Merged Australian Politics / Australian election

Norman Alexander said:
Agreed. We still need a nuclear facility or two in Australia, but not for power or weapons. Nuclear energy is used all the time for medicine and science.

In reality, nuclear reactors for power are quite inefficient. They are just tea-kettles, a substitute for burning something, to make steam. The process of heating water to make steam to spin a turbine to drive a generator to make electrical power is not efficient at all. So many losses of energy along the way.
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The difference is that the source of energy for nuclear lasts for a very, very, very long time, which makes it more efficient in the end than the traditional method of setting stuff on fire.
 
lionking said:
I’m sure you know this, but nuclear power does not add to the amount of H2O in the world.
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The reactor itself, no. The heat exchange circulates water for steam power. Some is lost in the process. As steam.

I agree that nuclear is far less impactful than burning hydrocarbons. But it's time is decades past for Australia now. We missed that bus by lots
 
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Norman Alexander said:
The reactor itself, no. The heat exchange circulates water for steam power. Some is lost in the process. As steam.

I agree that nuclear is far less impactful than burning hydrocarbons. But it's time is decades past for Australia now. We missed that bus by lots
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Not correct, sorry. Water as ice, liquid or steam is a constant. The only addition is through volcanic activity, where the addition is too small to be calculated. Water constantly changes phase, but that’s it.
 
lionking said:
Not correct, sorry. Water as ice, liquid or steam is a constant. The only addition is through volcanic activity, where the addition is too small to be calculated. Water constantly changes phase, but that’s it.
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Sorry, but nuclear plants produce steam as a by-product of heat exchange. That water comes from cooling ponds. Most of the exchange water is recirculated but not all. Nuclear plants need a water inflow to top up the ponds.

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Norman Alexander said:
Sure. But the process still produces steam as a byproduct. Hot, wet steam.
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It's the excess heat that is generated that is the problem. The rate of fission in a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods that absorb neutrons (needed for fission). The faster the rate of fission, the more heat that is generated and this heat has to go somewhere.
 
psionl0 said:
It's the excess heat that is generated that is the problem. The rate of fission in a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods that absorb neutrons (needed for fission). The faster the rate of fission, the more heat that is generated and this heat has to go somewhere.
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Yeah, there's a reason why nuclear plants are located on large bodies of water, and why they won't put their intakes downstream of their outlets.

There has been a bit of discussion recently about global warming making nuclear power stations unprofitable, because the intake water temperatures are too high now.
See here
Or here
Or here
 
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novaphile said:
Yeah, there's a reason why nuclear plants are located on large bodies of water, and why they won't put their intakes downstream of their outlets.

There has been a bit of discussion recently about global warming making nuclear power stations unprofitable, because the intake water temperatures are too high now.
See here
Or here
Or here
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Sounds like a clear contributor to global warming to me. It may not be as bad as coal but it is essentially the same principle; we "burn" uranium and use a fraction of the heat produced to generate electricity.
 
Oh please learn some physics guys. Water vapour doesn’t cause global warming, it is a consequence of it. Carbon dioxide and methane are the villains, and nuclear power will reduce emissions, there is absolutely no doubt about it.

The problem with building nuclear plants now is it is 30 years too late. We have to move to renewables and batteries now if we have any hope of meeting targets. Dutton plans to keep coal and gas power plants until his nuclear stations are built. We cannot afford this.
 
psionl0 said:
Unless you can show that concentrating U-235 doesn't result in extra heat being generated, this sounds more like advice you should be giving to yourself.
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That wasn’t the claim. It was that the water vapour emitted by nuclear power stations contribute to global warming. Not true.
 
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