The Nuclear Debate, Like The Actual Debate

IQ2 (intelligence squared) is hosting a debate on the pro’s and cons of nuclear energy. It looks pretty interesting, and you can watch it live from their website.

Here is a taste from the site.

Forget earthquakes and tsunamis. The existential threat we face in Britain comes from global warming and our reliance on unsavoury and unstable regimes for our energy supplies. And there’s only one efficient way of producing energy that does not expose us to such risks: nuclear. Wind power, energy conservation, “clean coal” – they’re small potatoes, additions to the nuclear solution, not substitutes. And far more expensive, too. As for safety, modern state-of-the art reactors – ones not built on geological fault lines – will result in far less loss of life than almost any other form of energy. It’s got to be nuclear.

And yet despite the claims that newer, safer technology is just round the corner, horrific accidents keep on happening. Remember Three Mile Island? No earthquake to blame there, just human error. As for cost, nuclear’s already high price is going to rise as accidents like Fukushima bring about calls for yet more expensive safety regulations. Besides, the political, technological and economic constraints on building new nuclear power stations mean that it will take a decade or more before they come on stream, by which time all the subsidies that could have gone into developing low carbon alternatives will have been gobbled up by the nuclear lobby. It’s got to be nuclear? Only if you’re intent on national suicide.

These are the fault lines on which the arguments over nuclear lie – and even the environmentalists can’t agree amongst themselves. Come and hear the experts on April 26th, add your views to the debate and decide for yourself where to place your vote.

At the end of the debate there will be a vote, so tune in, listen, and if let them know who you felt was the most compelling side. I will refrain from giving you my opinion on nuclear energy (but if you search this site you can get clues), but I have watched debates put on by this organization before and they are always a good time.

if you happen to live in the UK you can even pop in and see it in person.

It’s got to be nuclear

Thursday April 14th, 2011

Doors open at 6pm. The debate starts at 6.45pm and finishes at 8.30pm.

2 thoughts on “The Nuclear Debate, Like The Actual Debate”

  1. The NRC’s quaterly pulibc meeting with the TVA Browns Ferry Unit 1 Restart Project Management was on Thursday. Here are a few notes I took (I am not an engineer, so sorry for mistakes!):- The nuclear fuel arrived on site on July 17 from GE.- Expecting a December 2006 fuel load.- Power generation is on schedule for May 2007. There was some hinting that this might happen earlier.- The $1.8 billion restart project is on budget.- Browns Ferry staffing was at 898 persons prior to restart. They are at 1015 now. They forecast a need for 1047 staff members to support 3-unit operation.- About 2,300 contractor employees on site.- Stone & Webster is the prime construction contractor.- Bechtel is the prime design contractor.- NRC will have an additional permanent on site inspector (2 -> 3), since it is their custom to have the same number of resident inspectors as operating units.- There is a tremendous amount of testing and inspection, and internal and external approvals required as each of the many subsystems are turned over to the plant operators. (The subsystems of the Unit 1 are “owned” by the restart project, and the restart project sort of has to “prove” that the subsystems are appropriately designed and constructed and inspected/tested before the “operating plant” will accept them for operation.)- The project involved 605,529 feet of cabling, of which 83% is installed.- There are 41,038 cable terminations, of which 89% are complete.- There is 15,137 feet of small bore piping, of which 96% are complete.- I gathered that much of the unit’s active equipment was either replaced or sent to the vendor for refurbishment.

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