EV opposition in the media is ramping up

Gadget Geek said:
New construction is now for between 40 - 60 years. Existing reactors are only 30 - 35 years. Also, there is still no long term solution to the nuclear waste disposal and storage.
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Yet we had portable nuclear power stations in 1962!

We can build them into submarines, surely we can build them quicker than that?
 
Tweed98 said:
The waste is a problem, but new tech is in development that could re-use it as fuel.
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I used to fly model aircraft and one of the members was a nuclear physicist. I made the above comment like 'the problem is the waste' and George was on his soapbox taking me task.
He asked me how much waste did a nuclear reactor produce and I said tons and tons of it, you see the rail transported flasks. He told me no, thats low level nuclear waste, 50 years to half life we can just bury that, old coal mines are ideal. High level nuclear waste, the nasty stuff? I didnt know, George kindly told me that if the whole of the uk was run on nuclear power for a year, the high level nuclear waste would fit in a small suitcase, his solution to it's disposal was a rocket flying towards the sun which itself is a nuclear reactor and the waste would burn up out of harms way.
Oddly enough, I've been reading up and researching nuclear power for the last 6 months or so, triggered by a Nuclear Fusion plant being built on my doorstep. I find it absolutely amazing what the nuclear scientists are doing, their understanding and how it works, absolutely incredible. There's some interesting video's on the net of a nuclear reactor going 'critical' (that's when it starts to produce power. It's real black magic stuff :)
 
johnb80 said:
Yet we had portable nuclear power stations in 1962!

We can build them into submarines, surely we can build them quicker than that?
Click to expand...

It's mostly government inefficiency and lack of leadership, planning permissions taking too long due to a lack of incentives to local inhabitants. The French can do it relatively cheaply and their labour costs shouldn't be too different to ours.
 
This sort of thing ?
www.rolls-royce.com

Small modular reactors

Rolls-Royce SMR LTD was established to develop an affordable power plant that generates electricity using a small modular reactor.
www.rolls-royce.com www.rolls-royce.com
 
Tweed98 said:
It's mostly government inefficiency and lack of leadership, planning permissions taking too long due to a lack of incentives to local inhabitants. The French can do it relatively cheaply and their labour costs shouldn't be too different to ours.
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It is more complicated than that.

There was no proper nuclear policy until relatively recently in the UK - there was a lost decade or two of planning without a coherent energy policy. Labour and Tories/Lib Dem and then Tories all to blame.

Our domestic nuclear industry has focused on submarines - but these are very expensive and low power and operate with a different (military) regulatory regime. So these are not suitable to simply reuse for power stations: hence the RR project to develop modular reactors more cheaply and which comply with civilian regs.

The power stations currently being built ARE French and are hugely expensive and complicated and have had cost overruns and delays in their French deployments.

Planning is a constraint and adds delays here but it is far from the only issue. Over-regulation is also a big issue, they need simplifying but it is a brave person who backs removing any requirements (just in case).
 
johnb80 said:
I think it may be closer than that, some company's are now getting more energy out than theyre putting in which is a huge step forward. Theyve also got fusion running for 40 seconds or so which again, is a major step forward.
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Fusion has been 30 years away for the last 50, it's a standing joke. :) As for the recent fusion "breakthrough", if you look at the actual experiment results, they put more energy into the setup before they even started to run it, so not quite the breakthrough the media were reporting.
 
Gadget Geek said:
Fusion has been 30 years away for the last 50, it's a standing joke. :) As for the recent fusion "breakthrough", if you look at the actual experiment results, they put more energy into the setup before they even started to run it, so not quite the breakthrough the media were reporting.
Click to expand...
I also read they may run out of Tritium by the time they perfect it! No idea on the scientific accuracy of that report though!
 

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