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

[Jacob]

No, it's The Guardian. As I said, not going there.

Too late - you've gone there!
These things don't go away if you just pretend they aren't happening.

 

[John Brown]

I'm not going anywhere near the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Emergency debate, as that is a proselytising relegion, not science.

Except that by saying that, you did go there. I'm not interested in arguing the point, as I'm pretty certain neither you, or any of the usual sneerleaders, will shift your position one degree, but it's dishonest to hit and run like that.

 

[Steve_Scott]

OK - everybody 'does their little bit', and the UK decarbonises by 2050 (or something close to it).

What happens to the climate?

Very little in the grand scheme, but the UK (or by that time, a group of bickering insignificant nations) become(s) the leader(s) in alternative technology and sells it to the rest of the world and perhaps then the economy grows and a significant impact to the climate can be made. However... it might well all be offset by an ever increasing population, which I have always maintained is the biggest problem.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Except that by saying that, you did go there. I'm not interested in arguing the point, as I'm pretty certain neither you, or any of the usual sneerleaders, will shift your position one degree, but it's dishonest to hit and run like that.

Which is exactly why I see no point in getting bogged down in an irrelevant, and extremely heated debate on an off topic subject. Let's talk about energy, oil and how to replace it, and what the near future holds economically. When the sea level rises substantially, we can talk about that, too but until then, let's all keep on topic. What say you?

 

[Jacob]

Very little in the grand scheme, but the UK (or by that time, a group of bickering insignificant nations) become(s) the leader(s) in alternative technology and sells it to the rest of the world and perhaps then the economy grows and a significant impact to the climate can be made. However... it might well all be offset by an ever increasing population, which I have always maintained is the biggest problem.

Over population is the solution - it increases the chance of survivors post apocalypse. It's nature's way!
The problem is over consumption.

 

[sirocosm]

What hasn't been looked at is how much oil we have left - oodles of it, obviously, but all of it expensive to extract. The energy required to extract it has a bearing on our economic wellbeing, and currently we average I believe 15 barrels of oil produced for every barrel consumed producing it. This sounds like a healthy margin, but it is right on the cusp of being enough to allow growth of the worldwide economy. It is only going to get worse from here, as old, cheap wells come to the end of their life, affecting the balance.

There is a huge amount of oil in tar sands in Albert and other places, but it takes a large amount of energy to extract it. In Alberta they are planning to build nuclear reactors to generate the steam required to extract the oil. I am sure David Suzuki will have a bird. Of course the environmental damage left behind from the tar sands extraction will be much worse than the reactors.

 

[Fergie 307]

The containment was the reactor casing just like most reactors, and works fine until breached at which point you are in trouble. At chernobyl due to a chain of events they got thermal runaway and the cooling water boiled, the 1000 tonne reactor cover just lifted, then an explosion and the core was exposed and burning sending radioactive material into the atmosphere.

I think the point he was making is that the Russian s didn't put the reactor inside a further containment building, as we do. Whether this would have been able to contain the explosion I have no idea.

 

[doctor Bob]

Over population is the solution - it increases the chance of survivors post apocalypse. It's nature's way!

but there would be more zombies...........

 

[Rorschach]

but there would be more zombies...........

Plenty of them now.

 

[Spectric]

I think the point he was making is that the Russian s didn't put the reactor inside a further containment building, as we do. Whether this would have been able to contain the explosion I have no idea.

It was inside a building upto when it went bang, these buildings around reactors are really just to protect from the enviroment and provide a working space for the operators, often no more than steel frames and cladding. The idea is that the reactor should not explode and release any radioactive material, if it does then you are in trouble.

 

[sirocosm]

It was inside a building upto when it went bang, these buildings around reactors are really just to protect from the enviroment and provide a working space for the operators, often no more than steel frames and cladding. The idea is that the reactor should not explode and release any radioactive material, if it does then you are in trouble.

The buildings (reinforced concrete domes, typically) built around western reactors are designed to withstand such an explosion. The reactor vessel itself is much smaller.

Of course there is debate as to whether a proper containment building would have withstood that explosion, but if it had, there would have been no deaths, and little mess.

 

[Jacob]

It is hard to imagine a worse outcome then an out of control core exposed to the atmosphere in a large reactor, and basically all they did was dump sand on it. That reactor should not have been operating in the first place, it was a very dangerous design, it had no plan in case of an incident, and it didn't even have a containment building.

I remind you that the movies are entertainment, and panic sells.

No the movie is rated for being a realistic dramatisation true to the events.

 

[Spectric]

The only contaiment provided by the outer building and this also applies to any other nuclear facility is that during normal operations a negative pressure is maintained within to ensure no radioactive release and that the radioactivity is removed via large filter banks. Also a lot more is put into the foundations in order to comply with seismic regs. Take a look at any of our current severn sites and you will see the buildings are not substantial, because it has not been accepted during the design process that a reactor can explode, a reactor breach is something not visualised, does that remind you of other places.

 

[Jacob]

Better news here Trials to suck carbon dioxide from the air to start across the UK

 

[sirocosm]

The only contaiment provided by the outer building and this also applies to any other nuclear facility is that during normal operations a negative pressure is maintained within to ensure no radioactive release and that the radioactivity is removed via large filter banks. Also a lot more is put into the foundations in order to comply with seismic regs. Take a look at any of our current severn sites and you will see the buildings are not substantial, because it has not been accepted during the design process that a reactor can explode, a reactor breach is something not visualised, does that remind you of other places.

Perhaps a picture would help. Now imagine replacing (1) with a structure like (9), which is pretty much what Chernobyl had. Although to be fair, (9) is probably better than what the Chernobyl had, since it is likely designed for the scenario that (10) flies apart.

 

[Spectric]

No the movie is rated for being a realistic dramatisation.

Forget the movie and watch the documentary in which the actual people that were there are telling their story and it will hit home, in fact it is the most frightening horror story ever told and you soon realise just how lucky we are to be alive and only having to deal with a Covid pandemic rather than a nuclear holocaust. If this had happenened in the UK we would all be dead, it is only the Russian culture and those miners who saved the day and we should never forget the sacrifices those guys made. In this documentary is a nurse who talks about a guy who looks like he has no eyes just blackness and he looks like a zombie, he spent six minutes in a high dose location and she tells him all will be ok to comfort him, but she knows he will die like all the others and yes he dies that day.

 

[Spectric]

Do you really believe that structure would contain a blast that lifted a 1000 tonne steel and concrete lid?

 

[sirocosm]

Do you really believe that structure would contain a blast that lifted a 1000 tonne steel and concrete lid?

I believe I said the jury was out on that:

Of course there is debate as to whether a proper containment building would have withstood that explosion, but if it had, there would have been no deaths, and little mess.

but that dome on the HPR1000 is designed to withstand the impact of a commercial jetliner, and the A380 must weigh around 600 tons or so. And there is second one made of concrete and stainless inside of that.

That Chernobyl reactor had a dangerous design. It had a positive void coefficient, which means if cooling is lost the reaction increases. Most western reactors are negative. On top of that it was moderated with graphite, so if the reaction gets away on them, the graphite will catch fire and the whole mess will fuse together and there is no way to stop it. Again not possible when the moderator is heavy water, for example.

This the problem with the nuclear fear industry, they operate on the mantra that all reactors are the same, and that what happened in Chernobyl could happen at any reactor, and that is not the case.

 

[Spectric]

This the problem with the nuclear fear industry, they operate on the mantra that all reactors are the same, and that what happened in Chernobyl could happen at any reactor, and that is not the case.

Not always, many who work that sector also realise what a fine line we tread.

 

[sirocosm]

Not always, many who work that sector also realise what a fine line we tread.

Did you know that you can hold a fuel pellet from a Candu reactor in your hand? They are little cylindrical objects that feel like a ceramic of some kind. After use in the reactor, they become about as radioactive as the original uranium ore in a few hundred years. This is much better than most other reactors where storage is required for 1000s or 10000s of years. The idea in Canada was to bury them in stainless canisters that should last a least a few hundred years, and because they are ceramic, they would not really dissolve anyway.

You would think with these numbers that the world would have switched to Candu years ago, but they don't largely because people believe that all nuclear reactors are the same.