Yes here is an interesting video re the very widespread fallout of the Fukushima disaster: http://www.fairewinds.org/wave

"Attacking environmentalists might be good theatre but it doesn't solve the problems."

Well I think you have an argument that's valid, but not sound.

It's valid to point out that nuclear power programs have been the basis for nuclear weapons programs.

It's not sound in that this, of itself, only tells us that there are downsides to nuclear power. But so are there to everything else.

There are serious downsides to going back to burning dung which is where we'll be if the greens have their way.

The question is not whether there are downsides per se, it's what best to do and how to know.

The idea that the solution is for government (as usual, what else?) to pour billions of confiscated dollars into loss-making programs such as wind farms and solar farms fails the most basic test. If it runs at a loss, it's using more resources, not less.

Hey Jim

I'm really concerned mate.

All your articles about nuclear dangers are likely to give Uranium exports a bad name.

Pete

Yes Jim, I have discussed with Geoff other aspects of his article:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16780&page=5

We didn't even get onto actual Fukushima deaths statistics or nuclear non-proliferation, so I'm glad you have.

It was the debate on these issues many years ago (starting in 1969 I think and going through to the '90's) that led to the prohibition of nuclear power in Australia.

Yes JKJ and hear hear.
Uranium is becoming safer by the day, with things like, almost guaranteed melt down free pebble reactors, able to be mass produced and then trucked on site.
The coolant, helium, means they no longer need to be located near a water source, just where it may be convenient.
And FBR means we may be able to reduce the half life of the waste to just 300 years!?
Surely we are smart enough to be able to safely store this stuff for 300 odd years!?
One wonders about so called greens/their real if hidden agenda, and their so called climate change concerns; and their lists of conveniently ignored facts?
Surely if they were both genuine and sincere, they'd be first in the queue, looking for affordable non carbon options; rather than the most expensive and least reliable ones?
Yes nuclear power plants once needed a twenty year start up time.
Now thanks to things like mass produced and trucked onsite pebble reactors, that time can be reduced to just weeks along with a similarly downsized cost factor.
That said, my preference would be cheaper than coal thorium, and available at around half the cost of coal fired power, as mass produced modules connected to micro grids; also able to be trucked onsite and powering up in just weeks; and more modules bolted on with any additional need!
Recent discoveries and the isotope thorium 230, means they no longer need an oxide kick start, but can be endlessly self sustaining.
Moreover, in inverse proportion to oxide reactors, they consume around 95% of their fuel, and the vastly less toxic waste is eminently suitable as very long life space batteries!
Even so, the anti development greens, find all manner of reasons to also reject them, and even cheaper home made Biogas, powering our homes via ceramic fuel cells, the least costly (80% energy coefficient) carbon negative option of all, with endless free hot water into the bargain!
Rhrosty.

Jardine, you've taken us right off topic but I feel I have to address your misconceptions. Your statement that Government's "pouring billions of confiscated dollars into loss-making programs such as wind farms and solar farms fails the most basic test. If it runs at a loss, it's using more resources, not less" is not only hyperbole, it is false.

Wind and solar farms run at a profit, not a loss, the main reason being that they don't have to pay for fuel. They are also immune from fuel price volatility such as the predicted trebling of gas prices we are about to see.

Confiscated dollars?? Many writers and even the Government's own modelers have shown that the RET scheme has actually brought power prices down even when the cost of the RECs is taken into account. That means the RET subsidy has put dollars into the pockets of electricity consumers. The reason is the 'merit order effect' - wind and solar will tend to bid lower than coal or gas because they don't have to pay for fuel. This forces the market price down. Bad news for fossil corporations but good news for consumers.

You should read more widely.Go to Business Spectator (hardly a greenie site; it is actually owned by News Corp) and look up RET Warburton Review.

Roses1
If what you're saying is true, then obviously there's no need for any government policy on the matter. People will do it because it's cheaper and more profitable.

"Wind and solar farms run at a profit, not a loss, the main reason being that they don't have to pay for fuel. They are also immune from fuel price volatility such as the predicted trebling of gas prices we are about to see."

Great. All for it.

So we've now established that there's no need and no reason for government to fund them, haven't we?

Jardine K Jardine. Great news!! Wind and power make a profit! As you say, no need now for RET, it is redundant. The market will be onto this in a shot.

This article covers ALL the requirements, it refers to Al Gore, hidden weapons agenda, long term cancer death toll, 16000 indirect death toll, nuclear refugees, fires, vast areas of environmental contamination..... Where is the bit about not being able to live anywhere approximate to that area of Japan for a gazillion years? And, just to put a cherry on the top of this particular case, we have ...da da.. Crude RACIST nuclear industry..... Give us a break will ya?

If wind farms are profitable, why is it that the suggestion that the RET will be adjusted is enough to stop people investing in them?

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/23/wind-turbine-maker-sacks-100-workers-blaming-renewable-policy-uncertainty

If there was any genuine concern about nuclear proliferation or Australian exports freeing up local uranium for nuclear weapons, we have an option of processing ours to power producing strength, then building the nuclear reactors that are supposed to burn it, as inherently safer pebble reactors!
And that would do no harm to our domestic iron and steel industry/rust belts either!
Given these things can be trucked on site, they could be shipped in purpose created containers, off loaded and immediately trucked to their proposed site.
It may not have occurred to many, but pebble reactors may well be smaller than some of the truly massive diesel engines now powering bulk shipping, particularly that carrying our own trade goods to the world!
Were we but led by pragmatists, not patent penny wise pound foolish Ideologues, seemingly hell bent on proving a real pragmatist like Lee Kwan Yu, right, and turning us into the poor white trash of Asia!?
[And given how little we still own or control of what used to be ours, halfway there already!]
We would be flat out building a nuclear powered national fleet, to allow our trade goods, to be given an incredible advantage over other competitors!
Our impressive exports of very fast ferries, prove we are more than very competent and innovative ship builders!
Bulk freight forwarding and short haul roll on roll off ferries, remain two of the most profitable business models ever!
And we could use that fact and our natural wealth of resources, to our enduring advantage; were we not seemingly intent on proven pragmatists like Lee Kwan Yu, (the government not only should be but must be in business) completely right and entirely vindicated.
We who own 40%+ of the world's uranium, and invented the much much cheaper pulsed laser light enrichment process; should be using these factors and very adjacent Asian markets, to our enduring advantage!
Rather than (selectively advantaging) anybody else with a fistful of dollars, or carpet bagging, price gouging, tax avoiding foreigners!
Rhrosty.

"the repeatedly-demonstrated pattern of peaceful nuclear programs repeatedly paving the way for WMD proliferation"

You mean like this pattern?

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jamesconca/files/2014/10/weapons-states.jpg

Yeah, right.

Jardine, Prompete, Rhian: Yes I was waiting for your protest - "why indeed do wind and solar require subsides at all". It's not quite so simple as you are perhaps thinking, so please bear with me in this and the next post:

Wind and solar are profitable while there is a RET target, which mandates a certain portion of electricity must be renewable. It enables wind and solar generators to sell REC certificates at the REC market price for every megawatt hour they generate. This is not a price price set by Govt. Govt only sets the annual RET targets. Renewable energy (RE) generators sell the RECS they produce to electricity companies, enabling them to purchase the percentage of renewable electricity required by the RET. This gives RE generators two income streams - electricity and RECs)

But as you say, why do they need the extra income from RECs? 4 reasons:
Coal generators are also subsidized by Govt in three ways:
- Govt charges little or no resource cost for the coal - $10 - $40 per tonne compared to export price of >$80/ tonne.
- Most coal power stations were paid for years ago by taxpayers and flogged off very cheap to private companies who now have little capital cost to recoup
- Since the carbon price was abolished, there is no charge for the cost to society (taxpayers now and in the future) of coal pollution - deaths and disabilities from air pollutants and mercury pollution plus global warming impact of CO2. These costs are estimated to be $50 - $60 per MWh.
- Last but not least is that the cost of renewables is >80% capital and less than 20% operational. Coal and gas are the reverse, because they pay for fuel while renewables do not. Investors require a high rate of return on the high capital cost of these 'newer' renewable technologies. Much higher than the government bonds that would have financed the old coal power stations.

So if there were a 'level playing field' where all power stations were new and their owners had to recoup whole capital cost at the same interest rates, pay world prices for fuel (not currently the case for coal in Australia)and the health and climate costs of fuel burning, then PV and wind wouldn't need a subsidy. In future the capital costs of solar PV, solar thermal and to a lesser extent wind are predicted to decrease and this will further reduce the REC market price for these technologies.

Here is a reference from a Government website (BREE) for the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for all electricity technologies - coal, gas, renewables and nuclear:
http://www.bree.gov.au/publications/australian-energy-technology-assessments. It shows the costs with and without a price on carbon.

Meanwhile, don't worry because as I explained in a previous post, while the RET subsidy is paid by us electricity consumers, we are are more than repaid by cheaper electricity prices. Renewables bid the electricity market price down because they don't have to pay for fuel.

I hope this has not been too confusing; it took me quite a bit of reading and research to get my head around it so I've tried to simplify it.

Back to Jim Green

Next you'll be knocking the benefits of nuclear war.

Have you no humanity?

Pete

“Wind and solar are profitable while there is a RET target, which mandates a certain portion of electricity must be renewable.”

In other words, they’re not profitable.

“Loss-making” is the word you’re looking for.

“govt charges little or no resource cost for the coal”
That’s an argument for abolishing governmental interference in the coal industry, not an argument for governmental interference in the solar or energy industries.

“- Most coal power stations were paid for years ago by taxpayers and flogged off very cheap to private companies who now have little capital cost to recoup”

So we’re agreed there's no reason government can be trusted to manage the energy supply economically or environmentally.

This counts against your argument, not in favour.

“Since the carbon price was abolished, there is no charge for the cost to society (taxpayers now and in the future) of coal pollution - deaths and disabilities from air pollutants and mercury pollution plus global warming impact of CO2.”
”

You’re arguing that a first layer of failed government intervention – subsidising the coal industry, combined with a second layer of failed government intervention – failing to rationalise the costs of what it did in the first layer, combined with a third layer of failed government intervention – energy policies that allegedly threaten the habitability of the planet – now justify a fourth layer of government intervention on exactly the same assumptions that government has superior knowledge and competence in managing the energy supply?

Sorry, that’s a fail.

“So if there were a 'level playing field' … then PV and wind wouldn't need a subsidy. “

They don’t need a subsidy now. So far as the unlevelness of the playing field comes from government action, that’s an argument against government action, not in favour of more of it.

So far as the unlevelness comes from the market, it means that PV and wind are loss-making, because they use more resources not less so you haven’t advanced the case from where you began, and are promoting more unsustainable practices, not less.

Jardine - Getting back to Jim's article - By your 'no government intervention' argument, if anyone wants to make a profit from U mining - let them sell it to N Korea or Iran or any other bomb- making nation that wants it because Governments should not intervene?

Also, Government hospitals should not treat respiratory illness/ cancer cases caused by pollution or smoking?

And of course they should not do anything to help people affected by flood, droughts and sea level rise that is demonstrably exacerbated by climate change? I can predict your answer to that - you don't even think its happening - it's a conspiracy of all the world's universities , who are all 'warmists'.

You should come to the US where I am at the moment and join the Libertarians in the Tea Party, or maybe you'd best continue as you are supporting Abbott's policies, which are similar.

Trouble with Libertarians is that they are the first to scream if there is insufficient health facilities or police force to help them when they are in trouble or education system to teach their kids. Of course those in the 1% 'uber rich', who finance the Libertarian movement don't need most of these because they can pay for their own private facilities. But they still want Governments to finance wars to protect their largesse.

Roses1

Is that the best you can do?

You raise a lot of off-topic issues. But it is sufficient to dispose of the on-topic issues between us to note that what you're saying is not true and you have admitted it. It's not true that PV and solar are profitable, and cheaper. That is entirely a result of forced redistributions in favour of loss-making activities which means you are supporting less sustainable practices not more.

As for the off-topic issues you raise, it is sufficient for me to return your barb, and at the same level, by asking whether you favour totalitarian government?

Attempts by warmists to justify their cult of state-worship have gone down in flames in this forum over and over again here, always failing on the same critical issues
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16680&page=0,
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16726&page=0
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16753&page=0
and here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16757&page=0

Assuming they're right again when we have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no rational argument, is only on a par with your prior tactic of arguing that "cheaper" means "more costly".

Repeating false wishes doesn't make them true.