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Nuclear Energy for Uruguay? | | | (What is the state of technology in Uruguay?) |
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| Nuclear Energy for Uruguay? The high cost of energy in Uruguay has been discussed extensively in this forum. From what I've read in the papers and seen on TV (I read several Uruguayan newspapers online daily, subscribe to C12 also online, and get VTV Noticias everyday on cable TV here in the US) the previous government expressed a keen interest in exploring the possibility of establishing nuclear facilities in Uruguay in the near future. I am not sure this is still a goal for the new government. I do know that the general idea is for Uruguay to find new ways to produce energy at the lowest possible cost. However, it is not clear to me whether or not the government wants to move away from energy that comes from burning fossil fuels and prioritize cleaner renewable sources of energy. The messages from the powers that be are rather ambiguous on this matter as they seem to indicate that they'll take whatever they can get. And I don't mean this as a negative comment, but as a simple fact derived from my own observations. On one hand they promote the idea that the country is proud of being free of contamination and pollution ("Uruguay Natural") and actively encourage wind mills in Lavalleja and elsewhere, which is a WONDERFUL thing, while they also want to find out if they have oil offshore right in front of the most profitable seaside resort in the country, Punta del Este. This is puzzling to me. If they did find oil there, would people want to have oil rigs right in front of Punta del Este? I wonder... So, what about the nuclear energy question? It's clean energy. It's not totally risk-free but new technologies make it almost so (ask the French!), and yes, it's very expensive to build a plant, but how many nuclear plants would little Uruguay need to meet its energy needs? One? Two? Just thinkin' about this... |
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Archived Replies | This post has a total of 60 replies. The most recent 25 are shown below, you can view the complete archive here: Nuclear Energy for Uruguay? archive. Your feedback, comments, opinions and questions are welcome and encouraged. This forum post has messages dated from 04/24/10 through 04/21/13, please be sure to read all the messages. If you feel it is old or outdated, please follow up with a question or comment and someone may be able to update it, or reply with newer information if you have it. |
Comment #3605/14/10 15:03Rural east Colonia departmento | "UTE's amazing bulbs"
"To go green, we fill out houses with dangerous poisons. Of course, there is no danger in the low energy light bulbs.. until they break!"The low energy bulb UTE gave me exploded after 3 weeks of use scattering glass, little burned bits and a powdery substance over me, my laptop and my desk. Over the years I've suffered attempted bombing by the IRA, ETA, the US Navy and more recently UTE but I'm happy to report that I'm not dead yet. I now only use cheapo Chinese low energy bulbs in outdoor fittings to prevent a repeat experience :-) |
| "NUCLEAR OPTION"
Uruguay have a difficult energy situation and the last government has nothing done to change it. The 90% of the renewable energy production is BOTNIA celulose plant developed many years from now. The eolic energy is just a few mills donated by the Spanish government and the biomass main project is idle because of an explotion in the local made boiler with wrong technology choise. Also if you study seriously the matter it is impossible to satisfy all the energy Uruguaian needs with renewable energy because of lack of territory and economic limitations. The real situation is that Uruguay is spending huge quantities of money paying to Brazil and Argentina for the energy Uruguay is not able to produce and has a big oil bill with Venezuela that will pay the next generation. The only solution is nuclear energy and fortunately many important persons are thinking that way, including the President that wrote it in a book previously his political campain. |
Comment #3810/05/10 09:30Rural east Colonia departmento | "Nukes"
I would strongly disagree about Uruguay's potential for renewable energy production in that the country has conditions ideal for solar, wind and hydro generation. With the incredible speed of tree growth we get on marginal land here, wood firing is an option as well. Last year I did some figures with respect to funding and constructing a wind farm myself. Although they looked promising and we had the necessary capital to do it, UTE refused point blank to even consider offering us a supply contract and the aduana wanted 60% import tax on all the capital machinery so the scheme did not fly. Perhaps we should have "entertained" various important people before trying to negotiate :-)The main problem with nukes here is the lack of uranium within the ROU as well as our lack of a processing industry and facilities for disposing of the waste. Without our own fuel supplies and the means to refine it, it doesn't seem sensible to me to simply swap an overseas oil provider for an overseas uranium provider particularly during a new nuclear power station boom world wide now that nukes are fashionable once more. Much of the ROU's electricity comes from hydro plants on the Rios Negro and Uruguay though the problems comes during periods of drought. OTOH the ROU sits on top of the world's second largest aquifer and I've seen an interesting proposal to use large numbers of wind pumps to top up the reservoirs when necessary Our former Prez Tabare Vazquez seems to have been royally entertained by South Korean nuke power station providers on his last visit there and I suspect that their "generosity" may have influenced his views :-) I fear we will end up with whatever systems offer the best returns for those who make the decisions. |
| "URR Reactor"
I was viewing a list of nuclear reactors, worldwide and saw Uruguay listed as having a URR Reactor. (scroll down to almost the bottom of the page) What does this mean and where would it be located? |
Comment #4003/27/11 10:43Rural east Colonia departmento | "URR reactor"
As far as I know a URR reactor is a university research reactor. Most of our unis are in Montevideo so I suspect that it is situated somewhere in the city. |
| "Fukushima"
I hope that Uruguay has got the message, that even a highly technological society such as Japan can't prevent nuclear disasters! All those propagating nuclear energy will hopefully now take the deadly risk into consideration. If Germany (where I am at the moment)which needs a great amount of energy for its industry is now backing out of nuclear energy and investing in ecological and cheaper (in the long run) energy (wind, sun, hydro, sea wave energy)then surely Uruguay with its far lesser energy needs can learn from this and not make the same mistakes as have been made by other countries. I just found this link which is interesting |
| "nuclear energy for Uruguay"
Uruguay should not rely on a SINGLE type of energy source, but on a multiplicity of renewable sources, including nuclear. Uruguay does not sit on a major fault line like Japan, so the situation is quite different. |
Comment #4304/26/11 07:16Rural east Colonia departmento | "Nowhere is safe from earthquakes."
Earthquakes are uncommon here but to quote a couple of news articles..."On June 5 1888 the Montevideo journal La Tribuna Popular reported the earthquake and its effects: The houses' woodwork creaked loudly, lamps swung, furniture moved and paintings fell off walls. Glassware objects broke and porcelain could be seen jolting out of cupboards. Astonished at the strong earthquake, inhabitants have had a sleepless night... Also, a Colonia del Sacramento local journal La Lucha reported on a particular event: The steamer 'Saturno' en route from Buenos Aires was calmly sailing in 20 feet (6 m) of water along the centre of the channel when she came to a sudden halt, as though she had run aground. The captain had soundings taken but the vessel, as if moved by some hidden force, was freed from the ground and continued on her way." |
| "true story but..."
I don't think that it compares --even remotely-- to the type of earthquake experienced by Japan recently. |
| "Nuclear Energy Safety"
Locating nuclear reactors on a fault line is not the only way nuclear energy can be dangerous. Please have a look at this video, where Leuren Moret talks about how radiation poisoning from the waste of weapons production and weapons testing is causing increased rates of cancers, diabetes and hermaphroditism among both the animal and human populations of the US. |
| "Nuclear Safety Link"
Trying again to post the link. |
| "Not the right moment."
The discussion was starting to take off in Uruguay at the end of the Tabaré period, and since there was a general consensus in at least studying the option through all the parties, the discussion was likely to continue and start to produce some real output. However, I think Fukuyima has changed the political ground, not only in Uruguay, but worldwide. No matter if something have really changed about the benefits, cons, and risks of the nuclear option; the subject is of such importance that can't be agreed without political consensus. It seems is not the right moment to get it. Particularly in Uruguay, people know we don't have earthquakes, but instead of taking that into account, the comments I've heard are of the type: "Look what happend in a plant managed by the Japanese. Imagine one managed by Uruguayans!". |
Comment #4804/26/11 22:18Rural east Colonia departmento | "Uru-nukes"
"Look what happend in a plant managed by the Japanese. Imagine one managed by Uruguayans!".Maybe we'd be too laid back to melt down :-) |
| "Laid back."
Hahaha.Even disasters take a long time to come to Uruguay. |
| "Cooling system"
You don't even need an earthquake to have problems. It was the power cut that meant that the cooling system failed and that can happen anywhere - or doesn't Uruguay ever have power cuts ...... |
Comment #5104/27/11 18:13Rural east Colonia departmento | "Cooling system"
"or doesn't Uruguay ever have power cuts"I don't keep a big box of candles and loaded candlesticks by the bath, my bed, my desk and in the kitchen for decorative purposes. Perhaps a very low pressure reactor and a few gauchos with stirrup pumps for the cooling water might satisfy our exacting safety standards :-) |
| ""Cooling system""
All kinds of things can go wrong with anything man-made, at any time, but most especially as a result of natural disasters. So what? France's main source of energy is nuclear power. They never had a "problem". Yes, they have "issues" (i. e. disposing of nuclear waste)but they never suffered a disaster. China is currently in the process of building 40 new reactors. Japan's situation is not stopping them. South Korea will soon be 30% dependent on nuclear power. The US has plenty of nuclear reactors all around the country. Regionally, Brazil has a few reactors even though they use alcohol as their main source of energy. I could go on and on. Yes, disasters do happen. We learn a from them. Then we move on. |
Comment #5304/29/11 11:23Rural east Colonia departmento | "Its "perfectly safe""
The Brits have a particularly leaky collection of reactors on the Irish Sea coast in Cumberland which is now on its 4th name because they change the name each time they have a major disaster :-)Beaches on both sides of the Irish sea from Cornwall and Wexford in the south up to the west coast of Scotland inc the Hebrides in the north now have to be swept regularly for radioactive particles. Still, I suppose it all helps to create jobs during the current depression and no doubt helps to warm up the otherwise chilly Irish Sea :-) |
| "reactors"
Pat, I am not a scientist so I don't know much at all about nuclear reactors. But I wonder if having reached a certain age, they need to be put out of commission. I suspect they do...in which case the problem is not with the reactors but with how humans handle their maintenance. If they were leaky from their inception, then it's still human error, because not all reactors around the world are leaky...or are they? |
Comment #5504/29/11 22:37Rural east Colonia departmento | "Not a nuclear scientist"
I'm no expert on the inner workings of reactors. The earlier Brit ones (mostly gas cooled) were built quickly by many different contractors so there was little or no standardisation. The second generation were mostly PWRs which had the advantage of irradiating the sea rather than the air when things went wrong.I used to live close to Sizewell A and B stations in Suffolk (UK) and was a charity trustee for some land used as a bird sanctuary next to Sizewell A. The power station had a very large car park but instead of cars, it was stacked 6 deep with rusting containers of low and medium low radioactive waste as the UK lacks an official disposal site for such stuff so each nuke power station is surrounded by "favelas" of these rusting boxes in the hopes that some day they can be disposed of. The station authorities would "conduct regular sweeps" but the sweeps we did used to show much higher radiation levels than theirs :-) We'd submit our results to the proper authorities and were always given safety assurances in return. I fear that the industry has more than a few Homer Simpsons in its ranks :-) |
| "Man learns"
"we learn and go on"apparently we don't learn, we go on making the same mistakes, even though we know of the very real hazards to ourselves and the coming generations. In the name of profit it is denied, but there is a much higher cancer rate in people living around nuclear stations, and the waste problem has never been solved, it is just hidden underground - or not as patrick has witnessed. There are more ecological energy winning possibilities - so why not go that way and really learn from previous bad experiences? |
| ""Man learns""
The world has learnt a lot about nuclear techonlogy during decades. A new plant should be extremely safe. At least in terms of technology (not only technology, but management procedures form part of the safety equation). Now, the problem with it is that accidents still occur. And when assessing the risk of a project (of any kind) you have to take two factors into account: a) the event's occurrence probability, and b) the consequences of the event, if it occurs. The risk assessment is a result of both. Let's accept the advances in technology have made a nuclear accident much less probable; but the consequences are still extremely severe. An area several times the extension of Uruguay was affected by human health risk around Chernobyl. They are now banning the food produce of an area around Fukuyima the same size of Uruguay. The problem with Uruguay is size. Giving we do suffer an accident in a nuclear plant, we don't have anywhere to send the population. We cannot close the country and come back in a couple of centuries. And even if the accident is controllable, I wonder if we have the means to control it. How many thousands of millions of dollars would cost Japan the control and burry of Fukuyima? |
| "accidents indeed do happen"
If a serious accident were to happen to Argentina's Atucha nuclear plant, which is barely 100 km. from Buenos Aires, or even to Brazil's Angra nuclear plant, Uruguay's population could --potentially-- be affected. This is not hypothetical. It's real. These nuclear plants already exist.Would the risks be any higher for Uruguay's population --vis'a'vis the risks for Argentina's or Brazil's poputlation-- if Uruguay built a plant of its own say in the border counties of Artigas or Rivera? I suspect not. |
| "accidents indeed do happen"
Atucha is certainly a threat (Angra is rather far away). Anyway, I don't know if risks would be higher, but they would no doubt sum to the others, so you are multiplying the probability of occurrence. |
| "Nuclear is not clean"
Please listen to Dr. Helen Caldicott and Nobel Peace Prize winner.I cannot place the link but its on You tube under Helen Caldicott - The Truth About Fukushima - Nsearch Radio |
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Archived Replies | This post has a total of 60 replies. The most recent 25 were shown above, you can view the complete archive here: Nuclear Energy for Uruguay? archive. Your feedback, comments, opinions and questions are welcome and encouraged. |
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