Slashdot Mirror
Last Operating Magnox Nuclear Reactor Closes
nojayuk writes: The world's last operating
Magnox
nuclear reactor, Wylfa 1 in Anglesey, Wales was closed yesterday
after providing carbon-free power for over 40 years. Wylfa1 was originally scheduled to shut in 2012 along with the adjacent Wylfa 2 reactor but it was kept operating for another three years with the innovative use of partially-burnt fuel from Wylfa 2 and remaining stocks of fresh Magnox fuel. The reactor will be defuelled and move into its decommissioning phase over the next year. The Magnox design used gas-cooling and a carbon moderator with the capability to produce weapons-grade plutonium depending on how it was fuelled and operated. Its design fed into the next-generation AGRs which provide about 6GW of Britain's electricity supply today.
Almost 45 years later, staff gathered to mark the Reactor One switch-off
reactor team so rory left on holiday for spain yesterday and told us, rite, to make sure we shut everything off before new years. so i dont know if that means the reactor too or if he wants that on...
cheeky bloke: he was a right bastard last year 'bout not turning off that kettle in the kitchen though mates...
reactor team: right right... best to shut off the ole magnox lest he send another of those fiery emails.
cheeky bloke: nobody!? right. ill get the sodding kettle then.
Good people go to bed earlier.
According to EDF, the carbon footprint of a nuclear power station – the average level of greenhouse gas emissions it is responsible for over its lifetime, from construction to decommissioning – is about 16 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent for each kilowatt-hour of electricity it generates (gCO2e/kWh).
nature's nutrient CO2.
Please, shut yourself in a room full of "Natures Nutrient" and survive on that.
buried and managed for the next million years
Also, learn some basic physics. And the meaning of the word "Hyperbole"
Apparently, you are unaware that solar energy can be stored, whether we look at photovoltaic being stored in batteries or solar thermal being stored in thermal reservoirs.
It's a new world, friend.
Please, think before you speak.
http://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/07/10/global-warming-no-satellites-show-carbon-dioxide-is-causing-global-greening/
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...
. It does however produce toxic waste that will need to be buried and managed for the next million years
No, it doesn't.
They do produce toxic waste, so does coal, gas, solar and wind if you stop ignoring certain parts of the production process that produce the toxic bits. Photovoltaic is WAY fucking worse than nuclear when you take production byproduct into account.
Things with long half lives aren't very dangerous. Anything that last that long is about as dangerous as lead ... If you EAT ENOUGH OF IT ... Just like lead.
The dangerous parts have half lives numbered in single digit years or days. 12 years is about the longest half life of the 'dangerous stuff', which means you stop caring in a hundred years or so AT MOST.
You have to get down into hours and minutes of half life before its dangerous just being near it as long as you don't inhale or eat it.
The danger with nuclear materials to living tissue is the energy release during radioactive decay. Long half live = little energy emissions = lower risk. Short half life = higher emissions in the same period of time = higher danger level.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
According to EDF, the carbon footprint of a nuclear power station – the average level of greenhouse gas emissions it is responsible for over its lifetime, from construction to decommissioning – is about 16 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent for each kilowatt-hour of electricity it generates (gCO2e/kWh).
Now that is interesting.
From the same web site, we see the carbon footprint for solar cells is 4.5 times greater than that of a nuke.
https://www.edfenergy.com/ener...
The carbon footprint of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel – the average level of greenhouse gas emissions it is responsible for over its lifetime – is about 72 grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated (gCO2e/kWh) .
Also pumped hydro energy storage is an existing utility scale option for intermitent renewables. With limited transmission capacity such as between the pacific northwest's hydro dams and California it is a great way to store energy from off peak transmission for use during peak usage.
If you built it in my back yard, you'd be an idiot since I live near a sandy coastline, which means it could leech into the ecosystem rapidly. Rather you bury it somewhere that its going to have a really hard time getting out of while its still dangerous ... like all the current storage sites, you put it in a massive salt deposit, which naturally seals itself. Problem fucking solved. I'll build a brand new house for me and my son right on top of the thing and live a happy life if it means we can actually fucking use nuclear power elsewhere without all you idiots acting like its going to kill as all.
I'm not an ignorant paranoid nut job and actually understand whats dangerous and why. You should try it sometime.
You're the kind of person that will die from cancer or mercury poisoning from the coal powered plant 2 states over that produces way more toxic output and pushes more radioactive materials into the atmosphere than all nuclear accidents combined, plus the bombs dropped on Japan, plus all the atmospheric nuclear testing thats been done because you're too stupid to understand whats dangerous and whats not and you continue to believe idiots. And you'll ignore that that is only one plant out of thousands around the globe.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Unfortunately, it really is not. Pumped hydro energy storage facilities do work; they are reasonably efficient and they can store a lot of energy. But you have to have a pretty unique combination of geology and hydrology to build such a facility.
The energy storage problems really is THE ISSUE with solar and wind. There is no magic answer.
This isn't the US though and spent fuel won't be left lying around at the rector site indefinitely. As the article states the fuel will be offloaded and sent away to be reprocessed. Afterward, like other similar sites, they'll remove the turbine hall and other ancillary buildings, then leave the reactor to sit for a few decades to allow the residual radioactivity to decay to almost nothing before (carefully) demolishing it entirely. In a relatively short time, it will be a greenfield site you would never know had a reactor on it.
Well, it is an issue and there is no magic answer. It is just not that big of an issue as the opponents of wind and solar seem to believe. And there are many partial solutions which can be combined. First, solar fits well to the demand curve, so it usually does not have to be stored in the first place. Also wind and solar often complement each other well. This is the reason pumped-storage is currently underutilized in Germany despite a having a huge share of renewables. Then you can have a large enough grid to average production in space - then you do not need to average as much in time (i.e. store). To make it larger, you can trade electricity with your neighbours. You can also have reserve power plants for times where production is low. In fact, you need to have them anyway - even with nuclear power, because a nuclear power plant might just drop out for some technical reason any time.
Don't most windmills shut down in winds like they are having now?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There are several reactor designs that can run on natural uranium. CANDU, RBMK (like the one in Chernobyl - although they use enriched uranium nowadays for safety reasons), UNGG...
The key is either graphite or heavy water moderation, because light water absorbs too many neutrons.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap