# Britain's £4 Nuclear Black Hole



## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I've been banging on about this for years.

Nuclear energy is only cheap if you ignore the cost of decommissioning and monitoring the waste for the next 100,000 years.
Even if a waste processing solution is found that will still have a large R&D and implimentation cost.

Once you add all those costs on to it then suddenly it gets very expensive.


----------



## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> Nuclear energy is only cheap if you ignore the cost of decommissioning and monitoring the waste for the next 100,000 years.


There in lies the big lie and deception. There is no reason to have any waste. Waste is a man made political problem for the USA and Britain. All you have to do is recycle and reclaim the unused fuel until there is nothing left but a small amount low level radiative material with a half life of 10 years that can be stored in the reactor until it is decommissioned and can be buried in any landfill or under the new reactor built in its place.


----------



## wenowhavepower (Dec 24, 2008)

Precisely, they should have France run their Nuclear reactors :-D.


----------



## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

Sunking said:


> There in lies the big lie and deception. There is no reason to have any waste. Waste is a man made political problem for the USA and Britain. All you have to do is recycle and reclaim the unused fuel until there is nothing left but a small amount low level radiative material with a half life of 10 years that can be stored in the reactor until it is decommissioned and can be buried in any landfill or under the new reactor built in its place.


Yeah, ok, a bit of an exageration on my part.

The thing is, there is what can be done and what is done.
We tend to package up all the radioactive waste, of all grades, and then stick it in a hole in the ground. Then it is monitored indefinately to say 'Yep, still safe and sound!'.
However, even 10 years of monitoring doesn't seem to be factored in to the cost, nor decomissioning.

What we seem to have had is a build cost and a run cost which all sounds great, so we then go for it. Then later when it is ready for decomissioning all the costs start coming back to haunt us. Why do we need to find the money to decommission? Surely it should have been covered within the profits of the power station company.

France does seem to do better with nuclear then the UK.

As an aside, what is the global reserve of uranium?


----------



## Woodsmith (Jun 5, 2008)

I love the title of this thread. 

A £4 black hole! 

I'll check down the back of the sofa for some change to help them out.


----------



## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

We have ComEd is these parts and there is "supposed" to be a decommision fund that is to be added to each year.

Want to guess just how much there is in the local fund?
No one seems to be able to give an exact figure.

Even with an assortment of NUKE plants we still pay the highest rate in the country.

Nuclear waste will not be handled properly in this country for a long time....too long

That is why I vote, NO MORE NUKES.


----------



## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Woodsmith said:


> The thing is, there is what can be done and what is done.


Woodsmith, the whole nuclear fuel reclamation and storage problem can be corrected with a stroke of a pen via Presidential Executive Order to undo the Presidential Executive Order President Ford made to store spent fuel rods rather than recycle them.



Woodsmith said:


> France does seem to do better with nuclear then the UK.


France and Japan do better because they recycle their spent rods, they don't have a storage problem. Think of how small and populated those two countries are. That ought to tip you off.



Woodsmith said:


> As an aside, what is the global reserve of uranium?


Depends on who you ask, and how phrase the question. Based under current USA laws around 200 years of proven known reserves from exploration. But the catch is no explorations has taken place since the 70's. If you ask scientist, they guess several thousand years worth of uranium are obtainable with current mining technology.

Then there is the question of the millions of spent rods just sitting around. Rods start life at 12% uranium, and disposed of at 5% because below that concentration cannot sustain a reaction. So there is about 20 years of fuel sitting around in spent rods.

Then there is all the highly enriched weapons grade uranium and plutonium collecting dust in misses, artillery shells, and bombs that have several more years of fuel if not used in the war against China and Middle East


----------

