G'day Tord and Bob, I'm working from memory and rough estimates late at night so you may want to check my reasoning. If you believe the Uranium Information Council costings of $1500 - $2000 capital cost per kilowatt generating capacity then its highly unlikely that the embodied energy of a nuclear plant represents a significant contribution to CO2. You just couldn't buy enough energy with that kind of money to absorb the output of the plant. Where the real problem lies is in whether high grade or low grade ore is used to supply the uranium fuel. Low grade ore costs much more in energy to discover and mine than a non breeder reactor can produce whereas hi grade ore does allow a net positive energy production. Theres not much high grade ore around, most of it is in Australia! And there's only enough to supply all the world's energy needs for about 20 years or so. Fast breeder reactors can extend this to a thousand years and thorium reactors likewise several thousand. So if we can ever overcome the problems of nuclear proliferation Nuclear may have a useful role to play. Most strategies for the future rely on a mix of energy technologies including carbon sequestration for coal fired stations, biofuel, and most importantly solar and wind. Its way too late to think we can manage on solar and wind alone for the next several decades. Nuclear is still problematic from economic and of course weapons proliferation perspectives. I wouldn't advocate nuclear but I would advocate research into making it proliferation resistant. If you'd like to see why I think this in more detail you could try my web site: www.energysustained.com All the best and thanks for the discussion and thoughts, Peter ------- Original Message ------- On 7/2/2007 05:26 AM Tord Eriksson wrote:On Monday 02 July 2007 02:14, you wrote: > This is, prima facie, an utterly ridiculous statement. > > On 7/1/07, Tord Eriksson wrote: > > Learned a long time ago that you use more fossil fuel energy to > > build and run a nuclear reactor during its entire active life, than > > the electricity it produces! Oh, is it?! Considering the millions of tons concrete that is needed, and knowing how concrete is made, it sure uses up a lot of energy, plus all the metal, transports, et cetera, I am not that sure it isn't correct. But in those days a nuclear power station had a practical life of 20 years, now they more like 50, or more! But the older they get the more service they need, and the higher is the risk for something catstorphic to happen. What irritates me more is the conclusion that electric cars, boats, even planes (all three kind exist, as you probably know) are good for the environment, as the losses involved are massive (for instance charging batteries usually involve a 40% loss in the form of heat), and in most places the power stations feeding the battery chargers involved spews out massive amounts of CO2, NOX and sulphur (the latter two can be lessened by advanced technology, but just a minority of the world's powerplants have access to sulphur free fuel). Switching to only nuclear power would at least quaddruple (sp?) the number of nuclear plants needed, which in turn does the same with the risks and the amount of waste produced, that nobody wants to take care of. I'll applaud the day when all our energy needs come from wind power, photovoltaic power and solar panels for heating - we sure are a long way off! And in the event of war I want as few nuclear installations as possible, world wide, and I, for one, don't see a future where no nuclear countries (like Sverige (aka Sweden), La France, the US, et cetera) aren't involved in war (one way or other - Sweden has troops in Afghanistan - under US command), or exposed to terrorism (one's terrorist, the other's freedom fighter). What use of going paddling in a radioactive sea?! I will not, for sure, enjoy paddling in a dead sea, with no seals, no fish, no birds nor any whales! Tord S Eriksson, Sweden *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jul 02 2007 - 17:46:00 PDT
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