"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