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The Forum > Article Comments > A nuclear powered world > Comments

A nuclear powered world : Comments

By Peter Gellatly, published 28/9/2007

Without early, broadscale adoption of nuclear power, unremitting world energy demand will make a mockery of greenhouse amelioration.

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Peter Gellatly’s analysis of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership meeting in Austria has sent me scurrying to all that technical stuff about the various “generations” of nuclear power, and “pebble bed reactors” etc.

We know that:
- uranium mining and milling is bad for the workers’ health, the community’s health, and the environment
- the total uranium to nuclear waste cycle causes greenhouse gases
- nuclear power increases weapons proliferation, and terrorism risks
- there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear wastes
- the nuclear industry is surrounded with secrecy, suspicion and the erosion of civil liberties
- the whole thing is so bloody expensive that it’s a joke (France’s much-touted nuclear power has huge debt and is propped up, indeed run, by the tax-payer)

But – given all that, let us applaud Mr Gellatly for giving us some factual technical stuff to show that the implementation of the famous GNEP is fraught with problems and security risks.

We sure do need such informed comment.
My own opinion is that the GNEP is just one great con job for a desperate nuclear industry which is about to experience a still-birth.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com
Posted by ChristinaMac, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:32:33 AM
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Thank you for a very readable synopsis of a very complex issue.

I look forward to reading any other material you may produce at this level.
Posted by bigmal, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:41:39 AM
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The nuclear power generation debate has not progressed much.

Immediately post-world war II we were told that nuclear-generated power would be too cheap to be worth metering.

Some minor differences do exist. In those days there was not too much pretence about a nuclear arms/duclear power divide; and money was no object in spending for development(bomb/power).

Today a veil of pretence has been drawn between arms and power generation. And finance for nuclear development is not quite the open cheque-book it used to be.

Now we see nuclear industry proponents having to lobby for dough. That is a sign of some progress. Otherwise it is a re-run of the story from half a century back: - we, the nuclear industry experts, have all the answers. Just trust us.
Posted by colinsett, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:48:18 AM
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It seems glib but a vote against nuclear is a vote for coal. Note that a new coal loader has been approved for Newcastle as part of the Aussie contribution to climate change. Low carbon forms of baseload generation (geothermal, solar with storage etc) are at the minor experimental stage and may not be able to expand by a factor of thousands. Asian customers seem to have designs on most of northwest Australia's finite gas reserves with little thought for southern Australia. While people decry the nuclear industry's plutonium byproduct they happily use transuranics like americium in smoke detectors.

As the custodian of 40% of the world's uranium it would be myopic of Australia not 'go nuclear'. That is electrical generation, reprocessing (using local technology), waste disposal, desalination and perhaps hydrogen generation. The big worry is that the next generation of reactors may hit a stumbling block so that thorium etc may not eventuate. We will do it tough anyway for the next 20 years because of oil depletion, climate change (helped by our profligate coal use), delays in nuclear construction and finding out if indeed some other technologies scale up. I say we go nuclear immediately.
Posted by Taswegian, Friday, 28 September 2007 10:30:55 AM
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Taswegian - a vote against nuclear is NOT a vote for coal.

Both of them are old out-dated technologies, quite out of step with 21st Century energy efficiencies and renewable technologies - especially decentralised ones. As Schumacher said so long ago, indeed "Small is Beautiful"

Where the myopia lies is in thinking that some short term money gain is going to compensate for long-term disaster. It is indeed a King Midas-like attitude.

Taswegian him or herself shows this Midas-like attitude, in thinking that it'll be fine to "do it tough" for the next 20 years or so. I guess that means that the Chip Goodyear's and the uranium shareholders of today will do very nicely, thank you. But our kids and grand-kids will inherit the hot world, and the statistically inevitable nuclear holocaust.

It's small comfort that the mega-rich of today might very well cop some of the cancers in the increasing world radiation from the nuclear industry (and from negligent processes in medical radiation waste etc, too)

20 years or so is far too late for nuclear to help combat global warming, if indeed it actually was greenhouse-emission free (which it's not).

So the nuclear hype is indeed a con. The uranium bubble may well be the next bubble to burst.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com
Posted by ChristinaMac, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:11:05 AM
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Peter Gellatly has written a most interesting and informative article. There is no doubt in my mind that the future will see a continual growth in the nuclear power industry. This is to be welcomed. On ground of health and safety alone nuclear generation wins hands down over almost every other commercial and/or practical mode of generation. [Please refer to the recent report chaired by Dr. Switkowski for details].

I have read the anti-nuclear posts and in my view they do match with the empirical evidence of safety. While the industry has advanced sensible and practical methods of dealing with “waste,” including further processing and conversion to MOX fuel.

It would seem to me that the anti-nuclear political lobby is basing their objections on outdated paradigms and false assumptions.

What if Kevin Rudd’s fiscal conservative, social democratic party wins the coming election? Surprisingly, this will result in only a slight hiccup on the path to an Australian nuclear industry. Any fiscal conservative would understand the rational economic arguments in favour of nuclear. In any case labour in government tends to be more respectable and less under the influence of its green and loony tai
Posted by anti-green, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:19:50 AM
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Christina
I live off the grid, drive a car fuelled by home made diesel and grow much of my own food. Do you?

I might think like King Midas but I'm no hyprocrite; I know these options are simply unavailable on a large scale. You might try being more polite if you want to win converts.
Posted by Taswegian, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:21:09 AM
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This is the first objective view of both the opportunities and pitfalls of nuclear-power-for-energy that I have seen for many, many years. Not only that, but quite a lot of it was comprehensible to this layman.

And if I understand it correctly (and there's always a good chance that I haven't), the slogans of the anti-nuclear industry will need to be updated fairly soon.

Christina McPherson kindly summarizes them for us as:

>>- uranium mining and milling is bad for the workers’ health, the community’s health, and the environment
- the total uranium to nuclear waste cycle causes greenhouse gases
- nuclear power increases weapons proliferation, and terrorism risks
- there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear wastes
- the nuclear industry is surrounded with secrecy, suspicion and the erosion of civil liberties
- the whole thing is so bloody expensive that it’s a joke (France’s much-touted nuclear power has huge debt and is propped up, indeed run, by the tax-payer)<<

From my reading of the piece, it would appear that the "front-line nuclear “grunts” at the Centre on the Grove, in Boise, Idaho" are not only aware of these issues, but have included them in their assessment of where the industry can and will go.

Some of the anti-nukes existing complaints are already borderline, even outright contentious. What will they do when they completely run out of valid arguments, I wonder?
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:26:59 AM
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I much prefer the assessment of Nuclear Power given by Ian Lowe in the new Quarterly Essay available in newsagents.
Ian was also recently interviewed by Philip Adams on Late Night Live.
Altogether quite persuasive in his dismissal of the nuclear option.
Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 28 September 2007 3:28:42 PM
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Nearly every other industrial country in the world is ramping up their neuclear generation with plans to increase the percentage of generation 3 fold in the next 20 years. All these governments seem somehow not to have noticed that neuclear is more expensive and obsolete.

The research going into the technologies means that the new plants being built are going to be vastly different from the plants of today.

The only thing that would appear to be still borne would be Australia's climate change policy, especially in the light of the new coal and gas generation coming on line.

Australia is the highest per capita emitter of CO2 and all the carbon trading schemes in the world are not going to help unless a viable base load alternative to coal or gas is found.

A windless evening at 7 o'clock when everone is cooking (peak load) is still going to need generation that present green technologies can never meet.

The greens will simply have to choose between the lesser of two evils. (lead, follow or get out of the way)
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 28 September 2007 4:20:13 PM
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Thankyou Peter for your detailed and realistic article.

You've changed your tune since your Big Issue piece last year! There you said Australia was obliged to control the nuclear fuel cycle and leap on the fourth-generation-reactor bandwagon or remain a third-world quarry. Now Generation IV research is concentrated in India and there will be no power (nor money) in it until 2040. That doesn't bode well for seriously addressing any CO2 emissions before that date.

I'm fascinated to read that numerous small reactors are the poison of choice for new adopters. Nuclear goes micropower? Small generators are likely more economically viable (they're small enough to prefabricate, deliver on demand, integrate gradually as demand grows), but they're a poor proposition for *reducing* CO2 emissions; they'd hardly slow emissions growth even if they were inherently carbon-neutral, which they aren't.

Big bad gigawatt-scale power stations are scary enough, but you predict *thousands* of dirty little 50MW "turnkey" reactors all over India, China and other countries with dubious industrial safety records. What are the *real* security and toxicology implications?

Pericles, how have the Idaho grunts incorporated the concern that "the nuclear industry is surrounded with secrecy, suspicion and the erosion of civil liberties" into their predictions? Or other pollution concerns? "Clean" fifth-generation fission reactors aren't even on the radar; it might be 2050 before even an experimental one works and 2070 before they make a dent on stockpiles of toxic waste. That leaves time for a lot of little leaks from dirty little uranium reactors.

anti-green, Taswegian and Shadow Minister, your concerns that the alternatives to nuclear power are worse or more expensive are unfounded. I've written elsewhere on the "base load" furphy, as has the far-better-qualified Mark Diesendorf.

If intermittent generators are numerous, diverse and geographically widespread then their aggregate energy supply is predictable. Very-large-scale integration of variable renewable generation does require some backup from half-decent "peaking" generation (hydro or IGCCGT), but the associated integration costs and potential carbon emissions are often misrepresented.

Moreover, baseload-capable geothermal and solar thermal power are under development, their economics improving much faster than nuclear. Don't underestimate renewables.
Posted by xoddam, Friday, 28 September 2007 6:20:52 PM
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xoddam,

I would be interested if you could kindly supply more details regarding your advocacy of wind turbines?
Specifically can you supply the following data?

• The height of the towers you envisage?
• The size and weight of the turbine housing mounted on the towers?
• The amount of concrete required to anchor the tower, including the area and depth of the foundation of the individual towers?
• The diameter of the blades.
• The lower and upper cut off wind speeds?
• Do you agree that the average wind farm operates at about 20% of its nominated capacity?
• Given that wind velocity and direction is not constant but varies from moment to moment. Could you give some indication of the turning forces this has on the tower, since presumable there has to be a resultant changing vector between the wind velocity and angular momentum of the rotating blades?
• The behaviour of the electric grid to variations in output and possible even frequency when coupled to multiple small generators with erratic characteristics.
• I am also interested in the distance between towers, for if adjacent towers are too close they must interact and thus lower their individual out-put? I have heard it said that a turbine located immediately downwind of another by as much as 5 km may suffer output loss. Is this correct?
• Could you comment on noise pollution immediately near the tower and say at 1 km distance?
• Could you comment on loss of bird life and bats etc due to there flight into the path of the rotating blades? Do counts of dead animals make allowance for scavengers removing the dead animals prior to the count?
• The following website [http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/] provides up to date information on accidents, human injury and loss of life due to wind farms? Do you agree that wind turbines are not entirely blameless from a health and safety point of view?
• Can you supply information on the cost per kw_h of wind compared to coal or nuclear?
Posted by anti-green, Friday, 28 September 2007 8:33:52 PM
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The 15,200 megawatts of wind turbines installed worldwide last year will generate enough clean electricity annually to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of 23 average-sized U.S. coal-fired power plants, according to a new Vital Signs Update from the Worldwatch Institute.

The 43 million tons of carbon dioxide displaced in 2006 is equivalent to the emissions of 7,200 megawatts of coal-fired power plants, or nearly 8 million passenger cars.

The global market for wind equipment has risen 74 percent in the past two years, leading to long backorders for wind turbine equipment in much of the world.

Mr Gellatly is entitled to sprinkle pixie dust on the proposed Generation III/III reactors to "bridge the gap", however, on the domestic front, didn't Ziggy advise that a nuclear reactor would not be available in Australia for some 15 years. Is that one reactor in 15 years or the 25 he is recommending which he claims is necessary to make any dent in our CO2 emissions?

In the meantime, scores of uranium mines will proceed with the green light, creating a prognosis for a more radioactive planet and desecrating many thousands of square kilometres for mining operations.

Ignoring the excessive emissions to air, from other industries will also be to our detriment. I refer to Australia's motor vehicles which last year, emitted some 2,200,000,000 kgs of CO (When will that hydrogen be available Mr Gellatly?)

The metal ore industry released to the atmosphere some 250,000,000 kgs of SO2 etc and the Iron and Steel industry a "mere" 570,000,000 kgs of CO.

Australian regulators continue to approve new coal fired plants.

These alarming figures are a result of the federal and state governments' silence and refusal to enforce pollution control technology on these significantly unregulated industries.

Mr Gellatly has failed to advise that thorium, extracted from monazite and thorite is as dangerous to mine as any other radioactive ore and many miners are already being used as cannon fodder in these mining operations.

The nuclear figures just don't add up, time has run out and my "wooden" leg tells me that we are being duped!
Posted by dickie, Friday, 28 September 2007 8:59:21 PM
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Anti-green

There are 8 wind farms in Western Australia (including Esperance) and to my knowledge, not one bird death from blade injury has been reported since the first commissioning in 2001. Nor do I know of any complaints from residents.

What has been reported, worldwide, is the death of 5,000 beautiful native birds which died from lead poisoning in Esperance - a result of the incompetent and irresponsible regulator and the mining company!

Oh boy.......do we really believe we can trust these environmental vandals to regulate the operations of a nuclear reactor?
Posted by dickie, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:36:40 PM
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The publication of the BHP Billiton Annual Report 2007 shows that the Olympic Dam project is highly unlikely to go ahead and the company has been careful to state that a positive decision depends on the outcome of the feasibility study due to end in 2009. It turns out that the gold in the combined ore is a mere 0.3 grams/tonne and the triuranium octoxide only of a grade of 0.029% and that neither would be viable without the copper co-product. The current underground mine is failing and the company is having to buy yellow cake at an exorbitant price to satisfy its forward supply contracts let at the previous low price. It shows that arrangements to supply uranium made with China, India and now Russia were somewhat premature and will be very embarrasing for the Australian government if the board of BHP Billiton take a negative view.

As for Generation IV Roadmap, I have recently reviewed the programme for Sanders Research Associates on

http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1321&Itemid=103

The article is called "Cursed to the third and fourth generation?"!
Posted by John Busby, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:45:59 PM
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Thanks for the link, John Busby. It puts the cold, clear light of reality on the superficial gloss being peddled by nuclear power enthusiasts.
Posted by colinsett, Saturday, 29 September 2007 7:31:56 AM
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I have heard a lot said about the base load Myth or furphy and while I am a very strong proponent of renewable energy supply the following has to be considered:

The concept of base and swing loads was not invented to frustrate environmentalists, it is simply a term used over many decades by those who generate and distribute power to match supply and demand. As such it can no more be dispelled or refuted than the term gravity.

Base load demand is typically the constant demand that the grid experiences over the 24hrs which changes slowly and which can be met with base load generation which is presently the large coal, gas and neuclear generators that generate very efficiently but can take up to 12 hrs to ramp up or down supply.

Peak load or demand is a spike in the demand that the base load cannot cope with, and occurs typically in the morning and highest at 6-8pm at night. This is met typically with smaller gas or hydro turbines that come on load quickly.

Due to their poorer efficiency and high capital cost (per kW generated) the cost of peak power generated is between 5-40 times the cost of base generation.

Spreading and diversifying the renewable supplies will reduce the swings in supply but will not compensate entirely. A study by the CSIRO indicated that an optimum spread of solar, wind, and geothermal generation with 120% of present peak demand would meet 70% of electricity consumption, but would still need 90% of coal or gas generation capacity to make up for variations in load supply.

This would mean that while less CO2 was generated, the renewable generators could not replace existing generators cost of running. Until the renewable technologies can meet demand, the neuclear debate will continue.
Posted by Democritus, Saturday, 29 September 2007 7:32:51 AM
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Shadow Minister says that:

"A windless evening at 7 o'clock when everone is cooking (peak load) is still going to need generation that present green technologies can never meet."

If you recall the weather map you may have seen on TV last night, you have evidence that it's not windless everywhere at once. If you remember about time zones, you realise it isn't evening everywhere at once.

Our current electricity grid is able to provide electricity across a range of weather patterns and time zones, so that peak loads can be met by generation outside of peak load zones.

In addition, there is a range of smart technology, marketing and use-monitoring strategies which can be applied to peak loading issues.

Nuclear electricity is a proliferation threat, a terrorist-attack risk, and has been repeatedly argued as uneconomic except when provided substantial government subsidies.

As for the greenhous savings arguments, the greenhouse gas contribution of nuclear electricity has not been independently evaluated. The most optomisitc evaluations, which purportedly equate it with wind generation, in terms of greenhouse gas emission, are the work of industry advocates.

For example, Sturm van Leeuwen states in "Secure Energy?":
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/secureenergy.pdf

"The claim of the nuclear industry that nuclear power emits low levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is not based on scientifically verifiable evidence."

"Emissions of greenhouse gases other than CO2, often with Global Warming Potentials many thousands of times larger than carbon dioxide, by nuclear power never have been investigated and/or published."

"Absence of data definitely does not mean absence of greenhouse gas emissions."

The link is well worth the attention of anyone who wishes a rounded view of nuclear electricity.

Shadow Minister, which would you rather have in your back yard - windmills or a nuclear reactor? I prefer windmills, because they involve no radioactivity whatever.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 29 September 2007 8:10:55 AM
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Sir Vivor,

Thanks for your emotional response to a technical issue.

My answer is

I don't want a reactor in my back yard,
I don't want climate change,
I don't want neuclear proliferation.

Yes, there is wind somewhere in the county all the time, and some electricity can be generated all the time, but not enough to meet peak demand or even base demand all the time.

Unless you consider the CSIRO to be an organisation bent on destroying the environment (as per the report refered to by Democritus above) then maybe the cold light of reality might filter through.

Advocating neuclear power is political suicide in this country, the fact that it is occuring is not because it is wanted, but because it is needed.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 29 September 2007 9:33:39 AM
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re Shadow Minister's kind reply:

"Sir Vivor,
Thanks for your emotional response to a technical issue."

No problem, Shad, and thank you for sharing, too.

Did you speed-read the link I provided? I'll put it again and catch up with the slow readers in 24 hours:

[Google]
[PDF] SECURE ENERGY?File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
OxfordResearchGroup Secure Energy? About the authors. Dr. Frank Barnaby is Nuclear ...... 3. www.dti.gov.uk/files/file23300.pdf?pubpdfdload=04%2F418 p.7. ...
www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/secureenergy.pdf

Cheers,
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 29 September 2007 9:46:47 AM
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Sir Vivor,

There is no connection between the west coast and the east coast electricity grids so when it is daytime, it is daytime across our grid and vice versa.

It is irrelevant that it is not windless everywhere at 7pm in the evening, the significantly reduced amount of wind available is not going to be enough to meet base load, let alone peak load, requirements.

There is absolutely no technology which can make up for short falls in GENERATING capacity. This is not a gap that can be papered over.

Australia’s biggest wind farm at Wattle Point (SA) - has a generating capacity of about 90.75MW. On average this means they can produce 20MW of electricity. Australia’s energy requirements are about 50,000MW of generating capacity.

Wind and other renewables are far less economically attractive than nuclear, even given the costs of waste storage and plant decommissioning. The nuclear and other options are only being considered because of the detrimental effect of CO2 in the environment.

Greenhouse emissions of nuclear power plants are virtually NIL, when compared with fossil fueled power generators. Nuclear plants have been operating for nearly 50 years so their emissions are well known and are regularly captured and analyzed by regulating bodies.

I support wind and other renewables providing some of our electricity needs, but they are not going to be able to viably produce our base load electricity needs in the short to medium term. Nuclear is the only real alternative to coal fired power stations for this problem.

PS I had a look at the polemic you posted. I prefer to trust the CSIRO than a bunch of far left anti nuclear nuts.

Dickie

The question the rest of us ask is should we trust the economic vandals who want to destroy our economies so they can satisfy their religious like faith in renewables for all occasions.
Posted by Paul.L, Saturday, 29 September 2007 11:06:40 AM
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When nuclear power was introduced in the UK the problem was the opposite of the intermittency of wind and tides in that it was diffcult to power it down at night. The solution of building pumped storage systems in the Scottish and Welsh mountains, so that water could be pumped up at night and released through turbine generators at peak times, was augmented with night storage heaters and heating domestic hot water at night encouraged with the cheaper so-called Economy 7 tariff.

Pumped storage is also the answer for wind and tide power. When the wind blows some of the output can be used to pump water to reservoirs from where it can be let down through turbines at peak demand times.

There used to be countless tide mills around the shores of the UK associated with tidal lagoons. In coastal barriers turbines can be arranged to work with both the flow and ebb to and from an artificial tidal lagoon or an estuary. In the US large-scale solar power is stored in molten salt to obtain a constant output.

Energy storage of intermittent renewable sources also has the advantage of reducing the size of the exporting transmission lines.

However, it is unlikely that renewables will ever provide more than a quarter of the UK's current energy demand and the task of the government is to engender a low-energy lifestyle to match the reality of the end of fossil fuels. Sponsoring nuclear power, which can only provide a marginal contribution, is just a public relations device to dodge coming to terms with such an unelectable prospect.
Posted by John Busby, Saturday, 29 September 2007 6:03:09 PM
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The report by the Oxford Research Group is an opinion piece cobbled together by a handful of academics with a political agenda to push. The article’s research appears to consist of selectively using portions from other articles that aligned with their agenda and discarding those that did not. (Yes I did read those articles too) If I called myself the Harvard institute for strategic studies maybe I too would be quoted.

In my time as I have read many well considered and balanced reports of which this is not one. I can also pull “reports” from the net on most issues including ones that supporting a flat earth.

A report from a recognised institute such as the CSIRO might actually carry weight.

Interesting facts gleaned from the other articles referred to in the report is that the consensus on life cycle CO2 emissions per kWhr generated would tend to indicate that nuclear is on a par or better than wind generation, but photo voltaic is only marginally better than natural gas. You learn something new every day. (I notice that was omitted)

With regards proliferation, these seem mostly focused on rogue states who aren’t bound by the strictures of the IAEA which should be a reason to develop a healthy power industry rather than one that deals in secrecy.

Countries such as France and Finland due to a lack of other fuels generate about 70% of their power from nuclear sources, and intend to expand even this. Using existing technology we can reduce green house gases by 40% by 2050 if we start now.

If as predicted by the greens the new renewable technologies are developed, then in 50 years when the nuclear plants are coming to the end of life this new source will be large enough to take over. If we wait for other politically more acceptable sources we will wake up to the consequences too late.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Saturday, 29 September 2007 6:58:47 PM
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Nuclear Waste Dump in the Northern Territory at last three cheers we thought it would never come. Welcome Pangea we now have provision whereby we can import the worlds Nuclear Waste in a remote region which will not harm those that live condensed populated areas. We must also encourage Indonesia to place Nuclear Power Stations in Bali, Java Island and Madura so that we can export our Uranium to them. Ziggy Switkowski has assured us that if Indonesia do have earthquakes any Nuclear Power facility will be perfectly safe. So the Northern Territory and Queensland have nothing to worry about.
Posted by Julie Vickers, Saturday, 29 September 2007 11:08:21 PM
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“COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d; and, dew’d with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset linger’d low adown
In the red West; thro’ mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem’d the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown;
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
“There is no joy but calm!”—
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Sunday, 30 September 2007 1:02:52 AM
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"If as predicted by the greens the new renewable technologies are developed, then in 50 years when the nuclear plants are coming to the end of life this new source will be large enough to take over."

Shadow Minister. When do you predict Australia's reactors attaining the age of 50? In the year 2060 or 2070....? And how many? Will it only be one or two?

Have you considered the environmental devastation in the meantime if we continue with our "fossil fuel" mentality until then, bearing in mind that today's emissions of CO2 will not reveal its destructive forces for a century? Therefore what we do today, we will pay for tomorrow - reactors or not!

So what are you suggesting for Australia for at least the next 50 years or so? Australia will not have sufficient reactors before then to make any difference, particularly when the biggest polluters, and shamefully, western countries, are full steam ahead commissioning new coal fired plants! And soon, Australia will resemble a moon crater by the time the "big boys" dig up our uranium!

"Countries such as France and Finland due to a lack of other fuels generate about 70% of their power from nuclear sources, and intend to expand even this. Using existing technology we can reduce green house gases by 40% by 2050 if we start now."

Shadow. Finland's nuclear reactors supply approximately 27% of energy needs - not 70% as you claim above. In addition, Finland only has a population of 5,000,000. What is the "existing technology" you refer to?

Finland's fifth reactor has had considerable delay. Seems this prototype has not been tested anywhere else and there have been many problems - even with the basic construction. Good luck Fins!

During summer, France, Spain and Germany were forced to take several reactors offline due to overheated water, resulting in reduced operations and supplies to consumers. Seems they didn't account for global warming!

As well, Sweden shut down 4 of its 10 reactors after a design flaw created a short circuit releasing overheated water into the environment.
Posted by dickie, Sunday, 30 September 2007 8:50:45 AM
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Shadow Minister says:
“Advocating neuclear power is political suicide in this country, the fact that it is occuring is not because it is wanted, but because it is needed.”

Because it is needed? A reckless assumption. How do you distinguish between wants and needs here? Can you do that for all of us here? Brave indeed - or just feckless?

Then there’s your opinion of the Oxford Research Group study.
Let’s look at some boring detail:

“The results of the study of Storm van Leeuwen & Smith(44) and confirmed by a recent study of Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA) of The University of Sydney(45) indicate specific emissions in the range of: 84-122 gCO2/kWh (assumed [reactor]lifetime 35 years at an average load factor of 85%). The ISA study found a range of 10-130 gCO2/kWh (assumed lifetime 35 years at an average load factor of 85%).”

and

“Conclusions
“New nuclear build is not possible without an extensive set of subsidies and loan guarantees. One way to generate subsidies is selling carbon emission rights. The lower the accepted value of the nuclear greenhouse gas emission per kilowatt-hour, the more emission rights can be sold.”

Those quotes are from
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/secureenergy.pdf

So maybe, the Nuclear Renaissance" is all about selling emission rights AND nuclear electricity? Maybe one of the boys from Boise would come clean on this? And while your asking, ask him about the (US)Price-Anderson Act.

And hey, Paul L, if nuclear industry promoters provide skewed greenhouse emissions estimates of their product, what then about your opinion that:

“The question the rest of us ask is should we trust the economic vandals who want to destroy our economies so they can satisfy their religious like faith in renewables for all occasions.”

Is that the only question?

My vested interested is in my childrens’ and grandchildrens’ future. Where does yours lie?

Paul, I think you and Shad ought to read Barnaby and Kemp’s work very carefully, maybe drill down into van Leeuwen’s papers, and consider again who might be called “economic vandals”. Myself, I include speculators who promote nuclear electricity for financial gain.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Sunday, 30 September 2007 1:56:54 PM
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That's an interesting insight Sir Viv into how the Sydney Uni group thinks. As we speak the concrete cooling towers at Sellafield UK are being demolished and re-used as builders rubble. Will that earn a credit for CO2 saved? Ask this question; can a coal station that spews out thousands of tonnes of CO2 every day for decades somehow generate less direct or indirect greenhouse emissions?

Their other mistake is a misunderstanding of how carbon trade works. It is geared to current emissions per kilowatt-hour of electricity, not how much diesel or concrete was used outside of electrical generation. There is no carbon credit as they claim for nuclear electricity, only a price advantage compared to coal fired under a carbon cap. The subsidy argument may have some merit (they have both physicists and economists?) but I think some digging in the paperwork will unearth considerable assistance to the coal industry.
Posted by Taswegian, Sunday, 30 September 2007 4:33:32 PM
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Unless there really are no significant improvements in the ability to provide reliable renewable power (solar, wind, and geothermal) at a reasonable cost in the next decade, I can't see nuclear being viable for Australia. We're a big country with a small population, meaning there's a massive area per capita that we can capture renewable energy from (in fact, Australia captures enough solar irradiation to supply the entire world with its current energy demands). In countries where this isn't the case, nuclear makes perfect sense. It irks me that many oppose nuclear power on irrational and/or emotional grounds, ignoring the basic statistics behind its safety, but it would be truly remarkable if within 10 years, renewable energy did not turn out to be vastly cheaper than current nuclear technology (in fact, I'm prepare to wager that it will be cheaper than natural gas, without CCS). If Australia does go nuclear, it will be almost purely because it has a more powerful business lobby behind it.
Posted by wizofaus, Sunday, 30 September 2007 4:59:35 PM
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As for ad hominums suggesting I'm a raving left-wing greenie nutcase, if so, I would be unlikely to support the work of Amory Lovins. Even though he is antinuclear, he is very much “free market”.

For example, sample:

"Global Warming: A Real Solution”

Rolling Stone, June 2007

“The Transition From Oil

“What would happen if we [the USA population] created a truly free market, one in which alternative energy could compete on an equal footing with oil and coal? In 2004, physicist Amory Lovins answered that question. In a study co-funded by the Defense Department, Lovins and his colleagues at the Rocky Mountain Institute detailed how the United States can completely wean itself off all oil — and create a much stronger economy — by 2050.

“The transition from oil outlined by Lovins would occur in two stages. First, half of our current demand for oil can be eliminated simply by using oil twice as efficiently. We've already done this once — doubling our efficiency since 1975 — and we can do it again simply by encouraging the adoption of existing technologies. Then, the remaining half of our oil demand can be replaced with a combination of natural gas and advanced biofuels. The result would not only end our oil addiction completely, it would also lower our energy costs to the equivalent of $15 a barrel — a quarter of what we currently pay.

“ … with a one-time investment of $180 billion — we can completely retool the automobile and aviation industries, create greener and more energy-efficient buildings and foster a modern biofuels industry. Even assuming that the price of oil drops by more than half by 2025, Lovins shows that going oil-free would net Americans $70 billion a year — an impressive return on our initial $180 billion investment! At the same time, we would not only reduce the threat posed by global warming, we would also generate a million new jobs — three-quarters of them in rural and small-town America.”

For complete article, see: www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15051506/global_warming_a_real_solution/1

Energy efficiency is my underlying concern, and nuclear electricity is inefficient.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Sunday, 30 September 2007 6:25:49 PM
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What a fascinating thread this is. Knowledgeable people, cranks, ideologists - all contribute. And I a mere layman feel naked and illiterate.
We need an environment of thought and decision that is as free from selfish interest or ideological contaminent as possible.
What are the facts that we must weigh?
I know that in wishing for a decision making process that is as free from selfish or ideological contaminants I am baying from the moon. But how can we, as simple but intelligen laymen, set up a system of governance that is most likely to produce good for our children, grandchildren and subsequent generations?
I wonder if our problems are as much psychological and social as technical?
Fencepost.
Posted by Fencepost, Sunday, 30 September 2007 7:10:15 PM
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There's nothing wrong with ideology, Fencepost. Providing it's backed up with science and a thorough knowledge of how government and industry technocrats do business - mainly with each other of course!
Posted by dickie, Sunday, 30 September 2007 9:20:21 PM
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A touching post Fencepost. Stimulating. Good.

I am becoming an old man and recognise nuclear "power" for what it is - an old man's dream. An old man's delusion.

Nuclear "power" is a better mousetrap. An absolute bonfire of irreplaceable, once-only liquid hydrocarbon fuel. It is the childish dream of one last glorious cracker-night. Let it all go up in a shower of cinders. Tomorrow is Sunday - sleep in - no worries - no school.

Never trust the judgement of old men where nuclear power is concerned, nor their younger wannabees, who want to be just like them when they grow up.

It's a loony idea.
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Monday, 1 October 2007 1:17:45 AM
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France will shortly supply 76% of its electricity needs from nuclear. It also does this safely and comparitively cheaply.

The reason for this is "No oil, no gas, no coal, no choice."

Comments above try to imply that the only reason that renewable energy isn't as cheap os other sources is that there isn't a free market (quoting authorative sources such as rolling stone magazine). Come on! With the public sentiment against the large power corporations in the US, renewable generation has been the white knight for decades.

Wind, solar and other technologies have made great progress, but are still decades from being able to meet the base load requirements on a sustainable basis.

The reason we can keep debating this is because we have oil, gas and coal. Take this away, and to quote the French we have "no choice"
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 1 October 2007 6:20:51 AM
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"Wind, solar and other technologies have made great progress, but are still decades from being able to meet the base load requirements on a sustainable basis."

You cannot claim that with any certainty. What is true is that 25% of domestic power is used to heat water, so solar hot water heating alone could substantially reduce this in a much shorter time frame, and much faster than nuclear power plants could. The potential of solar thermal power should be better understood within a few years.
Posted by Fester, Monday, 1 October 2007 3:11:52 PM
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Democritus,

"base load" power is defined in terms of generation, not demand. The base load concept dominates electric economics only because most generation comes from big furnaces, boilers and steam turbines. This is NOT a law of physics, but of legacy capital. Switching off is anathema to operators of these dinosaurs: "PLEASE dump cheap power overnight, rather than make us relight the furnace (or reactor) in the morning." Customers exist, of course, but off-peak electricity remains a recipe for fuel wastage and grand-scale greenhouse pollution.

You're quite wrong about the capital costs of peaking generators, BTW. It is idle time and premium fuel (or head of water), not capital, that makes peak generation relatively expensive.

Replace big power stations with small cogenerators (where "waste" heat is useful, not belched away in cooling towers) and switching off overnight becomes the obvious thing to do. The economics are dictated by the technology, nothing else.

The CSIRO study you cite is too pessimistic, but correct in essentials. Intermittent generators can't provide all of a network's capacity, but a sufficiently diversified supply is worth a capacity credit up to two-thirds of its average capacity factor (~20% for well-sited wind power, higher for solar thermal or wave power). After all, the wind never stops blowing everywhere at once. CSIRO don't seem to allow for the distinct possibility that all Australia's "base load" generation might eventually come from solar thermal and/or geothermal power. Fuel is only indispensable in the absence of hydroelectric peaking capacity.

The whole discussion seems to forget that we can't change everything overnight. Existing (especially shiny new) power stations are never going to be retired wholesale and immediately replaced with low-carbon technology. A migration to a low-carbon electricity supply has to start somewhere, and the greenhouse-mitigation goal is served best by starting *now*, with the small(ish) low-carbon generators that already compete with high-carbon options under consideration.

No matter how much backup capacity sits idle in case of a bad power day, *every* kilowatt hour of electricity generated from a renewable source is a kilowatt hour that wasn't generated from fossil fuels.
Posted by xoddam, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 12:30:31 PM
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Xoddam,

you state, “’base load’ power is defined in terms of generation, not demand.”

This is nonsense. The base-load is the average load of electricity consumed at any given time. This is a law of electromagnetics because supplied power must always be equal to demanded power, for the grid to function properly.

From base-load requirements comes base-load generators. Ie Fossil fuel, Nuclear and some Hydro. At the moment these are the only technologies capable of supplying base-load power on a scale which is useful.

So base-load doesn’t go away at night just because you aren’t using your internet connection.

see http://www.uic.com.au/nip37.htm

You’ve got it all backwards. The technology is determined by the economics. That’s why coal fired power stations are the cheapest source of power. If we significantly varied our demand from these types of generators they would become far less cost effective. This is because of the associated wastage you speak of when they are not run at a constant rate.

The demand for storage of power has been around since large scale power stations were first built. Electricity cannot be stored in any real quantity so do you not think that people have been working on trying to solve it? That is why so many of us are skeptical about the sudden claims for intermittent renewables such as solar and wind, to have solved this power storage dilemma.

I think you misunderstand our electricity grid. It isn’t connected from west coast to east coast for starters. Also if your generating plant is a long way away from the point where the power is needed, you start to get significant wastage. So whether the wind doesn’t stop everywhere at once is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the area where your power is generated has wind or not. Sharing power between grids assumes that A) your interconnection can carry the total amount of required electricity and B) whether you have enough excess capacity to provide the shortfall.

This means for wind we must have far in excess of our baseload requirement in order to allow for windless days
Posted by Paul.L, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 2:25:21 PM
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Hey, Shadow Minister,
Maybe the reason Rolling Stone (a Rock Magazine) is now an “Authoritative Source” is because it has “street credibility”. I suggest you criticise the cited article on its merits, rather than its origin. Its case is much better argued than any of yours.

As for your comment that
“Wind, solar and other technologies have made great progress, but are still decades from being able to meet the base load requirements on a sustainable basis.”

This must seem like a compelling opinion to you, but have a look at the wikipedia article on Wind Power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
“Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 74,223 megawatts; although it currently produces just over 1% of world-wide electricity use[1], it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany.[2] Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.
As I said in an earlier post, there are other ways of working on the base load problem. Wind will not solve your base-load problem, but it is one added factor which will reduce its severity.

Meanwhile, look at the growth rate for wind electricity. Where’s your nuclear electricity on a similar graph?
On the S (shouldawouldacoulda) axis?

Market influences are resulting in the addition of wind electricity to national grids at a phenomenal rate. The smart money is buying alternative energy and energy efficiency, and the mugs are betting on your radioactive boilers.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 5:45:30 PM
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Paul.L,

Economics drives the choice of technology, but options are dramatically wider now than they were just 20 years ago. Don't use 1960s economics to decide infrastructure spending in 2007.

Queensland and Tasmania were only recently connected to the "national" grid with HVDC interconnectors; WA will most likely follow. Wind turbines strung across the Nullarbor could speed this along.

Base load is NOT defined as an average, it's the power (normally) made by continually-operating generators. It is always *lower* than the mean generation. In NSW the base load (4.4GW) is only one third of the summer afternoon peak of 13GW. NSW is short of peak capacity, but has a 40% baseload generation surplus.

The economics of integrating wind power are discussed in detail here:

http://www.ieawind.org/AnnexXXV/Meetings/Oklahoma/IEA%20SysOp%20GWPC2006%20paper_final.pdf

And to save on the OLO word limit, see my posts on the base-load concept here:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=70&m=10012&dm=1&pd=2&am=14060

The average capacity factor of SA wind power is well above 30% (not 20%), over 1% of Australian electricity is from wind power. Wind earns an excellent capacity credit of 20%, operating reliably with respect to forecasts and never suffering major outages.

*No* power source is 100% reliable. Coal generators operate for months, but outages can be several days (for scheduled maintenance) or weeks in the case of a breakdown. Nuclear facilities are comparable, but they also have to be shut down for refuelling, and after a"scram" (a forced shutdown originating in problems outside the power station) can be incapable of producing power for months.

http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E05-14_NukePwrEcon.pdf
http://www.waltpatterson.org/nucamnesia.pdf

Coal generation's capacity factor is around 85% -- so three MW of wind capacity easily compensates for one MW of coal capacity, except that the aggregate is *more* reliable because one-generator-at-a-time failures or maintenance outages have a negligible impact.

anti-green, your wind questions are pertinent but I've exceeded the word limit again (and I suspect you already know the answers). Informed, if partisan, responses are here:

http://www.awea.org/faq/

No-one advocates covering all the earth's wilderness with windmills. There are other competitive renewable power technologies; wind is merely at the leading edge today, as was hydro in 1930.
Posted by xoddam, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 6:41:51 PM
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This has been a most interesting article followed by some good discussion however I’m bothered by recent comments about base load. I fear grid dynamics and generator station “agilities” are not well understood.

A problem least of all appreciated is the thermal lag of major coal fired power utilities. Old style equipment including quarries and boilers are inflexible energy sources at the best of times and so are their control systems. I won’t go into detail on dredgers, furnaces, steam lines, turbines, switch gear and load factor but all need to be understood.

As power was traditionally sold to maximize the performance of these common resources across networks, we are stuck with monsters that don’t like change in the way we do things. For instance, it took decades for authorities to allow minor sources to connect directly as phase relations always remained a critical factor for the systems. Cutting with DC was difficult enough in the early days of power control.

We end up with a bias against all fickle arrangements including wind power. Given enough wind machines distributed around the country, wind power can become a serious base load contender. I also notice nobody is assigning wind generators an old role in water pumping. How quickly we forgot windmills!

With a change in attitude we can achieve a lot in modifying demand. The grid has saved us from outages in one station or another but it keeps us all prisoners. As time goes on more sophisticated monitoring can back off demand. Building more generator capacity nuclear or otherwise is not the only answer.

I read today (The Public Sector Informant) - There are three “hardware” changes that can increase an organization’s adaptability

1) Reduce hierarchy
2) Increase autonomy
3) Encourage diversity

www.apo.org.au
Posted by Taz, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 11:07:00 PM
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Nuclear debate has bcome more pressing.

The consequences of Howard's shortsighted economic-growth-by-immigration stupidity are far greater than people realise.

PEAKOIL is colliding with Howard's enforced population growth. By 2025 there will not be enough liquid fuel for armed forces and police to intervene in race riots and ethnic cleansing campaigns in our suburbs. Governments will stand back and watch. If for example the Iemma government plays true to its Italian roots it may well find benefits in fostering riots for certain political and economic gains. Already we have seen a lot of questions like whose electorate the riots started from, surrounding the Cronulla riots. Only nuclear power can ensure that we have the energy replacement equivalent of OIL and the deterrence force of nuclear that since WWII has worked so well to stem terminal violence.

What all this means is that within a decade as we witness petrol prices reach the magic $10 per litre, Federal government will be too remote and powerless to be relevant if it does not embrace a nuclear program now.

Also, the ALP and the Libs WILL mine Uranium. No one is going to stop them doing their quickie economics. The best we can do is ensure they use Pebble bed technology to get better value out of Uranium. Pebbles are the equivalent of nuclear condoms. Value-adding yellowcake to Pebble Bed Reactor fuels, with corresponding reactor research, will give at least 10X the return on our ores. Further it makes reactor meltdowns impossible and prevents yellowcake's use in nuclear weapons in a way which no dumb-signed ruskie-sales-contract can ever do.

It is no use to have Kevin Rudd and a band of green peacmakers like Peter Garrett, all starry eyed with polices shaped two decades ago let loose on a Nation which, like Titanic, is headed full-Costello-throttle-ahead for the nearest iceberg.

Along with Rudd's positive social reforms we want Labor to show us they can develop POSITIVE nuclear policy and develop zero immigration policy commensurate with global warming, water, energy and infrastructure deficiencies that are going to prevail and grow over the next 2 decades.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 11:22:51 PM
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KAEP

The proponents of pebble bed reactors continually fail to allude to the volume of radioactive waste from this technology. Whilst uranium use is more frugal, three hundred and eighty thousand tennis sized pebbles are required to fuel a reactor of 120 megawatts.

The volume of waste is much greater since that waste will be disposed of within the pebbles. If countries adopted this technology, I envisage an enormous waste problem.

The planet's largest problem for survival is now pollution.

The Yucca Mountain respository, not yet commissioned, is already regarded as insufficient to accommodate the current RA waste languishing in storage.

Where do nuclear scientists propose disposing of the spent, tennis ball sized pebbles if all countries adopted this technology? The U depleted pebbles would eventually equate to trillions and must be isolated for many generations.

Will our "leaders" resort to ocean dumping or continue their land grab by developing and contaminating even more massive subterranean repositories?
Posted by dickie, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 10:52:44 AM
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Dickie,
Those are interesting points, but I do not think KAEP is prioritising the safe disposal of your suggested abundance of radioactive "tennis balls". Rather, just now he/she is worried about peace and justice:

"By 2025 there will not be enough liquid fuel for armed forces and police to intervene in race riots and ethnic cleansing campaigns in our suburbs. "

Which makes me who +will+ step in and protect nuclear facilities from riot, mayhem, sabotage, ethnic majorities, minorities and cleansers, etcetera. If the military doesn't have enough fuel to keep the belligerents away from strategic targets, then I guess it will be a job for private contractors. Surely private security contractors wouldn't run out of petrol. Would they?

Or maybe everyone will play fair and respect the need to keep the radioactive bits properly shielded?

Or maybe, if the pebble bed reactors aren't in anyone's back yard, eg well and truly away from the suburbs, like the old HIFAR and MOATA reactors at Lucas Heights used to be, it won't be an issue?

By the way, where did the radioactive bits of those two projects go? I hope they're well and truly out of the suburbs by now -
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 12:04:01 PM
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If we go nuclear, there WILL be enough energy to maintain law and order and national security at PEAKOIL under existing Federalism.

THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT.

Further points:

1. Future research will improve a wide range of PBR options.
2. The Chinese already have Car sized PBR reactors that are portable.
3. Ocean dumping of pebbles is a NATURAL part of the Earth's geology. Provided the pebbles are placed in the deepest subduction zones on the planet they will be pushed back into the Earth's mantle to be mixed and spewed out in some future volcano. People who don't understand Geology may be concerned but that is pure ignorance. Current volcaoes are spewing out natures own nuclear secrets as we speak and I can assure people they are orders of magnitude greater than what our insignificant civilisation can ever centrifuge up.
4. The main thing is than the pebbles are continually researched to ensure zero probability of leakage of any product that can dissolve of be carried by currents at 7 miles deep at very high pressure under the ocean. Tere are only very minor candidates for this and pressures are likely to negate any threat.

I am not prepared to sit by while captains Costello and Howard try to impress the world with their personal prowess in how fast they can make the SS Titanic Australia Economy go, icebergs and PEAKOIL notwithstanding.

I sincerely hope there are other Australians who feel the same way and who have the ideas and technologies to back it up.
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 12:51:54 PM
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News article today:

Cape Town - In the long term, nuclear power is the most commercially viable, carbon-emission-free base-load technology, according to Alec Erwin, the minister for public enterprises. Erwin was replying to a parliamentary question from Hendrik Schmidt of the Democratic Alliance.Erwin explained on Tuesday that the costs of radioactive waste management, decommissioning, nuclear indemnity and other third-party liability insurances feature strongly in nuclear energy business plans being drawn up by Eskom, as do the available options to pay for them.

As South Africa has a very similar profile to Aus (semi desert, huge coal supplies for cheap generation) this should carry considerable weight.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 1:22:39 PM
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Good to see you back KAEP.

I know this has nothing to do with tihs thread and will piss off others interested in the nuclear debate, but I don't know how to contact you direct - how is the sea height anomoly in regard to this coming summer?

Does the current drought still correlate to the wastewater plumes?
Posted by tragedy, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 5:24:55 PM
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Tragic,

Current Aus SHA map: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1191421293.gif

Strike vectors (alternating blue and yellow patches on the SHA map) exist to Thermodynamic wastewater endpoints at:

1. Pt Hedland from the Arafura sea

2. Kalumburu from the Arafura

3. Arafura to Goyder river and onto Karumba

4. West tip of New Guinea into Cairns and on to Karumba

5. Solomon Islands to Mackay

Tropical waves will be felt along these paths as the sun moves south from its current position just south of the Equator. After february 2008 these waves can become Cyclonic if the existing wastewater profiles remain in force.

Once you go past the tropic of Capricorn the situation reverses with the predominant heat source over land.

Now the strike vectors are from Central Aus & SE Qld towards low SHA thermodynamic wastewater Endpoints off:

1. Kempsy, Macleay river

2. Sydney

3. Batemans Bay

This effectively burns off all moisture over NSW leaving it tinder dry. And that's where we are up to.

Last year the predominant wastewater effluent from Sydney (34Sth) was from deep outfall and you can see the blue wastewater patch well off the NSW coast on th 06 map. This causes heat & drought conditions but not as bad as the current situation where the blue plume is right on Sydney's doorstep. I suspect authorites have become aware of RECCE theory from this forum. After the Jun 8 Sydney Storms this year I suspect the BOM, CSIRO and Sydney Water got together and decided to cut usage of the outfall off Sydney to encourage warm winter Tasman sea low pressure systems to hit the NSW coast. That's just Low entropy heat to high entropy wastewaters or the second law of thermodynamics.

Continued ..
Posted by KAEP, Thursday, 4 October 2007 1:31:49 AM
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KAEP,
re:
"2. The Chinese already have Car sized PBR reactors that are portable."

I have been thinking about a bicycle tour of China, and am very interested in knowing more about these car-sized Chinese Pebble Bed Reactors. What detail can you provide?

By the way, if you open a gmail, yahoo or hotmail account, Tragic can initially contact you there - and then you can close the account.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Thursday, 4 October 2007 8:13:44 AM
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I am not entirely gung-ho on wind power, nor am I even a determined anti-nuclear zealot, but I think it's worth adducing this study I found last night:

http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/resources/documents/Greenhouse_abatement_from_wind_report.pdf

Apparently existing wind power in the state of Victora has a truly impressive capacity factor of 37%. Of course the first wind farms occupy some of the best sites, so performance wouldn't be quite so outstanding in aggregate with greater wind penetration.

The daily profile of wind variability peaks in early evening in summertime with a strong midday and afternoon ramp-up, corresponding well to the afternoon air conditioning electric load peak (as would intermittent solar power generation). Unfortunately the useful correspondence between intermittency and peak demand means that wind power displaces relatively clean gas-fired peaking generation rather than Victoria's massive dirty brown coal furnaces, but on the bright side it means wind power is already cheaper to integrate than I would have expected given the preponderance of gigawatt-scale coal power stations.

Winter is the least windy season, and Victorian winter wind doesn't match the seasonal evening heating/cooking demand peak so well, but even then it's hardly "windless"; indeed the profile indicates that wind power in Victoria is mostly capable of supplying "base load" demand up to almost 20% of its rated capacity. Rarely, the total wind power output will fall below that level, so some backup in the form of peaking generation or severable loads (desalination plants, anyone?) would sometimes be required to compensate. Any shortfall would be predictable many hours, even days, in advance.

Anyway. Enough on that topic. Wind turbines are just cheap, not a magic bullet. Diversity is key. End-use efficiency is a cheaper investment than any form of electric generation technology. Cogeneration eliminates fuel wastage. Geosequestration and algaculture will help mitigate the greenhouse pollution of coal. Wave, tidal and solar thermal power techniques improve daily. Solar photovoltaics are dropping in price just the way flat-screen TVs did (see http://www.nanosolar.com).

If every one of those fails to live up to its promise, we might have to consider fission more closely.
Posted by xoddam, Thursday, 4 October 2007 6:24:46 PM
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Xoddam

Now there's talk of a hybrid wind/power unit to complement each other. When the wind fails the solar takes over and vice versa.

Yes there's much to be done on renewables but it continues to look very promising.

I remain convinced that coal-fired powered plants conversion to gas fired plants, for an interim period, could reduce GHG by up to 50% though I doubt the technocrats or our politicians are listening since the approval of new coal-fired power plants continues.
Posted by dickie, Thursday, 4 October 2007 10:12:18 PM
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Tragic:Continuing:

Now bringing wastewaters close to the coast works well in winter where heat swirls around the arctic ocean and back up the East Australian coast, but in summer forget it! All the heat is coming from the dead centre and the closer they are making those wastewater plumes off Sydney the more intense the ambient heat conditions will be.

SHA map 0ct 3 2006: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/trinanes/tmp/sha1191421438.gif

If authorities want to get rid of drought and bushfires now and through summer they need to almost totally recycle wastewaters, not just shift them around. Of course reutilising the Sydney deep outfall will improve the situation and should be implemented immediately. But its not going to be a drought-buster and that's what is needed.

Another important strategy would be to stop all immigration into Sydney. That cuts the staggering GROWTH in wastewater emissions and at least gives us a baseline to work from. To not cut immigration given the paultry recycle capacity, you are looking at nothing short of Apocalypse Sydney.

Vivor,

This SHA work shows the incompetence & secretiveness of Howard government when it comes to the security-Australia over the next 2-decades. That's relevant to nuclear debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

1. Pebble-bed reactors can theoretically power vehicles. There is no need for a heavy pressure vessel.

2. Romawa B.V., the Netherlands, promotes a design called Nereus. This is a 24 MWth reactor designed to fit in a container, and provide either a ship's power plant, isolated utilities, backup or peaking power. It is basically a replacement for large diesel generators and gas turbines, but without fuel transportation expenses or air pollution. Because it requires external air, Romawa's design limits itself only to environments in which diesel engines can already be used.

The article also refers to the Chinese HTR 10 MW reactor prototype.

That means two things:

* the Chinese are already capable of producing small systems
* Such systems are less than the size of a container and could easily be around the size of a large car.

DO NOT BIKE TOO CLOSE-hear they have large dogs.
Posted by KAEP, Thursday, 4 October 2007 10:52:34 PM
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KAEP
Thank you for the Wikipedia link. That article says:
“The AVR [German pebble bed test reactor] used helium coolant. Helium has a low neutron cross-section. Since few neutrons are absorbed, the coolant remains less radioactive. In fact, it is practical to route the primary coolant directly to power generation turbines. Even though the power generation used primary coolant, it is reported that the AVR exposed its personnel to less than 1/5 as much radiation as a typical light water reactor.”

So, we have reduced tritium production by eliminating neutron absorption by water coolant, but what else stops the neutrons?

A link provided in the Wikipedia article,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html,
gives some idea:
“Beneath its cavernous main room are the 100 tons of steel, graphite, and hydraulic gear known as HTR-10”

100 tons (say, about 100 tonnes metric)of steel would help stop neutrons, but I cannot understand how you would fit the necessary shielding into an automobile.

I’m also intrigued by the waste containment properties of the “pebbles”, which the “wired” article describes as the size of pool balls (not your larger tennis balls, Dickie, but the numbers you mention are not to be sniffed at).

The radioactive gases xenon and krypton are inevitable fission products, and they are not going to be contained by the pebbles. A Google results from the arcana (try "pebble bed reactor" xenon krypton)suggest that they will enter the gas stream.

Containment of radioactive gases for about 30 minutes ought to allow for a lot of their radioactive decay, but the release of radioactive noble gas isotopes will lead to the increased presence of strontium, cesium and iodine isotopes in the environment. Not a pretty sort of smog. Again, nothing to be sniffed at.

Containment of these noble gases is going to further add to the puzzle of getting your PBR-powered cars on the road, I think, KAEP.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Friday, 5 October 2007 10:07:51 AM
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Go nuke or perish - simple as it.
Posted by MichaelK., Friday, 5 October 2007 12:45:31 PM
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Vivor,

Good points!

But my point again is that, as a nation with 40% of the world's Uranium, our future over the next 2 decades will largely depend on solving the problems you raise.

The sooner we realise the dangers of PEAKOIL, the sooner we can set about solving those problems and moving forwards with nuclear energy.

I also reiterate the point that hot rock Geothermal will ultimately replace nuclear power if we indeed survive PEAKOIL. Another advantage of selling PBR reactors and fuel to an energy hungry world is that the profits could be ploughed back into drilling for hot rocks close to all major Australian cities. That too ought to be done as a gilt edged priority in tandem with PBR research development and manufacture. We really souldn't be gambling with our near term future in the blase way that the cargo-cult, Titanic captain mentality of the Howard government reveals. Not everything good necessarily comes to us from outside this country and Howard needs to wake up to that or get out of the way.

As for PBR cars. Forget it. Its not feasible. However car-sized reactors for shiping, small towns and military vehicles certainly are.
Posted by KAEP, Friday, 5 October 2007 1:45:44 PM
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Anyone besides me looked at the Rolling Stone article?

I say better efficiency and smart alternatives are a far wiser response to peak oil than any kind of distributed electricity, let alone nuclear technology.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/15051506/global_warming_a_real_solution

Global Warming: A Real Solution
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
"In early May, 100 of the nation's top business leaders gathered for a summit at a private resort nestled on 250 acres in California's Napa Valley. The attendees, gathered at the invitation of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, included CEOs and other top executives from such Fortune 500 corporations as Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble and BP. They had been invited to discuss ways to end America's fossil-fuel addiction and save the world from global warming. But in reality they had come to make money for their companies – and that may turn out to be the thing that saves us."

“For three days, the executives listened as their colleagues and business rivals described how they are using new technologies to wean themselves from oil and boost their profits in the process. DuPont has cut its climate-warming pollution by seventy-two percent since 1990, slashing $3 billion from its energy bills while increasing its global production by nearly a third. Wal-Mart has installed new, energy-efficient light bulbs in refrigeration units that save the company $12 million a year, and skylights that cut utility bills by up to $70,000 per store. The company, which operates the nation's second-largest corporate truck fleet, also saved $22 million last year just by installing auxiliary power units that allow drivers to operate electric systems without idling their vehicles. In a move with even more far-reaching potential, Wal-Mart has ordered its truck suppliers to double the gas mileage of the company's entire fleet by 2015. When those trucks become available to other businesses, America will cut its demand for oil by six percent.”

“ …. "We haven't even touched the low-hanging fruit yet," Kim Saylors-Laster, the vice president of energy for Wal-Mart, told the assembled CEOs. "We're still getting the fruit that has already fallen from the trees." “
Posted by Sir Vivor, Friday, 5 October 2007 5:39:24 PM
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I hadn't read it until just now, but I've been a fan of Amory Lovins since I read an absurd article about five years ago claiming that the Internet was boosting greenhouse emissions by increasing the demand for coal-fired electricity -- and adducing the California energy crisis of 2001 as evidence.

Lovins' contribution to the security and efficiency of the electricity supply industry in California is huge. The regulation that governed that state's private and municipal electricity suppliers from the 1970s until the mid 1990s was partly based on his work. He bitterly opposed "deregulation" in the 1990s, and not long after the 2001 heist by the energy cartel, the state turned back to RMI for advice.

California has the lowest electricity intensity of any state in the USA, and despite its disproportionate reliance on the motorcar it also has the lowest per capita carbon emissions. It is also the centre of technological innovation, including the Internet, which has contributed to a tremendous improvement in economic resource intensity (and slowed the growth in coal-fired electricity consumption) by reducing the need for motorised transport in a modern economy.

Not sure what you mean by saying "distributed electricity" is less wise than "better efficiency and smart alternatives". One of the biggest opportunities for improved fuel efficiency is distributed cogeneration: generating electricity from heat recovered from thermal industrial processes, and burning fuel to generate electricity close to the site of electric demand while finding uses for the "waste" heat from generation.

Or did you mean electricity delivered via a network, as opposed to distributed generation? Electric networks are here to stay, and indeed they will grow, because the only viable fuel-free generation options involve collecting ambient energy over a wide area from wind, waves, tidal currents, and sunlight.

This is also worth a read. Very promising:

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/energy-policy-renewable/330
Posted by xoddam, Friday, 5 October 2007 6:54:39 PM
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Vivor and Xoddam remind me of the mad artilleryman in 'War of the World's'.

My take on their slavish respect for modern CEO's rants:

ARTILLERYMAN: Course we can't win against peakoil. It's now we've got to start fighting - but not
against them 'cos we can't win. Now we've got to fight for survival, and I reckon we can make it.

I've got a plan:

Its all about electicity. But not just any electricity. Electric networks are here to stay, and indeed they will grow, because the only viable fuel-free generation options involve collecting ambient energy over a wide area from wind, waves, tidal currents, and sunlight. Today we have a few miles of coverage, tomorrow we'll cover the whole planet with energy collection devices. Then our womenkind can breed and breed till we reach 100's of billions of people so we can make women, property developers and wooly executives richer & happier than ever. There's no need to stop. This planet can breed and sustain humans till eternity. You wait and see. The technology will arrive. Dont fear. Bigger wind turbines & practically the whole planet covered with solar panels. A trillion strong global marketplace and labour force by 2200. How wonderful it will be
Posted by KAEP, Saturday, 6 October 2007 12:47:39 AM
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"Slavish respect"? Them's fightin' words!

Lovins is more philosopher than salesman: it's taken "captains of industry" and the Pentagon decades to start listening. We don't have to like them to be pleased that their money is now promoting sustainable energy technology.

The energy technology market is booming with ideas. Even if some projects turn out to be bulldust and some CEOs nutters, the rest have an excellent chance of success. There are many more players in renewables, doing more innovative things, than in nuclear power.

Here are my pertinent opinions, as they relate to peak oil and energy economics:

* Unrestrained population growth and continued economic growth at the pace we're used to are unsustainable. The economy can grow in a finite world only by becoming more efficient, not by consuming more.

* Peak oil will not be an unmitigated disaster; economy and even population will contract, but not suddenly. Minor catastrophes will harm only the poorest, as today in Burma.

* If abrupt climate change from positive feedbacks isn't averted, *that* will be globally catastrophic.

* Biofuels can be produced cheaply enough and in sufficiently great quantity to supply the services for which we now rely on petroleum and natural gas, if fuel consumption is also dramatically improved. It will be.

* The environmental consequences of fuel cropping will be grave, but not as bad as global warming.

* Ambient energy is inherently cheaper and more sustainable than nuclear power. Net land use for renewable electricity is less than from fossil fuels or uranium: ever seen an open-cut mine on a farm, out at sea, or on an urban rooftop?

* Cheap bite-sized renewable generators are available *now*. Every year the bites get juicier, while each new "generation" of nuclear reactors takes decades of dreaming, trial and error.

* Nuclear fission will be useful for the countries which are already committed to it. It doesn't have to distract the rest of us from the main game, which is sustainability.

* Hydrogen as an energy carrier is cute, but purely optional, and easy to obtain with or without nuclear power.
Posted by xoddam, Saturday, 6 October 2007 7:05:31 AM
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Xoddam, I was in a hurry and should have done a final edit for good sense. My concern is about highly centralised generation, as opposed to more distributed generation in a network.

But the link below makes the 30+ year old point that solar-heated hot water is a far more efficient source of low-grade heat (eg scalding hot water) than is an electric hot water heater. An additional point is that turning down the thermostat on an electric (or gas) hot water heater could still deliver scalding hot water, and might cut cold water usage as well (since people use cold water in baths and showers to temper the hot water). That was the sense behind my ‘efficiency’ phrasing; another tune to the theme of “every little bit helps”.

The point is made elsewhere, for example see:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2007/1920362.htm
Solar rebates - value for money?

The excerpt below highlights a very interesting rebate strategy working in Germany:

[Gavin Gilchrist] “ … What's worked for the solar electric industry in Germany is there is a feed-in tariff. That is, if you put solar electric systems on the roof of your house in Germany, you get a special price. You get more than just the normal price of electricity in the market at that time.”
“Geraldine Doogue: So they're favouring this sort of electricity?”

“Gavin Gilchrist: You get an absolutely huge bonus, to the point where in Germany, companies have been going around, getting satellite images of the roofs of Germany, to find out who's got a roof that faces south, (being in the Northern Hemisphere) that doesn't already have a PV system, and ringing them up and saying, 'We want to buy your roof'”.

The German buy-back rate is currently 5x the retail electricity cost. Still cheaper than building a new reactor.

Yes, KAEP, I’m “fighting the good fight”. And I’m glad to see the aliens didn’t steal your sense of humour when they abducted you. That’s why they keep abducting us, you know: they can’t figure out what makes us laugh. PS your ocean altimetry evidence is totally fabulous.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 6 October 2007 10:26:28 AM
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*At peakoil when the largest demand for green energy infrastructure kicks in, the oil that provide plastics and energy to manufacture that infrastructure will dry up.
The dream of green alternative energy is just a dream Like ZENO's paradox. The closer you get to the goal the further away.

*People stupid enough to forego nuclear power and nuclear deterrence will have 'weakling' tatsed across their forehead. The law-of-the-jungle will PREVAIL without a nuclear program that is politically federalised, distributed and protected by a robust nuclear-based military. There is no other way to maintain realistic law&order and avoid ancient zeitgeists emerging to wreak 3-out-of-every-4 mayhem after peakoil.
There were 2 billion people before oil and there will be 2 billion people after peakoil. That's thermodyanmic law and is inviolable. THINK harder about nuclear.

*The trigger for peakoil will be $10/litre petrol. Without nuclear supporting our societies, peakoil fear and uncertainty will cause women to want more children to avoid uncertainty. That cvertainty will complicate peakoil to an extent, that as unthinkable as it is today, will neverthless make genocide a televised sport. Anti nuclear proponents know NOTHING of THERMODYNAMICS & the baser fundiments of human nature and survival.

*Even the Romans had nuclear power. Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli powered Romans to a Crescendo that came crashing down when Vesuvius blew out and Geotherml energy tracked into subsidence. Competing societies at Greece, Egypt, Carthage had no hope of competing with those Regional Thermodynamics, very much akin to a human hurricane in modern terms. In fact Vesuvius was for many centuries the equivalent of having a free-and-safe fluidised Pebble-Bed-Reactor in Rome's backyard.

To assume we today, with temporary but effectively infinite oil and energy supplies, are morally superior to the falling Romans or the Germans pre WWII in an overcrowded and under-resourced Europe, is a mistake that will be paid for at peakoil in a way, currently unimaginable, that was perhaps best described in the post WWII literary epiphany, "Forbidden Planet":

"But the Howard Government forgot one thing John .... Monsters .... Monsters from the ID (Immigration Department)"
Posted by KAEP, Saturday, 6 October 2007 2:15:25 PM
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KAEP, there are moments of brilliance in your writing amongst volumes of turgid nonsense.

Volcanic soils contribute to Italy's fertility, but your arguments are all non sequiteurs. Peak oil does NOT mean that petroleum will run out, just that extraction will decline henceforth. Fossil-fuel inputs to ambient energy collection are small, and viable substitutes already exist (biogas for gas, vegetable and synthetic oils for petroleum and biomass for coal), so fossil fuels don't limit renewable energy.

Nuclear fission can displace much coal combustion, and no doubt will boom (especially given the urgency of greenhouse emissions reduction), but it is not currently dissimilar enough in its economics or its environmental costs from fossil fuels for it to be preferable to renewables, which will soon enough become cheaper to deploy than nukes. Wind already beats nuclear on lifetime price-per-kilowatt-hour, and more versatile renewables will follow.

I hope nuclear research does proceed to the point when truly-clean "gen-V" reactors can start cleaning up the mess left by their predecessors, but until that point I can't advocate nuclear technology in its own right.

The Hubbert peak -- decline in production of a fossil energy resource symmetrically matching its rise in a "bell curve" over time -- is something that has historically happened in the presence of comparable energy sources competing on price. It doesn't represent a geologically-determined limit. As an old resource becomes more expensive to exploit than a new one, custom shifts rapidly to the new resource.

Peak Oil cannot occur until the alternatives compete on price. I believe some alternatives are already competitive, but that biofuel production cannot follow quite as rapid a growth curve as the typical oil field has done, so its ramp-up and oil's ramp-down will not follow the expected bell curves. Bowser prices for liquid fuels will continue to soar, but more slowly than you expect, and the petroleum peak will come long before real prices reach tenfold present levels. At that point consumers (those who can still afford food) will be confident in the viability of the various petroleum substitutes, and the oil age can retire gracefully.
Posted by xoddam, Monday, 8 October 2007 11:36:20 AM
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Scratch that -- my claim that "Peak Oil cannot occur until the alternatives compete on price" refers only to the kind of peak that has determined the shape of the curve in the past.

Petroleum production can of course decline without replacement by competing energy sources, if demand falls faster than the gradual increase in extraction costs. Energy demand is generally considered to have limited price elasticity, so three things can cause such a reduction in demand: large-scale economic contraction, voluntary changes in behaviour, and improved technical consumption efficiency.

Together, all three could conspire to slow demand growth and prevent prices soaring enough to keep production growing with rising costs. Indeed the 'nicer' choices of improved technical consumption efficiency and behavioural change were assumed in my argument, but I did not take into account the effect on production levels of declining total demand.

I suppose my optimism is grounded in a hope that biofuels will prove abundant enough, soon enough, both to give the economy time to significantly improve fuel efficiency, and to prevent fuel costs soaring so quickly that they cause sudden economic collapse.

I concede the possibility that biofuels will fail to meet this challenge, and that the oil peak will be connected with a major depression.

A more pertinent graph than peak petroleum *production* would be a graph of the total services obtained from petroleum energy. This could continue to rise for some years beyond peak production volume, as increasing prices result in more frugal consumption. That would be a very good thing -- if the peaks coincide, that would mean production collapse due to depression, not substitution or improved efficiency.

The fact that biofuels are already substituting for a respectable fraction of petroleum consumption in many countries, and that fuel efficiency is at least starting to attract attention in the wealthy countries responsible for the majority of consumption today, gives me grounds for optimism.
Posted by xoddam, Monday, 8 October 2007 12:29:56 PM
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How many cows have been required to feel A-380 on Melbourne-Darwin rout?

Perhaps, Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister knows an exact answer.
Posted by MichaelK., Monday, 8 October 2007 1:53:18 PM
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Chris Shaw,

I am still puzzling about your posting of an abridged version of Tennyson's "The Lotos Eaters".

Can you connect the dots for me, between nuclear electricity and this venerable classic?

Thanks
Posted by Sir Vivor, Monday, 8 October 2007 5:56:14 PM
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Giant wind farm proposed for outback NSW 8/10/07 ABC

"Wind farm proposal ... The developers fear uncertainty over state and federal laws will stall the project. (Epuron)

"Wind farms plan for outback NSW (AM) Map: Silverton 2880
Renewable energy company Epuron is seeking approval to build Australia's largest wind farm in the New South Wales outback and generate enough energy to power up to 400,000 homes.

"The subsidiary of German group Conergy AG wants to place 500 turbines on up to five private properties at Silverton, near Broken Hill, in the state's far west.

"Epuron says the wind farm could produce more than half the renewable energy target proposed for NSW and meet almost 4.5 per cent of the state's power needs.

"Executive director Martin Poole says the company has found the far west of NSW to be surprisingly windy.

"There is already a very high-voltage power line to Broken Hill which is capable of carrying a lot of energy [and] that would connect this wind farm into the strong south-eastern Australian grid," he said."

We need to keep an eye on this one to ensure Atomic John and the pro-nukes don't sabotage this terrific proposal!
Posted by dickie, Monday, 8 October 2007 7:49:58 PM
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"That is, can nuclear plant reach a stage of sophistication where natural fuel is fed in, and fissile-free waste comes out? Of the six Generation IV technologies preselected in 2002 (and reaffirmed in 2006) by the Generation IV International Consortium, only one - the Molten Salt Reactor - has this potential."

Well said...the molten-salt reactor has tremendous potential for safe efficient nuclear operation as well as the ability to unlock the potential of thorium. The thorium-fueled, fluoride-salt version of the molten-salt reactor is particularly interesting. Please feel free to learn more at:

http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/

and

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/forum/

as well as to review documents related to this reactor at:

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/
Posted by kfsorensen, Thursday, 11 October 2007 4:36:31 AM
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How will the "foolproof" nuclear operations mitigate GHG's when the coal industry will continue to flourish for many decades? We know this from the many approvals granted for new coal fired plants.

Nuclear proponents continue to use the argument that coal mining emits uranium and thorium. That is a fact, however, they then insist on actually mining uranium or thorium to fuel 25 nuclear reactors and fulfill our export obligations.

The advent of "clean" coal may mitigate CO2 in stack emissions in the very distant future but the significant hazardous pollution and the release of dangerous carbon based and radioactive chemical emissions from the actual mining operations will continue.

Why do we wait for "clean" coal when pollution control technology is already available?

Posters fail to address the major obstacle to CO2 mitigation which is the uncontrolled, unregulated operations of the mining industry in Australia where companies are permitted to operate in a gung ho fashion.

SBS News advised last night that American Electric Power has now been forced to spend US$5 billion to clean up their operations and drastically mitigate their emissions by the installation of pollution control technology.

This company chose to settle out of court. Government health officials have advised that the clean-up will save US$32 billion in health costs.

The company has been ordered to contribute many millions of dollars in compensation for causing acid rain, destroying ecologies and damaging people's health. These health conditions include asthma, serious heart conditions and heart attacks (and no doubt cancers.)

This technology will not close down industries, as threatened by JH, however, the concept of the slightest reduction in profits, incurred by companies to fulfill their moral obligations, results in many paranoid outbursts from John Howard and the neo-cons in charge of this nation! And state governments are equally culpable!

Australian governments are NOT planning for a carbon-free economy!

The ignominious fact for Australia is that George Bush now appears more clean and green than Howard who continues on his maniacal path towards environmental genocide!
Posted by dickie, Thursday, 11 October 2007 7:54:50 AM
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The item below, from Wikipedia, succinctly articulates the polarity implicit in the views expressed in the comments above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_energy_path

"Soft vs Hard"
"As physicist/consultant/lobbyist Amory Lovins describes it, the "hard energy path" (with which the soft path contrasts) is based on the assumption that the more energy we use the better off we are. It involves inefficient liquid-fuel automotive transport, as well as giant, centralized electricity-generating facilities, often burning fossil fuels (e.g., coal or petroleum) or harnessing a nuclear fission reaction (see nuclear power). The hard path is not simply a matter of energy sources, though, because it is greatly augmented and complicated by wastage and loss of electricity and other common, directly usable forms of energy."

"The "soft energy path" assumes that energy is but a means to social ends, and is not an end in itself. Soft energy paths involve efficient use of energy, diversity of energy production methods (matched in scale and quality to end uses), and special reliance on co-generation and "soft technologies" (i.e., alternative technology) such as solar energy, wind energy, biofuels, geothermal energy, etc."

Links embedded in the above article are well worth following.

My own preference is clearly for "soft energy". This preference is based on a faith in the durability of energy strategies based on systems and sources which are on the balance, positive - in other words, which don't require more energy than they provide. In this regard, nuclear electricity is arguably an energy sink rather than an energy source.

Nuclear electricity cannot be argued as sustainable or environmentally friendly simply because operating reactors release negligible quantities of greenhouse gases. As a source of energy, The whole nuclear fuel cycle must be evaluated, on a cradle-to-grave basis for fuel and system components. Given its associated risks of radiation and proliferation, its vast complexity and exceptional requirements for expertise and security for acceptable operation, I wonder why the current government prefers to promote it over energy efficiency and sustainability.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Sunday, 14 October 2007 9:57:03 AM
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Vivor,

The assumption that the more energy we use the better off we are is NOT an assumtion. Its the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states "If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase".

Lovins is right, energy (soft or hard) is but a means to social ends or goals. But social goals can be soft or hard too. We know from human history that goals inexorably converge to hard strategies led by superiorly endowed races of people. Races who follow 'soft' options will soon be subsumed. Assuming otherwise is ignorant of both science and history. It smells of fear and clutching-at-straws that will soon have wolves at the door.

With a 40 year PBR nuclear strategy as a bridge over PEAKOIL Australia can skirt PEAKOIL and by 2047 eliminate nuclear to become fully reliant on 'Hot-Rocks' geothermal baseload power. Geothermal power is simply nuclear power with the Earth's crust as a reactor core, so one-way-or-another, civilisation must go nuclear or perish.

The War-of-the-Worlds-artilleryman rantings of 'soft' energy optionists and hiding from the bloody-awful-truth of human nature will, POST-PEAKOIL, yield a few meek survivors suffering insanity and other deiseases. It will take generations and severe 'social-goal' readjustment to throw off.

Given PBR's minimal associated risks of radiation and proliferation, its reduced complexity and exceptional requirements for minimal expertise and security, its no wonder why current governments of Russia, India and China, with over 70% of the world's population, are going nuclear.

That Australia with 40% of the world's Uranium ore should stand back and adopt a pi$$weak soft energy strategy, that will starve of oil based energy and material feedstocks well before PEAKOIL, is inviting an invasion that NO alliance with America is likely to withstand.

The future, our future, will be unpredictable and uncertain. For the last 20 years it was not a linear proposition and for the next 20 years it will be even less so as the magic $10-per-litre-petrol wedges in on us.

Only a 'hard' energy option, with a temporary nuclear component can meet our social goals or ends given those parameters.
Posted by KAEP, Sunday, 14 October 2007 12:46:20 PM
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Nuclear Power’s New Dawn
Caylan Ford and Matthew Little
Epoch Times Staff Oct 13, 2007

Nuclear power’s rise to popularity hasn’t been a smooth ride. For countries that supply the world’s uranium, heightened demand has stirred up old battles over land and environment. (Photos.com)
Once synonymous with cash pits, bureaucratic incompetence and environmental disasters, nuclear is now experiencing a resurgence in popularity around the world, sending demand for uranium sky-high.

That’s big news for uranium-rich countries like Canada, which produces 28 percent of the world’s uranium supply. But the heightened demand has also stirred up controversies in Canada, where some are still nervous about the environmental and political implications.

In total 13 countries are in the process of building new nuclear reactors. According to the World Nuclear Association, more than 34 reactors are currently under construction, 81 are planned, and over 223 more are being proposed.

For the first time since 1978, the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission is receiving applications for new plants, and a flood of them, at that. The commission expects to receive five applications in 2007 and 14 more in 2008. [...]

Full story:
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-13/60715.html
Posted by MichaelK., Sunday, 14 October 2007 3:00:33 PM
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KAEP, re:
"If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase".

The quotation marks suggest that you have a source for this idea. Do you mind sharing it with us?

Of course it is not the second law of thermodynamics, it is someone's inference based on the second law.

The quote leaves me puzzled. If you have a closed system, then by definition, nothing can leave or enter: not matter, not energy.

So how do you add energy to a closed system?
Posted by Sir Vivor, Sunday, 14 October 2007 9:14:19 PM
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This is what I mean Vivor.

You flaunt your ignorance of science AND of the basics of human history and human nature itself. Yet you expect people to take your anti nuclear views seriously. The stakes are too high to allow people like you to continue misinforming other people who need to know what they and their families can expect when petrol prices hit $10-per-litre.

Its impossible to justify the statistical mechanics interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics on a forum allowing 350 words a post.

You should look-up:

Statistical Thermodynamics: http://ece.colorado.edu/~bart/book/book/chapter1/ch1_4.htm

The second law can be stated either (a) in its classical form or (b) in its statistical form
(a)Heat can only flow from a higher temperature to a lower temperature.
(b)The entropy of a closed system (i.e. a system of particles which does not exchange heat, work or particles with its surroundings) tends to remain constant or increases monotonically over time.

Both forms of the second law could not seem more different. A more rigorous treatment (look it up!) is required to prove the equivalence of both.

AND

Information Entropy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy

which links Entropy to the amount of information or ORDER in a system. In classical terms it amounts to the more information or order or intelligence a system has, the lower its entropy and the longer it takes that system to decay into cold(definition(a) or chaos(definition(b) by the second law. IE the more information content, the longer the system lasts and prospers.

And the best way to lower entropy and increase the longevity of any system or society is to add more heat at an optimal level that won't harm the system integrity.

When you do the work and lower your personal entropy with the correct information you will discover I am right. Then you you are obliged to tell everyone on this forum and work through the other points I make till you can finally get it that Australia has just two options: Nuclear or PERISH.
Posted by KAEP, Sunday, 14 October 2007 11:26:39 PM
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Like water we can learn to live without high levels of energy consumption. But In the end it comes down to what every man or woman can do for themselves. Unfortunately we live in a society that can’t find enough suitably trained nurses and doctors the meet our expectations. Such a society can’t hope to build and run their own nuclear power stations.

All this chat about future technologies and endless links on the internet is leading us nowhere. I can say that because in R/L we meet hundreds of your average punters in personal trade who make up this society.

I grew up in the post war housing boom when houses were framed in six weeks by two carpenters from random length timber packs using only hand tools. Being nostalgic I picked up a vintage Skil power drill for $5 this W/E as I was reminded of our local power tool history. The Skil / Sher combination is typical of our post war manufacturing history.

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160274b.htm

With the age of plastics came the Black & Decker Power Tool Co and those orange bodied home handyman power tools.

http://www.blackanddecker.com.au/about/history/

Several weeks ago, I picked up a large collection of used high speed drill bits but nobody wanted them, offered again at the markets where thousands pass by. Recycling important tools is my retirement hobby so I sharpened them all during the week. Every last one was snapped up yesterday by tradesmen. Readers should note that I collect mostly P & N tools as I do other Australian made tools from the bygone manufacturing era.

Patience & Nicholson Aust Pty Ltd

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/10/03/959239.htm

P & N high speed steel drills, taps and dies enabled our transition from the hand driven to the power driven age that occurred for the average Joe here about fifty years ago. Most people I meet still can’t sharpen their drills let alone build a reactor.

What nonsense I see on OLO about the our age prospects.
Posted by Taz, Monday, 15 October 2007 9:12:02 AM
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“So how do you add energy to a closed system?” – simply imaginary, following up delusions of native UK-linked English speakers privileged to get professors' salaries at Melbourne University particularly.
Posted by MichaelK., Monday, 15 October 2007 1:12:38 PM
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KAEP,
Thank you for the first link, a brief summary by B. Van Zeghbroeck, of UColorado.
I note that you quote it as saying:
"(b)The entropy of a closed system (i.e. a system of particles which does not exchange heat, work or particles with its surroundings) tends to remain constant or increases monotonically over time."

and so I ask again, how do you add energy to a closed system?

I also wondered who we could thank for the quote:
"If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase".
because I would like to know who said that, and where.

I was disappointed to receive, in reply, a lot your opinions about me and other things. Such comments only lower the standard of discourse on this forum. You are welcome to your opinions, of course, but they did not answer my questions.

Your second link, to "information entropy" in Wikipedia, offers the idea that
"Intuitively, [information entropy] measures how many yes/no questions must be answered, on average, to communicate each new outcome of the random variable."

After that, the article gets a bit murky, for me.

Further down the page, it does say that

" … adding heat to a system increases its thermodynamic entropy because it increases the number of possible microscopic states that it could be in, thus making any complete state description longer."
Which appears to be the opposite of your assertion, that adding energy will decrease entropy.

Who do I believe? There have been articles critical of Wikipedia, of late. Is the author mistaken, or is it you who must face up to a revision of your theory?

I was intrigued by the remark in the Wikipedia article that
" ... in the view of Jaynes (1957), thermodynamics should be seen as an application of Shannon's information theory".

But that connection doesn’t convince me that nuclear electricity is at all sustainable, or that it represents a net energy gain, when the entire nuclear fuel cycle is considered, cradle to grave; or that you know what you are talking about.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Monday, 15 October 2007 3:46:56 PM
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Vivor,

The statement "If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase" is just another way of stating the equivalence between classical and shannons thermodynamics. Energy is equivalent to information.

Any system can be considered closed over defined time periods and neglecting small energy inputs and outputs that cancel.

Most living systems are considered closed. Between eating and ablution the human body is essentially a closed system and may be treated mathematically as such. Nations like Australia may be mathematically treated as closed systems.

The wiki article does seem to have a problem.

S(Entropy) = k*Ln(W): k=boltzmans constant, W=probability that a system will be in a certain state.

Thus the greater the heat input, the more states to choose from, the lower the probability of being in any one state and by the formula the LOWER the entropy .

There are exceptions where phase changes occur. I noted that in my last post:~ "so long as adding more heat at an optimal level won't harm the system integrity". For example adding heat to ice raises its entropy.

Now, PBR Nuclear plants can NOT not harm national integrity. They add heat thus lowering the national entropy inventory in the form of electricity and manufactured liquid fuels. By Shannon's theory that adds to the number of information states in the nation and thus its intelligence and resilience against reaching chaotic states as existing OIL-low-entropy inventories dwindle.

Cradle to grave PBR reactors are many orders of magnitude less damaging to national intgrity or security than the human sex drive or even coal power plants, as I have pointed out time-and-again.

Perspective is important here. The next 20years will be survival-critical.

When petrol gets close to $10-per-litre, the chaos inherent in human nature will bite. Talk of rationing and teamwork will rapidly give rise to warlord mentality where the strongest will seek to survive at current energy usage or better at the expense of anyone weaker.
Human history tells us this is so. The only thing stopping it is OIL.

Readers should understand .... Australia must go nuclear or PERISH.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 3:52:30 AM
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KAEP, I have fatal difficulties with your argument in general and these statements in particular:

"If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase" is just another way of stating the equivalence between classical and shannons thermodynamics. Energy is equivalent to information."

First, you are depending on unresolved assumptions rather than a tested, falsifiable theory.

The second difficulty is that I that I know of no established relationship between energy and information which allows any reliable prediction for engineers .

If we take the relationship E = mc^2, we have a durable relationship between energy and matter. But I would think it unwise to say that energy is equivalent to matter. That seems to me to be about as practical as your grazier or saying "my sheep and sheepdog and I are all equal, because we are all animals with backbones.

With matter, energy and information, we have clearly different categories of phenomena, and to equate all three, or any two, without a detailed understanding of the relationship between them is to risk a multitude of fatal errors. I am intrigued by the relationships, but there is nothing more I can say on the topic. I hope you appreciate my reservations.

As for PBR's; in addition to my previously expressed arguments against them, I do not expect many at all will be up and running in time to provide a test of your idea that they will soften the blow when the "civilised" world goes pear-shaped, when petrol hits $100/bbl. IMHO, I guess that may happen within a year.

Any links addressing my concerns in this or other posts will be considered.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 4:13:16 PM
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Like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke, trying to save Holland from the floods, the Greens are trying to go all biodeisel on us to save Australia from PEAKOIL.

http://search.smh.com.au/click.ac?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsmh.com.au%2Fnews%2FNATIONAL%2FGreens-seek-plans-to-oilproof-Australia%2F2007%2F10%2F16%2F1192300749512.html&t=4&n=11&s=greens

If they were even a bit genuine, albeit naive, they would have suggested the obvious solution of halting Australia's IMMIGRATION fiasco. How the bloody hell can you expect to oil-proof Australia when you immigrate 160,000 petrol guzzling migrants every year.

Halfwits!

I used to admire the Greens but now I find them incredibly stupid and naive.

The only way to oil-proof Australia with its voracious demand for OIL and fossil fuels is to go NUCLEAR. For a strat tyhe harvesting of biofuels depends on plentiful OIL supplies which won't be available after petrol hits $10per litre. Any other Green renewable alternative at this late stage of the game is equivalent to national suicide as I have pointed out in my last post.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 16 October 2007 4:18:10 PM
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Vivor/other readers,

Enough theory!

Unless studying thermodynamics for many years it will not be easy to come to grips with the math that proves""If you add energy to any closed system, its order will increase""

An example from marine science proves the concept without further mathematics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/science/16conv.html?8br

This article examines life on the deep ocean floor where no energy except nuclear from geothermal-vent-sources exists.

Relevant article-points:

*You can go for hundreds of meters along the deep-sea floor and see nothing. But then you’ll get to a vent and it will be a garden of exotic creatures.

*The seawater percolates down through cracks caused by earthquakes, and then it comes up through these underwater chimneys.

*There are lots of ores there like copper, gold, silver, zinc and minerals. There’s so much life there.

Comments:
1.Along with heavy ores will be a representative spectrum of radioactive-actinide-elements which do not endanger lifeforms. Far more radiation than well-researched PBR technologies and current mining and enrichment processes exist.

2.The organisms live on the heat and minerals but also omnivorously on each other. That is equivalent to energy renewables in our scenario. But note WITHOUT THE GEO-NUCLEAR ENERGY-INPUT NO LIFE EXISTS.

This is proof that only a heat source in a closed-system is needed to sustain life, the most information intensive medium.
This is living proof of the 'energy=order' statement.

If Australia fails to go nuclear, crop,wind,wave and electric renewables, all based on sunlight will never provide sufficient energy for more than 1billion people. The world's population was about 1billion before coal, 2billion after. It would have grown to 6 billion just on sunlight options if it was at all possible. It didn't becuse only OIL made that possible.

What people like the Greens continually fail to appreciate is that the technologies and transport required to make renewables a successful option are ALL based on OIL. When the OIL goes, so will those renewable options and so will all but 2billion of the world's population. As we know from history, coal without OIL can only support 2billion people in doubtful comfort.
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 4:23:49 AM
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KAEP, you may be interested in this wikipedia article on "The Maximum Power Principle". It is another intriguing idea:

"Maximum power principle"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents
1 History
2 Philosophy and Theory
3 Proposals for maximum power principle as 4th thermodynamic law
4 Definition in words
4.1 Mathematical definition
5 Contemporary ideas
6 See also
7 References

Definition in words
“ The maximum power principle can be stated: During self organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency. (H.T.Odum 1995, p.311) ”

“ ...the maximum power principle ... states that systems which maximize their flow of energy survive in competition. In other words, rather than merely accepting the fact that more energy per unit of time is transformed in a process which operates at maximum power, this principle says that systems organize and structure themselves naturally to maximize power. Systems regulate themselves according to the maximum power principle. Over time, the systems which maximize power are selected for whereas those that do not are selected against and eventually eliminated. ... Odum argues ... that the free market mechanisms of the economy effectively do the same thing for human systems and that our economic evolution to date is a product of that selection process. (Gilliland 1978, pp.101-102)

- / - / -

This idea seems to me to be a milestone toward defining the relationship between energy and information.

As for the chemolithotrophs which are the primary producers in sea-floor hot-spring communities, they are no more nuclear powered than a coal-fired power station. The coal is chemical energy transformed from light, generated by fusion reactions in the sun. hot spring water is heated by magma circulating in the earth's mantle, carrying heat from the radioactive core of the earth.

While the ultmate source of the energy may be nuclear, I wouldn't confuse it with nuclear technology. Otherwise, solar panels and biofuels could also be argued to be nuclear.
Posted by Sir Vivor, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 8:54:35 AM
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What national-liberal cheaters instantly leave out of a pic is an Australian dependence on oil imported. To date, it constitutes a half of consumption.

And closed systems are factually just pure theoretical structures used to analysing the processes in situations non-existing practically, whether in physics or socio-engineering, monopolist racist Anglo-colonies located on the islanes usually a perfect example present.

And the USA differs from significantly.
Posted by MichaelK., Wednesday, 17 October 2007 1:02:48 PM
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A wonderful exchange of information there between KAEP and Sir Vivor. Most appreciated.

KAEP seems to think that a "nation" somehow corresponds thermodynamically to a "closed system". The connection is comprehensible for deep ocean vent ecosystems, but because we share the atmosphere, oceans and international commerce with the rest of the human world, the thermodynamic parallel with socio-political entities escapes me. KAEP wants Australia to become an exporter of fission-ready nuclear fuel. How does this ambition fit the concept of a "closed system"?

There's a gross misapprehension on KAEP's part of the magnitude of energy which is received by the world, and disproportionately by Australia, in the form of sunlight and its wind and wave proxies. I refer KAEP to the BOM's map of daily incident solar radiation:

http://www.bom.gov.au/sat/solrad.shtml

Much of Australia's land mass receives over 18 MJ, or 5 kWh, per square metre per day in direct incident sunlight. At these intensities and a very conservative 5% conversion efficiency with overnight heat storage, 600 square kilometres of solar thermal collectors could replace *all* of Australia's 60GW of fossil-fueled baseload electric capacity. We have at least 1,500,000 square kilometres of arid desert. HVDC technology can transmit electric power cheaply across continents. If KAEP thinks PBNR reactors are in any way a cheaper "source" of energy than solar radiation, (s)he needs to do the calculations again.

Further, KAEP also seems to be ignorant of the energy allowed to escape as entropy in the fuel-burning processes in use in Australia. The actual energy that moves passengers and goods in petroleum-driven equipment is a fraction -- less than 10% -- of the energy released by combustion of that petroleum. Likewise less than 30% of the energy released by combustion of coal actually ends up as electric power delivered to users. The consumption of vast quantities of fossil fuels has not increased the efficiency of energy conversion one jot.

We must actively seek consumption efficiencies, not direct all our efforts to digging energy up from the ground, unless we want to run out of more non-renewable resources and deal with yet more pollution consequences.
Posted by xoddam, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 4:58:05 PM
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If “KAEP wants Australia to become an exporter of fission-ready nuclear fuel”, – good on ya, mate!

What self-supposing to be more educated and subtle in decision-making forum disputants are shot of is a tragic miscalculation generations of Anglo-minders doing. This is establishing a world system where supply of a vital resource a food simply is has been concentrated in their hands, and energy sources were both underestimated and supposed being a simple commodity get for nothing as usual from lower races (or near nothing at London stock exchange for looking civilized).

Climate change corrects this racist predicament significantly, and royal Anglo-zoo in few decades to be a playground of mullahs for a few oil drops supplied to commons traditionally bonded with energetically outdated personal vehicles.
Posted by MichaelK., Thursday, 18 October 2007 1:46:41 PM
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This article details the pros and cons of every electricity generation method.

http://www.geocities.com/daveclarkecb/ElecGenProsCons.html

In addition to the fatal negatives stated for solar power you can add environmental rape (600 squ-miles of it) and who is going to clean all the bloody dust and grime off the cells?!

The main problem of course is solar is not currently cost competetive with other methods.

Thermodynamic analyses and historic comparisons tell us that as oil runs out ALL solar options will be too expensive. The materials and transport options for installation will vanish. As the world approaches PEAKOIL chaos, solar options will be just a LOST dream.

This is why Thermodynamics is so important in analysing what will happen as PEAKOIL approaches. An important first step in Thermodynamic analyses is defining the closed systems involved. People not skilled in the work must understansd that it is mathematically correct to juggle input/output parameters to achieve approximate renditions of closed systems which have been shown to give acceptable analytical-results and predictive abilities.

The other aspect is that thermodynamic solutions to human situations can be shown to converge to pre-existing historical ENDPOINT scenarios. For example we know that the world's population would never have grown beyond 1billion without discovery of oil and coal, and that the thermodynamic probability of that endpoint (no coal, no oil) is extremely high approaching PEAKOIL. That is, unless NCLEAR POWER is added as a temporary measure followd by an almost total reliance on essentially inexhaustable GEOTHERMAL power.

Now it is understandable that lay-people pick up the first technology they THINK will work and rant with it. That's fine but the reality of Australia's survival demands much more rigor and I trust the thorough analyses I have presented will go some way to Australian's accepting a temprorary domestic and export NUCLEAR program that will be a) far less a health hazard than coal and b) be capable of getting us past PEAKOIL and well into a positive, sustainable GEOTHERMAL future.

Incidentally that Geothermal future will have sufficient energy to carry major solar power projects, that currently, PEAKOIL will soon Thermodynamically scuttle.
Posted by KAEP, Thursday, 18 October 2007 1:46:41 PM
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"The main problem of course is solar is not currently cost competetive with other methods."

Solar thermal electricity is not cost competitive with coal or established nuclear fission reactors because it remains underdeveloped, just like PBNRs. But it is in active development all the same, and stands to gain much more than PBNRs in the near future because it is being developed by dozens of competing entrepreneurs. Its ongoing running costs are very low indeed; it requires no material inputs, merely maintenance; its security requirements are minimal; and its capital costs are comparable to (perhaps triple?) those of nuclear or coal-fired power.

600 square *kilometres* is a very conservative requirement to replace *all* of Australia's baseload generation with *one* renewable technology.

Solar PV is even more expensive, but it *is* cost-effective for many applications, because it can be installed anywhere. It doesn't need a desert; it goes very nicely on rooftops or alongside streetlamps or on top of parking meters. It is, likewise, falling dramatically in cost.

The unavailability of drills for hot-rock geothermal exploration is a minor technical issue. Possibly it is due to obstructionism from oil companies, but so what? Geothermal energy doesn't compete with oil (for custom; it does compete for equipment) any more than coal does, and they don't go out of their way to nobble coal.

Any thermodynamic consideration that might nobble renewables, nobbles nuclear worse, for the required energy inputs are greater. I don't think either are nobbled, by peak oil or by political considerations or anything else.

Who's going to clean the collectors, you ask? I ask you who's going to dig your uranium. Is diesel going to be scarce to ship solar collectors to the desert? Yes, but it will be scarce to truck yellowcake out of it, as well.

But "environmental rape?" This is the man in the rose-scented nuclear goggles speaking!

I laugh. Sadly.

http://www.sea-us.org.au/ranger/ranger.html
http://www.wise-uranium.org/uwai.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l2443mj8574034p5/
http://www.wise-uranium.org/udec.html#AUS
Posted by xoddam, Thursday, 18 October 2007 8:34:44 PM
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The “pros and cons of every electricity generation method”:

http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/EventsDiary/eventputin181007.htm?tr=y&auid=3105542
Posted by MichaelK., Friday, 19 October 2007 3:25:06 PM
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Have a look at this:
http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/austriangovtreport607.pdf

Nuclear Power,
Climate Policy and Sustainability
An Assessment by the Austrian Nuclear Advisory Board
Vienna January 2007

A pertinent excerpt:

"Austria takes the view that electricity production from Nuclear Energy is neither sustainable nor environmentally sound and is therefore not suitable to contribute to the solution of the climate
problem or the peak oil crisis:

• Even when ignoring the possibility of severe accidents, Nuclear Energy is burdened with a large number of environmental problems and risks, such as possibly health damaging low level radioactive emissions in normal operation and the worldwide unresolved problem of final repositories for nuclear waste.

• Cost cuts necessary as a consequence of the deregulation of the energy market have negative effects on safety culture and safety margins during construction and operation.

• Investment in Nuclear Energy impedes or at least delays investments in efficiency measures and therefore impedes sustainable, resources preserving solutions.

• The increasing world population, the growing scarcity of resources and the increasing global inequity are likely to raise the number of wars and augment terrorist activities: this prohibits the
support of technologies and structures that enhance the vulnerability of a region, and calls for a rapid dismantling of such technologies and structures and for transformation of these into decentralized technologies and structures with high error tolerance and low potential of damage."
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 20 October 2007 9:30:28 PM
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Wake up people.

Australia is going to sell yellowcake no matter who wins federal rule.

The worst nuclear consequences will be had with the minimum of Themodynamic and economic benefits.

My point is to awaken people to the benefits of total-value-adding our Nuclear-bounty:

A reduction in mine-to-deep-sea-subduction-zone-grave nuclear technologies, the PBR safety condom, a bridge over PEAKOIL, an economic bonanza and a brain-boost for the Australian populace based on the Thermodynamic fact: "ENERGY=ORDER".

It is lazy, ignorant and Xoddom-and-Gomorrhic to watch our leaders arm the rest of the world wth nuclear fuels for little economic gain. It is incumbent on Australians to PARTICIPATE and that means LEARN about the research options with PBR that will make NUCLEAR safe, SECURE and always under Australian public control. This learned NUCLEAR approach will endow us with THE post PEAKOIL $currency$ de-jour. Future Australian/Global $currency will no longer be based on HOWARD'S mines, incestuous and gridlocked GST and immigration follies but on the only future export apart from dwindling oil supplies that will 'cut-it' in a PEAKOIL economy ... NUCLEAR energy.

And remember you can't EXPORT solar-power-technology. Its NOT raw energy. Solar panels for example will have to be IMPORTED in a cut-throat global market where transport costs will be more than 10X $current. That is the basic mechanics of why solar, wind etc technologies will doom us and NEVER get to BASELOAD power and sustainable economics. There is also a Thermodynamic predictability about this and I urge readers to STUDY Thermodynamics very hard because that will mean we can all be on-the-same-page when rapidly predicting imminent-future-global-catastrophes and the hi-tech manouevres like PBR, Geothermal, SPACE based solar and Laser-based Nuclear-Fusion-research required to skirt them.

For most Australians, things NOW seem better, economically, than ever. But it only SEEMS that way.

For our survival over the next 20 years Australia must value-add yellowcake exports. We must build a total PBR-NUCLEAR-technology mine-to-subduction-zone-grave industry and research infrastructure ... or PERISH.

As for Austria's anti-nuclear rantings. They're on the Euro-grid and receiving nuclear power from Germany. They are the new European-neanderthals. They'll NEVER last.
Posted by KAEP, Sunday, 21 October 2007 1:41:05 PM
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One must be ill-educated, playing particular English accent only local to be happy for offers of seemingly decreasing taxes and monetary benefits from selling yellow cakes around.

From a point of the newest data, it is utterly clear recently, that a bio-fuel is even more harmful than traditional energy-sources limited and near-existing worldwide.

Sometimes, a novelty-introducing necessity rules.
Posted by MichaelK., Sunday, 21 October 2007 4:48:22 PM
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