Climate change and the impending apocalypse

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Originally Posted by Moulin Yarns

I assume these are deaths directly attributed to the pollution but the longer term effects of radiation mean the actual number of deaths due to radiation is difficult to enumerate.

And that's not taking into account the environmental damage. Soil and water courses polluted for decades if not centuries.

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Your mad if you think they are higher than the millions per year dying from coal and gas plus the heating up of the planet. Your talking about a disaster that happened almost 40 years ago from a plant built 60 years ago, neglected by the Soviets. Comparing it to new plants is like saying a Ford cortina is surely just as safe as a Tesla.

No soil and water is polluted in modern plants only 2% of waste needs deep storage which is done safely at a few sites. Its needs must, its an either or for some countries nuclear or heating up the planet. We are permanently destroying large areas of South America mining for the production of electric car batteries are the greens fighting that. No because its a problem we shift away from our country and also again needs must the planet is heating uncontrollably

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Originally Posted by lapsedhibee

How safe is the waste? :dunno:

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It needs buried for a very long time. The Finns seem to have the solution.


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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

No mining is.


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So mining uranium should be included in the impact of nuclear power

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Originally Posted by lapsedhibee

How safe is the waste? :dunno:

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Very safe nowadays. Vast majority processed and the small amount left over stored. Some waste from industry like arsenic and heavy mercury are eternally dangerous. We store much more dangerous substances like ricen and cyanide with less checks

All the long term nuclear waste the uk has ever made would fit in a half dozen shipping containers. The amount made each year getting less each year.

There's an environmental group replanet pushing us to try use nuclear waste as fuel, but its early days and little investment, governments would rather use fossils and pass the buck to the future

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Extract-energy-from-used-nuclear-fuel,-says-enviro

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Originally Posted by Kato

So mining uranium should be included in the impact of nuclear power

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Yes the same as mining for batteries a necessary evil. Its just infinitely better than burning fossil fuels

It should be said Scotland is really at the forefront of the change to net zero and renewable's. I've said it before Scotland really could be a green energy powerhouse in the future

No part of this argument is helped by fudging the facts.

There are pros and cons to all energy sources - renewables great, currently the technology isn't there re storage. Fossil fuels are finite, release side pollutants but can be stored, are convenient and we have existing infrastructure. Nuclear ISN'T clean - it creates hellish waste that continues to be radioactive for near enough forever and takes a fair bit of disposal, creates bucketloads of energy but you can't just plug a nuclear reactor into your car and go.

Common sense for me is to have a blend of all, accepting negatives of all whilst the technology for storage with renewables is established. We can argue all day long about the proportions of each.

I've been coming round to the way of thinking that only using much less in a world of finite resource is a genuinely sustainable way to go, yet we as a global population remain obsessed with growth. There's no way the rich and the powerful will agree to using less when they've "worked so hard" to earn the right to be as wasteful as they are though. You could argue that everyone who lives in "prosperous" countries like ours fall into this bracket.

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Originally Posted by Smartie

No part of this argument is helped by fudging the facts.

There are pros and cons to all energy sources - renewables great, currently the technology isn't there re storage. Fossil fuels are finite, release side pollutants but can be stored, are convenient and we have existing infrastructure. Nuclear ISN'T clean - it creates hellish waste that continues to be radioactive for near enough forever and takes a fair bit of disposal, creates bucketloads of energy but you can't just plug a nuclear reactor into your car and go.

Common sense for me is to have a blend of all, accepting negatives of all whilst the technology for storage with renewables is established. We can argue all day long about the proportions of each.

I've been coming round to the way of thinking that only using much less in a world of finite resource is a genuinely sustainable way to go, yet we as a global population remain obsessed with growth. There's no way the rich and the powerful will agree to using less when they've "worked so hard" to earn the right to be as wasteful as they are though. You could argue that everyone who lives in "prosperous" countries like ours fall into this bracket.

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Nuclear power produces electricity. You can literally plug that into your car.

I totally disagree that the only solution is to do less. And that kind of thinking stops real progress from happening.
By going green I think we can grow our economy and prosper.


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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

Nuclear power produces electricity. You can literally plug that into your car.

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How do you get the electricity produced from nuclear energy into your car? What exactly are you plugging in to the car?

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

How do you get the electricity produced from nuclear energy into your car? What exactly are you plugging in to the car?

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Urmm the plug?

As for mining for the metals required for EV batteries it’s worth remembering that these batteries are actually highly recyclable and already rates of recovery of the contents are above 60% and is expected to rise to upper 90’s over time.

Interestingly the US has recently put in some powerful incentives to encourage EV battery recycling which is prompting a mini gold rush in that area. Ultimately a very significant portion of EV batteries will contain recycled metals from ‘spent’ batteries…moving towards a closed loop process.

The EU is also bringing mandates for recycled content in EV batteries as well as looking to encourage more ‘in EU’ recycling (currently most of what is salvaged is shipped off to China).

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

Urmm the plug?

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In that case. Why not simply "plug in" the electricity produced from renewable's?

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

In that case. Why not simply "plug in" the electricity produced from renewable's?

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Because on some days we only produce 10% of our electricity needs. The shortfall is made up from burning gas and coal. Storage technology is decades away.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

Because on some days we only produce 10% of our electricity needs. The shortfall is made up from burning gas and coal. Storage technology is decades away.

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That's not the issue of storage though. Just as you can't efficiently store renewable energy in a battery and plug it into your car, you can't simply store nuclear energy in a battery and plug it into your car either.

There's a cool website from the national frid that shows uks energy make up right now. Be cool if Scotland did similar. Ours would be more renewable but similar although on some days renewables would be much lower

https://grid.iamkate.com/

17.0% fossil fuels
Coal 0.8%
Gas 16.2%

43.8% renewables
Solar 6.6%
Wind 36.9%
Hydroelectric 0.3%

19.4% other sources
Nuclear 15.9%
Biomass 3.5%

19.8% interconnectors
Belgium 3.3%
France 11.4%
Ireland −3.5%
Netherlands 3.6%
Norway 5.1%

0.0% storage
Pumped storage 0.0%
Battery storage 0%—

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

That's not the issue of storage though. Just as you can't efficiently store renewable energy in a battery and plug it into your car, you can't simply store nuclear energy in a battery and plug it into your car either.

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But it's a constant output we'd use it or sell it to Europe. The same can't be said for renewables.

The issue literally is storage on some days we produce more than 100% of our electricity needs from renewable's, we sell the extra rather than storing.

In our lowest day only 5% of our needs was from renewable's so we imported energy and burnt more gas and coal to keep the lights on. You need a number or sources

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

There's a cool website from the national frid that shows uks energy make up right now. Be cool if Scotland did similar. Ours would be more renewable but similar although on some days renewables would be much lower

https://grid.iamkate.com/

17.0% fossil fuels
Coal 0.8%
Gas 16.2%

43.8% renewables
Solar 6.6%
Wind 36.9%
Hydroelectric 0.3%

19.4% other sources
Nuclear 15.9%
Biomass 3.5%

19.8% interconnectors
Belgium 3.3%
France 11.4%
Ireland −3.5%
Netherlands 3.6%
Norway 5.1%

0.0% storage
Pumped storage 0.0%
Battery storage 0%—

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In a country that has an abundance of water, both in watercourses and lochs, we really should be producing more hydro power. There is a run of river hydro scheme running past my house ( about 50m away) but even old fashioned water wheels could be generating electricity 24/7 365 days a year.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

But it's a constant output we'd use it or sell it to Europe. The same can't be said for renewables.

The issue literally is storage on some days we produce more than 100% of our electricity needs from renewable's, we sell the extra rather than storing.

In our lowest day only 5% of our needs was from renewable's so we imported energy and burnt more gas and coal to keep the lights on. You need a number or sources

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That's all well and good. But it doesn't change that fact that you can't simply store a nuclear charged battery in a vehicle or any other appliance. The common misconception is that batteries contain electricity. But they don't. If that was the case, then it wouldn't matter if the electricity was originally generated from nuclear, renewables or coal, as electricity is electricity regardless of how it's produced. Instead, the batteries contain a method of generating electricity when power needs to be drawn from the battery. The battery itself is not a container for electricity, it contains the reaction required to produce it. You certainly wouldn't want a nuclear reaction going on in your car.

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

That's all well and good. But it doesn't change that fact that you can't simply store a nuclear charged battery in a vehicle or any other appliance. The common misconception is that batteries contain electricity. But they don't. If that was the case, then it wouldn't matter if the electricity was originally generated from nuclear, renewables or coal, as electricity is electricity regardless of how it's produced. Instead, the batteries contain a method of generating electricity when power needs to be drawn from the battery. The battery itself is not a container for electricity, it contains the reaction required to produce it. You certainly wouldn't want a nuclear reaction going on in your car.

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I’m not sure what your argument here is. I’m pretty sure most people are capable of understanding the chemistry of how a battery works.

Just as most people are capable of understanding that charging a car using electricity that has been generated via nuclear or renewables is therefore charging your car without there having been the need to burn fossil fuels.

Also there has been a few comments re grid level storage for renewables being ‘years away’..to some degree that’s true but only to some degree. The increase in operational storage over the last 5 years is substantial but nothing like what’s already in the works. Here’s a very good summary of the scale of what’s being put in place:

https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/b...%20of%20617MWh.

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

I’m not sure what your argument here is. I’m pretty sure most people are capable of understanding the chemistry of how a battery works.

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Being capable of understanding isn't the same as understanding. Most people simply don't think about how these things work because they don't really need to. This can cause people to arrive at common misconceptions. I'm not really making an argument. I was simply correcting a point about electricity being stored in a battery from nuclear energy.

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

That's all well and good. But it doesn't change that fact that you can't simply store a nuclear charged battery in a vehicle or any other appliance. The common misconception is that batteries contain electricity. But they don't. If that was the case, then it wouldn't matter if the electricity was originally generated from nuclear, renewables or coal, as electricity is electricity regardless of how it's produced. Instead, the batteries contain a method of generating electricity when power needs to be drawn from the battery. The battery itself is not a container for electricity, it contains the reaction required to produce it. You certainly wouldn't want a nuclear reaction going on in your car.

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This is wild stuff. The electricity generated from nuclear power comes from steam turning turbines that creates electricity. That is then sent to the grid to power homes and yes cars. The electricity isn't nuclear

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

That's all well and good. But it doesn't change that fact that you can't simply store a nuclear charged battery in a vehicle or any other appliance. The common misconception is that batteries contain electricity. But they don't. If that was the case, then it wouldn't matter if the electricity was originally generated from nuclear, renewables or coal, as electricity is electricity regardless of how it's produced. Instead, the batteries contain a method of generating electricity when power needs to be drawn from the battery. The battery itself is not a container for electricity, it contains the reaction required to produce it. You certainly wouldn't want a nuclear reaction going on in your car.

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Pretty sure that's incorrect

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Originally Posted by HarpOnHibee

Being capable of understanding isn't the same as understanding. Most people simply don't think about how these things work because they don't really need to. This can cause people to arrive at common misconceptions. I'm not really making an argument. I was simply correcting a point about electricity being stored in a battery from nuclear energy.

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But to charge a battery you need electricity. The technicalities of storage / discharge is neither here nor there to the point you were addressing.

Quite simply the point was that if the electricity used to charge the EV had been produced by a nuclear plant then then there would have been no fossil fuels burnt in that process. You seemed to suggest that point needed corrected when it’s rather unclear as to why you thought that.

No one was saying using electricity from a nuclear plant meant you ended up with a nuclear powered car!

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

No one was saying using electricity from a nuclear plant meant you ended up with a nuclear powered car!

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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f92721678e.jpg

That could lead to all sort of trouble.[emoji6]


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Originally Posted by Moulin Yarns

In a country that has an abundance of water, both in watercourses and lochs, we really should be producing more hydro power. There is a run of river hydro scheme running past my house ( about 50m away) but even old fashioned water wheels could be generating electricity 24/7 365 days a year.

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Problem with big Hydro is (oddly) the environmental impact. You need somewhere to store the water and creating that can have significant impact on the existing environment.

Run of river has similar problems with the marine life etc but as these are normally much smaller installations they can have more local solutions.

The problem with run of river tho is that as they are smaller you would need a hell of a lot of them to make a significant contribution. They also all need substantial connections to get their power to the masses.

So while hydro makes sense and on the surface is green and renewable it’s not without its own issues (which is probably why we have not seen much major hydro development in the U.K. for many years…the planning issues are substantial).

For me the most obvious solution is nuclear for base load and offshore wind and onshore solar (with the appropriate storage) covering off the renewables.

I’d bin the suspect ‘green’ biomass of the likes of Drax (not to be confused with the near closed loop bio generators…these tho are like run of river are very difficult to scale to any meaningful level but very good for syngas and thus decarbonising gas use) and have a very small number of stand by gas peakers.

Coupled with ever more efficient and greater capacity interconnectors with the continent and the Nordic’s it’s pretty much job done…dunno what all the fuss is about really [emoji1787]

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Originally Posted by RyeSloan

Problem with big Hydro is (oddly) the environmental impact. You need somewhere to store the water and creating that can have significant impact on the existing environment.

Run of river has similar problems with the marine life etc but as these are normally much smaller installations they can have more local solutions.

The problem with run of river tho is that as they are smaller you would need a hell of a lot of them to make a significant contribution. They also all need substantial connections to get their power to the masses.

So while hydro makes sense and on the surface is green and renewable it’s not without its own issues (which is probably why we have not seen much major hydro development in the U.K. for many years…the planning issues are substantial).

For me the most obvious solution is nuclear for base load and offshore wind and onshore solar (with the appropriate storage) covering off the renewables.

I’d bin the suspect ‘green’ biomass of the likes of Drax (not to be confused with the near closed loop bio generators…these tho are like run of river are very difficult to scale to any meaningful level but very good for syngas and thus decarbonising gas use) and have a very small number of stand by gas peakers.

Coupled with ever more efficient and greater capacity interconnectors with the continent and the Nordic’s it’s pretty much job done…dunno what all the fuss is about really [emoji1787]

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Aye but what about water wheels every half mile down the Water of Leith? 😉


On the hydro storage, I believe that Loch Faskally is to be drained for repairs to pitlochry dam. Looking forward to seeing it.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/s...-b2379404.html


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https://twitter.com/ianhall_cu/statu...dxJXScFNwz8V4A


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It’s Labour who will be introducing the Ulez in Edinburgh next year. Do you think Starmer might step in and tell them to can it? It’s going to be right in the run up to the election.


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https://twitter.com/hank_chief/statu...dxJXScFNwz8V4A


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Originally Posted by Ozyhibby

https://twitter.com/hank_chief/statu...dxJXScFNwz8V4A


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Surely caught on camera ha, weirdos out there