ph33r teh skies.....

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/fridaythe13th/


sorry but this is scaremongering at it's worst. it didn;t make me think it made me laugh - i take it that's not the desired effect.

 

Oh my god, greenpeace should be as ashamed as animal rights extremists.

 

it may be a bit OTT but it's a valid concern. IMO it's not a particularly convincing argument against nuclear power though.

 

haha it made me laugh aswell.

the cheap 'b movie' quality didn't help prevent that!

 

It's not a desperately valid concern, as nuclear reactor buildings and vessels are designed to withstand aircraft impact. Yes, of course it would take the powerplant offline. Would it lead to breach and release of radioactivity? Possibly a small amount of low-level activity (coolant for example), but it wouldn't result in the environmental disaster that is implicit.

 

The fact that Greenpeace have made a video like that really illustrates that the anti-nuclear power lobby are rapidly running out of arguments.

 

My main question is how sensible investment in fission is given the work on the ITER fusion reactor. Fusion is clearly a more viable long term solution (that will no doubt be tarred with the same brush as fission by the greenies).

 

i thought fusion was a bit of a non starter thanks to some kinks in the laws of thermodynamics or something i.e. you'd spend more energy than you generate in generating it. or is that old news?
i still recon big orbital mirrors / solar plants is the way to go - zero environmental impact and when the source runs out -well we'll have bigger things to worry about won;t we?

 

Agree with that Julian. I went to see a wind farm yesterday and am really sold on them. Amazing to see and really are one of the way forwards imo. It seems to be that with all the energy around us...waves, tides, wind, sun, geothermal, decomposition etc that it seems ludicrous to be trying to split or fuse fuse atoms in a (comparatively) high risk process. Anyone looking down on the earth from outside would think us foolish to be ignoring all the energy around us in favour of digging around for fossils to burn. We should be investing heavily in renewable energy to get systems that work efficiently to supply low risk energy in a clean, sustainable way.

 

they could make all the old north sea oil platforms into collectors for orbital satelites and run cables inside the pipes to storeage facilities. that way if the thing does wander off track it'll only boil a few tonnes of water before an automatic safety can shut it down.
then there's all that desert area that could be used too.
but no it requires a substantial up front investment so by the time we actually need it we won;t have any way of getting the beasts into orbit. that's forward thinking eh? human race? ya ****wits.

 

That anorak she's wearing is certainly scary!

 

Julian - The Q factor (ratio of power generated to power input required) of existing tokamaks has indeed been less than 1. However, some experiments have produced results that give a theoretical Q of 1.25. The ITER tokamak is hoped to have a Q of up to about 5 (generating 500MW and being able to self-sustain).

Also, you might be interested in reading about the proposed space elevator, which would allow transportation of much larger, heavier objects into space. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html

 

There's no doubt at all that a fusion reaction that puts out more energy than was put in is possible. That's what happens with H-bombs and is the way the sun works. The problem is being able to control it.

 

Indeed. However, if you lose control of it, you just shut down the fuel supply and it stops very quickly. There's maybe two grams of fuel in a tokamak at any one time as opposed to the tonnes of extremely radioactive fuel in a reactor. Unlike fission you can not have a runaway chain reaction, and it does not produce highly radioactive heavy elements, and the fuel is quite benign (Deuterium is only toxic in huge quantities, Tritium is a weak beta emitter that can not penetrate skin so is only dangerous if you breathe or swallow it). After the fusion process you're left with plain, ordinary helium. The main environmental concerns are over release of tritium, and the irradiation of the tokamak and surroundings by neutron flux (which is also the case for fission reactors), but these things are half-lives of tens of years, not thousands like fission.

It's not a perfect answer to our energy requirements. There isn't a perfect answer. I think it's the best bet.

 

If it can be done it's clearly the perfect answer, nothing like mimicing the sun to provide our energy.

 

Remind me to dig that one out when we have a chernobyl stylee event on uk soil...

 

Ahhh, the perfect way to PROVE beyond doubt that you don't know what you're talking about. A Chernobyl type event is impossible in western reactor designs.

 

IS IT?? I thought that there are a few similar-style reactors over here (very old ones) - wasn't Chernobyl a positive void magnox reactor? I thought that's what Hinkley Point A and B are(were) as well?

Mind you, Chernobyl only happened because some clueless dimwit shut down/overode the safety systems...