Greenpeace has won its High Court bid to make the government rethink its programme to build a new generation of nuclear power stations.
So just what the hell do Greenpeace want ? This is the one workable alternative to fossil fuels, and here they are blocking it !
I don't see them campaigning for population control which is the only long-term way of reducing the growth in consumption, so what exactly is their agenda ?
While they are at it, perhaps the BBC could stop implying that these are "New" power stations - they are replacements for existing nuclear plants that are coming to the end of their useful life. This decision means that these old-technology plants will have to be kept going for several more years than they were designed to, instead of being replaced with modern designs which will be safer, more efficient, cleaner . . . I hope Greenpeace are pleased with themselves.
Its rapidly becoming impossible for Governments to function because of these ever proliferating half arsed bloody pressure groups,**** green peace,build nukes!!
Grainger, you should know by now, Greenpeace is not an Environmental campaigner, it is an Anti-Capitalist organisation willing to stop the growth of modern civilisation, horse-and-cart is what they're after.
I made my mind up years a go when I worked in the Nuclear Industry. These tossers want us to return to the stone age.
coal, too dirty.
nuclear, too dangerous.
wind power, an eyesore.
floating ducks, damages fish migration patterns.
dams, destroys massive areas.
solar, yes solar, the only form of power production they currently don't complain about. So when we have to completely cover the UK in solar panels to produce the power required I hope they don't complain.
Greenpeace made their mind up years ago and has been extremely consistent - they argue for increasing energy efficiency and less consumption.
That's hardly anti-capitalist is it, smithy? Or is it our capitalist duty to consume far more than we need in order to keep the economy afloat? With that must we also accept Nuclear power (which I'm all in favour of) and it's astronomical costs (lining the pockets of BNF)? Much of the sales pitch for nuclear is a scam.
We are trying to find alternative sources of energy but the same people who moan about us using fossil fuels then throw a tizz when we propose other forms of energy to use.
Instead of encouraging alternative forms of energy, Greenpeace et al want to stop us using energy altogether. We require energy.
E.G. "We must stop flying/using cars". No mention of finding alternative energy sources to power aircraft and cars - after all, we do rely on both - instead, it's a blanket "No cars or aeroplanes" thing. Same for power stations. People need energy for home use, businesses need energy to do business.
No energy = no business. No business = no livelihood for you or me. Economy down the pan, unemployment sky high, everyone lives in slums. Game over.
The price for one. Raw material isn't quite as abundant as it is made out to be.
Likewise, we can make better, more sustainable savings by taking some individual responsibility for our own consumption. The nuclear lobby rather pushes the line that we don't need to make any changes - we simply need to go nuclear.
And on the argument that wind power is unattractive. Maybe I wouldn't want a turbine in my back yard, but I know of no one who wants a nuclear power plant, no less a waste dump anywhere close to them.
As I said, I'm a supporter of nuclear power, but the sales pitch is irresponsible.
The price for one. Raw material isn't quite as abundant as it is made out to be
Which raw material?- uranium ore, yellow cake, enriched uranium, recovered fuel from spent rods??? Please back up your claim with a few specifics. What is the price claimed to be and what is it really? What abundance is being quoted and what is the actual abundance? (presumably of economcally winnable ore reserves????)
Greenpeace are behind this garbage too. As someone who is engaged each and every working day with the industry's effort to address (not avoid) the environmental challenge, this just makes my heart sink. Worse, in fact. I think there's a significant danger that it will be ads like this today, letter-bombs tomorrow.
Sunray: It seems that Greenpeace are not above the occasional "sales pitch" themselves.
Among other things, those ads once again repeat the lie that CO2 emissions from aircraft somehow "count" more than from other forms of transport. In direct contradiction of the IPCC report here.
If they have such a compelling case, why do they need to resort to lies ??
Factor in up to 10 years build time, 30 year reactor life followed by a further decommissioning, and on top of simple fuel costs the processing, enrichment and fabrication in to fuel elements. On average at $1500/kW nuclear is no cheaper than wind energy.
If economically viable fuel sources are consumed within a century on the present low efficiency regime we seem to operate on, we are just heading for a much bigger sting when that moment comes. Nip it in the bud and cut back on consumption and waste now. That is something we will be far more likely to do if we relied on renewable energy sources rather than nuclear.
but I know of no one who wants a nuclear power plant
then talk to the residents near any nuclear power plant, the vast majority are glad the things there and would be the first to complain if you tried to close it.
Don't believe what the papers say, go and talk to the people face to face, you will soon see what I mean.
As far as using Nuclear goes its really a no brainer. The cost of a nuclear plant is the sum total of building it, running it and demolishing it, the former and latter are costly, running it is a fraction of the cost of any other method of producing energy on a large scale.
Over the lifetime of a nuclear plant which spans some 30 years the energy produced by the plant / the cost of the project still produces the cheapest energy.
Conserving energy is a good idea, but as we are already missing huge resources for producing power. Even if we stop increasing our power usage we will end up in black outs in 10 years as the existing generating capacity is mothballed.
I cant even be bothered to go into the reasons why wind power is not an alternative, its great if you want to light a few bulbs or top up your supply, but large scale generating capacity from wind, forget it.
There is simply no alternative, we must build generating capacity NOW and at the moment the ONLY feasible alternatives are Nuclear, Coal or Gas.
Take your pick.
It might interest you to know that there are three kinds of generation capacity in the UK, Base Load, Mid Load and Peak Load stations. All nuclear stations are base load as are the larger coal fired stations. Medium sized coal fired stations are mid load and hydro stations like Dinorwig in Wales are peak load stations.
A station can only do one job, a base load cannot be a mid load and visa versa. If you lose all your base load capacity you have blackouts. and we are very dangerously close to that scenario right now.
The price for one. Raw material isn't quite as abundant as it is made out to be
The price of uranium has very little overall effect on the cost of the power produced by a nuclear power station. Just do a quick search on the internet. The following is one of many pages that talk about this.
Quote:
One important fact that must be understood is that, unlike the gas and oil, the cost of the uranium ore is a negligible fraction of the cost of nuclear power (with almost all of nuclear power cost being in the form of value added by domestic labor). Specifically, at today's price of ~$40/kG of uranium, the ore costs amount to only ~0.1 cents/kW-hr (i.e., only ~2-3% of nuclear’s total power cost). The ore cost could increase by a factor of 10 (to ~$400/kg) and nuclear's power cost would only increase by ~1 cent. Thus, whereas gas and oil applications are extremely sensitive to the cost of fuel, and can be rendered uneconomical by even a small increase in fuel price, nuclear power is almost immune to ore price increases. Thus, the maximum price for uranium ore, above which nuclear power would become uneconomical, is extremely high indeed.
Greenpeace is an industry of it's own, not averse to twist the truth for a good story like what happened with Shell's Brent Spar platform. A cynical, radical and power hungry organisation with only confusion as their main goal.
Nuclear power is probably the only alternative to the usual fossile energy sources. Modern plants proved to be safe and the nuclear waste problem is highly exaggerated by the likes of Greenpeace seriously blocking any necessary progress in a very needed alternative energy process.
It's like the climate debate, emotion rules, not logic.
Because it doesn't address a fundamental need to reduce consumption.
If nuclear is to become the primary energy source in the next 50 years it looks likely it will also become economically un-viable well within a century if the abundance of uranium is as limited as it appears. At this point you have a global population double of today and in all likelihood making a 10-fold increase in energy consumption when taking in to account increasing access to technology and industry.
The bottom line is, when this point occurs you will have an even bigger task on your hands and an more pronounced peak in energy availability. The advantage of localised, small scale, clean programs (be they energy saving technology, solar cells or harnessing waste produced within the household) is swamped when you have nuclear energy - a source providing essentially limitless power for wasteful consumption as the costs of a unit isn't so much consumption based, but levied on the life-cycle costs of the station itself.
As I said, I'm all for nuclear power, but the provision of such as lobbied for is steering debate away from what I consider to be far more necessary. You can bet your bottom dollar the providers of nuclear power will be wanting us to consume as many watts as possible!
The cost of wind turbine produced energy (£/Kw) is more than double the cost of nuclear generation even after taking the construction and decommissioning costs of the station into account.
Quote:
it looks likely it will also become economically un-viable well within a century if the abundance of uranium is as limited as it appears.
eh ? the fuel spent in a nuclear reactor is reprocessed back into usable fuel in a reprocessing plant and then gets reused in the nuclear reactor, this goes on endlessly with fuel constantly being used and reprocessed back and forward between uranium 235 and 238. The uranium reserves are enough to fuel the reactors for many hundreds of years at the rate we currently use it.
The global uranium resources are estimated to be 15 to 20 million tonnes. With 2 million tonnes, all 439 world-wide operated nuclear power plants can be supplied for several decades.
Cant see us burning all that in the next 100 years can you ?
The point we are trying to make sunray is there is really no alternative. Nuclear power currently generates 20% of this counties energy, even reducing energy consumption by 20% across the board and closing all these nuclear stations we would still need to build replacement stations for those coal fired ones that close at the end of their life.
So even if you got the consumer to reduce energy consumption by 20% what would you build to replace the coal fired stations ?
More coal fired stations ?
It takes about 10 years to build a big coal station, a lot longer for a Nuclear station, by the time the decision to build anything is made it will already be too late.
Greenpeace made their mind up years ago and has been extremely consistent - they argue for increasing energy efficiency and less consumption.
No they don't.
I phoned them today and asked whether they would support a campaign to persuade local and national government to reduce their electricity consumption by 20% and they weren't interested: the person I spoke to told me it "wasn't in their remit".
