Bang Goes The Theory

pressld2 · #61 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 04:28 PM

I understand why you're doing it but it's starting to look like "argument by text wall" and unless you get a bit more focussed you can expect a few more "tl;dr" responses.

Also if you are going to stand any chance of altering anyone's opinion on this you will need to quote peer reviewed science, from qualified scientists, not over-hyped sensationalist clap-trap like this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Financial Enviro

The meltdown of a 500-megawatt reactor located 30 miles from a city would cause the immediate death of an estimated 45,000 people, injure roughly another 70,000, and cause $17 billion in property damage.

A successful attack or accident at the Indian Point power plant near New York City, apparently part of Al Qaeda's original plan for September 11, 2001, would have resulted in 43,700 immediate fatalities and 518,000 cancer deaths, with cleanup costs reaching $2 trillion.

Dr Benjamin K Sovacool neglects to give sources for those numbers, some of which are quite specific - 518,000, not half a million - and he clearly doesn't understand (or at least, neglects to mention) that the number of fatalities from any such incident would be highly dependent on which way the wind was blowing at the time. So let's see what his qualifications are...

He holds a BA in Philosophy and Communication Studies from John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH. That doesn't help much.
He has an MA in Rhetoric from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. Rhetoric? Oh dear!
He has an MS in Science Policy from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. Science Policy, note, not anything as useful to this debate as actual science.
Finally, his doctorate is in Science and Technology Studies, also from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. Once again, not an actual science.
(Source: http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/...-CV-2-page.pdf)

So his opinion is no better than yours, mine or any other unqualified person's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Financial Enviro

To put a serious accident in context, according to data from my forthcoming book Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power...

Oh look, he's got a book to sell - quelle surprise!

Finally, it seems to me that you are missing a major point in this debate because you think we are all pro nuclear. I know I shouldn't speak for others but I'd be surprised if any of the people arguing the alternative view to yours would describe themselves as "pro nuclear". I certainly wouldn't. "Pro reality" is more like it! I used to believe, like you, that we could meet all our energy needs from renewable sources. All it needed was the right levels of investment and maybe one or two technological improvements and we'd be good to go. What changed my mind was Professor MacKay's book that I pointed you too earlier. A book that is free to download, that is written by a highly qualified physicist and that references data sources every step of the way.

So now I understand that the UK cannot meet it's energy needs from renewables alone and we are left with a simple choice of how we plug the gap - continued burning of fossil fuels or nuclear. As I'm someone who does believe in anthropogenic global warming (not all contributors to this thread do) then I reluctantly choose nuclear. I don't like it, I wish it wasn't necessary, but I can accept the reality that it is. You can change my mind back again but only with a convincing argument from someone at least as qualified as Professer MacKay. The likes of Dr. Sovacool just don't cut it.

Dave P.

Lancashire Lad · #62 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 04:48 PM

F.E.

I have decided to reply in order to bring some sense of reason back to the thread. (EDIT - Just spotted that Dave.P has posted while I was typing this. - My opening comment here obviously wasn't aimed at you Dave.

). It becomes more apparent to me with each of your posts that I was correct with my initial suspicions.

You are basically just posting links – thirty two such links so far, along with verbatim copying of large amounts of external script.

All more akin to preaching than debating. – I could quite easily bombard you with innumerable links and copy quotes that are in perfect alignment with my viewpoint, but I think it more valid to express my views in my own words rather than line by line quoting of articles written by others.

By far the majority of your links are to the type of green/environmentalist activist sites of which any clear thinking individual would immediately become suspicious. Such sources are not going to provide factual unbiased balanced views when they have ideological agendas to promote. – I can look beyond the reams of unsubstantiated statements. I sincerely hope that the majority of readers here are able to do so too.

There is so much garbage amongst what you have posted, that I’m simply not prepared to make a detailed, item by item reply. – Clearly you would only respond with yet more links and verbatim quotes.

You seem to have little comprehension of global economics, and continually promote reliance upon technologies which would, at present efficiency/development status, bankrupt countries were they to be implemented at the levels that would be needed.

Your refusal to accept undeniable evidence that civilian nuclear power is of continuing great benefit to the world is plain to see. Unable to find sufficient negatives for civilian nuclear usage per se, you continue to reference military nuclear incidents as though they are modus operandi for the present day civilian side of things.

Spurious comparisons between coal mining and uranium mining, along with glib comments such as QUOTE “….if one more person mentions the effect of mining coal one more time I will be banging my head against a wall….”UNQUOTE show the depth of your understanding to be very shallow indeed.

Do some real research into the insidious effects of coal mining and its arsenal of extremely toxic by-products – mercury, cadmium, arsenic, boron, chromium, lead, to name but a few. These substances don’t decay to harmless levels like radioactive isotopes either, regardless of what timescale. – They retain their toxicity ad infinitum.
Coal already has, does, and will continue to kill many thousands of people annually. Civilian nuclear has a statistically remote potential to kill many. Which should we be addressing first?

I again refer you to this section of my earlier post: -

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

If you had read just a small fraction of the posts made on the subject, you would clearly see that those of us you accuse, all support fully cohesive energy policies – comprising of the most efficient generating technologies available for the area/country in question. Be that coal, gas, nuclear, wind, wave, tidal, or whatever, subsidised when necessary to an extent that would be appropriate without causing financial hardship to the poorest of consumers, and implemented in such proportions as to maintain security of supply at the most economic cost to the country concerned.

That approach would allow a structured method of reduction, and perhaps even the ultimate cessation of the use of fossil fuels within the electrical generating industry. – Ergo, given time, sustainability and environmentally friendly generation on the widest scale possible. – Which is, in my opinion, the most logical, reasonable, and rational way of going about things for the long term.

To everyone except those looking through rose tinted spectacles, who see an ideological cloud cuckoo land of utopia, this is the only logical way to go: -

Regards,
Mike.

Dorts · #63 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 05:27 PM

As usual Mike, a common-sense and level-headed reply.

It would seem that F.E. does very little actual research of his own, prefering to 'cut-and-paste' great chunks of the usual second-hand, non scientific, politically motivated stuff we are now used to from the Green, eco-activist's.

F.E. frequenly relies on the thoughts of Geo Monbiot, who he quotes many times. Well here are a couple of quotes from those who are not so enamoured with the thoughts of this man.

"What can one say about Monbiot. Well, nothing. He is a nothing. Too long as an activist and not long enough as an investigative journalist."
"Monbiot always comes across as a weak sort of a character with shallow intellect. His biggest strength (also his weakness) is that he is a follower rather than a leader."
"Great journalists lead a debate, not take sides in it. But the guy knows his limits and has to make a living, so taking sides is far more rewarding than the hard work involved in intellectual and scientific journalism. George by nature was always going to be a disciple, the perfect stooge for the warmist brigade."
Dorts.

Financial Enviro · #64 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 07:48 PM

Firstly you can say what you like about Monbiot. I don't agree with his views.

According to the website: Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom |UK Nuclear Energy

"UK generating capacity is 90 GWe, comprising 35 GWe conventional steam, 34 GWe CCGT (with 5 GWe increase in 2010), 11 GWe nuclear, 2.26 GWe wind (21.7% load factor in 2010), 4.27 GWe hydro including pumped storage, 2.0 GWe other renewables and 1.5 GWe gas turbines and oil. Peak demand is 61 GWe."

2.26 GWe wind, 4.27 GWe hydro and 20. GWe other renewable - over 8GWe from renewable's currently against 11GWe nuclear. I am actually quite impressed how based on those figures renewable actually stands up to the great nuclear. Now true we do need to find lots more generation compared to the 70GWe (or so) being generated by conventional fossil fuels.

I refer you to this: RenewableUK - Can we rely on the wind?

"Conclusion

Wind energy does have a capacity credit and can therefore be relied upon, even although the wind isn't always available. The 360+ MW of wind energy curently operating in the UK has a capacity credit of over 100 MW, replacing or avoiding the need to build an equivalent amount of thermal or nuclear capacity. Although this capacity credit falls as penetration of wind and other non-firm technolgies into the system increases, this will not be an issue until levels reach approximately 20% penetration.

The criticism that extra spinning reserve is neccesary to take into account the intermittent nature of wind is not valid. Spinning reserve will always be needed to cater for unexpected unavailability of the largest single power source, and not just to cater for the currently low levels of electricity generated from the wind."

With back up on more efficiencies of load factors here: http://www.bwea.com/pdf/briefings/FS...ad_Factors.pdf

"This analysis suggests that the efficiencies of coal, gas and
nuclear and wind in the UK are all similar, with gas slightly
higher than the others, as follows:
Coal: 33%
Gas: 42%
Nuclear: 36%
Wind: 32-35%"

We see that although wind does not blow in all parts at the same time, when you factor in the cost (in the case of coal and nuclear) of transporting fuel materials and power wastage through operating those plants, wind favours comparably as a power source.

And I would like to back to this web page - because there was a wealth of information there: Nuclear Power in the United Kingdom |UK Nuclear Energy

"Funded decommissioning programme

The Energy Act 2008 stipulates that plant operators are required to submit a Funded Decommissioning Programme (FDP) before construction on a new nuclear power station is allowed to commenceh. The Funded Decommissioning Programme must contain detailed and costed plans for decommissioning, waste management and disposal. The government will set a fixed unit price for disposal of intermediate-level wastes and used fuel, which will include a significant risk premium and escalate with inflation. During plant operation, operators will need to set aside funds progressively into a secure and independent fund. Ownership of wastes will transfer to the government according to a schedule to be agreed as part of the FDPi."

Now I am not an expert, but the last bit I highlighted seems to inform me that at some point the burden of decommissioning comes over to us as tax payers to the Gov. meaning at some point we all pay for more than just the price of our electricity. Compare this to the most recent Nuclear Decommissioning Authority report (I have posted it before):

Estimated Lifetime Financials Per Site

2010/11 Estimated Discounted Lifetime Plan (£m) 42,081 (million)

and in their Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Annual Report and Accounts 2009 / 10 states:

"Going concern

The accounts show a total comprehensive deficit on the Statement of Comprehensive income of £2,271 million for the year ended 31 March 2010 and net liabilities of £45,204 million on the Statement of Financial Position primarily attributable to the nuclear provision."

This is just on decommissioning the plants we have. My strongest argument has always been on the cost of these things. They don't turn a profit and as that other website I mentioned showed later on these plants will be using a feed in tariff - something everyone jumps on when it applies to solar or wind, but consider that nuclear is rarely ever profitable it means the Government will forever be subsidising the price of their fuel.

You might have argued that thorium plants would be more environmentally friendly, cheap, cost effective, safe etc. I might have to concede that point. But the new Hinckley C power station is going to be uranium based.

Again I point you to the craziness of the situation that we move from one fuel source from the ground to another. We may all say nuclear is clean but then look at the report as linked earlier about how Africa suffers from uranium mining. How people are being ripped off by the mining companies and their own governments, that radioactive dust blows around potentially making people very sick, polluting waters etc. Sure radon (forget the number) might only have a half life of a few days, but if you are working at that mine it won't take a few days for you to breathe in harmful dust. You'd think it was crazy if I said to you I wanted to fire protect my office with asbestos nowadays wouldn't you? Same difference. Asbestos was always know to be a killer (I know I did a course on it), even the Romans who made pots with it knew it was dangerous, but it took us all this time to eventually stop using the stuff. But I digress....

The nuclear industry has spent a lot of effort undermining the effects of radioactivity. I know people like Dr Helen Caldicott seem to go a bit overboard in their criticism of nuclear. But then can you blame them - they must feel (like me) sometimes that they are facing an uphill battle reminding people what nuclear radiation can do. And the reason I quote Monbiot so much Dorts et all is because he is one of the ones that seems to forget this and like you Lancashire Lad keeps bringing the comparison back down to nuclear v coal in terms of pollution, safety etc. The argument is always biased that one part of renewable cannot do this or that, or does do this and that and nuclear does it better? But it is farbicated - even the start of this conversation was about the Big Bang saying that more people die from car accidents than died from nuclear. I mean so what? What have the two got to do with each other? More people probably die from HIV and AIDS - does that mean the world should stop reproducing? (Whereas in terms of car driving people should definitely stop driving so much.) And also for me the idea that so few people have died from nuclear is contentious as nuclear is clever to use figures of people dying in short term time-spaces, whereas most cancers that can easily be linked to radiation might take years to appear, and people die under the radar. I know coal is going to be mentioned - but it still stands nuclear kills more than the official figures allow.

Why I posted multiple threads and links and just copied and pasted. As i said before I am standing up for people who believe the same as me. I see some very intelligent posts all over the things I have read (and yes many many who are better than me) posting against nuclear. I am the only one on this particular thread who feels so strongly anti- nuclear but there are others out there. I post the links and large sections of the articles / comments for two reasons - A/ if someone is too lazy to read it - I know I have put it before their eyes. Other followers might read what they do not and can see my logic. But B/ and more importantly because when I DID OR DO post small snippets I instantly get someone coming back at me and saying "Notice you didn't quote this... etc" That get's immensely frustrating and Dorts you have been the worst for throwing something I admit or post back at me as an insult. Lancashire Lad you have been the worst for trying to make it look like I posted out of context - so for that reason - yes I did post large volumes of text.

One other point - yes I know many of you want renewable as much as I do. I accept this and welcome it. I just think that you have given into the hype about nuclear too easily. Someone spoke about Germany needing more fossil fuel power stations - yet I was talking to someone who confirmed that solar panel technology is working brilliantly over there. That Spain has reached grid -parity on solar panels. That wind and wave could do the same for us.

Then I look at all the reasons why big business would push for nuclear - and I can see the link how nuclear could be what oil and coal are all over again.

And one final point for this thread - yes sorry another long one - but what do you suppose we will do once we hit peak oil? How are we going to transport this non renewable energy source that nuclear still needs? How are we going to transport the many, many decades of built up nuclear waste, be it to dumping sites or for re-use / decommissioning (Not many if any to my knowledge are able to both as in generate and decommission at the same time)? Would it not be better to spend the vast, vast amount of money that nuclear is going to eat up on making sure we have that renewable energy source /infrastructure in place by 2030 / 2050? After all I know Hinckly C has been planned to be opened by 2018 - but i doubt that - but there is a time line that I can come back to in my lifetime....

[ENDS]

Dorts · #65 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 09:20 PM

F.E. You say that the post's from myself and others frustrate you and that 'I have been the worst for throwing something I admit or post back at [you] as an insult'.
I don't think you will find anything I have written is, or has intended to be insulting to you. I have simply found it very confusing when you say for example: "Monbiot. I don't agree with his views". But spend time on a very long post extolling the virtues of Monbiot's views on Climate Change and Global Warming, and then say he talks nonsense on Nuclear Energy. As he is a jounalist and not a scientist, I'm surprised you take much notice of anything he has to say.

Your own comments towards those who have contributed to these threads have been far from endearing with things like:
"I appear to be the only sane one in this debate."
and
"The more I read and see - the more I realise I am the one who is right."
also
"I'm not even apologising any more - you need to know you are wrong."

Mike, (Lancashire Lad), has, if you read his contributions to this and many other such threads, shown himself to be very au fait with the world of energy generation, and the pro's and con's of the various methods now in use. What he says is not, in my opinion, from any political bias, but from a plain and simple, well-informed common sense viewpoint.

Anybody can hold and express an opinion based in trust in their preferred experts - what is known as Argument from Authority - so long as it is acknowledged that it is not necessarily a belief supported by the science, and that people who choose a different authority to believe are not thereby any more defective or irrational for doing so.

It appears to me F.E. that you have very strong views on green issues, some of which do not appear to have been looked at from both sides of the argument in equal measure, well that's how it appears to me.
You seem to think that by posting reams of second-hand material you will be taken more seriously, or that because of the amount of material you choose to post, your viewpoint must have more weight and therefore you must be right.

Dorts.

Financial Enviro · #66 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 09:31 PM

And one more thing about people having books to sell. I have no problem with this - after all even though the distinguished Professer MacKay has his book online it can also be purchased for only £19.99 paper back or £45 hardback or about £15 Kindle. Many of the people referenced here today provide information in articles that come from their books in condensed form. It's the way it works, you write a book that could take potentially years to research and write - then you sell that book (that's where the rent check comes from) but you also promote that book by writing articles (which to the reader is usually free apart from perhaps the cost of a paper) which inform people of what you have discovered or believe.

Please, please stop using the fact that someone writes and wants to sell a book as your first point of attack against anyone that is anti-nuclear. Especially as all I have to do is point you to this report / article / website:

Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance.
http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/resources/voodoo_economics.pdf

Again I have listed this before - but I am sure few of you have looked at it, because there is a general prejudice against where the material comes from.

I will personally be looking over what the good Professor has written over the next few days - I have a very long reading list to get through so please stick with me on this.

pressld2 · #67 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 09:41 PM

Completely agree with Dorts.

And you're still ignoring the major point that the UK cannot meet it's energy needs from renewables alone. If you refuse to plug the gap with nuclear then you'll have to plug it with coal, gas or oil. Choose your poison.

Dave P.

pressld2 · #68 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Financial Enviro

It's the way it works, you write a book that could take potentially years to research and write - then you sell that book (that's where the rent check comes from)

True if you're a journalist, not true if you're a physicist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Financial Enviro

Please, please stop using the fact that someone writes and wants to sell a book as your first point of attack against anyone that is anti-nuclear.

No one has used it as their "first point of attack". It's never been anything more than an aside to explain why the articles you keep pointing us to are ludicrously over the top and drowning in hyperbole. They've been massively sexed up in order to shift product. Yes, David MacKay's book is available to purchase if anyone wants a hard copy, but the fact that he's made the whole thing available as a free download clearly shows that he's not relying on it to pay the rent and therefore has no need to make ridiculous, unsubstantiated and sensationalist claims in the popular press in order to shift copies.

Dave P.

Financial Enviro · #69 (**permalink**) 20-02-2012, 10:10 PM

Quote: