# Greenpeace take over a coal train in Nottinghamshire



## editor (Sep 23, 2014)

Here's their press release:



> *I'm on top of a coal train right now with 49 ordinary people, who believe so passionately that we need to stop climate change, we've stopped a train reaching Cottam power station *in Nottinghamshire. We flagged it down at 2.30pm and right now, we’re shovelling coal off the train.
> 
> It’s pretty dirty work but I’m here with good friends, and we know it’s the right thing to do.
> 
> ...


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## geminisnake (Sep 23, 2014)

What are they suggesting to replace the coal plants?


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## ddraig (Sep 23, 2014)

pics





http://www.itv.com/news/central/update/2014-09-23/in-pictures-greenpeace-activist-halt-coal-train/


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## tbtommyb (Sep 23, 2014)

geminisnake said:


> What are they suggesting to replace the coal plants?


I have a lot of sympathy for Greenpeace but I think this is wrongheaded. We need coal at least for the next couple of years.


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## geminisnake (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> I have a lot of sympathy for Greenpeace but I think this is wrongheaded. We need coal at least for the next couple of years.



I need coal for more than a few years and imo unless you've got a viable solution this kind of protest is bloody stupid. Do NONE of them use electricity? Run motorised vehicles etc?
I can agree with some of their stuff but not this.


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## Spymaster (Sep 24, 2014)

Fucking dickheads.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

they're probably committing 20 sep. offences by doing this.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.


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## tony heath (Sep 24, 2014)

Greenpeace stories tend to lead to nothing, they're a waste of everyone's time, just look at the state of the planet.


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## Sprocket. (Sep 24, 2014)

Maybe deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest or China's carbon usage have a lesser current impact than I thought!
Maybe next time they could try to take over a train carrying spent uranium fuel rods.
I am am sure the stuffed polar bear would be doing a facepalm if it could.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> they're probably committing 20 sep. offences by doing this.



The last bunch of people to blockade a coal train in this way (not greenpeace, just some concerned citizens) were convicted with obstruction of a railway, then subsequently acquitted in light of the fact that evidence pertinent to their trial had been withheld from the defence. The evidence was withheld because revealing it would have exposed an undercover copper embedded in the eco activist movement.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.



Do you know how many people the UK coal mining industry currently employs?

The rump of the privatised British Coal Board, UK coal, now spends most of its time restructuring itself in an attempt to separate its heavily indebted mining operations from its valuable property portfolio. Of the handful of mines they still operate, most are open cast. This means that not only do they tear a vast whole in the landscape, but they employ fewer people than traditional deep mining.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

geminisnake said:


> What are they suggesting to replace the coal plants?



If only there were several viable renewable energy sources we could turn to, but there just aren't. Burning stuff is literally the only way to get energy, because we live in the seventeenth century.


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## moon (Sep 24, 2014)

Just rig some gyms up to the national grid and solve the climate change and obesity problems in one swoop..


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

moon said:


> Just rig some gyms up to the national grid and solve the climate change and obesity problems in one swoop..



But gyms have to draw power from the grid so they can pipe in really terrible music all day long.

And generally speaking the national grid is not designed to deal with large numbers of small generators with variable outputs. Rectifying this, so that we can have a decentralised energy network that supports growth of renewable energy generation, would require investment. Investment with no immediate prospect of financial return, but for the sake of securing our energy future and taking a huge chunk out of our contribution to climate change. But there's no money for that sort of thing, particularly when the chancellor's father-in-law is a fossil fuel tycoon.

Clearly what we really need instead is a yuppies-only train line to Manchester, and some bigger airports.


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

tony heath said:


> Greenpeace stories tend to lead to nothing, they're a waste of everyone's time, just look at the state of the planet.


Well no, I think they have helped move climate and environmental issues from the fringes to vaguely mainstream.

I think often they are a bit too 'stop doing this' without putting forward a positive 'lets do this instead'. So on coal they just say to use more renewables, but haven't said here what they would immediately replace these power stations with, no why it is essential that they close now and not within a few years time as is planned. 

However I think their voice in the debate is very important


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.


Yeah and abolishing the death penalty put all the hangmen on the dole.

Silly point.


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## tony heath (Sep 24, 2014)

Physical activity is a great waste of energy, the less we do the less we consume and the more time we have for mental activity which can be used to find even more efficient ways of providing for those around us and protecting our environment. Gym is seriously wrong. Bed is a better option.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 24, 2014)

Greenpeace should set fire to the train, that would show 'em.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> Yeah and abolishing the death penalty put all the hangmen on the dole.
> 
> Silly point.


the reference to a popular slogan of the 80s and early 90s passed you by then.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Do you know how many people the UK coal mining industry currently employs?
> 
> The rump of the privatised British Coal Board, UK coal, now spends most of its time restructuring itself in an attempt to separate its heavily indebted mining operations from its valuable property portfolio. Of the handful of mines they still operate, most are open cast. This means that not only do they tear a vast whole in the landscape, but they employ fewer people than traditional deep mining.


in answer to yr question, yes


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> The last bunch of people to blockade a coal train in this way (not greenpeace, just some concerned citizens) were convicted with obstruction of a railway, then subsequently acquitted in light of the fact that evidence pertinent to their trial had been withheld from the defence. The evidence was withheld because revealing it would have exposed an undercover copper embedded in the eco activist movement.


& you believe situation similar here?


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> & you believe situation similar here?



I highly doubt it. Maybe there are still undercovers in the eco-activist movement, and maybe they've taken the massive PR risk of infiltrating an organisation like Greenpeace with a high public profile and good access to lawyers and the media and stuff. 

But even the police have got to learn from their mistakes sometimes. Considering the 40+ convictions overturned as unsafe in light of the revelations about Mark Kennedy, and the resultant suspicion of senior CPS people being involved in perverting the course of justice, I reckon they've had to rethink their tactics. 

Just thought I'd mention the previous coal train action (it was back in 2008 I think) for a bit of background. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greenpeace lot used their trial for this action as an opportunity to put the boot in over the Kennedy fiasco.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> the reference to a popular slogan of the 80s and early 90s passed you by then.



Which decade are we in now? Is it one of those two? Or have the parameters maybe shifted a little since then?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Which decade are we in now? Is it one of those two? Or have the parameters maybe shifted a little since then?


i'm sorry i credited people here with a knowledge of industrial relations in the c20 coal mining industry which some simply don't have


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> in answer to yr question, yes



But if we were to replace coal as a main energy source, we'd need to build stuff to replace it wouldn't we? Stuff which would be built by people with jobs.

The tories are actually legislating to limit the output of renewables like wind in the UK. In so doing they're reducing the chances of jobs being created in that industry, jobs which won't vanish when a mine dries up or the coal company finally goes bankrupt.

A recently opened UK coal open cast mine in Telford is scheduled to close several years early because the site (already heavily mined back in the days of the industrial revolution) contains a lot less coal than they had predicted. Obviously the coal had been sold years in advance before they even started digging, leaving UK coal in the tricky position of having sold something that doesn't exist. This news is bad for the people working at the mine for obvious reasons, but it's also very bad news for the company's already anaemic pension fund. 

A handful of jobs as precarious as these are not really worth the scars on the landscape or the damage to the climate; not when more jobs, with more security, could be created by abandoning coal altogether.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> i'm sorry i credited people here with a knowledge of industrial relations in the c20 coal mining industry which some simply don't have



I could accuse you of not knowing much about the endocrine physiology of cetaceans but that wouldn't really be relevant either.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Back in the 80's a profitable coal industry was artificially dismantled by the government. Now a failing coal industry is being artificially propped up by the government. Resurrecting slogans from the 80's in lieu of actually looking at the current situation is not helpful.


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## Sprocket. (Sep 24, 2014)

Financing coal powered energy was always referred to as 'Subsidies'.
Financing the nuclear powered energy was always referred to as 'Investment'.
When the glass bubble and false returns of the wind turbine scam are revealed where will all the money subsidising or investing have gone?
Oh there won't be any electricity generated, hear all about it from the new town crier industry.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 24, 2014)

well we've got a new nuclear reactor planned for the existing hinkley site, so we'll not need the coal.

a bod in the paper called it a 'nuclear renaissance'


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> the reference to a popular slogan of the 80s and early 90s passed you by then.


Er no? But it has no relevance apart from containing the word 'coal' so it a bit pointless.

Unless you were just making a pithy witticism, in which case full steam ahead


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> I could accuse you of not knowing much about the endocrine physiology of cetaceans but that wouldn't really be relevant either.


But Pickman knows *fucking loads* about cetacean physiology


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## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2014)

At least they are mucking about off the main network, in some access sidings ................... still trespassing.
And "modern" coal-fired power stations in the UK are supposed to do less environmental damage than deforestation etc on the other-side of the world. (Open cast holes could be filled in with the non-recylable detritus of modern society - perhaps the flyash from power stations and incinerators - just a thought)


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> But Pickman knows *fucking loads* about cetacean physiology


yeh but i don't like to blow my own trumpet


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Back in the 80's a profitable coal industry was artificially dismantled by the government. Now a failing coal industry is being artificially propped up by the government. Resurrecting slogans from the 80's in lieu of actually looking at the current situation is not helpful.


it was a witticism you humourless sod


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> it was a witticism you humourless sod



One which you followed up with some snippy remark about how ill-informed we all are.


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## Buckaroo (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> One which you followed up with some snippy remark about how ill-informed we all are.



tbf one which you followed up with a graph.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

StoneRoad said:


> At least they are mucking about off the main network, in some access sidings ................... still trespassing.
> And "modern" coal-fired power stations in the UK are supposed to do less environmental damage than deforestation etc on the other-side of the world. (Open cast holes could be filled in with the non-recylable detritus of modern society - perhaps the flyash from power stations and incinerators - just a thought)



Brilliant stuff. 

'We're not wrecking the environment, we fill in all the big holes we dig with garbage!'

Trouble is they'll often sell off the land on top of a former open cast site for housing developments. Coal mining is a good way to turn greenfield land into 'post-industrial' brownfield land.

Building houses on top of what is basically a landfill site is not a great idea from an engineering point of view.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

DotCommunist said:


> well we've got a new nuclear reactor planned for the existing hinkley site, so we'll not need the coal.
> 
> a bod in the paper called it a 'nuclear renaissance'



But we will need Uranium, and the world doesn't have an endless supply of that either.

Then there's the need to reconcile the placement of nuclear power stations on coastlines with the fact that sea levels are rising. Hinkley's location is perfect for causing the biggest possible shitstorm if flooding were to breach the reactor, what with several Major cities nearby (Cardiff, Swansea, Bristol) and the huge tidal range of the Severn estuary. The convenient placement of the oft-flooded Somerset levels nearby would also allow such an event to carry radioactive material many miles inland. I'm sure this could never happen though, it's not as if we're handing out contracts for building and running new nuclear power plants to the lowest bidder or anything.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> One which you followed up with some snippy remark about how ill-informed we all are.


no, i said i'd assumed a level of knowledge SOME people here don't have. of course you may not know the difference between some and all. but i'd like to think you do.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> But we will need Uranium, and the world doesn't have an endless supply of that either.
> 
> Then there's the need to reconcile the placement of nuclear power stations on coastlines with the fact that sea levels are rising. Hinkley's location is perfect for causing the biggest possible shitstorm if flooding were to breach the reactor, what with several Major cities nearby (Cardiff, Swansea, Bristol) and the huge tidal range of the Severn estuary. The convenient placement of the oft-flooded Somerset levels nearby would also allow such an event to carry radioactive material many miles inland. I'm sure this could never happen though, it's not as if we're handing out contracts for building and running new nuclear power plants to the lowest bidder or anything.




EDF in this case. And there has already been financial skullduggery


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## SikhWarrioR (Sep 24, 2014)

Wonder how many of those Greenpeace idiots have got such things as "Posession master" "Protection master" "Lookout" or any other form of track access licences for a start then how did they stop the train hopefully not by interfering with the signaling Then there is the act of trespass on the Railway. Normally i have respect for Greenpeace but as a Railway Engineering Professional of nearly 3 decades and having helped clear up or investigate "one unders" pulling stunts like that 
Greenpeace are just a bunch of stupid fuckchuzzles


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

SikhWarrioR said:


> Wonder how many of those Greenpeace idiots have got such things as "Posession master" "Protection master" "Lookout" or any other form of track access licences for a start then how did they stop the train hopefully not by interfering with the signaling Then there is the act of trespass on the Railway. Normally i have respect for Greenpeace but as a Railway Engineering Professional of nearly 3 decades and having helped clear up or investigate "one unders" pulling stunts like that
> Greenpeace are just a bunch of stupid fuckchuzzles



Their twitter feed is over there ----------->

I'm sure they'd be thrilled to hear from you.

I suspect it's possible that unchecked consumption of fossil fuels may, in the fullness of time, cause rather more inconvenience for rather more people than this action has. I'm not saying what they're doing is gonna stop global warming but if you have a better idea of how we should do that, without inconveniencing a single living soul obviously, then do please let us know.


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## Buckaroo (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Their twitter feed is over there ----------->
> 
> I'm sure they'd be thrilled to hear from you.
> 
> I suspect it's possible that unchecked consumption of fossil fuels may, in the fullness of time, cause rather more inconvenience for rather more people than this action has. I'm not saying what they're doing is gonna stop global warming but if you have a better idea of how we should do that, without inconveniencing a single living soul obviously, then do please let us know.



A radical change in structure and the use of resources and all that jazz. The fuckchuzzles did a thing but in a way it's still part of the thing, it's assimilated into it if that's the right word.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> A radical change in structure and the use of resources and all that jazz. The fuckchuzzles did a thing but in a way it's still part of the thing, it's assimilated into it if that's the right word.



So then we're all doomed. Believe me, this has occurred to me and every other eco-activist type person many times. Some people have obviously decided that, considering that if we're already doomed we don't have much to lose, it's worth having a go on the off chance it gets us somewhere. 

Personally, I'm in one of my 'we're all doomed so why bother?' phases. But I admire those who aren't.


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## Buckaroo (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> So then we're all doomed. Believe me, this has occurred to me and every other eco-activist type person many times. Some people have obviously decided that, considering that if we're already doomed we don't have much to lose, it's worth having a go on the off chance it gets us somewhere.
> 
> Personally, I'm in one of my 'we're all doomed so why bother?' phases. But I admire those who aren't.



Prole not coal!


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## Flavour (Sep 24, 2014)

I for one support these actions. It has brought my attention to some things I did not know. Thank you, Greenpeace!


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## Buckaroo (Sep 24, 2014)

Flavour said:


> I for one support these actions. It has brought my attention to some things I did not know. Thank you, Greenpeace!



What did you learn that you didn't know already?


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## Bob_the_lost (Sep 24, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> What did you learn that you didn't know already?


Personally I learnt that a train was stopped. YMMV


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> What did you learn that you didn't know already?



Before people do stuff like this they always do their homework and make sure there's a clear message.

 I'm not sure why, but it always seems necessary for a bunch of people to do some silly stunt and get themselves arrested in order to get a message in the newspapers. Unless the message is, 'immigrants are ruining this country' or something, in which case the papers are most likely printing it already.

It might seem like we've heard all this climate change stuff before, but where did we hear it from? If you stop and think about it, protests and direct action have actually played a pretty big role, to the point where mainstream politicians (or some of them) are finally starting to realise that there might actually be some mileage in this whole 'averting armageddon' thing the hippies keep going on about. 

Of course some of those politicians will then get some fossil fuel magnate whispering in their ears, after which they'll announce that the solution to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels is to extract _more_ gas from the ground by pumping millions of gallons of perfectly good drinking water mixed with some secret recipe ACME brand carcinogenic sludge into the bedrock that's got all our houses and pubs and stuff on top of it. Then it's back to the drawing board for us hippies and we have to do yet more silly things and spend yet more time in police cells and have yet more polyester-trousered livestock breaking into our homes and going through our stuff; all just for the chance to point out a few more bitesize chunks of the bleeding obvious.


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> The tories are actually legislating to limit the output of renewables like wind in the UK. In so doing they're reducing the chances of jobs being created in that industry, jobs which won't vanish when a mine dries up or the coal company finally goes bankrupt.



Are they? Source?


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

it's amusing to read the comments on Greenpeace's facebook about this, where all the railway spods are getting angry about them breaking railway byelaw 134(c)(iii) or whatever.

personally i think they should push the benefits of demand reduction, but whatever.


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## NoXion (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> But we will need Uranium, and the world doesn't have an endless supply of that either.



It doesn't have to be "endless", that's a ridiculous requirement that not even "renewable" energy can satisfy, since the Sun won't last forever. However, if it lasts long enough, say up to a billion years or more, then I think that's long enough for the foreseeable future.

Even if a billion years is too optimistic, reduce that by six orders of magnitude and that's still energy to last us a thousand years, not including thorium which is 3 to 4 times as abundant in the Earth's crust as uranium, and which can also be used as a fuel.

Nuclear fission is just as worthy of consideration as renewables with regards to the future of energy production.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> Are they? Source?



http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/04/conservatives-promise-ban-new-onshore-windfarms

Not actually legislation as yet. I did see something about the tories planning to limit even the output of existing onshore wind farms but I'm struggling to find it.

Plenty of tory backbenchers seem to loathe onshore wind farms, and Cameron has been under pressure to come up with something to appease them.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

NoXion said:


> It doesn't have to be "endless", that's a ridiculous requirement that not even "renewable" energy can satisfy, since the Sun won't last forever. However, if it lasts long enough, say up to a billion years or more, then I think that's long enough for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Even if a billion years is too optimistic, reduce that by six orders of magnitude and that's still energy to last us a thousand years, not including thorium which is 3 to 4 times as abundant in the Earth's crust as uranium, and which can also be used as a fuel.
> 
> Nuclear fission is just as worthy of consideration as renewables with regards to the future of energy production.



This article seems to suggest that we've got enough Uranium for about 85 years:

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2006/uranium_resources.html

Naturally, the more nuclear power plants we build the more uranium we'll get through. But I'm more concerned about the fact we still don't know what to do with the nuclear waste we've already produced, never mind the waste from another century of nuclear power.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> personally i think they should push the benefits of demand reduction, but whatever.



Demand reduction doesn't get mentioned a lot, not because it's not an important idea but because capitalism simply doesn't allow for it. It's also quite powerful to say that we don't need to do without anything, that we can meet existing demands with renewable energy using technology that already exists, coupled with improved energy efficiency.


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## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> so greenpeace position is dole not coal for miners.



Most coal is imported usually American, being dumped on the market, very few people involved in British coal production these days.


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## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

Sprocket. said:


> Maybe deforestation of the Brazilian rain forest or China's carbon usage have a lesser current impact than I thought!
> Maybe next time they could try to take over a train carrying spent uranium fuel rods.
> I am am sure the stuffed polar bear would be doing a facepalm if it could.


Now if they were doing this in China or India.......?


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## tbtommyb (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/04/conservatives-promise-ban-new-onshore-windfarms
> 
> Not actually legislation as yet. I did see something about the tories planning to limit even the output of existing onshore wind farms but I'm struggling to find it.
> 
> Plenty of tory backbenchers seem to loathe onshore wind farms, and Cameron has been under pressure to come up with something to appease them.


ok, well a post-election pledge limiting onshore wind is quite different to legislating against renewables but i see your broader point. though i think the business opportunities of renewables are being recognised more so it's simplistic to say that capitalists will favour fossils.


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## NoXion (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> This article seems to suggest that we've got enough Uranium for about 85 years:
> 
> http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2006/uranium_resources.html



The article also mentions that fast reactor technology would extend reserves to over 2500 years. Do either of those figures take into account reprocessing?

2005 prices for conventional uranium stock are about 60 USD per pound if I've got my sums right. That's well short of Cohen's 1000 USD per pound which could still be economical with breeder reactors.



> Naturally, the more nuclear power plants we build the more uranium we'll get through.



That's an issue that can be significantly ameliorated if better reactor designs (e.g. breeders, fast reactors) are put to widespread use and reprocessing of nuclear fuel continues or is expanded. Again, the uranium doesn't have to last forever. It just has to last long enough.



> But I'm more concerned about the fact we still don't know what to do with the nuclear waste we've already produced, never mind the waste from another century of nuclear power.



Reprocessing significantly reduces the volume of waste and the rest can be dealt with using short-term storage to allow the nastier stuff to dissipate (it's nastier because it's more energetic, and if it's more energetic then it can't last all that long) followed by vitrification of the remaining waste. This isn't to say that dealing with nuclear waste is utterly trivial, but neither is it the insoluble conundrum that anti-nuclear partisans like to try to portray it as.


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## Butch le zer (Sep 24, 2014)

Demand reduction is never going to work. China and India aren't going to stop industrialising, no one will stop South America and Africa industrialising


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## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> But if we were to replace coal as a main energy source, we'd need to build stuff to replace it wouldn't we? Stuff which would be built by people with jobs.
> 
> The tories are actually legislating to limit the output of renewables like wind in the UK. In so doing they're reducing the chances of jobs being created in that industry, jobs which won't vanish when a mine dries up or the coal company finally goes bankrupt.
> 
> ...



Most 'jobs' created by wind farms are abroad,we basically provide massive returns for foreign companies by using wind while at the same time increasing domestic tariffs by about 30%.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> ok, well a post-election pledge limiting onshore wind is quite different to legislating against renewables but i see your broader point. though i think the business opportunities of renewables are being recognised more so it's simplistic to say that capitalists will favour fossils.



Plenty of capitalists are investing in renewables. But the fossil fuel guys have the old money and the connections to artificially shift policy in their favour. The fact that stuff like fracking even exists should be evidence enough of this.


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## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

DotCommunist said:


> well we've got a new nuclear reactor planned for the existing hinkley site, so we'll not need the coal.
> 
> a bod in the paper called it a 'nuclear renaissance'


Again,most of the profits and jobs will be for the benefit of foreign investors.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 24, 2014)

coley said:


> Again,most of the profits and jobs will be for the benefit of foreign investors.




well yeah, the contracts gone to EDF.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

Butch le zer said:


> Demand reduction is never going to work. China and India aren't going to stop industrialising, no one will stop South America and Africa industrialising



Nor does the west have any right to tell the rest of the world not to aspire to our standard of living. I personally think we could get rid of a lot of the stuff we have and live more fulfilling lives as a result, but I'm aware that that's a pretty minority view and that it's easy to say that as a person who lives in a place where people do have access to all those fancy things.


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## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Brilliant stuff.
> 
> 'We're not wrecking the environment, we fill in all the big holes we dig with garbage!'
> 
> ...



Most of the opencast sites around here have been returned to agriculture or nature reserves, not aware of any OC sites being used for housing developments?


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

coley said:


> Most 'jobs' created by wind farms are abroad,we basically provide massive returns for foreign companies by using wind while at the same time increasing domestic tariffs by about 30%.



People abroad need jobs too. But if the UK government wanted renewable power to provide more work for people in the UK there's a lot they could do to make that happen. When the UK's only wind turbine factory, Vestas on the Isle of Wight, closed a few years back the government did fuck all. There's state funding to put the things up but there doesn't seem to be the same incentives for people to actually build them here in Britain.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2014)

coley said:


> Most of the opencast sites around here have been returned to agriculture or nature reserves, not aware of any OC sites being used for housing developments?



That's just a rumour I heard, albeit from people who spent a lot of time and energy researching open cast coal mining with a view to trying to stop it.

Many open cast mines are in AONB's which makes it near-impossible to get permission for any large scale developments. For some reason it doesn't make it impossible to get permission to dig a fucking great big hole to get the coal out. UK coal's next planned development is about ten miles from me. I followed the planning process pretty closely, and despite all the objections and a statement of opposition from the local authority the plans were waved through. Nobody from the coal company even showed up to the planning hearing, because they knew it was a done deal and they didn't have to.


----------



## coley (Sep 24, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> This article seems to suggest that we've got enough Uranium for about 85 years:
> 
> http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2006/uranium_resources.html
> 
> Naturally, the more nuclear power plants we build the more uranium we'll get through. But I'm more concerned about the fact we still don't know what to do with the nuclear waste we've already produced, never mind the waste from another century of nuclear power.



Thankfully Scotland is still available


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

coley said:


> Thankfully Scotland is still available



As a nuclear waste dump?


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> That's just a rumour I heard, albeit from people who spent a lot of time and energy researching open cast coal mining with a view to trying to stop it.
> 
> Many open cast mines are in AONB's which makes it near-impossible to get permission for any large scale developments. For some reason it doesn't make it impossible to get permission to dig a fucking great big hole to get the coal out. UK coal's next planned development is about ten miles from me. I followed the planning process pretty closely, and despite all the objections and a statement of opposition from the local authority the plans were waved through. Nobody from the coal company even showed up to the planning hearing, because they knew it was a done deal and they didn't have to.



Aye, they know its a " done deal" because of the precarious state of our energy supplies over the next few years, even open casts ( I have two, a lot closer than you) are under threat as they can't compete with dumped imports, we have a power station that has converted to ecologically friendly biomass!! It imports wood from America, chopped down, transported 3,000 miles and burnt, HTF is that environmentally friendly? But add the renewable subsidy then it is very profitable
The rest of the world must be laughing their tits off at our "environmentally friendly efforts"


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> As a nuclear waste dump?



And Cumbria


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

And it's not much good us closing all our coal plants if we keep importing mountains of shite from China, all of it built in factories running on electricity from coal plants.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

coley said:


> And Cumbria



Cumbria's lovely. 

The home counties on the other hand...


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Cumbria's lovely.
> 
> The home counties on the other hand...


You don't see much activity as to their availability to waste repositories, do you?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

coley said:


> You don't see much activity as to their availability to waste repositories, do you?



When I'm King, that will change.


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> And it's not much good us closing all our coal plants if we keep importing mountains of shite from China, all of it built in factories running on electricity from coal plants.



Embrace reality, use British coal in the short term while using the money saved from paying foreign investors to invest in a home grown renewable energy supply, tidal and solar,even wind if the kit is British built, CONNC the knowledge/engineering base is still there, but for how much longer?


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> When I'm King, that will change.



Ha, some chance, yer mam will see you oot bonnie lad


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm sure this could never happen though, it's not as if we're handing out contracts for building and running new nuclear power plants _*to the lowest bidder *_or anything.



This isn't right, unfortunately the truth is probably worse.

The govt has fallen into the arms of EDF for the Hinckley plant because no one else wanted to touch it; there's never been a privately-built and financed nuclear plant anywhere in the world, ever, for the simple reason that they make no economic sense whatsoever without huge govt subsidy. EDF are of course a state-run company (albeit by the French state) and have now been handed a massive subsidy by the UK govt to build the new plants at Hinckley. 

But part of the problem here is that EDF will only build the EPR reactors designed (and being built, sort of) by Areva, another French govt-owned state operator. The EPR is a massively over-complicated design and correspondingly massively expensive. The EPR under construction at Olkiluoto in Finland is now 4 years past its original deadline (it was meant to take 4 years in total) and still not finished. Its price has doubled to ??£6billion in the process (the massive amounts of capital soaked up by these projects and the phenomenal costs of over-runs is the main reason private capital won't touch nuclear - the opportunity cost-benefit analysis never stands up to the risk analysis). Same thing is happening in Flammanville in Normandy, also Taishan in China - EPR reactors running massively over-budget and over time. 

It's become (imo) a discredited design, India recently cancelled interest in an EPR. You can buy an off-the-shelf US or Korean plant for £2.5b - sure it'll probably over-run (they always do) but no one has a track record as crap as EDF/Areva/EPR do. 

This is basically the French govt desperately trying to find a way of keeping its nuclear industry on track so that they have a functioning one ready for that BIG problem that they are now facing - ie replacing their massive nuclear fleet, all built in the 1970s and now coming to the end of its life. Luckily the UK govt is ready to bung a massive subsidy their way, paid for by all of us in the form of higher electricity bills (which will be blamed on "having to cut carbon because of the EU and rumanian migrants" or whatever). The fact is they ought to toss the EPR in the bin and start again but its too late for that if they want to keep their own industry alive and they'd have to buy in from abroad, probably the Westinghouse Toshiba AP1000. Not to mention the loss of face in the upper echelons of the French bureaucracy.


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

NoXion said:


> .
> 
> Nuclear fission is just as worthy of consideration as renewables with regards to the future of energy production.



Not if you're interested in reducing carbon emissions to the kind of level that we need to head off climate change. Nuclear can be described as "low-carbon" but it's no where near being "renewable". Highly efficient gas turbines can be called low-carbon - in fact if you include the carbon costs of decommissioning there's a case for suggesting that gas may already be lower in terms of carbon than nuclear (and gas is getting more and more efficient). Gas would make a far more flexible and efficient bridging technology to a carbon-free future than nuclear.


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

NoXion said:


> The article also mentions that fast reactor technology would extend reserves to over 2500 years. Do either of those figures take into account reprocessing?



The theoretical reserves are huge, the actual extractable reserves are much smaller. Mining and milling currently account for about 35-40% of the carbon costs of nuclear, as we move to the thinner ores that cost rises steeply; this is one of the uncertainties of carbon-costing nuclear. At the  moment it can be considered viable to mine ores as thin as 0.02% uranium - ie 200 grams per ton, that's a lot of digging and crushing. If you get down to even lower levels you end up spending more energy on extraction than you produce at the other end, and obviously the carbon costs go through the roof. There is a gamble here about how many other countries are going to go nuclear - if loads do, then we reach non-viability sooner, possibly within the lifetime of the plants (which would really make them a bad investment). If only a few do then the easy uranium lasts a good long while. It was partly this equation that suddenly made a few govts think 'let's pile in early' a few years ago. The UK was one of these but we're moving so slowly that it's arguable we've missed the moment.


----------



## bubblesmcgrath (Sep 25, 2014)

I'm assumng they rode there by polar bear in order to reduce their own carbon footprint?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> This isn't right, unfortunately the truth is probably worse.../snip



And no doubt it will prove more important to honour our end of the contract than to do right by the British public, no matter how badly the French fuck up their end of it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> Not if you're interested in reducing carbon emissions to the kind of level that we need to head off climate change. Nuclear can be described as "low-carbon" but it's no where near being "renewable". Highly efficient gas turbines can be called low-carbon - in fact if you include the carbon costs of decommissioning there's a case for suggesting that gas may already be lower in terms of carbon than nuclear (and gas is getting more and more efficient). Gas would make a far more flexible and efficient bridging technology to a carbon-free future than nuclear.



Gas is not getting more efficient when you factor in the increasingly elaborate methods being used to extract it in the first place. But I agree that it makes sense to use gas to keep the lights on while we build up renewable infrastructure, not least because you can basically just switch off a gas power station and mothball it with no major problems. Not so nuclear power plants.


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> Gas is not getting more efficient when you factor in the increasingly elaborate methods being used to extract it in the first place. But I agree that it makes sense to use gas to keep the lights on while we build up renewable infrastructure, not least because you can basically just switch off a gas power station and mothball it with no major problems. Not so nuclear power plants.



Fair point, once you allow for the extra energy used in getting hold of it in the first place, gas probably isn't getting that much more efficient. But the other huge reason for using gas as the bridging tech is that nuclear and renewables are not very compatible whereas gas and renewables are. In order to get anything like a reasonable level of efficiency both nuclear and renewables have to produce base-load - ie the always-demanded level of power. I know that renewables aren't great at this but they can't do switch-on, switch-off at all* - neither can nuclear. 

Gas  can, in fact it's pretty good at it, basically it's just like turning on a giant grill with a giant match, so it's great for demand surges at peak points - advert-break kettle on big football match - that kind of stuff.

So apart from soaking up vast quantities of capital which would otherwise be used on alternatives, nuclear is also incompatible with renewable alternatives. The whole things a disaster really, especially since we're building the most useless design...


*apart from hydro-electric which I believe has the fastest on-time of any method, beats gas. But that's not going to be a huge element of the UK's mix.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

IIRC the biggest daily surge in demand comes when everyone puts the kettle on after Eastenders. 

The solution is simple: cancel Eastenders. Failing that simply show it in slightly different time slots in different parts of the country.


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> Fair point, once you allow for the extra energy used in getting hold of it in the first place, gas probably isn't getting that much more efficient. But the other huge reason for using gas as the bridging tech is that nuclear and renewables are not very compatible whereas gas and renewables are. In order to get anything like a reasonable level of efficiency both nuclear and renewables have to produce base-load - ie the always-demanded level of power. I know that renewables aren't great at this but they can't do switch-on, switch-off at all* - neither can nuclear.
> 
> Gas  can, in fact it's pretty good at it, basically it's just like turning on a giant grill with a giant match, so it's great for demand surges at peak points - advert-break kettle on big football match - that kind of stuff.
> 
> ...



Are tidal barrages classed as hydro?


----------



## DotCommunist (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> This isn't right, unfortunately the truth is probably worse.
> 
> The govt has fallen into the arms of EDF for the Hinckley plant because no one else wanted to touch it; there's never been a privately-built and financed nuclear plant anywhere in the world, ever, for the simple reason that they make no economic sense whatsoever without huge govt subsidy. EDF are of course a state-run company (albeit by the French state) and have now been handed a massive subsidy by the UK govt to build the new plants at Hinckley.
> 
> ...




christ and here was I thinking there was just some minor industry palm-greasing afoot


----------



## coley (Sep 25, 2014)

Bit long but interesting,
http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/unconventional-gas-aberdeen-2014-five-quarter-harry-bradbury


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 25, 2014)

some of the pumped storage / hydro schemes can be turned over to generate in seconds. (16 secs for Dinorwig)

watch the power system on here (UK - also France)
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/


----------



## SikhWarrioR (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> Fair point, once you allow for the extra energy used in getting hold of it in the first place, gas probably isn't getting that much more efficient. But the other huge reason for using gas as the bridging tech is that nuclear and renewables are not very compatible whereas gas and renewables are. In order to get anything like a reasonable level of efficiency both nuclear and renewables have to produce base-load - ie the always-demanded level of power. I know that renewables aren't great at this but they can't do switch-on, switch-off at all* - neither can nuclear.
> 
> Gas  can, in fact it's pretty good at it, basically it's just like turning on a giant grill with a giant match, so it's great for demand surges at peak points - advert-break kettle on big football match - that kind of stuff.
> 
> ...



I seem to remember reading sonewere that apparently the Dinwinoc pumped storage system in Snowden North Wales can go from Zero to full load in about 90 seconds


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 25, 2014)

SikhWarrioR said:


> I seem to remember reading sonewere that apparently the Dinwinoc pumped storage system in Snowden North Wales can go from Zero to full load in about 90 seconds


Nope - it is 16 seconds .............
http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/en-GB/Dinorwig


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 25, 2014)

Just been checking - the 16 seconds is for a turbine already spinning in air, it takes about 60 to 75 to get it up to speed and generating from a standstill.

So, watching for the start of the closing credits (or a supply failure elsewhere) is a major part of grid / demand management.

In contrast, a coal-fired station has to have water already boiling to have anything like a quick response, which is why coal and nuclear plants do "base load" leaving gas and hydro to pick up when demand peaks suddenly. Wind is useful, but a lot less amenable to any sort of planning ......


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

SikhWarrioR said:


> I seem to remember reading sonewere that apparently the Dinwinoc pumped storage system in Snowden North Wales can go from Zero to full load in about 90 seconds





StoneRoad said:


> Nope - it is 16 seconds .............
> http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/en-GB/Dinorwig



Yes I always remember hydro as an afterthought amongst renewables, I've never lived somewhere where there is any so I kind of forget it. But it's pretty good energy-wise if you've got the right sort of river and your dam isn't going to silt up and/or cause eathquakes *ahem the three gorges dam ahem*


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

DotCommunist said:


> christ and here was I thinking there was just some minor industry palm-greasing afoot



I know, it's a complete shambles. Nuclear almost certainly isn't the answer but if you must have it no way should anyone be commissioning an EPR now. The one consolation is that it'll stop the "nuclear renaissance" in its tracks, just like the last one and the one before that. The shame is that we'll have wasted so much time and money in the meanwhile. The subsidies to EDF alone will be worth billions but there'll also be the standard construction industry malarkey you are talking about - I mean on a budget of £3-4 billion anyone involved above middling level is going to be able to find a way to coin it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2014)

I suppose they'll get G4S to run the fucking thing as well. Cue a litany of Homer Simpson-esque comedy mishaps and the resultant irradiation of most of the South West.


----------



## co-op (Sep 25, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> I suppose they'll get G4S to run the fucking thing as well. Cue a litany of Homer Simpson-esque comedy mishaps and the resultant irradiation of most of the South West.



Prevailing wind would make any pollution plume cover Bristol pretty likely. Years ago in the 80s I was living in Bristol, I was ok at fly-posting, I used to do loads of SHE's* A4s and A3s all over the place, we really covered the city centre a couple of times.


*Stop Hinckley Expansion


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## SikhWarrioR (Sep 25, 2014)

StoneRoad said:


> Nope - it is 16 seconds .............
> http://www.electricmountain.co.uk/en-GB/Dinorwig



90 seconds or 16 seconds zero to full load is quick.....Maybe its time to find some suitable sites and build a few more like it instead of blowing billions on wars and weapons


----------



## NoXion (Sep 25, 2014)

co-op said:


> Not if you're interested in reducing carbon emissions to the kind of level that we need to head off climate change. Nuclear can be described as "low-carbon" but it's no where near being "renewable". Highly efficient gas turbines can be called low-carbon - in fact if you include the carbon costs of decommissioning there's a case for suggesting that gas may already be lower in terms of carbon than nuclear (and gas is getting more and more efficient). Gas would make a far more flexible and efficient bridging technology to a carbon-free future than nuclear.



If nuclear is low-carbon then surely it's a relevant option as far as climate change is concerned?



co-op said:


> The theoretical reserves are huge, the actual extractable reserves are much smaller. Mining and milling currently account for about 35-40% of the carbon costs of nuclear, as we move to the thinner ores that cost rises steeply; this is one of the uncertainties of carbon-costing nuclear. At the  moment it can be considered viable to mine ores as thin as 0.02% uranium - ie 200 grams per ton, that's a lot of digging and crushing. If you get down to even lower levels you end up spending more energy on extraction than you produce at the other end, and obviously the carbon costs go through the roof. There is a gamble here about how many other countries are going to go nuclear - if loads do, then we reach non-viability sooner, possibly within the lifetime of the plants (which would really make them a bad investment). If only a few do then the easy uranium lasts a good long while. It was partly this equation that suddenly made a few govts think 'let's pile in early' a few years ago. The UK was one of these but we're moving so slowly that it's arguable we've missed the moment.



If an increasing proportion of power is being provided by a combination of nuclear and renewables, then the additional carbon produced by the mining of minerals with more marginal fissionable content will be offset by the fact that fossil fuels are falling out of favour as a method of primary energy generation.







source

Looking at this chart, it seems like significant reductions in carbon emissions could be made if none of the power stations that supplied those sectors burned fossil fuels.



co-op said:


> Fair point, once you allow for the extra energy used in getting hold of it in the first place, gas probably isn't getting that much more efficient. But the other huge reason for using gas as the bridging tech is that nuclear and renewables are not very compatible whereas gas and renewables are. In order to get anything like a reasonable level of efficiency both nuclear and renewables have to produce base-load - ie the always-demanded level of power. I know that renewables aren't great at this but they can't do switch-on, switch-off at all* - neither can nuclear.



Not entirely true. Retracting the fuel rods will certainly decrease energy output, the rate of decrease being limited by the cooling rate of the heat transfer media (which would be an engineering problem, not a physical one). This would be more controllable and predictable than the vagaries of the weather which an all-renewable grid would be vulnerable to, and would avoid the carbon emissions associated with a hybrid gas-renewable grid.



> Gas  can, in fact it's pretty good at it, basically it's just like turning on a giant grill with a giant match, so it's great for demand surges at peak points - advert-break kettle on big football match - that kind of stuff.



Even the cleanest gas will still produce net additions to atmospheric carbon as an integral part of its operation. You can't avoid that. Unless of course you're burning biogas. I think biogas also has it's place, although I'm not sure how much of it we could produce.



> So apart from soaking up vast quantities of capital which would otherwise be used on alternatives, nuclear is also incompatible with renewable alternatives.



Nonsense. Research into physics gets a lot of money, but that doesn't mean we have no cash left over for biological research. Same thing with nuclear and renewables.



> The whole things a disaster really, especially since we're building the most useless design...



Who's building what design?


----------



## equationgirl (Sep 25, 2014)

coley said:


> Most coal is imported usually American, being dumped on the market, very few people involved in British coal production these days.


Not according to these 2012 figures:


>



http://www.ukcoal.com/world-coal-statistics.html


----------



## equationgirl (Sep 25, 2014)

coley said:


> Are tidal barrages classed as hydro?


Not usually, iirc. Might be classed as a subset of tidal/wave.


----------



## equationgirl (Sep 25, 2014)

StoneRoad said:


> Just been checking - the 16 seconds is for a turbine already spinning in air, it takes about 60 to 75 to get it up to speed and generating from a standstill.
> 
> So, watching for the start of the closing credits (or a supply failure elsewhere) is a major part of grid / demand management.
> 
> In contrast, a coal-fired station has to have water already boiling to have anything like a quick response, which is why coal and nuclear plants do "base load" leaving gas and hydro to pick up when demand peaks suddenly. Wind is useful, but a lot less amenable to any sort of planning ......


There's various options being investigated to improve the flexibility of clean coal plants. Wind is not as flexible as you'd think being the operating envelope is quite narrow - too little wind or too much wind outside this and the turbines will either not work or will be shut down to prevent damage.


----------



## coley (Sep 26, 2014)

equationgirl said:


> Not according to these 2012 figures:
> 
> 
> http://www.ukcoal.com/world-coal-statistics.html


Fair enough, my assumption was based on reps from UK coal stating most of their current problems were a result of The US dumping cheap coal onto EU markets as a result of gas fracking destabilising their markets.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 26, 2014)

Having been to Climate Camp in the past I've no objection to green direct action - and action against fossil fuels specifically. However I'd rather Greenpeace established links with power and transport workers, supported them in industrial action and the like before launching this.  Maybe they have, I've been out of that scene for a while, but I'm not optimistic.


----------



## co-op (Sep 26, 2014)

NoXion said:


> If nuclear is low-carbon then surely it's a relevant option as far as climate change is concerned?



My point is that nuclear is commonly assumed to be de facto renewable/zero carbon. I have met very few people who get that it is not the embedded carbon costs of construction that are their major carbon load (althopugh these are of course pretty massive) but the fuel supply itself. In other words they are just another fossil fuel, albeit that only makes up a third to a half of their final output (IFYSWIM).




NoXion said:


> Not entirely true. Retracting the fuel rods will certainly decrease energy output, the rate of decrease being limited by the cooling rate of the heat transfer media (which would be an engineering problem, not a physical one). This would be more controllable and predictable than the vagaries of the weather which an all-renewable grid would be vulnerable to, and would avoid the carbon emissions associated with a hybrid gas-renewable grid.



My point wasn't that you can't vary output from nuclear power plants, just that it's massively inefficient to run them that way; you want to run them at their peak efficiency, constantly, otherwise their (already ludicrously high) generating costs go through the roof. That's pretty much the same with genuine renewables. So they compete for the base-load role. Gas doesn't need to do that, it is (energy wise) pretty good at turning on and off, although obviously there's an economic issue with the capital tied up in an under-used plant, but there's a hell of a lot less of that with gas than with nuclear, I mean less than a tenth.




NoXion said:


> Even the cleanest gas will still produce net additions to atmospheric carbon as an integral part of its operation. You can't avoid that.



And even the best nuclear will do exactly the same, in fact over the course of its life, and including the decommissioning costs, it is possible/likely that gas produces less GHG than nuclear. As I said.




NoXion said:


> Nonsense. Research into physics gets a lot of money, but that doesn't mean we have no cash left over for biological research. Same thing with nuclear and renewables.



Not at all nonsense. Not sure why you can't see this, it seems kind of obvious. There's a finite amount of capital available, what is spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. Opportunity costs and all that.



NoXion said:


> Who's building what design?



Er, I've posted several references to this, not sure how you missed them, but - EDF/Areva are building the EPR, a notoriously poor design. They are doing this for political reasons, relating to France's need for a replacement for its ageing nuclear fleet (and therefore to keep its fabulously expensive nuclear industry ticking over for the time being), embarrassment about scrapping the EPR and the resulting humiliation of having to buy in a technology which they have presented themselves to the world as World Leaders in, and of course the UK govts need to put a fig-leaf of "private capital" into the new nuclear programme here in the UK (when in reality the whole thing is going to be funded by taxpayers, UK and French - and possibly the Chinese if the rumours are right that tey are going to take a stake in Hinckley). 

It's really bullshit on bullshit. A programme that won't deliver on de-carbonisation, that will cost billions of pounds, to produce incredibly expensive electricity, that will throttle our ability to create a renewable energy platform, using a design that most people get is really crap in order to save ideological and political embarrassment for people like Nikolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown and the idiots who have followed them.

And at the end of which (and that will probably be at least a decade if other builds are any guide) it will - at best - produce 7% of the UK's electricity needs, so it doesn't solve any big problems anyway.

It makes projects like Concorde look smart.


----------



## co-op (Sep 26, 2014)

Meanwhile in other news, Heysham and Hartlepool are both going to be shut down for 2-3 months for checks so they won't be on-stream over the first half of the winter and the UK has lost 4% of its generation overnight. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-closed-until-winter-amid-blackout-fears.html

So much for nuclear's ability to "keep the lights on". When a nuclear plant has a shut down it's for months and it takes out a great bite of total production. They're inherently risky with regard to supply.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 26, 2014)

co-op said:


> My point is that nuclear is commonly assumed to be de facto renewable/zero carbon. I have met very few people who get that it is not the embedded carbon costs of construction that are their major carbon load (althopugh these are of course pretty massive) but the fuel supply itself. In other words they are just another fossil fuel, albeit that only makes up a third to a half of their final output (IFYSWIM).



Again you seem to be ignoring the fact that proportionally increased carbon emissions from mining can be offset by reduced carbon emissions overall. And that's assuming that for whatever strange reason absolutely all mining, transport and decommissioning operations cannot be run off electrical power from grid on its way to being carbon-neutral.



> My point wasn't that you can't vary output from nuclear power plants, just that it's massively inefficient to run them that way; you want to run them at their peak efficiency, constantly, otherwise their (already ludicrously high) generating costs go through the roof. That's pretty much the same with genuine renewables. So they compete for the base-load role. Gas doesn't need to do that, it is (energy wise) pretty good at turning on and off, although obviously there's an economic issue with the capital tied up in an under-used plant, but there's a hell of a lot less of that with gas than with nuclear, I mean less than a tenth.



Nuclear doesn't compete with renewables for the baseload role because renewables aren't universally an option in that respect. For instance, geothermal power in Iceland can fill the baseload role (to the point where they're in a position where they could export energy) but it can't do that in the UK.



> And even the best nuclear will do exactly the same, in fact over the course of its life, and including the decommissioning costs, it is possible/likely that gas produces less GHG than nuclear. As I said.



You seem to be assuming that there will be no reduction in carbon emissions as industries move away from fossil fuels as an energy source, which makes absolutely no sense.



> Not at all nonsense. Not sure why you can't see this, it seems kind of obvious. There's a finite amount of capital available, what is spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. Opportunity costs and all that.



There's a finite amount of capital available for any endeavour. My point is that capital can be divided amongst different efforts. There's no reason to put all of the energy generation eggs in one basket.



> Er, I've posted several references to this, not sure how you missed them, but - EDF/Areva are building the EPR, a notoriously poor design. They are doing this for political reasons, relating to France's need for a replacement for its ageing nuclear fleet (and therefore to keep its fabulously expensive nuclear industry ticking over for the time being), embarrassment about scrapping the EPR and the resulting humiliation of having to buy in a technology which they have presented themselves to the world as World Leaders in, and of course the UK govts need to put a fig-leaf of "private capital" into the new nuclear programme here in the UK (when in reality the whole thing is going to be funded by taxpayers, UK and French - and possibly the Chinese if the rumours are right that tey are going to take a stake in Hinckley).
> 
> It's really bullshit on bullshit. A programme that won't deliver on de-carbonisation, that will cost billions of pounds, to produce incredibly expensive electricity, that will throttle our ability to create a renewable energy platform, using a design that most people get is really crap in order to save ideological and political embarrassment for people like Nikolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown and the idiots who have followed them.
> 
> ...



You know, if they can screw up nuclear power projects that badly, then I'm far from exactly filled with confidence that they wouldn't screw up any number of renewables projects.


----------



## co-op (Sep 26, 2014)

Are you saying you think nuclear is the answer to GHG?


----------



## coley (Sep 26, 2014)

co-op said:


> Are you saying you think nuclear is the answer to GHG?



I did, until I did a bit reading up,then it becomes abundantly clear that it isn't, what I can't understand is there isn't a move to tidal, loch Etive see 66,000,000 _tons_ of water going in and out on every tide.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 26, 2014)

coley said:


> I did, until I did a bit reading up,then it becomes abundantly clear that it isn't, what I can't understand is there isn't a move to tidal, loch Etive see 66,000,000 _tons_ of water going in and out on every tide.



The tidal lagoon project in Swansea looks promising. It's not going to generate vast amounts of power by itself but it should help to demonstrate a concept that can be replicated or scaled up.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 26, 2014)

NoXion said:


> Reprocessing significantly reduces the volume of waste and the rest can be dealt with using short-term storage to allow the nastier stuff to dissipate (it's nastier because it's more energetic, and if it's more energetic then it can't last all that long) followed by vitrification of the remaining waste. This isn't to say that dealing with nuclear waste is utterly trivial, but neither is it the insoluble conundrum that anti-nuclear partisans like to try to portray it as.



If it's not an insoluble conundrum then maybe the nuclear industry should solve it _before_ they create any more nuclear waste. Because if they turn about to be wrong about how easy it is to safely get rid of the stuff, then we're in serious trouble. 

Also I'm not sure what sort of 'reprocessing' you're talking about but as far as I'm aware the half-life of a radioactive isotope is a constant.


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## coley (Sep 26, 2014)

SpookyFrank said:


> The tidal lagoon project in Swansea looks promising. It's not going to generate vast amounts of power by itself but it should help to demonstrate a concept that can be replicated or scaled up.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-26072805
Seems a fairly big generation project and another 5 like it would provide 10% of the UKs energy needs? Crack on and get them built and scrap Hinkley


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## NoXion (Sep 26, 2014)

co-op said:


> Are you saying you think nuclear is the answer to GHG?



I think that no single energy source is _the_ answer. Nuclear and the various renewables _both_ have their place because they have different advantages and disadvantages. For example, nuclear fission would be no good for Iceland because they are already more than self-sufficient from geothermal sources.



SpookyFrank said:


> If it's not an insoluble conundrum then maybe the nuclear industry should solve it _before_ they create any more nuclear waste. Because if they turn about to be wrong about how easy it is to safely get rid of the stuff, then we're in serious trouble.



Considering that widespread fossil fuel combustion has _already_ caused global changes that nuclear fission has yet to match, I'd say we're already in serious trouble. As for the future, nuclear waste is a lot more controllable than the waste products of fossil fuels, which are and have been released into the environment with nowhere near the same level of oversight.



> Also I'm not sure what sort of 'reprocessing' you're talking about but as far as I'm aware the half-life of a radioactive isotope is a constant.



But that does not mean the risks are constant. An isotope with a long half-life gives off less radioactive energy per pound per day than a radioisotope with a shorter half-life.


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## equationgirl (Sep 26, 2014)

coley said:


> Fair enough, my assumption was based on reps from UK coal stating most of their current problems were a result of The US dumping cheap coal onto EU markets as a result of gas fracking destabilising their markets.



Powder River Basin coal (known as PRB) is way cheaper than Appalachian coal (v good quality) by about 80% (http://www.eia.gov/coal/news_markets/) but apart from a trial at Drax back in 2010 I'm not aware of it being used in the UK. It is be being used elsewhere in Europe. Bear in mind you need more of it to get the same amount of power compared to Appalachian coal.


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## coley (Sep 26, 2014)

equationgirl said:


> Powder River Basin coal (known as PRB) is way cheaper than Appalachian coal (v good quality) by about 80% (http://www.eia.gov/coal/news_markets/) but apart from a trial at Drax back in 2010 I'm not aware of it being used in the UK. It is be being used elsewhere in Europe. Bear in mind you need more of it to get the same amount of power compared to Appalachian coal.



Just know we were having to stockpile OC product up here,as all he trains available were being used to distribute American coal arriving at Immingham.
A result of the US coal industry having a huge surplus due to the development of fracking


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## equationgirl (Sep 26, 2014)

coley said:


> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-26072805
> Seems a fairly big generation project and another 5 like it would provide 10% of the UKs energy needs? Crack on and get them built and scrap Hinkley


It's £850m for 320MW with a 120 year life, which in the scale of things isn't that much. Turning Longannet into the first full-scale carbon capture coal plant was estimated at £1.5bn for 2,400MW for an additional 30 year life, which is approximately 25% of the required generating capacity for Scotland's (if I've done the calculation correctly). Hinkley is estimated at £16bn for 3,200 MW and a 60 year life.

The cost per MW per year is therefore:
Tidal barrage swansea bay = £22,135/MW/year
Longannet CCS = £20,833/MW/year
Hinkley C = £83,333/MW/year

This is a crude comparison as many factors have been ignored, but it does show that CCS and tidal barrages are almost 25% cheaper than nuclear over the lifetime of the plant.


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## equationgirl (Sep 26, 2014)

coley said:


> Just know we were having to stockpile OC product up here,as all he trains available were being used to distribute American coal arriving at Immingham.
> A result of the US coal industry having a huge surplus due to the development of fracking


US coal is more widely used in Spain and other European countries than here as best I can tell, and is not without issues (can become sticky, and stick to parts of the combustion system you don't want it stuck to, causing a lot of damage).


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## coley (Sep 26, 2014)

equationgirl said:


> It's £850m for 320MW with a 120 year life, which in the scale of things isn't that much. Turning Longannet into the first full-scale carbon capture coal plant was estimated at £1.5bn for 2,400MW for an additional 30 year life, which is approximately 25% of the required generating capacity for Scotland's (if I've done the calculation correctly). Hinkley is estimated at £16bn for 3,200 MW and a 60 year life.
> 
> The cost per MW per year is therefore:
> Tidal barrage swansea bay = £22,135/MW/year
> ...



But CC has a lot of problems to overcome and nobody seems to think it is possible never mind economically viable, but the Swansea project seems to offer a real solution in a very short timescale, in fact it seems to be to good to be true, that's why I posted it up on E&S to see if those better informed could poke holes in it.


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## equationgirl (Sep 27, 2014)

coley said:


> But CC has a lot of problems to overcome and nobody seems to think it is possible never mind economically viable, but the Swansea project seems to offer a real solution in a very short timescale, in fact it seems to be to good to be true, that's why I posted it up on E&S to see if those better informed could poke holes in it.


It's been proven at smaller scale so it's definitely possible. Still a ways to go mind.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 27, 2014)

NoXion said:


> But that does not mean the risks are constant. An isotope with a long half-life gives off less radioactive energy per pound per day than a radioisotope with a shorter half-life.



Yes I know, but you seemed to be suggesting that there was some kind of reprocessing which could make nuclear waste more energetic so that it would be radioactive for a shorter time period. Which to me suggests that you're planning to shorten the half life of the stuff, not lengthen it.

It doesn't matter which of those you were suggesting though, because both are effectively impossible. You can't make something 'more energetic' without adding more energy. And the whole point of nuclear power is to take energy away from the fuel and use it in a different form somewhere else.

If we could make a given substance more energetic without the input of energy, then we'd have invented a way to make energy from thin air and we wouldn't be having this conversation because the whole issue would have been solved.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 27, 2014)

And 'not all that long' when you're talking about the decay of radioactive isotopes could still be hundreds if not thousands of years. And mostly those isotopes will decay into other radioactive elements, which will in turn decay to form other radioactive elements.

Uranium eventually decays into lead, oddly enough. But there are several intermediate stages and the whole process takes, IIRC, a non-trivial number of billions of years.


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## equationgirl (Sep 27, 2014)

co-op said:


> Meanwhile in other news, Heysham and Hartlepool are both going to be shut down for 2-3 months for checks so they won't be on-stream over the first half of the winter and the UK has lost 4% of its generation overnight.
> 
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-closed-until-winter-amid-blackout-fears.html
> 
> So much for nuclear's ability to "keep the lights on". When a nuclear plant has a shut down it's for months and it takes out a great bite of total production. They're inherently risky with regard to supply.


The boiler spine checks are required for safety reasons, because they were found in another plant of a similar design. The cracks aren't in the nuclear reactor. 

The problem with our generation capacity is due mainly to older plants being taken offline permanently under the constraints of the EC Large Plant Directive without replacement baseload capacity being built. New gas plants have been built but are now deemed uneconomic to run because of the price of gas.


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## co-op (Sep 28, 2014)

equationgirl said:


> The boiler spine checks are required for safety reasons, because they were found in another plant of a similar design. The cracks aren't in the nuclear reactor.
> .



I know. I didn't mention the reactor.

 My point is that when you have a problem with a nuclear plant it is (a) likely to remove a much larger chunk of capacity from the network, and (b) the plant shuts down for a much longer time than any other form of generation because the complexities of stopping and starting a nuclear plant. So nuclear plants (which have the same or greater risks of engineering issues) are inherently more problematic in terms of reliability - a.k.a. "keeping the lights on" than other forms of generation. 

When they have a problem, it's both bigger and longer. So they are more likely to lead to lights going out at some point in the future than the alternatives are.


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## SikhWarrioR (Sep 28, 2014)

Ah the benefits of allowing the so-called free market crapitalism to arrange your country's energy supply needs Instead of say a unified state owned system that plans ahead long term regarding such things as renewals or capacity upgrades using the most suitable generating technology and factors in such things as fuel supply and where it comes from and climate change. I can just imagine the the disaster that politicians make of running their country who think "The Market" can deliver a sustainable reliable energy supply 

Answers on a postcard to
Sikhwarrior
22 acacia avenue
Amritsar
Khalistan


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## coley (Sep 28, 2014)

SikhWarrioR said:


> Ah the benefits of allowing the so-called free market crapitalism to arrange your country's energy supply needs Instead of say a unified state owned system that plans ahead long term regarding such things as renewals or capacity upgrades using the most suitable generating technology and factors in such things as fuel supply and where it comes from and climate change. I can just imagine the the disaster that politicians make of running their country who think "The Market" can deliver a sustainable reliable energy supply
> 
> Answers on a postcard to
> Sikhwarrior
> ...


Wind farms, nuff said


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## tbtommyb (Sep 28, 2014)

I don't really get the arguments about nuclear waste, tbh. I understand that its initial creation is bad, but surely once one site is contaminated all you have to do is put all the rest there? we seem to have managed to store it ok so far.


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## coley (Sep 28, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> I don't really get the arguments about nuclear waste, tbh. I understand that its initial creation is bad, but surely once one site is contaminated all you have to do is put all the rest there? we seem to have managed to store it ok so far.



Costs millions to store it and who wants it?


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## Wilson (Sep 28, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> I don't really get the arguments about nuclear waste, tbh. I understand that its initial creation is bad, but surely once one site is contaminated all you have to do is put all the rest there? we seem to have managed to store it ok so far.



Aye, it's great! and if it does go wrong we can have a nice big wildlife area without any people in it.


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## tbtommyb (Sep 28, 2014)

coley said:


> Costs millions to store it and who wants it?


but once you're storing some any increase is a question of quantity rather than quality.


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## coley (Sep 28, 2014)

tbtommyb said:


> but once you're storing some any increase is a question of quantity rather than quality.


The " quantity" being the fissionable materiel itself and anything that has come close to it, a lot of stuff to be contained, accounted for and guarded for god knows how many years, and guess who picks up the bill?
Now, it's just an unqualified opinion but I suspect that a fraction of the money that is being proposed for Hinkley would find a solution to burning coal in an environmentally acceptable fashion.


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## coley (Sep 28, 2014)

Wilson said:


> Aye, it's great! and if it does go wrong we can have a nice big wildlife area without any people in it.



Chernobyl comes to mind


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## free spirit (Sep 28, 2014)

equationgirl said:


> The boiler spine checks are required for safety reasons, because they were found in another plant of a similar design. The cracks aren't in the nuclear reactor.
> 
> The problem with our generation capacity is due mainly to older plants being taken offline permanently under the constraints of the EC Large Plant Directive without replacement baseload capacity being built. New gas plants have been built but are now deemed uneconomic to run because of the price of gas.


I hesitate to challenge you on your specialist field, but the EC large plant directive isn't responsible for the plants being taken offline now as such, what was responsible for it was Osbourne implementing a carbon tax on generators that's ramping up each April, so several of the generators took the decision last year to use as many of their remaining hours up as possible while coal was cheap and before he carbon tax came in.

Without that tax the coal plants would mostly still have been available for winter peaking up to 2016 as per the original schedule.

I point this out because the government has been allowed to get off entirely with this by journalists blaming the LCPD for the closures, when it is actually their tax policy that nobody had really been calling for (as half the plants were closing down and on limited hours anyway), that has directly caused these early closures.

The other point being that it's not just the price of gas going up, but also the price of coal dropping significantly, which in turn was due to a glut of gas in the US that couldn't be exported, resulting in US gas plants replacing significant levels of coal generation, which then meant there was a sudden glut of US coal that could be exported to the world markets.

Gas prices have dropped recently, and last I looked there had been a significant swing back from coal to gas.


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