Plutonium Man

Ask anyone in the Anti-nuclear movement about Plutonium. 

They'll tell you that Plutonium is the the most deadly, poisonous and life threatening element on the planet. A whiff or possibly a cut or wound infected with a mere trace of Plutonium and then – that's it. Finito. Bye bye. Farewell.

These beliefs, as stated above, are just utter bollocks. And scientifically proven utter bollocks at that.

Let me try and prove it to you.

Of course I could (but won't) cite the many empirical examples of folk who in the early days used to carry (by hand – no gloves) plutonium from one room to another.

Or how at the opening of Calder Hall in 1957 Her Majesty the Queen was handed a small slab of Plutonium in a plastic bag so she could see what it felt like.

So what actual scientific proof can I provide – other than another 4 or 5 anecdotal stories of Plutonium encounters?

Well, there is the Plutonium Man.

Or more precisely Dr Eric Voice.

Eric Voice was a dedicated anti-nuclear (weapons) campaigner and also a leading scientist in the development of the UK's nuclear power industry (that is before we in the UK threw it all away).

He died some years ago of Motor Neurone disease aged 80.

Eric Voice was appalled by the lies, innuendo, fear mongering and hysteria surrounding the supposed effects of Plutonium. So he (and others) devised an rigorous scientific experiment in which Eric Voice would be the primary Guinea Pig.

This carefully structured experiment (that actually lasted through till his death) involved Voice being exposed to (initially) injected Plutonium and then inhaled Plutonium. While Dr Voice was the lead “Guinea Pig” in this experiment 10 other individuals bravely put their names forward and also took part in the experiment. To this day they remain anonymous.

None of the participants suffered any ill effects.

No doubt this did not sit well with the press or the vested interest groups. Today they still lie to you and promote the belief that a whiff of plutonium (let alone getting it in the blood stream) is terminal. 

Yet they know about Eric Voice. Yet they never mention him. Its just too embarrassing.

Lets face it the anti-nuclear movement and their prostitutes in the press never let the truth get in the way of a lurid story.

We have got to throw off this stupid medieval anti-nuclear superstition that infects us. Being scared of our own shadow really does diminish us all. 

Here are a couple of obituaries on Dr Eric Voice. A true scientist, humanitarian and a great guy.

Obituary in the Independent by Tam Dalyell

Environmentalists For Nuclear Obituary

Some details of the experiment can be found here

Nuclear Engineering International - A human approach to the study of Plutonium

Sendai Restart and an Early Christmas Gift

The anti-nuclear lobby is getting all bent out of shape by the restart of one of the two reactors in Sendai in Japan. The restart of one of the worlds most effective anti-greenhouse-gas and anti-pollution power generation methods really rubs their medieval superstitions right up the wrong way.

Not to be outdone by the Sendai reactor, I thought I would indulge in a bit of Luddite antagonism as well.

Of course the best way to antagonize a superstitious hysterical self feeding fear monger is by referencing some impeccably researched and peer reviewed science and then to couple that to a small amount of simple mathematics to show that nuclear actually saves lives.

So here goes....( all figures rounded to one decimal place)

Take one Pressurised Water Reactor. As it has just restarted, we'll use the Sendai Reactor - See Wikipedia Here

The Sendai reactor produces just short of 13TWh of electricity per year. As they have only started one of the two reactors on the site then that will be around 6.5 TWh.

Or to look forward to the festive season: 2.2TWh by Christmas.

Now as for out impeccably researched and peer reviewed let us take this table from a paper by Markyanda & Wilson (published in the Lancet, referenced by Jim Hansen among others) (Full Paper Here)

I suppose we should figure out what fossil fuel the Sendai nuclear reactor displaces .... From an earlier post here we have the break down of what has replaced nuclear during the shutdown in Japan. (Post is Here)

Basically it breaks down as follows. Nuclear in Japan during the shutdown was replaced by:

46% Coal
47% Gas
7%   Oil

So the single restarted Sendai reactor (6.5 TWh/yr) will displace approximately 3 TWh coal, 3 TWh gas and 0.5TWh oil in a year.

Or if we want to get into the festive spirit, the Sendai restart will displace approximately 1 TWh coal, 1 TWh gas and 0.2TWh from oil by Christmas.

Lets rephrase these figures into death and illness using the table above.

The deaths, disease and illness prevented in a year from the single unit restarted at Sendai ( i.e. half of a solitary nuclear power plant) will cut pollution by such an extent that it will:

Prevent the deaths of 90 people
Prevent serious illness (hospitalization) of 840 people
Prevent minor (time of work) illness of 45000 people (yes you read it right - 45 thousand)

Or to simply look to Christmas 2015. This single restart late in the year (August) will.

Prevent the death of 10 people
Prevent serious illness in 91 more
and prevent minor illness in no less than 15000 people

Now whether you are a Luddite or not, that is a hell of a Christmas present for 15100 folk in Japan this year.

The Merchants of Doubt

I know some folk who read this blog are nervous about Nuclear power or even out-right hostile.

Today I do not want you to listen to my reasoning as to why Nuclear is the only practical solution to our problems. Instead I would ask you to read  the following quote from one of the greatest scientists who has ever lived.

Then I would ask you to look at the people who have previously advised you to be against Nuclear.

Look at them closely. What are their skills? Where is their expertise?

How good are they actually as scientists? How many papers have they published in leading journals?

How do they compare with the likes of pro-nuclear scientists like Hansen, Lovelock, Wigley and Allinson?

Anyway, here's the quote:

Dr James Hansen writes:

[quote]

The public is unaware of pressure put on scientists to be silent about nuclear power.

After I mention nuclear power I receive numerous messages, often heart-breaking in their sincerity as they repeat Caldicott like unfounded assertions and beg me not to mention nuclear power.

More disconcerting is the pressure from environmental organizations and the liberal media. Each large environmental organization has a nuclear “expert” (often a lawyer, not a physicist) with a well-developed script to respond to any positive statement about nuclear power.

Liberal media follow precisely the “merchants of doubt” approach that the right-wing media use to block action on climate change; raising fears about nuclear power is enough to stymie support. The liberal media employ not only environmental organization “experts”, but former heads of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) appointed during Democratic Administrations.

These NRC talking heads are well-spoken professionals with a spiel that has been honed over years. And they have a track record. The NRC, despite its many dedicated capable employees, has been converted from the top into a lawyer-laden organization that can take many months or years to approve even simple adjustments to plans. 

It is almost impossible to build a nuclear power plant in the United States in less than 10 years, and this is not because an American worker cannot lay one brick on top of another as fast as a Chinese worker. Anti-nukes know that the best way to kill nuclear power is to make it more expensive.
[unquote]

Those are the exact words of one of the worlds leading scientists. the full text of his statement is Here (the above extract, fully in context, is on page 15.)

Now, ask yourself this: Who is telling the truth?

The world leading scientist and his many peer level colleagues?

Or the propaganda department from Greenpeace?

The Coming Dark Age - Revisited

I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I read these articles in the Independent today (HERE) and (HERE) In these articles the outgoing head of OfGem moans about the looming "Energy Gap" and inevitable price hikes that are on their way. Evidently, we are now so far down the road the only option we have to potentially avert the crisis is to build gas plant using expensive imported gas.

Dare I point out that I first blogged about this in 2010 ( HERE ) and I was a long way from being the first. In the industry this has been an issue for the last 10 years. Both of the last governments (but particularly the last Labour administration) are guilty of letting this drift. Due to the time scales the looming energy supply catastrophe can only now be potentially offset by gas - whatever the cost.

That AND possibly keeping old and decrepit coal plant running.

What a state to get into.

All because vacuous politicians have preferred to pursue the fools gold of renewables and simultaneously shun new nuclear.

But nuclear companies are no different than any other large ruthless corporate entity. Worldwide today, it is a lucrative sellers market for nuclear manufacturers. So now, when we are at or past crisis point the politico's are being held to ransom. The nuclear companies are demanding their pound of flesh. What a turn around.

We are told that "power cuts are unlikely" This is almost certainly just more wishful thinking.
Our generation capacity is going to fall to almost parity to what is needed. Any outage is going to stretch things to breaking point. A large outage in a serious cold snap or a double break down is going to see serious and widespread blackouts.

What will the politico's do? I reckon they will try and wing it. They will hope for mild weather and no breakdowns. God help us all.

This is terrible.

All of that money! All of that national resource wasted on the useless unreliable wind. All of the prevarication and navel gazing over nuclear and shale gas. All of that "Do Nothing and Hope It goes away" attitude.

At best the end result will be a stretched and unreliable power supply dominated by ancient coal and expensive imported gas, with wind adding little but a feel good factor for the technically illiterate.

Of course there will a diminishing contribution from our old first generation nuclear plant as well.
Inevitably this is going to be forced into an ever extended lifespan and run flat-out just to save the asses of our great and good.

What a waste. What a scandal.

Wind and the Myth of Fossil Fuel Subsidies.

One of the latest little scams our wind turbines aficionado's are trying to pull is to justify their obscenely expensive and ineffective Wind Turbine generators (WTG's) by inventing fictional subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear. The latest and greatest of these has the carpet baggers claiming that that the massive ROC subsidy received by wind is on par with or even less than that received by gas, oil and coal.

Of course, this is a load of tosh. Just as it is a load tosh that wind is cheaper than nuclear (See this Post).

Here is a fine example of this bufoonery at The Guardian - Here  (where does the Guardian get their reporters from?). You have to ask: Do Guardian journalists ever read the documents they supposedly quote from? Or do they just do as they are told? 

According to our Guardian scribbler, poor hard done-by wind (which at best produces 1% total energy supply) "only" got £700M subsidy in 2010. Whereas (shock horror probe) the demon spawn of Satan (aka fossil fuels) received a whopping £3.63 Billion. 

He supposedly derives this from an OECD document available Here. Pity the journalist didn't read it first. I have to ask if Guardian journalist are just naturally lazy or so dedicated to spewing out propaganda they willingly subvert the truth to aid their carpet bagging friends in the wind industry.

At the end of this document from the OECD are three tables that summarize the subsidies received by coal oil and gas (produced at the end of this post)

Each of these tables itemise the folowing:
A "Producer subsidy" i.e. the subsidy received by the energy producer.
A "Consumer" subsidy which relates to the reduced VAT rate charged on all electricity and heating (however generated) 
Finally, a subsidy for inherited liabilities. (£8.5M - coal only)

These are the producer subsidies:
Coal: Nil (Coal provides approx 14% total energy)
Gas: £233M (Gas provides approx 40% total energy)
Oil: £301M (Oil provides approx 38% total energy)

These subsidies though are acknowledged by the OECD as for specific purposes, not like the ROC which simply lines the pockets of the shysters running the WTG scam.

What this ridiculous article includes in to order to get to £3.63 Billion is the Consumer subsidy. This of course, applies to all energy providers including wind and relates to consumers NOT providers. Wind (whose energy is also subject  to the same consumer VAT reduction from 20% to 5%) still gets an another £700M. All for their measly 1% annual contribution to the UK energy mix.

I can only see this as a fundamentally dishonest and decietful misuse of data in order to promote a mistruth. The fact that this appears in a supposedly  upstanding newpaper is absolutely unforgivable.

 You can guarantee ther wind industry and their pals will try and pull this trick again.

Just remember, even if you consider the consumer VAT tax reduction a subsidy, then it is a subsidy to consumers. It is a subsidy to people who use the energy NOT the producers. The reduced VAT tax on energy makes no difference to the wholesale sell-out price for that energy whatever it is derived from. It relates to fossil, nuclear, wind, hydro,  and any other energy generation technique.

This non existent fossil fuel subsidy just comes down to another self promotional myth from the wind industry and their sycophants.

One day they may start telling the truth. Just don't hold your breath waiting.

(tables follow)

New Nuclear Sites Confirmed

The government has confirmed the sites for eight new nuclear reactors.

And about time too. See Fuels & Power article Here

All the political dithering and posturing over the last ten years (yes ten) has seriously compromised our ability to produce the base load electricity we will so desperately need now.

All over the country old and obsolete plant is being forced into ever longer service because there is nothing to replace it.

Inevitably old plant is less safe than new plant. For exactly the same reasons that a new Ford Mondeo is massively safer than a 1960's Ford Prefect.

But because of the political dithering and toadying to narrow minded environmental bigotry, we now can ill afford to close any of the old plant whether it is coal, gas, oil or nuclear.

Inefficient as it may be, the 50-60 year old plant has to soldier on.

Why can we not close it down anyway?

Because without it, the country's electricity supply simply could not cope.

If ten years ago we had embarked on a steady and measured programme of renewing our nuclear stock and replacing old coal plants with Generation IV nuclear plant, today we would perhaps (like the French) have the lowest electricity prices in Europe, and also the lowest electricity generation CO2 emissions.

Along with that we would have no dirty coal plant and our dependancy on foreign gas would be diminished. As we currently have "in stock" about 60 - 80 years worth of nuclear fuel just sitting on the shelf, we would also be self sufficient in energy.

But it is no use crying over spilt milk.

What we need to do now is to get those in high office to understand the need for much more new Generation IV nuclear plant. France has 58 nuclear reactors with another 3 in various stages of build.

The French have shown that Nuclear works and is highly cost effective. Their huge success lays bare the lies and propaganda about "subsidised nuclear".

If nuclear is so "subsidised" how come the French (80 % nuclear) have the cheapest electricity in Europe?

How come in windmill ridden  Denmark electricity bills are among the highest?

We don't just need eight new Generation IV reactors, we need to start with at least twice that number.

But that is just a start.

I suppose a confirmation about eight new reactors is better than yet more dithering.

But it is still a long way from what we really need.