Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Democracy Now!"
channel.
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HEY DEMOCRACY NOW - Can you please STOP putting microphones in front of people who just repeat the same things again and again. IT DOES NOTHING TO FURTHER THE CONVERSATION.
I am an engineer and I have worked in the mining part of Australia's nuclear industry.
Vladimir Slivyak says the are 3 things to consider.
1) We need action on climate now. Yes this is correct but it has nothing to do with the viability of nuclear power its just a statement of fact. He also says at this point nuclear is slow to construct. This is also true for the traditional types of reactors like pressure water reactors. But this is misleading because there are more than one type of nuclear reactor and some take considerably longer to build that others. The EPR (European power Reactor) that was recently commissioned in Finland took 18 years to build but the 2 new EPRs at Hinkley Point in Britain will take 10 and the most recent CANDU (Canadian) style reactor built in China took 4 years.
2) Its risky technology that produces nuclear waste. First despite the spectacular accidents at 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear energy is responsible for far fewer deaths than coal. Yes nuclear power has risks but so does everything. If we can't use nuclear power because of the risks then we also have to ban all cars, truck, airplanes, plastics and pretty much everything else that makes the modern world the modern world because they all have risks and they all create pollution.
Yes spent nuclear fuel is dangerous to handle especially when it first comes out of the reactor because its still fairly active.
On the current generation of reactors. They are safer than they have ever been. There have been some harsh lessons from both Chernobyl and Fukushima that nobody wants repeated. As an engineer with formal safety system qualifications I can state that if the engineers are allowed to do their jobs properly then nuclear is safe. YES there is a BIG IF to that claim and has been show repeatedly in many industries if people are allowed to cut corners they will. Disasters like the Bhopal accident cannot be allowed to happen again and that is simply a matter of ENFORCING regulations and HOLDING MANAGERS ACCOUNTABLE.
3) He claims nuclear power is the most expensive of all energy sources and this is true BUT LIKE SO MANY he doesn't say by how much. He doesn't talk about the costs over time. For sure Nuclear is more expensive than wind and solar especially the initial construction costs. But if we replace coal fired plants with equivalent sized nuclear plants then the costs of upgrading the grid either does not exist or is much less. One genuine criticism of the wind/solar proponents is where are we going to get all the copper, aluminium, steel, zinc, and other materials needed to expand the energy grids out to where the wind turbines and solar panels are.
PLUS AND I NEVER HEAR pro-solar people discuss it, how do we dispose of or recycle the solar cells when they have reached the end of their useful life which is around 25 years.
PLUS AND I NEVER HEAR pro-wind power people discuss what we do with all of the worn out parts to the wind turbines because they DO NOT LAST FOREVER and they can be a major disposal issue.
WHAT PEOPEL LIKE Vladimir ARE NOT SAYING INCLUDE:
FIRST - We don't have enough of certain resources to even try and do the energy transition as its currently being done. Its not that the transition is impossible but WE NEED A BETTER PLAN and people like Vladimir keep repeating the same things because its all they have. They know they can't answer certain questions.
There are 1.5 Billion cars on the planet and 500 million trucks. The Tesla Model S uses 63kg of Lithium. If we try and replace all the cars with electric cars with the same methods we currently use we need around 94 million tons of Lithium. According to the US Geological Survey there's about 21 million tons in current reserves and by other estimates maybe 26 million tons.
That's before we try and answer we we'll get all the cobalt, nickel, copper and other metals needed to do the transition.
The simple fact is we need new energy storage technologies.
SECOND - there is a significant difference between the types of power that Wind/Solar and Nuclear deliver into a power grid. There's what engineers call BASE LOAD. This the power we need 24 hours a day 7 days a week just to keep society running. Nuclear is great for this because it can just run irrespective of what the weather is doing. Wind/Solar are not good for base load as they require storage systems.
Then there's what engineers call LOAD FOLLOWING, which is also called ON DEMAND and PEAKING. These are the energy demand swings that happen every day in the modern world. As people wake up in the morning they turn lots of things on. That settles down during the day before there's another surge as people go home and turn on lots more stuff.
In the traditional energy sector they have tended to build smaller power stations right next to much larger power stations. For an example look at the Loy Yang power station in my home stats of Victoria. Literally across the street is the Valley Power station which has a capacity of 300MW, which is less than 1/10th the capacity of Loy Yang. Loy yang is a large BASE LOAD power station which can be adjusted but its big and adjusts slowly. The Valley Power station has gas turbines which are the same basic technology as jet engines. They can be started and stopped reasonably quickly and can adjust to power needs quickly.
Nuclear is great for BASE LOAD because it can be there 24/7.
Wind/Solar is great for LOAD FOLLOWING because it can be started & stopped and adjusted quickly to handle the daily swings especially when combined with some storage.
THIRD and this really irks me because its the sort of thing people like Vladimir should be howling about. WHERE does anyone think they are getting the fuel for all these new reactors they talk about?
This subject in particular shows how IGN0RANT people like Vladimir really are. There's not as much Uranium as most people think. YES - there's a lot but it still has to be dug out of the ground and then processed into fuel. Canada is historically the largest producer of Uranium ore, but Australia has the largest reserves BUT THAT'S NOT THE REAL PROBLEM. Because of events like Chernobyl and Fukushima there's a WORLD WIDE SHORTAGE of processing facilities to turn the raw Uranium into fuel grade Uranium. America in particular has a shortage of processing capacity. At the moment 1 in 20 American homes is powered by Uranium that was enriched in RUSSIA because Russia still has spare capacity.
Despite all the publicity about sanctions the one thing America has NOT sanctioned is Russian fuel grade Uranium exports because without that supply America would be in trouble. So the anti-nuclear people SHOULD BE HIGHLIGHTING THIS and they aren't because they are IGNORANT.
And as long as the media keep handing the microphone over to IGN0RANT people we are screwed.
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