in order to make it look "better" to the public.
Nice try, but rather wide of the mark.
Turbines provide motive power -- Generators provide electricity.
You seem to make claims like this with great confidence but as far as I can see without the slightest evidence.
"Considerable experience with reprocessing in France however, has indicated that a one way fuel cycle based on extracting and processing fresh supplies of uranium and storing the spent fuel is more economical than reprocessing, not the least because in the process of plutonium extraction, the volume of high-level liquid radioactive waste increases about 17-fold."
Wind gens have different sizes and ratings, use different technologies, go up in different areas with different wind profiles, so its no surprise they dont all have identical energy payback periods.
NT
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:10:53 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote (in article ):
Wikipedia is not exactly Encyclopaedia Brittanica....
No reference is given
No, they don't. Turbines turn moving gas or liquid into mechanical motion.
That may or may not be used to privide motie power, if by that you mean vehicular motion.
A so called windmill is a turbine coupled to a generator, if you want to be picky.
So in fact is a nuclear power station. Its just a different sort of turbine fed from a different sort of gas at a different sort of temperature and pressure, and vastly more power density.
See below.
Long ago in a distant galaxy, the assessment of waste arisings from various nuclear fuel cycles was part of my job.
Unlike you, I am not satisfied by pulling some half-relevant quotation off the web and calling that "evidence". The information is all available, but organising and explaining it properly would take far more time and effort than I'm prepared to donate to the cause.
However, the explanation for the statement quoted at the top of this message is simple enough. When a heavy atom (usually U-235 or Pu-239) undergoes nuclear fission, it splits into two lighter atoms of fission products and releases a certain amount of energy. The atoms of fission products remain in the fuel, and if the fuel is reprocessed those atoms end up almost entirely in the high-level waste. The energy from the nuclear fission ends up as heat, which is used to raise steam and generate electricity.
Fission is a complex statistical process which can produce a range of different pairs of fission products, but the fission energies of various kinds of heavy atoms are very similar. That means there is a fixed three-way relationship between the numbers of atoms of fuel that have been fissioned, the amount of heat energy generated, and the amount of HLW. That relationship comes from the basic physics of fission, so it's essentially independent of the type of reactor.
Certainly there are many differences between reactor systems, and more complications than you can possibly imagine, but if you thrash your way through a much more detailed assessment, you'll find that basic relationship between energy generation and the resulting amount of HLW still holds good.
My mug of coffee has gone cold (and after revising, it has now gone cold twice, dammit). If you want to know more, you'll need to do a lot of detailed work. I have no doubt that you're intelligent enough to do that, but at present you are just recycling other people's opinions. For example, the following statement that you quoted has nothing to do with fast breeder reactors, which we were discussing - it's about uranium-fuelled thermal reactors, and the decision whether to do any fuel reprocessing at all.
The only thing odd about that statement is that factor of 17. If you operate a once-through system - not reprocessing the spent fuel but leaving it intact, storing it, and eventually disposing of it as waste - then there will be *no* high-level liquid radioactive waste at all.
No doubt some further digging would reveal the origins of "17" (I could make some guesses, but won't). Let's just leave it as yet another example of what can happen when basically correct information is quoted out of context.
I'm sorry this whole subject is so desperately complicated... but that's how it is. It takes an awful lot of time and effort to break through to the level where you can generate your own information and accurately judge the information from other sources.
Now please can I go read some bright ideas for cutting sheets of foam?
Are you saying that you worked at a nuclear power station? Where exactly?
Whereas you have produced no evidence whatsoever for your beliefs.
You have enough time to write a long account of your views, but not enough time to find any reference to support them. I don't think so.
Does that mean that you believe the person who wrote the article I quoted was mistaken? [I suspect I will not get a simple answer - Yes or No - to this.]
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