Proposed Wind Farm near Glaslyn

[Itchynuts]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

This has been taken out of context. If you read the whole paragraph it should be clear that I'm referring to the plants and animals that will be displaced by the wind farms not everything on the planet. That would be crazy! What would we eat?

I'm surprised more people haven't pushed for nuclear power especially for the short term. There have been a lot of advances in this field and I don't mean the possibility of fusion which could be a dream for the next few hundred years.

Anyway, enough of this. I realise this is a very serious subject but can't see why it is taking up so much space here.

I liked it more when this was a cycling forum.

[Lazarus]

When you have your storage solution for the waste material we can discuss nukes ( not to mention the colossal concrete costs.) it's at least 10000 years of safe storage we require with no solution so far.. Burying it is likely to be required but who is volunteering. for that in their area.

Nukes are costly, not green and have an unsolvable problem ( assuming we could actually find someone to build them and a place to put them)

[RIP]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

This has been taken out of context. If you read the whole paragraph it should be clear that I'm referring to the plants and animals that will be displaced by the wind farms not everything on the planet. That would be crazy! What would we eat?

I'd personally realised that and was about to mention it . Got taken too literally .

I liked it more when this was a cycling forum.

Aye, going round in circles now . Never talk sex, religion or politics, for a harmonious interaction. Well not religion or politics anyway

Then again it's only one thread easily ignored if not interested and they don't crop up that often. If kept pleasant, it all adds to the, er, diversity and inclusion of the place .

[thenorthwind]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

This has been taken out of context. If you read the whole paragraph it should be clear that I'm referring to the plants and animals that will be displaced by the wind farms not everything on the planet. That would be crazy! What would we eat?

I realised you didn't mean everything on the planet, but I was more taking umbrage at the general sentiment which came across as we should look after ourselves and bugger the environment - which isn't looking after ourselves, which is kind of my point: it's not one or the other. I don't disagree with everything you said originally, however.

I see this place as analogous to the pub at the end of the bike ride (or better still, in the middle) and I don't see why we shouldn't discuss anything and everything, so long as we keep it civil. Everyone is free to choose which table(s) to sit at though

Anyway, if you want to help me choose which tyres to buy, we can talk about that instead, but I promise you it's more complicated, and probably less interesting

[RIP]

pub at the end of the bike ride (or better still, in the middle)

or better still: both

everyone is free to choose which table(s) to sit at though

Surveying and earwigging the whole room from a well-positioned barstool can frequently be illuminating too

[Lazarus]

Indeed NW and the same attitude leads to the Amazon being chopped down ( to grow soya (protein) for animal feed! ( protein)) so locals can benefit. ( allegedly but not as much as multinationals) Humanity cannot just keep putting our ( short term ) needs first at some point we have to see the bigger picture here.

You really won't like the long running ( you will see what I did in a minute) thread about your last run then if it's all got to be about bikes.

[PaulB2]

This is a cycling forum?

[Itchynuts]

Nukes are costly, not green and have an unsolvable problem ( assuming we could actually find someone to build them and a place to put them)

Your use of the word nukes shows you are already biased against nuclear power.
I am talking about nuclear power generation plants = good
Not nukes = nuclear weapons of mass destruction = bad
I believe calling nuclear power plants nukes has been propagated by Greenpeace who have done many good things but in this area I think they have fallen behind the times.

For up to date information read this :-

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-re ... il%20fuels

and watch these videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kahih8RT1k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDUvCLAp0uU

Whatever you may think about Sabine's videos she is a world renowned theoretical physicist and I believe impartial and "telling like it is" warts and all as they say.

This is a cycling forum?

Yes back to cycling for me

[Lazarus]

Your use of the word nukes shows you are already biased against nuclear power

I used it as my dyslexia was kicking in and forgot if it was nucleur or nuclear so went with an abbreviation ( but yes I have concerns of what to do with the waste. Which I see as a legitimate question and you as bias.
From your first link

Nuclear is a zero-emission clean energy source.

This is not bias its just untrue. It was nothing but PR spin from the industry and obviously bias.
I am not as anti nuclear as you think, it's almost certainly part of the solution in the next 30 years but it has a massive issue with waste and storage there off that, currently, has no solution.

[gecko76]

While we're taking quotes out of context.

Selfishly speaking I'd rather this particular place is left alone as a remote wilderness.

I like the idea of it as mid-ride pub.

As for nuclear power stations, I was confused to find the Scottish Green Party were against them when I joined. Then I learned there are varying shades of green.

[faustus]

The other issue with nuclear being the cost and time to build, putting it out of near-term strategy. This comes alongside old plants going offline/being decommissioned. Just look at Hinckley Point C, started 2017, commission date 2029-31 at best. The cost overrun means an increased cost per MWh, not favourable against renewables which are getting lower..

The whole Rolls Royce micro reactor thing sounds interesting, but i don't know much about it. Other major concerns aside, it's meant to be smaller and quicker to build..?

[johnnystorm]

The other issue with nuclear being the cost and time to build, putting it out of near-term strategy. This comes alongside old plants going offline/being decommissioned. Just look at Hinckley Point C, started 2017, commission date 2029-31 at best. The cost overrun means an increased cost per MWh, not favourable against renewables which are getting lower..

The whole Rolls Royce micro reactor thing sounds interesting, but i don't know much about it. Other major concerns aside, it's meant to be smaller and quicker to build..?

Perhaps this is what you are getting at but the issues are 'man-made'. Storage of the waste isn't a problem, you can bury it very deep underground but then you need to persuade the nimbys. The time to build is a problem when you leave everything to the last minute and dont plan ahead.

The actual amount of high level nuclear waste produced is vanishingly small. A pellet of uranium the size of a smartie generates as much power as 800kg of coal. All the high level waste produced by Sizewell B is still on site in a storage facility designed at the outset.

Part of the problem with the waste is that the industry is so highly regulated. There is a granite plaque at Sizewell B with EDF's mission statement on it. Because it granite gives off radon and the plaque is within a nuclear site it would have to be classed as nuclear waste and disposed of accordingly.

If you want to know why Sellafield is such a mess you need to look at why a station designed to produce weapons grade plutonium was running at 100% between 1984-85.

The problem with modular reactors from my perspective is that nimbys will object to a small reactor just as much as a large one and it's much easier to guard a few large stations than lots of small ones scattered about.

If anyone wants any light reading on the monitoring of risks to the public:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... fe-reports

[Lazarus]

Not really sure nimby helps the the debate( why not convince them its a good idea which will be considerably harder than using a pithy label for objecting ) and I don't know of anyone or community volunteering for the waste to be buried where they live.
Saying the waste is " vanishingly small" is untrue( it's always growing its not reducing.) Secondly its size is not really the big deal here it's the danger to humans and the incredibly long half lives.
Geo storage is almost certainly the only answer but it's not going to be popular to site it anywhere, hence why we still don't have a site/silution.

[faustus]

I think what this whole discussion brings up is the wider issue that for many decades, UK energy policy/strategy has been lacking on many fronts. Politics clearly comes into it on many occasions, but the upshot is where we find ourselves; which is not enough headroom in supply, older sites being kept online longer than design life, policy having to catch up with renewable technology, energy security issues related to global markets and suppliers (Russia), and high costs. I'm sure there's been lots of good things done, but had we had clear-sighted policy, implemented with strength on the political side, things would probably be a fair bit better.

[RIP]

The problem with modular reactors from my perspective is that nimbys will object to a small reactor just as much as a large one and it's much easier to guard a few large stations than lots of small ones scattered about.

Two good points there

I don't know of anyone or community volunteering for the waste to be buried where they live

Well, even if you switched off all the operational stations today, that still leaves the existing pile of waste to be dealt with. Whether nimbies want it or not is fairly irrelevant since it has to be stored somewhere.

Personally, from a not that well informed layman's POV, the question of the safety of the storage doesn't bother me that much (again, the waste already exists whether we like it or not so it'll have to go somewhere 'safe'), but the ongoing cost of storage interests me. A secure and geologically stable place 2 miles underground will need to be maintained for 200,000 years at some no doubt not insignificant ongoing cost. Since the benefit of that waste (the power we've already used) is no use at all to humanity for those 200,000 years why should they be expected to pay for its storage for all that time?

[Asposium]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

This has been taken out of context. If you read the whole paragraph it should be clear that I'm referring to the plants and animals that will be displaced by the wind farms not everything on the planet. That would be crazy! What would we eat?

I'm surprised more people haven't pushed for nuclear power especially for the short term. There have been a lot of advances in this field and I don't mean the possibility of fusion which could be a dream for the next few hundred years.

Anyway, enough of this. I realise this is a very serious subject but can't see why it is taking up so much space here.

I liked it more when this was a cycling forum.

I used to be fairly pro-nuclear.
Then I educated myself.

What I found most shocking is that no-one has yet (although Finland is close to brushing under the carpet) found a means to deal with the high-level radioactive waste
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2023 ... burying-it

Sure, there's not a massive amount, but is hangs around for 100,000 years (to quote the article)

Hinkley C (the only nuclear power station in the UK under construction) is estimated to cost 34 billion pounds
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Arti ... big-rise-i

There is no ideal solution, they all have "costs", whether environmental visual, lifestyle, or financial cost.

As mentioned above, we (as a society) need to curtail demand
Put up prices?

And what about when other countries start developing to first world status?

It will certainly be interesting to watch over the coming decades

[Asposium]

The problem with modular reactors from my perspective is that nimbys will object to a small reactor just as much as a large one and it's much easier to guard a few large stations than lots of small ones scattered about.

Two good points there

And a modular reactor is less efficient.

As a technology a fast breeder is interesting
It "burns" it's high-level waste to some extent.
And can use the abundant no fissile isotope of uranium, called "fertile"
A slight issue being the presence of plutonium, but is eventually consumed as fuel

Then there's thorium liquid salt

[Asposium]

I think what this whole discussion brings up is the wider issue that for many decades, UK energy policy/strategy has been lacking on many fronts. Politics clearly comes into it on many occasions, but the upshot is where we find ourselves; which is not enough headroom in supply, older sites being kept online longer than design life, policy having to catch up with renewable technology, energy security issues related to global markets and suppliers (Russia), and high costs. I'm sure there's been lots of good things done, but had we had clear-sighted policy, implemented with strength on the political side, things would probably be a fair bit better.

kick the can down the road

[johnnystorm]

Not really sure nimby helps the the debate( why not convince them its a good idea which will be considerably harder than using a pithy label for objecting )

Granted, I just have in mind a certain local TV celeb who has objected to a solar farm near his house but is happy for sizewell to go ahead where he can't see it from his veranda.

[Lazarus]

I just have in mind a certain local TV celeb

Who?

[johnnystorm]

I just have in mind a certain local TV celeb

Who?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... een-energy

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21730174.su ... untryside/

https://www.suffolklive.com/news/suffol ... rm-6728999

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... arden.html

https://shotleypeninsula.nub.news/news/ ... utton-home

[Lazarus]

Idiot ( and a petrol head iirc who did a weird rant on electric vehicles as well )I liked the DM pictures of lycra louts... Daily Mail never knowingly honest

Think he is more detached from facts than a Nimby

[johnnystorm]

Idiot ( and a petrol head iirc who did a weird rant on electric vehicles as well )I liked the DM pictures of lycra louts... Daily Mail never knowingly honest

Think he is more detached from facts than a Nimby

A couple of those links are literally about his back yard!

[RIP]

Yeah well his 'environmental credentials' are somewhat suspect so he's on my 'ignore list':

"Vauxhall to unveil a lightweight, high-performance and genuinely sleek roadster with far more sharp edges than Toyota’s MR2 or Mazda’s MX5. Vauxhall had another surprise in store when comedian Griff Rhys Jones promoted the car wearing baggy blue underpants and a grubby vest. A deeply surreal TV advertising moment".

[Lazarus]

My point was, poorly expressed, he is against many green/renewables whether near him or not.