Perceptions of nuclear risks

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  • A fair bit of the variability in renewable generation is smoothed out by a variety of generating methods, and a large scale network - it's going to be unusual circumstances if there's no wind, at night without any waves that would bring generation from wind, solar and wave to near zero. Which reduces the need for battery (or other) storage.

    Add to that smart utilisation which recognises some energy uses can be turned up or down (that might be water supply companies pumping water to reservoirs when there's excess power and stopping the pumps when demand elsewhere is greater - on a smaller scale office buildings which use immersion heaters and storage for hot water, if you accept that there may be times when the water from the tap isn't as hot you don't need to always maintain the temperature in the tanks). Which, again, reduces the need for storage.

    There are also schemes for people with EVs for them to charge when there's excess capacity, and even return some power to the grid when needed. Most newer domestic solar or wind systems already include a battery pack, which could conceivably be included in the storage mix.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Excellent news. Seems that the UK will have a nuclear powered backbone.

    I'll wager you a bottle of fine claret that it either takes longer than 10 years to build, or goes over its £20bn estimate
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Excellent news. Seems that the UK will have a nuclear powered backbone.

    I'll wager you a bottle of fine claret that it either takes longer than 10 years to build, or goes over its £20bn estimate

    Why not both?
  • I'm in a generous mood :wink:
  • I'm sure it will, not a problem. It's still worth it.
  • In case anyone missed the news, Europe's newest reactor, at Astravyets in Belarus, went on line on the 2nd of November with an opening ceremony on the 6th (with the self-appointed president of Belarus doing the honours). The 8th of November, and it shut down after an explosion in the transformers. I think less than a week of operation before there's an accident has set some sort of record.
  • In case anyone missed the news, Europe's newest reactor, at Astravyets in Belarus, went on line on the 2nd of November with an opening ceremony on the 6th (with the self-appointed president of Belarus doing the honours). The 8th of November, and it shut down after an explosion in the transformers. I think less than a week of operation before there's an accident has set some sort of record.

    Would there have been risk to the electricity supply to the reactor? One would assume not as it didn't melt down. So not a nuclear accident.
  • It would have forced the reactor to shut down and for the emergency generators to kick in. It was the first domino in a line that can lead to a more serious accident should those emergency generators fail. In this case the next domino didn't topple.

    It will now take a few weeks to restart (partly time to repair the transformers, but also there'll need to be time for various short lived fission products to decay) during which time it'll be using fossil fuels to keep pumps running rather than generating zero-carbon electricity.
  • One of those failure curve things? I suppose one imagines that with something nuclear, everything that can, goes in already soak-tested. Maybe not with a really big transformer, where finding a test supply (and load!) might be a bit of a big deal.
  • It would have forced the reactor to shut down and for the emergency generators to kick in. It was the first domino in a line that can lead to a more serious accident should those emergency generators fail. In this case the next domino didn't topple.

    It will now take a few weeks to restart (partly time to repair the transformers, but also there'll need to be time for various short lived fission products to decay) during which time it'll be using fossil fuels to keep pumps running rather than generating zero-carbon electricity.

    Doesn't build confidence does it? Shit transformers (whose?) implies shit backup generators.
  • Perhaps that's not really true. We don't know why the transformer failed (materials, construction, wrongly specified, failure of another system altogether which resulted in transformer failure?), we don't know who made it, and we don't know anything at all about the backup generators, except the absence of an emergency implies they work.


  • Perhaps that's not really true. We don't know why the transformer failed (materials, construction, wrongly specified, failure of another system altogether which resulted in transformer failure?), we don't know who made it, and we don't know anything at all about the backup generators, except the absence of an emergency implies they work.


    Of course, but there's a quality issue implied? As in the other 30 odd hundred million dollar / multiple fatality events. Over a third of which happened in the US, the last less than 20 years ago. There was nearly another Chernobyl 3 years later in Spain. Will this one make the grade? If it's offline long enough? Am I flipping? Nope.
  • Well, things certainly do fail; that's why we spend so much on backup systems which we hope never to use. I wonder if anyone has bought the (extremely) low-mileage backup diesel plant from the Wylfa.
  • Are the backup systems redundant and asymmetric as they are in aircraft?
  • They should be - there should be multiple diesel generators, with one or more of them able to fail without risking a more catastrophic accident, there should also be a battery system that can run the pumps for a while which gives a bit of time for the emergency generators to kick in. It's a new site, so hopefully they learnt the lessons of Fukushima and spread the emergency systems around the site, so that a single event couldn't take out all the emergency systems in one go.
  • Which is remarkable as the aviation industry learned the hard way decades ago. It always lead the way in learning from mistakes, for obvious reasons. A hundred or three or six at a time.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Hopefully there aren't such howling '70s schoolboy engineering errors as this in any nuclear installation. Nobody went to jail for this as far as I can see.
  • I spent a happy hour reading about airliner crashes - thanks :smile: Two of the Japanese maintenance managers / engineers associated with that failure killed themselves in the aftermath of the event.
  • ThunderBunkThunderBunk Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    .
  • I spent a happy hour reading about airliner crashes - thanks :smile: Two of the Japanese maintenance managers / engineers associated with that failure killed themselves in the aftermath of the event.

    Yeah, nothing like airliner crashes. Apart from tsunami, damn breaks, landslides, Puff the Magic Dragon, BLEVEs... And you know the real head spinning horror don't you? The one in that blind spot. And how terribly culturally... deterministic. Poor buggers. So how do you ensure that an unquestionable sign-off authority has done his job? In the nuclear industry? Transparency? Publish the entire process?
  • A much bigger risk is that of a global nuclear war.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Between whom? Quantifiable how? Nothing touches climate change.
  • undead_rat wrote: »
    A much bigger risk is that of a global nuclear war.
    While it's undeniably true that far more nuclear weapons have been detonated than there have been accidents at nuclear power plants, and their cumulative releases of radionuclides exceeds the releases from nuclear power accidents, and there have been several accidents involving nuclear weapons, that doesn't mean the risk of global nuclear war is high.

    The consequences of a global nuclear war are catastrophic, far in excess of the consequences of a nuclear power station melt down, but the chances of such an event are much lower. Though, the risks associated with nuclear weapons are non-zero - the highest probability events relate to production of weapons grade material, followed by testing and accidents with nuclear weapons, actual use of them is lower down the risk table. Of those more common events, the impact of testing is probably highest, especially atmospheric testing (which is currently banned) but underground tests still risk release of activity into the wider environment. Mining and production risk localised contamination, plutonium production runs similar risks to nuclear power production and fuel recycling. Accidents involving nuclear weapons are common, but the consequences are likely to be small and highly localised.

    Though, as risks are justified by benefits the question becomes what benefits nuclear weapons provide and are they worth the risks? As I see no benefit to nuclear weapons then there's no justification for the risks.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    No nuclear powers have gone to war with each other. Neither India nor Pakistan will ever disarm. Let alone the US, Russia, China. Those nations would have to cease to exist first.
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