Debate: Does the world need Nuclear Energy?

Personaly I think it's absolute madness even to concider it ..especialy when there 'are' alternatives.

Read this Russian girls interesting story about Chernobyl and look at the pictures, compare the UK to the size of the Area affected ......and remember the Chernobyl disaster isnt over... it's going to last for centuries.

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

The main problem with nuclear energy, which is often overlooked, is that the amount of energy devoted to: Obtaining uranium; constructing the plant; distributing the electricity; and decommissioning the plant, is equivalent to the amount of energy produced. In effect nuclear energy produces no extra energy. So what is the point?

One of the issues with other options is the NIMBY nature in the country that slows down building of other choices, that and we rapidly need more generating capacity to stop the lights going off in a few years time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212744/Blackouts-2016-unless-Br...

As such, I think nuclear is sadly our best option for now, but I would like to see less use of it made in the future on the grounds of safety.

My vague understanding is that nuclear power produces more energy that it consumes building it in the first place, but I would be interested to see any evidence that goes against that thought and looks at the true cost of power generation. (Particularly if it includes other choices so we can more easily see what are the cheapest option.)

If we built our own power plants, this could help avoid the need for the government to build more nuclear plants.

I'm quite keen on solar, wood burning and geothermal plants myself.

And if we have to have nuclear, the best safe plant designs we can come up with, and the least polluting options. (As such, I'm for some types of fusion on that ground, or better fission reactor designs.)

Depending on which type of nuclear power plants being discussed, I'd normally say no to fission and yes to fusion. However their is actually a third option currently being looked into -I read about it in New Scientist- which is a hybrid between the two.

The reason for a hybrid reactor does need an amount of explanation, fission reactors are the ones currently in use, the split atoms to release energy, however the consequence of this is that they do produce harmful radioactive materials - some of which can last thousands of years. On the other hand a fusion reactor collides nuclei together to form heavier elements, and produce energy in doing so. However the issues with these reactors so far known include: neutron leakage (which would eventually destroy the reactor), high initiation energy and just how long that an amount of fuel can last before it needs replacing.

The third hybrid option utilises the advantages of both systems to cancel out their downsides. From what I know the hybrid uses a fusion core inside a fission exterior, this means that the neutron leakage from fusion is absorbed by the fission reaction, that any radioactive materials left over from the fission reaction are destroyed/absorbed by the fusion reaction and also it means that basically the two reactions keep each other going, best of all is that so far there is no known flaws about running the hybrid reaction, you just get clean energy that can last for a long time.
Certainly something worth investigating!

Gravedigger, I cant see how that can possibly be correct, the entire civilised world would not have invested so much time and effort without bothering to pick up a calculator first to find out whether what they were doing would actually yield a positive energy budget.

mattyhex, clean nuclear fusion is a very exciting prospect, the idea of a hybrid plant that actually makes it possible is new to me thanks very much for sharing it.

A very exciting alternative is the Space based solar power project which proposes the collection of solar energy using satellites and its transmission to earth using microwaves. It is possible using existing technology and would completely satiate the entire worlds energy needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_based_solar_power

This would remove the need for uranium mines, nuclear reactors the whole shooting match. It's not implemented due to cost restrictions but I think it is more to do with the fact that you cannot charge very much for abundant readily available energy, so it is not profitable and we come back to the absurdity of the monetary system.

So in short no, in my oppinion nuclear power isn't necessary.

The early reasons for nuclear reactors was to supply material for atomic bombs, so there was no need to make them profitable so to speak..

Its not clear to me the current costs of nuclear power generation involving the full life cycle, but it woudln't suprise me that its not as cheap as they might like to make out once you factor into it everything.

Hi all, there's a thing I have been giving a lots of thought lately. I am not originally from UK which is a country that has a lot of potential for many sources of clean energy. Place where I come from (Czech Republic) is deep inland, with no major rivers, unreliable sunlight, lack of strong wind and absolutely no volcanoes. As you all know the good old Europe is tectonically pretty much dead. So without chance of harnessing wind, sun, water or geothermal I have to think what is left? Currently there are two nuclear plants and a large number conventional coal plants poisoning the climate. There is also a tendency to build solar (EU regulation) but it tends to take up a lot of land and irritate people because of it looks and costs. It's input to the grid is unsteady because we have nice long summers but for the rest of the year they're useless. So what is the alternative for places such as my country? The hybrid nuclear sounds good but is it a viable solution for the near future or is it just in a sketch phase? I am sure there must be lots of such places on Earth just like CR and the question is, are there really any "clean" options available for them?

I don't see why geothermal is out offhand, you just need to drill deep enough down for the heat, one will get there eventually!

Are people really upset by the look of solar panels ?

Wind turbines I can understand with them sticking up a large amount, and the noise, but solar ?

http://www.powertubeinc.com is my current favourite geothermal tech solution.

Solar towers are a new (ish) technology that has been used in a prototype setup in Spain succesfully in Spain for 7 years (1982-1989) and the company 'Envirovision' are working on building projects in Australia and the U.S (New South Wales and Arizona respectively) as well as eventually using it as a clean solution for Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower

http://www.enviromission.com.au/EVM/content/home.html

Have a look at the "Our Technical Reality" video series on TVP website / Youtube. We already have the technology to produce all the energy we need from renewables.