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| Thread ID: 57195 | 2005-04-26 03:03:00 | Nuclear Power in NZ | Strommer (42) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 349036 | 2005-04-27 23:21:00 | There are over 400 nuclear power stations in the world at the moment - and since their development there have only been 3 accidents - and that was during the early development years. Nowadays nuclear stations are safe, with the majority of stations having reactors which will shut themselves down in the event of approaching a meltdown - not an electronic or mechanical control, but an inheriant design feature of the core itself. The amount of nuclear fuel required to meet NZ's needs is tiny, and with modern transport ships we can ship the waste offshore to countries which have the facilities to process the waste into usable materials. Really? And this would be Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island and one other? Does this include Browns Ferry or the Fermi accident? Or the accident in the USSR involving nuclear fuel which contaminated vast areas of land? There have been more than just 3 accidents, you have only heard about the most serious ones, not the ones which were close to serious. 400 stations in the world? The US had about 130 stations in the late seventies and then stopped building them all at once (in fact one was even converted to coal power) when safety issues came to the fore. How many have they built since? Some countries are tied to nuclear through lack of alternatives eg Japan. They have no options. The numbers of nuclear power stations does not reflect their safety or popularity wrt to alternative sources. Nuclear power is limited in the long run unless fast breeder reactors are used to generate new nuclear fuel. How many of these are being built nowadays? Bugger all if any. US gave up on them after the Fermi accident, I don't think France has built many ( I only know of one, the Super Phoenix). Nuclear fuel reprocessing is unpopular at the moment, few want the plutonium in their reactors and much is being stockpiled as spent fuel. And BTW, hydro is not renewable in the long run. Dams fill with silt and lose capacity so that eventually they will not be useful. Just my 2c worth... |
user (1404) | ||
| 349037 | 2005-04-27 23:38:00 | If we gave most households (with good sunshine) a interest free loan of $2,000-$3,000 to have their own solar water heater and mandated it on all new houses and state houses in those area, we could save a lot of power over time. This would surely delay the power crises.There's some cheap tricks to heat water that work so well. In my last house, which had up to 9 people using its hot water, i fed the 2 hot water cylinders from a holding tank under the roof at the highest point possable which obsorbed some of the intolerable heat from the attick space. This preheating made enough difference to ensure that we never ran out of hot water on hot days, even with the first HWC switched off. Most atticks are intolerably hot in summer, I got the idea for my passive solar HW system after nearly passing out in my own attick. The cold feed for my shower came directly from this holding tank, and was often warm enough that little or no hot would need to be added.... And i AM a wimp when it comes to cold water!:p A neighbour of mine gains most hotwater needs in summer from a roll of black alcathene pipe spread over a garage roof. These sort of things requires no pumps, just a little thought before building, but because no-one makes money from installing such low tech ideas, it is unlikely to catch on. :groan: |
personthingy (1670) | ||
| 349038 | 2005-04-27 23:39:00 | Wind power on its own will not produce a "quality" supply, the fluctuations are too great, and there would be no fixed frequency base generation for the individual wind generators to "lock" onto. It is quite an art to bring a large steam turbine up to synchronous speed and then to lock onto the grid frequency. There can be quite a disturbing jolt when that takes place. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 349039 | 2005-04-28 03:28:00 | Bloody aucklanders who consume too much power i did a statistics project on it and 8 out of 12 people dont want nukelar power and 4 did Note Nuclear Power Rules But not in nz how about we make litlle batterys that provide power to aucklanders |
techiekid (7219) | ||
| 349040 | 2005-04-28 03:28:00 | Really? And this would be Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island and one other? Does this include Browns Ferry or the Fermi accident? Or the accident in the USSR involving nuclear fuel which contaminated vast areas of land? There have been more than just 3 accidents, you have only heard about the most serious ones, not the ones which were close to serious. 400 stations in the world? The US had about 130 stations in the late seventies and then stopped building them all at once (in fact one was even converted to coal power) when safety issues came to the fore. How many have they built since? Some countries are tied to nuclear through lack of alternatives eg Japan. They have no options. The numbers of nuclear power stations does not reflect their safety or popularity wrt to alternative sources. Nuclear power is limited in the long run unless fast breeder reactors are used to generate new nuclear fuel. How many of these are being built nowadays? Bugger all if any. US gave up on them after the Fermi accident, I don't think France has built many ( I only know of one, the Super Phoenix). Nuclear fuel reprocessing is unpopular at the moment, few want the plutonium in their reactors and much is being stockpiled as spent fuel. And BTW, hydro is not renewable in the long run. Dams fill with silt and lose capacity so that eventually they will not be useful. Just my 2c worth... Fair call, but France, Japan, Taiwan, the US, Russia, and many other countries are successfully using modern nuclear stations to supply their country's electricity needs. Over 90% of Taiwan's electricity is supplied by 4 French-built Nuclear power stations, to supply the population of over 20mill, not to mention the huge number of factories and industry there. They are all built away from the cities, and there is one that I know of which is built under a mountain (ie. not at the base of it, but actually dug under it). How many accidents have happened in the last 20 years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the figure stands at zero. That's because safety standards have improved significantly, and the development of technology has made them safer than ever before. In saying that, I can't see NZers approving any nuclear plan in the next few decades, so it isn't really an option for us. |
somebody (208) | ||
| 349041 | 2005-04-28 04:07:00 | I'm sure safety standards have improved in the last two decades but then back there the experts claimed the chances of accidents were not worth worrying about yet they still happened. Some were due to human error where someone decided to override the normal operating or safety manual. It is hard to prevent this. The Fermi accident occurred as a result of an extra safety device inserted into the reactor. Even if the chance is reduced to minute, if an accident did happen, the results could be devastating (witness Chernobyl). Could NZ afford to lay waste to huge tracts of land if a meltdown or radiation release contaminated the countryside? We're not a large country to start with, not like the old USSR. The cost of a nuclear plant is huge. It was about $1b two decades ago for a 100MW station. How could NZ afford this? And they are only viable for 30-40 years before they must be decommissioned. I prefer the visual pollution of wind farms and other alternatives first (I actually don't think of them as visual pollution). The best option would be to conserve electricity and avoid the need for more generating plants for many years but since the govt revamped the electricity industry, they are geared toward making maximum profit and encouraging us to use more power (just look at the TV adverts) rather than conserving (apart from when we have power shortages). 4c worth now... |
user (1404) | ||
| 349042 | 2005-04-28 04:51:00 | NZ Herald (www.nzherald.co.nz) reports another Chernobyl may be on the way. | KiwiTT_NZ (233) | ||
| 349043 | 2005-04-28 05:30:00 | Nuclear power in NZ is no longer an option. Since deregulation and privatisation of the previous centralised power system the focus is now on short run marginal costing - thus no one has the wherewithall any more to take the longer view that the capital costs of nuclear would need. The same can be said for the larger hydro schemes of the past. So we're reduced to the quick and potentially dirty generation options that SRMC produces. Oh well never mind. |
d.murray (276) | ||
| 349044 | 2005-04-28 08:56:00 | I'm a fan of tidal power . Your points are interesting Terry . Wave action can be used to generate electricity . Also a venturi driven fan in a tidal race - sort of combines wind and tide . Then there are hydrodynamic systems which use the difference in temperature between surface and deep sea water . The challenge is to engineer structures which can cope with the power of the seas . The advantage of the three above systems is that they don't fight against the water, rather they go with it . I'm a bit shocked at the cost of the nuclear option . Perhaps 20c/kw is realistic . So I suspect we will wait for this technology to develop further . I have no doubt at all that the world will rely on nuclear fusion (as opposed to fission which we currently have) or anti-matter generation in a couple of generations . |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 349045 | 2005-04-28 09:10:00 | So what are the comparative costs of the different methods of generation?Do we know? | Cicero (40) | ||
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