National Grid Share Discussion Threads

[pierre oreilly] 10/12/2013 18:13

No, I didn't. I have recently got Youview installed, so I can easily watch it, which I'll do tonight if I get chance.

The waste heat thing (common to all steam plant) is to my mind, an obscenity. It comes about from the licence regulations put in place when the industry was nationalised and when the cegb was formed. Someone somewhere decided the cegb should only generate electricity, and was prevented from selling heat (which previously, stations like Battersea had done). So up popped cooling towers with each new station - the sole aim of which is to dump heat on a massive scale. I've never understood why no green organisation has ever campaigned against this waste on a colossal scale.

[harvester] 10/12/2013 16:55

Did you watch the BBC1 program on energy last night ?
They tried to strike a fair balance but it was probably not entirely to your liking.
It is possible to utilise the power plant waste heat for businesses without planting the plants in major cities. I think there are plenty of rational arguments for rejecting a London site , not just emotional reasons .
Likewise there are good rational reasons not to site nuke plants right by the seaside .

[pierre oreilly] 10/12/2013 12:24

Well even my gut feeling says it's not sensible to put a Nuke in central London. My gut feeling also tells my that something like the Lloyds building is relatively benign, but I expect the actual situation is that there are a few deaths per week associated with that building, possibly stress related, which make it a more dangerous place to be than if a Nuke were there. Everything has a risk, and gut feel usually doesn't reflect the true risk of almost anything.

So new Nukes will go by the seaside away from population centres ....... the result being that almost half the energy produced will simply be dumped in the sea as waste heat instead of being put to a more useful (and environmental) use, such as district heating. Oh how I hate waste.

[pierre oreilly] 09/12/2013 00:24

Yes I get it. As I supected, you're not interested in the actual risks of these things, and prefer the highly emotional 'What If' line. How about asking 'what are the chances of death from Nuclear power compared to other risks we take on a daily basis'? Doesn't the latter sound a more logical and useful approach, rather than the highly emotional and ultimately pragmatically useless approach of 'what if'?

But since you prefer 'What If' (... there's a nuclear accident), then you clear up the mess. Just as if you ask 'What If' theres a car accident you clear up the mess. Only in the car accident case, you have to clear up 1333 dead people from cars for each dead person from a nucear accident (lle 80 for car accidents vs lle 0.06 for Nukes). Or put another way, when you pack your wife and kids in the car, you are accepting a risk of their death 1300 times greater than the risk from Nukes, accordign to the ref I provided earlier). Really, a quatitative analysis (i.e. using numbers) is really the way to the real situation rather than an emotional approach which never unravels the true situation). Here's another extract from that quantitative scientific analysis ...... now do you get it?


The very small LLE for nuclear power allows us to put it into perspective as follows: The risk to the average American from having
all of our electricity generated from nuclear power is equal to the
risk of a regular smoker smoking one extra cigarette every 15 years,
or to the risk of an overweight person increasing his weight by
0.012 ounces, or to the risk of raising the national speed limit from
55 miles per hour to 55.006 miles per hour, or to the risk of driving a
small car rather than a mid-size car one day every six years.
It is estimated that all radioactivity releases from nuclear
power, including accidents and waste disposal will eventually give
the averageAmerican an LLE of 0.06 days. This estimate, and all estimates of risks from radiation discussed above, is based on assuming the validity of the linear-no threshold theory of radiationinduced cancer, which is now widely believed to give a gross overestimate of risks from low doses. In any case, based on dosage
alone, nuclear power is an insignificant contributor to radiation exposure compared to other factors noted above

[harvester] 07/12/2013 09:23

Alright : I help a bit more.
The all important question is :

WHAT IF

Now do you get it ?

P.S. I don't reject all your arguments . Only the more extreme ones .
When important decisions are made which vitally affect large parts of society with long-term consequences then great caution needs
to be exercised to get the decision right .
If you had to go into hospital and submit to heart surgery you would not want the surgeons to gamble with your life by trying out high-risk pioneering techniques unless on balance there was no better alternative to saving your life .

[pierre oreilly] 07/12/2013 00:30

Errrm,

Why inland?

Which isotope?

white ilephant?

Who's improvident?

I must say, it gives these discussion boards a certain twist when I have to guess what you think are good arguments against my views!

[harvester] 06/12/2013 23:39

Pierre: with respect to location : I buy the efficiency due to proximity argument . However , before you describe a London location as sensible should you not ask one very important question ? Not sure what question?
I give you a clue: a 2-word question starting with w and i .

Apart from that London sounds a fabulous choice for locating a nuclear plant . It has lovely big parks like Hyde Park to build one on :-)

[tonio] 06/12/2013 19:07

Hmm radon. Cornwall has the highest levels of radon in the UK,
Scotland on the other hand has quite low levels. Life expectancy at birth for men is 82-85 in Cornwall (as it is for most of South and Middle England and Yorkshire) but is 74-78 in Scotland.
Many other factors of course influence life expectancy. A reasonable statement appears to be: inhaling more radon gas in Cornwall doesn't appear to make your life expectancy any less long than anywhere else in the UK.
In fact radiation exposure is far higher for people living at high altitudes but I seem to recall that some such populations are enormously long-lived. Maybe its the yak yoghurt they drink. Quien sabe?
What is bad for you is if you ingest very tiny amounts of plutonium -it's chemically highly toxic.
Meanwhile back in the hurly-burly it's good to see NG has made a bit of a recovery today. Cheers!

[miata] 06/12/2013 19:06

Just to add to the debate:

Germany's coal-fired power plants increased their dominance in the generation mix in the first nine months of the year as output from natural gas-fired power plants and wind turbines dropped, according to an analysis of data that German think tank Fraunhofer Institute collected.

Coal plants increased production by about 5%, or 8.4 TWh, to 189.4 TWh in the first three quarters of 2013 as output from gas-fired power plants fell 6.5 TWh, or 18%, to just 29 TWh compared with the same period of 2012, data that ISE compiled from the EEX transparency platform and Germany's statistical office show.

In November, Steag GmbH started a new 725-megawatt power plant fueled by hard coal, allowing the generator and energy trader to take advantage of near record-low coal prices that have widened profit margins.

It marks the start of Germany's biggest new-build program for hard coal stations since its liberalization in 1998. Ten new hard-coal power stations, or 7,985 megawatts, are scheduled to start producing electricity in the next two years, according to information from German grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur and operators.

"Coal prices recently fell to their lowest price for over four years in October and carbon prices are half what they were two years ago, making coal-burn extremely attractive to generators in terms of profitability," Gary Hornby, energy markets analyst at Inenco Group Ltd., said by e-mail.

Generating electricity by burning coal currently makes a profit of 9.16 euros a megawatt hour, compared with a loss of 19.31 euros a megawatt hour from gas, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on next-year German power prices. This is the widest gap between the two fuels for at least four years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"Gas power plants coming off line must be replaced with baseload generation, coal seems the logical solution," said Hornby.

The 10 new units will boost German hard coal generation capacity by 33 percent to 32,432 megawatts from 24,447 megawatts as of Oct. 16, regulator data show.

[pierre oreilly] 06/12/2013 18:58

M100 - Not sure whether central Londond is ideal for a Nuke - but mainly on the grounds of land costs. As for physical position and grid considerations, a big station (of whatever type) would be ideal - the SE has a massive deficit of capacity and the North and Scotland a large surplus. The transmission losses involved in shipping electricity from the North to the South is very large, and often hit transmission constraints, which a central London Nuke would improve no end. If land costs didn't rule out a central London station, then Battersea would be ideal - it already has the infrastructure for district heating for the waste heat! (although it would complete restoration of course.

I think most, like Harvester illustrated, would be horrified by such a viewpoint, but of course it is perfectly rational (and sensible). Plenty of people live in poverty in London and, according to the following analysis, lose an average of 3700 days of life due to that poverty, whereas the LLE (average loss of life expectation, in days) due to living next to a Nuke is 0.5 days. Driving, which appears an acceptable risk in central Londond, losses the average person 250 days of life. So Nuke in central London is 500 times less risky than driving, and 7400 times less risky than being poor.

But no subject at all is more likely than Nuclear Power to throw rationality out of the window and generate an immediate emotional illogical response (in the Uk).

hxxp://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/cohen.pdf

[harvester] 06/12/2013 17:50

Sure: in the middle of London would be ideal ! :-)

Re dilution : you missed the associated comment of upward
release following an earth-quake induced tsunami .
Some levels of natural radioactivity such as radon gas in granite areas
are potentially harmful on long-term exposure .
Adding to the radioactivity from natural environment sources
is not always a good idea .
However , you can reduce your personal risk by smoking and
drinking heavily to ensure an early death from other causes . Good luck . :-)

[harvester] 06/12/2013 15:43

Thanks for the reference, Pierre . I will look at it .

Re sea pollution : obviously the vast volume of sea water
would hugely dilute the radioactive contamination . On the other hand
it is non-recoverable once released into the ocean . I think vitrification
(embedded in glass ) and then stored in mines would be more benign
and would allow further processing as new techniques are discovered .

[pierre oreilly] 06/12/2013 13:46

If you want the pure engineering and scientific aspects of Nuclear Engineering, then if you find anything by Lobby Lewins (aka Jeffery Lewins) it will be without bias. Having just googled him, he seems to have gone on to greater things since I knew him, and became editor of several Nuclear publications, amongst which I found this paper, which I haven't yet read, but deals with techniques of disposal.



I also have a very old text (so uninfluenced by current Nuclear politics) on Atomic Energy (Gaines) which is very informative at an introductory level. The interesting bit about disposal in that book is the implication that high level waste dumped into the sea wouldn't have much effect at all on the overall radioactivity.

[harvester] 06/12/2013 13:14

Pierre : I would actually agree with most of your comments which you
expressed in the last two paragraphs of your post .
I just thought that the debate before was a bit too one-sided
and needed a more balanced discussion . You can assemble
a few pro and con points for and against each of the potential
generation methods but I don't think we should rely on one type
of generation only even if it has the best overall mix of criteria .
I also think that nuclear needs to be part of a power generation mix
for generation and I fully recognise the positive side of nuclear generation
as well as its risks . Strategic dependence on a foreign super-power
and safety are risks. In the UK the nuclear plants are located too
close to population centres for comfort . Also,as already rightly
said , our politicians and society as a whole are focused on shorter time
horizons . Nuclear has a longish commissioning process but an
even much longer de-commission process . Short-term
considerations mean that the de-commissioning costs of nuclear
are barely considered .
Dumping encapsulateded nuclear waste in deep ocean trenches ,
as our anti-green poster suggests , certainly means that for our
generation and possibly for many more to come , it would be
out-of-sight , out-of mind . The fact that international treaties
forbid this indicates that governments on expert advice perceive
long-term risks . Possibly a sub-ocean earthquake and resulting
tsunami may be one such risk .
I also can see the inefficiencies of wind power generation and
I do not see it as a major power source to bridge the energy gap .
As I said before , home insulation and realistic pricing would help
to address the demand side of the energy equation .

[harvester] 06/12/2013 12:38

Pieree: I did not know how wiki articles are sourced but thanks for the info .
On first reading the wiki article quoted above did not seem to have an obvious bias for or against nuclear. It had quite a lot of detailed information on radioactive isotope sources and nuclear waste disposal methods . Do you think that particular article was biased ? Do you know of a more trust-worthy and informative reference source on that topic ?

[pierre oreilly] 06/12/2013 11:29

Harvester, I'm now very careful and selective about what topics I think Wiki is good information for, as in some topics it has a bias. Global warming and Nuclear power are two of the topics which have a strong bias. For reliable info on those topics I would look elsewhere on the net unless, of course, you prefer to read that bias. Wiki is, afterall, a glorified BB with 'moderators' who can and do edit and remove articles which don't reflect their bias.

Due to an upcoming shortage of dispatchable (i.e. reliable and controlable) capacity, the government are in panic mode in an attempt to avert powercuts in the medium term as even more dispatchable capacity (i.e. coal and Nukes) come to the end of their design lives. The emergency panic 'solution' is to quickly install very inefficient and mis-scaled diesel generators - 1MW for a portakabin sized package costing of the order of £1m each - and a thousand of them are needed to match a small Nukes capacity. Well that's a great way of making lots of co2 - the removal of which was the primary aim of all this green influence in the first place!

So it's always helpful to see the implications of not using Nuclear power - simply saying we shouldn't use it isn't sufficient unless you propose a better alternative. I think these days, the dream most seemed to have of any intermittent capacity (like wind) replacing distachable capacity is over and generally the reality is more widely appreciated.

[m100] 05/12/2013 22:40

@harvester

"but you should also note that ocean storage (if not accessed from land) contravenes international treaties (no doubt for good safety reasons) ."

The bottom of a deep ocean trench is, by a very, very long way, the best place for disposal. Dump all the existing nuclear waste down there from every nation and you'd not see any evidence of it again, ever. Not even if you hung around until the end of time.

"I don't accept your argument that serious problems need not be addressed by our generation since solutions will probably be found by future scientists ."

There are no serious problems needing to be addressed. You are just following the pattern of baseless arguments that the greens have been churning out for decades to kill nuclear power because of the 'waste issue'

Living in harmony with our environment is not possible unless you immediately cull about 6 billion from the population, return to living in caves, hunt furry animals with a bow and arrow and cook them over an open fire.

If you want to live in harmony with the environment then do it. Go offgrid, totally. No processed food, no clean water, no matches to light that fire, no transport, no tv, no modern medicines. no modern materials in the construction of your house, so that also means no solar pv, or wind turbines, or glass or bricks or thermalite blocks or PIR insulation or any glazing let alone double or triple glazing). Grow your own crops, rear your own livestock, starve if the crops fail. If you want copper or iron or whatever then mine it and refine it using basic techniques. Your free choice, but the greens should not permitted to force their values and restrictions on the rest of the planet and then pick and choose which bits of modern life they do want.


P.S. I agree that oil is a useful feedstock, as is coal and natural gas. Wind and solar technologies require huge inputs of hydrocarbons in their manufacture, the true, unsubsidised return on them and their total usable life is miserable. Far better to build a few dozen nukes, and more coal fired stations that use the billions of tonnes of readily available strip mined coal that doesn't kill thousands underground.

[harvester] 05/12/2013 19:51

Wikepedia contains a long and detailed article on nuclear waste disposal methods . The article is headed by a short and very simple summary as follows:

"Radioactivity naturally decays over time, so radioactive waste has to be isolated and confined in appropriate disposal facilities for a sufficient period of time until it no longer poses a hazard. The period of time waste must be stored depends on the type of waste and radioactive isotopes. It can range from a few days for very short-lived isotopes to millions of years for spent nuclear fuel. Current major approaches to managing radioactive waste have been segregation and storage for short-lived waste, near-surface disposal for low and some intermediate level waste, and deep burial or partioning / transmutation for the high-level waste."
I doubt if anybody here has the knowledge to fully understand all the details mentioned in the article which follows the above summary or the risks posed by the high level waste .
I did attend a radioisotope course as part of my training(among many other courses) but I certainly would not claim that I have sufficient knowledge to make a recommendation on the nuclear issues . I think we would all be well advised to leave that to the scientific experts .

Nevertheless the reference to thorium by tonio above is a valuable contribution to our discussion .
m100 :
you are right that coal waste also has some radioactivity (see wikipedia article) but you should also note that ocean storage (if not accessed from land) contravenes international treaties (no doubt for good safety reasons) .
I don't accept your argument that serious problems need not be addressed by our generation since solutions will probably be found by future scientists .
Maybe they will and certainly the rate of scientific progress in recent years has been phenomenal . However , one big world catastrophy could throw man back to the dark ages leaving future generations potentially with major problems .
Surely sustainable ways of living in harmony with our natural environment would not be such a bad idea . Oil has many other uses in the chemical industry besides its use as a fuel . The fact that it now needs to be extracted from deep sea wells and the arctic indicates that it has been used up too quickly and wastefully over 2-3 generations only .

I don't agree with Millibands idea of an electricity price freeze. Sensible pricing promotes investment and also aids more prudent consumption .
Government subsidies for green or nuclear generations could be justified as a short-term measure to kickstart newer generation methods but over the medium or longer term also leads to mis-pricing .

[skinny] 05/12/2013 14:30

Interesting - thanks.

[tonio] 05/12/2013 14:26

Uranium-based reactors came about to a large extent due to the need for plutonium for nuclear weapons. There was then and is now the alternative of using thorium.
Uranium isotopes are fissile nuclei - hit them with a neutron and they split releasing energy. Thorium is a fertile nucleus - hit it with a neutron and a fissile nucleus can result, hit that with another neutron and fission occurs.
If thorium is to be used in a reactor you need an extra source of neutrons to initiate the process. This makes it inherently safer - to stop it remove the extra source. In addition there are no long-lived waste products from a thorium-based reactor and plutonium is not an end product. There are also huge reserves of thorium (most in India) and all of it can be used. India is building a prototype,China is working on it and so are the UK in a joint project in Norway. It is certainly a realistic proposition - far more so than fusion which is still at the aspiration stage. Whether it ever features in the UK will depend on our commitment to it but thorium is there as a totally untapped energy source when the oil,coal and gas (however produced) run out.

[pierre oreilly] 05/12/2013 13:18

m100 - thanks for your informed input. After probably 20 years, I'm tired of the nuclear debate - people's views are pretty entrenched, and the nuke accidents every decade reinforces those badly informed views of the average bod. There has been some much anti-nuke rhetoric over the last 30 years no wonder most have a distorted view of the reality of it. The reality is that Nuclear is an almost magical technology, a gift from nature of immense proportions and yet most people shake in their boots when the word 'Nuclear' is mentioned!

As with any technology, failures will always exist. We have to accept that there'll be nuclear accidents in the future, just as we accept the risk orders of magnitude higher that there'll be many killed in car accidents. The effects of all nuclear accidents should be analysed dispassionately and the deaths/injuries/other bad effets per GWh of generation and compared with other generation technologies. As you say, most are more dangerous. Waste is no longer a problem but maybe the classification is. There are legacy problems from the waste dumped indiscriminately from the very first reactors which were mainly used by the armed forces.

Whatever, new Nukes are coming to the UK, simply because there is no rational alternative for the long term. And people will be screaming for them after a few months of regular winter powercuts.