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36 comments on Problems in the UK.

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Whitehall on January 4, 2006 - 10:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nick,

I will certainly admit the obvious - I'm not an expert on the UK nuclear industry.  However, most operational US reactors have had their orignal 40 year licenses extended another 20 years.  Considering the 5 to 10 year construction period which may or may not have counted against the original 40 year license, US plants can expect a 45 to 60 year operational life.

I do own (and cherish) a book on Calder Hall, the first Magnox plant.  They are small and less efficient and, again, I am no expert on their end-of-life problems.  However, so often in situations like this, where there is a will, there is a way.

Still, I think that those who have vocally opposed construction and operation of nuclear reactors need to consider the consequences of their public positions.  They will be held accountable.

What is the guy who is cold, hungry, and out of work due to energy shortages going to say to the people who have insisted that we spend our capital on windmills?

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Nick Rouse on January 5, 2006 - 12:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Whitehall,
I have not heard many people suggesting that the safety inspectorate is being over cautious. The magnox reactors are certainly showing their age. Many years ago I worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell x-raying the magnox fuel elements. Most of the rest of our reactors are AGR  types that operate at a gas coolant temperature of over 600°C which increases stress corrosion in the containment vessel compared to the water cooled reactors common in America.

Although there was environmental pressure to prevent more reactors being built there was not all that much pressure to build them either as the costs escalated and North Sea gas and then oil came on line. The public enquiry about the last of our reactors, Sizewell B took so long that governments took the easy way out and licensed fossil fuel power stations

Perhaps the policy that will be regretted more will be the  virtual close down of the British Coal industry by Margaret Thatcher. There were economic arguments but most observers agree that the political aim of breaking the power of organised labour unions was the main motive. We went from producing almost 100M tons of coal a year to almost none. There is still plenty of coal underground but it is unlikely to be now dug up.

I do support the building of more nuclear power stations but we could have done with a great deal fewer if we had developed alternative energy twenty years ago. We have massive wind wave and tidal resources relative to our size. We have the second highest tides in the world in the Bristol Channel and with a multi-basin scheme could develop 5GW continuously from them. Recent research has show that the UK  could produce up to 30% of its electricity from the right mix of alternative sources without the need for much additional standby conventional generators.

Also nuclear waste disposal is much more of a problem in our crowded island. Nowhere in England is more than seven miles from a tarmac road. There are no unused deserted mountains to hide it in.

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PaulusP on January 5, 2006 - 6:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think there are more problems with nuclear energy than the supply of uranium and nuclear waste as an alternative to hydrocarbons, or as part of an alternative energy supply after Peak Oil & Gas.  

Nuclear power plants generate electricity, which is, as anyone here will know, not as versatile as hydrocarbons by a long shot.

The main point I would like to stretch out, is that the construction, maintenance, operation, and finally dismantling the plant after 45-60 years requires huge hydrocarbon inputs. How much I really don't know. Anyone? Also uranium itself, I suppose, is mined by hydrocarbon driven machinery.

How will this play out in the mid- to long term when the required hydrocarbons will be less and less available, let alone affordable?

To me it seems Nuclear power is really a derivative of an underlying fossil fuel infrastructure instead of being an independent alternative in and of itself.

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Magnus Redin on January 6, 2006 - 5:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Nothing in our technospehere is truly independent of the fossil fuel infrastructure and production. But this is not a grave problem since there will be expensive oil available in large quantities for a very long time even if very cheap oil in rediculously large quantities will be missed.

If another energy source produces much more energy in a usefull form like electricity then it needs lubricants, hydraulic fluids, diesel etc it can pay for very expensive hydrocarbons. It will more or less multiply the hydrocarbon input into a lot more electricity then burning the hydrocarbons would give.

Nuclear power, wind power, etc can then use heavier and scarces oils, then oils cracked with hydrogen made with electricity, oils syntehisized from coal, biological oils or oil synthetisized from raw biomass and hydrogen from electricity.

If no technological breakthrus are made I suspect that the latest generations of nuclear powerplants will be used for a lot longer then 45-60 years. You can not let the structure or systems deteriorate due to the security needed so minor subsystems are replaced as they wear down. This leaves large parts as the preassure vessel as the limiting parts while the rest of the systems are in good shape. They can be heat treated in place to release stresses in ther crystaline structure built up by irrradiation. The inner surface layer with most of the radioactivity can be etched away and then it is possible to work inside them and inspect and replace parts but they do wear out. I suspect that it then will make sense to even swap out reactor vessels. My guess is that the life lenght limiting part will be the concrete in the walls. I have no idea how long it will last, perhaps hundreds of years?

One point i find intresting is that a lot of the parts are metallic and can be melted and the metals reused, often directly and for some parts after a long period of underground storage to wait out the radioactivity. The largest volume of waste from the plant itself seems to be ion exchange filters and misc clothing and tools. It ought to be possible to reduce this waste stream with new materials that are washable but I am speculating about that. I get the impression that a nuclear technology that use breeder reactors can be sustanable more or less indefinately digging up the parts buried a few thousand years ago and remelting them along with fresh low grade ores for the next generation of powerplants.

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36 comments on Problems in the UK.

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