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UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power risk
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Old 13-03-2012, 04:39   #1
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UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power risk

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Government plans for nuclear power risk handing control of the UK's climate and energy policies to France, according to four senior environmentalists.
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Energy giant EDF and reactor builder Areva, big players in the UK's plans, are largely French government-owned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17344263
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Old 13-03-2012, 08:51   #2
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

Well that's no suprise and quite unavoidable. We need a new generation nuclear industry and in the UK we just don't have the talent needed because we as a nation got scared of the nuclear boggy man. The French on the other hand embraced nuclear and carried on building/refining the technology after Chernobyl. So when it comes to looking for a knowledgeable partner to help bring new reactors online who better to look at then one of very few world leaders in the tech who just happen to bee only 30 miles across the channel.
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Old 13-03-2012, 10:23   #3
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by heero_yuy View Post
Environmentalists just searching around for another stick to try and beat everybody else with. We need nuclear power if the lights are to stay on and the French have solid experiance with nearly 80% of their electrical power being nuclear.

As for it being French how is that a risk? Any reasonably competent engineer will be able to understand how it works and needs to be maintained. If we ever had a fall out with the French do you really think that the UK government would let a French company shut down UK power plants? Utterly preposterous.
When you include the decomissioning costs, nuclear power is very expensive. It is also the most dangerous form of power production when things go wrong.

Germany are actually getting rid of their nuclear power stations.

I bet the French will hand them back to the UK when they need decomissioning, so the French make the profits, and then we have to pay out.
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Old 13-03-2012, 10:30   #4
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by heero_yuy View Post
Environmentalists just searching around for another stick to try and beat everybody else with. We need nuclear power if the lights are to stay on and the French have solid experiance with nearly 80% of their electrical power being nuclear.

As for it being French how is that a risk? Any reasonably competent engineer will be able to understand how it works and needs to be maintained. If we ever had a fall out with the French do you really think that the UK government would let a French company shut down UK power plants? Utterly preposterous.
Have to agree .The enviromentalists told us for years that we need to stop using coal,gas and nuclear power plants and start using wind and solar power generation ,so we did we started building wind farms and sticking solar panels on every roof ,now they are telling us that wind farms are a blight on the landscape ,and homes with solar panels could be unsellable in the future .Honestly you can't win
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Old 13-03-2012, 11:00   #5
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by martyh View Post
Have to agree .The enviromentalists told us for years that we need to stop using coal,gas and nuclear power plants and start using wind and solar power generation ,so we did we started building wind farms and sticking solar panels on every roof ,now they are telling us that wind farms are a blight on the landscape ,and homes with solar panels could be unsellable in the future .Honestly you can't win
I know I'd rather live next door to a wind farm, than a nuclear power station.
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Old 13-03-2012, 11:06   #6
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

Thanks to decades of short termism and political dithering we're now in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to energy supplies. I dislike the thought of our nuclear power generating capacity being provided by a foreign power but it seems we have no choice. Developing our own industry to the required levels now would take many years, by which time it'd probably be too late. The way energy prices are rising, it may even already be too late for us to avoid significant problems as a result of shortages and a lack of generating capacity. One thing seems certain, if we don't do something very significant about this problem soon the lights are going to start going out in the not too distant future and recent price rises will seem trivial.

---------- Post added at 10:06 ---------- Previous post was at 10:04 ----------

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Originally Posted by Tim Deegan View Post
I know I'd rather live next door to a wind farm, than a nuclear power station.
You'd need a blooming big wind farm to produce what one nuclear power station would and that's forgeting about the need to turn it off during periods of the 'wrong sort of wind'.
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Old 13-03-2012, 11:14   #7
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by Osem View Post
Thanks to decades of short termism and political dithering we're now in between a rock and a hard place when it comes to energy supplies. I dislike the thought of our nuclear power generating capacity being provided by a foreign power but it seems we have no choice. Developing our own industry to the required levels now would take many years, by which time it'd probably be too late. The way energy prices are rising, it may even already be too late for us to avoid significant problems as a result of shortages and a lack of generating capacity. One thing seems certain, if we don't do something very significant about this problem soon the lights are going to start going out in the not too distant future and recent price rises will seem trivial.

---------- Post added at 10:06 ---------- Previous post was at 10:04 ----------



You'd need a blooming big wind farm to produce what one nuclear power station would and that's forgeting about the need to turn it off during periods of the 'wrong sort of wind'.
Indeed ,as far as i know nuclear is the most efficient way to realistically generate our power requirements and kidding ourselves that we can substitute that with wind,solar or tidal power is just going leave us at the mercy of other countries to supply us
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Old 13-03-2012, 11:15   #8
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by Osem View Post
You'd need a blooming big wind farm to produce what one nuclear power station would and that's forgeting about the need to turn it off during periods of the 'wrong sort of wind'.
It may have to be big, but it would only be a fraction of the size of the areas contaminated by radiation from our nuclear power stations over the years.

It's actually quite funny that people believed the government when they said the radiation from Chernobyl had contaminated sheep and cattle in Cumbria...news to everyone, that leak came from Sellafield (which used to be called Windscale, until it got such a bad name due to leaks). It was just very convenient for the government that a nuclear power station had just blown up in Russia, so they could blame it instead.
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Old 13-03-2012, 11:58   #9
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by heero_yuy View Post
Think again:



Linky

Similar concentrations of radioactive waste are around smelting plants.

I think I'd rather have a reactor that is under constant surveilance to the n'th degree than the wholesale pollution accumulated over decades of uncontrolled combustion by products.
Sorry but that is complete rubbish. Radioactive waste is extremely highly radioactive, and has to be sealed in indestructable glass flasks that will last 1000's of years, so that the radiation doesn't leak out.

Carbon may be slightly radioactive, but doesn't even come close.

So the facts are that waste from a nuclear power station that is 100% sealed gives off less radiation than the carbon from a coal fired power station...well it doesn't take a scientist to work that out, because the carbon isn't sealed.

The many leaks of radiation that have taken place over the years in the UK, have not been from radioactive waste, then have been from the plants themselves.
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Old 13-03-2012, 12:02   #10
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by Osem View Post
You'd need a blooming big wind farm to produce what one nuclear power station would and that's forgeting about the need to turn it off during periods of the 'wrong sort of wind'.
And that's before you start looking at the massive pollution involved in wind farms. The magnets for these wind turbines rely on rare-earth elements which are produced at huge cost to the local environment.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/mosl...ous-scale.html
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Old 13-03-2012, 12:08   #11
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by DaiNasty View Post
And that's before you start looking at the massive pollution involved in wind farms. The magnets for these wind turbines rely on rare-earth elements which are produced at huge cost to the local environment.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/mosl...ous-scale.html
  1. Don't take any notice of anything you read in the Daily Mail
  2. It doesn't do half as much damage to the environment as a radiation leak, or a nuclear accident.
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Old 13-03-2012, 12:23   #12
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Originally Posted by Tim Deegan View Post
  1. Don't take any notice of anything you read in the Daily Mail
  2. It doesn't do half as much damage to the environment as a radiation leak, or a nuclear accident.
Problem is though because wind isn't consistent ,wind farms need backup from gas/coal even nuclear powered stations negating any saving in CO2 emissions and increasing the cost of power generation
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Old 13-03-2012, 13:04   #13
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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Problem is though because wind isn't consistent ,wind farms need backup from gas/coal even nuclear powered stations negating any saving in CO2 emissions and increasing the cost of power generation
I agree. However nuclear power stations just aren't safe enough. Remember Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

There are is also wave power, and hydroelectric.
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Old 13-03-2012, 13:05   #14
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

The problem with a nuclear fix is that it's a short term solution, as i do remember reading that there's only so much of the right plutonium available on the planet.

The amounts available were such that there was probably only enough to last about 30 years, and given how many countries are also seeing it as viable alternative to fossil fuels right now, that number could be getting shorter.
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Old 13-03-2012, 13:18   #15
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Re: UK nuclear plans 'put energy in French hands'Government plans for nuclear power r

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I agree. However nuclear power stations just aren't safe enough. Remember Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

There are is also wave power, and hydroelectric.
Well knowledge of the industry has come on a long way since those occurrences and so has technology.Chernobyl was undoubtedly caused by poor maintenance and poor design .Three mile island was caused by human error and mechanical faults .In a modern reactor these sort of issues ,although not impossible to happen ,would be a lot less likely to happen .I think safety has come on in leaps and bounds since those accidents
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