Turkey mulling nuclear plant in North Cyprus

Fawkes


Joined: 18/07/2011
Posts: 86

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 09:50

Turkey mulling nuclear plant in North Cyprus



article in the Cyprus mail http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/turkey-mulling-nuclear-plant-north/20110722



We are doomed I say doomed



Or is this in the same category as Disney land at pyle , the cable car from Kyrenia- Hilarion trams in Kyrenia ?

JohnDownes


Joined: 03/12/2010
Posts: 123

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:01

I'd have no problem with a nuclear generator here. And if it makes the electricity cheaper so much the better.

TRNCVaughan


Joined: 27/04/2008
Posts: 4578

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:10

I read the article which mentioned a barge mounted system. Does this mean what it sounds like? Does it mean that the "hot" items are mounted on a barge floating offshore, which can be taken away and sunk in deep water if necessary?

martinD41


Joined: 06/09/2010
Posts: 3001

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:14

msg1 " We are Doomed I say Doomed"





Hasn't that always been the correct analogy.......

Groucho



Joined: 26/04/2008
Posts: 7993

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:14

John,

How close to your home would you be prepared to have this plant? Given the track record of anything built anywhere how confident would you be that they would site it rationally?

Cyprus would be a crazy-ape-bonkers place to house a nuclear plant... given the track record of 'disasters' at the current power plants.... the mind boggles.

Tenakoutou



Joined: 27/07/2009
Posts: 4110

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:17

Yet another 'pie in the sky' pipe-dream project - how about the water pipeline first!

martinD41


Joined: 06/09/2010
Posts: 3001

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:17

Absolutely right Gavin,but if they run a cable from turkey who do you suggest does the connection this end,the mind does indeed boggle...........

martinD41


Joined: 06/09/2010
Posts: 3001

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:19

Ten (hi there) was it not suggested they run the electric and water in the same conduit...( it gets worse )

Troodo


Joined: 12/06/2008
Posts: 1002

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 10:53

I told you a few months ago that they were planning a nuclear power plant once they had enough Lego bricks.

Groucho



Joined: 26/04/2008
Posts: 7993

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 11:36

Lego Bricks? Surely over-specification!

JohnDownes


Joined: 03/12/2010
Posts: 123

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 11:39

Groucho (5), when I lived in central Antwerp I was about 8 miles from a nuclear plant, and it didn't worry me one bit.

I am assuming of course that any plant here would be built to high engineering standards by people who know what they are doing (and take into account that this region is designated as an earthquake zone).

CJtill


Joined: 02/05/2008
Posts: 836

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 11:40

The nuclear plant has already been sent out to tender and construction will begin shortly.

If you were not aware, the reactor will be sited between Shayna Beach Club and Cornaro at Catalkoy, just by the bit where the fishermen congregate during the day.

The maintenance of the plant will looked after by Mehmet and his brother who will check for radiation leaks before they go home, though an extra dollop of silicon round the reactor should sort out the problem.

Michael

martinD41


Joined: 06/09/2010
Posts: 3001

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 13:52

JohnDownes...By assuming that the plant will be built to high engineering standards by local builders, I fear you assume too much..........

JohnDownes


Joined: 03/12/2010
Posts: 123

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:32

Martin (13).... Please read what I said! I said "built by people who know what they are doing" and that was carefully worded so as to exclude the possibility of local builders getting involved. If that thing (which we all know will never get built anyway) ever gets erected by Ozgur and the boys, then I'm off!

girne 29


Joined: 06/12/2007
Posts: 1488

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:36

when I lived in central Antwerp I was about 8 miles from a nuclear plant, and it didn't worry me one bit.

And last year you would probably have said the same thing about living 8 miles from Fukushima,Yes??

We are tallking ,after all that has happened in Japan, about deliberately building a nuclear power station in an earthquake zone.





and what about our children ! Want to ask them if they want any more nuclear plants in earthquake areas .





(and take into account that this region is designated as an earthquake zone).



And just how do you take that into account!!!!.



On a selfish note,

Thats all we need ,on top of an already dead property market iin TRNC and not much better in ROC and Turkey as well,,to be told there is a plan to build a nuclear power station .

girne 29


Joined: 06/12/2007
Posts: 1488

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:41

PS.

forgot to post this out of Owners Direct. to allay fears of anyone who wants to rent



Cyprus does not have nuclear Power stations and the area is part of the mediteranean earthquake zone and thoughts have to move to the risks involved in having nuclear power stations in "vunerable" areas.

Jeannie


Joined: 04/08/2009
Posts: 3283

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:45

Message 12



- especially the bit about the extra dollop of silicon.

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:53

Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium

A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium.

This passed unnoticed –except by a small of band of thorium enthusiasts – but it may mark the passage of strategic leadership in energy policy from an inert and status-quo West to a rising technological power willing to break the mould.

If China’s dash for thorium power succeeds, it will vastly alter the global energy landscape and may avert a calamitous conflict over resources as Asia’s industrial revolutions clash head-on with the West’s entrenched consumption.

China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has lo

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:57

China’s Academy of Sciences said it had chosen a “thorium-based molten salt reactor system”. The liquid fuel part2 idea was pioneered by US physicists at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s, but the US has long since dropped the ball. Chinese scientists claim that hazardous waste will be a thousand times less than with uranium. The system is inherently less prone to disaster.

“The reactor has an amazing safety feature,” said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer at Teledyne Brown and a thorium expert.

“If it begins to overheat, a little plug melts and the salts drain into a pan. There is no need for computers, or the sort of electrical pumps that were crippled by the tsunami. The reactor saves itself,” he said.

“They operate at atmospheric pressure so you don’t have the sort of hydrogen explosions we’ve seen in Japan. One of these reactors would have come through the tsunami just fine. There would have been no radiation release.”

misunderstood


Joined: 08/04/2011
Posts: 1004

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:57

John message 11 - What a lovely chap you sound, but must confess I did have a laugh. Is there anyone who knows what they are doing here? They can borrow my meccano set and my Tonka toy lorry.



Since it will never happen, I guess we can all afford to joke about it. Who will give them credit to pay for it, I know for a fact Akfinans said no, then oh well maybe, then how does 380% per quarter compound suit you,

Then gave them the cheque for 300 billion dollars drawn on the Bank of Funland. (no not Finland)



Do you think they will remember to get planning permission?

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:58

Thorium is a silvery metal named after the Norse god of thunder. The metal has its own “issues” but no thorium reactor could easily spin out of control in the manner of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or now Fukushima.

Professor Robert Cywinksi from Huddersfield University said thorium must be bombarded with neutrons to drive the fission process. “There is no chain reaction. Fission dies the moment you switch off the photon beam. There are not enough neutrons for it continue of its own accord,” he said.

Dr Cywinski, who anchors a UK-wide thorium team, said the residual heat left behind in a crisis would be “orders of magnitude less” than in a uranium reactor.

The earth’s crust holds 80 years of uranium at expected usage rates, he said. Thorium is as common as lead. America has buried tons as a by-product of rare earth metals mining. Norway has so much that Oslo is planning a post-oil era where thorium might drive the country’s next great phase of wealth. Even Britain has seams in W

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 16:59

Even Britain has seams in Wales and in the granite cliffs of Cornwall. Almost all the mineral is usable as fuel, compared to 0.7pc of uranium. There is enough to power civilisation for thousands of years.

Fukushima failed, but as yet none of 15,000 deaths are linked to nuclear failure. The Tsunami caused them. Indeed, there has never been a verified death from nuclear power in the West in half a century. Perspective is in order.

We cannot avoid the fact that two to three billion extra people now expect – and will obtain – a western lifestyle. China alone plans to produce 100m cars and buses every year by 2020.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the world currently has 442 nuclear reactors. They generate 372 gigawatts of power, providing 14pc of global electricity. Nuclear output must double over twenty years just to keep pace with the rise of the China and India.

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 17:00

If a string of countries cancel or cut back future reactors, let alone follow Germany’s Angela Merkel in shutting some down, they shift the strain onto gas, oil, and coal. Since the West is also cutting solar subsidies, they can hardly expect the solar industry to plug the gap.

US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.

The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner.

Dr Cywinski is developing an accelerator driven sub-critical reactor for thorium, a cutting-edge project worldwide. It needs to £300m of public money for the next phase, and £1.5bn of commercial investment to produce the first working plant. Thereafter, economies of scale kick in fast. The id

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 17:01

The idea is to make pint-size 600MW reactors.

Yet any hope of state support seems to have died with the Coalition budget cuts, and with it hopes that Britain could take a lead in the energy revolution. It is understandable, of course. Funds are scarce. The UK has already put its efforts into the next generation of uranium reactors. Yet critics say vested interests with sunk costs in uranium technology succeeded in chilling enthusiasm.

The same happened a decade ago to a parallel project by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). France’s nuclear industry killed proposals for funding from Brussels, though a French group is now working on thorium in Grenoble.

Tonyta


Joined: 11/06/2011
Posts: 122

Message Posted:
22/07/2011 17:02

Norway’s Aker Solution has bought Professor Rubbia’s patent. It had hoped to build the first sub-critical reactor in the UK, but seems to be giving up on Britain and locking up a deal to build it in China instead, where minds and wallets are more open.

So the Chinese will soon lead on this thorium technology as well as molten-salts. Good luck to them. They are doing Mankind a favour. We may get through the century without tearing each other apart over scarce energy and wrecking the planet.



Sorry it took a number of messages but I hope you enjoyed the read?

JohnDownes


Joined: 03/12/2010
Posts: 123

Message Posted:
23/07/2011 10:25

Thank you Tonyta. Very interesting.