When I see unfounded data, I'm inclined to skepticism.

"A poll before the debate found an 8 per cent margin in favour of nuclear power. A further poll taken immediately after .... 34 per cent in favour, 58 per cent against.

How many people were polled before and after?

Were they the same people? You imply people changed their minds, you may just have chosen the people in "colorful" clothes after the event, and conservative dress before the event .. if I wanted a given result, I'd plan to get it - which is what I suspect you all did.

What were the questions? How many questions were there?

"This 32 per cent turn-around was all the more surprising given that the pro-nuclear debating team included heavy-hitters" I see you have a belief that "heavy hitters" tend to be believable? That explains all the celebrity types the eco groups pander to, Al Gore, CateB, various Hollywood types.

"a 2008 report by McKinsey, a firm specialising in global greenhouse policy analysis" can we get a link to that report and who funded it?

Same old scare tactics, nuclear war. How many nuclear wars have there been since WWII ended? How many times have nuclear weapons been used? Twice, to END A WAR!

More eco spin and scaremongering dressed up as "reasonable", you guys make the craft of spin into an art form.

Billions is being poured into sustainable energy uses and yet no breakthroughs, no new energy sources and the big ones, Wind and Solar, have little or no impact, and have to be backed up by nuclear or coal anyway.

So let's go nuclear now while the eco types continue to fiddle at the edges trying to convince everyone to use less of everything, progress not primitive.

The next generation want to be live in a modern world, not go back to the stoneage - try taking a cell phone of Facebook off the "generation of over entitlement", see how you go.

Tell them your plan is to cut back not increase supply of energy, go on .. tell them.

It is unfortunate that the Greens, who are the only political party of any significance at the moment with some credibility on environmental problems,are stuck in the anti nuclear groove.

Nuclear is by far the least polluting of all sources of base load electrical generation.The technology is presently available and is improving rapidly.Cost is certainly comparable with all renewable options and is far better than coal or gas when the true costs of fossil fuel generation are taken into account.

Geothermal is worth the expenditure of more resouces however the technolgy of hot rock generation has some way to go before it is viable.As geothermal resources are remote from the areas of high power demand there will need to be considerable expenditure on HVDC and HVAC transmission lines.

Solar PV and Solar thermal are very valuable on the local scale and are worth persuing.Wind generation is practical in some areas but all these technologies are not capable of base load generation.

The proliferation argument is just more of the same old,same old.Whatever is done in the nuclear power generation field nuclear weapons will proliferate and get into the wrong hands.It is a military and security issue,not an energy issue.

The issue of nuclear waste will be virtually solved by generation 4 reactors which will use the waste currently produced for fuel.

If the Greens are to be part of the solution to our problems,not like Labor and the Liberals who are part of the problem,then they need to start thinking outside the anti nuclear box.

Amicus - you'll find the link to McKinsey in my post
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/cut-emissions-and-boost-economy/

The nuclear argument is a huge distraction from the things we can do right now to dramatically cut our greenhouse emissions for little cost and modest changes in our way of life. The main thing we can do right now is to stop being so wasteful in our energy use. Efficiency is the first priority, not an argument about which source of energy we might use in a few decades' time.

Thanks Geoff, the report is here "http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pdf/Australian_Cost_Curve_for_GHG_Reduction.pdf" it does not support what the author of this article says by the way .. "we could reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions by 35 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030 at no net cost"

There is a cost, and that depends on a whole raft of factors and total buy in by everyone .. so not as simple as the author makes out, is it?

Tricky marketing words from tricky marketing people, my skepticism is, as ever, well founded.

I'd still like to know who funded the report, found in the Client Services area of the McKinsey website, one would imagine it was not done pro bono.

The report also draws on many eco organizations for information, what a surprise .. a bit like the IPCC isn't it.

However the report favors Nuclear Power but decries the long term issues, as expected, but that's ignored by the author and not mentioned at all as an alternative.

Mind you it's articles like this that just push the barriers further forward and make these organizations and their hysterical bleatings less and less believable.

Scott, did the Greens commission this report?

Geoff Davies is right. Unfortunately I cannot quote a reference for this (sorry Amicus) but all of the anecdotal evidence I look at says we can knock about 30% off our stationary energy demand. 10% can be achieved quite often by walk throughs, talking to building managers. A business I was involved in in the early nineties achieved over 40% for a tourist resort by changing some circuitry. No one had noticed the problem.

It can be done.

Is nuclear the solution to climate change? Ask a silly a question....

The author wants to ignore the collapsing science or rather manipulated data and non-peer reviewed propaganda behind the climate change fraud even as it unravels on a daily basis. This energy discussion article is therefore based on a false premise.

Al least Dr James Hansen has publicly expressed concerns about what his colleague Prof. Phil Jones is currently going through. It's called 'climategate' for those who haven't caught up.

Once all the hoaxers, the fraudsters, the gullible and other interest groups think they have established their new pseudo science reality, as evidenced here, they can start to argue amongst themselves as to what the next step forwards or backwards should be.

Having corrupted science to achieve their aims, how can any future scientific debate on energy or anything else be trusted.

Hardline greens do get up my nostrils, too. I agree with Dr Hansen and Dr Ziggy Switkowski, nuclear power must be included in the mix - together with solar thermal, tidal, wind, geothermal, etc - we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels, sooner rather than later.

Coal will be around for a while yet so it would be incumbent that a price be set for carbon, otherwise why bother with the alternatives. As to "clean coal", that is a wishful misnomer forged by the powerful coal industry and their lobbyists. Unfortunately, governments and oppositions (of all persuasion) are pandering to these 'fossils' by giving huge subsidies and discounts, at the expense of viable alternatives.

I doubt Scott Ludlum has read Dr Hansen's "Storms of My Grandchildren" - if he had then even a basic understanding of chapter 9 would seriously challenge his own "green" belief.

No matter what side of the "climate change fence" you inhabit, there is nothing wrong in living in a more environmentally sustainable way, including utilising our energy sources and supply in a more efficient and effective way.

As to costs of adapting and mitigating, there is numerous literature - and reports have been presented. Nevertheless, stakeholders (and OLOers) seem to get bogged down in the details like a quilter's discussion group around the kitchen table while the bushfire rages outside (no offense to quilters).

Renewables are simply not delivering. Germany has thrown a bucket
of money at them but is still building new coal fired powerstations.
IFRs may also fail, but it's worth spending the money to
find out because their potential to power the world, all
the world, not just rich sunny countries with plenty
of space, is far higher than any other technology.
It will cost far less to run an IFR build than Nintendo
turn over on toys in a year.

Amicus says

"The next generation want to be live in a modern world,
not go back to the stoneage -
try taking a cell phone of Facebook off
the "generation of over entitlement", see how you go.

Tell them your plan is
to cut back not increase supply of energy,
go on .. tell them."

Amicus, with all due respect, you are confusing energy and electricity. Electricity is only one kind of energy we depend on.

Direct solar heat, wind from solar heating of the atmosphere, hydroelectric power from solar forcing of the global water cycle, ocean wave and ocean thermal energy conversion, fuel cells, etc etc, can provide us with energy options that do not place us (or others) under suspicion of developing nuclear weapons. As for chemical fuels, well, we in “Developed” Australia, with our Prius automobiles and electric trains and trams, might entertain the idea of nuclear electricity, but I expect there are far more convivial energy solutions to meet our transport needs.

I cannot speak for the Greens or Senator Ludlum, but if I could, I would argue that I want to increase energy availability, by making it easier and more economical to appropriately harvest solar and geothermal energy.

Amicus, with all due respect, you are fighting a battle that was largely won in the late 1970's, after the first energy crisis, sparked off when OPEC members got stroppy with Big Oil.

Efficiency and appropriate energy were found to work best, and the implementation of appropriate strategies has saved a vast amount of demand for electricity, worldwide, through ordinary free-market mechanisms, as opposed to government subsidies, secrecy and duck-shoving on behalf of powerful corporations and their lobbyists.

See

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/ for work by Amory Lovins, the person who I would say has done as much as anyone possibly could to address the problem of appropriate energy supply

and for the dismal truths behind all nuclear electricity, see
Obama's Atomic Blunder | The Seminal 16 Feb 2010
http//seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/30159 as well as the comment on Feb 16th by tassiedevil

Now, the Greens.
Surely they ought to be called the Blacks?
Like any political party that is not in Government they can make the most flambouyant assertions and promises. Due to the preference voting system they can also ensure that the Government acts according to their flawed policies.
I instance the flawed forest management policies that have ensured that summer bushfires have been far to big for humans to manage. The result of their lock it up and leave it policy is the landscape wide elimination of flora and fauna.
Lets not try to gild the lily. Greens policy is the leading cause of concern in global warming.

My only experience of a nuclear existence is France, where they seem pretty comfortable with the contribution it is making to their economy and their environment.

"Mostly due to nuclear energy, total pollution from the country’s energy system dropped by more than 80% during the 1980 to 1990 period where France tripled its nuclear energy capacity. Over the same period of time, French overall CO2 emissions (energy, transportation…) were cut off [sic] by 25%."

http://www.ambafrance-us.org/climate/frances-nuclear-power-experience/

I rather liked a quote from that Melbourne meeting, by the way.

"Dr Hansen pointed out that more people had been killed by ice flying off wind turbine blades than from nuclear accidents"

It often puzzles me that there are people who get their jollies from telling everyone who will listen that we're doomed, and the only thing we can do about it is to live in a yurt and eat lentils.

That may very well be our ultimate fate. But in the meantime, there is plenty of middle ground to work with. Incomplete solutions that mitigate the problem are quite attractive, when compared to the draconian measures often proposed by the doomsayers.

All open cut mining emits significant amounts of soil carbon to the atmosphere which contributes to Australia’s shoddy performance in mitigating CO2 and ISL uranium mining technology releases heavy metals and radiation, significantly contaminating groundwater.

I'm unaware of any requirement for a uranium miner to clean up the underground radioactive plumes that can be expected to slowly drift around in the water table.

By December 2005 the total quantity of uranium tailings was about 128 million tonnes with about 175 million tonnes of combined low-grade ore and waste rock. In comparison to the volumes of radioactive waste in the nuclear fuel chain, the largest quantity is easily produced in the mining and milling of uranium.

In 2004, the Commonwealth-appointed scientist urged in his annual report for the Federal Government to legislate to ensure that Energy Resources Australia fixes the problems at the Ranger uranium mine because the managers had become "complacent" about radiation dangers and had not provided enough protection for workers.

He criticised ERA for playing down radiation exposure before properly assessing leaks at the mine. ERA were fined $250,000 in 2007 for supplying drinking and bathing water to workers where radiation levels were 400 times in excess of the guidelines and many workers became ill. The insidious health impacts may not emerge for decades.

However, the Ranger mine continues leaking 100,000 litres of contaminated water into the Kakadu surrounds every day and it appears with impunity when one considers that Joe Citizen is put off the road if he burns around with a leaky exhaust pipe.

Last weekend saw a three day anti-uranium event in the Goldfields of WA with public gatherings in the town square. Goldfields people have every right to be alert and alarmed when just one mine cannot be managed competently to protect the people of Australia (and beyond).

The emergence of some 180 Uranium tenements (granted and pending) to be mined, will contaminate the Goldfields' regions of WA in perpetuity and we, the citizens of Australia, will get what we deserve in our complacency:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101724410662104548145.0004757aca0e25c4e05e5

If you're not in favour of Nuclear for Climate change perhaps it can be used to control population expansion of the world.
When the dirt hits the fan, anything might happen. All pigs are equal but some pigs will want to be more equal than others.

No way, because nuclear will only prolong the problem, which is the greediness of man.

The same future fear said by philosophers way back during the industrial revolution, when they said that as man lets engines take over from what was only done by human hand, the natural greed of man will eventually clear away the vegetation that nature naturally gifts to man in order to preserve the world for man.

I see that this business about renewable energy being of any use has already been comprehensively kicked around, but just to add my piece to it I looked at renewables in some detail recently and was unable to find a scrap of evidence from utilities actually using the stuff that it reduces emissions. There may be theoretical studies such as the McKinsey report (which I wasn't able to access from the link) saying that some reduction is possible at a less than exorbitant cost, but perhaps a more telling study was issued by Rheinisch-Westfalisches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung (a leading economic research institute based in the German city of Essen) in October 2009. About 6.3 per cent of total German power consumption is supplied by wind, with the institute calculating that each tonne of carbon saved in this way costs several times that of the going rate on the European ETS. Its gets worse. Further into the report it is apparent that the institute economists simply assumed that wind energy displaces an equivalent amount of gas and coal generation. No allowance was made for higher reserve requirements (spinning generators kept off grid), or of the cost and loss of efficiency from retailoring the network to accommodate wind. Those adjustements could easily quadruple the cost per carbon tonne, if there is any saving at all!
The reports from Denmark are even worse, with the Danes saved from their extensive use of wind energy only by the fact that they can easily export off peak wind energy to Norway and Sweden (which have lots of hydro), only to have to reimport it in peak periods.
Don't just walk away from wind energy - run

Curmudgeon .. try this one .. I found it on the previous link, now that's gone (odd) but it's still here .. I have a .pdf if you can't find it. http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/australia_newzealand/knowledge/pdf/1802_carbon.pdf

The data coming out of Europe should make it clear that wind and solar cannot replace coal or nuclear required for a modern mixed economy. Australia has plenty of gas for now which could be used for expensive baseload electricity or to back up lulls in an expensive and token build-out of wind and solar. However we want that gas for many other uses and it will never achieve the 80% CO2 cuts needed long run.

Whether thorium or integral fast reactors arrive soon Australia should build several current Generation III reactors, perhaps using the cooling systems to get cheaper desalination. We could store the waste in a secure outback site for when high burnup reactors arrive, perhaps even taking back some exported material. As a leading supplier of raw uranium Australia can greatly influence international flows of nuclear materials. As India is finding out they do do themselves no favours by being blacklisted by Australia. Perhaps not a lot can be done about those countries that already have nuclear weapons except to ensure new countries don't get involved. With a couple of exceptions those countries must recognise peaceful nuclear helps their own people foremost.

Is nuclear the solution to climate change?

Is the pope a catholic? Are ducks water proof?

Considering that the nuclear issue has a strong emotional component, and most people has strong opinions, the debate in Melbourne fundementally changed the opinions of 25% of the nuclear opponents, in an hour.

The only technically competent advocate of renewable power using an optimistic interpretation of the data has a solution to reduce the green house emmissions to acceptable levels by 2050. The only problem is that it would cost many times more than the nuclear power stations it would supposedly replace, to build and maintain.

Scott Ludlam's (a graphics designer) site and those of other green are noticeably deficient in details, and resorts to some outright lies currently circulating the anti nuke debate:

From his website Dec 2009
"“Among the many reasons why nuclear power is not viable are:
• the fact that the world’s nuclear power fleet is shrinking not growing, primarily due to cost;
• the shunning of nuclear power projects by insurance companies and investors;
• the technology’s inability to help us address climate change, especially in the necessary timeframe;"

Given the rapid expansions in the nuclear fleets, and France being the only modern country to reduce CO2 emmission whilst tripling its power consumption at one of the lowest costs in Europe, (all this being well known last year) would indicate that Scott is being economical with the truth.

Shadow Minister and Scott Ludlum,

Perhaps you could both provide more citations and links for the facts and opinions you rely on.

Shadow Minister, Ho9w many of these countries expanding their nuclear electricity programs are also nuclear weapons states? How many are not? Norway is building a reactor, I seem to recall. It is not a nuclear weapons state, I believe. Kindly corect me if I am mistaken. More details are welcome, with sources cited, of course.

Also, Shadow Minister, you have identified Scott Ludlum's area of expertise as " a graphics designer". What is your recognised area of expertise?

Sir Vivor,

Without trying to do all your work for you:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html

New reactors are planned in most of the nuclear armed countries (which include most of the world's population and power consumption) but also include power expansions in Finland, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Poland.

I am an electrical engineer that has designed and built large power systems, and negotiated long term contracts with large power suppliers. I would not call myself an expert, but I am a long way from being a beginner in the terms of generation, distribution and consumption. I have also presented papers to technical conferences on quality of supply etc.

You can view the debate online here:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2010/03/18/2849810.htm

I am pleased to see the level of support for nuclear dropped after the debate. There were lots of emotive and fuzzy appeals brought by both sides, but from what I could tell the against side more solid points. It was nice to see your average Joe blow was swayed by this.

As a general comment, I found the style of the debate very good. The moderator did wonderful job. I hope there are a lot more of them.

As for those of you here arguing nuclear must be part of the solution, that question has two answers, depending on the time scale you are looking at. In the short term nuclear is the only commercial, working base load solution we have right now. However, there are several big buts that apply to current technology.

But 1: hideously inefficient, so inefficient that we only have a few decades of known fuel reserves if used to generate all our electricity needs.

But 2: it generates wastes that last on geological time scales.

But 3: insanely capital expensive. That has two sub-buts: we can't building them fast enough to fix the problem is almost an impossible ask, and technological improvements happen very slowly (we have been at it for 60 years now).

But 4: proliferation issues.

Add it all up, and what you have is an expensive, dirty, stop gap solution that may well take too long to build. Is this cure better than the disease?

Newer nuclear technology could well solve 1 & 2 and might solve 3. This would make it a wonderful solution - right up there with renewables. But, there is a but ... it doesn't exist, and will require billions dollars and decades in building experimental plants to make it happen. This is exactly the same position the other renewable technologies are in, so why give it preferential funding to nuclear?

I think a few people who went to the debate left asking themselves the same question.

Amicus - tnks for that.. the link worked. I shall read with interest.

Others - If Australia does switch to low carbon generation then the way forward is obvious. Retire the coal-fired plants and build properly sized closed cycle gas turbines. These are very efficient and operate with greatly reduced emissions. We will also need open-cycle gas turbines for peak and shoulder loads but, above all, we should dump wind as it distorts the network badly. Wind represents a vast increase in investment for very little return.
Switching to gas, on the other hand, will make major savings in emissions wqithout any of the controversy and political hassle of nuclear, and Australia has plenty of the stuff..

@Curmudgeon: but, above all, we should dump wind as it distorts the network badly

Surely we are better off just funding all ways of reducing our emissions equally, and letting the market decide? We have a free market solution for electricity retail now. If the investment in ruddy great transmission lines around the country makes wind unprofitable, then let the suppliers of wind power decide that.

The enthusiasm for supposedly "right wing" commentators to leap in and impose their of government regulations rather than let the market sort it out amazes me.

“Power reactors under construction, or almost so” (WNA)

“Almost so?” I’m intrigued with the World Nuclear Association’s hyperbole as I am with Shadow Minister’s disinformation:

“Given the rapid expansions in the nuclear fleets, and France being the only modern country to reduce CO2 emmission (sic) whilst tripling its power consumption at one of the lowest costs in Europe, (all this being well known last year) would indicate that Scott is being economical with the truth.”

The harsh realities for SM is France’s nuclear dilemmas which are well known where France was forced to import electricity from Britain last year to cope with a summer heatwave that had helped to put a third of its nuclear power stations out of action.

With temperatures across much of France surging above 30C EDF’s reactors were generating the lowest level of electricity in six years, forcing the state-owned utility to turn elsewhere for additional capacity.

In January, Electricite de France had nine nuclear reactors off-line, more than twice what it forecast the previous month, as a cold snap boosted power demand and prices. France had to import up to 9,000 megawatts of power a day to keep the lights on.

Out of >190 nations worldwide, the only significant number of reactors under construction are in China, Russia, South Korea and India with 5 under construction experiencing stuff-ups, cost over-runs and delays.

More hypocritical, as pointed out elsewhere, is the disingenuousness about many nuclear advocates on the issue. It’s ironic that so many of them hail from the Right, which normally harbours deep suspicions of big government and supports privatisation of public utilities, despite the fact that nuclear power would require massive public funding and the re-entry of government into power generation,

The majority of nuclear advocates on OLO deny that humans are altering the climate or are elevating global warming and are telling big government to butt out, so what is their motive for spreading falsehoods on nuclear energy (ignoring the scientific and empirical facts) and insisting that Australia's government go nuclear thereby exacerbating the already dire environmental carnage that prevails?

Good try at a throwaway line there, Protagoras.

>>the only significant number of reactors under construction are in China, Russia, South Korea and India<<

It may have escaped your notice that those four countries represent 40% of the world's population.

I'd say that is "significant".

"It may have escaped your notice that those four countries represent 40% of the world's population."

Well no it hasn't Pericles nor has it escaped my notice that Australia emits a whopping 19 tonnes of CO2 per capita and the US emits 19.7 tonnes of CO2 per capita.

However, the US has the highest number of nuclear reactors in the world and is one of the largest polluters on earth and has been for the last 100 years. Are you able to dirty up the maths to fit those nuclear facts in with your ideology?

Twenty five reactors in 40 years for Australia to produce just 30% of electricity requirements? Not likely!

The projections of the Howard government’s nuclear dream is a delusional impossibility and will do nothing to mitigate the pollution caused by multi-national corporations plundering Australia’s gold, nickel, tin, lead, uranium etc or save WA’s Jarrah forests from the grim reapers pillaging its bauxite and erecting filthy alumina plants, gold and nickel roasters and massive tailings dams.

What say you about Bauxite Resources Ltd acquiring 23,000 square kilometres of mining leases of private and public land including farms, state forests, national parks and other reserves across 37 different local government areas in WA? Good huh?

But then you have the U beaut Gen III dud, Finland's Olkiluoto 3 (OL3)occupying an excavation site which is the size of 55 football fields.

This reactor is well behind schedule and 75 percent over budget. Some 3,000 construction deficiencies have been identified at the Finnish site.

There have been a string of serious problems and the safety regulator is questioning the designs for the reactor's nerve centre - the Instrumentation and Control system. Of course Areva, France’s discredited nuclear giant, offers the usual implausibilities while they fiddle with the unknown, manufacturing more stuff ups than Mr Bean.

What do you propose while they're fiddling, the planet's cooking and the 20th century grim reapers you support (with or without nukes) lead a good part of humanity into a hell devoid of a sustainable biosphere?

but protagoras,

Production of metallic silicon in WA is *dependent* upon fine charcoal derived from jarrah chips.

Those chips are a *necessity* anyway.

By logging Jarrah for other purposes (like aluminium production), we are effecttively *saving* some other jarrah.

It's *all* good.

surely.

anybody?

Rusty

Solar panels on the roof, ceramic fuel cells in the garage. Throw in efficiency measure and we can easily cut carbon emissions by at least 50% in the short term.

Eventually the hydrogen economy will develop. Roofs covered with titanium dioxide solar technology would use the sun's energy to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen generated would be compressed and stored for electricity generation for the home or refueling your car.

Wind, wave, solar, tidal, hydro...this planet is awash with sources of clean renewable energy. New technologies for harnessing that energy are being devised and coming on line all the time. What is missing is governments with the guts and vision to provide the incentives to develop those technologies while regulating the dirty technologies out of existence. There are also energy sources with relatively low carbon emissions, e.g. gas, that could also readily supplant dirtier technology in the short term.

The only thing holding us back from a sustainable future is greed and ignorance.

Big energy is using every trick in the book to prevent the decentralisation of energy generation.

Nukes are another puff of their smoke up your ..... only this time the contamination and cancer potential lasts for thousands of generations.

maate, we're pouring billions into the renewables and have been for many years now, with bugger all to show for it besides more prophesies about how good it is and how simeple it is if you just throw more money at it.

recently $90M was thrown into Tim Flannery's interests in thermal rocks, but the holes collapsed and had to be abandoned, just one example of p*ssing away $.

"What is missing is governments with the guts and vision to provide the incentives etc." rubbish,the government is investing, the technologies are not up to it.

We can't even build a national road or rail system, or insulate houses effectively, let alone changing the way a national electricity or energy grid works.

This is a massive engineering problem, far more massive than anything done before, the Snowy Mountains Scheme is trivial compared to this.

It will take years just to plan it.

To get rid of dirtier technologies, before the renewables are mature enough to take over is just dumb, and it won't happen.

The only mature energy source reliable enough to take over from coal worldwide is nuclear.

Gas, we'd have just as much to do we'd just put off the inevitable running out of that resource as well.

The "Caldicotts" have stopped the development of nuclear which could have taken up the slack, so we have no means to take up the slack at all. I admit it, they won the propaganda war hands down, somewhat like Beta versus VHS, the poorer technologies came out on top thanks to people who thought coal was OK back in the 70s, now we know better.

As much as people try to make it sound simple, that you just have hydrogen batteries in your garage. Well no thanks, that's a bomb, if someone had a house fire, from their poorly installed insulation, then you would have a bleve(look it up)and heaven help your neighbours, and their hydrogen bombs.

There are a lot of problems with home storage of fuels and energy, it's not simple. The devil is in the detail.

“The only mature energy source reliable enough to take over from coal worldwide is nuclear.” Gulp!

“The "Caldicotts" have stopped the development of nuclear which could have taken up the slack, so we have no means to take up the slack at all. I admit it, they won the propaganda war hands down,………”

Well I'd say the propaganda is all yours rpg because surveys have revealed that the majority of the Australian public are well informed (despite your innuendo) and have said “No” to nuclear power and that includes the most recent survey the devious and discredited ANSTO fudged!

In fact, Mr Howard was unceremoniously dumped after he bludgeoned the Australian public with a 288 page manual on the "benefits" of nuclear, prior to the last election where his cronies, in gleeful anticipation, formed a nuclear company, in the mistaken belief they'd make a killing. Tough!

rpg

It seems your head is forever-stuck-in-the-mud. You claim to be an "engineer", most engineers I know look for solutions - I don't see that from you, at all.

You are obviously not a true 'sceptic', otherwise you would have done some fact checking before your latest admonishment of maaate. It seems you just want to poor cold water on (any) viable alternatives that don't meet your demands.

Yes, nuclear must be part of the mix. However, we don't need it here just yet (other countries, most definitely now) - IFR should come on line before we go nuclear, but that too is in its infancy - are you going to scuttle that too?

Re your misguided statement:
"recently $90M was thrown into Tim Flannery's interests in thermal rocks, but the holes collapsed and had to be abandoned, just one example of p*ssing away $."

Geodynamics (quote)
Has assured that the forward work program will position the Joint Venture parties to be able to take the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the Commercial Demonstration Plant (CDP). If all of the objectives and success gates are achieved on schedule, the forward work program will take 18 to 24 months to complete. The Company therefore plans to be in a position to take the FID on the CDP before the end of 2011. The revised Cooper Basin development plan below identifies the main timelines as follows:

• Undertake activities outlined in the work program between now and October 2011;

• Final Investment Decision on the CDP by December 2011;
• Operate the CDP by 2013;

• Final Investment Decision on commercial expansion units (extra CDPs to build up capacity to 500 MW planned output) by June 2014; and

• Operate the 500 MW Commercial Plant by December 2018.
End quote

rpg - you give the impression of wanting to scuttle a any viable alternative energy source (like geothermal) in its infancy - well done engineer, well done rpg the eternal pessimist. Thank God you weren't around when we first started on this road of power generation.

The anti nuke lobby feels that by repeating myths they become true. There are several porkers that I see coming up again and again, usually by the same people.

Myth 1. There is only enough fuel available for a couple of decades at present world consumption. Reality, this was based at $80/kg. As uranium is a fraction of the cost of generation, at $160/kg today's known reserves (allowing for no reprocessing and today's type of reactor) there would be sufficient for at least 200yrs of total generation. Allow reprocessing and more efficient reactors and we are looking at millenium.

Myth 2. They are hideously expensive. Reality, they are still a fraction of the cost of "renewable" power per kWhr to build and run.

Myth 3. They produce waste that lasts on geological scales. Reality, If one reprocesses the waste and store it for 1000 years, it is safe to handle and would only be a tiny quantity.

Myth 4. The French reactors failed in the heat wave in France. Reality, All power stations (coal and gas too) that require water cooling had to shut down when the water temperature used for cooling the steam process rose above the licensed outlet temperature. This licensing issue has been resolved.

Myth 5. Nuclear power is dangerous. Reality, there have been less deaths and injuries per unit of power generated for nuclear than for any other power source (incl chernobyl) which includes the renewables.

Myth 6. The world's nuclear fleet is decreasing. Reality, It will double in the next few decades.

Worlds highest emmitters in t/yr CO2 per capita and GWhr/yr

No1 Australia 20.58 t/yr for 11.2 GWhr/yr
N02 USA 19.78 t/yr for 13.4 GWhr/yr
.
.
France 6.6 t/yr for 7.9 GWhr/yr

So not only is Aus the highest emitter, but also the highest emitter per kWhr.

I also note that the majority of new generation coming on line is coal based or gas not renewable.

qanda, full of bile as usual - once I got through all the baiting and ad hominems, it seems you may have a vested interest, do you have any relationship with Geo Dynamics?

Here you go .. from ASX releases .. "On April 24, shortly after applying for the Fed Govt grant, the high-strength steel inside the Habanero 3 well broke allowing briny “reservoir fluid” and steam to gush to the surface. ASX releases reveal the 4221m-deep well was only 2 months old. It was to supply the pilot plant, now delayed.

Dissolved carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide in the “reservoir fluid” caused the steel to become brittle. Two other wells were also damaged. Fluid and steam continued to flow from the wells for at least 3 weeks before they were plugged with cement.

All three wells are now on hold indefinitely and the pilot plant is delayed by up to 9 months, according to ASX releases. The company is claiming it on insurance."

As an engineer, this concerns me, as a "scientist", you seem to think all is dandy?

November 2009 - Geodynamics gets yet another big grant from the Rudd Government, regardless, this one for $90 million for a demonstration plant. ASX releases.

So I got the two events out of order, and I couldn't find out how much the first site cost us all - but nevertheless, p*ssed away is a reasonable description.

No I don't want to scuttle any viable alternative power source, but I am concerned that is all we do, sink money into any fool idea, and not into reliable known areas, like Nuclear, fission or fusion.

As an engineer a lot of the research and the throw awaylines, like storing hydrogen in garages fills me with fear - supposed scientists who appear to have $ in their sights, fills me with fear, you included, do you have any idea what the risks are, not to getting $, but to people?

So back in your box mate, go bother someone else, we engineers have better things to do than to bother with your sneering.

I'm not sure you really understood the point I was making, Protagoras.

>>Well no it hasn't [have escaped my notice that those four countries represent 40% of the world's population] Pericles nor has it escaped my notice that Australia emits a whopping 19 tonnes of CO2 per capita and the US emits 19.7 tonnes of CO2 per capita.<<

That's the problem with your "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach.

For a start, you missed the obvious point that nuclear energy can actually reduce those horrendous emission numbers you mention, as I pointed out.

But more importantly, you ignore the glaring reality that the two most populous countries in the world have elected to develop a nuclear energy programme, and fail to address the obvious question, "why should this be?"

The question posed at the top of this thread, "Is nuclear the solution to climate change", is badly phrased. Because obviously, any complete solution has to be "fully renewable", such as solar, wind, wave etc., in order to eliminate the use of virtually all non-renewable resource. There will still remain an amount of manufacture and maintenance of course, but this should be manageable.

However, I suggest that there is most certainly a role for nuclear as a stop-gap measure - say, for between fifty and two hundred years - until we get our act fully together.

Pericles, totally agree - if we can use nuclear in the meantime, we can get rid of coal fired plants over time, and until we get true renewable energy sources.

The problem we seem to have is these renewable sources are not coming into existence as fast as everyone thought they would, hence the mad rush and also maddening lack of result.

the reality is here in Australia, we need cola fired plants, as its unlikely we'll get nuclear with the hysterical activists still pushing the same old lines and same old BS.

We have our resident activist you have just addressed who shows there is no room for anything but their opinion, after spending, what, 3 days at a anti uranium rally(?) you'd have to be a fanatic wouldn't you? I don't know why you bother, you'll only get flamed, as I will probably now.

The per capita argument doesn't work anymore since everyone realizes our per capita output for 22M people is trivial compared to the similar output for 300M Americans, 1.2B Chinese, 1.2B Indians etc - it just does not cut it and when people bring it up, it's clearly trying to be clever and tricky, most people now get it that it is spin.

rpg- thanks for the ASX stuff. Being a shareholder of GDY, I get all the reports - they have more detail.

>> As an engineer, this concerns me, as a "scientist", you seem to think all is dandy? << Oh pulease, get off YOUR box!

My 1st undergrad was chemical engineering, my second was science - post doc in science with an engineering bias.

As an engineer, I look for solutions - here's the ad hom, you are tunnel visioned. Stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement of the casing - tell me "engineer", do you think we can't overcome that? What "type" of engineer are you again?

Interesting to note you say nuclear fusion is a reliable known alternative - can you put a time-line on that, for me, engineer? While you're at it, perhaps you could summarise the comparative costs between say, IFR and fusion.

I am comfortable going back to my "box", it is double the size with both chemical engineering and science. You on the other hand, demonstrate the typical 'anti-science' mind set of many wistful engineering undergraduates.

As far as safety goes, hydrogen is not that far removed from other gases. We use an awful lot of LPG and LNG (even natural gas). If it's so dangerous, we should cancel these gas export contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars? It comes down to engineering solutions with appropriate safety standards. Besides, any accident with hydrogen doesn't hang round to pollute the environment for thousands of years. Hydrogen is the future.

With regard to the $90mil blown on the geothermal project (I'll take your word for it although that has been disputed), it's no different to the money sunk into fruitless oil or mineral exploration. Win some, lose some. That's the nature of venture capital. Just ask those sinking hundred of millions, if not billions, of dollars chasing the clean coal chimera.

I've taken advantage of the Kevin's largesse with (extra) batts and a small solar system to start off and have cut daily electricity usage from about 7kWh to less than 4kWh. Most days it's pumping power into the grid even while we go about our normal business. Yeah, we were frugal to start with but we're no technophobes. I'm now saving for the ceramic fuel cell.

Did you look up ceramic fuel cells? Aussie tech, ready to roll out. Their output could easily be controlled by a wireless network and on top of their inherent efficiency over most electrical generation technologies they don't suffer anywhere near the transmission losses. There is your baseload generation outside of sunlight hours.

Build some state of the art gas fired power stations and shut down Hazelwood for starters. That would be a huge step to reducing our carbon footprint by 2020. Your reactor would still be in paper form sitting on some engineer or bureaucrats desk.

Nuclear is so 1950's. Why you'd bother with that toxic crap when we have so many inspirational alternatives is beyond me. It must be pathological.

I tired of nuke apologists doing their Pythonesque Black Knight routine and now we get their version of the Parrot Sketch? She's a gone mate! Not now, not ever.

qanda when you get into this insulting, frothing at the mouth mode, you're not worth dealing with.

You should have mentioned in your first post you had a vested interest in GDY, you bray about credentials which really just get you started in life, not to lean on forever.

I'm not here to answer all your challenges, I just stated my opinion, I responded to some of your questions, but now you have gone too far.

Go cool off somewhere, have a lie down and think about why you get into this position all the time, it probably relates to your lack of career success.

I've got a "vested interest" in environmental, ecological and economic sustainability - not only future geothermal base-load energy supply, if you mind.

Post doctoral work was my graduation to life. You obviously and absolutely have no idea who I am so your spray about me having had no career success is utter crap.

Maaate has an innocent naivete about the complexities of the issues the planet is facing in the next few decades - much the same as you do, like it or not.

On the contrary rpg, you should answer my challenges - as you expect others to answer yours.

I will cool off when petulant tunnel-visioned stick-in-the-muds like your engineering self start to use their 'assumed' knowledge to actually tackle the storm on the horizon. I will cool off when people like yourself start to apply themselves to a whole range of technologies that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels when the human population is expected to hit 9.5 billion by 2050.

In other words, I won't cool off anytime soon because the average joe/jill now expect people like me to stand up to the guff that the recalcitrant and myopic pseudosceptic trot out with gay abandon despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I think the question is worded badly. Of course nuclear is not the solution to climate change, climate changes....

Nuclear is the solution to our power requirements for the future, and we would be crazy in this country not to have a future plan.

Of course more economical use of power is needed now, but that is a stop gap measure and fiddling around the edges by governments is not the answer for the country's future needs. They have to make hard decisions and they don't seem to want to do that.

Solar power, wind farms, etc, is all very nice but it is quite simply not enough.

If governments want the population of this country to grow obviously people will need electricity, therefore, any government has to put long term plans for infrastructure in place. How can the country progress economically otherwise?

@Shadow Minister: there would be sufficient [Uranium] for at least 200yrs of total generation.

I have given you links for my claims in the past, Shadow. It would be nice if did the same.

@Shadow Minister: They are hideously expensive. Reality, they are still a fraction of the cost of "renewable" power per kWhr to build and run.

True. I should have been clearer. The issue isn't the kWhr price. It is the financial risk. The ideal way to build up any infrastructure is to start small, letting the earnings from the small beginings pay for future expansion. This is a low risk strategy because if it fails all you have lost are those small beginnings. Engineering wise it is wonderful because you can go through a process of continuous improvement as your experience accumulates. Most renewables can be developed in this sort of way.

This style of development is impossible with nuclear. Nuclear has a perfect storm of four disadvantages. Firstly, almost all of the money is spent on construction before a single watt is produced. Secondly, the plants have a long lifetime - at least 20 years. Thirdly, there is no such thing as a small nuclear plant. Combine those and it means you end up having to borrow billions of dollars upfront, before a single cent is earned, and then gradually repay that money over the plants 20 year lifetime. This in turns means for the planet to be feasible the borrowed money must be cheap, which depends on the entire venture being a very low risk enterprise. Which brings us to final disadvantage: plants have failed, so the risk isn't negligibility low.

Thus, they only countries you have seen nuclear development are those where the public purse takes some role in funding it. They are the only one with deep enough pockets to take on a financial risk of the size needed. This is true in the US today. The only reason the US is building new plants is because the government is guaranteeing the loans, so the interest rate drops to a viable level. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/obama-nuclear-plant-presi_n_463754.html

@Shadow Minister: Myth 3. They produce waste that lasts on geological scales. Reality, If one reprocesses the waste and store it for 1000 years, it is safe to handle and would only be a tiny quantity.

I suspect 1000 years is a bit short considering the half lives or same wastes are over the 10,000 range http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_management_of_waste , but regardless the civilization that gave rise to Nuclear has existed for only 200 years and has gone through a few major wars in that time. And yet here you are treating 1000 years like it is a long weekend.

The real issue is this discussion should be irrelevant. All that should be necessary is to raise the price of CO2 emitting energy forms until others become viable. Provided legislation ensure appropriate safety mechanisms are in place it doesn't matter what combination emerges as the winner - I am more than happy to let the market decide that. So, no nuclear should not be banned, not inside of Australia anyway. If it wins the battle in the short or long term than so be it.

The real issue is what the nuclear needs to be viable is risk subsidies. And they must come from the government. Minor R&D subsidies to get things started is one thing. Risk subsidies to fund an entire industry for 20 years is quite another. If industry wants to take the risk, let them bear the cost, just as all competing technologies must bear their costs.

rpg and qanda, could you stop the personal sniping? By all means argue the points but no more name calling please or I will start deleting posts, which would be a pity because the substantive parts make interesting reading.

Unsurprising that GDY has hit problems. These sorts of projects generally do. I see I'm probably an indirect shareholder in it because Sunsuper, which has my super funds, has bought in. And it appears to have a JV with Origin. Could be an interesting punt to buy in now, given its share price is close to an all-time low. You must have done a bit of dough in this one qanda. Time to double up?

BTW, what's the source of the heat? Radioactive decay?

A little more lateral thinking may assist Pericles.

China and India’s ecocidal journey started many decades ago. Twenty new reactors for China and 5 for India will merely hasten the journey.

China is aggressively acquiring uranium resources in countries like Niger, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Namibia thereby merely transferring the environmental carnage they’ve perpetrated in their own country, onto poor nations.

And similar to Australia, China is building heaps more coal-fired plants and in 2006, India’s coal-fired power plants consumed 5.9 quadrillion Btu of coal.

The US has around 290 million people with 104 nuclear reactors which have been in operation decades and they’ve been an abject failure in mitigating pollution and currently, a minimum of 27 of America's nuclear reactors are known to be leaking radioactive tritium.

A “stop gap measure of 50 to 200 years” indicates to me a certain naiveté and denial of the urgent situation which prevails. Construction of one reactor = 5 - 7 years!

Meanwhile who do you suggest should pay for the perpetual cleanup of radioactive tailings from uranium mining which is polluting the planet? Who paid/pays for the care of miners and community members afflicted by cancer from this radiation? Who paid for the 40% of underground workers at the Radium Hill mine in South Australia who died a lingering death from lung cancer? How much money is lost to the community from the shortened work-life of these cancer victims, and of their family carers? The loss of valuable land for agriculture? The wildlife, the loss of fresh water, now polluted?

Who will pay the 76 billion pounds for cleaning up Britain’s nuclear waste or the $96 billion required to clean up the appalling atomic mess in the US while Obama fills the coffers of the nuclear industry?

“Some day the Earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too, will die.” - John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota, 1932

Graham, before I retire for the night - personal sniping on this site is a matter of course, but I’m glad you’re moderating, even if it’s on ‘hobby horse’ threads :)

Ok, off topic – I am perplexed that you say “it (Geodynamics) APPEARS to have a JV with Origin” given that your super fund “has bought in”. Don’t you monitor your Superannuation; don’t you know about the joint venture, or the changes in major shareholding?

And why do you think it unsurprising Geodynamics “hit problems”? Or why “these sorts of projects generally do”? You could explain.

On a personal note (seeing you think I “have done a bit of dough”) ... I bought 2 blocks of GDY in mid ’06 for about 70 cents per share. The 1st block I gifted between my children, the 2nd block ‘willed’ and divided amongst their children (my grandchildren not yet born) turning 21.

As it turned out, one of kids wanted to ‘cash in’ for a substantive house deposit and keep it with the bank for about a year - fortuitous or just astute, you tell me. Anyway, they did and they made a motzza - traded at about $2 per share in ’07 ... almost 300% profit in just over 1 year. Were they to know about the casing collapse last year? No, they were lucky ... but we were aware of the GFC on the horizon - were you?

Nevertheless, I originally bought the shares as a long term ‘blue chip’ investment, primarily for my grandchildren – stipulated in my will not to be traded for at least another 30 years. Time to double up? You betcha!

>> BTW, what's the source of the heat? Radioactive decay? <<
And your point is?

qanda, my understanding is that everywhere else in the world, GeoThermal energy tapping is done on the edges of tectonic plates, is this one a particularly high risk not being on the edge of a plate? (well Hawaii is not, but it has a point source)

Where is this particular drill site?

Do they need to go as deep on the edge of a tectonic plate as they do in this particular instance?

Off topic but interesting.

If everyone is investing in renewables and no longer in coal fired power stations, and the renewables do not deliver - will we be in trouble?

Seems quite high risk to remove all our eggs at once from the basket they have been in for many years - I know there are lots of promises and hype about renewables, but so far nothing seems remotely successful.

Your own figures for GDY see them going online with a 500MW plant in 2018 and since I'm not an investor, and you have the data - how likely do you think it is they will deliver? I don't mean to hold you to it or anything like that, I just have no data.

I think we should still continue to invest in coal fired plants otherwise we may get into a shortfall which would be disastrous for our economy.

Perhaps we should be planning some nuclear power plants instead of new coal plants, unless the environmentalists insist that we continue to produce CO2 instead of radioactive waste which we can sore, but we cannot store CO2 - what's the lessor of 2 problems?

The environmentalists can't have everything their way, eventually they will have to compromise, which should be interesting as from what I see of them, they can barely get along with each other, and we have literally hundreds of eco groups in Australia, all "independent".

qanda, no-one that I know of monitors the shares in their statutory superfund unless they manage it themselves. Sunsuper doesn't publish any reports that I am aware of showing how their portfolio has changed, and even if they did there's be little point in second guessing them. So reading this thread is the first time I've paid any attention to this company, as distinct from the technology.

Why do I think it unsurprising? Because I have a long history of following companies trying to make money with new technologies and frequently technologies fail to scale up. Why would this company be any different? It's a high risk punt. That doesn't mean it's going to fail, or that its technology is bad, just that there will most likely be a whole lot of unforeseen difficulties.

I should have known that you would have bought at the lowest price in the last 6 years. Congratulations on your market timing. But it must test your faith in the stock to have such good timing and still be down on your investment, so I just wondered whether if it was a good buy at 70 cents you thought it worth going back in at 63 and averaging your price down a bit.

So, what _is_ the source of the heat?

Amicus

They are not my figures, they are contained within a Geodynamics' report.
Geodynamics incorporate a geothermal system which is different to what you are probably familiar with. You could look at their website http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/content/home.html or CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/science/Geothermal-energy.html in answer to some of your queries.

We won’t be shutting down coal fired power stations without something taking their place; we (humanity) are building more. A smart investor would be hedging their bets between renewables and non-renewables. However, a smart government (imo) would find a way to put a price on carbon, gradually withdraw the subsidies given to the fossils, increase them to renewables, and soften the blow as much as possible – sooner rather than later. Caveat, no one government can do it alone.

______

Graham

I manage my own, but you’re right – most people don’t, or can’t.

>> Why do I think it unsurprising? Because I have a long history of following companies trying to make money with new technologies and frequently technologies fail to scale up. Why would this company be any different? It's a high risk punt. That doesn't mean it's going to fail, or that its technology is bad, just that there will most likely be a whole lot of unforeseen difficulties. <<

I agree. But it’s a risk we (humanity) have to pursue – a point I failed to make with rpg. Regardless whether you/anyone believe in AGW, we have to find more sustainable ways of producing energy. It’s a quirk of this “climate change debate” that the clock somehow stops at 2100 – what happens after then?

>> BTW, what's the source of the heat? Radioactive decay? <<

Yes, otherwise known as "hot rocks" :)

Protagoras, if Graham wasn't looking over our shoulders, I'd call you a patronizing git.

>>A little more lateral thinking may assist Pericles<<

But he is.

So I won't.

Yes Pericles, both you and qanda have both been a little snide since I jumped into the thread, but I think it's a low enough level that I'll ignore it unless Protagoras responds in kind in which case you'll both have wasted a post.

Rstuart,

I have posted my links several times as well. It only took me a few minutes to look through non anti nuke sites to find the answers, and see that the anti nuke sites are extremely liberal with the truth.

Most of the radiation from the spent fuel rods comes from comparitively short half life nuclides. The radioactivity reduces by 99.9% in the first 40 years, then by another 99.9% in the next 10 000 years. (after 1000 years it is considered low level waste) So the figures of billions of years are hogwash.

Reprocessing the waste recovers fuel and removes most of the radioactivity from the unusable portion, so that very little has high radioactivity.

As far as capital cost goes, a power station is no more expensive than many infrastructure contracts ongoing presently. The risk is typically political risk. The reason companies want government guarantees, is so that any limp wristed politician that wants to bow to garner votes by halting the building of the reaction will have to fork out huge penalties. (shafting the investor is easy with no penalties).

The clean up of tailings is a fraction of the clean up required from coal, iron ore etc, many of which also have a radioactive component.

"Protagoras, if Graham wasn't looking over our shoulders, I'd call you a patronizing git."

Well you just did Pericles and while Graham was looking over your shoulder too but that's not a problem because I've been called worse things than a "patronizing git."

The significant issue here is do you intend addressing the contents of my post or will you continue engaging in a side-step soft shoe shuffle?

All off topic of course but perhaps I should clarify my personal interests.
I invest in a range of listed energy companies. As far as Geodynamics is concerned, I am banking on them being a long term 'blue chip' investment for my grandchildren. No dividends yet and in terms of ROI, for me - zilch (unless you could call the warm and fuzzies a return). Anyway, at least I am putting money where my mouth is, be that as it may.

@Shadow Minister: Most of the radiation from the spent fuel rods comes from comparitively short half life nuclides.

Well, fine, but if you are saying 1000 is a short time to store the bulk of the wastes we have to agree to disagree. I was talking about the long lived waste, of course. There may not be much of it, but it dammed dangerous and does last millennia.

@Shadow Minister: As far as capital cost goes, a power station is no more expensive than many infrastructure contracts ongoing presently.

So we are comparing Nuclear Power generation plants to bridges and dams now are we? I don't see the point of comparing it to anything than competing forms of energy production, and the inescapable fact is a nuclear plant requires an upfront investment of billions before a single watt is produced. In the energy field it is unique in that regard, and this is why they need government guarantees. In the US, they are asking for $100 billion of them! http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html I see from that link the US companies are also getting a 2.5 cents kw/hr tax credit.

My real point here is not that nuclear is bad, but supporting it over other competing technologies in this way is definitely bad! Let them all compete on equal terms.

@Shadow Minister: The clean up of tailings is a fraction of the clean up required from coal, iron ore etc

Wrong argument Shadow! Who cares how much it costs to clean up the tailings? All that matters is they are cleaned up and it is included in the final price of the electricity produced. Unless someone can point out a mine in Australia where this isn't happening, I don't see there could be a problem.

"Unless someone can point out a mine in Australia where this isn't happening, I don't see there could be a problem."

1. Budget funds clean-up of old uranium mine sites in Kakadu National Park

Peter Costello says $7 million has been allowed to clean up parts of the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park, which have been contaminated by uranium mining,. (ABC 2006)

2. Rockhole mine tailings washed into river

An internal report from the Office of the Supervising Scientist says tailings from an old uranium mine in Kakadu National Park are being washed into the river system and on to a tourist road. The report, obtained by the ABC, says tailings from the Rockhole mine which have risen to the surface are being washed into the South Alligator River and are mixing with the dust on the Gunlom Falls Road. (ABC News 6 June 2000)

3. State Member for Mount Isa Tony McGrady says people are ignoring warning signs at the Mary Kathleen open cut and tailings dam. McGrady says he is concerned about the number of people still swimming at the old uranium mine between Mount Isa and Cloncurry. (ABC 26 Oct. 2004)

Not surprising to see the usual lack of fencing at mine sites.

4. The Northern Territory Government has returned 96% of a clean-up bond on the former Nabarlek uranium mine, despite scientists' warnings that progress was "far from ideal".

The government released $9.6 million of a $10 million bond in September 2003 to Pioneer International, which mined the east Arnhem Land ore body.

But it was done without consulting the Commonwealth's Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS) and despite the concerns of the OSS and other experts over rehabilitation progress on-site.

Acting chief supervising scientist Alex Zapantis said the OSS was surprised to discover the territory had released the money without consultation, and raised its concerns at a meeting earlier that month.

And much, much more.....!

Sadly, disreputable luddites cling to a dangerous and obsolete technology, hanging out with dinosaurs to perpetuate falsehoods as an obstacle to 21st century enlightenment.

Graham Y and others, here is the Wikipedia entry on "Geothermal gradient":

"The geothermal gradient is the rate at which the Earth's temperature increases with depth, indicating outward heat flows from a hot interior. Away from tectonic plate boundaries, it is 25-30°C per km of depth in most of the world.[1]

"Strictly speaking, geo-thermal necessarily refers to the Earth but the concept may be applied to other planets. The Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%).[2] The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232.[3]"

For the complete article and citations, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient

Geothermal heat seems to me a benign use of natural radioactivity.

Those with a nose for old magazines may find, in the April 1981 issue of Scientific American, the article "Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity". It compares reactor accidents, thermonuclear weapon detonations, and thermonuclear weapons that target reactors. A 1-megaton bomb that destroys a 1-gigawatt reactor, "for example an attack on a reactor in the Rhine-Neckar River valley could render uninhabitable about ...[32,000 square miles for a month or more] ...". (page 33) The authors are Stephen A. Fetter and Kosta Tsipis, acknowledged experts on such matters.

Further discussion of this article is at
http://www.mmmfiles.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=31

The spread of nuclear electricity is inextricably linked with the spread of nuclear weapons. I expect it is only a matter of time before the nuclear apologists have something very big, messy and radioactive to apologise and prevaricate about - as though Chernobyl isn’t enough.

Well, I've read some pretty flaccid defences of nukes in my time but this dribble fest just about takes the cake.

No-one has yet mentioned the on going costs of managing nuclear waste.

Where is the discussion of Yucca Mountain? If the US can't solve the nuclear waste problem, who can? You?

One dirty bomb in your CBD can ruin you whole millenium. What would that cost, or, what will it cost to manage nuke waste 24 X 7 X 365 X 10,000? Why isn't this cost incorporated into the economics of nuclear energy? It's just another instance of privatise the profit and socialise the costs to brain dead taxpayers.

I've had pro-nuke idiots try to tell me that nuclear waste doesn't contaminate materials used for its containment and we can just dig a really deep hole and bury it.

As a "naive innocent" I'd like to issue an invitation. If you want to convince me about the safety of nuclear energy and its waste products, volunteer to carry a suppository of "low level" nuclear waste for a year. I'll even let you define "low level nuclear waste". If you're game, I might think about considering nukes as an energy option...provided you pass the psychological tests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay#Decay_chains_and_multiple_modes

What nearly everyone forgets is that there is a constant level of background radiation. The carbon in the body has a significant portion of the isotope carbon 14 which comes from the interaction of nitrogen with cosmic rays.

Uranium 238 has such a long decay time that a geiger counter would find a tree more active than the uranium. After 10 000 years even the unprocessed fuel rods level of radioactivity will have dropped to within an order of magnitude of the back ground radiation. Which makes it far from "damned dangerous"

The whole point of reprocessing spent fuel is two fold: The worst radioactive isotopes are removed, and the remaining uranium can be re enriched to be used in the process again. This means that there is a fraction of the waste, and the waste starts off at a tiny fraction of the radioactivity.

As for the tailings, the control at the uranium mines in Aus means that less toxic waste gets into the environment that at any other mine.

I have been avidly following geodynamics, (the only viable base load alternative to nuclear) and to quote monty python "all of a sudden nothing happenned."

The $42bn that Rudd squandered could have built 4 multi reactor power stations by 2010.

@Shadow Minister: The $42bn that Rudd squandered could have built 4 multi reactor power stations by 2010.

I realise it is just a cheap throw away line Shadow, but ye gods - even for a cheap shot this is really bad.

Reactors typically take around 4 years to build and you are suggesting we would get them in what - 2 years?. From the wikipedia article all take more than 3 years, and if things go wrong it can be 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants Prior to that there is usually years of political wrangling and nimby'ism over where to site the things.

On top of that, to Rudd money had to be spent quickly, at the start of the GFC. There is no point applying the band aid after the wound has scabbed over. Of all things, nuclear power plants would be one of the least suitable projects for a fiscal injection.

Maaate, re: "innocent naivete about the complexities of the issues ..." It appears you took offense, sorry.

The topic does crop up on OLO from time to time and what you haven't found on this thread has been discussed ad nauseum in others.

Anyway, have you had a chance to digest the latest (not Wiki) at sites like this?

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/04/01/nuclear-century-cbg/

If you have the time, search the tabs and archives - many concerns and queries are addressed. That is not to say further work is not required, btw.

Now, suppositories are generally meant for one thing (as opposed to nuclear medicines).
You are inviting people to stick one (containing any level of nuclear waste) up their butt for one year - have I understood you correctly?

“As for the tailings, the control at the uranium mines in Aus means that less toxic waste gets into the environment that (sic) at any other mine.”

[Deleted for abuse]

BHP Billiton is planning the reopening of the Yeelirrie (‘place of death’) U mine in WA. BHP’s predecessor (WMC) in keeping with the culture which prevails in the mining industry, had scant regard for human or environmental protection when it abandoned Yeelirrie.

Radioactive material had been sitting in open-air stockpiles at the Yeelirrie deposit for more than a decade leading to an embarrassing public admission from WMC in 1997.

Eventually a cleanup of the contaminated site was undertaken (and not completed until 2002 from memory) which involved fencing the areas of the worst radiation and posting danger signs on the fences.

The 'cleanup' consisted of pushing the ore into piles for later recovery. For six years, the radioactive rock was blowing in the breeze, washing into the water supply and gradually cycling into the local environment. Beta and Gamma radiation emissions from these piles were as high as 56 times the normal background rate.

Aboriginal tribes people living near Leonora were quoted as saying:

"We been fighting for Yeelirrie. The sacred ground is each side of Yeelirie. 'Yeelirrie' is white man's way of saying. Right way is 'Youlirrie'. Youlirrie means 'death', Wongi (Aboriginal) way. Anything been shifted from there means death. People been finished from there, early days, all dead, but white fella can't see it.”

Then there’s the documented evidence on the shoddy operations at the Olympic Dam Project raised by the Environment, Resources and Development Committee of the South Australian Parliament in its Nineteenth report of 10 April 1996. Need I continue Shadow Minister………?

QandA and GrahamY

Radioactives are hottest when concentrated and the neutrons produce a chain reaction.

Earth's core is molten and moving. We cannot assume radioactives are concentrated enough to contribute more heat than they do in granite.

Earth's core is *insulated* by a layer of less dense oxides which are solid and therefore not convecting. This further blanketed and bufferred by an atmosphere which *is* convecting and conducting, but at a rate that is closer to vacuum.

Geothermal is arguably fossil heat from the formation of the earth. At thin spots it leaks anyway, so we may as well use it.

The strongest argument within the next twenty years for renewables is energy security. Don't be caught lagging.

Rusty

[Deleted and poster suspended for a day.]

Meanwhile, I would point out that if the nuclear industry believes they can continue bludging off the environment, they’re delusional.

Never has this industry paid the full costs to meet radiological and environmental standards, the full costs for cleaning up their diabolical mess; fully insured waste disposal charges; fully insured decommissioning costs or the deliberate and wilful or accidental dumping of radioactive substances into soil, groundwater, air, rivers and oceans.

Over the course of nuclear history, several Soviet and Russian nuclear submarines have sunk, including during 1970, 1986, 1989, and 2000. These accidents carried seven nuclear reactors and some 38 nuclear warheads to the ocean floor. In 1968, reactor coolant on a Soviet submarine froze, causing significant damage to the nuclear reactor. Many crewmen were severely irradiated. It is believed that all or parts of the reactor were dumped directly into the Arctic Ocean in the early 1970s. The extent of the environmental damage is unknown.

In 1985, during refuelling, the reactor on a Soviet submarine exploded and burned in Chazma Bay, some 35 miles from Vladivostok in the Pacific Ocean. Ten men in the reactor room were killed. Soviet news accounts claim that radiation meters in the area went off the scale at fatally high levels. The Soviet Navy estimates that it will take 50 years for the area to return to normal (and the rest!)

The sinking of the nuclear-powered submarine off Norway in April 1989 provoked widespread concern about radiation poisoning the seas in the area. In 1995, concern over a meltdown of a portion of Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet came ominously close to reality after the local electric company turned off power to a naval base, due to delinquent bills. Oleg Yerofiev, commander in chief of the Northern Fleet, said cutting power to a reactor makes it uncontrollable, which leads to accidents.

The nuclear industry has had > 60 years to prove they can protect human and environmental health but remain, duplicitous, abject failures.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:PfpEM217nQAJ:www.jsi.com/Managed/Docs/Publications/EnviroHealth/Leukemia_FactSheet.pdf+worldwide+increase+leukemia&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESju3Avf1bXjCKNfzim8Eeis2B-593K8mWQkYHc4RiUiOc5KWUnuf1TaXiLCOVbXzH5cxQbXfHAbh4ARfQBzg1taqlFYF6qMgvtvig0hndoDxRfTT8qEKhgl9t1_Qmxp0VFZAyhb&sig=AHIEtbQjL3Yzckg_nuFQEO3gdg3aZyF_tA

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml

Protagoras and others may be interested in these links concerning the French company Areva and its Nigerian uranium mine, as well as related issues.

"Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686774,00.html#ref=nlint


Part 1: Tuareg Activist Takes on French Nuclear Company
For the past 40 years, the French state-owned company Areva has been mining uranium for Europe's nuclear power needs in Niger, one of the poorest countries on Earth. One local activist is taking on the company, claiming that water and dust have been contaminated and workers are dying as a result of its activities."

See link for entire article

Map: Location of uranium exploration area in Niger
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-686774-74477.html

RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
Photo Gallery: The True Cost of Uranium
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-53464.html

Reversing Germany's Atomic Phase-Out: Negotiations Begin for Extending Nuclear Plant Lifespans (01/21/2010)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,673223,00.html

The Curse of Gorleben: Germany's Endless Search for a Nuclear Waste Dump (01/15/2010)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,672147,00.html

Another current item on reactor nuclear waste disposal, by acknowledged expert Robert Alvarez, is currently available at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website. The hazards are acknowledged in passing, without drama or denial.

Advice for the Blue Ribbon Commission
By Robert Alvarez | 24 March 2010

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/advice-the-blue-ribbon-commission

Here is an excerpt. See the link for its context.

"What should U.S. policy be for civilian spent fuel storage? For nearly 30 years, NRC waste-storage requirements have been contingent on the timely opening of a permanent waste repository. This has allowed plant operators to legally store spent fuel in onsite cooling ponds much longer, and at higher densities (on average four times higher), than was originally intended. In 2004, a National Academy of Sciences panel warned that such densely packed reactor ponds were vulnerable to terrorist attack and catastrophic radiological fire. On March 9, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko told industry officials at an NRC-sponsored conference that spent fuel should be primarily stored in dry, hardened, and air-cooled casks that met safety and security standards for several centuries. Yet today only 14 percent of the 65,000 metric tons of domestic spent fuel is stored in such casks.

Obviously, we need a new policy that takes into account the likelihood of indefinite reactor spent fuel storage in the age of terrorism. In this regard, in 2003 several of my colleagues and I recommended PDF that all U.S. spent fuel older than five years should be placed in dry, hardened storage containers, greatly reducing the fire risk if water was drained from reactor cooling ponds. Casks should be placed in either thick-walled structures or in earthen berms capable of withstanding plane and missile impacts. We estimated this could be accomplished with existing cask technology in 10 years at a cost of $3 billion-$7 billion. Moreover, future reactors should be designed so that temporary cooling ponds are encased in heavy concrete containment. Such steps were taken by Germany 25 years ago in response to the threats posed by accidental fighter jet crashes and terrorist attacks."

The discussion of nuclear waste and mining dangers are off the mark. With nuclear power, the relevance is with the fourth generation reactors, which will extract 140 times more energy than current reactors, will be capable of using existing nuclear waste as a fuel, and will leave a smaller amount of waste with a short period of radioactivity. Talking about the dangers of the past is a bit like ranting about the safety of motor cars, but using data prior to the introduction of seatbelts, airbags, crumplle zones, crash testing etc.

What is relevant is the question of when viable fourth gen reactors will be available, whether they will live up to expectations, how much other technologies will develop over the period, and whether the Earth is continuing to warm as predicted. Surely a discussion of the future prospects of energy supply is of more interest than puerile exchanges of abuse?

OK, sooner or later humans must transition from fossil fuel (19th century technologies well past their use-by date) dependency to pollution free renewable sources.

Why nuclear technology thinks it has a role to play is only because is currently has a stronger vested interest in the economy than new, cleaner, sustainable technologies such as thermal, solar, hydro, wind and the like.

All alternatives including nuclear will require private/public funding; lots of it. Therefore investment in the most efficient, long-term and economic should be a collective aim for industry, government and individuals.

Nuclear is 20th century technology but struggling to remain viable. It is not. For the following reasons:

1. Nuclear is Too Expensive.

We require cheap, readily available sources of energy if all countries are to achieve a reasonable standard of living – such as the western countries currently experience. Also we need job creation and good return on investment.  Nuclear does not create as many jobs as a diverse range of renewable fuel technologies will. Nuclear requires billions of dollars in government subsidies just to be built and even more funding is required to close down old reactors.

2. Nuclear is Inefficient.

As an energy source it requires a high level of energy input compared to output: construction of plants, mining the uranium, enriching uranium, stringent and necessary safety standards, disposal of waste. This cycle will only worsen over time as the quantity of high grade uranium depletes.

3. Nuclear Power is not “Clean”
While the actual generation of electricity itself produces little carbon, nuclear is promoted as being low impact on environmental pollution. However, this discounts the pollution emitted during mining, plant construction, storage of waste and decommissioning of obsolete reactors.

As well as the problem of storage of radioactive waste, other pollutants include hard-wastes such as mercury, arsenic, cadmium and gases such as fluorine, chlorine and hydrochloric acid are released into the air and surrounding landscape.

Cont'd

Cont'd

The entire cycle of energy produced by nuclear reaction must be included in any configuration of its impact on the environment.
Given these ongoing costs, truly clean renewable energy could deliver much more without all the immediate and long-term side-effects.

4. Nuclear is High Risk

While nuclear technology has advanced, nevertheless it will never be risk free: it remains a fraught method of creating energy. Plants can still melt down, be struck by a terrorist attack or even a seismic or other natural event over which we have no control.

5. Funding Nuclear is Corporate Welfare.

Who stands to benefit from government investment in this questionable energy source? Companies like British Energy, Exelon and General Electric; vast corporations with powerful lobby groups in Britian and the USA respectively, also Foratom which is the European lobby group funded by European corporations like Electricité de France and the German company E.ON. These companies are also associated with other organisations as diverse as Monsanto and Nestle. The web is as extensive as it is pervasive.

As with the Tobacco industry before, these monolithic monopolies will say, pay, do anything to hold the reins on power.

Therefore nuclear is no more a solution to a clean environment than tobacco is to preventing lung cancer.

Severin

Despite your criticism of nuclear power, the fact is that nuclear is currently the only viable non-carbon alternative.

Now had I criticised current inadequacy renewable technology, you might have responded that the technology still had substantial potential. Had I criticised government funding of the technology as nepotism, you might have responded that such assistance was worthwhile when the potential benefits were considered. Yet for nuclear power, you only seem to consider the past and current state of the technology, and acknowledge none of its potential. Had you considered the potential of nuclear power, your concerns of cost, waste, environmental damage and nepotism become grossly exaggerated, as fourth generation reactors offer great promise, including the capacity to eliminate existing nuclear waste. This latter point would make fourth generation reactors an alternative to storing nuclear waste for thousands of years.

Criticising nuclear power as high risk is exaggerated as it ignores the statistical reality of a very safe form of power with the potential to improve further. As for bombs and terrorist attacks, isn't that a world we live in already, and what gives someone the authority to decide whether a technology should be developed? When nuclear reactor research was curtailed three decades ago, coal provided very cheap power, differing little from the predicted cost of electricity from new reactors, and there was little fear of global warming. The fear of nuclear attack was greater than today, so logically no great benefit from the technology was perceived. The irony is that had nuclear reactor technology been pursued then, we might have had a competitive alternative to coal today.

The question of relevance is whether renewables and battery technology will have advantages over fourth generation reactors by the time the reactors are ready to be built? I hope they will be, but I see no harm in having more choices.

Re: " ... the fact is that nuclear is currently the only viable non-carbon alternative."

This statement is an opinion, rather than a fact. What is Fester talking about?

I do not really know, but let me guess: I will guess he/she is talking about base-load electricity.

If I have guessed correctly, then I advise him/her and others to read
http://www.energyscience.org.au/BP16%20BaseLoad.pdf

The facts and opinions therein are carefully expressed, and backed up with citations, where the findings are not the author's own, and that is something I have yet to see from our Fester.

Sir Vivor

The article you quoted suggested that wind farms could at best deliver a capacity factor of about 40%. This is at the high end for wind power, which ranges from 20 to 40%. So you would need a generating capacity between two and one half to five times the peak amount required. Dr Diesendorf suggests backup gas turbines. And as far as I know, there isn't 24/7 solar as yet. And if you think you can convince the Tasmanians to dam all their beautiful rivers and become part of a national power grid then go for it. The common theme of the paper is backup. How much will this add to the cost of electricity? As a comparison, the worst nuclear generators today have a capacity of about 80%, and fourth generation reactors have a predicted capacity factor of about 90%. But as I have already stated, the discussion would be better directed toward the future than the present. As Dr Diesendorf points out in his paper, the critical factor in comparing nuclear with renewables will be the development of technology over the next couple of decades. There is little logic in comparing the renewables of the future with the nuclear of the past. And if you dont want to wait another 20 years for fourth generation reactors, you could take Dr Hansen's advice and start building IFRs now.

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

Well now
I remember reading in the papers of a meeting between Ziggy and his rich mates with little johnny howard. If I remember correctly they wanted us taxpayers to stump up the billions to build a reactor and zig and his mates would run it for big fat directors fees. OR AM I WRONG?
In any case alternative power now has baseload capabilities and is a damn sight cheaper than nuclear and we won't have to wait as long. So zig put your money in something useful.

Perhaps if IFRs existed, we wouldn’t have to mine uranium and perhaps the West would find another use for depleted uranium rather than bombing the crap out of defenceless citizens in Iraq but you’d need to try getting past the influential U miners first. The dust ups will be varied and bloodied when the Uranium industry starts to squawk about reduced uranium sales.

However, respected energy expert, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute Amory Lovins, advised that:

“IFRs are often claimed to "burn up nuclear waste" and make its "time of concern . . . less than 500 years" rather than 10,000-100,000 years or more. That's wrong: most of the radioactivity comes from fission products, including very-long-lived isotopes like iodine-129 and technicium-99, and their mix is broadly similar in any nuclear fuel cycle.

“IFRs' wastes may contain less transuranics, but at prohibitive cost and with worse occupational exposures, routine releases, accident and terrorism risks, proliferation, and disposal needs for intermediate- and low-level wastes.

"It's simply a dishonest fantasy to claim that such hypothetical and uneconomic ways to recover energy or other value from spent LWR fuel mean "There is no such thing as nuclear waste." Of course, the nuclear industry wishes this were true.”

I consider it prudent to ponder the information of a scientist who’s an energy expert rather than the information provided by Barry Brook who's a biologist.

So more old style spin where proponents persist with the pretence of “rigorous international oversight” from the nuclear “regulators” while the UK Government recently planned to have 250,000 tonnes a year of nuclear waste disposed of in ordinary landfill sites but crashed at the first hurdle with irate villagers and a council rejecting a proposal supported by its own Environment Agency.

France continues to dump radioactive waste 8,000 kilometres away in Siberia for reprocessing by the Russians who announced in December, their intentions to continue developing nuclear weapons despite seeking a new disarmament treaty with the United States.

The second life of nuclear remains as dirty, as dangerous and as hypocritical as it’s always been.

As Wikipedia articles go, the entry on the IFR does not fare well.

The first citation sounds authoritative, but it leads to a poorly reproduced set of powerpoint slides that sorely lack an author or any of the sense the author might have given. What do they mean? Who can guess? You had to be there, I'd guess.

A final citation, from Science Magazine, gives us a table of contents. Which article is important? The link suggests the article on page 256. That article, more transparently cited, might appear thus:

Marshall, E. (1992) Was Argonne whistleblower really blowing smoke? Science 17 April 1992 256:303

James Smith, the human subject of the article, is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, but you have to retrieve the 1992 Science article to discover that, and you can't retrieve the article without a subscription.

Thank you Fester for letting us know about the the Wikipedia article. If it were handed to me for marking, I would send the author back to his/her escritoire. It could be improved with a well-founded discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of committing one or more nations to an IFR nuclear electricity supply. Perhaps Iran could be discussed as an example.

Meanwhile....

We, investors, government and industry could be supporting clean renewable and diverse energy sources such as hydro, solar, thermal, wind and probably technology that is yet to be invented, instead of banging on about the demonstrably problematic technology of nuclear.

That such a variety of renewable energy sources would not only free us from dependency on fossil fuels and global corporations, an array of technologies would also boost small business, jobs and the economy for far more people than a wealthy few. Another point that is lost on the pro-nuke brigade.

An interesting article on wind-generated electricity can be found at
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/29/0909075107.full.pdf+html

although you may have to register for the free access. The gist of it is that several groups of offshore wind turbines, optimised for wind patterns over their region and connected via undersea cables, could provide steady and reliable power on a large scale. The model is based on the east coast of the USA.

The on-line article is titled
Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection

The authors state:

"There are four near-term ways to level wind power and other fluctuating generation sources. (i) Expand the use of existing control mechanisms already set up to handle fluctuating load and unexpected equipment outages—mechanisms such as reserve generators, redundant power line routes, and ancillary service markets. This is how wind is integrated today (5). (ii) Build energy storage, as part of the wind facility or in another central location. (iii) Make use of distributed storage in loads, for example home heaters with thermal mass added or plug-in cars that can charge when the wind blows or even discharge to the grid during wind lulls (6). (iv) Combine remote wind farms via electrical transmission,the subject of this article."

Enjoy

Thank you for that information Sir Vivor and it appears that George W is not beyond redemption for he's soon to speak on the benefits of windpower.

Similar to Yellow Cake Johnny, he does charge a substantial fee for appearances but they reckon everytime Dubya made a speech in another life, the stock market went down.

The upside is that he's managed to find windpower though he failed to find those pesky WMD. Well at least in his state of Texas, there's heaps of windpower, so he can't mangle this one, can he? Standby:

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/george-w-bush-wind-guru

I had a great Easter away, and now am prepared to re enter the fray:

Protagoras,

Your unsupported snippets generally quoted out of context does nothing to indicate the scale of the problems with uranium mining, nor does it compare them to the issues with any other form of mining.

A smaller power station like Hazel wood burns in the order of 50 000 tonnes of coal a day for less than 0.1% of the worlds power supply, compared to Ranger Mine which moves 1/10th of the ore, and produces sufficient uranium for nearly 2% of the world's power requirements.

Considering that coal ash contains moderate levels of soluable toxins and low levels of radioactivity, but simply that the vastly different amounts of ore moved means that coal is far more dangerous per kWhr generated.

Perhaps instead of posting snippets of trivia you could try a comparison of actual environmental harm for each of the energy sources on a per kWhr basis or similar.

Further, in the absence of an alternative replacement of coal, we are left with little choice.

Fester

>> With nuclear power, the relevance is with the fourth generation reactors, which will extract 140 times more energy than current reactors, will be capable of using existing nuclear waste as a fuel, and will leave a smaller amount of waste with a short period of radioactivity. Talking about the dangers of the past is a bit like ranting about the safety of motor cars, but using data prior to the introduction of seatbelts, airbags, crumplle zones, crash testing etc.

What is relevant is the question of when viable fourth gen reactors will be available, whether they will live up to expectations, how much other technologies will develop over the period, and whether the Earth is continuing to warm as predicted. Surely a discussion of the future prospects of energy supply is of more interest than puerile exchanges of abuse? <<

I couldn't agree more!

How about we wean ourselves off both coal and 'old' nuclear?
Ok, we can't do that until 'carbon' is priced/taxed and 4th gen comes on line. In the mean time, we could have a moratorium on 'new' coal and 3rd gen while subsidies are given to alternatives instead of Old King Coal.
Unfortunately, pig squadrons are queued and ready for take-off.

Protagoras

You might not consider Barry Brook an ‘expert’ on nuclear, but some of his guests and commenters are. He is at least facilitating discussion in Oz on energy supply; have you raised your concerns there and if so, what was the outcome? Alternatively, you may have to go overseas.

What do you make of this?

“For nuclear energy to remain a long term option in the world’s energy mix, nuclear power technology development must meet sustainability goals with regard to fissile resources and waste management. The utilization of ‘breeding’ to secure long term fuel supply remains the ultimate goal of fast reactor (4th generation) development.

Plutonium recycle in fast reactors, as well as incineration/transmutation of minor actinides and long lived fission products in various hybrid reactor systems (e.g. accelerator driven systems, and fusion-fission hybrids) also offer promising waste management options. Several R&D programmes in various Member States are actively pursuing these options, along with the energy production and breeding mission of fast reactor systems. With this project, the Agency assists Member State activities by providing an umbrella for information exchange and collaborative R&D to pool resources and expertise.”

You can find out more here:

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/index.html

Qanda

When I try a new recipe for the family, I don’t serve it up on platters from which the blowflies have feasted. One first “wipes” the platters clean to protect the health of the consumers. Why do I need to go overseas when 'blowflies' in Australia's U industry are so abundant?

Further, I have “engaged” in Barry Brook’s nuclear debate on the issue of mine overburden and SOC loss to the atmosphere. Responses? Nil!

Brook, it appears is indifferent to the concerns of “scientists and doctors including a Nobel Prize-winner and two Australians of the year (who) have warned of the "mind-blowing risk" of the Olympic Dam expansion:” He arrogantly believes he is more knowledgeable than the experts:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/health-warning-for-olympic-dam-mine-expansion/story-e6freo8c-1225763015405

Additionally, Brook is dodging the numerous peer-reviewed papers on the dangers of low-level radiation to humans and non-humans.

Joe Citizen takes umbrage when the facts are obfuscated and this is apparent when Brook presents an obsolete U map of “deposits, prospective and former mines and surrounding cities or towns":

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKPYeM5QTnMJ:bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/05/carbon-footprint-of-the-olympic-dam-uranium-mine-expansion/+barry+brook+uranium+mining&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au

The harsh reality:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101724410662104548145.0004757aca0e25c4e05e5

Over fifty years ago the WHO’s assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the IAEA – founded just two years before in 1957. The impact of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.

The IAEA's mission was to "accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world".

In fact, the IAEA's main role has been to promote the interests of the nuclear power industry worldwide, and it has used the agreement to suppress the growing body of scientific information on the real health risks of nuclear radiation.

The nuclear industry has a belching tailpipe, its doors are falling off, and its alarming honking noises prevail in the 21st century.

Scientists, who refer readers to the IAEA for “expert” advice, demean their professions.

Protagoras,

Once again you quote "nobel scientist and australians of the year". With how much mining back ground?

I note in you link none of the elements from which there is a "mind blowing danger" is uranium. This is probably because Olympic dam is a copper mine that has a tiny fraction of by product of uranium.

Many of the mines leach the chemicals out in an acid process, (gold uses cyanic acid), and the vast majority of the "acid toxic waste" you bandy around is rock.

After leaching process, the rock is washed (to recover the acid with the chemicals) and then put on the dumps where it has a lower mineral level than when it was in the ground.

If this was used to stop the Olympic dam project, it would also be vaid to stop every mine in the country.

Shadow Minister

I was born into mining and members belonging to five generations of my family have had illustrious and not so illustrious careers in the mining industry.

Please refrain from your futile endeavours to sell ice to an eskimo.

Protagoras,

I was unaware mining process knowledge was hereditary.

I however, spent a short time in my youth with a consultancy designing process plants for mines, incl gold, coal, diamonds, copper, etc.

Your osmotically acquired knowledge bears little resemblance to reality, and much resemblance to the fantasy published by the greens.

"I however, spent a short time in my youth with a consultancy designing process plants for mines, incl gold, coal, diamonds, copper, etc."

Indeed Shadow Minister - I am well acquainted with having to observe and deal with sub-contractors who venture on to mine sites and then tediously profess expect knowledge overnight on the operations of mining and who occasionally leave mine sites in a body bag.

"I however spent a short time in my youth" too, working in a surveying practice (3 years out of my 36 years in mining) in the photogrammetry division. That "short" time does not make me a photogrammetrist or a surveyor, but I daresay that having generations of my family working in the mining industry since 1897, gives me a head start on the hubris one must endure from the "experts" on debate forums?

I spent 2 years designing installing and commissioning control systems for mines. Designing the control requires some depth of understanding of the procss.

I have not spent any time breaking rock, but product handling, processing and waste disposal I have more than a passing knowledge.

How much experience do you have of extraction processes? Slimes dams control and leachate disposal?

Shadow Minister, you say:

"I have not spent any time breaking rock, but product handling, processing and waste disposal I have more than a passing knowledge."

I am not demanding certified expertise, but am interested in your ideas about radioactive waste disposal. This problem, along with the nuclear weapons prolifere seems to have remained unsolved for the entire lifetime of nuclear electricity technology.

The problem seems to be growing larger
(see [PDF] Reducing the Hazards from Stored Spent Power-Reactor Fuel in the USA)
www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/pdf/11_1Alvarez.pdf

so naturally, a solution is to be appreciated!

A considered response to me Prota - despite the tete-a-tete with Shaddow.

However, it seems to me (rightly or wrongly) that you (and Sir Vivor) haven't really considered the advantages that '4th generation' nuclear power plants offer. They will actually utilise the existing nuclear wastes of the already aging 2nd and 3rd gen plants as their feedstock. 4th gen plants will incinerate and transmute actinides and long lived fission products that are currently stockpiled in all the countries that use nuclear power.

I applaud you for your stance on pollution, really. However, as we are heading for a world population of 9 billion plus by 2050, we are going to have to find alternative energy sources. Even more so if we are going to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) regardless if anyone is concerned about GHG emmissions.

We can't shut down both coal and existing nuclear plants overnight. Therefore, what is wrong with having a moratorium on 'new' coal plants or building new 3rd gen nuclear ... provided we put all our efforts into alternatives, including 4th gen?

Unless 'both' sides are prepared to work together in solving a common world-wide problem, no solution will prevail. This can not be in our common interest ... can it?

"This problem, along with the nuclear weapons prolifere seems to have remained unsolved for the entire lifetime of nuclear electricity technology."

That sounds like the problem of cost competitiveness which has dogged renewables for their entire lifetime. But that is why we are discussing the future, isn't it? At least I am considering the future for all options, not just the ones I like. And when it comes to the options I like, I dont see much point in sticking with them if other options turn out to be better.

So it would be nice to have cheap and reliable renewables and batteries in the future. But if that future includes fourth generation reactors that live up to expectations, then it can only be a better one.

If you take out the green arguements and scare tactics, then there is no debate. Clean nuclear is the only option. If governments want to include more expensive 'green alternatives' then they will, but it is not the answer and they will see that in the long term. Expensive wind farms and solar energy plants rotting with disuse.

I suppose if the government approves that now, they won't be there to pay the piper

'People' don't decide anyway.

It is what this government wants, no nuclear! But a change of government might.

Qanda and Fester believe in genIV reactors, but I do not. As I suggested in my earlier post (Tuesday's), the technology has to be applicable to politically unstable situations. In particular, I asked for

"a well-founded discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of committing one or more nations to an IFR nuclear electricity supply. Perhaps Iran could be discussed as an example."

Or Pakistan. Or Afghanistan. Or Syria. Somewhere the corporate corruption isn't so genteel, and people maybe feel they have less to lose by gumming up the works.

Given the instability of much of the world, geologically and politically, I prefer not to plan on an unforgiving technology that doesn't require to be run by a lot of Brahmanic specialists who are beholden to the sort of mega-industry that can afford to see them trained and employed. That's your Gen IV nuclear electricity system, and you still haven't really detailed or referred to how the inevitable radwaste is theoretically sequestered.

Of course clean nuclear is the only option!
Now where can we find some?
Nowhere I know!

"Now where can we find some?
Nowhere I know"

How about the same place as you will find all those cheap and wonderful batteries and renewables, the future?

"Qanda and Fester believe in genIV reactors, but I do not."

The viability of fourth generation reactors, like 24/7 solar thermal or mail batteries, are questions that can only be answered with scientific research. You might hope for certain answers, but those answers are not matters of faith.

"Perhaps Iran could be discussed as an example."

Or Pakistan. Or Afghanistan. Or Syria."

Perhaps what is needed is for nuclear power to operate under international control and supervision. If this were the case I would be quite happy to see nuclear power in any nation.

Sir Vivor,

What you do with the waste is the same as you do with most other waste products, i.e. you try to reduce its toxicity and its volume. Reprocessing takes out most of the nasties such as the highly radioactive isotopes and plutonium, most of which can be used in industry, medicine, or other reactors.

What remains is still enriched uranium (insufficiently for use but much higher than natural uranium) with higher activity than normal. This can be further enriched to the 5% required and re used, pretty much ad infinitum.

Fester says:
"Perhaps what is needed is for nuclear power to operate under international control and supervision. If this were the case I would be quite happy to see nuclear power in any nation."

Well then, let's do a hypothetical and put nuclear electricity in the hands of "any nation". Well, almost any nation: let's pepper Gen IV reactors across a selection of island states in our region:

Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Timore-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu

The above list is from
http://www.unescap.org/LDCCU/PICs-SIDs/SIDS.asp
"Small Island Developing States" in the Pacific region.

But just for good measure, we'll include Australia, French Polynesia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and New Zealand. We'll give each of these two dozen sovereign states one Gen IV reactor each, for argument's sake.

Ignoring absolutely, absolutely every other consideration, Fester, except your "effective international control and supervision", which we will assume is indeed effective, what is your ideal plan to manage and sequester the inevitable radwaste?

Shadow minister may also wish to ponder this hypothetical. Sooner or later, you have to deal with the waste.

PS Graham Y, I have done your little market research survey, but the bugger keeps popping up every time I refresh, like garbage out of a bin. I'm sure glad it isn't radioactive.

Sir Vivor, do you understand the Statutes of the International Atomic Energy Agency?

Your hypothetical strawman will not eventuate.

What do you suggest we do with the existing (and growing) stockpile of nuclear waste?

qanda, re:
"Sir Vivor, do you understand the Statutes of the International Atomic Energy Agency?"

Likely no better than the average, tertiary-educated Vanuatuan, But I assume I can read them, although I expect I might miss a few of the subtler nuances and implications. Can you post a link?

Perhaps also you could say your thing, succinctly, on the really important bit(s); the IAEA Statute(s) that transmute(s) my hypothetical into a straw man.

Sir Vivor

I have already posted a link to the IAEA, here it is again:

http://www.iaea.org/About/index.html

Please, explore it ... you will find the Statutes there.

There are alternative solutions to energy supply for small island states other than nuclear power, or fossil fuels.

I will ask again:

What do you suggest we do with the existing (and growing) stockpile of nuclear waste?

Quanda,

You say "There are alternative solutions to energy supply for small island states other than nuclear power, or fossil fuels."

Pray do tell. The single biggest problem with renewable power is that it is unreliable, and while the holy grail is to find a renewable base load supply, there is no answer yet.

The answer to waste is, as France is doing, is reprocess, re enrich and reuse as much as possible.

For small island states, renewables with diesel generator backup probably makes good sense. The big hope for these places is to have processes to convert organic waste directly into fuel.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l3728547068h487n/

Fester, you say that
"For small island states, renewables with diesel generator backup probably makes good sense."

I assume you mean that the organic waste gets converted into fuel, and the fuel is used to generate electricity.

Are you also saying that Gen IV reactors do not make good sense for small island states? Why not?

Shadow minister, you say that
"The single biggest problem with renewable power is that it is unreliable, and while the holy grail is to find a renewable base load supply, there is no answer yet."

Is this a problem not solved for a small island state by providing it with Gen IV nuclear electricity?

My question, though, in a nutshell, is what do Tasmania or Vanuatu do with the waste from a Gen IV reactor, including the superannuated reactor?

qanda,
you will have to forgive me my tardiness and inattention regarding your link to the IAEA. I will try to get around to reading the IAEA statutes by next Friday, but I expect it will be a hard slog.

Do you know of any websites that do a quick, crisp exegesis of this body of law? Do you have a blog I could visit?

I ask:
"Ignoring absolutely, absolutely every other consideration, except "effective international control and supervision", which we will assume is indeed effective, what is your ideal plan to manage and sequester the inevitable radwaste?

Fester, Shadow Minister and qanda, can any of you spell it out for the rest of us in 250 words or less?

And qanda,
you plainly understand to your own satisfaction what you are talking about, in the way the IAES statutes apply to my hypothetical. Can you help me to understand, or are you satisfied simply to insist that I read something of unknown merit, regarding my waste disposal concerns?

Renewables unreliable? UTTER NONSENSE! Take your head out of the sand.

Fester,

"For small island states, renewables with diesel generator backup probably makes good sense." This might work for a small island resort of a few hundred people, but certainly not an island state of a hundred thousand or so. The cost of diesel generation is enormous. Even the most optimistic use of renewable power requires 30% generation by a ready back up source.

Dobber,

Feel free to mention any large scale renewable source that can be guaranteed to meet peak demand in the early evening. I don't know of any.

Sir Vivor et al, the issue of waste is over exaggerated. The entire stock pile of spent uranium from the US in 50 years is 9000 tons or in volume about 500 cubic meters, or about half the volume of a single suburban Sydney house.

If this was reprocessed, and re used this could drop to 1/10th of this, at a tiny fraction of the radioactivity.

Sir Vivor

At the outset, I am not an expert in nuclear power, so what I offer here on this opinion site, is just that. Notwithstanding, I am very much involved in ‘us’ living in a more sustainable way, particularly as it relates to our use (or misuse) of our natural resources.

You have tweaked my interest in Vanuatu and for that I thank you – are you really a dinki-di Vanuatuan?

Anyway ... as I understand from perusing Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanuatu - my original thoughts on Vanuatu (as a ‘small island state’) acquiring nuclear power still stands. Sure, hypothetically and theoretically, Vanuatu and other SIDS could benefit from 4th generation nuclear – but it won’t happen anytime soon, for a number of reasons. Let’s take a closer look at Vanuatu:

1. It is an island archipelago consisting of approximately 82 relatively small, geologically newer islands of volcanic origin (65 of them inhabited with a total population of about 220,000), with about 1,300 km (north to south) distance between the outermost islands.

2. Total area about 12,000 square kilometres of which its (productive) land base is limited to roughly only one third of that. Most of the islands are steep, with unstable soils, and little permanent freshwater.

3. The shorelines are usually rocky with fringing reefs and no continental shelf, dropping rapidly into the ocean depths.

4. There are several active volcanoes as well as several underwater ones. Volcanic activity is common with an ever-present danger of a major eruption.

5. Vanuatu is in an active and ever present earthquake zone with the threat of resultant Tsunamis also ever present.

6. The four mainstays of the economy are agriculture, tourism, off-shore financial services, and cattle. There is substantial fishing activity but this industry doesn't bring in much foreign exchange. There is minimal industrial activity requiring high end power supply.

7. It’s currently heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, largely for transport and electricity generation. This energy supply typically accounts for more than 12 per cent of its imports.

Cont’d

Cont’d

8. Vanuatu is heavily dependent on indigenous biomass fuels for cooking and crop drying. It will continue to be heavily dependent on petroleum fuels and biomass both in the short and medium term. Unfortunately, the current uses of those fuels tend to be highly inefficient (and polluting).

9. The renewable energy resources potential for Vanuatu is encouraging. There is a substantial solar resource capacity (still not developed to its full potential). Likewise the potential for wind power generation (but is typically variable, both within and between its islands). Hydroelectric power is a possibility but only for some islands. Biomass as Fester points out is common.

10. The potential for geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion and wave energy are also genuine viable alternative energy resources (sorry Shadow Minister) - particularly for the larger more populated islands e.g. Efate.

11. Unfortunately, several constraints to the large-scale commercial use of renewable energy resources remain, including technology development, investment costs, available indigenous skills and management capabilities.

12. The use of renewable energy resources as substantial commercial fuels by Vanuatu will be dependent on the development and commercial production of alternative technologies – if Vanuatu can’t fund solar thermal (for example), there is little chance that they can finance nuclear.

_______________

Shadow Minister (to Fester)

>> "For small island states, renewables with diesel generator backup probably makes good sense." This might work for a small island resort of a few hundred people, but certainly not an island state of a hundred thousand or so. The cost of diesel generation is enormous. Even the most optimistic use of renewable power requires 30% generation by a ready back up source. <<

As far as I understand, the largest ‘constrained’ population on Vanuatu is about 50,000 – on Efate. Are you seriously suggesting nuclear power for the whole of Efate, one-hundredth the population size of Sydney ... that doesn’t even have one-thousandth the power requirement?

Shadow, I appreciate where you are coming from but, you really do have to consider economies of scale - realities if you prefer.

Shadow Minister

"This might work for a small island resort of a few hundred people, but certainly not an island state of a hundred thousand or so."

I thought that this was the type of community Sir Vivor was referring to.

"The cost of diesel generation is enormous."

You are looking at a bit under 4 kwh per litre for the larger diesel generators (100kw or greater). But remember, we are considering the future, not the present. My speculation is that the technology to convert dry biomass to liquid fuel will develop over that time. With large amounts of feedstock available, these communities may be able to produce liquid fuel cheaply, so making diesel power generation cost effective compared to other power sources.

qanda,
No I am not a Vanuatuan, I'm Australian, and I know bugger-all about Vanuatu, so thank you for the thoughtful discussion of Vanuatu and its energy requirements.

Vanuatu was one of the two dozen states I mentioned (niggly point - French Polynesia is part of France)and it seems that some folks think nuclear electricity is inappropriate for this location.

There are 23 other pacific countries mentioned, and I am still wondering what they will do with the radwaste, even if it shrinks to 1/10 the volume, through consumption by a Gen IV reactor.

Shadow Minister, can you tell us about the delivery-boy mechanics of reprocessing and reusing radwastes in your chosen sample of the two dozen states? Also, are you going to be able to reprocess and reuse the Gen IV reactors when they reach the end of their useful lives, or will they not be radioactive by then?

Shadow minister, I am assuming that, as "an electrical engineer that has designed and built large power systems", you are interested in economies of scale, and would apply this design principle across the geographic area where radwaste is to be generated, regardless of how piffling the volumes are predicted to be, because after all, it is radioactive waste subject to international regulations.

So, Shadow Minister, are you interested in the problem, or are you happy to leave this unsolved difficulty
to the whimsy of imagination - eg

Honey, I shrunk the reactor!

(That's OK dear, we can use it to heat the bathtowels)

“The answer to waste is, as France is doing, is reprocess, re enrich and reuse as much as possible.”

The above information is a dumbing down of the realities Shadow Minister and I would request (for the sake of accuracy and transparency) that in future,
you provide links to substantiate such claims:

The reality is 'that close to 890,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste has been produced in France by the end of 2004.

'Almost 40 percent of this amount is linked to reprocessing and this total does not account for some 12,000 m3 of waste from the reprocessing plant in Marcoule that was dumped into the sea.'

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS148422+15-Sep-2009+PRN20090915

“Sir Vivor et al, the issue of waste is over exaggerated. The entire stock pile of spent uranium from the US in 50 years is 9000 tons or in volume about 500 cubic meters,”

Another furphy Shadow Minister unless you can show me how you've managed to convert 50,000 metric tonnes of radioactive waste into 9,000 tons?:

http://southcarolina.sierraclub.org/legislation/tracker/H.3545.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/spent_fuel/ussnfdata.html

http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-11.html

Radioactive waste accumulation (in cubic metres) In the UK goes something like this:

As at 1 April 2007:

HLW:........1,400
ILW:..... 364,000
LLW:..... .17,000

Total radioactivity of stocks (4 TBq):

HLW:..... 36,000,000
ILW:..........2,200,000
LLW:................ <100

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:fHfoUMHgyOQJ:www.nda.gov.uk/documents/loader.cfm%3Furl%3D/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm%26pageid%3D28862+nda+uk+nuclear+waste+volume+2009&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjpWK1TSCevDl9OHnNM_d0wcONHxOYGEKVmPK6WcQD7y7tpcVpGjvRwoL__Z6aey71MYUlvKYd-_uZWVdt-3yQZhXUwn0sB2P_gNChp-o4dSUfqVrIzuGjROSI8qdPSB51p_zKE&sig=AHIEtbQB0Wtgtsahwx3ogyENinAyt_YVZQ

Hi Protagoras,

Protagoras,
That's about the longest link I recall seeing, but it works.

You can shrink these things by using

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

Try
http://tinyurl.com/ydrtr4z
and you will get the same result, with a link far easier to email. You can also do a custom name.

but it's no good for warming towels.

The presentation of the nuclear waste hazard gives more cause to pursue the development of fourth generation reactors. A reactor running a one gigawatt generator will utilise over 99% of the fissile energy of the nuclear fuel and produces a tonne of waste per year, the radioactivity of which will decay to background levels within a few decades with some of the proposed designs. And there is the prospect of treating longer lived isotopes like iodine 129 (<7 kg produced as waste per year, and a billionth the radioactivity of I 131) with transmutation.

With a viable generation four reactor, waste is a comparative non-issue compared to the waste from current reactors.

As Geoff Davies has already commented the debate about nuclear is a distraction.
Hansen has argued that there is a need to respond urgently to climate change. For those who accept that proposition it follows that nuclear is not part of the mix.
If you want to take a closer look at those arguments you could have a look here http://groups.google.com.au/group/nuclear-debate-february-5-2010 Mark Diesendorf's power point presentation identifies which existing renewable energy technologies are available now and could be implemented with a fraction of the lead time required for Nuclear.
Of course the elephant in the room remains population - if we plan to increase our population to 35 million by 2050 it will make it even more difficult to address climate change. (this does not apply to climate change sceptics since they live in a different universe where different law of physics apply.)

Agreed Baygon. Nuclear proponents might believe they're informed about nuclear energy but they're less acquainted with the imminent global environmental threats and trends.

By 2050 it will be too late to do anything about climate change with the puny 25 nuclear power plants the Switowski Report recommends to provide just 30% of our electricity. And why would any sane person believe that Australia would even have 25 reactors by 2050 anyway?

Gen IV reactors are not commercially available so do we invest in reactors that are technologically dead and dangerous and have to be resurrected as the US is doing, much to the disgust of a discerning public?

Further, are uranium supplies less than 50 years, as Ian Lowe argued, 85 years, as the Switkowski report argued, or, as the House Standing Committee on Industry and Resources argued, 270 years? Or do we believe the unqualified nuke pushers who now tell us uranium supplies are infinite because of the Gen IV technology? But when? When, pray tell? When all hell has broken loose, that’s when.

Australia’s greed merchants are only interested in flogging as much uranium to other nations as possible. How much will be left for Australia’s needs, considering Gen IVs remain a distant possibility and are too little too late?

The long term aim of the fusion ITER operating stage at Cadarache, France is scheduled to be dismantled after 2040 but that doesn’t mean that industrial exploitation will be immediately possible following the experiment. When will the creation of DEMO, the prototype fusion reactor that actually produces electricity be available? The 22nd Century?

We need to invest in new energy sources right now or continue to suffer the pain which is being inflicted on us by an outraged planet whose oceans, air, lands and living species are also contaminated with military and nuclear radioactive fall-out, a dire and infinite calamity which remains “out of sight out of mind” to those asleep at the wheel.

Good stuff Sir Vivor – thanks for the tip. Now I can do one thing more than just drive this contraption - yay!

Fester and Quanda,

I was not proposing nukes for small island states, I was just critical of the diesel gen solution, and still am. Gas turbines are still far cheaper. Your proposal of wave energy is a waste of time as there are no commercial systems working yet.

Protagoras, I mixed my figures up, there is about 9000 cubic meters of spent nuclear fuel at 47 000 tons (20 tonnes uranium = 1 cubic meter.) But this still only equals a soccer field less than 2m deep.

If reprocessing is done, with re enrichment, this quantity can be reduced, and the radioactivity from non uranium isotopes (iodine and plutonium) removed. U234 will still remain and be a bit of a handling issue.

The latest ZS proposal is for 50 reactors by 2050 that supply 50% of the power. These would be Gen III type reactors and or CANDU type reactors (not GenII) which generate a fraction of the waste.

A large scale alternative to fossil fuels or nuclear does not exist either. If nuclear is not employed, there is zero chance of meeting any emissions targets.

The waste you quote as generated include all the mine tailings, clothing etc, most of which has such a low level of radio activity as not to be a serious threat.

Nuclear needs to be part of the solution. There are real concerns - proliferation and safe handling and storage of nuclear materials and wastes - but on the other hand there is AGW. The near certainty of the latter scares me much more than the problems surrounding nuclear as I suspect the problems surrounding nuclear are more more easily solved than AGW - and without nuclear AGW will only be harder to deal with. Still, when it comes to value for the R&D buck, I suspect that low cost production methods for solar and energy storage systems has to be right up there even if development of IFR nuclear and improved waste disposal is deserving of investment. Definitely renewables need to be brought into play right now - let the real costs, with fossil fuels prices including an impost for the future costs it's imposing on us, decide where the main thrust of conversion to low emissions should go.

I think that the Greens investment in anti-nuclear is less of a problem than the Liberal/Nationals investment in climate science denial - or Labor's unfounded faith in Carbon Capture and Storage and it's use as an excuse to promote ever greater global dependence on fossil fuels.

I don't think that anti-nuclear sentiment is unchangeable - a lot of small 'g' greens are coming to concede nuclear may not be the worst option - and a genuine bipartisan approach to emissions reduction could and would bypass the Greens and probably it's anti-nuclear stance. But as long as mainstream politics panders to denialism and the export mining industry no such approach is possible.

“20 tonnes uranium = 1 cubic meter.” Well I doubt that calculation is correct either Shadow Minister but let’s look at a bit of trivia I’ve retrieved from my archives.

‘The excess of 704,000 metric tonnes of uranium hexafluoride in the US Department's of Energy inventory is over 1.5 billions pounds. The entire inventory of 62,000 cylinders (2007) weighs more than all eight of the Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers combined!

‘Stacking 62,000 standard DUF6 cylinders end to end would make a tower 720,000 feet tall! That's over 136 miles high!

‘By 2007, these cylinders ranged in age up to 56 years and come in various models.. Most of the cylinders are carbon steel, and they are subject to corrosion.’ (US DOE)

Uranium from granite

To fuel one reactor with a nominal capacity of 1 GW(e) each year about 162 tonnes natural uranium has to be extracted from the earth’s crust. The mass of 162 tonnes uranium is in 40 million tonnes of granite.

The rock has to be crushed, transported, ground to fine powder and chemically treated with sulfuric acid and other chemicals to extract the uranium compound from the mass. Assumed an overall extraction yield of Y = 0.50, a very optimistic assumption, 80 million tonnes granite have to be processed.

This is a block 100 metres wide, 100 metres high and three kilometres long!

Meanwhile, 60% of greenhouse gas emissions don’t come from electricity generation.

Why are nuclear pushers so anal retentive? Hmm? They continue to ignore the 60% GHGs from other mining (including lime and cement manufacturing) transport, agriculture, deforestation, land grabs and the mere fact that humans are breeding like rabbits.

Let’s first lobby globally for simple vasectomies for all those hit and run deadbeats (black, white and brindle) who prey on gullible women (with or without consent) abandon the mother and children and go on to shag as many others as they possibly can.

Astonishingly, these deadbeats say it's the women who should be "educated!" The Australian deadbeat fugitives and evaders alone, conveniently forget they’ve left Australian taxpayers with a $1 billion debt.

Protagoras,

Look up the Specific gravity of uranium. It is about 19

1 cubic meter of water = 1 ton thus 1 m3 U = 19 tons, 1 ton U =1/19 ton.

The block of granite you describe is 90m tons, nearly twice that Ranger mine exhumes. Ranger produces more than 5000tons of uranium.

I see maths is not your strong point.

There are a number of different threads in response to the original article.
One relates to those who are concerned about AGW and the need to reduce emissions fast. Nuclear is not the solution to that problem - we can reduce our emissions to zero by 2020 using existing renewable technologies. The lead time for constructing nuclear power plants means that we would be lucky to have on stream by 2020 and even then they will not be able to supply all of our energy needs.
An other relates to the argument that nuclear technology has improved to the point that we can build safe power plants.
I do not dispute that the technology has improved. However, the mere fact that technology has improved does not mean that it will be fully utilised - given that power generation is in private hands the cheapest technologies will be used.
The cost factor is what tends to make a mockery of all of these posts - we want to address AGW but are not prepared to make the investment in our future by making the hard political decisions of banning inefficient appliances and work practices. Renewables are condemned on the grounds of cost - politicians do not want a spike in energy prices. Finally the few puny changes that are made are negated by a host of other government policies such as population growth.
We are debating the technology but the technology is not the problem - irrespective of what technologies are used there still needs to be the political will to recognize that to make the transition to a sustainable economy some pain will be involved.

Agree Baygon.

I often experience a range of feelings (disappointment, frustration, sadness, anger, pessimism, etc - but never optimism) when discussing short to medium term energy supply and sustainable living.

Why? Because, at the end of the day, there is no real 'will' to change - either from the 'business as usual' mindset, pollies who can't see past the next election, or the joe/jill citizen who think that future energy is for future citizens to deal with. As to the visionaries, there ain't enough of em' with the capacity to do something about it.

Cost? A price must be put on carbon emissions, otherwise all bets are off. One thing is for sure, energy will cost more - how we distribute (and compensate for) these costs will be a measure of how advanced a society we are.

Shadow Minister

re your earlier calculation,

Did your calculation include the specific gravity of granite? It seems to me a good basis for comparison.

Were you calculating the tonnes of uranium metal, or U235 isotope, the object of enrichment? The latter is a small fraction of a small fraction of the granite volume.

What fractions did you use?

BAYGON,
I appreciate the AGW problem, and its demoralising nature.

There are at least two elephants in the room, population growth (largely under control on a global basis) and greatly increasing rates of energy consumption due to industrial development. The latter elephant is the bigger rogue.

The Limits to Growth, published in 1971, has been updated. I really ought to buy a copy and send it to our current PM and Minister of Population (or whatever the honorific) just to see what kind of bland reply I get back in the snail mail.

Sir Vivor,

Granite has an SG of 2.7 (I used 3 as an approximation) the figures I took from the Ranger mine.

Uranium is about $100 per kg. The example Protagoras gave was 4g per ton with 2g/t extracted. 2g is 20c worth, to mine 1 tonne of ore, crush, treat and remove the metal.

For gold at $1000/ounce 5g/ton is marginal.

For this grade of ore, in situ leeching is used.

Baygon has claimed "we can reduce our emissions to zero by 2020 using existing renewable technologies" and must be aware of technology that everyone else has missed. Perhaps he could enlighten us.

Shadow minister
Beyond Zero Emissions has published a strategic plan (executive summary is available here http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/preview-exec-sum14.pdf.
Similarly the Rocky Mountain Institute has produced a similar plan for the US.
The Germans have identifies a combination of wind, solar and methane as being capable of powering its economy.
On the other side of the ledger there is an online publication (just the numbers?) that looks at using existing technology to meet the UK's energy needs and finds it comes up short.
What seems to be emerging is that there are countries that can apply existing technologies to reduce their emissions to zero.
My concern is that it often people only look at replacing existing consumption without also looking at efficiencies for example the shaw system http://www.airconserve.com.au/products_smac.htm has had some spectacular results but the government is reluctant to adopt it. (yet another Australian invention that has gone overseas Johnson Electronics has bought the international rights)
In an earlier post I referred to Mark Diesendorf's presentation at the debate I organized on the fifth of February - he too identified the technologies that have been commericially proven. In addition to those that are commercially proven there are a host of technologies that are waiting in the wings (gen IV reactors are in this group) that show promise but still need to be thoroughly tested.
In short a combination of energy efficiencies and the application of existing renewable technologies can, within a decade, reduce our emissions to zero.
BUT as I have stated it is not really a technology issue but one of political will. Furthermore we know how it works - once there is evidence that these technologies will be supported in the market place we will find that the investment funds will become available for further technological development. (Diverting the subsidies from the fossil fuel industry would be a good first step.)

Shadow Minister, I don't get it. I asked about volumes and you responded with dollars. Please, let's get our apples and oranges and lawn kranskies sorted, and our fractions, (eg apples per orange, oranges per kransky, etc) sorted, too. you can't expect to answer the question by throwing in yet another factor to convert.

I'm happy with your choice of a value for the SpG of granite, at 2.7 - the range given by the CRC Handbook, 25th edition, 1941, is from 2.64 to 2.76, and 2.7 seems fair enough.

But back to the earlier questions, and if you don't want to answer them, just say so:

"Did your [earlier calculation include the specific gravity of granite? It seems to me a good basis for comparison.

"Were you calculating the tonnes of uranium metal, or U235 isotope, the object of enrichment? The latter is a small fraction of a small fraction of the granite volume.

What fractions did you use?"

If you don't want to say, just say so.

“I see maths is not your strong point.”

Shadow Minister – If you paid more attention to other posters’ information, you would understand that the maths are not mine. The information was extracted from my archives as I advised, therefore I am merely the messenger:

http://www.stormsmith.nl/

“Ranger produces more than 5000tons (sic) of uranium.” I think you mean 5,000 “tonnes” but who’s quibbling when one extracts info from the dubious writings of the international IAEA or WNA?

Nevertheless it’s an interesting figure SM because the tailings’ leak at Ranger, operating in the surrounds of Kakadu Park, is also 5,000 times above the normal level and contains all the daughter products from the uranium decay series which amounts to about 15 different radionuclides according to the Supervising Scientist, Alan Hughes.

The leaking radionuclides include radium which has a half life of some 1602 years from memory and is about one million times more active than uranium. Radon is the progeny of radium 226 which therefore makes radon (3.7 days half-life) emissions practically infinite. Can you do the maths on that one SM?

Do you know how long the leak has been occurring SM? Ten years? Fifteen years? Why do you persist with the nonsense that the nuclear industry is emissions free?

“For this grade of ore, in situ leeching is used.”

“Leeching?” “Leeches?” Love the Freudian slip SM - particularly from one who professes knowledge on mining technologies.

Protagoras,

No wonder your posts are full of rubbish. Ceedata is a one man protest band that specializes in repackaging the myths published on other websites without ever bothering to check the facts.

Particularly amusing is fact sheet No4 "At the end of 2005 the world known recoverable uranium resources amounted to about 3.6 million tonnes (t)" (With a bit of prospecting it is now closer to 15mt.)

These one man bands give themselves authoritative titles like "Oxford Research group" and spend their time churning out new "research" without even lifting their bums off their chairs.

Try and use you brain to filter out the rubbish otherwise you are just letting these crackpots do your thinking for you.

Sir Vivor,

The earlier example that P gave was about 4g of natural uranium per ton(ne) of rock extracted.

P's cal had a block of tailings 100m x 100m x 3000m = 30 000 000 m3 or roughly 90 million tons granite extracted for the production of 165t of natural uranium, which is clearly ridiculous.

“These one man bands give themselves authoritative titles like "Oxford Research group" and spend their time churning out new "research" without even lifting their bums off their chairs.”

Shadow Minister – Your ignorance is becoming tedious and my time is valuable. I have asked previously that you provide links to support your jabberwocky but alas, none have been provided. Instead, you continue peddling falsehoods and exaggerations.

Storm Van Leeuwen has been publishing papers (including peer reviewed) on energy since at least the mid eighties and he is not affiliated with the Oxford Research Group (ORG) as you would have us believe:

http://www.stormsmith.nl/publications/EnergyPolicyJune85.pdf

Rather the ORG publishes Van Leeuwen's papers. Furthermore, among ORG’s staff, consultants, patrons and trustees is an impressive array of people trained in nuclear physics, economics, global and human security, international relations, atomic weapons, medicine, international law, armed conflict etc etc. The research group has also been established since the 80’s:

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/about_us

Furthermore, all ethical scientists and researchers refer to the publications of others from which they have drawn their conclusions as you may observe in this peer-reviewed paper (74 references) and yet another paper which you will conveniently refuse to acknowledge:

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/4/1/17

The IAEA and the WNA do not provide any references so they can spin as much as they like and it is not so strange to witness their propensity to copy each others information and then provide the details to an unwitting public.

“Particularly amusing is fact sheet No4 "At the end of 2005 the world known recoverable uranium resources amounted to about 3.6 million tonnes (t)" (With a bit of prospecting it is now closer to 15mt.)”

“ A bit of prospecting?” What your duplicitous post actually means SM is that the WNA and the IAEA (2009) claimed there were 5.5 million tonnes of “discovered” resources by the end of 2006? or 2007? (who would know?) and the “undiscovered” resources are 10.5 million tonnes (“200 hundred years supply” at current consumption (WNA). So would that be high grade or low grade ore SM and is their crystal ball for hire?

Protagoras,

You obviously neither have the desire nor intellectual horse power to vet the drivel you so happily regurgitate. If you actually bothered to read completely the links you quote you might not appear such a twit.

What links would you like for the SG of uranium, or granite? Puleez!

The calcs you posted are so obviously rubbish, and I notice that you have not tried to defend them. Non of Storm Van Leeuwen's papers are taken seriously by those who actually have real experience in the field. These calcs of yours are not the only ones he "accidently" dropped a few zeros.

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

" among ORG’s staff, consultants, patrons and trustees is an impressive array of people trained in nuclear physics" Please name one currently on the staff.

I notice that Desmond Tutu is a patron of theirs. If you listen to the you tube clip it is clear that while he gives notional support, he has never heard of them before.

The uranium resources quoted are recoverable at US$86 /kg. Also mentioned was that there are orders of magnitude of uranium available at higher costs.

Considering enriched uranium makes up 0.7c/kWhr this is clearly not a limitation.

“The uranium resources quoted are recoverable at US$86 /kg”

”But, but, but ahhhhh......ahem” Shadow Minister (as the mad monk would protest), just how can 10.5 million tonnes of U be assessed when it has not been discovered?:

http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/meetings/PDFplus/2009/cn175/URAM2009/Opening%20Session/3_112a_Ganguly_IAEA.pdf

And Mr Tutu has never heard of ORG but supports them? Wot? That’s some oxymoron! [Deleted for abuse] you then resort to Wikipedia. Perhaps you’re unaware that even nuclear despots are permitted to edit this nonsense and "Wikipedia’s" drawn its conclusions predominantly from the open pit Rossing uranium mine in Namibia – a JV between Rio Tinto and the Government of Iran? “Puleeze!”

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future was announced earlier this year, tasked with developing a new strategy for nuclear waste management in the US. This could potentially include options such as reprocessing and recycling of spent fuel - a major motivation for cancelling the Yucca Mountain Project.

However, sixteen nuclear corporations have now filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Energy seeking a suspension of payments into the country's nuclear waste fund because of the cancellation. That reminds me of Canadian miner, Mega Uranium’s arrogant threat to sue the Western Australian government if they maintained the ban on the mining of uranium.

Despots, hypocrites and liars rule!

[Deleted for abuse and poster suspended for a week.]

Protagoras,

[Deleted for abuse]If the IAEA says that there is 5.7m tons of Uranium recoverable at x price, it does not mean that only 5.7m recoverable tons have been discovered. [Deleted for abuse.]

Similarly when I said that Tutu did not know of the O.R.G BEFORE, I obviously meant before they contacted him, not when he was talking about them. [Deleted for abuse.]

Although I do not consider Wikipedia to be authoritative is has the benefit of often being succinct. To follow this more closely try this link. [Deleted for abuse]

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/SeviorSLSRebutall

The issue with Yucca mountain is that if the waste is reprocessed, the facility will have nothing to store.

[Deleted for abuse.]

[Deleted for abuse]

I wonder if there is any value in responding to people who clearly are not interested in evaluating their own position in the light of alternative arguments.
Thus Shadow Minister seems to be merely an apologist for the nuclear industry. (Please note an apologist may or may not be a paid employee)
In an earlier post he asked me to provide evidence that it is possible for Australia to make a switch to 100% renewable energy for the generation of electricity. He may not have liked the response for I have heard nothing since.
Or perhaps he is less than impressed by my reliance on Amory Lovins - Lovins has consistently demonstrated the shortcomings of nuclear power:
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E05-04_MicropowerDatabase
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E04-02_EnergyEfficiencyTaxonomicOverview
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/S80-02_NuclearPowerNuclearBombs
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E90-20_NegawattRevolution

These are just four taken at random. The last one of these describes one of the critical problems that is ignored in the climate change debate - the failure of governments to demand that business uses energy more efficiently.
It could so easily be done - instead of allow a tax deduction for the energy used the govt could give a tax rebate for energy efficiencies. (The formula would have to be designed with some care to ensure that the efficiencies are real and not merely the product of imaginative accounting.)

Baygon,

I asked for examples of commercially operating renewable plants. The salt energy storage while a "comparative" cheap energy storage method is constrained by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which would result in significantly lower efficiencies, and to add this on top of normal solar collectors would mean that the cost is significantly higher than for straight solar.

As the technology is still in the development phase, cost figures on construction and operation are either not available or purely conjecture. (I stand to be corrected), but I would guess that they would be at least twice that per kWhr of straight solar.

The slides showing a requirement of 40bn a year would therefore be wildly optimistic, let alone the simple logistics of a project that size, and the crippling of the economy.

There is this 20 kw storage battery, predicted to cost $2000 and last for 10 years of daily cycling, currently being tested in Utah:

http://www.naturalnews.com/028557_batteries_home_power.html

I think that the adoption of new technology is more a matter of economics than political will. The truth is that the dominance of coal fired power stations has been the ability to deliver electricity at a lower cost than other options. With technology like Ceramatec's battery, baseload power from renewables is conceivable, but the cost of keeping the grid would add over ten cents per kwh to the cost of electricity currently.

There is still a long way for renewables to go to obviate the economic incentive for developing fourth generation reactors.

Fester - the prime reason that coal fired plants are cost effective is that the community picks up the externalities. If all power plants operated on the basis that they had to factor in the costs of the externalities into their operation then I think you will find that renewables would win hands down.

"If all power plants operated on the basis that they had to factor in the costs of the externalities into their operation then I think you will find that renewables would win hands down."

Yes, but against that you would have to weigh the benefit from cheap electricity.

The only way I can see renewables winning is by obviating the distribution grid. At over two thirds the cost of electricity, it is the dearest component of the current system. Yet when I read claims that we can meet Australia's electricity demand with renewables, it is in the context of a national grid. In much of Australia, it might be the case within twenty years that it is cheaper to have a combination of solar cells, solar hot water, an efficient storage battery, and a backup generator fueled by biodiesel. If this were the case, there would not be a great economic advantage in building fourth generation reactors.

Fester - I agree with your observation regarding the distribution costs. I have often wondered how the industrial revolution would have unfolded had Faraday predated the steam engine. Steam engines were only practical in large factories so when electricity became a reality there was a need to generate sufficient power to drive the machines in the factories. Electricity for domestic consumption was merely a collateral benefit.
In an ideal world we would be looking at developing the technologies that are firstly more efficient so that our needs can be met with an average energy demand of 5kwh per day. There are a number of homes which have been designed so that they generate that amount of energy.
We are in a transition process - regardless of what people believe about climate change or peak oil the reality is that in the next twenty years or so we will have to reinvent the way we live or find that the world will collapse around our ears. You can either see it as an exiting opportunity or as a threat.

Fester is spot on with the issue of distribution costs. The new battery that he linked to could help tremendously with this.

The distribution costs are due to the cost of installing and maintaining equipment, and are considerably higher for small demands (or supplies)

For example, the average cost of actually generating power is about 2c /kWhr, and a large factory consumer near the grid will buy it for about 4c, whilst a small concern will pay 10c, and a domestic user 25-30c.

The same would apply for generation. A good example of this some decades ago in Cape Town the city's need for power was growing rapidly, and with no local coal or gas the two options it faced were either the installation of massive new lines 1400km to the new power stations, or the construction of a nuclear station in the city. The cost of tbe lines, the impedance and losses easily justified the Koeburg plant.

Nuclear plants could be built in the Latrobe valleys next to the worst emitting brown coal stations such as Hazelwood, and commissioned with no additional distribution costs.

The renewable generation would be built far from the cities, and the cost of distribution would far exceed that of the generation itself.

"One reason for making the choice of hard-path vs. soft-path as
explicit as I have is that it focuses our minds on the choice. We
haven't really thought enough about energy—just as we haven't
about water, the next resource crunch."

Amory Lovins, 1976

See http://www.rmi.org/cms/Download.aspx?id=1400&file=Energy+Strategy+-+The+Road+Not+Taken+(Reprint+from+Foreign+Affairs%2c+1976).pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/Energy-Strategy-the-Road-Not

Amory Lovins and HT Odum will be remembered as the key energy policy analysts and activists of the late 20th century.

For Odum's legacy, see (for example):

[PDF] EMERGY EVALUATION Howard T. Odum Environmental Engineering ... File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
by HT Odum - Cited by 22 - Related articles

Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting, Emergy and Decision Making. ..... 5 Odum, H.T. and N Petersen. 1995. Simulation and evaluation with energy ...
www.epa.gov/aed/html/.../emergycourse/.../EmergyEval.pdf - Similar

Environmental Accounting Using Emergy: Evaluation of the State of ...
and tools are used in Emergy Analysis (Odum 1996,. Odum 1994) but these are ...
www.epa.gov/nheerl/publications/files/wvevaluationposted.pdf

Emergy Short Course Syllabus | Atlantic Ecology Division (AED ...
EPA/600/R-05/006. Brown, M.T. and T.R. McClanahan 1992. Emergy ...
www.epa.gov/aed/html/collaboration/emergycourse/.../syllabus.html
More results from epa.gov »

"STATEMENT ATTRIBUTABLE TO THE SPOKESPERSON FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
ON THE 24TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER
New York, 26th April 2010

"Today we mark the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and honour the sacrifices made by those who died, and those who survived.

We remember the hundreds of emergency workers who responded to the accident; the more than 330,000 people who were uprooted from their homes; the thousands of children who later contracted thyroid cancer.

We commemorate the heroic efforts of those who took on the task of clearing up after the disaster; and the bravery of millions of people in the surrounding area, who have lived with a legacy of fear for their health and livelihoods for more than two decades.
The UN’s strategy to address the lingering consequences of Chernobyl is aimed at fostering the region’s long-term development and providing people with the information they need to lead safe and healthy lives. The Secretary-General reaffirms the commitment of the United Nations to the Decade of Recovery and Sustainable Development for Chernobyl-affected regions proclaimed by the General Assembly, which began in 2006, and to the UN Chernobyl Action Plan.
The Secretary-General also welcomes the initiative of Ukraine, co-sponsored by Belarus and the Russian Federation, to convene an international conference on the 25th anniversary of the accident in April 2011, to mark progress towards the goal of a return to normal life.
One of the most important global lessons of the Chernobyl disaster is the importance of strengthening the safety and security of nuclear material and facilities. The Secretary-General welcomes the renewed commitment of world leaders to this issue, seen at the Nuclear Security Summit meeting in Washington DC last week.

Communities affected by Chernobyl are demonstrating resilience in coping with the consequences of the disaster, but they continue to need our support.

The UN stands ready to do everything in its power to further the region’s revival. The Secretary-General calls on the international community to support the full recovery of all those affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

Is it too much to ask that 'something' be decided. While everyone here seems to be coming down on the side of nuclear, and is it too much to ask the government to actually make a decision for the long term? Perhaps they don't see themselves here for the long term and are unable to do so? Any political decision from either party would do. People in NSW are thoroughly fed up with procrastination on rpovision of power.

RaeBee say "any port in a storm", but:

"Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book
NEW YORK, New York, April 26, 2010 (ENS) -

"Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility.

"The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.

"The authors examined more than 5,000 published articles and studies, most written in Slavic languages and never before available in English.

"The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power.

"No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere."

"Their findings are in contrast to estimates by the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency that initially said only 31 people had died among the "liquidators," those approximately 830,000 people who were in charge of extinguishing the fire at the Chernobyl reactor and deactivation and cleanup of the site.

"The book finds that by 2005, between 112,000 and 125,000 liquidators had died."

& more
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html

Sir Vivor

Re your last post to RaeBee - do you have an opinion on your link yourself?

You appear to be discounting Gen IV (much better) reactors altogether.

qanda,
I am opposed to GenIV reactors. This opinion is consistent with my prior links, for example to Rocky Mountain Institute, in a previous post. I think Amory Lovins argues the case against Gen IV reactors much more authoritatively than I. Check back for the link if you wish

Each reactor has security issues, radioactive fuel and waste transport issues, proliferation and life cycle legacy issues. Generation IV reactors, however gee-whiz they may be, are not an exception to the rules. The more reactors you have, the more issues. Each one is a potential disaster, particularly in an unstable geopolitical environment like our planet. If you target any one of these reactors with a nuclear device, however delivered, the disaster is multiplied, obscenely. Again, check my previous links.

Amory Lovins and his then partner, Hunter Lovins, wrote convincingly of the unbreakable links between nuclear electricity and nuclear weapons about 30 years ago, in Energy/War. The current sabre rattling toward Iran and its nuclear electricity program is very strong evidence of his point of view.

Ok, thanks Sir Vivor for the clarification.

Unfortunately, there are currently over 500 nuclear reactors in the world today.

China and India are building many more.

Russia is about to do the same.

USA is re-instituting their nuclear power program.

Notwithstanding the reasons or the sabre rattling you point to - for some inexplicable reason, the world is embarking on an ever increasing nuclear power program.

Given this IS happening and nothing will change that (despite protestations to the contrary), it would seem rational (if not logical) that we develop and do it with Gen IV (it won't happen over night).

We could increase the roll out of other high and low end energy alternatives, while at the same time decommissioning the older style nuclear reactors.

And the big CO2 emitters will slowly wean themselves off ol' King Coal.

And every country that has them will decommission their nuclear armaments.

Well, perhaps the last point is asking too much :)

Errata

There are currently over 400 nuclear reactors in the world today.

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm

As I am unwilling to pay for this science fantasy novel, I am not in the position to comment on individual calculations and assumptions, but I am sure that it will be an instant best seller. This is because it tells the anti nuke activists what they want to hear.

The reality on the ground is very different. The projected deaths due to cancer etc in the UN estimate was based on the results from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for which there was little clean up or precautions taken.

In the population in the worst fall out areas, clean up precautions and frequent early cancer detections were implemented amongst the few million people living there, with the result that while there were about 4000 additional cases of thyroid cancer, the early detection and treatment resulted in only a small fraction of these dying.

Finally, Chernobyl which is the lightning rod for the anti nuke activists was build by a soviet system that cared little for its citizens, and built a system which was deficient even in its day, compared to those built in the west, and bears as little resemblance to the Gen III and IV reactors of today and tomorrow as the ships Columbus used compares the new Queen Mary II.

The nuclear debate is alive and well, it seems, but the debate is not served well by the IAEA and the WHO, who have been accused by a range of experts of downplaying the evidence of low level radiation health effects, most recently published by the NYAS (see my comments directly above).

The IAEA has a conflicted brief, dating back to 1953, when Dwight D Eisenhower, then President of the US, addressed the UN, proposing the idea of the IAEA. See:
http://www.iaea.org/About/history_speech.

Eisenhower made a number of proposals, including that:
“The Governments principally involved, to the extent permitted by elementary prudence, to begin now and continue to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international Atomic Energy Agency. We would expect that such an agency would be set up under the aegis of the United Nations."

A year before, T. Keith Glennan had made clear that nuclear electricity could be profitable if the plutonium was sold to the US government:
" ... dual-purpose reactors are technically feasible and could be operated [so] that the power credit would reduce the cost of plutonium by a considerable amount."
See comments at:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/30159

The IAEA is systemically flawed. It is based on an industry that is only economical if it is subsidised by taxpayers in nuclear weapons states. Its Statute is a global institutionalisation of this economic fact.

Articles 2& 3 of the IAEA Statute say it all to me, and the current sabre-rattling regarding Iran could develop into a catastrophic demonstration of the IAEA Statute's fatal contradictions.

The fatal flaws of nuclear electricity remain much the same as they were 60 years ago, with added imminent crises like peak oil, anthropogenic warming and water scarcity. These compelling problems may further develop into armed conflict on local, national and global scales.

Not only does nuclear electricity technology fail to adequately address the urgency of these ecological issues, it arguably exacerbates them through the influence of its most powerful members.

qanda, see Iran's September 2003 statement to the IAEA.

http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC47/Statements/iran.pdf

Plus ca change -

Ahh, Sir Vivor, to have a friendly game of chess, sharing a vintage port (and an equally vintage fromage) in front of a crackling fire on a cold winter’s night? Yes, I would enjoy.

Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil. Our chess game, sadly ending in stalemate. A logical fallacy when so much, for so many, is dependent on the outcome – not for those here and now, but for those that follow.

Sir Vivor,

While the IAEA is not perfect, their publications are very carefully scrutinized before release in stark contrast to those of the anti nuke activists, whose publication frequently deviate from reality.

Instead of playing the man, considered commentary on the details carries more weight.

Shadow Minister,

I think you ought to find a nearby university library which subscribes, and peruse a few of the copies of the Annals of the New York Academy of Science. Badham Medical Library on the Sydney University Campus is one possibility. That's where I found them when I lived in Sydney. I think you will search at length through the Annals, only to conclude that everything they publish has been, in your own words, "very carefully scrutinised".

Earlier, you were mentioning the high price of this publication. You can join the NYAS for about $150 AUD and get this particular issue as your yearly membership benefit. That's about 75% of the cost of the publication for non-members.

See http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1573317578.html
for the chapter titles and authors.

Here is the abstract, from that link, for those who wonder what Shadow Minister and I are talking about:

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment
Written by Alexey V. Yablokov (Center for Russian Environmental Policy, Moscow, Russia), Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko (Institute of Radiation Safety, Minsk, Belarus). Consulting Editor Janette D. Sherman-Nevinger (Environmental Institute, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan).
Volume 1181, December 2009
335 Pages

"This is a collection of papers translated from the Russian with some revised and updated contributions. Written by leading authorities from Eastern Europe, the volume outlines the history of the health and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. Although there has been discussion of the impact of nuclear accidents and Chernobyl in particular, never before has there been a comprehensive presentation of all the available information concerning the health and environmental effects of the low dose radioactive contaminants, especially those emitted from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments."

Shadow Minister, I don't think I'm "playing the man", and I don't think I'm "playing the institution", either.

What are you playing?

Sir Vivor

As to your response;

Ce n'est pas grave ... c'est la vie et adieu.

qanda,

Thank you for your generous words and thoughts. I am not so quick to respond at such times. Though my English is competent, my chess is B grade and my French is 8th grade. Of course I can still enjoy both. Think of me kindly, over your vintage port and fromage.

SV,

You were trying to attack the credibility of the IAEA by focusing on its founding roots rather than on anything it has published. You were most definitely playing the man not the ball.

The snippet you provided was off the advertising for the book. Have you actually read it or are you just trumpeting the headlines?

If you have read it perhaps you could post some of the evidence it has exposed as opposed to the conjecture I could glean from the google preview.

Shadow Minister, I have been following the story of the IAEA's conflicted brief for over 30 years. The latest edition of The Annals of the NYAS supports the understanding I have developed over this time. The Preface to the volume spells out evidence supporting my concern.

I assume the The "snippet" you deride to be an accurate, succinct summary of the contents of a carefully edited volume on Chernobyl health effects.

See
http://tinyurl.com/NYAS-Chernobyl-study-Forward for a Google Books copy of the Forward and selected pages of
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment

The titles of the articles, available in the link I posted, give added, although limited breadth to the "snippet". They all address the impact of the Chernobyl catastrophe, as ground-truthed by local experts: their studies contradict the announcements of the IAEA, concerning Chernobyl's human morbidity and mortality consequences.

I expect more reviews of the Chernobyl volume will become available, by readers better qualified than I, some of them "recognised experts" (and I think we both agree that neither of us are recognised experts on topics of health physics and environmental impacts of ionising radiation).

Do you expect that you will be able to turn back the tide on what is bound to become a widening debate?

I will try to keep you posted. Meanwhile, see

http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman04232010.html

for some opinions of other activists who have been following the IAEA story for years.

My conclusion, that the IAEA is putting my health and yours at risk through their policies and actions, is well-founded. If you think they are doing the opposite, I invite you to argue your case.

And by all means, tell us how the IAEA is dealing impartially with Iran, and efficaciously approaching the issue of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Do you seriously believe that the IAEA is not unduly swayed by the influence of its most powerful members?

SV,

Here is the article from the Washington post that I referred to:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501144.html.

Unless there is a huge conspiracy by the WHO, the UN, the Washington post and all their researchers there was no huge spike in cancer deaths and the difference between the highly affected areas and similar areas not affected was minimal.

Secondly, given that by extending the coverage world wide, the total number of cancer deaths since 1986 would be in the hundreds of millions to a billion, and very little tweaking of statistics is required to reach 1m additional deaths. There are plenty of other environmental factors including an aging population (as people get older their chance of fatal cancer increases dramatically).

While I have no doubt that the IAEA is not unaffected by the major countries, the conspiracy would have to include many reputable organisation and people from all over the world.

So with all due respect, a "revelation" by a couple of hitherto unheard of "scientists" that gives mortality figures a thousand fold higher than those of the UN, is viewed with more than a little skepticism.

Thank you for your review of the UN report of the Chernobyl Accident, published in the Washington Post in 2005.

I would say that time has moved on.

As for your remark that
"So with all due respect, a "revelation" by a couple of hitherto unheard of "scientists" that gives mortality figures a thousand fold higher than those of the UN, is viewed with more than a little skepticism."

These scientists are unheard of in the west, but they are sufficiently respected in their own countries, where they have been closely connected to many of the studies which they cite in their won works. Their work is not a "revelation". There is nothing mystical about it. It is peer-reviewed, published, science-based opinion based on disciplined observation and analysis.

Perhaps, 120 years ago, you would have been proud to single out Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel in a similar fashion, had you been alive and newly heard of them, and their theories of organic evolutin and particulate inheritance. Many folks are still skeptical of Darwin, if not outright dubious, and prefer a more ancient source of authority. The genetic engineers seem happy enough with Mendel's ideas.

The authors of the studies in the NYAS Annals volume on the Chernobyl catastrophe will not suffer horribly for having their names distinguished by your "quotation marks", in this forum.

Since you seem to find their work so inconsequential, perhaps you could amuse yourself by reading what is available in the Google Books link I provided above. If indeed it is poor science, then it is unlikely to stand up against Peter Finn's 2005 review of a UN study, in the Washington Post.

By the way, can you provide a link to that UN Study? I didn't see one in the article.

SV

Here is a subsequent report

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2006/9241594179_eng.pdf

And unless the information is forged, the claims in your book are fanciful.

The UN with it long list of respected scientific institutions from all over the world has had access not only to the information your scientists have, but all the medical reports they omitted.

Comparing these scientists to Darwin and Mendel is a little rich, as they have not actually produced any new science, simply reworked existing figures. (There is a saying that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.) And I am sure that they will do financially very well for their work of fiction.

From the little I read from your link, I saw lots of charts, maps etc, but very little substantiation.

I also see very few experts willing to back their theories.

So, Shadow Minister,

the Electrical Engineer,

dismisses the the NYAS Annals volume titled
"Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment,"

"... compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus."

as a "work of fiction".

He is welcome to his "views".

SV,

The NYAS is a association, and not an acedemic institution in its own right.

The volume you mention is a book that they are flogging on behalf of the authors, I don't see any NYAS endorsement of the book.

I have also seen books by otherwise respected "scientists" disproving climate change, the task of an intelligent person is to winnow the wheat from the chaff.

On one hand there are multiple reports by the UN based on information from just about every major respected institution in the world all saying something similar, and one novel by three hitherto unknown scientists extrapolating from other data, figures thousands of times higher than measured.

When I see fantastical figures like this, I need more than my own desires to believe it, I need solid evidence and corroboration before I accept it.