Deaths in nuclear vs coal/natural gas is very clearly in favour of nuclear.
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Deaths in nuclear vs coal/natural gas is very clearly in favour of nuclear.
Jantar from the 'Power Shares thread post 484
"Nuclear would be good for NZ if the units can be made small enough at an economy of scale. Westinghouse were working on a 360 MW unit which would have been a perfect size for us, but although it was supposed to licenced for production in 2010, it just quietly was dropped. The modern 1000 MW+ units are not suitable for NZ as we would not be able to provide both the base demand and the spinning reserve they would require."
From the Genesis Energy Thread PSE wrote:
"Nuclear power is a bad idea for NZ because one power station would be too large for our grid too handle, the largest should be around 250MW, that's why there are four 250MW rankine units at Huntly......"
Jantar on post 1553 of the Genesis Energy thread replied
"This is the number 1 reason why nukes are not suitable for NZ. The smallest economically commercial reactors are currently around 1000 MW with the most economic units around 1200 MW. Candu do have some smaller units like those at Darlington (880 MW and Bruce B (820 MW). However these are economic in that they produce weapons grade plutonium as well as electricity."
"The problem with large units is that as NZ is a stand-alone country, with no links to other generation sources, we must carry 100% of the reserve requirement for our grid internally. That means that for a single 1000 MW nuke we would also need 1000 MW of fast acting partially loaded spinning reserve (PLSR) that could fully replace the lost energy of a tripping in less than 6 seconds. To manage that we would need over 3000 MW of fast reacting hydro or gas fired peaker plant in the same island as the nuke. We do not have sufficient demand to maintain that 24/7."
"Smaller nuke plants are available, but these are generally for a specific purpose such as submarine propulsion, and not for commercial electricity production. Thorium reactors are being developed that may suit us sometime in the future."
The other issue not covered by Jantar is where you would build such a station and where you would put the waste? Building a Nuclear Power station around the 'ring of fire' is a hazardous exercise. They say Northland is the least earthquake prone region. But how that site would fit in with balancing other power stations I do not know. Then there is still the problem of finding somewhere stable underground to store the nuclear waste. There might be NIMBY issues with that.
SNOOPY
Poland has very recently announced nuclear SMR's to replace coal power plants.
https://www.powermag.com/smrs-may-re...l-supply-pact/
New SMR technology is very impressive and a lot safer than systems developed over 50 years ago.
https://nuclear.gepower.com/build-a-...rview/bwrx-300
As the reality of reducing dependence on fossil fuels becomes clear through energy shortages, technology like this is going to in big demand.
"KGHM said the agreement involves development and construction of at least four SMRs (Small Modular Reactors)', with the option of up to 12, for total installed generation capacity of about 1,000 MW.:
Four reactors with a generation capacity of 1,000 MW add sup to 250MW each. That is certainly the size range that might be of interest to a country like NZ.
SNOOPY
Oh dear - they said 50 years ago as well that nuclear reactors are safe. They have been wrong.
Quite funny that people who fight against a vaccine because it might have unknown long term effects are quite happy to advocate for an energy supply we know is unsafe and where we know that the waste will be dangerous for the next hand full of 100000 years.
How do they call this condition?
One earthquake might be enough. Oops - wasn't there just one in Melbourne?
Half-life of plutonium is something like 25,000 years. Quite a long time to keep any nuclear waste safe ... and after that time it is still radioactive, just only half as active.
Lucky us our forebears didn't pollute the planet in the stone age with plutonium, isn't it? We wouldn't be around if they would have done that.
Why are people so keen to pollute it now for future generations?