Nuclear Power for Ireland debate

[pete]

Ah yeah but that English nuclear power, we don't mind them having the problems. It'll never effect us..

I wonder what the chance that we actually get electricity from Sellafield. That would open a can of worms.

I think the ESB should give me an option of choosing different power sources (oil, gas, peat, wind, nuclear) with price be unit next to it so I can make informed choice.

[BohsPartisan]

I wonder what the chance that we actually get electricity from Sellafield. That would open a can of worms.

I think the ESB should give me an option of choosing different power sources (oil, gas, peat, wind, nuclear) with price be unit next to it so I can make informed choice.

I'm sure there would be logistical difficulties to that. The electricity supply for your whole area probably comes from one source and it would be difficult to let individuals choose. You'd have loads of different types of powerlines everywhere.

[Macy]

I wonder what the chance that we actually get electricity from Sellafield. That would open a can of worms.

We do. We get power from the UK National Grid, which gets a significant portion of it's electricity from Nuclear sources.

I think the ESB should give me an option of choosing different power sources (oil, gas, peat, wind, nuclear) with price be unit next to it so I can make informed choice.

What, they should run seperate networks for the different sources? As that's the only way you can genuinely make that choice (as with the UK link up, once it's in the grid, there's no way of differentiating).

[dahamsta]

There's no truce because there's no war Student Mullet, all I'm doing here is highlighting a nonsensical statement being used to distract from the real issue.

Your answer to the question simply reiterates that statement and ignores valid commentary being put forward telling you that alternatives are in fact available. Another poster in this thread has even listed alteratives for you -alternatives I've seen with my own eyes - but rather than try to refute these, you focus and evade. All phoney right-wing tactics that achieve nothing bar frustration of a legitimate debate.

Answer the question you were asked: How does suggesting that our options are "nuclear or nothing" contribute reasonable to this debate? The assertion is simply ridiculous, if not an outright lie.

adam

[BohsPartisan]

Some alternatives:
Fusion

Wind

Wave

There are some other ones which I'll try an find later that I read about in New Scientist.

[dahamsta]

It's worth noting that other alternatives, while not viable in Ireland for energy generation, could and do contribute in terms of energy saving, thus reducing reliance. Solar is already being used to power roadside signs and emergency telephones on motorways, for example.

Energy policy has a lot to answer for too. In some southern US states it's possible to generate your own power and feed surpluses back into the grid, to effectively roll your meter back. Because alternatives like solar are efficient in many of these locations, some individuals have become net contributors.

adam

[Student Mullet]

Some alternatives:
Fusion

Wind

Wave

There are some other ones which I'll try an find later that I read about in New Scientist.

The thing these all have in common is that they're not yet invented. Wind is the most advanced and it's still a long way from being able to provide the bulk of our energy. I'll stand by my opinion that the best thing to do at the moment is to wait a few years to see what advances are made and take another look at the nuclear option if none of the above (or anything else) provides an alternative.

Answer the question you were asked: How does suggesting that our options are "nuclear or nothing" contribute reasonable to this debate? The assertion is simply ridiculous, if not an outright lie.

I never said our options are "all or nothing" I said if they become "all or nothing", which has a different meaning. I'm happy to stand over my statement.

[dahamsta]

Feel free to stand by it, it doesn't stop it being nonsense, no matter how you try to define it. Trying to suggest that wind energy is yet to be invented is another nonsense, as is trying to suggest that alternatives need to generate a bulk of our energy on their own.

You haven't come up with a single logical, helpful or even reasonable comment in this thread, so yet again I have to ask: Why do you even bother? Don't you have something better to do? Aren't you just trolling when you get right down to it? How about just sticking to football?

adam

[Student Mullet]

The wind turbines being used currently cannot provide more than about 15% of our electricity needs, this is for reasons I have explained on these bords before and I'd be happy to dig up the post for you. You may recall that the ESB recently put a moratorium on new wind power being connected to the grid and they are now very strict over where and when it can be added. No combination of non nuclear/fossel fuel sources currently available can make up 100% of our needs.

This is why I say that nuclear is currently the only alternative to fossel fuels, the statement is not nonsence and I stand by it.

[First]

Just a thought that struck me while reading through the thread, how would the US feel if little old Ireland started a nuclear program.

Also we as a nation have been complaining about Sellafield for years and the threat it is to our shores , especially the east coast. This really came to my notice after Chernobyl , up to that point the only thing I knew about nuclear was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I think I'll stick to the turf from the bog at the back of my house, theres enough there to keep a few more generations of "Firsts" going. After that who the **** knows we'll probably have left the planet behind like the litter I see all over the streets of the towns of Ireland.

[BohsPartisan]

The thing these all have in common is that they're not yet invented.

The problem is they do not recieve adequate funding. One of the problems is that governments generally get their "advice" from people with vested interests in stopping any of these alternatives getting off the ground. If you take the European round table of industrialists for example, they provide the personel for many "think-tanks" throughout Europe that influence government policies. These people are in the main from the boards of oil firms, nuclear energy companies, the automobile industry etc.
I actually partially agree with SM in that on the basis of the profit system, there seems little hope of developing any of these alternatives on a mass scale. However that just increases the urgency of getting rid of the system and replacing it with one where the vast wealth of the planet is put to work serving the needs of the population of the planet rather than making a small minority of the population extremely wealthy. Scientists should be able to come to governments with proposals for energy provision and governments should allocate funding on the basis of efficiency, effect on environment etc. not on the basis of how much money can be made out of it. Then the vast sums of money that are spent on killing via the arms trade, or is wasted due to excessive advertising (circa one trillion dollars a year is spent on advertising) could be put to developing clean, renewable energy. IMO that is the only alternative to environmental disaster.

Planning Green Growth, A Socialist contribution to the debate on Environmental Sustainability By Pete Dickinson

[paul_oshea]

slightly off topic, but don't GM/Shell (have a pact) have the patent to electric cars and something else, and they have set a stupid price for use of this patent, to stop research (from rival companies etc )into these areas of transport powered by other means/sources?

[BohsPartisan]

Yeah heard something like that alright.

[Bald Student]

The problem is they (alternative energy sources) do not recieve adequate funding.

Amen brother,
The fundamentals of some of them are correct. Taking wind energy as the best example, you hook a turbine up to the sky and collect as much free energy as you need.
Mullet is correct to say that there are problems outstanding. Examples are, how to regulate the frequency or regularity* of the electricity coming from the turbines but these are engineering problems rather than fundamental scientific ones. Engineering problems like these are generally solvable, the only variable being how much money it costs to solve them.
So, in conclusion, nuclear power will almost certainly not be needed in Ireland because we should soon have a free and clean source of power available to us but it might prove to be a useful technology for mankind to have in case we ever need to power a space ship or something like that in the future.


*The Science Bit:
Frequency; all ac electricity has a frequency. In Europe it's 50 units and in Americal it's 60. You'll notice this marked as Hz on the back of plugs in your house. Wind turbines have the annoying property that they don't produce electricity at the same frequency as the rest of the generators in the country. This is what's currently stopping the ESB from putting more wind power onto the Irish grid, the differing frequencies can only be tolerated up to a certain point. This problem is not insurmountable and there are certainly low-tech solutions to it but there are currently a lot of people working on better ones, including a research group in UCD.

Relyability; this is the less sciencey one. The electric grid cannot store electricity. At any given time, the amount of electricity used must equal the amount generated. Wind power output varies a lot so a relyable method is needed to store the excess untill there is a shortfall. At the moment, the state of the art is to pump water up and down a hill. We have one such plant in Wicklow already and if the country does eventually turn to wind power we'll probably need a few more, not too big a deal.

[Aberdonian Stu]

I'm not under any spell by my right wing masters etc but I feel the nuclear option (pardon the pun, and the corniness if you don't see the pun) should be researched.

I feel that ignoring any option, be it wind, water or nuclear, would be negligent. We will run out of oil. That is something I believe nobody doubts (if you do, please feel free to offer a reason why). We must, therefore, explore the alternative options available.

Limiting research now on any of these fields can only open us up to harm in the long run. While things might well work out with other options surely it makes sense to examine all sources including nuclear power just in case they don't.

I agree with the posters who argue other formats need more funding. They do.

Our fears about implementation should not stop research in the field, if anything they should aid that research in order to find the safest form of development.

[John83]

Fusion? *sniggers*

There isn't a viable other option at the moment. As coal and gas get more expensive to obtain, and peat begins to run out, we'll have some serious questions to answer. And the guy who suggests running the entire grid off of wind farms and water storage faculitities will get an exasperated look from the ESB's engineers before they throw him out to let the people who know what they're talking about discuss the underfunded mess they're in.

[BohsPartisan]

Fusion? *sniggers*

.

Great arguement mate. You really got me there.

There isn't a viable other option at the moment.

Which is why we've been saying that research into alternatives need to be givien adequate funding.

[ccfcman]

StudentMullet there are huge options in renewable energies, not just nuclear.

Wind and Sea power are never going to run out on us

It does **** me right off that everyone seems to think its right to complain about wind farms, simply as they are an eyesore and create too much noise. Personally I think they look awesome and having stoood underneath one [with much trepedation] admittedly they are noisey from within 200 metrers, but seeing as the other option is to sear a hole in the ozone layer and melt some ice I'd rather see loads of white poles around the place

Horse one into my back garden if ye want eirtricity

[BohsPartisan]

Yeah, I've seen them up mountains in Crete and they look great.

[ccfcman]

There's a load of 'em in Clare as well, I suppose they'd get tiresome after a while, with an exclusion zone, they could be a good way of farmers making an extra few bob [as if they flippin' need it]