What I dislike about the nuke power industry is how it is always sold on the promise of solutions to come. What other trader gets away with illegal 'bait and switch' advertising?

As for the claimed ease with which nuclear waste is disposed of 'safely', President Obama has inherited the poisoned chalice of all US presidents, a big hole in the budget for storing tons of waste that cannot be successfully stored anywhere despite the availability of deserts in the US and claimed safe deep storage.

As usual and since WW2, the 'safe' solution for storing waste has always been 'just around the corner'. If so, why does Obama and George Bush before him have a problem?

What the US needs, as does the world, is a compliant, soft, ingratiating ally to take the crap. They have figured that out with the cradle to grave concept (the originator takes the poisonous crap back), but that is politically intolerable (in Oz) until Oz gets in the game too.

Getting into reactors is easy, just create new taxes :( But eventually disposing of those old tech, ie present tech, reactors is gut wrenchingly expensive and all for old technology that produces a lot of waste. After being feted by George Bush and the US State Department, the sycophant John Howard thought that Australia would take waste because it was 'valuable' for reprocessing. Since when did Uncle Sam give away anything 'valuable'?

Who wants to buy reactors to give others the leg-in to use Australia as the nuclear dump for the world?

I believe that a lot of the remarks you are making, are on the grounds that Martin Ferguson is intelligent enough to make these decisions, however I doubt that any person of any party, has that kind of genuine knowledge, and I would prefer to hear from people who have had real experience of nuclear process. I don't want to be here today and gone tomorrow, many might like that idea, but it doesn't suit me.

Admittly, we would receive more value out of using it ourselves, considering the hugh amount of imports we get of clothing, tools and other goods, all articles we used to made here before our idiot politicans decided to export our coal and iron ore etc. I would like to see the return of the industries, manufacturing etc that we used to have before we got those really smart politicians since 1970, who believe in destroying everything Australian.

cornflower "What I dislike about the RENEWABLE power industry is how it is always sold on the promise of solutions to come. What other trader gets away with illegal 'bait and switch' advertising?'

There, fixed .. what happened to all the green jobs we were promised from renewable sources, what happened to all the new jobs from "renewable innovation" .. all BS, bait and switch, get the subsidies using taxpayer money, and deliver bugger all.

How come it is a protected species?

Wind and solar will never replace base load power generation, so why all the subsidies? In Tasmania, the wind isn't blowing "like it should", so they are losing millions after government (taxpayer) subsidies to build them.

Hot rock power (Tim Flannery's folly) has sucked up over $100M of taxpayer money now for zero result.

So why not nuclear? At least we know it can generate base load power .. it's not a bait and switch, what's the switch?

you get power and you deal with the waste, like many countries do now

Amicus, "it's not a bait and switch, what's the switch? you get power and you deal with the waste, like many countries do now"

You are so right, it is just plain old-fashioned fraud to sell nuke power generation on the basis of solutions that aren't there yet. All of that BS about fast breeder reactors that produce less waste when what you are really buying is existing old technology with the same old waste problems. On top of that there is the surreal cost of decommissioning old technology nuke power stations.

Now do you reckon that the good old USofA would find it just as easy to convince the Oz govt to take those old mountain hills of nuke waste as they did to get our Joolia to denounce one of our own citizens, namely Julian Paul Assange? In the Howard government there was that fishnet stockinged buffoon Alexander Downer who volunteered his home State of South Australia and right where there was a fault line. Talk about bending over backwards, and forwards, for Uncle Sam.

Oh and would we have to wait for Wikileaks to tell us if the Oz government ever secretly undertook to take Uncle Sam's waste? Assuming that such agreements would always be protected by security against both government's own citizens. One continually wonders who the Australian government is working for.

I am not opposed nuclear power, but I see no reason whatsoever to panic into buying existing old technology. Nor do I believe we should supply our plentiful, quality coal to others but not use it ourselves.

Cornflower,

The reprocessing technology is presently available and being used in France successfully under government control.

In the US as all nuclear plants are privately owned, a law was passed forbidding reprocessing, as one product of this reprocessing is plutonium.

The US is considering repealing this legislation in favour of a federal body in charge of reprocessing the spent fuel rods. If this occurs, there is no longer need for the hugely expensive Yucca mountain repository, as there will be far less uranium to handle, and it will have only a tiny fraction of the radioactivity, and none of the deadly isotopes.

Technology is moving forward, and the scare campaigns of the greens is proving empty.