Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons
Molten Salt reactors using Thorium as the fuel instead of Uranium are was less than $15B and the capacity for each 40 foot container sized reactor is from memory about 150MW. The technology is very close to being ready and the danger is massively reduced compared to traditional uranium reactors. Copenhagen Atomics are at the forefront of these modern nuclear molten salt reactors. Have a look at their website and their videos on Utube - changed my mind about nuclear it did
1. We have had big plant built since 1992. The combined cycle gas turbine at Otahuhu was around 360 MW as was the one in Taranaki. I believe one of them has been decommissioned since then.
2. Gas would be waaaaaay cheaper than nuclear and it’s nuts we are not searching hard for more gas - or building a big new high efficiency coal plant. (Apparently we have still had exploration for gas over the 6 years but they’ve not found any - gas is generally a byproduct of oil exploration).
3. There have been many more near misses with nuclear. I remember one in Sweden, total state of the art facility, was about 60s from meltdown in the early 2000s. All the levels of redundancy failed, emergency gens etc. I’m not anti nuke but I’d much rather have gas on price and risk.
And yes, ideally a gas and coal thermal plant like Huntly would be our dry winter backup. I suspect Huntly won't be shut down for some years yet. The issue is to get the appropriately priced gas and coal to fuel it!
I did some work for a development agency about 20 years ago looking at generation options for a country in Eastern Europe. We recommended coal, super high efficiency and relatively clean, but all this time later it’s tied up by environmentalists outraged that an international funding agency would even consider that. The people still have daily brownouts.
Hi .. a couple of points. New Plymouth opened in 1974 and was big - 600MW. But it closed in 2008. Otahuhu B opened in 2000 and yes, was big capacity when it was upgraded to 404 MW in 2005. But it was closed in 2015. So since Clyde there has been just the one big power plant built in New Zealand, and it lasted just fifteen years before the climate zealots and uncertainty over gas supply forced Contact Energy to close it down.
I was talking about the Stratford a power Ltd combined cycle plant aka TCC or Taranaki combined cycle. Opened maybe late 90s, about 350 MW, same tech as a Otahuhu
Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons
I was sent the following by Dave Witherow, so here is his comment on this article :
" I can't work out how to get this on Peter's page :
Craig Stobo, as Peter Williams says, may be a whizz businessman and chairman of a wind-farm company, but that gives him no expertise on nuclear power, or its desirability in New Zealand.
Wind-power, in any case, is a scam, a net longterm energy-loser kept going by subsidy and political skullduggery. Those pylons, now going up everywhere, are really little more than latter-day totem-poles, affirming our blind faith that all will be well.
We need more electricity, Peter claims, and "it's a political scandal that our country's leaders have not bothered to advance the discussion - ever - on nuclear power". Not so. The whole issue was a hot topic way back in the 1970's, when people were much better informed about the pros and cons of nuclear in all its guises. Our government then, supported by a large majority, said no to nuclear, whether in the form of visiting warships or power generation.
Peter seems to have forgotten this, but back in 1970 there was provision for a nuclear power-station within twelve years. This would be built by the state-owned power-monopoly, but was quietly scrubbed when it became apparent that the projected power demand was based on a spurious ten percent growth year on year.
The truth was that we had "surplus power", and when the Clyde dam was built the Minister for Energy, Bill Birch, offered it to an aluminium consortium for next to nothing. There would, had this deal gone through, be a huge new smelter at Aramoana, plus a nickel smelter somewhere up north.
People in those days had more balls and brains than they have now, and these suicidal proposals were defeated by massive public opposition.
The fundamental problem with nuclear energy remains unchanged - what do we do with the radioactive by-products - some of which remain highly toxic for hundreds, or even thousands of years? In other words, by constructing these edifices to Mammon, we condemn our descendants to dealing with our feckless profligacy, more or less forever. And should society break down, as now seems more than possible, lethal radiation will be let loose to poison everyone.
We have plenty of power - more than enough. Look at Tiwai. Close that down and cheap electricity would be back in surplus.
The whole approach is ass-about-face. Endless growth, as Edward Abbey pointed out for all time, is the ideology of the cancer-cell. Yet Peter takes growth as a given, a somehow unalterable fact of life. It isn't. It's a temporary phenomenon facilitated by runaway technology, which is now encountering unsurmountable constraints.
Peter refers to population increases, as though these were somehow inevitable or beyond our control. But they're not. There is no law says we have to ship in a hundred thousand immigrants a year, adding to the treadmill. It's a total lunacy, and we should stop it now - or at least slow it down - while we still live in what remains of a green and pleasant land.
New Zealanders are nice, gullible, bewildered people, who for several generations have been swindled, bamboozled, and deprived of any genuine education. It's sad. It's tragic, and in these circumstances I'd like to suggest that our national bird, the furtive Kiwi, should be replaced by the Ostrich as soon as possible. This, obviously, would change nothing, but would serve to remind us of our true situation.
Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons
Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons
Molten Salt reactors using Thorium as the fuel instead of Uranium are was less than $15B and the capacity for each 40 foot container sized reactor is from memory about 150MW. The technology is very close to being ready and the danger is massively reduced compared to traditional uranium reactors. Copenhagen Atomics are at the forefront of these modern nuclear molten salt reactors. Have a look at their website and their videos on Utube - changed my mind about nuclear it did
Pragmatic and valid - we indeed do need to get serious. Idealogy aka green thinking will not suffice in meeting energy needs.
Couple of points-
1. We have had big plant built since 1992. The combined cycle gas turbine at Otahuhu was around 360 MW as was the one in Taranaki. I believe one of them has been decommissioned since then.
2. Gas would be waaaaaay cheaper than nuclear and it’s nuts we are not searching hard for more gas - or building a big new high efficiency coal plant. (Apparently we have still had exploration for gas over the 6 years but they’ve not found any - gas is generally a byproduct of oil exploration).
3. There have been many more near misses with nuclear. I remember one in Sweden, total state of the art facility, was about 60s from meltdown in the early 2000s. All the levels of redundancy failed, emergency gens etc. I’m not anti nuke but I’d much rather have gas on price and risk.
3.
And yes, ideally a gas and coal thermal plant like Huntly would be our dry winter backup. I suspect Huntly won't be shut down for some years yet. The issue is to get the appropriately priced gas and coal to fuel it!
I did some work for a development agency about 20 years ago looking at generation options for a country in Eastern Europe. We recommended coal, super high efficiency and relatively clean, but all this time later it’s tied up by environmentalists outraged that an international funding agency would even consider that. The people still have daily brownouts.
Hi .. a couple of points. New Plymouth opened in 1974 and was big - 600MW. But it closed in 2008. Otahuhu B opened in 2000 and yes, was big capacity when it was upgraded to 404 MW in 2005. But it was closed in 2015. So since Clyde there has been just the one big power plant built in New Zealand, and it lasted just fifteen years before the climate zealots and uncertainty over gas supply forced Contact Energy to close it down.
I was talking about the Stratford a power Ltd combined cycle plant aka TCC or Taranaki combined cycle. Opened maybe late 90s, about 350 MW, same tech as a Otahuhu
Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons
I was sent the following by Dave Witherow, so here is his comment on this article :
" I can't work out how to get this on Peter's page :
Craig Stobo, as Peter Williams says, may be a whizz businessman and chairman of a wind-farm company, but that gives him no expertise on nuclear power, or its desirability in New Zealand.
Wind-power, in any case, is a scam, a net longterm energy-loser kept going by subsidy and political skullduggery. Those pylons, now going up everywhere, are really little more than latter-day totem-poles, affirming our blind faith that all will be well.
We need more electricity, Peter claims, and "it's a political scandal that our country's leaders have not bothered to advance the discussion - ever - on nuclear power". Not so. The whole issue was a hot topic way back in the 1970's, when people were much better informed about the pros and cons of nuclear in all its guises. Our government then, supported by a large majority, said no to nuclear, whether in the form of visiting warships or power generation.
Peter seems to have forgotten this, but back in 1970 there was provision for a nuclear power-station within twelve years. This would be built by the state-owned power-monopoly, but was quietly scrubbed when it became apparent that the projected power demand was based on a spurious ten percent growth year on year.
The truth was that we had "surplus power", and when the Clyde dam was built the Minister for Energy, Bill Birch, offered it to an aluminium consortium for next to nothing. There would, had this deal gone through, be a huge new smelter at Aramoana, plus a nickel smelter somewhere up north.
People in those days had more balls and brains than they have now, and these suicidal proposals were defeated by massive public opposition.
The fundamental problem with nuclear energy remains unchanged - what do we do with the radioactive by-products - some of which remain highly toxic for hundreds, or even thousands of years? In other words, by constructing these edifices to Mammon, we condemn our descendants to dealing with our feckless profligacy, more or less forever. And should society break down, as now seems more than possible, lethal radiation will be let loose to poison everyone.
We have plenty of power - more than enough. Look at Tiwai. Close that down and cheap electricity would be back in surplus.
The whole approach is ass-about-face. Endless growth, as Edward Abbey pointed out for all time, is the ideology of the cancer-cell. Yet Peter takes growth as a given, a somehow unalterable fact of life. It isn't. It's a temporary phenomenon facilitated by runaway technology, which is now encountering unsurmountable constraints.
Peter refers to population increases, as though these were somehow inevitable or beyond our control. But they're not. There is no law says we have to ship in a hundred thousand immigrants a year, adding to the treadmill. It's a total lunacy, and we should stop it now - or at least slow it down - while we still live in what remains of a green and pleasant land.
New Zealanders are nice, gullible, bewildered people, who for several generations have been swindled, bamboozled, and deprived of any genuine education. It's sad. It's tragic, and in these circumstances I'd like to suggest that our national bird, the furtive Kiwi, should be replaced by the Ostrich as soon as possible. This, obviously, would change nothing, but would serve to remind us of our true situation.
Dave Witherow. 10/08/24.
Peter - my next Listener article advocates for the peaceful use of nuclear power which is not part of the legislative ban which extends only to weapons