An advantage of nuclear power over solar and wind is that it uses a lot less land, see graphic below. While I am doubtful that industrial gas causes global warming, I am not a fan of pollution, and that’s why I like nuclear power. Nuclear power adds no water or air pollution when it runs right, and removes a lot less land than wind and solar. Consider the newly approved Hinkley Point C (England), see graphic below. The site covers 430 acres, 1.74 km2, and is currently the home of Hinkley Point B, a nuclear plant slated for retirement. When Hinkley Point C is built on the same site, it will add 26 trillion Watt-hr/ year (3200 MW, 93% up time), about 7% of the total UK demand. Yet more power would be provided from these 430 acres if Hinkley B is not shut down.
Nuclear land use vs solar and wind; British Gov’t. regarding their latest plant
A solar farm to produce 26 trillion W-hr/year would require 130,000 acres, 526 km2. This area would suggest they get the equivalent of 1.36 hours per day of full sun on every m2, not unreasonable given the space for roads and energy storage, and how cloudy England is. Solar power requires a lot energy-storage since you only get full power in the daytime, when there are no clouds.
A wind farm requires even more land than solar, 250,000 acres, or somewhat more than 1000 km2. Wind farms require less storage but that the turbines be spaced at a distance. Storage options could include hydrogen, batteries, and pumped hydro.; I make the case that hydrogen is better. While wind-farm space can be dual use — allowing farming for example, 1000 square km, is still a lot of space to carve up with roads and turbines. It’s nearly the size of greater London; the tourist area, London city is only 2.9 km2.
All these power sources produce pollution during construction and decommissioning. But nuclear produces somewhat less as the plants are less massive in total, and work for more years without the need for major rebuilds. Hinkley C will generate about 30,000 kg/year of waste assuming 35 MW-days/kg, but the cost to bury it in salt domes should not be excessive. Salt domes are needed because Hinkley waste will generate 100 kW of after-heat, even 16 years out. Nuclear fusion, when it comes, should produce 1/10,000 as much after-heat, 100W, 1 year out, but fusion isn’t here yet.
There is also the problem of accidents. In the worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, only 31 people died as a direct result, and now (strange to say) the people downwind are healthier than the average up wind; it seems that small amounts of radiation may be good for you. By comparison, in Iowa alone there were 317 driving fatalities in 2013. And even wind and solar have accidents, e.g. people falling from wind-turbines.
Robert Buxbaum, January 22, 2014. I’m president of REB Research, a manufacturer of hydrogen generators and purifiers — mostly membrane reactor based. I also do contract research, mostly on hydrogen, and I write this blog. My PhD research was on nuclear fusion power. I’ve also written about conservation, e.g. curtains; insulation; paint your roof white.
did you take the nuclear waste in consideration ?
There is very little waste volume from nuclear power on a per Watt-hr basis. There is also waste from wind power, see for example, http://www.rebresearch.com/blog/windmills-become-field-of-junk/. I don’t know which generates more per Watt-hr.
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Most people have no concept about the size of a watt, a kw, a mw, or a gw. Hell even a combustion turbine (“CT”) has the biggest output for the smallest footprint. A combined cycle CT is even more efficent for land use and energy production/conversion They are quick to start 24/7 and do not require energy storage. The only negative is the combustion of natural gas and/or fuel oil and the resultant pollution. If natural gas is used, they can fit on a large residental property and produce upwards of 100 Mw. Actually, land acerage efficiency, natural gas use, energy production, and pollution should all be considered. Pollution can be controlled and reduced. Natural gas is too valuable a finite resource to be squandered on energy production. Land and open space are also too valuable. A mix of all types of energy conversion is wise, but the apportionment should be weight averaged according to the efficiency of the important parameters considered.
This article is stupid.
You said that only 37 people die in chernobyl??
W.H.O. confirm more than 4000, other studies confirm more than 50000.
How naive are you to belive that only 37 people die from the chernobyl disaster?
Second you take into account low power wind turbines. Now normal turbines has 3 Mw, Then you have also turbines of 10 MW.
Can airplanes fly over nuclear plants zone? Not.
What is the legal distance to popullated areas?
What technology is cheaper? The answer is Wind turbines.
It seems that you dont care to misinform people in so serius issues.
Wind power is not cheap. It is generally twice the price of nuclear power or coal fired Pwr stations. It is also not reliable.
Per KW Hour generated more people have been killed by wind power technology than by any other form.
I have no reason to doubt that only 37 people died because of the Chernobyl disaster. A disaster caused by political meddling with technology it didn’t understand.
I have spent 40 years in the power industry, coal, nuclear and wind. If you knew the true cost of wind power you would demand an end to it straight away.
John Knott F.A.Cost E.
In the article, it was indicated 31 people died as a DIRECT result: DIRECT means immediate (within hours to several months) death of 29 people due to high levels of radiation + of 2 people due to fire.
4000 is the estimated number as a result of long term effect of radiation (i.e., cancer). It has also been indicated that this is the expected number but not the death toll.
To get a scientifically and systematically investigated approach, Search for “Chernobyl forum and Chernobyl forum report”.
On 3-5 February 2003, at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Headquarters in Vienna, representatives from the IAEA, other United Nations organizations (FAO, UN-OCHA, UNDP, UNEP, UNSCEAR, WHO and The World Bank) and Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, established and launched the “Chernobyl Forum”. They documented their findings in that report.
Interesting. Living in an area where there are lots of wind turbines, we appreciate that they are “clean energy”, but they are not really providing “cheap energy”.
On the subject of nuclear energy, I recently heard Béla Lipták with the International Society of Automation speak on the subject “Fukushima Failures and the Next Generation of Nuclear Power Plants”. A fraction of the material can be found here (http://belaliptakpe.com/blogs/fukushima-and-the-future-of-nuclear-power/) and more through google, and I can’t begin to summarize it all in one reply. To express what stood out the most in his discussion was the fact that most nuclear plants are OLD and even the ones that are under construction are mostly based on OLD designs which are faulty and don’t use new instrumentation and automation capabilities.
He showed a picture of the Fukushima control room, which can also be googled. Rather than looking like cutting edge technology from Star Trek, it looked like something from the 1950s with some PCs clustered in the center of the room. He described how all the gauges, switches, flashing lights, etc., on the walls provided operators with unclear information. In fact, “false readings suggested that the levels were several meters above the actual and in the primary containment vessels they were not even measured.” (http://belaliptakpe.com/blogs/preventing-nuclear-accidents-by-automation/) In a nuclear power plant, triple redundancy would seem to be a minimum, and would not be prohibitively expensive. Instead, operators turned off pumps because a sensor said the water level was high, when in fact the water was boiling away and the pumps should have continued running. Such was the case with the other accidents he discussed. While they are typically considered “human error”, it was poor design with inadequate instrumentation and automation at the root of the problem. The conclusion of the discussion was that nuclear energy has great potential and can be very safe, if proper precautions are taken.
Can we please stop referring to Chernobyl as an accident. I was an outcome predicted by scientists for an operation that was forced through by politicians with no understanding of nuclear engineering.
I don’t see a link to British Gov’t study. What is the capacity of the wind turbine they are using in their estimate?
I generally agree (I’m strongly pro-nuclear, after all), however an article that doesn’t consider the land use in case of nuclear accidents risk being discounted immediately as over-biased.
Chernobyl and Fukushima indeed had relatively low direct nuclear related fatalities (zero, the latter), but even without wanting to discuss the indirect, long term consequences, Chernobyl rendered 2.600 km2 unusable (just if one consider the exclusion zone, three times more if one considers the voluntary resettlement zone) and while it’s too early to tell, right now the exclusion zone about Fukushima is over 1.200 km2.
I think this should be somehow considered in the article.
Sir you are exaggerating! I am joking..But Only the space occupied by the reactors should be taken into account.Not the whole plant. That is about 1 Hectare in total for 2 EPR reactors. That is the space that remains occupied in case of demolition of the plant that need to be exempted for future use for 150 years. Other terrain will not and buildings like the turbine hall, fuel storage and offices around the reactor be radioactive so can be demolished at conventional cost.
The Germans want to wist billions of Euro’s in untimely demolition of powerplants.. “back to virgin earth” but is that one Hectare you clean up worth that amount of money? Of course not.1 Giga Euro per Hectare??. Letting the reactor decay its Cobalt for 150 years make the debris storage smaller and the most of the steel does not need to be stored as waste . It can be reused after that decay time. In fact the only reason the Germans took that stand under pressure by the greens was to OBSTRUCT nuclear power and make it prohibitively EXPENSIVE this way. It is technical and economical nonsense law.
The generated waste and cost of demolition of reactor arguments in politics is BOGAS. It is made up politically by unnecessary demands. It is the stick to beat the industry.
At Ringhals in Sweden old reactor builidings are even investigated for second use for a NEW reactor after replacing the old one. That is recycling , reuse and as renewable as it can get. It even reuses steel and concrete.
Perhaps reusability of civil structures in nuclear-power should be a point in their design.
wipe comment this:some type errors.