Nuclear Power in NZ...?

[pois0n]

QUOTE(Trolly @ Sep 7 2007, 11:46 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Lowest risk of earth quake in NZ- sarcasm? Auckland getting levelled by a volcano... sounds like TPS to me, but what do I know.

To be honest, what do I care either? If someone decides to build a nuclear power plant in Auckland, nothing I say is going to affect it. It seems pointless discussing it, lol

That's not TPS, thats just Auckland bashing... everybody partakes in it at some point out side of Auckland

Calling it TPS just makes you seem a bit like a holier-than-thou Aucklander

[SUBS17]

You couldn't build a Nuclear plant in Auckland anyway because of the population it would most likely be built in the South island anyway as it is the only place remote enough to allow one to be built. And it would take more than one reactor to solve the problem.

[SUBS17]

QUOTE(pois0n @ Sep 11 2007, 10:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It does produce alot of power, but a standard size plant produces 30 tonnes of high level waste per year and 300,000 tonnes of medium level waste. What happends to this? It has to go somewhere, and nobody wants it near them. The difference between NZ and AU/US is that they have vast desert areas to store their nuclear waste in underground facilities. Then what happends with it? It's left for the next generation to sort out, much like the whole global warming cr@p that the previous generation has left us with. The storage just adds another expense to the already economic nightmare of nuclear power in NZ.If a meltdown did occour in NZ then most of the country would go tumbling down with it. Say goodbye to NZs dairy/meat exports. Western Europe lucked out in a big way with the Chernobyl disaster, if it had blown toward western europe instead of it mostly landing in Belarus the cost of that disaster would've been immense.The same could be albeit on a smaller scale if a meltdown occoured at the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney. Weather patterns means large portion of radiation in the atmosphere would blow towards NZ, not fun! Australia has a bit of an ulterior motive for pushing nuclear power so much, with the economic boom lead by the mineral extraction and large deposits of uranium As for not letting US warships into NZ, if an accident were to occour on one within NZ waters then the fishing industry would be practically killed and depending on where it was or what happend there would have to be evacuations.Then if you work past all that, where do you put the power station? We don't have any areas that are a significant distance from a large populace, unless you want to slap a nuclear power plant at the foot of Mount Cook and ruin the tourism industry too It's all very much a moot point for New Zealand

A nuclear meltdown on a ship would have the same effect as a meltdown on a nuclear powerstation although maybe alot worse since there is alot more water involved. The real reason why nuclear ships were banned from NZ waters wasn't because of the risk of a nuclear accident it was mainly due to the fact that it made NZ a nuclear target from the Soviets which is far worse than any single nuclear accident as it would in effect involve the total loss of NZ. (there was a minimum of 4 tgts in NZ that were going to get hit by Nukes)Compared to not being a target at all which was the better choice. The negative impact is that our defence force has to be more independent as we lost our Alliance with the US. I saw an interesting documentary about Chenobyl the other day they are still dealing with the problem of cancer there now which is quite bad and you can't go in the area of Chernobyl at all as its going to be radioactive for a long time.

QUOTE(ZK-KAG @ Sep 11 2007, 10:24 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Zoltuger...Couldnt agree more!@ Waste, Im sure we can find some place to put it.@ Ulterior motive...At least we have uranium nice and close@ Nuclear ships. There has never been an accident with a nuclear ship from what I can tell... NZ is islolating itself in that we have bad relations with the US.@ Situation. As long as its out of site (bar a few people) then I dont see the problem. There have been 2 accidents, both avoidable.But as we all agree it will never happen in NZ, and if it does not for a very very very long time...

Yes there have been several nuclear accidents on Ships and submarines in both the US and Russia there was nearly a meltdown a couple of times in both cases crew members lost their lives stopping the reactor from melting down.

[Timmo]

I think we can do without it in NZ....there are alternatives, none of which are perfect but together they work...kinda like the pukeko advert.

I just read in the Herald the other day that one of these alternatives is geothermal, but not natural geothermal like we have in NZ. Basically a deep hole (~5km) is drilled, cold water is pumped down, heated to steam using the earths heat and then the steam is used to drive a turbine in the normal manner.....its fairly safe, its clean and not too expensive (the set up costs are reasonably expensive, mostly due to drilling costs)

I had to laugh though, in the article it mentioned that there are still a few issues to sort out but the Americans dont have much funding as the US wont give more than the US$ 2 million already allocated. This seems strange considering the hourly costs of the Iraq war probably far exceed this amount and a large reason the US invaded is to secure energy/oil....this technology has the potential to provide power generation into the future.

I think we, as humans, just need to think a bit laterally about power generation and, far more importantly, reduce our consumption in the first place!

[chopper_nut]

Looking into the future, if we are going to start exploring the soar system and later on, the galaxy, we need to look at either nuclear fusion or fission.

[HardCorePawn]

Fusion = theoretically good
Fission = Bad

mostly because fusion does not produce the sorts of waste by-products you get from fission...

I like the sound of that "drill hole, fill with water, create steam, drive turbine" idea... nice to know someone is still thinking outside the sqaure...

This seems strange considering the hourly costs of the Iraq war probably far exceed this amount and a large reason the US invaded is to secure energy/oil....this technology has the potential to provide power generation into the future.

you cannot drive cars on steam (well technically you can, but no-one wants to commute to work on a steam engine! )

This is the sole reason for invading Iraq... oil = gasoline = ridiculous SUV's with soccer mom's dropping kids to school...

People here in NZ think that those 'Remuera Tractors' like the Ford Territory are ridiculously big... in the US, they are the small versions... when I visited earlier this year, a friend gave me a lift and I joked about how oversized and enormous his SUV was... he told me it was considered a Mid-size!!

[Grumble]

QUOTE(HardCorePawn @ Sep 13 2007, 05:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I like the sound of that "drill hole, fill with water, create steam, drive turbine" idea... nice to know someone is still thinking outside the sqaure...
you cannot drive cars on steam (well technically you can, but no-one wants to commute to work on a steam engine! )

No, you can't. But you can drive electric cars on the power such steam generates.

This is the sole reason for invading Iraq... oil = gasoline = ridiculous SUV's with soccer mom's dropping kids to school...

No, slightly untrue. Industrial use of oil products in manufacturing and for industrial transport is predicted to exceed oil consumption by consumer vehicles very soon, if it has not already. Think about the amount of plastic you use in products alone. Now think about the industrial lubricants, fabrication processes, power generation, transportation, and chemical use supporting every single item we use. It's frightening.

[pois0n]

QUOTE(Grumble @ Sep 11 2007, 09:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Industrial use of oil products in manufacturing and for industrial transport is predicted to exceed oil consumption by consumer vehicles very soon, if it has not already.

Source?

[Grumble]

QUOTE(pois0n @ Sep 14 2007, 08:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Source?

A guy on another board had some very good links... looking for them now. For now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

states that at present transport accounts for 55% of consumption in the US. Given that we are increasing manufacturing and attempting to make vehicles more economical (yes, even in the US) you can extrapolate numbers. I'll try and find those other links.