| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
09 Apr 2007 10:48:14 AM |
| Object: |
Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
It has been argued I have read that once you factor in the carbon
input to mine Uranium and refine it and construct nuclear plants the
greenhouse gas emission benefit to nuclear power is much reduced.
But there are no hard numbers I have been able to come across on any
of this!
If you can post a link that would be great.
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| User: "Brad Guth" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
04 May 2007 12:48:12 PM |
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"stopglobalwarmingcanada@gmail.com" <stopglobalwarmingcanada@gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:1176133694.935784.205050@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
It has been argued I have read that once you factor in the carbon
input to mine Uranium and refine it and construct nuclear plants the
greenhouse gas emission benefit to nuclear power is much reduced.
But there are no hard numbers I have been able to come across on any
of this!
If you can post a link that would be great.
There's nothing that's honestly birth-to-grave (aka all inclusive)
worthy about nuclear derived energy data. Fuzzy book keeping is also
their status quo norm.
It's all pretty much hocus-pocus physics and otherwise at best
need-to-know, and/or fully nondisclosure/taboo.
What I can say is that renewable energy alternatives offer a good 100
fold better energy footprint density than the typical nuclear energy
footprint. I can even back that one up with real hard numbers and facts
of replicated science. (sorry about that)
-
Brad Guth
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
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| User: "Mitchell Jones" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
10 Apr 2007 12:28:38 PM |
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In article <1176133694.935784.205050@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
"stopglobalwarmingcanada@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcanada@gmail.com> wrote:
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
It has been argued I have read that once you factor in the carbon
input to mine Uranium and refine it and construct nuclear plants the
greenhouse gas emission benefit to nuclear power is much reduced.
But there are no hard numbers I have been able to come across on any
of this!
If you can post a link that would be great.
***{Nuclear is the most concentrated source of energy. Result: it
requires less labor per megawatt, fewer injuries per megawatt, less fuel
burned per megawatt, less construction per megawatt, lower
transportation costs, and on and on. Result: less CO2 is released per
megawatt--which, of course, is its only disadvantage, since the release
of CO2 is a good thing.
A crazy thing to say? No. CO2 is food for plants. It provides the carbon
that is used to build organic compounds. Most of the CO2 that was once
in the biosphere is now sequestered in the Earth's crust, with resultant
shrinkage of the biosphere. Man, by drilling for oil, mining coal,
accessing natural gas reservoirs, etc., is an essential agent in the
recycling of sequestered hydrocarbons back into the biosphere. Hence if
mankind has a "role to play" in the web of life, that is it. And if,
because of wrongheaded "environmentalist" policies, that role is *not*
fulfilled, the continued sequestration of hydrocarbons will lead,
eventually, to the cessation of life on Earth.
--Mitchell Jones}***
*****************************************************************
If I seem to be ignoring you, consider the possibility
that you are in my killfile. --MJ
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| User: "Puppet_Sock" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
10 Apr 2007 02:01:04 PM |
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On Apr 9, 11:48 am, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
[snip]
Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, located on Lake Ontario
some distance to the east of Toronto, has four reactors. Each
produces about 900 MW to the grid.
Darlington gets about one visit by the fuel truck per month.
To power it with coal would require one truckload of coal about
every twenty seconds.
There have been several significant studies of the environmental
impact of various forms of power generation. Due to differences
in how various "esthetic" considerations are ranked, there is
some difference in the ranking of various forms of power. For
example, how much do you value a waterfall as compared to
that waterfall being diverted for power? How much do you hate
the noise that a windmill makes? Or the birds that get ground
to pulp by the blades? Or the removal from other possible
uses that one could put land covered by a solar collector?
And how do you compare the impact of such things as having
to mine fuel (coal or Uranium) then dispose of waste products
(whether CO2 from a methane plant or spent fuel from a nuke.)
These studies came up with different ways of comparing these
things, and so were able to rank the full "cradle to grave" impact
on the environment of various forms of power generation.
There are some interesting similarities in all of these studies.
They all say coal is worst. Only if the choice was coal or no
power at all would a sensible person choose coal.
Best according to all these studies was hydro power in places
where it was especially easy. For example, Niagara Falls
where there was a largish river going over a fairly large drop.
Or the Hoover dam, with a fairly narrow and deep gorge
with a significant river that could be dammed up. However,
most of the easy hydro power places are already used.
In the middle, in slightly different order, were all the other
methods. From solar, to wind, to methane, to biomass,
to tidal, to geothermal, etc. This bunch also includes
hydro power at less easy spots, such as where there
is a fairly large area that will be flooded by a dam.
But second place, according to all such studies, is nuclear.
Better than solar, better than wind, better than geothermal.
When the study commissioned by Greenpeace came back
with the same conclusion, they were very unhappy.
The choice for somebody concerned with environmental
impact is clear. First use all the available easy-to-use
hydro sites. Then build nukes.
Socks
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
10 Apr 2007 04:36:09 PM |
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Did some digging on Google for a couple hours and what I found was:
This link is to a Dutch study that shows that in most cases it will
take years before a nuclear plant (counting the emissions to construct
it and mine its Uranium) emits less greenhouse gases than does a
natural gas plant.
And if the purity of the Uranium is low it will take a decade or more
for the nuclear option to emit less than the natural gas option.
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl
This link shows the time periods of how long exactly it will take a
new nuclear plant to emit less greenhouse gases than a natural gas
plant:
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl/Chap_1_CO-2_emission_of_the_nuclear_fuel_cycle.PDF
The carbon emissions of nuclear power are thus I must say much higher
than I would have hoped.
I think with the waste problem and the chance of an accident (no
system is 100% safe) nuclear would have had to be much lower in carbon
emissions to make it a sensible choice.
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| User: "BradGuth" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
04 May 2007 02:35:12 PM |
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On Apr 10, 2:36 pm, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Did some digging on Google for a couple hours and what I found was:
This link is to a Dutch study that shows that in most cases it will
take years before a nuclear plant (counting the emissions to construct
it and mine its Uranium) emits less greenhouse gases than does a
natural gas plant.
And if the purity of the Uranium is low it will take a decade or more
for the nuclear option to emit less than the natural gas option.
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl
This link shows the time periods of how long exactly it will take a
new nuclear plant to emit less greenhouse gases than a natural gas
plant:
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl/Chap_1_CO-2_emission_of_the_nuclear_fu...
The carbon emissions of nuclear power are thus I must say much higher
than I would have hoped.
I think with the waste problem and the chance of an accident (no
system is 100% safe) nuclear would have had to be much lower in carbon
emissions to make it a sensible choice.
And still we have more of the same ongoing topic/author banishment,
especially within the likes of org.mailgate/Usenet, whereas GOOGLE/
Usenet has 7+ replies and the otherwise badly infomercial skewed
MailGate/Usenet server offers zero replies, as though it's a bad/dead
topic.
Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_frm/thread/d936f9f285f0466/df0e8af453ebdb12?lnk=gst&q=%22Greenhouse+gas+emissions%22&rnum=4&hl=en#df0e8af453ebdb12
There's nothing that's honestly birth-to-grave (aka all inclusive)
worthy about nuclear derived energy data. Fuzzy ENRON style book
keeping is still their status quo norm, thus spewing spendy
infomercials plus cloak and dagger butt covering as being their
priority No.1 is about as good as it gets.
It's all pretty much hocus-pocus physics and otherwise at best need-to-
know, and/or as fully nondisclosure/taboo as our mutually perpetrated
cold war amounted to.
What I can offer to say is that renewable energy alternatives offer a
good 100 fold better energy footprint density than the typical nuclear
energy footprint. I can even back that one up with real hard numbers
and facts of replicated science. (terribly sorry about all that)
Some of the best nuclear energy options are good for 400 w/m2, with
lots of off-limits and alternative usage restrictions imposed for
thousands of years. That's not saying nuclear energy isn't one of our
safer and otherwise clearner alternatives, it's just not very space
efficient or all that human DNA friendly once the entire birth-to-
grave cycle is taken into account, such as 100 years from now we're
going to be seriously screwed by some of our very own nuclear energy
options (by then expect to be paying as much as $10/kwhr, unless some
moderation and/or extremely good ideas are put to work).
-
Brad Guth
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| User: "Puppet_Sock" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
10 Apr 2007 05:42:45 PM |
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On Apr 10, 5:36 pm, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Did some digging on Google for a couple hours and what I found was:
This link is to a Dutch study that shows that in most cases it will
take years before a nuclear plant (counting the emissions to construct
it and mine its Uranium) emits less greenhouse gases than does a
natural gas plant.
And if the purity of the Uranium is low it will take a decade or more
for the nuclear option to emit less than the natural gas option.
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl
This link shows the time periods of how long exactly it will take a
new nuclear plant to emit less greenhouse gases than a natural gas
plant:
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl/Chap_1_CO-2_emission_of_the_nuclear_fu...
The carbon emissions of nuclear power are thus I must say much higher
than I would have hoped.
I think with the waste problem and the chance of an accident (no
system is 100% safe) nuclear would have had to be much lower in carbon
emissions to make it a sensible choice.
The primary problem with that little page is that he's pulled most of
the
numbers out of his *****. I hope he was standing up when he wrote it.
For example, he shows the energy costs of constructing a nuclear plant
as being signficant in comparison to the energy output of 40 years of
operation of the plant. This is so patently absurd that even the most
cursory of examination should show you that this page is just silly.
Darlington puts out 3600 MW. That's about 5 million horsepower.
The graph he's showing has energy use rates during construction being
comparable to energy production rates during operation. So if there
were 5000 engines running at 1000 hp each for the time it took to
construct Darlington, I'd like to know where they were.
Or for another example, he shows environmental *improvement*
during the operation and dismantling of solar and wind power.
This is grotesquely absurd. These are instalations of mechanical
and industrial devices. Their operation involves impact on the
environment. Operating a windmill does *not* improve the
environment. Nor does tearing it down and finding a place to
dispose of the components.
I think you need to look a little more carefully.
Socks
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| User: "BradGuth" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
04 May 2007 02:45:11 PM |
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On Apr 10, 3:42 pm, "Puppet_Sock" <puppet_s...@hotmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 10, 5:36 pm, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Did some digging on Google for a couple hours and what I found was:
This link is to a Dutch study that shows that in most cases it will
take years before a nuclear plant (counting the emissions to construct
it and mine its Uranium) emits less greenhouse gases than does a
natural gas plant.
And if the purity of the Uranium is low it will take a decade or more
for the nuclear option to emit less than the natural gas option.
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl
This link shows the time periods of how long exactly it will take a
new nuclear plant to emit less greenhouse gases than a natural gas
plant:
http://www.elstatconsultant.nl/Chap_1_CO-2_emission_of_the_nuclear_fu...
The carbon emissions of nuclear power are thus I must say much higher
than I would have hoped.
I think with the waste problem and the chance of an accident (no
system is 100% safe) nuclear would have had to be much lower in carbon
emissions to make it a sensible choice.
The primary problem with that little page is that he's pulled most of
the
numbers out of his *****. I hope he was standing up when he wrote it.
For example, he shows the energy costs of constructing a nuclear plant
as being signficant in comparison to the energy output of 40 years of
operation of the plant. This is so patently absurd that even the most
cursory of examination should show you that this page is just silly.
Darlington puts out 3600 MW. That's about 5 million horsepower.
The graph he's showing has energy use rates during construction being
comparable to energy production rates during operation. So if there
were 5000 engines running at 1000 hp each for the time it took to
construct Darlington, I'd like to know where they were.
Or for another example, he shows environmental *improvement*
during the operation and dismantling of solar and wind power.
This is grotesquely absurd. These are instalations of mechanical
and industrial devices. Their operation involves impact on the
environment. Operating a windmill does *not* improve the
environment. Nor does tearing it down and finding a place to
dispose of the components.
I think you need to look a little more carefully.
Socks- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
What's the all-inclusive energy density footprint of those operations
( W/m2 = ? )
* ALL INCLUSIVE * means taking everything honestly into account,
including those vast parking lots, to/from roads and rail factors,
loads of secondary on-site and off-site infrastructure plus the
surrounding land that looks empty but can't actually be utilized for
anything, plus a few other essential factors that you folks insist
upon hiding and/or excluding.
-
Brad Guth
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| User: "arvee" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
09 Apr 2007 10:59:25 AM |
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On Apr 9, 8:48 am, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
It has been argued I have read that once you factor in the carbon
input to mine Uranium and refine it and construct nuclear plants the
greenhouse gas emission benefit to nuclear power is much reduced.
I don't know the numbers, but it seems that a better comparison must
include these same considerations for other sources of energy. How
much greenhouse gas is produced during the building of a factory and
subsequent production of solar panels? How much is produced while
building a dam? Ditto for wind turbines, etc.
R.G. Vickson
But there are no hard numbers I have been able to come across on any
of this!
If you can post a link that would be great.
.
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| User: "Greg Neill" |
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| Title: Re: Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power |
09 Apr 2007 12:24:56 PM |
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"arvee" <C6L1V@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:1176134365.347844.43520@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 9, 8:48 am, "stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com"
<stopglobalwarmingcan...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is anyone aware of a paper or other research that quatifies the actual
amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of power that nuclear
power generates?
It has been argued I have read that once you factor in the carbon
input to mine Uranium and refine it and construct nuclear plants the
greenhouse gas emission benefit to nuclear power is much reduced.
I don't know the numbers, but it seems that a better comparison must
include these same considerations for other sources of energy. How
much greenhouse gas is produced during the building of a factory and
subsequent production of solar panels? How much is produced while
building a dam? Ditto for wind turbines, etc.
Or mining and shipping coal for that matter.
.
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