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French nuclear plant at Belleville sur Loire.  (Source: The Guardian)
Combating climate change a prime focus of new technology deal

France generates over 78% of its electricity from nuclear power, giving the nation energy independence as well as one of the lowest electric rates in all of Europe. The French success story has attracted the interest of Great Britain, which is poised to announce a joint agreement between the nations to develop and market nuclear power around the globe.

In a deal lasting 15 years, Britain will license four French reactor designs and train a large workforce in their construction and maintenance. The two nations will work together to market the reactors to nations around the globe. The designs will also eventually replace Britain's aging network of nuclear power stations, which today comprise 20% of the nation's electric supply.

The plan, leaked to The Guardian earlier today, is to be announced early next week at the "Arsenal Summit," when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown meets with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Arsenal Soccer Club in London.

The French company Areva, whose designs are included in the plan, already has deals to build reactors or sell nuclear products to many nations, including Finland, South Korea, China, and the US.

Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, making it an attractive option for nations trying to meet Kyoto's emission reduction guidelines. Unlike many other renewable sources, nuclear is also cost competitive with fossil fuels, making it a cheap and abundant source of energy.

The agreement is already drawing fire from environmentalists. Friends of the Earth called it "nonsense" that will do nothing to reduce climate change. The Sierra Club said nuclear power is "dangerous and irresponsible" and said the focus should be on wind and solar instead.

German officials were quick to follow the pre-announcement, claiming the country needs to follow in the footsteps of the UK-France agreement to avoid blackouts.  The United Arab Emirates also pledged to invest more into its nuclear program within hours of the European announcements.

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Truly better for the climate?
By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 12:47:19 PM , Rating: 2
I thought water vapor was almost just as contributing a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. I suppose at least it doesn't contribute to acid rain at least. It'd be nice to move away from cooling towers (and direct-to-ocean/river designs) to something different. Oh well, nothing's perfect.




RE: Truly better for the climate?
By KernD on 3/24/08, Rating: 0
RE: Truly better for the climate?
By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 12:58:55 PM , Rating: 3
No, he is correct. Water vapor is by far the most potent greenhouse gas. In fact, until the 1950s, scientists believed CO2 couldn't possibly warm the earth at all, because water vapor absorbed infrared so much more readily.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By Oregonian2 on 3/24/2008 1:41:01 PM , Rating: 5
Yes, my understanding is that water vapor contributes more than 90% of the heat absorption from the sun ("greenhouse'ing").

Without it, we'd probably be frozen solid.

Water vapor doesn't make great press though, and it's hard to get people to be anti-water politically so it'll continue to be ignored.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By KernD on 3/24/2008 4:08:34 PM , Rating: 4
Yep water vapor does that, but unlike CO2 or other gas, water will come down in rain. I don't mind rain, except the acid one.

All of this doesn't matter much, humans aren't even close to understanding the immensely complex system that is the earth.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 1:20:49 PM , Rating: 2
Let me refer you to Mercury... now let me refer you to Venus. Mercury is closer, but Venus is hotter... why? Clouds.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By Chernobyl68 on 3/24/2008 1:35:33 PM , Rating: 1
Mercury is closer? Mercury has no atmosphere...


By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 1:47:20 PM , Rating: 2
Your point makes absolutely no sense, other than acknowledging that I was a bit ambiguous. Mercury is closer to the SUN. What do you mean by "Mercury has no atmosphere?" How is that relevant as a counterargument? My point was simply that Mercury is closer to the Sun than Venus, but Venus is still hotter. The reason is that Venus has clouds.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By KernD on 3/24/2008 3:49:36 PM , Rating: 4
Your argument is BS, they're not clouds of water on Venus, they're clouds of CO2 (97% of it's atmosphere is CO2).

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/V/Venusa...


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 3:57:33 PM , Rating: 2
It doesn't matter, if you do your research you will know that water vapor is a greenhouse gas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapour

http://en.wikipedia.org/Greenhouse_gas


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By KernD on 3/24/2008 4:18:47 PM , Rating: 3
I already looked it up, yes it is, but your argument is still BS. When your right, why use bad arguments?


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 4:35:07 PM , Rating: 2
Ok you are essentially trolling now. Please re-read. I said that I thought water vapor was as contributing a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. You said no, I was mistaken, water vapor does nothing. You said clouds reflect light and thus water vapor somehow does the opposite of the greenhouse effect. I basically said that this was not really true because if you look at Venus, it is the second planet from the Sun and although Mercury is closest, Venus is hotter. It is hotter because of its clouds. Also, Earth keeps its nice warm temperatures and climate because of its atmosphere and clouds. Water vapor helps to keep the climate regulated. Anyways, unless you come up with something significant, I don't really see the point of debating on this.

My original statement was simply saying that I did not think nuclear energy was completely environmentally friendly and I took a look at one aspect of it (not the hazardous materials)--this being emissions. It emits steam, which is water vapor, which is a greenhouse gas.


By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 4:48:43 PM , Rating: 2
> "Venus [is] hotter because of its clouds."

No. The clouds on Venus are primarily H2SO4, which increase the planet's albedo and reflect visible light. They actually exert a small cooling effect. The vast amounts of CO2 (250,000 times what we have on earth) aren't visible as clouds. In fact, the runaway warming on Venus is thought to have ocurred because of the total lack of moderating water vapor, such as we have on Earth.

Climate is very complex. On earth, water vapor -- in non cloud form -- is responsible for most of our GH effect. But as temperatures rise, that vapor increases, causing additional cloud cover, which acts as a negative feedback to cool the planet.

Finally, it's risky to attribute all of the excess heat on Venus to the GH effect. Recent data has suggested a large part may be due to geologic processes...the surface of the planet is covered with active and near-recent lava flows.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By rudy on 3/24/2008 2:28:06 PM , Rating: 5
Yes but when you burn fossil fuels to create electricity most plants heat steam to turn the turbines. So with fossil fuels you output steam and CO2. A nuclear power plant out puts nuclear waste and steam. What to do with the nuclear waste is a different matter but they do not just pump it into the air.


By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 12:57:35 PM , Rating: 4
Sunlight evaporates many trillions of tons of water vapor each day. Nuclear power isn't going to add even a measurable fraction to that, even if we had 50 times the reactors operational we do today.


RE: Truly better for the climate?
By SectionEight on 3/24/2008 1:02:55 PM , Rating: 2
Many reactors are cooled by man-made lakes instead of towers so no evaporation takes place. The side effect of cooling lakes is great fishing, year-round.

And masher2 is correct, sunlight does in a day what mankind couldn't do in a year with regards to evaporation.


I wouldn't worry about safety,...
By AnnihilatorX on 3/24/2008 12:37:49 PM , Rating: 2
Safety should be much better now than the 90s through technology. Just don't wire the nuclear control system to the Internet.

I worry more about nuclear waste and how to get rid of them.




RE: I wouldn't worry about safety,...
By headbox on 3/24/2008 12:50:28 PM , Rating: 4
There's plenty of room in Space for nuclear waste.


By marsbound2024 on 3/24/2008 12:55:30 PM , Rating: 2
Just send it the Sun's way... I am sure it'll make quick work of it all. All of our "junk" could certainly be recycled by dumping it into the Sun or even Jupiter or Saturn. There was one good show I was watching on television talking about space junk in orbit around Earth and how they proposed using powerful lasers in the future to essentially obliterate some of the smaller stuff that could pose threats as "micrometeorites" in a way.

In the future I am sure we will be mining the asteroid belt and disposing of our waste with gas giants and our very own parent star. Hopefully we'll recycle most things if possible, though.


RE: I wouldn't worry about safety,...
By ElFenix on 3/24/2008 1:17:00 PM , Rating: 3
rockets aren't reliable enough for disposing of nuclear waste yet.


By Chernobyl68 on 3/24/2008 1:39:16 PM , Rating: 2
what is a reliable enough rate? It will never be good enough for everyone...
Of course, we could go back to the old Saturn V rockets...they had a 100% relaibility rating...even if they did have a very limited number of launches.


RE: I wouldn't worry about safety,...
By wien on 3/24/08, Rating: 0
RE: I wouldn't worry about safety,...
By boogle on 3/24/2008 4:39:10 PM , Rating: 2
Actually new tech hasn't actually increased safety *that* much. Basically there's two kinds of reaction as far as I know, endothermic and exothermic.

Chernobyl was exothermic, in essence if you lost control the reaction would get bigger and bigger until you had a meltdown. That meltdown happened.

Other reactors (and all new ones) are endothermic, that is they're pretty much self-dampening. If the reaction is left to its own devices (ie. you lose control) it just fizzles itself out. You lose a load of the reactants and probably have a load of radioactive waste to get rid of - but you get no meltdown or explosions.

Nuclear power is certainly the future imho, and would make electric cars significantly more viable.

This is all based on an article I read a LONG time ago, so if someone more knowledgeable could expand on this that would be uber :)


By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 4:59:38 PM , Rating: 2
The proper term is "void coefficient". All nuclear reactors are exothermic (they put out more energy than you put in), but the Chernobyl RBMK design had a positive void coefficient. That means as heat increases and your cooling fluid begins to boil, reactivity increases, which further increases heat output. Thus "runaway" reactions are possible, which can lead to meltdowns.

All reactors built in the Western world have a negative void coefficient, which prevents such accidents from ever happening.


Yes to solar energy
By crystal clear on 3/25/2008 8:22:05 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The Sierra Club said nuclear power is "dangerous and irresponsible" and said the focus should be on wind and solar instead.


Yes the focus should be on solar & wind energy - its safer & cheaper.

The UK is not in a such desperate situation like some other country that has NO OIL wells/reserves of its own.

They have the NORTH SEA OIL RESERVES to meet their domestic requirements for many more years.
This added with fuel conservation through introduction of better technology will also cut down comsumption.

As for solar energy - countries like Spain/Portugal/Cyprus & other countries in the mediterean region have plenty of sunshine practically all round the year.

Solar energy producing units/centres in this region can supply plenty of electricity, all round the year to the whole of Europe incl U.K.

U.K. should invest heavily in Solar R&D and production.

Finance is not lacking for such projects as the E.U. can pay for such projects including private companies,who can raise the funds needed on the stock exchanges in Europe.

You dont need the UAE or some gulf country with plenty of cash to control your electricity generating facilities.

As for nuclear technology/centres, they are the perfect targets for Islamic terrorist.

The U.K./France have a large MUSLIM population of Arab & Asian origins, & amongst them live small,local groups of fanatics/terrorist.
These small groups will not hesitate to attack such nuclear plants to wreck havoc in the region.

So better to go for the safer option....

Yes to solar energy.




RE: Yes to solar energy
By Aloonatic on 3/26/2008 8:04:19 AM , Rating: 2
You've clearly never been to the uk.

There's a good reason why ancient British religions are one of the few in the world never to have had a Sun God.

They were so pleased to see Mr Sun on the rare occasions that he did appear that they built henges so that people new where to look for it, or whatever they were for.

Also, we're rather cramped here and don't have vast desert areas spare to fill with solar panels that will probably just get blown away or flooded every other week, or vandalised by drunken youths with nothing better to do.

IMO, I think we should stick to the policy of building nuclear and sticking them in Scotland and Wales or in England on the Irish sea coast with handy currents taking any pollution over to the little green island on the other side.


RE: Yes to solar energy
By Andy35W on 3/26/2008 8:59:04 AM , Rating: 2
I thought you were being serious for a moment there until the last paragraph which did make me smile :)

That's why they have 3 legs on the Isle of Man as well of course :D


RE: Yes to solar energy
By Aloonatic on 3/27/2008 2:39:19 AM , Rating: 2
I was joking, thought about adding tags or a second comment to make it clear.

However, there are many true words....


RE: Yes to solar energy
By Andy35W on 3/27/2008 7:52:59 PM , Rating: 2
>However, there are many true words

Needing sun in the UK for solar heating on hoursing is not though. You just need daylight.


Super Sarko!
By Vim on 3/24/2008 4:01:35 PM , Rating: 3
Vive la France!




RE: Super Sarko!
By fredsky on 4/7/2008 1:40:46 PM , Rating: 2
je dirais surtout merci au paris de la France de s'engager dans le nucléaire depuis les années 80.
donc Sarko n'a rien à y voir... sauf que maintenant il a tout à gagner :)

vive la France hehe.

un jour il y aura la fusion nucléaire...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_nucl%C3%A9aire


Wha..!!!!!!!
By cscpianoman on 3/24/2008 6:15:26 PM , Rating: 1
The British and the French are getting along!? When did this happen? <cheesy grin>




RE: Wha..!!!!!!!
By KernD on 3/24/2008 6:27:17 PM , Rating: 3
It's called the Sarkozy-effect, what it means is the French will finally stop sitting in the middle all the time, they will lean to the west now...

It's not really a new thing, it's just making a comeback.
It's like a trend....


Obsession with nuclear kettles
By Andy35W on 3/26/2008 3:58:10 AM , Rating: 2
Coming from the UK I find it rather ironic that the country that became the leading engineering country in the world in the 18th and 19th centruries on the back of heating water in large kettles is still pursuing this 300 years later rather than becoming the world leader in more scientific and less polluting ways such as wind, tidal and wave.

It's doubly ironic that the UK is an island situated in prevailing westerly winds at the polar tropical convergence so being ideal for wave and wind generation.

Currently the UK nuclear power plants produce 40 000 cubic metres ofradioactive waste of which 100 cubic meters his highly radioactive. Since the 1970's the nuclear industry has reduced the amount of nucelar waste going into the Irish Sea to 1% of 1970 levels. Great, but the cost was £750m or $1.5billion. That is enough money to have equipped 150 000 houses in the UK with solar water heating alone.

Given enough willpower there is no need whatsoever to use any nuclear energy in the UK for electricity production.




By Andy35W on 3/26/2008 6:09:19 PM , Rating: 2
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/...

Masher, you have got to stop grasping at straws on year to year fluctations when it suits your purpose. Year to year is a really bad way of looking at trends.

You were wrong to do this with your hurricane quiet season (which it was not anyway) and you need to stop doing it with temp changes etc etc.

You can only go so far with googling data "soundbites" all day long, at some point you have to rationalise the breadth of evidence and use common logic on what is likely right.

I'd have posted it in the old topic but there seems to be lock on it :)




They are right
By Shining Arcanine on 3/24/2008 4:21:57 PM , Rating: 1
"Friends of the Earth called it 'nonsense' that will do nothing to reduce climate change."

They are right.

It is in the nature of planet that has a hot liquid core, an orbit and tilt that creates seasons and a fluid atmosphere for climate change to occur regardless of human intervention.




By James Holden on 3/24/2008 12:37:57 PM , Rating: 2
3/10


By therealnickdanger on 3/24/2008 12:41:30 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
3/10

LOL

10/10


By Hulk on 3/24/2008 12:41:55 PM , Rating: 2
I am being somewhat sarcastic here as I actually believe the French have a fantastic track record with nukes. They are the model everyone should follow. It's the lesser of two evils, a little really deadly stuff, or a lot of not so deadly stuff (CO2). Either that or we stop using electricity.


By kenji4life on 3/24/2008 12:43:28 PM , Rating: 2
The gamma rays would turn everyone into The Incredible Hulk, right?


By SectionEight on 3/24/2008 1:07:21 PM , Rating: 2
The French reprocess their waste. This reduces high-level, unusable waste down to 1% or so of the previous amount and allows the rest to be used as fuel again or extracted for other uses (medical isotopes, etc).

Jimmy Carter banned reprocessing of nuclear waste in the U.S. for fear of Plutonium being diverted for clandestine weapons uses. Despite the fact that all the other major nuclear users like Japan and France reprocess their waste and have never had a problem with security.


By elessar1 on 3/24/2008 2:00:25 PM , Rating: 2
Water Cooled Reactors are way to dangerous...we should go with newer / safer technology for the new nuclears plants: peebble bed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

Is just a matter of time before China became "self aware" and start exporting this modular reactors...

And for nuclear waste disppossal: old salt mines, is already in use and is safe.


By Ringold on 3/24/2008 2:33:54 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Is just a matter of time before China became "self aware" and start exporting this modular reactors...


It's amazing, and very depressing, but in almost every market I've caught up on the news in today I've seen at least one stark example of ideology in America and often in Europe as well that allows China to essentially seize entire potential markets away from us virtually uncontested. While we debate human rights, labor rights, environmental issues, etc, China just goes ahead and gets things done. Red tape and pandering; the instruments by which the West will become a club of has-beens.


By FoxFour on 3/24/2008 4:06:42 PM , Rating: 2
Looks like Pebble Bed reactors have their own set of potential problems, too.

However, safety issues aside, current reactors simply use too much fresh water to continue being viable in the future. Shortages of fresh water in the eastern US have already put a crimp in nuclear energy production this year.


By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 4:20:19 PM , Rating: 2
There are no inherent limitations on nuclear power based on water. Reactors can easily be cooled with salt water or (like Arizona's Palo Verde) with nothing but treated sewage.


By elessar1 on 3/24/2008 4:26:33 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Shortages of fresh water in the eastern US have already put a crimp in nuclear energy production this year.


Thats the point in using pebble bed reactors intead of water cooled ones: there's no need for water...

Water is a scarse resource...and one that we should use for irrigation and human consume...

besides, with enough pebble bed reactors we could even desalinzate water :P


By Grast on 3/24/2008 4:28:15 PM , Rating: 2
It is called SALT WATER. You know that stuff that covers more than half of the world. Only now that we see rising costs of power generation, the rest of the world is noticing that nuclear power is the only way to go.

In the next 50 years, I see all major developed nations getting the majority of their power from nuclear. Once that hurdle is out of the way, maybe we can start looking for an alternate energy carrier like hydrogen. Maybe not in my life time though.

later..


By elessar1 on 3/24/2008 6:01:03 PM , Rating: 2
aaaaaaa!!!!, thats the name!!!!: SALT WATER...

off course....you have to remember tides, tsunamis, hurricanes, terrorist, corrosion, climate change and the rising of the level of the sea...you know...regular al gore stuff...

there's a reason why there are more nuclear plants using sweet water than salt water...

plus, is still water, with the risk of vapor explossions and the like...

So: pebble bed using helium / nitrogen.

and is time for me to go home.


By Sulphademus on 3/25/2008 2:10:51 PM , Rating: 2
Speaking of Salt Water...

Would it be a good idea to place a desalinization plant not too far off from a Nuke Plant? Both (typically) need water and the shorter distance using a direct power link would minimize power loss. Desalinization is a power hog, yes?


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