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Where do you stand on nuclear power (fission)?

Heat pumps save money, they extract heat from the surroundings and you get about four times as much energy out as you put in.

Heat pumps can work very well, but they need the right type of home to work - well insulated buildings with somewhere to store the heat produced. So in modern houses, generally designed for a combi gas boiler, the house now needs space for a hot water store tank sufficiently sized for the heating and hot water demands. The heat pump doesn't work like a combi boiler - it needs a long period of time to heat the store tank. Backup will be via an electric immersion @ current electric UK rates of electricity. At the moment, the Ofgem price cap is around (regional variations 21p/kWh for Electric and 4p/kWh for Gas. That means, if the heat pump breaks down or needs to be topped-up via the electric immersion, the cost is very expensive and the heat pump savings are lost. Once the heat store is depleted, the heat pump needs a period of time to recover, else you are on the backup electric immersion.
 
Heat pumps save money, they extract heat from the surroundings and you get about four times as much energy out as you put in.

Up to four times, unfortunately they run on electricity which is rather expensive. Fantastic for heating a pool in mid summer!

I'm contemplating a battery bank if i can fix the wind turbine; if i can get the average electricity cost down the economics will look better.

Same applies to the country, there's no cheap way out and poor people will have to make hard choices this winter.
 
I am against nuclear power.

Would you like to elaborate?

I am for but with the proviso that we need to get Generation Four asap for efficiency of fuel use and cleaner waste.

It seems to be the only technology to realistically deliver the vast amounts of energy we need.

G4 is more flexible so can work alongside wind and sun plus it can be configured to produce hydrogen and a basis for liquid fuels.
 
Interesting debate!!

Yes nuclear waste is an issue but can be solved safely and the THORPE installation was one way of doing this for thermal oxide waste. I have experience of inspecting the decommissioning of one of the cooling ponds at a Magnox station and I will always want to set waste as a priority and I can only say yes to nuclear with this proviso. Once this is certain then the small reactors are the way to go until small scale fusion is available.

The fission technology exists and the ancillary use of electrolysers to produce oxygen and hydrogen is also established in nuclear powered submarines. A package to produce electricity and hydrogen could be brought to market quickly and also compact electrolysers are available to produce hydrogen from renewable sources.

It is many years since I worked in these fields and so other PFMers could maybe give and update on submarine reactors and electrolysers.

Finally, I am sure that reactors are removed from submarines when they are decommissioned so the Scots and Plymothians need not worry.

FF
 
There's another lack of government joined up thinking somewhere else, here. We're told in the news in the last few days, that gas boilers will not be available to buy after 2035 (from memory) but there's also a move to a hydrogen economy. It seems to me that if you signal the phasing out of gas boilers, the manufacturers have no incentive to develop mixed-fuel or hydrogen capable products, or to further develop existing technology, so you close off a promising opportunity for space heating for those where ASHP or GSHP aren't viable or cost-effective.
 
Would you like to elaborate?

I am for but with the proviso that we need to get Generation Four asap for efficiency of fuel use and cleaner waste.

It seems to be the only technology to realistically deliver the vast amounts of energy we need.

G4 is more flexible so can work alongside wind and sun plus it can be configured to produce hydrogen and a basis for liquid fuels.
It is dangerous (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima). We don't know how to dispose of the waste products. Solar and wind can supply all our needs with suitable charge storage.
 
To the extent that it is dangerous, the risk is somewhat localised compared to the global effects of fossil-fuelled generation, which we're going to need for baseload for at least another generation, if we don't have nuclear. Solar and wind are fine, so far as they go, but there's always the question of intermittency. A truly global solution would mitigate the intermittency thing, but that's at least a generation away, too.

IIRC all the high and intermediate level nuclear waste created by the UK nuclear power industry since Calder Hall would fit in a warehouse the size of your average Tesco superstore. Yes, it has a ridiculous half-life, but then so does the raw nuclear material we get out of the ground (or there'd be none around for us to use, by now). So we can either return it to the ground, or spread it so thinly somewhere that it barely contributes to the background. Or preferably both.
 
Yes, it has a ridiculous half-life, but then so does the raw nuclear material we get out of the ground (or there'd be none around for us to use, by now). So we can either return it to the ground, or spread it so thinly somewhere that it barely contributes to the background. Or preferably both.

This is a good example of why even small amounts of radioactive material is a problem to dispose of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident

93g contaminated ~250 people and required over 100000 people to be checked.
 
It is dangerous (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima). We don't know how to dispose of the waste products. Solar and wind can supply all our needs with suitable charge storage.
Per unit energy produced, nuclear power is near, if not at, the top in safety. Many more people have died from exploding fossil fuel power stations, mining/drilling accidents, collapsing dams, etc than from nuclear mishaps. And that's not counting excess deaths caused by environmental pollution.

As for the waste, it is indeed an issue. However, we already have piles of it. Adding a little more, or even doubling the current amount, won't make disposal appreciably more difficult. If building more nukes can help reduce CO2 emissions, I'm all for it.
 
To the extent that it is dangerous, the risk is somewhat localised compared to the global effects of fossil-fuelled generation, which we're going to need for baseload for at least another generation, if we don't have nuclear. Solar and wind are fine, so far as they go, but there's always the question of intermittency. A truly global solution would mitigate the intermittency thing, but that's at least a generation away, too.

IIRC all the high and intermediate level nuclear waste created by the UK nuclear power industry since Calder Hall would fit in a warehouse the size of your average Tesco superstore. Yes, it has a ridiculous half-life, but then so does the raw nuclear material we get out of the ground (or there'd be none around for us to use, by now). So we can either return it to the ground, or spread it so thinly somewhere that it barely contributes to the background. Or preferably both.
Indeed! How many on pfm understand from where these radioactive isotopes came?

For starters the Solar system is around 4.5 billion years old. The Sun and planets were made from a mixture of Hydrogen and loads of space junk. There was at some time a very large star somewhere in our vicinity - we know it must have been very large as it has now gone. The bigger the star the faster it 'burns' and then booooom a very large supernova that blows its junk into space! It was in that supernova that elements heavier than Iron were created such as Gold and the heavy radioactive isotopes. We don't know when that happened but it was billions of years ago. So how long have these elements been around and thats before our solar system was created?

All our energy needs can be met from the fusion reactions in the Sun - even though its 90 million miles away. Mind blowing really when you think about it. We use the Sun to create electricity (many different ways) and use it to electrolyse water to make Hydrogen as fuel. This fuel can either be burned to create heat or in an ICE or used in a fuel cell to regenerate electricity - water to Hydrogen and back to water. It just needs the will. Instead we get war preparations and big business lining their own pockets and sod off for the future of mankind.

I won't be here,

DV
 
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I've been working on something that could be the solution. It may seem simplistic, perhaps as though I've missed something essential, but hear me out...

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Joe
Well, there was a chap on here a few months ago who thought that you could have a battery powered car that would generate electricity from the non driven wheels by means of a dynamo, which would then recharge the battery.
 
Seems to me that houses are getting smaller and smaller , the house I just repaired a shed at has 2 small bedrooms , a bathroom , tiny kitchen and 2 small cupboards. It never had a immersion heater and there is no room to put one . You can't swing a cat in there !!
 
strangely just got rid of the bulky water tank in a house .... now i hear its got to go back :eek: ah bang goes 30% of the storage cupboards !!

looking forward to this

heatpump by , on Flickr
There's no reason why it should look like that. A ventilated wooden cover would be fine, and they work just as well turned by 90 degrees and parked under the window. Or higher up, above a bay, or indeed in the back garden.
 
Seems to me that houses are getting smaller and smaller , the house I just repaired a shed at has 2 small bedrooms , a bathroom , tiny kitchen and 2 small cupboards. It never had a immersion heater and there is no room to put one . You can't swing a cat in there !!
At least it will be easy to heat.
 


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