Nuclear Energy Forum

[samvara]

Hosted by the Gravity Discovery Center for Science Week; maharetr and I drove North to Gingin¹ utterly failing to pick up food on the way and subsisting on my emergency stock of muesli bars. As I haven't quite unpacked the car from the Rogaine and some paddling trips we had food, water, a 4-man tent, some paddling gear and a croquet set. Ah luxury.

The initial talk was delivered by Principal Research Engineer John Jacob and covered the science behind nuclear energy. John was a gifted science presenter and his lecture sat right on the edge of too much/just enough science; he was funny, interesting, relevant and educational.

"You can combine hydrogen (a flammable gas) and oxygen (a breathable gas) and what do you get? Water; a non flammable liquid that you can't breath."

He also talked  lot about the Chart of Nuclides (contains all the possible isotopes of the elements and their stability) which makes talking about nuclear fission a lot easier. I finally understand how you get from unrefined Uranium to weapons grade Plutonium. This amuses me as my disappointment with the new Cadbury Drinking chocolate is such that I can easily imagine making weapons grade cocoa solids in a secret backyard laboratory.

We also heard two panellists speak about their views on nuclear energy. Erica Smyth Non-Executive Chairman of Nova Energy and of Azumah Resources spoke about the need for clean, cheap energy to improve living conditions in companies we wish to sell Uranium to. Dr Bruce Hartley spoke about safety, about managing nuclear energy facilities and pointed out that the US already gets approximately 20-25% of it's energy from nuclear power stations² and made the point that nuclear power is already happening - now we have to deal with it. I was very sorry to hear that Robin Chapple from the WA Greens was scheduled to speak but was not present for reasons unknown - we essentially had two fence-sitters and one pro-nuclear energy speakers for the panel and this led to an interesting spate of technical questions and very little discussion on whether nuclear power is a good idea.

I'm not all that sad it turned out that way - I learned a lot about the technical and science background to nuclear power generation and have much to think about.

I am still very firmly opposed to the use of nuclear power stations, I am opposed because even if the Uranium supplies last us 1,00 years, it's STILL non-renewable and creates highly dangerous byproducts. It's exactly what we are already doing with the fossil fuels. We don't need to improve our safety technology, we need to rethink our entire approach. On that note: The Wilderness Society has a petition going.

I would like to know more about the Human Development Index and what the environmental footprint of a wind farm really is.

¹Nearly, we failed to find it in the dark - how do you lose a small town you may ask? Easily!
²I have no idea how recent this info is and I suspect it of being out of date.

Comments

[evilmattikinz.livejournal.com]

Well britain is going to build some more. This is probably because we love whingeing so much and if it isn't the weather than the ruddy great big mass of NEW TECHNOLOGY (aka wind turbines) up on the hillside is worth whingeing about. Now I for one think wind turbines are fantastic[0] and bring life to otherwise dead bits of countryside (no, most moorland in britain isn't natural and the way it *should* be, it's like that because we ripped all the trees out to build ships and farm sheep a few hundred years ago and now all the nutrients are irreperably gone from the soil). Then again I don't stand a chance at this argument because I also think we should have high speed mag-lev monorails arcing above the countryside and air conditioning and working cellphones in the london tube. So, now I've marked myself out as being a deviant in public I shall expect the conformity police to come crashing through my front door at any moment.
So what Australia needs isn't to keep digging up uranium but to use a moderate swathe of that boring bit in the middle for solar farms, then bottle the electricity and sell it to everyone else. You'd make a fortune. I also hold that the americans should basically do the same with Kansas because no one would miss it.
Although, noone has considered the possibilities of Proton Power, energy from naturally occuring porcine agricultural byproducts... Or from a dynamo on Sir Dorris's wheel?


Thank you. Rant over.


[0] I buy my electricity from a company that operates wind turbines and renewable technologies and the poor man that came knocking on my door a month ago trying to persuade me to [other energy company] really didn't stand a chance as he didn't have any other argument other than "it's cheaper" despite me not actually knowing or caring how much I use and what it costs.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I'm keen on the wind farms; I'm also think high speed mag-lev monorails would be great.

Proton power should be the only answer!

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I'm not so worried about the non-renewable nature of fission, though the by-products are an issue (though hopefully less so with some modern reactor designs). I do think the 'environmental' issues of wind farms are largely a beat-up (and mostly amounts to some people not liking the way they look, and inflating other issues).

My big issue is with greenhouse gas production, so I care more about reducing the use of coal than about the choice between alternatives -- my first choice in energy policy would be to put a carbon tax on energy production, and then see which alternatives are the most economic, and if turns out to be nuclear with live with it. Consumer choice of cleaner energy is a good step, but large scale industrial users aren't going to go for green energy unless it makes economics sense for them.

And hopefully its just a few decades until we get fusion power, right? The books I read in high school said it would be here by now. And Sim-City as well. Would they lie to me?

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't object to it because I think it will run out. I object to the entire philosophy of choosing to use up finite resources rather than putting the bulk of our research into sustainable energy sources.

If our society isn't sustainable shouldn't we also be looking at the nature of our society?

The waste products bothers me a lot as they are so impressively dangerous. John did say that the entire volume of the world's nuclear power stations High Level Waste would fit in 10 cubic meters. Of course Mid and Low level is much bigger.

In a short-term sort of way I can see that nuclear energy would be a very useful source of energy to get us away from greenhouse gas emissions through to genuine technologies.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

And hopefully its just a few decades until we get fusion power, right?

Man said maybe 15 years...

[japester.livejournal.com]

Pick some feasible alternatives to nuclear energy? what are they?
not many. We have a small host of 'environmentally friendy' power sources but not with the energy density that fission provides. There may be some in the future but we need to deal with the 'now' to get there.
Fission is not brilliant, but even with its non-renewable-ness, we have a few hundred years, if not a few thousand to get something better.
We can look back at coal and say ewwwww, but it got us to where we are today. We should be able to say the same about fission.
Now, to deal with the side effects. Coal gives us tonnes of carbon dioxide and we can see what wonderful things that has done to our environment. We need to make sure that the by products of fission are dealt with appropriately so we don't kill our great*n grandchildren. (where n e J)

Wind faaaarrrrms[0] are fun. Albany has one - a nice in IMO :)
I'd like to see a fan or two on top of every household. Perth has the reliable breezes to support wind fan/turbine power. The environmentalists complain that they're ugly and if put in the migratory flight paths of birds, they chomp the birds. It's still hard to say what the environmenal impact of farms is. There have not been enough studies done on them yet. googling does find a reasonable amount of info though.


[0] too much pirate

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

My opinion is that if there are no feasible alternatives to nuclear energy than our energy requirements are unreasonable and we should be looking at reducing them.

[japester.livejournal.com]

won't ever happen. technology is always on an increasing energy use climb. Has been for the past ... x many thousands of years, and it's been climbing very quickly over the last few hundred.
Is this a bad thing? Don't know.
Is it changeable? Unlikely.
Is *that* a bad thing? probably.

I do agree, better management of our energy useage is a very smart thing that needs to be done. The problem is that people are dumb and do not care about managing it. Experience has shown that they would rather have convenience than efficiency. HiFi and video equipment that is always on is a good example.
Governments also do not seem to care (at least, never past the next election). I'd like to see more incentives given to alternate energy sources. There are some in Europe (Germany and Austria IIRC) but not enough worldwide to make the significant difference I believe we need.

There are alternatives. They just need to be pushed more :)

Mind you, personally, I'd be happy to have a pocket fusion reactor powering my bicycle.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I don't think so either ;-(

I think it's a bad thing.
I don't see it changing and I think the view that we should always be able to force our environment to provide what we want is flawed.

I *did* think lovingly of Mr Fusion (http://www.answers.com/topic/mr-fusion) several times during the lecture. Although it now occurs to me to wonder why he was powering it with banana peel when ideally you would be using Hydrogen.