Very Risky New Nuclear Build Approved By Money Obsessed Idiots

Allegedly Philip Hammond said, “We must make sure the project goes ahead".

The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 13 July 2016.

www.gov.uk...

An EDF director resigned saying the project is "very risky".

There was, however, another twist to the contentious project in the run-up to the meeting, when an EDF director opposed to Hinkley Point C resigned.

Gérard Magnin said the project was “very risky” in his resignation letter to EDF’s chief executive.

www.theguardian.com...

Nuclear whistleblower Ross Hesketh said "The recommended designs were always rejected in favour of the cheaper designs". This left the government advisers wondering what they'd been paid for.

It appears we have a re-run. The clean-up of the earlier nuclear plants is fraught with difficulty and will take many, many decades before the sites are due to be clear. The nuclear dumps will poison the environment for longer than humans are said to have existed.


There is much that could be said about this.

I'll restrict myself to saying under no circumstances should protestors sabotage the portaloos. That could seriously interfere with the building of this toxic nightmare.

Well, nuclear energy is kind of better than coal and/or oil though right?? Well, lets hope they choose the right way to build it and not cut corners.

Incidentally the area is historically prone to Tsunami type events.

There were ‘huge and mighty hills of water’ moving ‘faster than a greyhound can run’

www.surgewatch.org...

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Scrubbers work for cutting emissions from coal fired plants.

I'm sure all the corners will be cut in this new build plant.

We need to keep the lights on somehow.

Wind and solar are useless.

So leaves Nuclear, Coal or Gas.

originally posted by: crazyewok
Wind and solar are useless.

The climate in your country probably would make any gains from solar useless, but Wind power can be very lucrative in your region, especially offshore. My drives through Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma I discovered very massive fields of wind turbines. They must be effective if they are being built on the scale I am seeing.

. . . untested technology . . .

. . . security risk . . .

. . . spiralling subsidy costs . . .


The National Audit Office recently estimated that over the lifetime of the project, the extra cost to consumers of Hinkley’s output had risen from an already punishing £6.1bn when the strike price was originally agreed three years ago, to a jaw-dropping £29.7bn today. Together with other policies designed to deliver a low carbon future, Hinkley’s costs will add approximately £230 a year to the average household electricity bill, according to Government estimates. Climate change risk may well justify these environmental goals, but whether Hinkley is the right way to deliver them has always seemed questionable and today looks positively reckless.

www.telegraph.co.uk...


I'd like to see their estimates for decommissioning.

Would it be better to not have nuclear plants? Of course. But until fusion arrives, we have no choice.

Protesters are quick to scream about the dangers (even though Chernobyl has only killed a few thousand and the radiation levels around Fukushima are pretty much background level) and slow with solutions.


We need more plants. End of story. Stop gearing nuclear, try understanding it and let's move forward as grown ups. Not scared little children. We have no choice

a reply to: 3danimator2014

We have no choice

You always have. I have 0% nuclear BS, depends on your energy supplier. Use the force!

Lichtblick

But yes, we could also rest our head in the sand and go full Fukushima to grow another pair of balls. Sure...

originally posted by: AmericanRealist
My drives through Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma I discovered very massive fields of wind turbines. They must be effective if they are being built on the scale I am seeing.

Or that means that the companies that built them received an abundance of subsidies that made building them fiscally lucrative. That doesn't mean that the machines themselves are effective at their purpose for existence.

a reply to: AmericanRealist

Well actually, no, they are not any better, just differently bad.

We need to stop using non-renewable power eventually anyway, so why not make the investment now? The real issue is this:

Every rod that is spent in a nuclear reactor has to end up somewhere. They get buried in huge containers and have to be left there for n thousand years, where n is the number of times a humming bird flaps its wings before it dies, and in the meantime, any damage to the chamber, any flaws in the storage medium, any attack on the storage medium, any natural catastrophe, or deliberate assault could have TERRIFYING consequences, not just in the short term, but in the long, long, long term.

Now, in a nation with an awful lot of landmass and a greatly complicated topography besides, that risk is mitigated somewhat. Not entirely of course, but somewhat, because you can stick your reactor out in the sticks where nothing matters, nothing grows, and everything that does grow there is either poisonous, man eating, or both.

But in Britain, a plume of radioactive gas could literally sweep the nation entirely, covering all and sundry in the most unutterably toxic mess you can imagine. There are storage facilities here in the UK, which are so old, that their contents remain left over from the development of nuclear weapons back in the day. Some of the stuff that is in those containers, those very old, not at all trust worthy containers, is so dangerous, and so classified, that no one other than the folks who signed it away to the bottom of a big tank somewhere, know what it is, or how radioactive it might be.

And that is before we even broach the subject of things like reactor failures, disposal law violations, improper disposal of coolant fluids, and so on and so forth.

Nuclear power comes with risks. Solar does not. Hydro does not. Wind does not, nor do any of the other renewable energy systems available, and the thing is that science is moving on a pace these days. Ten to fifteen years from now, we could be powering our communications devices by plugging them into our clothes, our every movement reclaiming energy to plough into our gadgets. Imagine roads and pavements doing the same thing. Imagine every window and glass door in the country being a solar energy factory, photovoltaic coatings on all surfaces facing the sky, buildings being designed to funnel air through turbines, and every move you make throughout your house powering its internal functions.

The future is thundering toward us like a bullet train full of bull elephant hormones and Gila monster genes, and yet here we are discussing a way in which we can for some reason continue the most stupid game this species ever started, with the exception of the "who is better at whacking people over the head with their engorged phallus game", or as we refer to it now, war!

We must be daft.

Transatomic is developing a next-generation Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) based on technology first demonstrated at [Oak Ridge National Laboratory] in the 1960s, and has been completing reactor core performance analyses as part of its technology development work.

The company released results that show promise for an economical power plant that can generate carbon-free baseload power and extract energy from the spent fuel of commercial nuclear reactors.

Spent fuel from a conventional commercial nuclear reactor is typically composed of about 95% U238, fission products, actinides, and plutonium isotopes. Some residual U235 remains as well.

According to Transatomic, the firm’s design, which uses a liquid uranium-salt mixture instead of conventional solid fuel assemblies, can extract twice as much energy from its fuel and use nuclear waste as a fuel source.

Source: Neutronbytes.com, July 11, 2016 - Transatomic Releases Details of New Reactor Design.

Either this or a thorium reactor is what is needed to use up the spent fuel rods. It has already been dug up and refined so this really should be a no-brainer. I would tend to agree Kester that at the bottom you will find self serving money starved idiots if they are not even considering this approach. Kind of sad really. Don't they know that you can't take money with you to hell? Nuclear waste should not be a prized legacy for the world. We need to get our collective sh# together as a human race instead of seeing who can swim fastest while circling the drain.

I really like what I hear about thorium reactors. One would think that figuring out some way to reprocess and burn existing waste would be a priority, if for no other reason than to reduce the amount of waste in existence. If you can reprocess x amount of waste into a usable fuel that when it is spent is less than x wouldn't that be a good thing? One of the advantages I see to the thorium fuel cycle is that the waste is fully degraded in only a couple of centuries as opposed to millenia.

It's my opinion that the main reasons for uranium and plutonium reactors is the potential for dual civilian and military use.

The thing that bothers me (aside from the Chinese investment) is the EDF is in debt to the tune of €37bn and intend to borrow an extra €4bn to help fund it.
It's all well and good for the government to sign off on it but it will be us who pay for it through our bills.

Bad short sighted move all round.
Shocking.

a reply to: jefwane

For anybody interested in reading about liquid thorium reactors here is a link. It is a little technical in spots but you can get the idea on how this works and why it should be what we should strive for.

Energyfromthorium.com - LFTR Overview.

Currently Thor Energy has a small reactor up and running. They are studying fuel rates and their 4 year run ends next year.

Looks like the NEW government might be getting cold feet over the deal.

Plans to build the first new UK nuclear plant in 20 years have suffered an unexpected delay after the government postponed a final decision until the early autumn.
www.bbc.co.uk...

+1 Rep Theresa May if she kicks this into the long grass.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: AmericanRealist

Well actually, no, they are not any better, just differently bad.

We need to stop using non-renewable power eventually anyway, so why not make the investment now? The real issue is this:

Every rod that is spent in a nuclear reactor has to end up somewhere. They get buried in huge containers and have to be left there for n thousand years, where n is the number of times a humming bird flaps its wings before it dies, and in the meantime, any damage to the chamber, any flaws in the storage medium, any attack on the storage medium, any natural catastrophe, or deliberate assault could have TERRIFYING consequences, not just in the short term, but in the long, long, long term.

Now, in a nation with an awful lot of landmass and a greatly complicated topography besides, that risk is mitigated somewhat. Not entirely of course, but somewhat, because you can stick your reactor out in the sticks where nothing matters, nothing grows, and everything that does grow there is either poisonous, man eating, or both.

But in Britain, a plume of radioactive gas could literally sweep the nation entirely, covering all and sundry in the most unutterably toxic mess you can imagine. There are storage facilities here in the UK, which are so old, that their contents remain left over from the development of nuclear weapons back in the day. Some of the stuff that is in those containers, those very old, not at all trust worthy containers, is so dangerous, and so classified, that no one other than the folks who signed it away to the bottom of a big tank somewhere, know what it is, or how radioactive it might be.

And that is before we even broach the subject of things like reactor failures, disposal law violations, improper disposal of coolant fluids, and so on and so forth.

Nuclear power comes with risks. Solar does not. Hydro does not. Wind does not, nor do any of the other renewable energy systems available, and the thing is that science is moving on a pace these days. Ten to fifteen years from now, we could be powering our communications devices by plugging them into our clothes, our every movement reclaiming energy to plough into our gadgets. Imagine roads and pavements doing the same thing. Imagine every window and glass door in the country being a solar energy factory, photovoltaic coatings on all surfaces facing the sky, buildings being designed to funnel air through turbines, and every move you make throughout your house powering its internal functions.

The future is thundering toward us like a bullet train full of bull elephant hormones and Gila monster genes, and yet here we are discussing a way in which we can for some reason continue the most stupid game this species ever started, with the exception of the "who is better at whacking people over the head with their engorged phallus game", or as we refer to it now, war!

We must be daft.

I think most pro nuclear power people would agree that its not idea, but surely you can see that the renewables just wont suffice.

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: 3danimator2014

We have no choice

You always have. I have 0% nuclear BS, depends on your energy supplier. Use the force!

Lichtblick

But yes, we could also rest our head in the sand and go full Fukushima to grow another pair of balls. Sure...

Fukushima is used to scare people, but the truth of the matter is that it was an unfortunate and isolated event that didnt seem to contaminate nearly as badly as is being reported by people who dont like nuclear power. Same with Chernobyl.

The death toll touted is said to be millions when in reality it seems it was a few thousand.

We consume too much energy. We all agree that that is not good, but unless the whole world makes a conscious effort to reduce consumption (which will never happen realistically), then we cannot rely on renewable only. And i for one think that coal and gas are damaging our planet far more than nuclear plants.

Fusion cannot come fast enough.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

With respect, I believe you are mistaken.

And as for consumption issues, as you mention in your response to PublicOpinion...we do not have a consumption problem, we have an antiquated method of production and delivery problem. If you use renewable sources only, and dedicate as much of the surface area of your country as is already covered in cities and buildings, to the purpose of getting as much energy out of the sun, the winds, the waves and even ones own footsteps as is physically possible, with these technologies improving all the time, there would not be nearly the shortage you assume.

It seems crazy building a nuclear power station when Hinckley Point sits on the severn estuary which has the 2nd highest tidal range in the world. The goverment should look again at building a tidal power generator

en.m.wikipedia.org...