Sellafield clear-up so far has cost £67.5 billion.

FocusZing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-21298117

Crickey, by comparison it makes cleaning up afer a log fire seem less of a task.

gilesjuk

It has provided lots of energy for nearly 50 years!

If there had been no nuclear power over those years then we would have burnt up a lot of coal and gas to take its place. We're already importing loads of gas, we would have been doing so a lot sooner without nuclear power.

The reason the clean up costs so much is due to safety reasons, you have to very thorough. If you harm anyone in the process of clean up then you'll open yourself up to court cases and compensation claims.

GiantMike

I reckon we shoudl just sell all the rubbish to the Iranians. They've been after nuclear 'stuff' for years.

bdu98252

From someone who works within this delightful industry. I would have thought you could double that estimate and you might be close by the time my colleagues make a career out of basic engineering principles.

ddraver

Did they leave a train in a mine with a warhead on it like in Silent Witness this week?

Cleat Eastwood

gilesjuk wrote:

It has provided lots of energy for nearly 50 years!

And an estimated 240 deaths at least (when it was winscale).

gilesjuk wrote:

If you harm anyone in the process of clean up then you'll open yourself up to court cases and compensation claims.

Or you could just cover it up like the winscale fire

Frank the tank

I still believe we should invest in new nuclear energy.

bompington

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

gilesjuk wrote:

It has provided lots of energy for nearly 50 years!

And an estimated 240 deaths at least (when it was winscale).

... an estimated, but never actually observed, 240 extra cases of cancer... but interestingly, a 50 year follow up study of the (in those days pretty much expendable) workers who took part in the clean up operation shows that there was no significant adverse health effect.

The risks of radiation and consequently of nuclear power are definitely huge, but every time there is a nuclear incident like Windscale or Chernobyl, things seem to turn out not nearly as bad as predicted...

PS how many deaths from mining the coal to get that much power?

daviesee

Frank the tank wrote:

I still believe we should invest in new nuclear energy.

There is no alternative.
Well none that are currently sustainable, viable, and/or affordable.
You could ask everyone to stop using electrical devices but I imagine that the general consensus would be - stuff the folks in the sticks. :evil:

Kieran_Burns

More nuclear power please. It is clean, it is cheap and it's not a flaming complete waste of money (and increasing our fuel bills) like these ridiculous wind farms are.

Even the bloody Green Evangelists are realising it now:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/31 ... k_wind_fu/

daviesee

Kieran_Burns wrote:

More nuclear power please. It is clean, it is cheap and it's not a flaming complete waste of money (and increasing our fuel bills) like these ridiculous wind farms are.

Even the bloody Green Evangelists are realising it now:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/31 ... k_wind_fu/

I just love the fact that Dr James Lovelock thinks wind farms are a great idea. Right up to the point of building some in his neighborhood.
:roll:

ben@31

Only people who know nothing about nuclear power are scared of it. Both Chernobyl and Fukushima were not a nuclear explosions but expanding steam or hydrogen explosions caused by coolant mess ups.

The amount of energy produced per ton of fuel....1 ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of uranium, or 3,500,000 tons of coal.

"there is enough thorium in the United States alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years."

From an economics viewpoint, U.K. business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes that "Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium,"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium- ... #section_3

finchy

I've heard a bit about the potential of thorium to run a far safer, greener and cheaper nuclear power plant than uranium, but never really bothered to investigate any further.

One thing I'll say about nuclear power is that we are going to leave one hell of a mess for future generations. If you're using nuclear energy (and I am), then the cost of the clean-up operation should be met today, not just expect people in a hundred years to foot the bill.

ben@31

johnfinch wrote:

If you're using nuclear energy (and I am), then the cost of the clean-up operation should be met today, not just expect people in a hundred years to foot the bill.

Is the nuclear clean up worse than the pollution from fossil fuel power?

finchy

No, it isn't. It still doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be leaving a bill to clean up our mess that amounts to tens of billions of pounds.

Same with fossil fuels - the damage that they cause should be factored into bills so that we can try and at least try to tackle some of the effects.

Frank the tank

johnfinch wrote:

No, it isn't. It still doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be leaving a bill to clean up our mess that amounts to tens of billions of pounds.

Same with fossil fuels - the damage that they cause should be factored into bills so that we can try and at least try to tackle some of the effects.

If some nuclear plant went t1ts up in France I can't help but think the UK would get a whole load of radioactive polution.

So being as we are alreadt at risk, we may as well build som facilities ourselves and benfit from cheaper fuel and own it ourselves rather than be at the "mercy" of other energy suppliers.

daviesee

Frank the tank wrote:

If some nuclear plant went t1ts up in France I can't help but think the UK would get a whole load of radioactive polution.

All of us?

I have to use this wooden spoon for something.

Kieran_Burns

johnfinch wrote:

I've heard a bit about the potential of thorium to run a far safer, greener and cheaper nuclear power plant than uranium, but never really bothered to investigate any further.

One thing I'll say about nuclear power is that we are going to leave one hell of a mess for future generations. If you're using nuclear energy (and I am), then the cost of the clean-up operation should be met today, not just expect people in a hundred years to foot the bill.

http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/no ... r-reactor/

and

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html

might help

bdu98252

Around 50billion of the total is cleanig up the legacy from the nuclear bomb in the fifties and sixties. Future generations will continue to pay for a workforce and capital spend at all nuclear sites until a deep depository is built for ILW and HLW. Until this point it is just a load of people packaging waste into different forms for temporary above ground storage.

Anyone for a deep highly radioactive mine in their local town city or countryside. Oh sorry they just completed the consulation excercise on that and not one council said yes.

desweller

bdu98252 wrote:

Around 50billion of the total is cleanig up the legacy from the nuclear bomb in the fifties and sixties. Future generations will continue to pay for a workforce and capital spend at all nuclear sites until a deep depository is built for ILW and HLW. Until this point it is just a load of people packaging waste into different forms for temporary above ground storage.

Anyone for a deep highly radioactive mine in their local town city or countryside. Oh sorry they just completed the consulation excercise on that and not one council said yes.

I'll have a bit. Irradiate meat that's a bit past its use-by date in my back garden? Yeah go on then