We were discussing nuclear power in the pub after a group meeting – as you do – and an interesting point came up where I discovered I wasn’t alone in my youthful misconceptions, so what I’m wondering is how widespread this may have been.
When I was growing up in the 70s – or before Chernobyl which may be important here – nuclear power was still something exciting, new and not really understood, so I’m sure I can’t be alone in having thought that they generated power from some semi-magical process, something on the lines of making uranium glow and then hooking it up to the National Grid. Indeed, I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, as there are many cases in 60s and 70s sci-fi of electricity from nuclear power being somehow special and different from conventionally generated power.
So, to get to the point, what I’m wondering is how many other people found it a bit of an anticlimax when they discovered how a nuclear power station actually works, and that it’s merely another (and expensive) way to boil water?
by John Hodgman
by Drew Westen
by Ian Mortimer
by Jeff Greenfield
by Heather Peace
To be fair, every other way of boiling water involves burning something (or using electricity, which would be a bit circular if used in a power station), so a nuclear power station is just as different from others than you thought
The electricity isn’t produced “magically”, the heat is. Converting heat to electricity is the easy bit.
The politics of nuclear power is conditioned by the fact that for 30-40 years, nuclear power was an incidental byproduct of developing the science and manufacturing capability for nuclear weapons. It’s difficult to get at the costs/benefits of a pure nuclear power programme. The French seem to do it cheaply, but is that because a pile of the costs were buried in some weapons programme budget? I think they genuinely do it efficiently, but I can’t prove it.
As compared to my last conversation down the pub, which was about “f**king parking
permits”, “f**king roadworks” and the inability of whoever it is doing the roadworks
to spell the names of nearby roads on their signs!
And if you want to set people down the pub off on a rant you only ever have to mention
the VAF.