Something Very Fishy.............

[drgl]

Anyone see the program about nuclear power the other night? Apparently no more than 47(IIRC) people died as i direct result of the Chernobyl accident. This in the same week that the government anounces plans that it wants more nuclear power stations(although hasn't a clue how it will fund them). At the time of the accident we heard nothing but reports of people dieing of radiation sickness and the abnormailties that occured in later years in children and animals near the plant. This program seemed hell bent of dispelling all of this! It even went as far to say that it is now SAFE to visit Chernobyl/Pripyat (Do a search on Google and see what the current readings for that area are!). According to this site :- http://www.chernobyl.co.uk/ 30 people died immediately so we are to believe that only another 17 died during the clear up??!!! To me this is all fitting into place with the governments new energy policy. We are been led to believe that nuclear power is the only source of power due to climate change/global warming. I'm not stupid enough to say we haven't warmed in the past 20-30 years but i'm a firm believer this is a natural cycle and we will see a return to cold in the next 10-15 years. I've already observed the winters here becoming colder with more snow-especially notible in the last 2 winters-i'm looking forward to this winter to see if what i have seen continues or if the atlantic comes blowing in this year with a return to wet & windy winters. Ask yourself why the government would want nuclear power so badly-no more buying gas/oil from unstable parts of the world-no more expensive wars to try and sort these regions out. (Lets face it-we didn't go to Iraq to liberate the people-if there was no oil there we wouldn't be there now). I think this all fits into place with the obsession of climate change at the moment. I'm no crackpot nutter-i look at the big picture and make my mind up-the program this week was more like an advertisment for nuclear power IMO. Of course we can do no harm in kerbing our emissions and becoming more energy efficient and nuclear power would certainly help but is anyone else out there thinking we aren't been told the whole/true story on things? Pleased don't turn this into a thread dismissing what i (& others) have observed with evidence of CET's etc etc, i'm interested in what peoples views were on the program.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Chernobyl safe? No way there are still parts with the radiation levels way to high. There is still an awful lot of work to do yet. As regards to us we have to way up the risks and benefits. Nuclear power is clean, very efficient and would solve [at least next half century] our energy crisis. Technology has vastly improved and our nuclear record is say the least no where near Chernobyl. Turbines are very obtrusive, ugly and grossly inefficient. Organic alternatives although very clean are not as efficient and would need an awful lot of land to grow and I mean an awful lot so I doubt we would grow enough. Of course there is the radioactive risk of nuclear power and devastating it can be and may also be a further potential terrorism risk....but we need power and we need it soon and we need to be able to support ourselves. I lean towards yes

BFTP

[Snowly does it]

Interesting programme I thought, basically looking at our perception of radiation and its impact on health. Low level exposure to radiation over a long period would appear to not be as deadly as was thought, thyroidal problems being the most prevalent in the young. I cannot see that there would be any benefit in lying about the number of fatalities as a direct result of the disaster and therefore perhaps radiation has been overdone. The main danger would appear to be the immediate and massive doses which effect the body drastically.

In terms of this as government propaganda, I don't think this government have a chance in hell of influencing the bbc, the public or indeed their local postman anymore so I doubt it, they have just been pronounced in a survey sleazier than Major's government so thats going some given public opinion at the time.

They are also not proposing to fund nuclear power, it will be thrown open to the private sector, very much as coal and gas based systems now are. The days of nationalised industry are long gone. The quesion really is who pays for auntie accident if and when it occurs.

For the future, we cannot rely on overseas gas, we cannot rely on the public not to whine about wind farms in their eyeline, wind power on land rips apart peat etc, solar is inefficient for total usage and we don't really have the climate, hydro-electrical is very expensive (same for all renewables actually) hence nuclear as a carbon cleaner and cheaper option perhaps has to play a part, otherwise people have to accept the eyesore of wind farms, do their part with personal turbines and solar cells, use electricity more responsibly, be prepared to pay for it and be prepared to vote in a government with the stomach to make it happen, none of which can I see the buy now pay never society that is the UK doing.

[kippure]

Nuclear Power is simply dangerous, thats the bottom line. Its in no way of any benifit to man kind. It destroys the enviroment. I cant see why that they dont use friendly sourses of power, wind wave solar etc. There are so many toxic by-products pumped into the enviroment that we still dont know the effects off.

Would you not find it odd that a little town on the east coast of Ireland, Dundalk and is the closest Irish town to sellifield has the highest numbers of cancer rates in the country???????

[Snowly does it]

Nuclear Power is simply dangerous, thats the bottom line. Its in no way of any benifit to man kind. It destroys the enviroment. I cant see why that they dont use friendly sourses of power, wind wave solar etc. There are so many toxic by-products pumped into the enviroment that we still dont know the effects off.

Well, renewables would be the perfect answer, but unfortunately the public don't agree, otherwise they would do something about it when they go out and vote. As I said above, they would love clean energy, as long as it doesn't impact on their house value or cost more or etc etc etc

[autumn chill]

Anyone see the program about nuclear power the other night? Apparently no more than 47(IIRC) people died as a direct result of the Chernobyl accident. This in the same week that the government announces plans that it wants more nuclear power stations(although hasn't a clue how it will fund them). At the time of the accident we heard nothing but reports of people dieing of radiation sickness and the abnormailties that occured in later years in children and animals near the plant. This program seemed hell bent of dispelling all of this! ........

The Australian Uranium Information Centre has issued a briefing paper (dated March 2006) which gives more extensive details of the Chernobyl accident and subsequent investigations. The Centre is funded by companies involved in uranium exploration, mining and export in Australia, but the paper does appear to be factually accurate.

The International Atomic Energy Authority has coverage of Chernobyl in it's In Focus series.

Edited July 15, 2006 by autumn chill

[Scribbler]

Can you seriously see the future without nuclear power being the main power supplier?

Green would be wonderful – but is just isn’t going to get there (in time). Covering most of the UK with wind farms, solar arrays and tidal barrages won’t provide anywhere near enough power using today's technology.

Oil is okish but it’s gonna run out soon or become too costly and much the same comments can be made about gas.

That program was nothing short of a government nuclear power sales pitch – but I don’t think we have much choice but to go along with it.

[boro_dave]

In terms of this as government propaganda, I don't think this government have a chance in hell of influencing the bbc, the public or indeed their local postman anymore so I doubt it

When they get you to think that, they have won

[Snowly does it]

When they get you to think that, they have won

good point!

Still, I can't see Horizon or the BBC going hand in hand with them, any sniff of it and the Beebs independance is brought into question.

I just cannot see any reason why such a program would present false data. The conclusions are up for debate though!

[crimsone]

If it's the same programme I saw about Chernobyl last night, it showed documents that detailed the Russian governments major coverup of the whole affair, showed the mutatons resulting from probable radiation poisoning, and told how no real studies had been done since the disaster, while the russian people were told that everything was fine, and thousands died because of it all.

Part of the problem is that in order for an average person to install any kind of renewable energy system at home, they must seek planning permission. If every home contributed to its own power needs, and even feed back what it didn't use into the national grid, fully decentralised energy wouldn't be that far away, power companies would be very upset (can't have that now, can we?), and an energy crisis would be some distance away.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Can you seriously see the future without nuclear power being the main power supplier?

Green would be wonderful – but is just isn’t going to get there (in time). Covering most of the UK with wind farms, solar arrays and tidal barrages won’t provide anywhere near enough power using today's technology.

No nuclear IS the near future without a doubt.

Personally to me wind turbines are very ugly visually totally destroying the landscape and are very very inefficient, hence why so many are needed. I ask anyone to live near them and see how they blight the countryside...folk may well change their minds.

Green as we know it won't get there...technology will beat it....which may turn out green in itself?

BFTP

Edited July 19, 2006 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[drgl]

Interesting views-pretty much what i thought.

[Nick H]

I personally believe wind power is a non-starter. Apart from being ghastly to look at, they are fantastically inefficient. The idea that we can have turbines dotted around the Western Isles spinning merrily away, generating enough energy for the whole of the country strikes me as fanciful. That's if it's windy, heaven help us if it's a still day. Furthermore the costs of storing wind energy are prohibitively high imo. I don't know much about solar power tbh. For me, and having spoken to people who are more knowledgable on the subject than I am, nuclear is the only realistic option and, perhaps more importantly, is almost certain to be an actuality.

[Gray-Wolf]

I just wonder why todays inefficient methods of 'tapping' the energy from our environment should mean we abandon milking energy from the environment in favour of Nuclear dismay? If you consider the heat echange from one small cumulus (should you be able to 'tap' the energy used to produce it) then it doesn't take a great leap of faith to recognise the amount of global (surface/atmospheric/sub-surface) energy that we need only key into to solve all our energy needs. Nuclear power leads to pollution and weapons both things the world has had enough of already.

[Nick H]

Nuclear power leads to pollution and weapons both things the world has had enough of already.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that nuclear power leads to pollution. On the contrary, its cleanliness is one of its greatest advantages. There are no nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides, or carbon dioxides released through its operation (cf. fossil fuels); indeed its greatest emission is that of water vapour.

If we are to cut down on our emission of greenhouse gases (and this, essentially, is the crux of the debate: how can we reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy sources which most accept is contributing to AGW?) we could do worse than substituting dirty fossil fuels for cleaner nuclear power.

The supposed link between nuclear power and weapons is simply playing on emotion and is one of the best reasons why the whole issue should be looked at by a scientific panel who can best objectively reach some conclusion.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Wind power isn't the only renewable power available. My favourite is geothermal, and there is also biofuel (a popular one in Sweden at the moment), hydrogen, tidal, wave, solar etc.

I don't see any one source of power as being the solution- in order to avoid the scenario of major cutbacks in lifestyle being necessary, we need to utilise as much of each as we can.

As it happens, I'm all for the idea of locally generated power- to me, that sounds like the most sustainable solution, but as mentioned, there are a horrendous number of barriers in the way. As for nuclear, I remain undecided on its usage in the short term, but do not believe in it as a long-term solution- if it is to be implemented, it should be a stop-gap while we get renewables working.

[drgl]

I wonder how much energy would be generated if every households roof was effectively a solar panel as opposed to tiles? It wouldn't make much inpact on the existing environment from an ansthetic point of view?

Wind power isn't the only renewable power available. My favourite is geothermal, and there is also biofuel (a popular one in Sweden at the moment), hydrogen, tidal, wave, solar etc.

I don't see any one source of power as being the solution- in order to avoid the scenario of major cutbacks in lifestyle being necessary, we need to utilise as much of each as we can.

As it happens, I'm all for the idea of locally generated power- to me, that sounds like the most sustainable solution, but as mentioned, there are a horrendous number of barriers in the way. As for nuclear, I remain undecided on its usage in the short term, but do not believe in it as a long-term solution- if it is to be implemented, it should be a stop-gap while we get renewables working.

According to a recent autoexpress article bio fuel isn't very "green" at all-the amount of CO2 emitted from it's manufactur out weighs any potential green savings!! I couldn't agree more re: local made power..........

[crimsone]

I wonder how much energy would be generated if every households roof was effectively a solar panel as opposed to tiles? It wouldn't make much inpact on the existing environment from an ansthetic point of view?

And if every house with a garden was equipped with geothermal energy...

Geothermal pumps curently cost no more that Gas does over a 30 year peoriod of running, and can completely replace gas for heating homes. Equally, there are ways of using the ground itself to provide air conditioning for the summer, so further reducing electricity usage. There has recently been a major step forward made in using water as a fuel, converting it to either hydrogen or browns gas on tap - a very green means of energy generation - unfortunately it's already been sold to of all people, car companies (three guesses why they wanted it?).

There are all sorts of ways we could solve our energy needs in the current "crisis", without resorting to nuclear plants.

[Methuselah]

One day, I'd hope to see the greater part our energy-needs being satisfied by fusion: it may neither be 100% 'clean' nor 100% safe (Show me a precendent for any technology that is?), but, water is virtually inexhaustable as an energy source...

The only fly-in-the-ointment is the scientists'/technologists' lack of progress in harnessing the stuff in a properly safe and controlled way??

[crimsone]

Ok, I know it's Fox News, but hey...

...it's not their usual sort of "save corporate america from the lefty clutches" type story, which immediately gives it an air of credibility in my view. lol

[Methuselah]

Wonderful if it's true, C... Mightn't be any need for fusion, anyway?

[drgl]

Ok, I know it's Fox News, but hey...

...it's not their usual sort of "save corporate america from the lefty clutches" type story, which immediately gives it an air of credibility in my view. lol

wouldn't that be nice if it is true??!! April fool or legit??

[crimsone]

Well, the way I figure it, most scientists consider that the idea is Water being a fuel. Perhaps the correct way to look at it might be that water is a useful and secure storage medium for energy.

When you consider it in chemical and physical terms, Water is one of those few "perfect" (ish) molecules...

Hydrogen explodes most volitily in a ratio of two parts hydrogen to one part of oxygen, producing H20 with an efficiency of 100%. As such, Science views Water as a very stable molecule, where the energy has been expended, and it now requireds tremendous amounts of energy to seperate the two combustants.

Personally, I see this as a flawed view. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and so for the exact same reason that science looks dubiously on water as a fuel in general, I would ask whether Water may in fact be full of "potential" energy.

You lift an object off the ground, it has potential. You drop it, and that potential is converted to kinetic energy (and if it's a plate, sound too! lol). On an industrial scale, the issue is one of efficiency. Each object on the ground has potential energy before it's even lifted. It's really just a question of creating a system that's 100% efficient for lifting it and then dropping it again - all you need is a little power from an external source to release the potential within the system.

Another way to consider it may be a little like motors in an old heavy industry site. If you build a motor over a certain size, you can't fire it up. As sch, you use the kinetic output of a smaller motor to fire up the larger one - this allows the larger motor to produce more energy than the smaller one, and the smaller one can then be powered off untill it's needed again to restart the larger motor if it needs to be stopped for some reason. It's not a perfect example, but it gets the point across.

Maybe for truly green energy (untill we find something better again long into the future), is to use renewables such as the sun to harness (*note I say harness, not create or generate*) the potential energy that already exists in terrestrial sources.

*NB - power generation is a misnomer - you cannot create energy, nor destroy it. The electricity we use is already stored in various forms on the earth. It's purely that we use very inefficient and forceful ways of converting it to an energy source that we prefer to work with that make it appear as though we are creating that energy. All we are doing is converting the potential energy of Coal/Radiotopes/gas/oil into another form. If you trace back through the energy cycles of these substances, they are in fact ultimately no different (thermodynamically, newtonianly, and in any other way under the sun) to water. It's all just potential energy, all ready to be converted from one form to another. Use it and it's inefficient, but harness it and suddenly it's very much more efficient. The trouble is, it would require a sea change in general perception and application to apply it.

** Sorry, my little theoretical (even if I think it's plausable, or maybe even obvious on a universal sort of scale) rant is over with now.

*** On re-reading, to prevent a "potential" misundersanding which could be a "catalyst" for the release of energy in the form of "flames" or arguments, this really was only a possible description of why water as a fuel *might* be entirely plausable and very green.

**** Might: Maybe, possibly, perhaps...

*****Theoretical: Doesn't always work in practice, but the idea is there.

Edited July 24, 2006 by crimsone

[Scribbler]

Wind power isn't the only renewable power available. My favourite is geothermal, and there is also biofuel (a popular one in Sweden at the moment), hydrogen, tidal, wave, solar etc.

The real problem is that the various ‘alternative’ power sources are so inefficient. To achieve an adequately useful output we would need extraordinary numbers of solar arrays; wind farms; wave and tide energy machines, etc, given today’s equipment.

How much power (as a percentage of today’s needs) do the above produce at present and how much could we reasonably expect from such sources in the future?

Of the more efficient sources –

Geothermal energy is a bit hard to come by throughout the UK.

Hydroelectricity can only be generated where there is enough water and elevation.

Barrages are only appropriate in certain places.

Biofuels work with existing and fairly efficient power stations but there seems to be something of a reluctance to take the idea aboard possibly because of the CO2 output.

Only nuclear power can provide enough energy to be a useful percentage of our requirements.

As it happens, I'm all for the idea of locally generated power - to me, that sounds like the most sustainable solution.

All in favour!

[Snowly does it]

The main problem with all of this is that we do not live in a post-war, welfare-state, nationalised society. Energy production and sale is a market force and the players with the best hand right now are in a vastly superior position, much of the public are lazy, selfish and greedy in private whilst the vox populi is 'save the planet'. With a possible severe drought approaching people water their lawns just to keep them looking green, and buy air conditioning systems to utilise more energy and create more carbon emissions. Garden growth is often limited to spectacular and utterly useless displays of flowers and rather than a healthy and tasty dietary accompaniment, reliance is upon supermarkets with their eco-destructive packaging, and whole-scale wreckage of local shops (for local people), butchers, bakers, candlestickmakers and the rest (not to mention the hurt to the small scale farming industry)

Renwables stand no chance, no chance at all of replacing coal, gas or nuclear in the short term unless people are prepared to live in a world without a global economy and overbearing market forces, without the pressures of choice and price wars and without taking a 'me' attitude to life and society. If traditional forms of energy were clean , efficient and ever-lasting then the 80s were the great leap forward, if not, they may be the beginning of the last gasp of capitalism before something wicked this way comes.