Nuclear Power - nein danke??

[malumbu]

Interesting after the great give away of the Royal Mail that Dave has announced a single new nuclear power station.

After we gave away British Gas and before we gave away CEGB, we had the vestiges of a national energy policy where profits (bearing in mind cheap coal) were kept by the State.

Thatch (RIP) was very pro nuke power (in part because she hated the miners and the nukes had helped keep the lights on during the miners' strike) and announced a new power station, based on Sizewell B, every year. Approval was given to an earlier Hinkley Point C in Sept 1990. By that time Thatch had done an about turn and decided that we would burn all of our gas instead, prior to this natural gas was not a fuel of choice for power genenertation. And boy are we paying for it now (it is not a free market you plonkers, it is driven by OPEC, Russian gangsters, and cold US winters).

Over 23 years later permission was given for a new HPC. In those 23 years a whole generation of UK nuclear engineers has not been replaced, together with the capability to build new plant. 23 years ago the UK still had one of the most advanced nuclear R&D capabilities, fuel fabrication and fuel processing. And earned zillions of yen. How ironic that the far East is now building the new power station for a French state electricity generator.

OK so post Thatch governments didn't help, the world turned away from nuclear energy etc etc. And that dick Andrew Neal (joined in by his side kicks) slagged off the nuke industry with no real knowledge of the subject. Yep loads of mistakes were made with a UK nuclear power programme that was linked to production of weapons, and couldn't decide on a unified reactor design. But we were ahead of the world in so many respects (similarly telecomms). Not just rose tinted specs.

[Salsaboy]

Nuclear power - only way to go in my view.

[woodrot]

the iron lady ( neither Iron nor a lady as Hitchens once said ) would hardly been cock a hoop over commies geting their genocidal fingers into the british grid

[numbers]

malumbu - you're right in that politicians took an anti-nuclear stance but this is because nuclear usually = no votes. So you're not going to go for the unpopular option in politics if you want to get elected.

I don't think Thatcher was pro-nuclear simply because she 'hated the miners' though, she was a scientist and there were plenty of influential scientists in government with a great understanding the technology, e.g. for one, Sir David King, former Govt Chief Scientist was/is pro-nuclear.

[StraferJack]

This David king?

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?27,790002,1182908#msg-1182908

[numbers]

Yes, SJ, the same one.

(And he made it very clear about the fact that the Guardian article should have said that fracking needs more research and proper regulations, and was not a warning against it).

[????]

The problem with people who do this on idealism is that they seem to think that buy just wishing it so it will be true. Renewables are absolutely, absolutely Miles away from creating enough energy for a 21st century economy. The left largely seems to want to take us back to the Stone Age, interestingly at the same time they keep banging on how we need a manufacturing renaissance (try doing that with an energy supply that.s breaking down) nuclear expensive and Fracking (potentially, note SJ) cheaper and less damaging than other carbon sources are the most realistic options, but no, not allowed them so we get idiots who think we can run our economy on wind farms and some tidal barriers: meanwhile carbon offsets give governments revenues (used on green technology development? Behave) are hedged by companies and poor old mug punter consumers get extortionate energy bills, how the US et all must be laughing at us as we burden our industries and people with additional expense for bogus token green efforts. Hampering companies with no control on their prices is really going to help future investment, are going broke states going to step in with tax payers money? All politics no sense because people don,t bother thinking about it just, what's the 'right' position here, fooking idiocy.

[woodrot]

You are Woodrow Wyatt ( the voice of reason ) AICM ?5

[StraferJack]

Whichever power source we use, we can still afford paragraphs

I'm not sure any nation which has closed itself down for several weeks is in any position to laugh at anyone either

[????]

Good luck in the Stone Age. Typical SJ response.

[StraferJack]

What makes you think my response is arguing with you. I might agree with much of what you say but given the intensity and density of the prose I thought I'd introduce some levity. Not a problem surely

[Marmora Man]

I used to transport a small nuclear reactor around with me that was capable of generating quote "enough power to support a small town". As a full nuclear submarine costs, roughly, ?1bn the reactor costs about ?500m. The expertise resides in UK - mostly at Rolls Royce Associates in Derby. The units would take little more room than a decent sized detached house.

The ?16bn Hinckly Point spend could fund 32 smaller units that could be churned out by RRA on an industrial scale pretty quickly. Would also create a second career for a bunch of my mates from the submarine world.

PS: Not sure why there was any need to reference Mrs Thatcher in this discussion - she's dead.

[steveo]

Interesting MM. I wonder how many houses a sub reactor might power? Do the sums work?

They could put one behind Iceland.

Of course it would need a bit of barbed wire but they could put a mural on it

[Sephiroth]

Who knew 7 years later it would be a tory govt with a large majority giving it the large one on wind power eh?

[KidKruger]

who knew 7 yrs later the Tory party would be carrying on with bluster and BS.

probably, we all did, if we'd thought about it.

"total wind power by 2030" ?

Please.

[SpringTime]

Salsaboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Nuclear power - only way to go in my view.

Windpower's alright though, isn't it? I know Dogger Bank's a sitting duck for offshore but given we're surrounded by sea may as well make the best of all of it that we can. Not a big fan of nuke even if the waste is apparently very low risk if properly stored (for a very long time - even when humans might not be around anymore). Those sites better be properly signposted for a million years. I don't much like nuclear plants anyway, windmills are much nicer!

[Sephiroth]

Clearly Johnson speech is a load of drivel. Not because wind power isn?t doable (I?m a wind power supporter) - it?s just he and his government havent got the attention or actual interest in doing it

And I didn?t revive this thread to discuss nuclear. It was just the one I remembered arguing about wind power in. And how weird it is that it was all warnings about miliband and labour that would lead us down a bad path

[malumbu]

Johnson didn't announce anything new.