Nuke power for NZ?

[pete376403]

Canaries. They used canaries down coal mines, not budgies.

Also, a possible reason why conservation of power (efficiency, household solar, etc) hasn't been promoted much by Govt. is that anythig that reduces Govt revenue isn't really going to be a goer when the Govt own the two largest generators.

[MikeL]

A handy Latin phrase should be applied to all controversies of this sort:
Cui bono?
Who benefits?

If you start to see media stories revisiting the nuclear power question, do you think they have been spontaneously generated?

Do you think you will ever be presented with a viable alternative to writing out a monthly cheque to a power company?

I know that the technology exists to make my household largely self-sufficient in energy. Enough sunshine falls, enough wind blows...
Where are the companies competing to offer economical home electricity generation and storage systems??

[TwoSeven]

One of the other good things about wave/tidal generation is that you can also use it in the major irrigation races. What they do is put a series inline (in a similar way that a dam works, except there is no dam) to generate constant power.

[BugSplat]

Sounds like a good altinite use for the western springs site

Pardon my trolling.

[moko]

Someone mentioned Methane.I only recently heard of this in the U.K. I recently worked in a bakery and apparently all the waste was sent to a power-station and somehow was converted into Methane to run the thing.I also read that the ozone-layer in N.Z.,or rather over N.Z. is partly due to methane "being expelled" from sheep and going into the atmosphere.I know this`ll sound stupid but is running a power-station on sheep crap viable? In America they could us the waste-products from their vast cattle herds, imagine the slogan they could use, "America,run on bull-shit"

[James Deuce]

Someone mentioned Methane.I only recently heard of this in the U.K. I recently worked in a bakery and apparently all the waste was sent to a power-station and somehow was converted into Methane to run the thing.I also read that the ozone-layer in N.Z.,or rather over N.Z. is partly due to methane "being expelled" from sheep and going into the atmosphere.I know this`ll sound stupid but is running a power-station on sheep crap viable? In America they could us the waste-products from their vast cattle herds, imagine the slogan they could use, "America,run on bull-shit"

Ozone is generated by electrical activity in the upper atmosphere. The shortages of Ozone in the southern hemisphere are due to the two cycles of sunspot activity fromt he late '60s, which normally last 11 years each, not taking place, and solar storms not sweeping the upper atmosphere. CFCs do NOT reach the upper atmospshere intact (this HAS been proven btw), and it is debatable that methane produced by ruminants can move from the troposhere to the stratosphere in enough quantity to chemically bond with O3 (Ozone - it's a covalent bonding, meaning molecules share electron pairs.).

However just as the Mid-Atlantic trench is going through a CO2 "burp" phase, there is some work going on to see if a similar oceanic methane "burp" has caused climactic issues in the past. There is some proof to suggest that a food chain imbalance can upset the food chain enough that organic matter rots rather than being consumed and processed, and the subsequent methane burp has nasty effects on the upper atmosphere.

Processing Methane for power generation means you are transforming it by burning, thereby reducing the chance of the methane doing damage to the upper atmosphere.

[Jeremy]

There's a methane power station in Auckland (Otara) allready, it runs off the methane produced by the rubbish dump.

[avgas]

would you let 20 year olds run a nightshift in a nuclear powerplant????

we let them drink, drive, smoke, have sex, own fire arms, work in the armed forces, handle radioactive materials, fly aircraft......
what makes you think they wont let them work in power plants?

We still need to educate people to use power better in NZ, my lights dont go on till i cant see, my computer goes into standby mode in 10 mins, and turns monitor off in 1. i switch off power sockets before i leave the house.....
some places i see all the lights on, 24hours a day. Why burn coal indeed, when the same ammount of money can be invested in better solutions.
should be compulsory for all new houses to generate at least 0.5kW by own means - as it is not very expensive.

[Hitcher]

Methane can be extracted from coal seams that are uneconomic to mine in two ways. The first involves "fraccing" the seams with an underground explosion and then adding water, lots of it. Up bubbles methane. The second techniques involves setting fire to the underground seam, leaving it to smoulder and then extracting the methane and other partially-burned hydrocarbons that come up the flue. Both techniques have been trialled in New Zealand: fraccing at Ohai near Invercargill and smouldering at Huntly.

[Coldkiwi]

given the issues surrounding present Nuclear technologys and the fact that most of our major industries are run off Hydro, do we really need the sledgehammer approach of a nuclear plant and all its associated dramas?
'Save energy' is a great idea but its not a solution for a growing country. We're already saving 10% remember? How much more do you think is left?

Wind farms are a bit of a difficulty and are actually a real noise problem as well because people perceive the noise intrusion as much greater for the same loudness as a generator or other common sound.

For my taxpayer money, I'd like to see them make use of all the tidal currents on our coastline to make use of what we've got rather than a nuclear station that won't go away once started.

[TwoSeven]

I've always wanted to have a go at generating power of the chch city water supply. I mean if they maintain head pressure at 100psi (or whatever it is), shouldnt be too hard to leech off of it.

My parents have already done the self generation stuff using gas and a deisel generator (with inverter, battery bank and wind turbine), and being city-fied, I figured I could replace the deisel generator with a micro-turbine to charge the batteries.

[pete376403]

There's a methane power station in Auckland (Otara) allready, it runs off the methane produced by the rubbish dump.

Same thing is done at Silverstream (Hutt Valley) tip http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0305/S00047.htm

However this is not new - when I was doing my apprenticeship at GG&H back in 1970, they were marketing "total energy solutions" - gensets run off waste.

[Indiana_Jones]

Where's the saint with that receipe for cold fusion?

-Indy

[Blakamin]

we let them drink, drive, smoke, have sex, own fire arms, work in the armed forces, handle radioactive materials, fly aircraft......
what makes you think they wont let them work in power plants?

That was in reference to the reason chernobyl happened... considering they had no senior member of staff there on the nightshift.
I didnt say work there... I said RUN.... I wouldnt let a 20 year old RUN the army, RUN the LTSA, RUN the airforce.. (oh, wait... thats impossible to do worse already) shit... some of them shouldn't even run a till at McDonalds....

[ManDownUnder]

I think we need a change of focus...

Efficiency - not generation. The problem with efficiency is there is less money in it for the key players (generation and power distribution marketers) so what do they want to push it for?

If every house/factory had solar hot water heating, and all lights were efficient (not boring old incandescent) and all heat was kept in the house with insulation etc etc... we'd save a bloody fortune.

I personally think NZ has pleanty of power being generated now... we just pour a lot of it down the damned toilet (metaphorically speaking of course...)

Rant over...