Nuclear waste trains - terror targets on wheels

A terrorist attack on a train carrying waste nuclear materials across Britain could spread lethal radioactivity across an area of 100 sq kilometres, and result in the deaths of up to 8,000 people, according to a new report released this week.
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Dr Large predicts that “The psychological, societal and economic impacts on Britain would be catastrophic - in a city like London, economic activity would cease in the area contaminated by the plume, no-go areas would be created inhibiting the movement of people and transport systems, tourism would collapse, and parts of the city could be uninhabitable for years unless effective decontamination was completed - which will almost certainly be at great cost and health detriment to the personnel involved. In London this cost is estimated at GBP 8.5bn.”
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Read more .

Where is the insurance cover for this type of damage I wonder ?

Perfectly possible to build two water tanks, one above the other and use wind to pump water up for hydro electricity when there is no wind.

Agree that home generation is niche market, and that in homes, energy efficiency, insulation and solar hot water are the way to go. However that doesn’t stop prisons, hospitals, schools, etc etc etc having microgeneration.

And even if home micro-generation is niche, home energy saving is also an example of lots of decentralised small being just as good a single huge centralised.

The whole debate is also distorted by the fact that the electricity companies want to sell more electricity so they aren’t interested in energy saving measures, and the building industry wants the contracts to build more mega power stations.

Regular maintenance will be expensive and crucial- what happens if the owner neglects it? And when they reach the end of their lives? I would not want to live in a neighbourhood of broken, rattling turbines that were installed by fly-by-night companies, and whose owners are unable to remove them.

“Wind turbines have never been mass produced, so prices are high. Mass production should reduce the manufacturing cost, although with a smaller decrease on installation costs.”

Mass production would certainly reduce some costs, but there is no escaping the physics. Wind turbine output is directly proportional on the swept area - the square of blade length. To get decent output you need LONG blades, a high tower and complex yaw and pitch control circuitry- all of which can be better provided by a large windfarm for a fraction of the costs and much greater reliability.

Not to mention that 1kW of wind only displaces ~0.2kW of baseload, because of intermittent nature of wind. IMHO microgeneration is ideologically appealing but is unworkable and doesnt add up economically, especially in urban areas. And you would have to build a baseload power station anyway!

IMHO, so long as people are used to cheap reliable electricity, large centralised projects are likely to be the way forward for the forseeable future.

Its not just FOE that are advocating distributed micro-generation/energy efficiency, the Sustainable Consumption Roundtable’s new report, I Will If You Will, written after 18 months of consultations with members of the public, businesses and other stakeholders across Britain, advocates
# making on-site energy generation common in homes and public buildings
# rolling out “smart” meters to raise awareness of energy consumption
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4962416.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4856106.stm

You’ve made the same mistake with small scale wind turbines you made with the hybrid cars. Wind turbines have never been mass produced, so prices are high. Mass production should reduce the manufacturing cost, although with a smaller decrease on installation costs.

If you’ve got a basic engineering skillset these things are quite easy and cheap to make yourself. The problem in an urban setting is finding somewhere windy enough to bother installing them. However, where there are tall buildings the economics changes - no requirement for tall masts etc.

The following report is also interesting reading.
http://www.bwea.com/pdf/small/mid-wales-microwind.pdf

Windsave have a 1kw turbine for approx #1500.

BBC Focus had an article showing prices for the same turbine as low as GBP1045.

Powergen in the UK are coming to the end of a three year trial of WhisperGen units - combined hotwater/central heating units with 850W of electrical output.

As many have stated before, there is no silngle answer. Massive demand side efficiencies plus new supplies are needed.

“By the way, would you be for it if the project was being built by a young black woman? I don’t see what race has to do with it.” ?????

The physics are against them. Throughout history human fuel and energy sources have got progressively more concentrated - from wood, to coal, to oil, to nuclear. Renewables have such low energy density that they need to be massive to be worthwhile and cost effective in comparison with FF. Distributed microgeneration misses out on economies of scale and requires much more maintenance and raw materials (steel, concrete, electronics etc).

For example, for 10,000 uk pounds you can buy a domestic wind turbine putting out about 1kW. To equal the performance of a single large wind turbine, you need 2000-3000 of them, at a cost of 20-30 million pounds! To replace a single cheap coal fired plant you would need 2-3 million, at a cost of 20-30 BILLION pounds ($NZ 50b or so). Thats a shedload of cash, especially if you are a government or power co having to justify paying for it.

The economics of distributed generation just don’t add up, renewables are ONLY viable when they are mega-projects like large wind farms, hydro power, or tidal barrages. (there are certainly some niches like solar hot water heating which make a lot of sense.) So if FOE is against this kind of project then they are against them all as it is the only way you can build them cost-effectively to compete with fossil fuels.

By the way, would you be for it if the project was being built by a young black woman? I don’t see what race has to do with it.

Must say this is similar to the Project Aqua proposal here in NZ. The story quotes an aging white male who needs to stroke his ego by building a MEGA project. What is wrong with distributed micro-generation I ask you.

Not all renewable generation is good. Of course FOE UK are in favour of renewable power generation, it is just that they are in favour of environmentally appropriate renewable power generation.

I think uk kiwi that you need to learn about subtlety and shades of grey - its not a black and white world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4898514.stm

This has not one, but three environmental groups against a tidal barrage plan, including the Friends of the Earth. I’m not ‘dissing’ them, but they seem pretty inconsistent, and very reactionary.

As for wind farms, well the FOE are apparently for them as long as they don’t have to live near them. However there are a number of other groups who are worried that they are spoiling the countryside.

And nuclear power, well I will agree to disagree with you on this one. All the research I have seen says it is a reasonable source of electricity for countries with few other options. NZ still has a few so I guess we won’t have to have that debate yet.

It’s a very interesting debate though

Also, what kind of a scientist are you if you diss the reputation of FOE?