Best energy alternatives to stop global warming

[theend3r]

Introspect much?

Who said those posts weren't my own?

Seriously though, it's true and not offensive.

[Elthy]

Anyone here have any info on MHD generators? They look rather promising, according to Wikipedia.

The problem is that you need a conductive, fast flowing fluid/gas. Maybe it works with saltwater (tides) but otherwise i dont know how to "produce" a fast flowing conductive stream and stay CO2 neutral...

[AngelLestat]

I said that nuclear fans after my post would ignoring or diverting the facts, and that is what exactly happens.

Let me show you:

No you won't. Your argument is entirely rhetorical. You aren't interested in any facts other than the ones that you cherrypick to make you feel secure in your position. This is because your position isn't based on reality, it's based on emotion. The reality is that fewer people have died as a result of nuclear accidents and nuclear power has a smaller ecological footprint than any other source of power. That is not disputable. Your argument exists in the land of what-if's and may-be, and even...according to you..using your imagination.

We don't provide electricity to the world with imagination. We do it with engineering and science. In the other thread, you made mention of Three Mile Island and the other Russian nuclear accident, but you ignore the fact that A) Nobody died and they weren't that big of a deal. You use Fukishima like a club even though the reactor incident there was caused by A) Nature and Negligence. You also make claims about the impact of that event using spurious sources with an anti nuclear agenda.

Then you make the absurd claim that 50,000 people died from Chernobyl, even though the United Nations World Health Organization says that the attributable deaths are 48 or something. But you insist that that WHO is lying.

So, my zealous friend, you aren't interested in facts. Unless they are facts that support what you believe...like the facts about dihydrogen monoxide, which is much more dangerous than nuclear waste.

Haha, ignoring and diverting

All the data that I post was real data. Real numbers. If you have different values post them.. Lets compare sources.

I remember you that in my previous post I dint said nothing about deaths, I was just talking about economical cost.

There was no emotion or sensationalism, just numbers that we need to take into account.

In my first post I talk about death, And I mention the WHO value of 4000 and the other estimations from different sources. And I said that WHO is the most serious source.

But guess what.. WHO upgrade the 4000 death estimation to 9000. Apparently subsequent reports with higher numbers and evidence give WHO new data.

But you said that is only 45? Then you said that I cherrypick? If you really believe that the chernobyl death cost it would be only 45. Then is all said.. You are complete blind.

Read this if you really wanna know and understand the reports.. Real all!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#Chernobyl_Forum_report_and_criticisms

So your answer was just diverting words and facts and ignoring the evidence and conclusion.

My stand was clear with real numbers, if you add decommissioning, waste, and possible accidents cost. You end with much higher cost than renowables+storage. Can you refute that? No.. you cant!

Because you ignore certain things... To make renewable energy seem more attractive.

You throw out a set of large numbers that supposedly shows how expensive certain things about nuclear power is.

I'm saying, that if we put in a little solar power here and a little windpower here, without replacing the large coal/oil/other fossilized sources of energyproduction (both electrical and heat). Which is all that everyone has been doing sofar. This will have a hidden cost of 12.500.000.000.000 $ (12.500 $ billion) over 125.000.000 lives lost (actually too late to do anything about that). That is the cost of not going nuclear so far. Depending on which statistics you use it's from tens of times worse to thousands of time worse than having picked nuclear energy.

Diverting.

Your conclusion is damm silly. Your main goal is remplace coal sources. Ok.. but you also are saying that if you have 100 billions to invest, you need spend a % in nuclear. Why you can not invest 100% in renowables +smart grid and storage?

If I prove you that if you add the decommissioning cost then is equal to wind or solar plus storage.

Ok. your stand may be "[PUPPIES] the future, let other people in charge 30 years later worry about cost." Of course you need to worry of paid the decommisiioning of old nuclear plants left it by the ancient rulers.

The decommissioning cost is 1.5 times the original plant price as minumun. It can cost a lot more.

If we scale up your windenergy suggestion for 11 million people in japan. Then the cost of providing ie. 2 billion people with windenergy is 10.545.000.000.000 $ (10.545 billion $), which presumably does not include any of the costs necessary for guaranteeing energy on those pesky non-windy days or weeks.

damm that is so diverting that I am not sure if I understand your point.

First that image was from 2011, the cost of renowable energy now decrease to almost half in these years.

Second.. you want to buy extra clean energy sources for the 30% of the popullation?

Of course it would not be cheap, investments and changes takes time. Now tell me how much it would cost provide the same energy with nuclear plants?? I would tell you, a lot more.

See how do you divert? we need to talk about costs, what is more cost effective. You can not escape from numbers.

Btw. you could make the same argument against windmills near cities. Some places in the world that isn't a problem, due the much smaller population growth.

But like we already stand, citys produce a lot of noice just from traffic, and live besides a nuclear plants is not much pleasurable.

I'm glad that you say it's silly to stop using nuclear powerplants. Unfortunately, there are no renewable energy solutions that let us replace our coal and other fossil fuel burning powerplants, so in essence you are arguing to do nothing.

I said that is silly to not use the already nuclear plants which we have. They are better than fossil plants. Nobody denied that.

But if you have a new investment, why make a new nuclear plants when you can just add by lower cost renowable.

I already explain many times why the base load is not an issue. I give you links.. you ignore them?

am a trained and accredited radiation protection supervisor. I have worked in the nuclear industry as a fuel route engineer. I couldn't go one day without hearing about Chernobyl. I have had entire week-long courses that focused on little else.

The reality is that Chernobyl was pretty much a worst-case scenario, a very poorly designed reactor that was very poorly operated. The death toll from it, according to a committee of no less than eight UN bodies, is 43 directly, from radiation poisoning and thyroid cancer. They also estimate a further 4,000 shortened lives due to an increased risk of cancer. Source here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Human_impact.

Things are very well designed until a problem show the contrary.

I am sure that when fukushima was build they thoght that was secure enoght. After all many safe mechanism fails at the same time. The same happen with the malaysia airplane. Airplanes had 9 independent computers, tons of safe mechanism and backup measures. Nonetheless it completely disappeared and yet nothing is known.

In your link, it said :

total cancer mortality might increase by up to a few per cent owing to Chernobyl related radiation exposure. Such an increase could mean eventually up to several thousand fatal cancers in addition to perhaps one hundred thousand cancer deaths expected in these populations from all other causes. An increase of that magnitude it would be very difficult detect.

Popullation grow, old nuclear plants remains; new nuclear plants are considered more safe (until new accidents prove they are not, then people would said, no.. it was not secure enoght for problems in its desing.. now they would be safe)

The things is that you can not play with this things, more when you have cheaper and safety alternatives.

It is great so long as it is only a small proportion of the energy mix (<20%), as it is inherently variable, and so in order to match supply and demand, the slack has to be taken up by other forms of generation. When the proportion of renewables gets too high, you need to start building dedicated load-balancing stations, like pumped storage, batteries, hydrogen electrolysis, flywheels, and so on. These have a loss in efficiency associated with them, as well as a very large capital cost. While most reputable publications will take this into account, some of the more militant and biased sources will completely neglect them, and act like we could replace our entire generation portfolio with wind for 10x the cost of replacing 10% of our portfolio with wind. That's simply not true.

Who are you to choose which are milintant and biased sources? Becouse they disagree with you? Lets compare them to see which seems more seriuos.

Even with smart grid integrations and extra storage, renowable energy is cheaper than nuclear.

In the next 5 years PV cost would decrease a 50% or more. Storage prices would decrease a 30%. This will put at end to nuclear as viable option, of course it will be always exeptions where due to condintions and locations a nuclear plant can be still a good alternative.

If you read the article carefully, it sounds like that huge estimation had a massive amount of fudge factor in it. A kind of "what's the worst possible scenario we can imagine, and then assume all of the estimations of safety are lying and add a bunch to that number".

No, you can see that you had 2 extremes, the most benevolent case, and the most destructive case.

Values oscillate between €760 billion to €5.8 trillion.

Even if its the most benevolent case, is still discouraging enoght.

As to the article itself, it has it's own major failing:

This is very poorly thought-out; it's in fact hasty generalization with a nice disguise. This assessment of probability makes the critical mistake of lumping all nuclear fission reactors together, regardless of country of operation, country of origin, and the design itself. Chernobyl can actually be more-or-less written-out of safety assessments of current nuclear facilities. We learned from it that certain types of graphite-moderated reactors are bad, bad news

Is not a failing.

You said we learned.. and what about the things that we still not learned? As I said, something is safe until a problem shows the opposite.

And not all our active nuclear plants are new. Many of those are very old with old technologies. They really are in big risk.

What if a terrorist sabotage the france plant? What if an enemy said, I dont need a nuclear bomb, I will just drop a missille to this nuclear plant. Or.. and oldest nuclear worked that is unhappy with its life, finds a hole in the secure procedures that allow him to produce a meltdown. Then after france falls. In other part of the world somebody would said... noo! that was a issue in its design, now its safe.

Anyway, back to the generalization. I could say, with the very same logic, "There are currently 19 CANDU reactors in Canada, plus 5 decommissioned reactors, making for a total of 24. None of those reactors has ever had a meltdown. Therefore, the probability of a Canadian-owned CANDU reactor having a meltdown is zero."

But you had accidents. But lets put thing in perspective.

You dont have any major natural disaster, not volcanos, earthquake, tornado, tsunamis, hurricane, etc.

You also are very serious and responsible. Your country has low levels of corruption.

You dont have enemies.

So before encourage nuclear as a real safe alternative just basing in the Canada case (that is still uncertain), first take a look to the real world outside Canada.

I will continue answer later.

Edited June 19, 2014 by technicalfool
The forum censors profanity for a reason, please do not try to subvert it.

[technicalfool]

Play nice, guys. And bear in mind Rules section 1.3.

To disagree is one thing. To outright flame your opponents is another.

[shynung]

The problem is that you need a conductive, fast flowing fluid/gas. Maybe it works with saltwater (tides) but otherwise i dont know how to "produce" a fast flowing conductive stream and stay CO2 neutral...

We could heat a molten-salt working fluid with any working heat source (coal, oil, nuclear, solar thermal, geothermal, etc.), and run this high-pressure molten salt through a standard rocket nozzle, followed by the MHD generator. Molten salt is a conductive fluid, so theoretically, this configuration should work.

I must add: It's not a power source on its own, it's a generator. It must be driven by something else.

Edited June 19, 2014 by shynung

[rtxoff]

My real question is this: Why are you so dead set against nuclear (you claimed yourself just a few posts ago that you were sure that nuclear was the worst option we have), when fossil fuels demonstrably kill and injure orders of magnitude more people? Why are you applying a double standard? Nobody is claiming nuclear is perfect, but when your choice is between nuclear, fossil fuels, and having the lights go out, it's by far the lesser of three evils.

Well that's the problem with you people, you take everything personal. It really does not matter what i believe here is better or not. We are here to discuss best energy alternatives to stop global warming. The only way to do this is for some people to take the role of the "devil's advocate" and try to give different arguments or another view. It would be no discussion at all if all where in favor for nuclear or some other form of energy. If we want to discuss a matter we need to see the topic from all perspecitves not only that one science people see. While i respect science generally, science people really can't speak for whole mankind. Me beeing against nuclear energy can fortify your position towards it if your arguments are better then my. However trying to fool people into believing someting can also have some backfire effect. It is open for everyone to decide which side he/she will take if taking any side at all. However a good decision can only be a decision which was decided knowing all the facts. Trying to twist or bend some of this facts is probably a bad idea if you take into account that it may affect your offspring and it's life they are going to live.

[Elthy]

What you seem to forget about the cons of nuclear only:

I needs storage technology, too. Nuclear powerplants are designed to run all day with the same output, shutting them down takes hours to days. But power demand isnt the same at each time, so you need some buffer to keep energy available at each daytime. Currently this job is made by gas turbines because they are very flexible, but thats a no-go since its not CO2 neutral (also at least europe wants to get rid of russian gas). Of course you could to Power-to-Gas like with renewables, but than the renewables are cheaper...

[shynung]

Well that's the problem with you people, you take everything personal. It really does not matter what i believe here is better or not. We are here to discuss best energy alternatives to stop global warming. The only way to do this is for some people to take the role of the "devil's advocate" and try to give different arguments or another view. It would be no discussion at all if all where in favor for nuclear or some other form of energy. If we want to discuss a matter we need to see the topic from all perspecitves not only that one science people see. While i respect science generally, science people really can't speak for whole mankind. Me beeing against nuclear energy can fortify your position towards it if your arguments are better then my. However trying to fool people into believing someting can also have some backfire effect. It is open for everyone to decide which side he/she will take if taking any side at all. However a good decision can only be a decision which was decided knowing all the facts. Trying to twist or bend some of this facts is probably a bad idea if you take into account that it may affect your offspring and it's life they are going to live.

Strawman confirmed.

[KasperVld]

I'm putting a temporary lock on this thread, check back in 30 minutes.

Reopened the thread, sorry it took so long. I suggest that everyone here tries to not use the words "you" and "your" for a while, it'll probably help the discussion forward. Also, name-calling, generalisation and such will be a reason for moderator action. The post above this one is a good example. Keep it respectful and about the facts.

Edited June 19, 2014 by KasperVld

[theend3r]

Besides, nuclear vs renewables is a stupid argument. There're not mutually exclusive. An energy system with too much of either is undesirable, and they're good for different things.

I think this argument wins the thread. Fossil fuels are objectively bad for mass energy production, the rest is better but what combination to use depends on the environment. Norway? Water is great there. UK? Wind sounds good due to a lot of onshore sites where wind turbines can be built. Inland countries like Czech/Slovak republic? Nuclear. Tropical climates with mostly clear weather? Solar. The only question is what energy mix to use, but all have their place. That is, until we get fusion, antimatter or some other magical source.

[rtxoff]

I only can agree with that. An healthy mix is very reasonable.

[peadar1987]

Things are very well designed until a problem show the contrary.

I am sure that when fukushima was build they thoght that was secure enoght. After all many safe mechanism fails at the same time. The same happen with the malaysia airplane. Airplanes had 9 independent computers, tons of safe mechanism and backup measures. Nonetheless it completely disappeared and yet nothing is known.

And even when things are poorly designed, don't perform as expected, and people handle the situation badly, nuclear still kills fewer per MWh than, say, wind. 17 people were killed in Brazil in March 2012 when a wind turbine collapsed on their bus. Does that mean that wind is inherently unsafe, or is it the fault of the people who designed an unreliable turbine, or the people who put it too close to a busy road?

In your link, it said :

total cancer mortality might increase by up to a few per cent owing to Chernobyl related radiation exposure. Such an increase could mean eventually up to several thousand fatal cancers in addition to perhaps one hundred thousand cancer deaths expected in these populations from all other causes. An increase of that magnitude it would be very difficult detect.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The link basically says there is lots of cancer about anyway, so even if Chernobyl causes a few thousand extra, it will be very difficult to detect and distinguish from noise in the statistics.

Popullation grow, old nuclear plants remains; new nuclear plants are considered more safe (until new accidents prove they are not, then people would said, no.. it was not secure enoght for problems in its desing.. now they would be safe)

The things is that you can not play with this things, more when you have cheaper and safety alternatives.

Look at the death figures per MWh. We don't have cheaper and safer alternatives.

Who are you to choose which are milintant and biased sources? Becouse they disagree with you? Lets compare them to see which seems more seriuos.

MSc. in Sustainable Energy Systems, University of Edinburgh, 2010.

Even with smart grid integrations and extra storage, renowable energy is cheaper than nuclear.

In the next 5 years PV cost would decrease a 50% or more. Storage prices would decrease a 30%. This will put at end to nuclear as viable option, of course it will be always exeptions where due to condintions and locations a nuclear plant can be still a good alternative.

Do you have a citation for this? If it's true, then that's fantastic, and the technology has moved on big-time since I graduated.

Well that's the problem with you people, you take everything personal. It really does not matter what i believe here is better or not. We are here to discuss best energy alternatives to stop global warming. The only way to do this is for some people to take the role of the "devil's advocate" and try to give different arguments or another view. It would be no discussion at all if all where in favor for nuclear or some other form of energy. If we want to discuss a matter we need to see the topic from all perspecitves not only that one science people see. While i respect science generally, science people really can't speak for whole mankind. Me beeing against nuclear energy can fortify your position towards it if your arguments are better then my. However trying to fool people into believing someting can also have some backfire effect. It is open for everyone to decide which side he/she will take if taking any side at all. However a good decision can only be a decision which was decided knowing all the facts. Trying to twist or bend some of this facts is probably a bad idea if you take into account that it may affect your offspring and it's life they are going to live.

The only thing I took personally was being called a liar. The rest of the time, I was trying to have a constructive discussion.

What you seem to forget about the cons of nuclear only:

I needs storage technology, too. Nuclear powerplants are designed to run all day with the same output, shutting them down takes hours to days. But power demand isnt the same at each time, so you need some buffer to keep energy available at each daytime. Currently this job is made by gas turbines because they are very flexible, but thats a no-go since its not CO2 neutral (also at least europe wants to get rid of russian gas). Of course you could to Power-to-Gas like with renewables, but than the renewables are cheaper...

Power demand is actually pretty predictable. Nuclear plants can adjust their power output fairly smoothly to match the broad demand curve if they need to. You get deviations from the expected load of a few %, which can be compensated for with spinning reserve, hydro, gas turbines, or energy storage. You don't have any of that control with most renewables. The amount of storage or load-following capacity you need is still far higher for renewables.

[AngelLestat]

A cost exercise, after this I would change of subject to talk about new energy alternatives in develpment.

Nuclear plant vs Wind plus storage

Source: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/ce17780900c3d223633ecfa59/files/Lazard_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_v7.0.1.pdf

Nuclear Energy:

How the graphic show, Nuclear values does not reflect decommissioning costs or potential economic impact of federal loan guarantees (this mean accidents) or other subsidies.

Lower cost represent the new Nuclear Reactor model AP1000 (1.1GW)

Total Cost/GW: 5,3 Billions / LifeTime: 40 Years / Construction time: 48-69 month / LCOE: $86/MWh

Then we need to add the decommission cost which vary from 15% of the construction cost to 100 Billions, depending on the kinds of accidents that had.

Lets assume 0 accidents in its lifespan. This mean a Decommission cost of 1 Billion.

Total Cost/GW: 6,3 billions. +operation +fuel +waste-management

Wind energy:

Total Cost/GW: 1,5 Billion / LifeTime: 20 Years / Construction time: 12 month / LCOE: $45/MWh

Due to lifetime we multiple this value by 1.7 to equal the nuclear plant (Not all the parts are remplaced, the concrete base always remains)

http://www.windmeasurementinternational.com/wind-turbines/om-turbines.php

Total Cost/GW: 2,55 Billion + 1,6 Billion (Storage x4 - 12 Hrs)= 4,15 Billions +maintaince +smart grid +charge cost.

There are some other storage options:

Pumped Hydro: Cost-270$/kwh Capacity-14GW Power-1.4GW Duration-10hrs Efficiency-82% Lifetime-13000 cycles Total Cost-2,7 Billions

http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/energy/assets/pdfs/SUFG/publications/SUFG%20Energy%20Storage%20Report.pdf

Batteries: Cost: 200$/kw Efficiency-75% Lifetime-10000 cycles (30 years)

http://www.eosenergystorage.com/technology-and-products/

http://www.eosenergystorage.com/opportunity/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

nuclear still kills fewer per MWh than, say, wind.

False.

so cancer death due to radioactivity does not count? nuclear plants working and construction accidents either? Deform childs birth and natural enviroment damage? WHO said 9000 (only chernobyl)

I said more than 40000 (which they will take place over time) if we add all nuclear accidents. Plus an economic cost of 700 Billions.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The link basically says there is lots of cancer about anyway, so even if Chernobyl causes a few thousand extra, it will be very difficult to detect and distinguish from noise in the statistics.

The reports (not the pdf) said how these estimations are taken. Is not imagination. Is science.

The fact that we can not prove with 100% certainty if someone die by natural cancer or by radiactivity causes, it does not mean that all those death does not exist.

MSc. in Sustainable Energy Systems, University of Edinburgh, 2010

.

That is not a link.

2010?? Try to use a 2014 source.. We are talking about technology here.

This is a link:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-and-solar-harvest-enough-energy-now-to-pay-back-manufacture-plus-add-storage/

Source Nature magazine >> to any university becouse of their policy.

Do you have a citation for this? If it's true, then that's fantastic, and the technology has moved on big-time since I graduated.

I have.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/11/analysis-50-reduction-in-cost-of-renewable-energy-since-2008/

http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/31/solar-capacity-grows-efficiency-pv-panels-increase/

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/how-fast-are-the-costs-of-solar-really-coming-down

http://www.energypost.eu/iea-exaggerates-costs-underestimates-growth-solar-power/

in resume to the data that you can find, PV fall 50% from 2008 to 2013.

The rapidly decreasing costs of solar cells and corresponding grow of the global solar industry have lead people to invoke Moore’s law and predict that the installed capacity of solar PV on homes and businesses will double every two years.

Some estimations only follow the graphics trend and add the production limit that solar may had to face. But if we take into account the new technologies comming (a lot), how cheap and mass production they may be.. the 50% cost reduction for 2020 is a fact.

[shynung]

That is not a link.

2010?? Try to use a 2014 source.. We are talking about technology here.

He graduated from University of Edinburgh with a Master's degree in Science, in the year 2010.^{Seriously, do you have even the slightest idea?}

Anyway, is it feasible to use waste-to-energy plants as base-load generators on its own? If not, how much is it lacking in terms of production?

[Seret]

Anyway, is it feasible to use waste-to-energy plants as base-load generators on its own? If not, how much is it lacking in terms of production?

No, there just isn't enough waste. This study is pretty typical, normally you're looking at the practical resource amounting to somewhere around 5% of electricity and heat demand in an industrialised nation.

[phoenix_ca]

No, you can see that you had 2 extremes, the most benevolent case, and the most destructive case.

Values oscillate between €760 billion to €5.8 trillion.

Even if its the most benevolent case, is still discouraging enoght.

$5.8 trillion. Which is specifically referred to in that article as having a lot of fudge added to it.

So, yes, and you confirmed it for me.

You said we learned.. and what about the things that we still not learned?

And what about all the things we still don't understand about wind power, or hydroelectric, or solar? Human knowledge is incomplete; that isn't an argument against using what we have

As I said, something is safe until a problem shows the opposite.

That's a tautology. "Something is safe until it isn't safe." Well, that's nice, but meaningless.

And not all our active nuclear plants are new. Many of those are very old with old technologies. They really are in big risk.

No they aren't, but as I've said before, they get retrofitted with better equipment as time goes on. Chernobyl prompted the Soviet Union to retrofit all of their RBMK reactors with better safety systems and modifications that made them all much safer. Not perfect, but better than leaving them with the original design.

What if a terrorist sabotage the france plant? What if an enemy said, I dont need a nuclear bomb, I will just drop a missille to this nuclear plant. Or.. and oldest nuclear worked that is unhappy with its life, finds a hole in the secure procedures that allow him to produce a meltdown. Then after france falls. In other part of the world somebody would said... noo! that was a issue in its design, now its safe.

Containment vessels are purpose-built to withstand that sort of attack (a missile, or plane). As for some sort of "rogue employee", that has to be one of the most patently absurd notions I've heard regarding nuclear power. One person, even an employee, would be hard-pressed to cause a meltdown in a reactor without anyone noticing. On top of that, lets say that this actually did come to pass. Well whoop-dee-doo, they caused a meltdown. Reactors are designed to deal with them. Pump water in, cool it, done.

You can't just tinker around with a reactor a bit and somehow make it explode.

But you had accidents. But lets put thing in perspective.

You dont have any major natural disaster, not volcanos, earthquake, tornado, tsunamis, hurricane, etc.

You also are very serious and responsible. Your country has low levels of corruption.

You dont have enemies.

So before encourage nuclear as a real safe alternative just basing in the Canada case (that is still uncertain), first take a look to the real world outside Canada..

And again you quoted so that the meaning was lost.

Anyway, back to the generalization. I could say, with the very same logic, "There are currently 19 CANDU reactors in Canada, plus 5 decommissioned reactors, making for a total of 24. None of those reactors has ever had a meltdown. Therefore, the probability of a Canadian-owned CANDU reactor having a meltdown is zero." An incredibly simplistic and utterly worthless bit of drivel, just like that writer's attempt to assess probability.

I thought this would be clear. This is an illustration of just how broken a line of thinking that was. You can't say "that device has never had an accident, therefore it's 100% safe". Nor can you say "I used that device once, and had an accident, therefore it's 100% prone to failure". That's not even close to how probability works. And as I said in my original post, and at great length, that article conflates different reactors, even ones that are very different in design and regulatory oversight as if they were all the same.

Back to your post:

But you had accidents. But lets put thing in perspective.

Really? We've had a major accident? I certainly haven't heard of it. CANDU reactors have an exemplary safety record, and so far that's even regardless of which country they're being operated in.

You dont have any major natural disaster, not volcanos, earthquake, tornado, tsunamis, hurricane, etc.

Yeah no. Canada's a big place, and has more than enough room for nature to be a pain-in-the-ass:

Volcanoes in Canada

Recent Earthquakes

Tornadoes

Tsunamis (Very rare, but known to happen, and thus is part of Emergency Preparedness in BC)

Hurricanes

As part of basic operation of our nuclear facilities, they must be prepared to deal with all of those risks. The reactors in Ontario are prepared to deal with a severe earthquake, even though the area is very unlikely to see a severe enough earthquake to damage any of them, or at least within our lifetimes.

You also are very serious and responsible. Your country has low levels of corruption.

And as I've said before, this is par for the course for good management of nuclear power. If you screw-up your policy, you are doing it wrong.

You dont have enemies.

Ohhhh, yes we do; we're part of NATO. We might be slightly less hated than the Americans by some groups, but there are plenty of countries that don't like us, and when it comes to Islamic extremists, there's no distinction between us and the USA beyond "it's easier to get into the USA if you spend time in Canada first".

During the Cold War, it was commonplace for Soviet aircraft to enter Canadian airspace and prompt us to intercept them. And they're still doing it today, even if it's a little less common.

So before encourage nuclear as a real safe alternative just basing in the Canada case (that is still uncertain), first take a look to the real world outside Canada..

Already have, and if I had argued that nuclear power is perfectly safe no matter who is running it, you'd have a point, but I didn't, and I've specifically said many times that adequate policy is a requirement for safe use of nuclear power. Given this, I think its absurd to suggest that nations fully capable of maintaining the required amount of security and safety should hamper themselves.

[QPDO]

*sigh* The risk of nuclear energy does not lie within the reactor is lies within the waste. The risk and cost resulting from old reactors, nuclear fuel and contaminated waste is a number that can't be calculated. Right now there is no FINAL way of disposal of nuclear waste. So ..

how could you say that something is cheaper if you don't even know how much it will cost in the end?

How could you say something is less risky if you don't even have a faint idea how to deal with it?

The renewable energies are at least predictable in their repercussions down in the future.

[peadar1987]

A cost exercise, after this I would change of subject to talk about new energy alternatives in develpment.

Nuclear plant vs Wind plus storage

http://s20.postimg.org/os4054hdp/nuclear_wind.jpg

Source: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/ce17780900c3d223633ecfa59/files/Lazard_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_v7.0.1.pdf

Nuclear Energy:

How the graphic show, Nuclear values does not reflect decommissioning costs or potential economic impact of federal loan guarantees (this mean accidents) or other subsidies.

Lower cost represent the new Nuclear Reactor model AP1000 (1.1GW)

Total Cost/GW: 5,3 Billions / LifeTime: 40 Years / Construction time: 48-69 month / LCOE: $86/MWh

Then we need to add the decommission cost which vary from 15% of the construction cost to 100 Billions, depending on the kinds of accidents that had.

Lets assume 0 accidents in its lifespan. This mean a Decommission cost of 1 Billion.

Total Cost/GW: 6,3 billions. +operation +fuel +waste-management

Wind energy:

Total Cost/GW: 1,5 Billion / LifeTime: 20 Years / Construction time: 12 month / LCOE: $45/MWh

Due to lifetime we multiple this value by 1.7 to equal the nuclear plant (Not all the parts are remplaced, the concrete base always remains)

http://www.windmeasurementinternational.com/wind-turbines/om-turbines.php

Total Cost/GW: 2,55 Billion + 1,6 Billion (Storage x4 - 12 Hrs)= 4,15 Billions +maintaince +smart grid +charge cost.

There are some other storage options:

Pumped Hydro: Cost-270$/kwh Capacity-14GW Power-1.4GW Duration-10hrs Efficiency-82% Lifetime-13000 cycles Total Cost-2,7 Billions

http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/energy/assets/pdfs/SUFG/publications/SUFG%20Energy%20Storage%20Report.pdf

Batteries: Cost: 200$/kw Efficiency-75% Lifetime-10000 cycles (30 years)

http://www.eosenergystorage.com/technology-and-products/

http://www.eosenergystorage.com/opportunity/

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You used a levelised cost of energy of $45 for wind. This is only true for low grid penetrations. Anything higher than 15-20% and you have to match it with energy storage to keep the lights on.

Even an ideal site for pumped storage will only get you a LCOE of about $130/MWh. Average this out with the £45/MWh you used for wind, and you get $87.5/MWh. Even in the ideal case for wind, slightly more expensive than nuclear. You won't get the ideal case the vast majority of the time, meaning that storage costs are likely to be much higher.

This basically bears out what myself and others have been saying all along. Renewables are fantastic at low grid penetrations. I would have at least 20-25% of the energy balance from renewables, but they are simply not capable of providing the entire electrical supply for a country at current levels of technology. Which is why we need nuclear, at least for the next couple of decades.

False.

so cancer death due to radioactivity does not count? nuclear plants working and construction accidents either? Deform childs birth and natural enviroment damage?

The 4000 is the cancer deaths due to radioactivity.

See the link Seret or Phoenix_ca (sorry guys, I can't remember which one of you it was) posted a few pages ago. If you normalise the figures to a per kWh comparison, nuclear may have resulted in more deaths, but it has also generated far more energy over the last 60 years. If you're talking about a power source for an entire country, that's the figure you want to be interested in.

WHO said 9000 (only chernobyl)

I said more than 40000 (which they will take place over time) if we add all nuclear accidents. Plus an economic cost of 700 Billions.

WHO said 4,000 as a median estimate, 9,000 as a higher bound estimate. I believe about 1,000 as a lower bound, although I'm open to correction on that.

Where are you getting your 40,000 figure from? Which accidents have caused all these deaths? Three Mile Island? Fukushima? Windscale? You can't count Kyshtym, because it was a weapons plant.

The reports (not the pdf) said how these estimations are taken. Is not imagination. Is science.

The fact that we can not prove with 100% certainty if someone die by natural cancer or by radiactivity causes, it does not mean that all those death does not exist.

But it also doesn't mean that all of them are directly attributable to radiation. I don't mean to be offensive, but I trust the WHO over you when they give a best estimate of 4,000 additional cancers.

.

That is not a link.

2010?? Try to use a 2014 source.. We are talking about technology here.

It is a qualification. I have a Masters Degree in Sustainable Energy, as well as having worked in the energy field for the last 4 years, so that is who I am to determine which sources are militant and biased.

This is a link:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-and-solar-harvest-enough-energy-now-to-pay-back-manufacture-plus-add-storage/

Source Nature magazine >> to any university becouse of their policy.

I have.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/11/analysis-50-reduction-in-cost-of-renewable-energy-since-2008/

http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/31/solar-capacity-grows-efficiency-pv-panels-increase/

http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/how-fast-are-the-costs-of-solar-really-coming-down

http://www.energypost.eu/iea-exaggerates-costs-underestimates-growth-solar-power/

in resume to the data that you can find, PV fall 50% from 2008 to 2013.

The rapidly decreasing costs of solar cells and corresponding grow of the global solar industry have lead people to invoke Moore’s law and predict that the installed capacity of solar PV on homes and businesses will double every two years.

Some estimations only follow the graphics trend and add the production limit that solar may had to face. But if we take into account the new technologies comming (a lot), how cheap and mass production they may be.. the 50% cost reduction for 2020 is a fact.

These pretty much back up what I've been saying. There is great potential for renewables, at low grid penetrations they are as cheap or cheaper than conventional and nuclear plants, but they are not quite there yet. Everything else is pie-in-the-sky. Basing your energy policy on solar power halving in price based on past trends is too risky when we're talking about something as important as energy security. If it happens, great, but we need to plan for other eventualities.

[theend3r]

*sigh* The risk of nuclear energy does not lie within the reactor is lies within the waste. The risk and cost resulting from old reactors, nuclear fuel and contaminated waste is a number that can't be calculated. Right now there is no FINAL way of disposal of nuclear waste. So ..

how could you say that something is cheaper if you don't even know how much it will cost in the end?

How could you say something is less risky if you don't even have a faint idea how to deal with it?

The renewable energies are at least predictable in their repercussions down in the future.

Waste?

If all the electricity use of the USA was distributed evenly among its population, and all of it came from nuclear power, then the amount of nuclear waste each person would generate per year would be 39.5 grams. That's the weight of 7 U. S. quarters of waste, per year. If we got all our electricity from coal and natural gas, expect to have over 10,000 kilograms of CO2/yr attributed to each person, not to mention other poisonous emissions directly to the biosphere (based on EIA emissions data).

So sure it produces some "waste" (that is actually fuel for more advanced reactors), but its quantity is miniscule.

[Seret]

This basically bears out what myself and others have been saying all along. Renewables are fantastic at low grid penetrations. I would have at least 20-25% of the energy balance from renewables, but they are simply not capable of providing the entire electrical supply for a country at current levels of technology. Which is why we need nuclear, at least for the next couple of decades.

I agree, with gas taking up the slack from the coal displaced from the system. Gas may be a fossil fuel by it's cheap and still represents a substantial decarbonisation. We aren't going to get a to a carbon-free system in the short- to medium-term, transport is going to be the main sticking point there anyway.

[Seret]

So sure it produces some "waste" (that is actually fuel for more advanced reactors), but its quantity is miniscule.

It's not the quantity that's the problem, it's the radioactivity. There are currently no really good long-term options for storage of high-level wastes. At present it's just left in cooling ponds at power plants, which is only a stop-gap measure at best. It is a genuine issue.

[theend3r]

It's not the quantity that's the problem, it's the radioactivity. There are currently no really good long-term options for storage of high-level wastes. At present it's just left in cooling ponds at power plants, which is only a stop-gap measure at best. It is a genuine issue.

I'm not informed enough to argue against that. That aside, excuse my ignorance, but I've always wondered why highly radioactive waste isn't somehow utilized as an energy source too. It may not be capable of being used in contemporary reactors but I doubt the radioactivity isn't utilizable somehow. For example this: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13545-nanomaterial-turns-radiation-directly-into-electricity.html sounds quite promising. Just put it alongside radioactive waste and it stops being waste and becomes an energy source again.

Also second paragraph of this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste/

[phoenix_ca]

It's usable, in theory. In practice, it's usually easier to start with natural uranium and enrich that instead.

As for long term storage, the USA already built a solution. Yucca Mountain. And then people made such a huge stink about storing waste at all, because nuclear waste is so bad and evil and moving it would be bad. They hate the waste so much they'd rather not have any place to store it properly and then glower at nuclear proponents and yammer about waste storage. It boggles the mind. (And don't anyone start with the "shipping is dangerous" bit. We build shipping casks for nuclear fuel that can resist explosions, kerosene fire for hours, and even something as crazy as a train ramming right into it. A rocket-propelled train.)

[theend3r]

It's usable, in theory. In practice, it's usually easier to start with natural uranium and enrich that instead.

As for long term storage, the USA already built a solution. Yucca Mountain. And then people made such a huge stink about storing waste at all, because nuclear waste is so bad and evil and moving it would be bad. They hate the waste so much they'd rather not have any place to store it properly and then glower at nuclear proponents and yammer about waste storage. It boggles the mind. (And don't anyone start with the "shipping is dangerous" bit. We build shipping casks for nuclear fuel that can resist explosions, kerosene fire for hours, and even something as crazy as a train ramming right into it. A rocket-propelled train.)

One of the pitfalls of democracy. Power rests in the hands of people not qualified to make such decisions.

[Seret]

(And don't anyone start with the "shipping is dangerous" bit. We build shipping casks for nuclear fuel that can resist explosions, kerosene fire for hours, and even something as crazy as a train ramming right into it. A rocket-propelled train.)

Hmm. We use nuclear flasks precisely because shipping it is in fact dangerous. We can mitigate the risk through technical measures, but it's a process that requires a bit of care. A good general principle for handling any dangerous goods is that you don't handle them more than you absolutely need to, as every time you move them you accept a risk.

But yes, the main stumbling block to setting up geological repositories is NIMBYism. But we've been pulling spent fuel out of reactors for decades now and the NIMBYs keep winning, so don't expect that problem to go away any time soon.