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The Forum > Article Comments > Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality > Comments

Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality : Comments

By Noel Wauchope, published 7/7/2015

On June 29 Kevin Scarce, chief of South Australia's Nuclear Royal Commission, was interviewed by Ian Henschke on ABC Radio 891 Adelaide.

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The author's loathing of nuclear energy is evident in this article but why is Scarce looking at renewable energy at all? He's meant to be looking at the nuclear option. If he is instructed to look at that area then SA already has plenty of experience of renewable energy. It has the highest penetration of such energy of all the states, so it should be well placed to do a cost-benefit analysis taking into account all the subsidies - direct and hidden, Federal and state - required to make it work. Then perhaps it could calculate actual carbon saved, if any, over the life of the equipment used, taking into account back up generating capacity and wear and tear on existing conventional generators.

The results may be very uncomfortable for the green lobby - not what they want to hear at all - so the author should be careful what she wishes for.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 10:21:31 AM
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If it looks like a junket, walks like a junket, and barks like a junket, it probably is a junket!?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 12:16:27 PM
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Rhrosty, was looking forward to your response to this article. Disappointed at your brevity. however, in the timeframe of the travel it does seem like 'skimming the surface' doesn't it?. The author, no doubt, believs that Greenpeace and WWF should have been a part of the team and a majority on the commission. A good 'ripost' by Curmudgeon, in that the commission is about nuclear energy, not renewables.
Posted by Prompete, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 2:17:57 PM
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Coal it is then. In all likelihood SA will import even dirtier coal fired electricity from Victoria when they close the Pt Augusta coal plants. Gas is expected to escalate in price once Gladstone Qld LNG exports get into full swing. Gas has been mainly what powers the SA grid at night and during wind lulls.
Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 4:18:22 PM
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Japan was silly to locate its nuclear stations on the East Coast close
to the Pacific and Asian plate junctions. Tsunamis have a history there.
If they had been built on the west coast they would have been protected.
Well, it is probably too late for us to build a fleet of nuclear power
stations because we can no longer afford them.
So what are the alternatives ?
Coal, we have got a good supply if we stop exports. ERoEI low and falling.
Gas, limited to some extent, especially if we keep exporting it.
Oil, nothing there move on.
Geothermal; lots down there in the granite. Just getting it out is a problem.
Solar & wind, ERoEI too low for other than playing with for a while.
Hydro, too much earth moving needed for full scale development, kills the ERoEI.

If we cannot make geothermal a goer then no one seems to yet have an alternative.
We may well be back to candles, or small solar like are being sold in Africa.
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 5:00:23 PM
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Scarce just couldn't resist his job for the boys. R.A.N career; state governor. He is a government man. Never had to earn his keep with his own wits. Why do you think he was appointed? To give the SA government the answer they want to hear. You can't expect anything more from a government hell bent on filling the state with windfarms. And, remember, this government, like all Laborites, has always been totally against nuclear. Now that they have been imbeded for so long, and have wrecked the SA economy (businesses closing almost daily), they are starting to realise that they might not survive the next election. They are now announcing all sorts of projects - to take effect 15-20 years down the track! Just as they did before the last election, and nothing happened then, except we went further down the gurgler, and unemployment is still climbing. There will be no nuclear power in SA. I mean, who takes seriously a government that fiddles with bike tracks in Adelaide, and claims it as an "economc boost"?
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 5:54:06 PM
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Another excellent article Noel.

I think South Australia doesn't have the Critical Mass of money - $$Billions - required to start a nuclear industry. Neither does Abbott.

Notice how your critics adopt a We're tough blokes practical Engineers tone.

How about nuclear terrorism and unbalanced insider sabotage? If a bloke can crash his passenger jet how about an intentional dump. A problem that Nuclear Reactor Host States don't want to think about.

"...Japan [UK, US, France, Canada, South Korea] is no more immune to nuclear terrorism than it was to a catastrophic reactor accident [which happened at Fukushima]. In this context, the combination of safety and security concerns represented by spent fuel pools at reactors is a critical variable in the risk profile arising from the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Japan’s choices have global significance for the threat of nuclear terrorism, and therefore demands serious consideration as part of a national and international risk-benefit assessment of the future evolution of nuclear power." see http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=0de7e0e84dc3aff619f936a70&id=06f03f7a60&e=ae85b3aafb

All reactors produce some high level waste in fuel rod form requiring spent fuel pools to disperse the heat of the rods.

Claims for future (but not yet industrially developed) reactors are about as useful as claiming rocket assisted aircraft (feasible) can solve some passenger airline problems.

Engineer blokes with other people's money.
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 7:13:35 PM
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(from Noel Wauchope)
True, neither the Abbott government nor South Australia have the critical mass of money.
But the global nuclear industry, (desperate to market its product internationally) DOES have the money. Or - more correctly, the scheme to lock Australia into importing radioactive trash.

To quote from nuclear proponent Oscar Archer:
"Australia establishes the world’s first multinational repository for used fuel - what's often called nuclear waste. This is established on the IRONCLAD COMMITMENT (my emphasis) to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors to demonstrate the recycling of the used nuclear fuel"

The development of the intermediate repository and the first reactors is funded by our international partners who purchase the world-first service Australia provides"
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Sunday, 12 July 2015 11:40:41 AM
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Things are a changing !
I notice recently a number of economists are at last understanding that
the whole world's GDP is falling, and that there is a sense of
inevitability about it.
In these conditions a switch to nuclear power is fast becoming financially impossible.

As governments are now realising that wind and solar are dead ends,
there is a need for a different tack.
They are a dead end in that while they can keep padding out our energy
system they cannot do more that just holding on, and cannot replace themselves.
I support the governments ban of wind, but they should have included solar.
If they cannot support themselves financially that is proof they cannot do the job.

Other schemes such as geothermal and tidal need government money
pushed at them.
We have a fundamental problem in that we need an energy system that
can achieve an ERoEI in the range 30 to 100 that can perform at that
level for at least the next two hundred years.

That might give time to produce the wealth to get fusion operational.
Posted by Bazz, Sunday, 12 July 2015 10:59:32 PM
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