Nuclear power

[Suff]

Cheap at 100 times the cost....

The new funding will bring Japan's expenditure on the nuclear crisis so far to $80bn (£50bn). That figure does not cover the cost of decommissioning the damaged reactors.

[Workingman]

A bit of perspective.

An earthquake of unpredictable magnitude, and an event probability which approaches zero, hits in the most dangerous place on the surface of the planet regarding Fukushima. It creates a Tsunami with a destructive power not seen before in Japan.

The probabilities and coincidences are not something that the best planning engineers could realistically take into account.... we would never build anything.

On the other hand there were quite fundamental mistakes in the design of the whole Daiichi site. The last thing the REME or RAF Engineers would do is place emergency generators at the bottom of a hill, or place fuel at the top. Flood defences are designed to let water out should they be breached initially. But I digress....

Fukushima is a special case, a very special case, and it should not be used as a stick to beat the general nuclear industry with. And I am sick of this bleating about nuclear waste. Japan, same as the UK, has many disused deep coal mines. The waste could be stored down them in the raw state through automatic means and be as safe as houses. Their locations would be known about for future generations. The radiation would not 'escape'. And nobody in their right mind would ever go down them to nick the stuff.

The count meter would go off the scale!

[Suff]

As the guy who strapped the JATO pack to his truck and "lit the fuse", winding up embedded in a mountain several hundred feet up, the phrase "No off Switch when it all goes wrong" comes to mind.

Really, there's no off switch. They are expensive to make, expensive to run, horrendously expensive to decommission and we have no/very little natural raw materials to feed them.

It's not floating my boat.

[Workingman]

There are many 'off' switches or Reactor Protection Systems (RPS). Many use the Boron or Cadmium control rods used to control the output of nuclear reactors. They are built in by default.

The chain reactions of nuclear generators are not left to control themselves; and when properly operated they are as safe as gas or coal generators.

In an operational lifespan they are far less damaging to the environment than traditional generating methods. If we put more research into Thorium or Fusion they would be even more safe.

Windmill anyone?

[Kaz]

Well said Frank! It seems to me that nuclear power is the only feasible way forward - what viable, sustainable alternatives are there? Fossil fuel supplies are almost gone, the greener alternatives are not up to the massive demand........

We will soon be back in the Dark Ages without it

The problem is that this particular bullet should have been bitten twenty years ago, but it is not a vote winner so successive governments have failed to step up to the mark. Now instead of having affordable energy, as we would have done, we are in thrall to foreign energy providers who charge what they like with no compunction!

[cromwell]

What upsets me about nuclear is (besides the decommissioning probs) the fact that we are having to get foreigners in to build them.
We were building nuclear power stations decades ago! Where did all the skills go?

Same as when we had to service out nuclear submarines a few years since - we had to get the Germans in to do it because we didn't have sufficient skilled people to do it - and we built the bloody things!

[Kaz]

I guess it's because it was decades ago - the skills have been lost

The skills are being lost in all sectors I think, Mick is always saying how the youngsters coming up in BT IT Security are pretty hopeless, they don't have the depth or breadth of skills or experience (leaving aside the huge, huge issue of foreign workers!) - the guys on his team are all over 45, mainly mid 50's like Mick, one is going soon and Mick says God help BT when the whole team has gone

Sorry going Off Topic here.............

[pederito1]

Roll on fusion but I still say the only sensible way to generate power before that is nuclear. Adequate safeguards can and should be built in to guard against all possible events except perhaps a comet strike or even a nuclear bomb.

[Workingman]

Where did all the skills go?

There was a report being run earlier in the week about schools not providing the right mix of academic and vocational education to enable pupils to start apprenticeship, and so on.....

What got to me was the confusion, from both sides, as to what constitutes an apprenticeship. A plumber is completely different from a man attaching pipes to taps and radiators. An electrician knows a lot more than the bloke fixing fuse boxes, light fittings and outlet sockets. A bricklayer is not a builder. There is a level of academic achievement required to become a skilled tradesman, specially in maths and English, and these new apprentices are nowhere near.

This confusion is where the skills have gone. With job description inflation we pretend that we are turning out plumbers, electricians, builders and engineers, but we are not.

[Suff]

I guess it's because it was decades ago - the skills have been lost

Not at all. It was because the Major Government gave the contract to Devonport over Rosyth for political reasons when Rosyth was the only viable place for doing this work.

So the guys in Rosyth, having lost their jobs, decided to do something else rather than go to Englandshire to work....

We have the skills. It's just that the people who have them prefer to work in countries who are willing to pay them and give them ex pat perks rather than live in a country that tells them the "social responsibility" of high income earners is to pay for the 90% who pay 11% of the taxes.

Can you blame them? The nuclear industry is dangerous and an exacting science.