Bruce wrote:
Peter Parry wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:34:33 +0000, Bruce wrote:
Complete rubbish. Friends of the Earth has not changed its mind about
nuclear and it never will.
"My mind is made up, please do not confuse me with facts"?


Speak for yourself!

Nuclear power is fundamentally something that FOE could never, and
should never support. The facts about nuclear power are very well known
and aren't going to change, so FOE won't change its view.


The facts are not at all known, sadly.

Or if they are, they are grossly misrepresented.

Still the saner people are veing exfoliated out of green**** and FOE
till only the lunatic fringe is left: they can safely be disregarded, or
if they fet in the way of saving civilisation as well as the planet,
kicked into touch or the loony bin, where they belong.

Alang wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:14:16 +0000, Bruce wrote:

(Alan Braggins) wrote:

In article , Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I keep wondering if rather than trying to contain plasma over long
periods, they shouldn't sort of do an internal fusion engine, where a
ceramic piston compresses deuterium, and a laser 'ignites it' and
drives a crankshaft :-)

Would that be the power source for the Ford Fusion?

Closer to the Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...ear_propulsion)


I could never resist calling it the "Ford Onion".

After all, you needed to be a vegetable to buy one. ;-)

There was also the 'Ford Crapi'


Not to mention the "Ford Scrote".

David Hansen wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:28:07 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

This is about just four individuals who have changed their minds:

At last some sense in this thread.

Tony Juniper puts it well
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/tony-juniper-forget-nuclear-and-focus-on-renewables-1629328.html

"Very careful analysis is still needed before going with the nuclear
option. By making this choice we could inadvertently waste time and
money and therefore not achieve what we could do by pursuing other
options – for example, through energy efficiency, cleaner cars and
renewable power.
Related articles

"The first issue is the scope of what nuclear can do. Today, nuclear
provides only electricity and thus could do little (in the
short-term at least) to reduce emissions from other sectors such as
heating and transport, which are mainly powered, respectively, by
gas and oil.

First lie.

You can heat with electricity.

You can run trains off electricity.

Yu can run cars off electricity.

You can do industrial heating off elecricity.

If elecricity is so ****ing useless, whats the point of all those
****ing windmills, Dynamo Dave, that 'only produce electricity'
(ocassionally, at vast suinsidised expense).

?


Because of this constraint even a doubling of British
nuclear capacity would reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by just 8
per cent. This is, of course, a significant proportion but must be
weighed against what we might achieve by spending the same effort
and money on truly sustainable options.

Non sequitur. If electricity is cheap enough you do everything with it
you can.


"Then there is the wider economic picture. New nuclear build would
be based on imported technology, from France probably. While this
might be good for French jobs and industry, we could gain more
economic and employment benefits for the UK through developing
renewable energy sources – such as offshore wind, tidal and wave
power. Using the engineering capacity in our declining North Sea oil
and gas, and shipbuilding industries to do this would improve both
energy security and create jobs. More jobs could be also created in
upgrading our grossly inefficient housing and a major high-speed
rail programme.

Yeah. Right I heard that too. 'every terawatt of nnuclear power only
creates 75 jobs, every terawatt of wind power (which also only produces
electricity) produces 75,000 jobs.

Dave, all we have to do is put 75,000 people to work hoeing our fields,
if employment is all that matters. Are you volunteering? It woud save on
tractors..

"No one seriously expects nuclear power stations to be built without
some official subsidies (none ever have been),


Usual complete non sequitur. "No man has flown before; No man ever will"

The case for private funding of nuclear energy is very attractive with
modern reactor costs.


so we must ask if
public funds will achieve the best impact through this route. One US
study found that a dollar invested in energy efficiency achieves
seven times more carbon reduction than a dollar spent on nuclear.


It probably does in America where they **** fule into te air faster that
you can say 'ecobollox'

More selective editing of facts into dogma. Insulation won't power the
factories that make the feritliser that puts food on the table. Energy
is more than home heating, dork.



"Getting renewables going alongside more efficient energy use,
cleaner cars, lower traffic levels, micro-power systems for
buildings and making fossil generation more efficient and cleaner is
a better package.

I see no mention of te need to turn somewhere between 10% and 20% of the
entire land mass of the UK into an induistrial plant the scale of which
no human has ever attempted, to achieve thus. IIRC its building plant
about 10 times larger than all the existing roads and housing and cities
in existence. A LOt of concrete and energy to do it.


Or 100 large nuclear power statins.


Alongside this approach we need a new cultural
dimension in energy policy whereby there is popular acceptance of
the need to reduce overall consumption.

Oh dear, as if that wasnt there already. However beyond certain point
you cannot go. Food needs energy to grow, and make fertiliser. There
isn't enough organic fertiliser to do the job. Neither is it feasible
top grow it n current scales without mechanisation.

I dont see any mention of this anywhere in these 'facts'

I dont see any mention of how on earth we can back up terawatts of
windfarms without expending enormous sums of money and burning yet more
fossil fuelto move mountains to create a lake or lake the size of loch
ness 1000 feet high somewhere...

There are plainly no people in FOE either who can do basic sums or
understand anything about the engineering they expect to save the plante.


"Tony Juniper is a former director of Friends of the Earth. He is
the Green Party general election candidate for Cambridge."


Remind me to **** on him if I meet him. It will keep him warm and its
totally organic..

Bruce wrote:
Alang wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:14:16 +0000, Bruce wrote:

(Alan Braggins) wrote:

In article , Bruce
wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I keep wondering if rather than trying to contain plasma over
long periods, they shouldn't sort of do an internal fusion
engine, where a ceramic piston compresses deuterium, and a laser
'ignites it' and drives a crankshaft :-)

Would that be the power source for the Ford Fusion?

Closer to the Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...ear_propulsion)


I could never resist calling it the "Ford Onion".

After all, you needed to be a vegetable to buy one. ;-)

There was also the 'Ford Crapi'


Not to mention the "Ford Scrote".

Or the Ford Cortina Clitorus.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:19:44 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Alang wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:14:16 +0000, Bruce wrote:

(Alan Braggins) wrote:

In article , Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I keep wondering if rather than trying to contain plasma over long
periods, they shouldn't sort of do an internal fusion engine, where a
ceramic piston compresses deuterium, and a laser 'ignites it' and
drives a crankshaft :-)

Would that be the power source for the Ford Fusion?

Closer to the Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...ear_propulsion)


I could never resist calling it the "Ford Onion".

After all, you needed to be a vegetable to buy one. ;-)

There was also the 'Ford Crapi'


Not to mention the "Ford Scrote".

I had a Mk3 Cortina 2000 estate. The only Ford I ever owned or drove I
liked. Somebody set fire to it.

Peter Parry wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:19:14 +0000, Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear power are very well known
and aren't going to change, so FOE won't change its view.

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
as a means of communication.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value
Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction
640K ought to be enough for anybody
If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this.

One has to admire unshakeable confidence.


In all those things, obstacles could be removed by research and
development. In nuclear power, nothing has changed.

70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed. Nuclear is
still a highly risky and hideously expensive way of generating power,
with power stations that work for only 30 years but whose legacy of
toxic waste lasts many thousands of years.

Friends of the Earth has every reason to have unshakeable confidence
that nothing has changed, or will change in our lifetimes. Indeed, it
would take major changes to the laws of physics and chemistry to make
nuclear power safe, clean and cheap.

Nuclear power is not the answer. If anyone thinks it is, they are
asking themselves the wrong question.

"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

Or the Ford Cortina Clitorus.


You've lost me there ...

.... specs misted up ;-)

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Bruce wrote:
Peter Parry wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:34:33 +0000, Bruce wrote:
Complete rubbish. Friends of the Earth has not changed its mind about
nuclear and it never will.
"My mind is made up, please do not confuse me with facts"?


Speak for yourself!

Nuclear power is fundamentally something that FOE could never, and
should never support. The facts about nuclear power are very well known
and aren't going to change, so FOE won't change its view.


The facts are not at all known, sadly.


On the contrary, the experience of other countries that continued
developing nuclear power (while we curtailed our building programme)
fully support the facts we already knew.

The facts about nuclear costs haven't changed. The French nuclear power
programme has cost the French taxpayers astronomical sums of money.
Cheap nuclear power is an illusion; someone has to pay, and in France
the burden of nuclear costs falls very heavily on taxpayers.

The facts about nuclear waste haven't changed. In the 60 years since we
started making nuclear weapons the waste problems have never been
solved, or even properly addressed.

The facts about the limited supplies of uranium haven't changed. If the
major industrialised countries make a significant change towards nuclear
power, the uranium will quickly run out. Back to square one.

And please don't mention the fast breeder reactor - it didn't work,
except to produce far more toxic products than it consumed. That's why
the experiment ended. The cleanup of the aftermath is one of the most
expensive and complex nuclear decommissioning projects ever undertaken.

Only a one-eyed Scottish idiot would decide to return to nuclear power.

Bruce wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

Or the Ford Cortina Clitorus.


You've lost me there ...

... specs misted up ;-)

Cortina was known as the Ford Clitorus because every C*nt had one...


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

"The Medway Handyman" wrote:
Bruce wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

Or the Ford Cortina Clitorus.


You've lost me there ...

... specs misted up ;-)

Cortina was known as the Ford Clitorus because every C*nt had one...


Oh, I see. ;-)

But only by people who couldn't spell "clitoris"?


(better make sure I don't add that to the spill chucker!)

Bruce wrote:

70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed.


I forgot the footnote.

*In 1956, Her Majesty The Queen opened Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station
at Windscale, in part of the site now called Sellafield. In her speech
she hailed it as "the world's first peaceful use of nuclear power".

It was nothing of the sort. The reactor was designed to produce weapons
grade plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

It generated some power as a by-product. That power was used within the
Windscale site. However, as Windscale/Sellafield have always been
massive net importers of power from the National Grid, not one kWh of
Calder Hall's output was ever used outside Windscale/Sellafield.

In January 1987, in accordance with the traditional "30 year rule",
sensitive official government papers from 1956 were released to the
media. Apparently, when the untruth of the Queen's speech at Calder
Hall became clear, Her Majesty was not best pleased.

Bruce wrote:
Peter Parry wrote:

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:19:14 +0000, Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear power are very well known
and aren't going to change, so FOE won't change its view.
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
as a means of communication.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value
Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction
640K ought to be enough for anybody
If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this.

One has to admire unshakeable confidence.


In all those things, obstacles could be removed by research and
development. In nuclear power, nothing has changed.

70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed.

No? modern electrnis, control systems, betternderstanding of risk
management, manty safe way of desigbing reactors.

Might as well say that a modern car is 'no different' from a ford model T..

And the costs are not hideously expensive. They are comparable with any
orther technology in use today - 2-5p per Kwh. generated.


Nuclear is
still a highly risky and hideously expensive way of generating power,
with power stations that work for only 30 years but whose legacy of
toxic waste lasts many thousands of years.


Oh purlease. We are living on a planet made out of the toxic wastes of
supernovae. That contains many very long decay radioactive elements, and
is itself a low grade reactor.



Friends of the Earth has every reason to have unshakeable confidence
that nothing has changed, or will change in our lifetimes. Indeed, it
would take major changes to the laws of physics and chemistry to make
nuclear power safe, clean and cheap.

Nuclear power is not the answer. If anyone thinks it is, they are
asking themselves the wrong question.



No, nuclear power is the answer if you want to preserve civilistaion.

FOE haven't actually asked any questions at all. That's the problem. Its
all done on 'faith'

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

No? modern electrnis, control systems, betternderstanding of risk
management, manty safe way of desigbing reactors.

Might as well say that a modern car is 'no different' from a ford model T..


In both cases, the problem isn't in the controls, it's in the idiots
operating them.

Bruce wrote:
Bruce wrote:
70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed.


I forgot the footnote.

*In 1956, Her Majesty The Queen opened Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station
at Windscale, in part of the site now called Sellafield. In her speech
she hailed it as "the world's first peaceful use of nuclear power".

It was nothing of the sort. The reactor was designed to produce weapons
grade plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

It generated some power as a by-product. That power was used within the
Windscale site. However, as Windscale/Sellafield have always been
massive net importers of power from the National Grid, not one kWh of
Calder Hall's output was ever used outside Windscale/Sellafield.

In January 1987, in accordance with the traditional "30 year rule",
sensitive official government papers from 1956 were released to the
media. Apparently, when the untruth of the Queen's speech at Calder
Hall became clear, Her Majesty was not best pleased.

Which is why it was effing expensive, to build, run and decommission.


Yet you hold it out as an example of what new nuclear srations would be
like.

Cherry picking to prove a point, Not facing facts.

Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
No? modern electrnis, control systems, betternderstanding of risk
management, manty safe way of desigbing reactors.

Might as well say that a modern car is 'no different' from a ford model T..


In both cases, the problem isn't in the controls, it's in the idiots
operating them.

Computers are less prone to emotion, laziness and fiddling for te sake
of it.


Now, tell me how many people died as a result of :-

911
Bhopal.
Aberfan
Chernobyl.
Or die in coal mining accidents each year.
Show me ONE death of a person in the UK *directly and unequivocally*
attributed to the nuclear POWER industry.
Now research how many people die from hypothermia because they can't
afford to turn the electric fire on..

Bruce wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote:
Bruce wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

Or the Ford Cortina Clitorus.


You've lost me there ...

... specs misted up ;-)

Cortina was known as the Ford Clitorus because every C*nt had one...


Oh, I see. ;-)

But only by people who couldn't spell "clitoris"?

I stand corrected :-)

Difficult enough finding the bloody things...


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:33:43 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Peter Parry wrote:

One has to admire unshakeable confidence.

In all those things, obstacles could be removed by research and
development. In nuclear power, nothing has changed.

Has it not?

70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed. Nuclear is
still a highly risky and hideously expensive way of generating power,

3 "major" accidents in recorded history, two of which probably
produced no casualties and one of which was a direct result of a
political system rather popular with FoE members. I can see why you
think it is risky.

Friends of the Earth has every reason to have unshakeable confidence
that nothing has changed, or will change in our lifetimes.

FoE think windmills on the roofs of houses generate electricity.

Nuclear power is not the answer. If anyone thinks it is, they are
asking themselves the wrong question.

Or are a signed up member of FoE/Greenscreech and have traded
intelligence for religion.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:41:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
No? modern electrnis, control systems, betternderstanding of risk
management, manty safe way of desigbing reactors.

Might as well say that a modern car is 'no different' from a ford model T..


In both cases, the problem isn't in the controls, it's in the idiots
operating them.

Computers are less prone to emotion, laziness and fiddling for te sake
of it.


Now, tell me how many people died as a result of :-

911
Bhopal.
Aberfan
Chernobyl.
Or die in coal mining accidents each year.
Show me ONE death of a person in the UK *directly and unequivocally*
attributed to the nuclear POWER industry.
Now research how many people die from hypothermia because they can't
afford to turn the electric fire on..

And Chernobyl was the result of an unauthorised experiment; carried out on
a reactor with an inherent design fault that precluded the use of similar
reactor designs in the West; had indication only of a critical measurement
that all Western systems would require automatic alarm and shutdown on; and
was being deliberately operated against standing operating rules.

SteveW

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Calvin
saying something like:

In general I agree *but* uranium ore is not an infinite resource
either. If we all switch from burning long dead trees to nuclear we
are simply buying some decades before we face the same problem again.
Not that renewables are a simple answer either as we'd need country
sized solutions based on wind or wave or whatever to supply our ever
increasing energy demand. Really we need to address our energy usage.

Burn people - got plenty of them.
Oh wait, that's been tried.


http://www.rolls-royce.com/civil_nuclear/index.jsp

Peter Parry wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:33:43 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Peter Parry wrote:

One has to admire unshakeable confidence.
In all those things, obstacles could be removed by research and
development. In nuclear power, nothing has changed.

Has it not?

70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed. Nuclear is
still a highly risky and hideously expensive way of generating power,

3 "major" accidents in recorded history, two of which probably
produced no casualties and one of which was a direct result of a
political system rather popular with FoE members. I can see why you
think it is risky.

Friends of the Earth has every reason to have unshakeable confidence
that nothing has changed, or will change in our lifetimes.

FoE think windmills on the roofs of houses generate electricity.

Nuclear power is not the answer. If anyone thinks it is, they are
asking themselves the wrong question.

Or are a signed up member of FoE/Greenscreech and have traded
intelligence for religion.


I suspect its raher that they have jumped on a bandwagon for selfish
career moves, and now can't get off, even thiough it's heading for
brick wall..

If there is one silver lining to the cloud of economic depression, its
that people will be forced to asses options realistically in order to
survive at all: Dogma will not do the job.

With luck that will mark the end of Green****, FOE and Nu Laber. And the
green party. They've made their point. The environment is mainstream
agenda. Its now time for the people with the skills, knowledge,
mathematics and economics to solve it, none of whom are to be found in
those organisations at all.

"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

I stand corrected :-)

Difficult enough finding the bloody things...


But worth the effort. :-)

Whoever devised a map that you can read in the dark (without first
having to learn Braille) would probably become quite wealthy ...

;-)

Bruce wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote:

I stand corrected :-)

Difficult enough finding the bloody things...


But worth the effort. :-)

Whoever devised a map that you can read in the dark (without first
having to learn Braille) would probably become quite wealthy ...

;-)

ROFLMAO !


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
No? modern electrnis, control systems, betternderstanding of risk
management, manty safe way of desigbing reactors.

Might as well say that a modern car is 'no different' from a ford
model T..


In both cases, the problem isn't in the controls, it's in the idiots
operating them.

Computers are less prone to emotion, laziness and fiddling for te sake
of it.


Now, tell me how many people died as a result of :-

911
Bhopal.
Aberfan
Chernobyl.
Or die in coal mining accidents each year.
Show me ONE death of a person in the UK *directly and unequivocally*
attributed to the nuclear POWER industry.

Or ONE death of a person in the UK *directly and unequivocally* attributed
to passive smoking.

Searches for flame proof suit....



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

The Natural Philosopher wrote:


With luck that will mark the end of Green****, FOE and Nu Laber. And
the green party. They've made their point. The environment is
mainstream agenda. Its now time for the people with the skills,
knowledge, mathematics and economics to solve it, none of whom are to
be found in those organisations at all.

Aplause.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear waste haven't changed. In the 60 years since we
started making nuclear weapons the waste problems have never been
solved, or even properly addressed.

Bit of a non issue really - we make relatively little of it (compared to
the waste from other power sources - many of which are also radioactive)

If you build a few breeder reactors then you mitigate the problem further.

The facts about the limited supplies of uranium haven't changed. If the
major industrialised countries make a significant change towards nuclear
power, the uranium will quickly run out. Back to square one.

Indeed - although it is worth bearing in mind that the volume of
material mined to keep a large coal fired station going for a few hours
will keep a reactor going for a year. So a little goes a long way.

However the basic tenant that the resource is limited is true. Which
suggests that it should be exploited to the maximum to facilitate the
generation of the next source of energy i.e. fusion. It buys us several
more decades of power to reach that goal with relatively low climatic
impact. If we don't reach the goal then we are shagged anyway.

And please don't mention the fast breeder reactor - it didn't work,

They work rather well actually. Especially when you consider that non
fissionable U238 is over 140 times more abundant than the usual 235, and
a fast breeder can convert U 238 to fissionable Pu 239. That is quite a
substantial change in the fuel availability.

They are also quite handy for making use of any spare weapons grade Pu
you have sitting about following decommissioning.

except to produce far more toxic products than it consumed. That's why
the experiment ended. The cleanup of the aftermath is one of the most

What experiment are we talking about there?

expensive and complex nuclear decommissioning projects ever undertaken.

Only a one-eyed Scottish idiot would decide to return to nuclear power.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:30:04 +0000 someone who may be John Rumm
wrote this:-

except to produce far more toxic products than it consumed. That's why
the experiment ended. The cleanup of the aftermath is one of the most

What experiment are we talking about there?

I imagine Bruce was referring to the stunning success the nuclear
lobby achieved at Dounreay.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/09/12/a-catalogue-of-idiocy/
is worth reading on the subject. I like the concluding paragraphs:-

"So what should we conclude from this story? The catalogue of idiocy
at Dounreay is not necessarily an indictment of all nuclear
installations: nuclear power stations built today couldn’t get away
with practices like this. But it shows that when things go wrong
they can be incredibly hard to redress. Dounreay’s story also
reflects the fact that corner-cutting is a constant temptation, as
disposing of waste properly is difficult and expensive.

"It also provides a powerful argument in favour of the precautionary
principle. This is the much-maligned idea that those intending to do
something potentially hazardous should first demonstrate that it
will not present a significant risk to the public. But perhaps above
all it is another argument for open government. None of this could
have taken place if Dounreay’s operations had been open to public
scrutiny. The disasters there happened for the same reason as the
disasters in Iraq: the government used 'security' as its excuse for
hiding the truth from the public."



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:48:27 +0000 someone who may be John Rumm
wrote this:-

threats to national security remain very high, and that the contribution

Movie plot threats always seem "very high". But they are not worth
spending serious money defending against since they are far cheaper and
easier ways to cause more disruption.

Government disagrees, which is the stated reason for their attempts
to reduce the volume of crap stored in the high level waste tanks.
When one reads between the mild language in
http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/2008/sellafield3.htm Section
2.5, it is clear there is still concern over the slow progress of
reducing the volume of this crap. This is the dirty end of nuclear
electricity generation, something proponents are not keen to talk
about.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:48:27 +0000 someone who may be John Rumm
wrote this:-

threats to national security remain very high, and that the contribution

Movie plot threats always seem "very high". But they are not worth
spending serious money defending against since they are far cheaper and
easier ways to cause more disruption.

Government disagrees, which is the stated reason for their attempts
to reduce the volume of crap stored in the high level waste tanks.
When one reads between the mild language in
http://www.hse.gov.uk/nuclear/llc/2008/sellafield3.htm Section
2.5, it is clear there is still concern over the slow progress of
reducing the volume of this crap. This is the dirty end of nuclear
electricity generation, something proponents are not keen to talk
about.

This is cr@p, most of the waste is from the bomb program and not power
generation.

John Rumm wrote:

Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear waste haven't changed. In the 60 years since we
started making nuclear weapons the waste problems have never been
solved, or even properly addressed.

Bit of a non issue really - we make relatively little of it (compared to
the waste from other power sources - many of which are also radioactive)


As someone who has worked in the nuclear industry, and was involved in
the construction of dry stores at power stations to house spent fuel, I
can assure you that you could not be more wrong. We have a huge waste
problem. It cannot be reprocessed in a reasonable time at reasonable
cost so it is being stored indefinitely, and quantities are building up
every day.


If you build a few breeder reactors then you mitigate the problem further.


That's hilarious! The fast breeder reactor idea was killed stone dead
when it was found that the waste problem was magnified many times over,
with large quantities being created of some really nasty, very toxic,
extremely radioactive isotopes with very long half-lives. One pilot
fast breeder was built at Dounreay. It has already been decommissioned,
leaving behind the worst toxic nuclear waste problem in the world which
will take billions of pounds and many years to solve. The fast breeder
programme has been a complete unmitigated disaster from start to ...

.... finish? It won't be finished for tens of thousands of years!


The facts about the limited supplies of uranium haven't changed. If the
major industrialised countries make a significant change towards nuclear
power, the uranium will quickly run out. Back to square one.

Indeed - although it is worth bearing in mind that the volume of
material mined to keep a large coal fired station going for a few hours
will keep a reactor going for a year. So a little goes a long way.


There are enough coal reserves to keep the UK, US and Chinese (plus any
other countries' you care to mention) power stations going for at least
three centuries. The uranium will last only for a few decades.


However the basic tenant that the resource is limited is true. Which
suggests that it should be exploited to the maximum to facilitate the
generation of the next source of energy i.e. fusion. It buys us several
more decades of power to reach that goal with relatively low climatic
impact. If we don't reach the goal then we are shagged anyway.


Fusion is 15-20 years away. 15-20 years ago it was 15-20 years away. In
15-20 years' time it will still be 15-20 years away. Meanwhile, it will
employ tens of thousands of very highly paid but sadly completely
ineffectual scientists who will always tell you that a commercial fusion
reactor is "only 15-20 years away".

Politicians have been fooled by these scientists' promises since the
1960s. Clearly you have been fooled too. ;-)


And please don't mention the fast breeder reactor - it didn't work,

They work rather well actually.


They are a complete disaster. See above.

David Hansen wrote:
On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:30:04 +0000 someone who may be John Rumm
wrote this:-

except to produce far more toxic products than it consumed. That's why
the experiment ended. The cleanup of the aftermath is one of the most
What experiment are we talking about there?

I imagine Bruce was referring to the stunning success the nuclear
lobby achieved at Dounreay.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/09/12/a-catalogue-of-idiocy/
is worth reading on the subject. I like the concluding paragraphs:-

"So what should we conclude from this story? The catalogue of idiocy
at Dounreay is not necessarily an indictment of all nuclear
installations: nuclear power stations built today couldn’t get away
with practices like this. But it shows that when things go wrong
they can be incredibly hard to redress. Dounreay’s story also
reflects the fact that corner-cutting is a constant temptation, as
disposing of waste properly is difficult and expensive.

"It also provides a powerful argument in favour of the precautionary
principle. This is the much-maligned idea that those intending to do
something potentially hazardous should first demonstrate that it
will not present a significant risk to the public. But perhaps above
all it is another argument for open government. None of this could
have taken place if Dounreay’s operations had been open to public
scrutiny. The disasters there happened for the same reason as the
disasters in Iraq: the government used 'security' as its excuse for
hiding the truth from the public."

Indeed and I agree with the sentiment. None of this however seems to
support the rather broad assertion of Bruce's that: "don't mention the
fast breeder reactor - it didn't work". There are plenty of them that
did and still do work. The fact that something was done badly in the
50's does not suggest it can't be done better today.

--
Cheers,

John.

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David Hansen wrote:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/09/12/a-catalogue-of-idiocy/
is worth reading on the subject.

The **** it is. Anything written by that prat Monbiot is best
used as toilet paper.

On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:48:03 +0000 someone who may be Bruce
wrote this:-

We have a huge waste
problem. It cannot be reprocessed in a reasonable time at reasonable
cost so it is being stored indefinitely, and quantities are building up
every day.

Indeed. It isn't just the UK either. The USA is at least as bad [1],
the awful problems in Russia are documented [2] and it remains to be
seen what emerges from even more secretive places like France and
China.

[1] type hanford high level waste into a serach engine to see the
huge mess at one site.

[2] type Zheleznogorsk or Krasnoyarsk-26 (the former name) into a
search engine to see the mess at one site. It is difficult to find
the words to describe the mess at this site and others are no
better.



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On Feb 24, 6:19*pm, Bruce wrote:
Alang wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:14:16 +0000, Bruce wrote:

(Alan Braggins) wrote:

In article , Bruce wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I keep wondering if rather than trying to contain plasma over long
periods, they shouldn't sort of do an internal fusion engine, where a
ceramic piston compresses deuterium, and a laser 'ignites it' *and
drives a crankshaft :-)

Would that be the power source for the Ford Fusion?

Closer to the Orion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...ear_propulsion)

I could never resist calling it the "Ford Onion". *

After all, you needed to be a vegetable to buy one. *;-)

There was also the 'Ford Crapi'

Not to mention the "Ford Scrote".

The one made from old Corshairs?

MBQ

In article , Bruce wrote:
extremely radioactive isotopes with very long half-lives.

Extremely radioactive isotopes are ones which decay fast, isotopes with
very long half-lives are ones which decay slowly. You can't have it both
ways.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
I keep wondering if rather than trying to contain plasma over long
periods, they shouldn't sort of do an internal fusion engine, where a
ceramic piston compresses deuterium, and a laser 'ignites it' and
drives a crankshaft :-)

Bit harder than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia...inement_fusion

IIRC ATM Tokamaks are looking more fruitful.

Andy

Bruce wrote:
You have grossly misrepresented his views on nuclear power. Here's a
useful summary in his own words, published last year in The Independent:

"Simply stated, it is the view of the Sustainable Development Commission
that this Government has got it completely wrong on nuclear power.
Despite the fact that it’s going to cost UK taxpayers at least £75
billion to clean up the legacy of our current nuclear programme, that we
still have no solution to the problems of nuclear waste, that nuclear
power remains very expensive, that the risks of proliferation and
threats to national security remain very high, and that the contribution
from a new nuclear programme (if it ever materialises) to total energy
needs and CO2 abatement will remain relatively low, Ministers are now
putting more effort into encouraging nuclear power than they have
devoted to the entire field of renewables over the last ten years.


Perhaps you can tell us the cost of cleaning up the atmosphere after
burning all those fossil fuels we've been doing for the past couple of
hundred years?

I *don't* want to give up my heating, lights and computer; My kids
might have to. Fission is the best short term solution to a coming
energy gap; If past governments had funded fusion properly we might
have had that now, and it's the long term solution.

Andy

Bruce wrote:
John Rumm wrote:

Bruce wrote:

The facts about nuclear waste haven't changed. In the 60 years since we
started making nuclear weapons the waste problems have never been
solved, or even properly addressed.
Bit of a non issue really - we make relatively little of it (compared to
the waste from other power sources - many of which are also radioactive)


As someone who has worked in the nuclear industry, and was involved in
the construction of dry stores at power stations to house spent fuel, I
can assure you that you could not be more wrong. We have a huge waste
problem. It cannot be reprocessed in a reasonable time at reasonable
cost so it is being stored indefinitely, and quantities are building up
every day.

So build the reprocessing capability - this sounds like a problem of
political will rather than anything else. The concept of "reasonable
cost" is a moving target. As the costs of alternative (to nuclear)
generation spiral.

If you build a few breeder reactors then you mitigate the problem further.


That's hilarious! The fast breeder reactor idea was killed stone dead

Funny that other countries seem to be able to build and operate them then...

IIRC there was talk of building a series of new ones in India quite
recently.

when it was found that the waste problem was magnified many times over,
with large quantities being created of some really nasty, very toxic,
extremely radioactive isotopes with very long half-lives. One pilot

That does not really make any sense. How do you get something that is
extremely radioactive, and have a very long half life?

fast breeder was built at Dounreay. It has already been decommissioned,
leaving behind the worst toxic nuclear waste problem in the world which
will take billions of pounds and many years to solve. The fast breeder
programme has been a complete unmitigated disaster from start to ...
... finish? It won't be finished for tens of thousands of years!

Why are you attempting to extrapolate from one fiasco to a general case?

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending the mistakes and cover-ups of the
industry in the past, however they are not necessarily failings of the
technology. Great swathes of the industry today around the world has
demonstrated that it can be done right, with far fewer casualties that
experienced in fossil fuel based power generation.

The facts about the limited supplies of uranium haven't changed. If the
major industrialised countries make a significant change towards nuclear
power, the uranium will quickly run out. Back to square one.

Indeed - although it is worth bearing in mind that the volume of
material mined to keep a large coal fired station going for a few hours
will keep a reactor going for a year. So a little goes a long way.

There are enough coal reserves to keep the UK, US and Chinese (plus any
other countries' you care to mention) power stations going for at least
three centuries. The uranium will last only for a few decades.

At what cost of extraction? and what (environmental) cost of use? Don't
forget either that demand is still rapidly expanding.

However the basic tenant that the resource is limited is true. Which
suggests that it should be exploited to the maximum to facilitate the
generation of the next source of energy i.e. fusion. It buys us several
more decades of power to reach that goal with relatively low climatic
impact. If we don't reach the goal then we are shagged anyway.


Fusion is 15-20 years away. 15-20 years ago it was 15-20 years away. In
15-20 years' time it will still be 15-20 years away. Meanwhile, it will
employ tens of thousands of very highly paid but sadly completely
ineffectual scientists who will always tell you that a commercial fusion
reactor is "only 15-20 years away".

Politicians have been fooled by these scientists' promises since the
1960s. Clearly you have been fooled too. ;-)

I don't share your cynicism. Real progress is being made, and we already
have working fusion reactors. Until recently the main limitation was
they were too small scale to produce more energy than they consumed.

Still, we will have to watch IETR and see...



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
. uk...


Perhaps you can tell us the cost of cleaning up the atmosphere after
burning all those fossil fuels we've been doing for the past couple of
hundred years?

If you discount all the environmental impacts of farming plankton then it
may well be a few million a year to remove an awful lot of CO2 from the
atmosphere.
The trouble is nobody knows what will happen.
However its all "natural" so what can go wrong?

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...


That does not really make any sense. How do you get something that is
extremely radioactive, and have a very long half life?

By having something extremely dense?

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bruce wrote:
Bruce wrote:
70 years since splitting the atom, and 50 years since the opening of the
world's first nuclear power station* nothing has changed.


I forgot the footnote.

*In 1956, Her Majesty The Queen opened Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station
at Windscale, in part of the site now called Sellafield. In her speech
she hailed it as "the world's first peaceful use of nuclear power".

It was nothing of the sort. The reactor was designed to produce weapons
grade plutonium for Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

It generated some power as a by-product. That power was used within the
Windscale site. However, as Windscale/Sellafield have always been
massive net importers of power from the National Grid, not one kWh of
Calder Hall's output was ever used outside Windscale/Sellafield.

In January 1987, in accordance with the traditional "30 year rule",
sensitive official government papers from 1956 were released to the
media. Apparently, when the untruth of the Queen's speech at Calder
Hall became clear, Her Majesty was not best pleased.

Which is why it was effing expensive, to build, run and decommission.


Yet you hold it out as an example of what new nuclear srations would be
like.

Cherry picking to prove a point, Not facing facts.


I use it not as an example of what new nuclear stations would be like,
but as an example of the lies the nuclear industry told, continues to
tell and will always tell.