Did you see the report that boilers sales are to stop 2025

[D_W]

Modern reactors are capable of load following, although I suppose that comes with some wear and tear, as with any process. So it is always going to be better to run them full tilt and covert the excess to hydrogen.

In the 60s a reactor called the SLOWPOKE was developed in Canada by AECL. I believe its power output was in the 10s of kilowatts for the early ones which they then increased to a few megawatts for use as a district heating. They were passively cooled, used light water, and had several other inherent safety features, such as the reaction slowing if the water gets too hot or forms voids. They were designed to run unmanned.

Despite meeting all their design goals, they didn't sell many, so they are mostly used for research.

Presumably their power generation wasn't particularly cost effective, just as we're seeing with the mature nuclear industry in the United states?

 

[Billy_wizz]

A healthy skepticism is necessary, this is a complex topic.
However climate change is such a threat to global economics, with so much at stake, that a huge amount of very reliable data is available, funded by governments that need to know the facts. The data published by NOAA (US government) is based on precise satellite measurements. A whole series of satellites have been specifically launched to measure climate change including sea level radar measurements. Over the past 20 years teams of researchers have pored over past data, collating different data sources, such as direct measurements made by squires in Rutland in the 18th century to tree ring data, ice core samples and geological beds of flora and fauna. Ice cores from the artic have been taken to measure past CO2 concentrations. This corpus of data is now pretty robust. Bear in mind this is tough for governments, they are having to spend tax £/$ on the problem and they would rather not, so there is a lot riding on getting a consensus round the underlying data.

There are solid reasons to trust the data, however the models of climate change are an interpretation of the data and so judgement is needed on how robust the various modeling and predictions are. Scientific models improve with time as more factors get considered. Over the past 10 years the climate models have developed considerable, the big gap until 2010 was properly modeling the energy absorbed by the sea. Understanding how the sea absorbs and emits energy during the seasons and el nino cycles. That is better understood now and the models fit the data pretty well in terms of temperature.

A big uncertainty and my biggest worry is how to related temperature rise with ice melting and sea rise. There is still uncertainty about it. I saw a lecture by a geologist who had rock samples from millions of years ago when CO2 levels were about what they are today, and the sea was 30 metres higher than today. A worry is that we are seeing a lag in sea level rise due to inertia, or hysteresis, its like when you defrost your fridge, nothing happens for a long time as the air warms the ice and all of a sudden it melts in a big flood. This aspect of climate change is still poorly understood, and we may be in for a terrible shock if the sea continues to melt even after we have stabilised the temperature.

I think we as citizens should be questioning of what we read on climate change, in my experience there tend to be too extreme reactions - those who worry about potential future catastrophe and want immediate early action as a precaution - the early adopters, and the extreme laggards who remain skeptical until they see it with their own eyes. Governments and society have to pick their way through this complex issue sifting good data from amongst a blizzard of options and vested interests. Personally I think we are pretty good at it in the UK

To be fair I've not looked at it for quite a few years now! I stopped looking when climate alarmists refused to share the source data they where working from! Unfortunately you have the 2 extremes climate alarmists and climate deniers then you have the cautious middle! unfortunately the 2 extremes are all we hear from!I wonder how much of an affect the huge explosion of brick and concrete heat banks have had on warming in general!

 

[Terry - Somerset]

end result is like filling a fifty gallon tank either with a spoon or a bucket, either way it will end up filled.

The spoon/bucket parallel is a good one - but it assumes that with a spoon you would still continue to fill the tank.

However you may reflect, as you did it, why you would want to carry on if you realised after careful analysis that the end result of your labours was futile - the tank would overflow anyway (the "tipping point").

If the "tipping point" were (say) 500 years away I may not now be bothered. Sadly, although it won't greatly affect me, it may very likely affect my children, and almost certainly impact on my grandchildren.

We now know the impact of our abuse of the environment. If the population had grown at a more moderate rate to (say) 2.0bn today, we would be thinking and implementing of ways to modify behaviours etc for the long term.

Global population now ~8.0bn
Global population 1950 ~2.5bn
Global population 1800 ~1.0bn
Global population 2000 years ago ~0.3m

We are now faced with crisis management. Not so different to covid in its own way although timescales are different - had we had decent contingency plans, adequate stocks of PPE, clear policy goals etc etc the impacts would have been far less profound.

 

[TominDales]

Modern reactors are capable of load following, although I suppose that comes with some wear and tear, as with any process. So it is always going to be better to run them full tilt and covert the excess to hydrogen.

In the 60s a reactor called the SLOWPOKE was developed in Canada by AECL. I believe its power output was in the 10s of kilowatts for the early ones which they then increased to a few megawatts for use as a district heating. They were passively cooled, used light water, and had several other inherent safety features, such as the reaction slowing if the water gets too hot or forms voids. They were designed to run unmanned.

Despite meeting all their design goals, they didn't sell many, so they are mostly used for research.

Interesting, I didn't know that.
Canada was a leader in nuclear power post ww2, the Candu reactor was inherently safe, with low vulnerability to terrorism as it could use natural (unconcentrated) uranium. Before the Manhattan project the UKs atomic programme - called Tube alloys was moved to Canada at the outbreak of WW2, the team then moved to the USA under the Quebec agreement with the US government to kickstart the US project. Canada retained leading knowledge on atomic power. Its Candu offered a solution for less stable states to have nuclear power without the bomb. I don't know much about the history of the Candu, but I suspect it was not widely adopted as most countries were interested in bomb technology and nuclear power was a side branch at that time.

 

[sirocosm]

The Candu design was a bit of an accident. At the time they lacked the tech to make the large pressure vessels required for the standard designs of the day, so they opted for a large low pressure hiigh volume calandria design. As you say they used unenriched fuel, so less danger of nuclear proliferation, I am sure Iran is not interested in this kind of reactor, and somehow that never enters the discussion. One downside of the Candu was is that the required a large amount of heavy water as an up-front capital cost, but they can be refueled online and have very little downtime in service. I read somewhere Japan was considering them for Fukushima (not sure if this is true), but if they had used Candu, that accident would not have happened. They have a very large thermal mass so they are much safer in that kind of situation, and can go quite some time on gravity circulation. Recall with Fukishima, the reactors shut down fine, but they couldn't keep their fuel cool, as they require mechanical circulation for quite some time after they are shut down.

The latest Candus can use gravity circulation indefinitely once shut down, however they no longer run on unenriched fuel. This has the benefit of allowing them to run on reprocessed material from the waste of the previous generation reactors. I think this changes the discussion of nuclear waste. Had we put it in the ground as was planned in Canada, next think you know we'd be digging it up again to use as fuel.

 

[TominDales]

I guess we will adapt and develop hybrid solutions. With home heating it's the same conundrum we have now with off electricity/off gas areas but it's trickier with road transport as you say the supply network has to be there. Having said that the EV network is expanding rapidly so maybe it needs more gutsy legislation because if you leave it to consumer demand it will never happen. Also maybe a total rethink on home heating generation is required e.g. community power systems producing small scale hydrogen?

I agree with you, I think the most practical thing for UkWorkshop members it the strategy adopted by many on this forum, practical incremental solutions. Starting with good insulation - the Ellen MacArthur foundation recommend start with reduce, then prolong use, then re-use. Insulation means we don't use energy in the first place, that is the simplest and best solution. The technology exists and is affordable. Switching to heat pumps or other tech can follow as the technology matures. Extended use will be important, bear in mind that EVs have a huge amount of embedded energy in them, there will need to be intensives to keep the new technology running for longer periods of time. This will be a challenge for business models based on fast turnover of consumer goods. My feeling is the instincts of this forum will be to conserve, reduce, prolong.

 

[TominDales]

My chemistry is very limited but I'm sure in school we made bleach by the electrolysis of salt water or has the 60 year interval distorted my memory?

You are spot on.
In Runcorn salt from the Cheshire salt strata is electrolysed to make chlorine and caustic soda. The chlorine goes into bleach (with the soda) and into making PVC while the caustic soda is basic chemical commodity used in bleach, smelting and loads of processes. Hydrogen is a by-product and is either burned in the power station or burned with Chlorine to made Hydrochloric acid another base chemicals. The Runcorn plant uses as much electricity as the city of Liverpool about 2% of UKs power. its is a major swing plant for balancing power supply in the Northwest, when there are electric shortages they can turn the cell rooms off a the flick of as switch. They get paid to do that. Various schemes have looked at better uses for the Runcorn hydrogen.

 

[sirocosm]

Presumably their power generation wasn't particularly cost effective, just as we're seeing with the mature nuclear industry in the United states?

In the US, like most other places, nuclear power has been made artificially expensive by governments, mostly in reaction to the media scaring people off nuclear power. Force a pipeline to undergo an infinite number of impact studies and gas would become expensive too. Some countries did better than others, for example France, where nuclear power is cheap, and they make a ton of cash exporting it.

 

[Bojam]

No, it's not like that because the situation doesn't change in minutes and we will be more motivated to act base on discomfort. But I think we'll act long before then, anyway. What if scenarios that are only negatively biased with catastrophic uncontrollable outcomes are the hallmark of cognitive traps with anxiety. Ask me how I know this. They can prevent you from taking positive measure action or even understanding what it should be because measured pragmatism and rationality is never as attractive.

The issue is one of complex dynamic systems and thresholds or tipping points. Once a change in the state of a system occurs it can be irreversible. Climatic systems and eco-systems are both undergoing rapid change and we don't know for sure how this will affect us (likely different effects for different localities and societies) but modelling work suggests it will make life more complicated for humans in a variety of ways. We can take action now to try to mitigate the risks. Or not.

 

[Spectric]

A big uncertainty and my biggest worry is how to related temperature rise with ice melting and sea rise. There is still uncertainty about it. I saw a lecture by a geologist who had rock samples from millions of years ago when CO2 levels were about what they are today, and the sea was 30 metres higher than today. A worry is that we are seeing a lag in sea level rise due to inertia, or hysteresis, its like when you defrost your fridge, nothing happens for a long time as the air warms the ice and all of a sudden it melts in a big flood. This aspect of climate change is still poorly understood, and we may be in for a terrible shock if the sea continues to melt even after we have stabilised the temperature.

This is a good reason to react before we reach the point where there is massive change rather than lets wait a bit longer and see. This effect is seen in glaciers, nothing seems to happen then a lot disappears because the initial melt is from below, similar to a river undercutting the river bank.

 

[Spectric]

In the US, like most other places, nuclear power has been made artificially expensive by governments, mostly in reaction to the media scaring people off nuclear power. Force a pipeline to undergo an infinite number of impact studies and gas would become expensive too. Some countries did better than others, for example France, where nuclear power is cheap, and they make a ton of cash exporting it.

This all comes down to risk assesment, what is the worst thing that can go wrong and what is the likelihood of it happening. A gas pipeline could rupture and cause an initial explosion following by fire until it is shutdown, local issues, potentially deaths in the vicinity and low cost for repair and compensation. A nuclear plant goes wrong, big explosion, a large release of radioactive material and contamination over a large area, people need evacuating if they survive and a global issue with huge cost implications, look at Chenobyl where just the initial cost of the emergency response and decontamination of the area was over $18 billion. The new dome added a further £2 billion and it will take around another 100 years to fully clean up not to mention the cost in human lives which is ongoing globally. In 2005, the total cost over 30 years for Belarus alone was estimated at $235 billion so evaluating a nuclear plant the same as a gas pipeline is really not a good idea, because even with all that risk evaluation and careful design things still go wrong.

 

[sirocosm]

This all comes down to risk assesment, what is the worst thing that can go wrong and what is the likelihood of it happening. A gas pipeline could rupture and cause an initial explosion following by fire until it is shutdown, local issues, potentially deaths in the vicinity and low cost for repair and compensation. A nuclear plant goes wrong, big explosion, a large release of radioactive material and contamination over a large area, people need evacuating if they survive and a global issue with huge cost implications, look at Chenobyl where just the initial cost of the emergency response and decontamination of the area was over $18 billion. The new dome added a further £2 billion and it will take around another 100 years to fully clean up not to mention the cost in human lives which is ongoing globally. In 2005, the total cost over 30 years for Belarus alone was estimated at $235 billion so evaluating a nuclear plant the same as a gas pipeline is really not a good idea, because even with all that risk evaluation and careful design things still go wrong.

Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.

Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.

As bad as it was, there were few deaths from Chernobyl (less than 100) and no (nuclear) deaths from Fukushima, although 19,000 were killed in the Tsunami. Doom and gloom about the long term effects are overblown, again part of the fear mongering. After all, they did keep the other reactors online there for some 20 years afterwards. Today it is a tourist site, and the exclusion zone has essentially become a nature reserve.

You talk about risk, and the "worst thing that can go wrong". Well according to current thought, the world is going to suffer dire consequences that is going to cost us 100s of trillions or more if we don't do something, and if the world had mostly switched to nuclear power 30 years ago, it wouldn't be an issue, and our power bills would now be lower.

So I would suggest that nuclear power is cheaper, safer, and less risky than any other form of power generation with today's tech.

 

[Rorschach]

@sirocosm very interesting stats there.

Deaths are almost always used as a way to push an agenda rather than economy as deaths seem worse, even if the economic cost also causes deaths in the long run.

Deaths from climate change are always bandied about, thousands will die from rising sea levels etc which is nonsense as it assumes people will just stand there for decades as the sea rises around them and finally just succumb. Deaths from natural disaster are falling every year thanks to technological advances despite an increase in extreme weather events.

 

[Cooper]

Deaths from climate change are always bandied about, thousands will die from rising sea levels etc which is nonsense as it assumes people will just stand there for decades as the sea rises around them and finally just succumb. Deaths from natural disaster are falling every year thanks to technological advances despite an increase in extreme weather events.

There are more ways to die than by drowning. Bangladesh is loosing large tracks to the rising sea-level, displacing thousands onto already crowded hinterland (many to East London). In Europe, parts of East Anglia, Kent and The Netherlands are at or below sea level. These are some of the most crowded places. You often mention the difficulty of purchasing a home, and you have my sympathy, it will be a lot harder still if you have to compete with your displaced neighbours. Of course the real risk to life from climate change is in wars for water or the need for large populations to migrate into their neighbours territory. Let's try and use our technology to avert this.

 

[alanpo68]

Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.

Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.

As bad as it was, there were few deaths from Chernobyl (less than 100) and no (nuclear) deaths from Fukushima, although 19,000 were killed in the Tsunami. Doom and gloom about the long term effects are overblown, again part of the fear mongering. After all, they did keep the other reactors online there for some 20 years afterwards. Today it is a tourist site, and the exclusion zone has essentially become a nature reserve.

You talk about risk, and the "worst thing that can go wrong". Well according to current thought, the world is going to suffer dire consequences that is going to cost us 100s of trillions or more if we don't do something, and if the world had mostly switched to nuclear power 30 years ago, it wouldn't be an issue, and our power bills would now be lower.

So I would suggest that nuclear power is cheaper, safer, and less risky than any other form of power generation with today's tech.

You don't immediately die from exposure to radiation though.

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates between 4,000 and 27,000 people died as a result of the disaster, where as Greenpeach places the figure much higher at between 93,000 and 200,000.

Then you have the problem of how you dispose of Nuclear waste without it impacting on the environment.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

There are clearly some well-informed people posting on this thread.

May I ask a question? (And this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to set anybody up or take the mick. I genuinely don't know what the answer to my question is.)

Let's suppose we push ahead with the UK's current environmental agenda; we all but eliminate use of IC engines, we replace gas heating boilers with other forms of heat, we find other ways to power aircraft and ships that by using oil-derived fuels, and we decarbonise the UK economy by 2050.

What happens to the climate?

 

[Rorschach]

There are clearly some well-informed people posting on this thread.

May I ask a question? (And this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to set anybody up or take the mick. I genuinely don't know what the answer to my question is.)

Let's suppose we push ahead with the UK's current environmental agenda; we all but eliminate use of IC engines, we replace gas heating boilers with other forms of heat, we find other ways to power aircraft and ships that by using oil-derived fuels, and we decarbonise the UK economy by 2050.

What happens to the climate?

An effect so small we wouldn't be able to measure it. The economic damage however would be catastrophic.

As I have said before, check out Bjorn Lomberg.

 

[Blackswanwood]

Fun fact, more people are killed by wind turbines every year, than are killed in the nuclear industry. Your argument is like airplanes. Sure if one crashes, which they still do, then hundreds of people die. And yet it is a statistical reality that you are safer traveling in a plane than almost any other mode of transport. The same is true for power generation. All are more costly than nuclear in terms of human life.

Deaths per 1000 tWh are as follows: gas - 4,000, hydro - 1,400, solar - 440, wind - 150, nuclear - 90 (Mortality rate globally by energy source 2012 | Statista). And yet most of our electricity comes from gas, and almost everyone would prefer hydro over nuclear, but yet dams also fail.

As bad as it was, there were few deaths from Chernobyl (less than 100) and no (nuclear) deaths from Fukushima, although 19,000 were killed in the Tsunami. Doom and gloom about the long term effects are overblown, again part of the fear mongering. After all, they did keep the other reactors online there for some 20 years afterwards. Today it is a tourist site, and the exclusion zone has essentially become a nature reserve.

You talk about risk, and the "worst thing that can go wrong". Well according to current thought, the world is going to suffer dire consequences that is going to cost us 100s of trillions or more if we don't do something, and if the world had mostly switched to nuclear power 30 years ago, it wouldn't be an issue, and our power bills would now be lower.

So I would suggest that nuclear power is cheaper, safer, and less risky than any other form of power generation with today's tech.

I do not doubt that you are right regarding the number of deaths. Chernobyl was however a near miss that if it were not for the brave actions of a few of the people who did die (or were deliberately sacrifice) it would have looked very different.

 

[Jacob]

The one thing needed is big change and the one thing a lot of people dislike are big changes, and the older you get the less you like change but the more you can see it is urgently needed. I have read that the system is upto a point self regulating, nature will at some point intervene but will this still be true when nature is not looking at natural changes but man made events. The normal corrective measure seems to be to go into an ice age which stabilises everything then slowly emerge.

There is no normal corrective measure but there are steady states where things balance out, such as our current "Holocene" era which is only 11000 years old. We live in a brief window of opportunity which was preceded by 2 million years of ice age.
The danger is that one steady state can tip quickly into another which may not suit us at all - could even be the end of life on earth and we go the same way as Mars. Nobody knows, except that things are changing, as they have in the past.

 

[Jacob]

An effect so small we wouldn't be able to measure it. The economic damage however would be catastrophic.

As I have said before, check out Bjorn Lomberg.

Haven't read Lomberg but he may have a point - that there are other (more?) pressing issues.
Overcrowding gets seen as causing increased demand on resources and stress but may it be the other way around - it's our species survival mechanism kicking in.
In the natural world "over" population ensures survivors when the going gets tough.
Evolution adapts to protect the species not the individual - we all die, whatever the quality of life around us.
Hence birth rates leap in stressed societies. From which a simple conclusion can be drawn!

When climate change kicks in there may be massive destruction but a few niches for survival, for me hopefully in the limestone caves and mines of Derbyshire!