In light of current events, do you agree with nuclear power?

Hi

I used to be a (wary) proponent of nuclear power, and understood that it was a vital source of power for many nations.

However in light of the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, I think nuclear power is simply too risky. Just this morning, there have been further explosions (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-15/japan-s-stricken-nuclear-power-plant-rocked-by-blasts-fire.html) increasing the likelihood of a 'radiation leak.' Within the article is some information about radiation levels around the plant, and they have reached levels which potentially could cause harm (0.4 Sv, a level of 1 Sv is said to cause nausea).

Not only is there the problem of power cuts, but the added danger of radiation leaks makes nuclear power too risky when compared with its benefits.

There are a myriad of other problems associated with nuclear power; for example, many people forget the damage caused by massive uranium mining operations.

So, do you agree with nuclear power?

It's unavoidable that we rely on nuclear power until non-fossil fuel alternatives are developed. Certainly the events in Japan ought to lead to research into safety measures.

1 - True, but you could have picked a less biased source. Come on, the body that represents the wind energy industry is hardly going to have a bad word about it is it?

2 - I apologise. I misread. In any case, that brings up its own set off issues and problems. Namely about space and where do you put them. The point about energy production is still valid, as even the largest onshore windfarm lags miles behind modern nuclear power stations.

3 - Easy to say, not to do. Especially when we apparently cannot afford much.

I don't have anything against renewable energy. I just think that it isn't viable to replace everything with just renewables.

Actually the Fukushima reactors currently undergoing problems are pretty old; modern designs have passive emergency coolers that do not require fuel. Research already solved the problems that Fukushima is undergoing, but it's not generally possible to so drastically retrofit an old reactor with a completely new cooling system. If a much newer fission plant had been hit by the tsunami (and for the record, most of the reactors in North Japan suffered no problems at all) it wouldn't have been damaged because there would be no danger that the cooling system would fail should the reactor suffer damage.

I understand where you're coming from when you think about it from an economic perspective, I just really don't think we need to be producing energy using nuclear fission when there is;

1. Sufficient resources to build the renewable infrastructure.

2. Sufficient space to put the infrastructure. (whatever you say about wind farms taking up a lot of space, you can't tell me there is not enough space on a planet of 510 billion square metres. Also, wave, tidal, geothermal take up hardly any space at all and in terms of solar power, I'm pretty sure photovoltaic paint has been invented which can be painted onto every new wall and roof in the world, taking up no space at all.

3. Sufficient technology and expertise to provide all the renewable infrastructure.

The only opposition you could ever put forward against transferring to 100% renewable energy is the cost and I think that ultimately shows what an immature species we still are. If you can't imagine a world without money, watch Zeitgeist: Addendum.

2. Sufficient space to put the infrastructure. (whatever you say about wind farms taking up a lot of space, you can't tell me there is not enough space on a planet of 510 billion square metres. Also, wave, tidal, geothermal take up hardly any space at all and in terms of solar power, I'm pretty sure photovoltaic paint has been invented which can be painted onto every new wall and roof in the world, taking up no space at all.

But my personal opinion is that we do not have sufficient resources or space to build what would be needed for renewables to provide all of our energy.
It can make a considerable amount of it, but not all.

With regard to space, do you really understand how big the Earth is?

Yes, but:
1. Tidal power in the UK would be an ecological catastrophe, which is part of why the Severn barrage was recently shot down in flames by the government. All of our major estuaries are major bird breeding grounds with important mudflat environments. We would be "saving the planet" (read: us) at the expense of many organisms. The only suitable forms of tidal power would be underwater turbines currently being tested off of the Scottish coast, but a barrage is never going to happen. Doesn't help that they also take upwards of £10bn to build compared to £2bn for your average new nuclear plant. Do the maths.
2. Wave power is very promising, but it's never going to be more than a contributory part of our energy future. It's not so much being able to harness the energy that's the problem, but getting it back onshore is.
3. We don't have the right geology for geothermal plants otherwise we'd have a ton of them already.
4. Even with the latest generation PV or CSP plants, there simply isn't the consistency of sunlight needed to generate substantial amounts of energy. You'd have to go to Almeria to get the kind of year-round sunlight needed to have a serious solar power plant installation. It's a non-starter for the UK for electricity generation, although newly developed Infrared panels are very promising and absorb IR wavelengths to generate energy. Also, solar-powered water heaters can work well at British latitudes and are worth looking into.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see renewables play a big part in our energy future, but even if we expand wave, wind, underwater tidal and so forth in a big way, we will still have a generating shortfall that can only be made up by nuclear fission reactors or fossil fuel or biomass generators for the time being, and I would much rather the former (with no harmful emissions and recyclable waste) than the latter (with lots of harmful emissions and atmospheric pollution)

Yes, but a lot of the usable bits are taken up by us actually living there.
There are things like offshore wind farms that get around that - but as I said, they have their own problems.

You're looking at it in very insular terms. If we are going to have a renewable future, we're going to have to start working together as a species and forget the illusory fences we call borders. Yes, the UK may have limited potential for things like solar power (although you said yourself that infra-red panels and solar water heaters would work in the UK), geothermal and tidal power but that doesn't mean the whole world has limited potential.

Hey that's cool, but whilst I hope you enjoy living in your utopian fantasy land where borders don't exist, the rest of us are going to have to deal with it. The efficient renewable sources of energy we can employ in Britain and Northern Europe are solely wind and ocean based. We don't have vast expanses of desert to call on for huge concentrated solar power schemes, and even if we invested in such a scheme in other nations to bring power to us here, it would not be viable for two reasons:
1. It would not be secure, because those other nations would control our energy supply.
2. It would not be technically viable, because transmitting over a distance of thousands of kilometres from the source of its generation is highly inefficient

I understand where you're coming from when you think about it from an economic perspective, I just really don't think we need to be producing energy using nuclear fission when there is;

1. Sufficient resources to build the renewable infrastructure.

2. Sufficient space to put the infrastructure. (whatever you say about wind farms taking up a lot of space, you can't tell me there is not enough space on a planet of 510 billion square metres. Also, wave, tidal, geothermal take up hardly any space at all and in terms of solar power, I'm pretty sure photovoltaic paint has been invented which can be painted onto every new wall and roof in the world, taking up no space at all.

3. Sufficient technology and expertise to provide all the renewable infrastructure.

The only opposition you could ever put forward against transferring to 100% renewable energy is the cost and I think that ultimately shows what an immature species we still are. If you can't imagine a world without money, watch Zeitgeist: Addendum.

Of course, the old "any change away from the current social norm is a utopia" stance. The truth is my friend, unless we pull together and realise that we are destroying ourselves, we will do exactly that.

The obvious answer here is to simply not connect systems related to the operation of the plant to the internet. Having said that, there is a very complicated virus with the ability to infect PLC programming almost undetectably. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called, but one suggested reason for it's existence was to potentially sabotage Iran's nuclear power plant (safely). Having said that, it's such a complicated virus that it's pretty much universally agreed it's not something that could have been achieved by a solo or small group of hackers, but is much more likely to be state-sponsored. It's certainly something which needs considering, but the likelihood of terrorists being able to do something like that is pretty much nil.