Nuclear Power in Poland? Yes, please! Absolutely nobody disagrees!

No we dont!

Czarnobyl made "boom" not without a reason, Sovients were testing there some weapons (not noticeable if you do it in power plant)

if Poland will not make such a mistake we will not have "boom"

but if there is a full safe for enviremnt solution im all for that :D

Yes we do. How else we are to fend off the Russian invasion?
And nuclear plants may not be perfectly safe to the envirement but no other option is safer. Unless you are willing to spend the ludicrous amount of money.

Russians have enough N weapons to destroys us 10000 times ^^ if i remember correctly US have more but Russian have more power in it.

also, COME ON Russia will not attack us, who would they sell their gas if they conquer us? :D

Sure, they can destroy us bilion times. Who cares if we, in turn, can destroy them just one single time. No need for more.
We will not need the gass of theirs all that much, with some decent nuclear power plant grid of our own.

Army is not all about N weapons

"Smart mix of renewable energies" for now sounds like a smart way to fill someone's pocket with taxpayers' money.

There is NO viable alternative to nuclear (and thermonuclear in future) power generation, at least I do not see it.


Wrong. According to some studies I seen in the past, there is enough of 235U already extracted (including that is in military arsenals now) for 100+ years if regular "thermal neutron" reactors will be used. But, there is a huge stockpiles of 238U ("depleted uranium" that remains after 235U extraction from natural isotope mix), mostly in highly corrosive UF6 form, which is just stored for now (Russia starting to slowly convert their depleted UF6 stocks to uranium oxide that is much safer in storage and commercial grade HF - process may be speed up somewhat, but problem is that industry simply not need in so much HF now and storage of excess HF is not too much less expensive than storage of UF6). If we move to a breeder reactors, curent 238U stocks is more than enough for all energy needs during next 1000+ years (based on current trend in energy consumption growth). All we need to do that - new technologies to deal with irradiated nuclear fuel, to extract fissile 239Pu from them without so much liquid radioactive waste and strict control over extracted plutonium (as it is fissile and theoretically can be used for nuclear bomb - though reactor grade Pu is not very suitable for low-tech bombs).

There is at least one alternative to uranium - it is Thorium 232. There is MUCH more thorium on Earth (3 to 4 times), compared to Uranium. And there is no need in expensive processes of isotope separation, as it consist almost entirely of usable 232Th. One more positive thing - thorium is not fissile by itself, and absolutely useless for military, so you can deal with it as with any slightly radioactive metal, until it is irradiated in reactor.

WIth breeder type reactors, we may have tens of thousands years until all already known thorium deposits will be used up. And it is expected than energy from thorium reactors will be approx 10 times cheaper, compared to uranium reactors (including all safety measures to cost).

And there is some very interesting projects of sub-critical electro-nuclear reactors, that cannot explode at all under any circumstances - they produce energy only with external source of neutrons (external proton accelerator used for this purpose). Once you turn accelerator off or something went wrong with accelerator - reaction stops instantly.

India have litle uranium deposits, but have LOTS of monazite sands, that contains thorium along with other rare earth metals. So, Indian nuclear program already oriented to thorium fuel. Norway also nave huge deposits of thorium-containing minerals and expressed interest in thorium energy, but "greens" killed national research program in field of safe subcritical thorium reactors.


Wrong again.

For now, by producing solar cells, you actually WASTE some energy. Just because full cycle of manufacture (from minerals in their natural deposits to solar battery ready to install) will consume more energy than it will be produced by that solar batery during all their useful life (I mean typical european climate, not some african desert). To me, whole "solar energy" project looks like two processes of moving - first one is moving taxpayers money to pockets of solar panels producers, and second is moving related waste from EU to China. I have few really obscene words for "greens" who promote all this crap.

For hydroenegetics you'll have to flood lots of precious lands to keep enough water for a summer and winter seasons. I never tried to calculate, how much energy you can get (in typical European climate) from these lands if it will be used to grow some oil-rich crops to produce biodiesel, but suspect that result will be not so good to those who blindly believe in hydro... Russia widely uses hydroenergetics, but there is a lot of convenient places to do so - and I do not see something similar in modern Poland or Germany.

Windmills..... Well, it is good idea somewhere near Gibraltar, where winds are almost constant and relatively strong. Try to get some weather statistics for your own territory and figure out how much windy days you have. In a most places whole idea will be useless.

Not a problem at all. 80 years is longer than oil is supposed to last. It is also longer than the estimated supplies of copper. Without those two we can have no plastics or electrical wiring. Without electrical wiring there is no need for electricity, is there?


Actually, the most efficient solar panels are around 30%. And these are very expensive. That translates into about 0.41 Watts per square meter. On a sunny day it would take about 3 square meters of a solar panel area to power an average hair dryer and about 10 to 30 square meters to power an average house of , say 150sq/meters. That, of course would be possible only during the day. For the remainder of the 24 cycle deep cycle batteries would have to be used. They contain acid which is certainly not your tree-hugger dream, is it?

For the enthusiasts, a retail cost of a 80 Watt solar panel is about $700. An average house needs about 50 to 100 of those. Let's go solar!!!

In Polar areas solar would be available for about 1/2 of the year and I'm not sure technology exists to store the solar energy for the other 1/2 of a year without significant loss of energy due to simple attenuation. Now, we could look at transmitting power to Polar/Arctic regions via wire from sunnier areas (very expensive infrastructure and maintenance) but that would occuer at a significant transmission power loss.

Windmills are becoming a big business and there are a few windmill farms around where I live. The big ones cost on average $1M each, plus the associated infrastructure (inverters, installation, maintenance).

For an average house the cost is about $50,000 for a 10kW setup, and then you have some groups (sometimes the same who wanted the wind mills) complaining about health effects of the windmills.

At this point the only reasonable source of free energy seems to be this:

youtube.com/watch?v=RQG6AanYdmQ

Now, if we could replace the hampster with you then we'd be able to power a small laptop.

Oh, Poland could go for the tidal waves! What tidal waves? The Baltic sea tides are perhaps the same as the thickness of a hair. OK, a pubic hair, but that's still not enough to power the country.


This is how this "smart" program works in Ontario.
As an individual you install solar panels and you can sell to the grid up to 10kW, for whoch they pay you $0.80 per kW/hr (leess per kW/hr if you supply more). You then buy electricity back from them a market rate (currently $0.05 to $0.07 kW/hr.) Looks like a good deal, huh? Three problems:

- you sell your max energy capacity only on sunny days but you pay for it 24/7/365 so your $0.80 goes down very fast.
- the cost of the contraption is so high that there are few takers.
- where does the government get the money to pay to those who have the money in the first place?

There is common thing between "green" freaks - once they beleived in something, they not spending their time to research consequences, they starting their missionary job immediately. ;)

Well. Lead is poisonous. "Green" freaks was unable to pass by... Their RoHS initiative already passed into law. Now electronics manufacturers cannot use any lead-containing solders or components. But, unfortunately, pure tin is not usable as solder, it produces microscopis whiskers that cause short circuits on PCBs and at low temperatures slowly transforms to gray powderish substance. So, lead-free replacements of well proven 63Sn36Pb eutectic alloy now in use - and it is MORE TOXIC than original one due to added Sb, Cd, etc... In addition, higher melting temperatures and not so good adhesion of lead-free solders create a lots of problems to manufacturers and shorten average life of electronics (creating additional waste) - but who cares? They won their battle with lead, they really happy!

Another beloved toy of freaks is "carbon footprint".. Will not comment on this...

Now, when I heard that someone tries to say that "everyone should do at least something to protect environment", I always want to say that safest thing that he/she can do is to kill yourself. ;) This for sure will not create any additional harm to environment, will save a lot of resources, and specialists whose work is to determine safety of something will work under slightly lower pressure from crowds that didn't understand what they really want to do. ;)

Sounds just about right. Another example is the bio-fuels. While the idea sounds good initially, some numbers reveal a different story that has been quietly swept under the carpet as governments no longer yap about corn in the gas tank.

It turns out that out of 12% of American arable land they were able too replace 1% (that's ONE percent) of conventional oil. Using up 100% of arable area would then replace less than 8.4% of conventional oil. There would be some additional savings in oil use though. There simply would be no food to buy anymore, so people would not drive to grocery stores.

Yeah... But how much taxpayers money was spent to various grants, programs and donations?

Another thing to remember - blackouts in California. Local "green" lobby almost succeeded in destroying normal business activity there (as was told by friend of mine who lived there). Their employer was forced to install a number of industrial UPS systems (4 tons of lead acid batteries just at one location where he worked, lots of $ already spent and there will be problems in nearest 3 years to dispose replaced bateries) and few diesel-generators to protect sensitive processes from those blackouts.

But it all was for a good thing. To protect enviroinment. New coal power plants is prohibited - they is harmful. New nuclear power plants is prohibited - they is dangerous. Lion share of energy had to be imported from nearby states (looks like there is another environment and coal plant in Arizona is not harmful at all), so grid collapsed.


Yeah. Actually a bit cheaper. I recently purchased good 70W solar panel to build solar-powered telemetry system, consisting of small VHF radio, special telemetry controller with modem and battery charge circuits (my old project that was put in small-scale production), solar panel, SLA battery. That panel with 10 years warranty (until 10% power drop) cost me about $520 after all taxes. In a climate of central Russia I plan to have average output about 22-25W during daylight hours (actually close to 50W in a summer sunny day and just a couple of watts in a cloudy day). I _hope_ that it will keep 26Ah SLA battery reasonably good charged to power my electronics, if someone will manage to remove snow from panel at winter. Will know for sure after a first year (controller will log and transmit their power system statistics as well).

So, close to $600 for solar panel and lead-acid battery to keep some relatively low-power equipment running on solar energy.

Solar is indeed one of the best energy sources there is. And always available. But if they deperately want nuclear energy, then go ahead. We probably will be sending packages again when the (nuclear) winter comes knocking at the door, like we did in the 70's and 80's.

>^..^<

M-G (is in favour of durable energy like wind and solar - better for Mother Earth as well)

Now is 02:33 in Moscow. Please, show me where I can get some solar energy? I need it badly right now. ;)

Seriously - it may be good complement to conventional power plants in dry deserts relatively close to equator. And only during the day. Otherwise you need _LARGE_ banks of batteries (lots of lead to produce it, and you'll need to reprocess it every 4-5 years). Good quality solar panels will last 25-35 years, then you'll need to expand array to compensate for power loss or replace it at once.

Try to calculate energy balance. Complete balance, from sand as source of silicon and some lead ores to ready panels and batteries. It will be not so good. Then add processing costs. Calculate total cost of kw/h... Compare with your current bills...

Yes, there is a lots of places where it will be acceptable (distant areas with small populations and without energy-hungry factories in a climate with plenty of sunlight). Solar energy may significantly rise living standards there. Buit it is not a universal panacea, and never will be...

Wisecrack :)

I don't know the specifice, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that you even with a clouded sky can avail of solar energy...Seems you only need daylight. But again, I am not sure.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Yeah. Even night sky deliver some energy. Starlight, sunlight dispersed on a cosmic dust.... But it is really tiny.

There is new generation of solar cells that can use much wider spectrum (wavelengths) compared to ordinary silicon solar cells. They may get some reasonable amount (not very big though) even during cloudy day. But it is EXPENSIVE.

I visited photovoltatic show in Taipei last October... Yes, there is lots of new things, but many of them is simply not suitable for use in a climate of Poland/Russia.

And, in addition - solar panels also occupy some space. Don't forget to include land lease to cost of energy.

Well at least there are some reasonable alternatives. That's the most important. I'm a bit shiverish when it comes to nuclear energy, so (clean) alternatives are always welcome.

>^..^<

M-G (we have to save Mother Earth after all, the woman all men worldwide should love)

Believe me, it cannot be considered reasonable alternative, at least in foreseeable future. Are you ready to pay, say, $12 per kw/h? Are you ready to live near semiconductor factory with some really not nice substances used in process (like arsine, phosphine)?

I think that subcritical reactors will be safe enough even for paranoids. ;) Especially underground variants with 100-150m of natural radiation shield above it. ;) 20-40 years of operation on a single fuel load, then 100-150 years of "cooling" to let highly active nucleides to decay, then spent fuel removal and reprocessing.

If we talking about thorium fuel cycle, we can even afford to use fresh thorium each time and just store spent fuel in a safe place (some orbit out of ecliptic plane may be such safe place - for millions of years if necessary, and relatively accessible if humans will ever need to extract something valuable from those spent fuel).

Can someone tell me why Poland doesn't get the Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant up and running ?
Some of the new scientifically designed electric floor space heaters can heat a 1000 square foot flat for $5 zloty a day in
the dead of winter.
No nasty coal smoke to breath and not have to depend on Putin for heating fuel.
Why continue to live in the 1950's when you don't have to ?
There has to be a reason for this that I don't understand.

Because Polish politicians are populist and determined to perpetually subsidise the mining "industry"? And a vote for PiS is only going to slow the nuclear program.

PiS and PO stupidly agree on mucky old nuclear power. It's easily the filthiest energy source going. Much more money should be spent on clean coal energy - Poland has excellent specialists in the field.

It is pretty obvious isn't it?

Does not exist. It is a myth created to justify spending billions of taxpayers' zlotys to save the coal industry for purely political reasons.
Renewable is the way to go, and until that happens, nuclear is the best stopgap for now.

The industry has problems with the correct grammar. They haven't mastered the use of the comparative adjective, as in "cleaner." As Polsyr pointed out, and he didn't need to, as you already knew this, coal is the worst option. But sadly, the cheapest option for the taxpayer - minus the small matter of the high carbon footprint, premature deaths, environmental damage, cost to the country of extracting the stuff, etc....

But anything that wins a few votes from the unwashed proletariat, right?

With the coal generating plants getting old and out of repair (costly), the damage they do to the environment (acid rain) that pollutes the rest of the world, health issues they cause in Poland, the shortage of power Poland will experience this winter........it sure seems that Poland would come out of the dark ages (no pun intended) and get that nuclear plant up and running for an abundance of electricity, cheaper electricity, cleaner electricity and quit polluting the rest of the world.

The good paying jobs it would create to finish building it, run it, maintain it, plus sell the surplus to other countries grids would be a bonus also.

We will get atom not earlier than 15-20 years from now. We just have to be patient and wait until that last religious "Widzę buzię w tym tęczu" generation extincts. It will be much easier and straight forward to implement the technology without consistently whining "ciemnogród". Hopefully fussion will be more reliable by then.

This winter looks like Poland could have a serious shortage of electricity.
Maybe when people start freezing the whiners will speed things up.


The first nuclear energy plants were built over 60 years ago here in the United States.
I am sure by now fusion is reliable.

Hey JR, it is great when you talk sense :) Like a breath of fresh air.


Not even close. Poland's electric power consumption has been either steady or falling for several years - due to improved efficiency. What happened here last August was related to transformer cooling problems due to low river water levels. Shouldn't be a problem in the winter. Plus even today the vast majority of Poland's electric power is generated from coal. There are no foreseeable problems in terms of coal supply.

Why, the water levels will still be low this winter.
It's my understanding that many of the coal producing electrical plant's are old and will be in need of major maintenance with some even closing.

That along with low water levels could produce a shortage.
If so Poland electrical grid (again to my understanding) has no other E.U. countries to really import electricity from.
Hopefully you are right however what a better time to catch up with the 21st century.

Why? We don't (really) use electricity to heat residential properties. We use gas and coal.


Unfortunately, anything that disturbs the interests of the coal lobby will be jumped on. The whole failure of nuclear power to take hold in Poland is directly associated with the coal industry, which in turn has at least one major political party in their pocket.


No, it's not the case anymore. There's interconnectors with Ukraine and Germany at least - Polsyr, isn't there one with Lithuania as well now?

As of now they are a tick below average for this time of year, but certainly not low. Remember, the demand for cooling water goes down when the weather gets cooler. When I woke up this morning the temperature was 45F, and I have seen it dip down to below 30F at night.


Yes and no. Many are old, but most have been somewhat modernized and fitted with chimney systems that reduce particulate emissions. Basically today Polish power production from coal is almost as good as gets in terms of technology and is on part with western countries.


That used to be the case, but right now Poland is connected. They purchased electricity from the lowest bidder during the power crisis in the summer, which happened to be Ukraine.


There is no better time to catch up with the 21st century, but you need to know something specific about Polish politics to help you understand why coal is still the number 1 source of energy in Poland.

The coal mining industry in Poland is the joker card in Polish politics. That is the only thing that keeps this industry alive here. It sucks up billions of taxpayers' zlotys just to stay afloat for no real reason other than politicians being afraid.

When was the last poll on the matter, Polly?


It's very unlikely that PiS will fund such a thing. PO couldn't find the money for it, and PiS aren't going to spend untold billions on such a thing. The only possible alternative is for the neo-colonial Chinese to pay for it, but that would come at huge political costs.