Well this ostensibly objective study predetermines its conclusion from the outset by clinging to the furphy of "baseload power". A smartly managed grid doesn't need a single "baseload" source.

That's interesting Geoff, perhaps you could tell us where one of these smartly managed grids could be found.

If you find one, please go tell the Danes about it.

As I'm sure you know, they are a top wind power nation, & they can't do it. Your superior knowledge would be welcomed I'm sure.

I'm also sure you know, but don't want to admit, that those Danes have to sell most of their wind power to Sweden, for a pittance, just to get rid of it. They can't use it, as it destabilises their grid.

Those cleaver Swedes use the cheap power, when the wind is blowing, to pump their hydro water back up hill, to use again to generate useful, controllable power, when they want it.

I would expect any one interested in this debate to also know, that while the Danes are pushing their troublesome wind power over to Sweden, they are simultaneously buying sensible controllable "grid ready" nuclear power from France, to supply their demand.

You may be right that a grid doesn't need a single source of base load power, but what it definitely doesn't need is a destabilising dose of wind power. Just go ask the Danes.

In my experience those who recommend a "mix" of power supply always want to add unreliable, expensive power into that mix.

There are so many “if and or” items which could be brought into discussion on the arithmetic of nuclear power. As a result, any number of cost outcomes relative to other energy sources that the issue is a woolly pup. As has been pointed out, “baseload power” is one of them; decommissioning to adequate community standards another; etc..

If nuclear power is so arithmetically sound, I would expect private industry would be keen to make a buck by going it alone: - no Government subsidy, get insurance cover, purchase their own powerhouse site, and provide adequate bond for decommission-and-clean-up at the end of its tenure. Considering the astronomical subsidies which nuclear has had over the past half-century, it is not reasonable for Governments to mollycoddle it further.

Australia has so many alternative energy sources that it can invest in, nuclear has one major thing going against it (in my humble opinion at least) and that is - toxic waste. Which ever way you look at it, it's not something that you can simply shrug off.

The only difference in the toxic waste between wind & nuclear is the huge volume generated in the up front building of those damn wind things.

Start with the result, in China, of the mining, & refining of the rare earths used in the electrical gear, which is horrific, through to the manufacture of the cement in their construction.

We should have grabbed all the nuclear waste we could get, in a service to mankind, [one of self service like the UN], & stored it free of charge, it's going to be worth as much as our uranium, for reprocessing in the near future.

In a power hungry world, & getting hungrier, you don't really think all that energy is going to be allowed to go to waste do you?

Well, on Chernobyl, it depends whose arithmetic we use.That of the New York Academy of Sciences or WHO’s.

WHO estimates 50 deaths already and potentially, 4000 as a final total. Independent researchers from all over the world, estimate 985,000 by 2004.



See Yablokov, A., Nesterenko, V. and Nesterenko, A. Chernobyl: consequences of the catastrophe for people and the environment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1181, Wiley Blackwell, February, 2010. (330 pages, 800 references)


Gavin Mooney

The ~50 deaths registered by WHO for Chernobyl were of people who died during or shortly after the accident. So far there has been no evidence of the 4000 extra deaths they calculated using the deeply flawed linear no threshold (LNT) model of the effects of radiation exposure, let alone the absurd figures quoted from anti-nuclear sources.

Every so often the anti-nuclear movement comes out with one of these propaganda pieces such as 'Chernobyl: consequences of the catastrophe for people and the environment', and sometimes even induce respectable publishers to distribute it. It is nonetheless nonsense, and will remain so no matter who points to it as their bible.

Since it is actually energy rather than money that is required to build any of these technologies it will be interesting to see how declining fossil fuel availability will feed into these economic assessments. Of course, as fossil fuels become scarce their price will go up but then so will the prices of the technologies (including nuclear) that require the fossil fuel energy to be manufactured/built. I think that, in reality, you will see that none of these technologies will make economic sense because, with energy supply decreasing but population still expanding, energy will be prioritised to food growing and providing welfare for a population screaming for welfare handouts. The truth is that "civilization-as-usual-only-nuclear" is a dream based on cheap and abundant fossil fuel availability and we actually need a completely different way of viewing "progress" and our future if we are to retain those things which make our civilization remarkable (justice, universal education, healthcare, etc.).

@michael_in_adelaide:

No Michael, the energy required to construct and otherwise run nuclear power plants, including all stages of the fuel cycle, is only a small portion of the energy the plants generate. Nuclear energy can take over all those functions, including the synthesis of liquid fuels, should such be considered desireable for the continuation of BAU.

Maybe Craig - but you have to build the nuclear plant first before you can consume the energy it produces. What with the decade-long timelines for debating, permitting, building etc. we will be well into energy decline before any of this can be done. The competition from other areas to use the remaining available fossil fuel energy will make building of nuclear infrastructure in Australia very difficult while we remain moderately democratic. It is one thing to argue EROEI but you need to remember that there are upfront costs (an energy threshold if you will) that will probably be insurmountable. Indeed, with the current financial crisis due, in part, to our inabilithy to increase oil flow rates you can already see the problems that diminishing energy availability produces - getting finance for a nuclear project at the moment would be impossible and this will only worsen as energy decline proceeds.

One little thing there, Michale. You seem to be talking as if coal were not available, & able to fill the petroleum gap, if it really does occur this time.

I've been hearing that petrol would be exhausted within 10 years, for the last 30.

What we don't need is any more of this ridiculously highly subsidised "Micky Mouse" power these greenies want to foist upon us.

Heaven help us, save from the arts school dreamers.

Hi Hasbeen,

It will take a lot longer than 10 years for the oil to "run out" but it does not need to in order to cause major economic disruption. Oil just needs to decrease in availability relative to demand since the economy connot tolerate more than a certain fraction of GDP going to pay for oil (about 6 or 7 percent). In any case, conventional crude oil peaked in 2006 (according to the IEA) and we should begin to see a rapid drop-off in availability from the current production plateau by 2015 (if not earlier - according to oil "Megaprojects analysis"). Coal is expected to peak sometime between next year (according to Patzek and Croft) and 2030 (according to EnergyWatch). Coal cannot substitute easily or completely for the lack of oil and difficulty in growing coal use will contribute to contracting of economic growth before coal peaks. So coal is not the solution to our economic woes - it may just slow the onset of pain.

Guy,

The New York Academy of Sciences did not produce any document on the results of Chernobyl, they simply bought the publishing rights of a book produced by an independent group of Russian researchers.

So do you believe WHO with hundreds of accredited scientists with decades of accumulated information, or a small group of researchers with little to no resources and a political axe to grind?

As for all the renewable power supplies, they all have one major fault, and that is simply that they cannot be relied upon to generate power when needed. The cost of power storage doubles or triples their cost.

@ Michael:

Then it's just as well that the Americans and others such as ourselves have recently discovered that absolutely huge and previously unsuspected reserves of natural gas lay beneath our feet. It was all going to be slated for electricity peaking and shadowing of intermitent solar and wind, but given the immenant Peak Oil crisis, it will no doubt be diverted to be used as fuel for heavy vehicular operation. Given how vast these reserves are said to be by the renewables enthusiasts, they'll doubtless be sufficient to see us through to the full rollout of the nuclear economy.

simple thoughts - we could all use less electricity. and we could populate less.

the amount of power we waste is hard to believe.

Hi Craig. Rather than using boundless descriptors such as "absolutely huge" try putting some numbers behind your comments. This link will interest you on shale gas:

http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/shale_gas

and you will find the following text there:

"Shale gas plays in the United States are commercial failures and shareholders in public exploration and production (E&P) companies are the losers. This conclusion falls out of a detailed evaluation of shale-dominated company financial statements and individual well decline curve analyses. Operators have maintained the illusion of success through production and reserve growth subsidized by debt with a corresponding destruction of shareholder equity. Many believe that the high initial rates and cumulative production of shale plays prove their success. What they miss is that production decline rates are so high that, without continuous drilling, overall production would plummet. There is no doubt that the shale gas resource is very large. The concern is that much of it is non-commercial even at price levels that are considerably higher than they are today."

Michael, my comment on natgas was a toungue-in-cheeck swipe at the propaganda coming out of the natgas industry which is currently trying to convince everyone in the US that natgas is so cheap and plentiful that nuclear power can be sidelined.

But frankly, my point stands that there are sufficient fossil fuel reserves, be they natgas or coal-to-liquid, that there isn't going to be a short-term energy crisis so devestating that we will be unable to support the construction of nuclear plants.

Hi Craig,

That would be the most common opinion among economists but with developers currently unable to get finance even to build multistorey apartments and with the economic situation not set to improve in coming years (due to US and European indebtedness and Chinese and Indian growth pushing up oil prices plus the world economic instability brought on by growing food insecurity in the rest of the developing world etc.) and with oil decline set to accelerate soon, the idea that there will be financing - private or public - for nuclear projects in Australia seems (to me) farfetched.

The "rules" of the world economic game have been written during 100 years of overall energy growth and they just will not work under a regime of steady energy availability contraction.

Well Michael, since your argument against nuclear power seems to be not so much that "Nuclear power is bad/wrong because of X" so much as "Oh what a shame that we can't have nuclear power becuase of the inevitability of complicating external factor Y", I guess all I can say to that is that I hope your forecast of inevitable disaster is wrong, and presumably you also hope the same thing.

I just "hope" people will not waste too much of our remaining energy clinging to BAU and placing their faith in silver bullet solutions but will focus on securing our agriculture, education, core health provision base (contraceptives/antibiotics etc.), democratic societal structure and so on so that the future is not too brutal.

Michael, if we are forced by unavoidable circumstance into the sort of low energy future you envision, it will be brutal in the extreme as billions fight a hopeless battle to avoid starvation. If you would avoid this bleak and brutal nihilistic future, you had best get on board with pushing nuclear power as hard and as far and as fast as possible.

Craig, you are labouring under the illusion that you have a choice to go nuclear. What I am saying is that the choice does not actually exist. You say that I should "get onboard" the nuclear bandwagon but, if it is actually an impossible dream, then doing so would only make our situation worse. We no longer have time to screw around deluding ourselves that we have a high-energy route out of the fix we have got ourselves into. Yes, the future is bleak but will be even more terrifying if we waste more time and money/energy on infeasible solutions.

Michael, what you are espousing here is the energy policy equivalent of a doomsday cult. The rather absolutist language in which you frame your comments ties in with this. Your views on this matter seem virtually identical to those of one Michael Stasse, who is fond of claiming that his organic farm will be his survival insurance against a coming apocolypse of the kind you are prophesising.

Thanks for the link, Michael. It's good to see a concise summation of what you and your mates are all about.

well as usual the institute of cold warfar at junkies against crime has soloved the worlds problems in advance of the new world orders plans for a cull on civilians .we have the design for a pulse tubine that is virtualy free and once set in motion uses a fraction of the electricity it produces to run a non poluting recylce of its feed stock we only seek 10%of the budget for projects under 50,000 5% 50,000 and up 1%for 5 million and up .if any one is interested contact my email.regards the motorcycle messiah p.s. its not some perpetual motion nonsense it dosent violate the third law of thermodynamics.p.s we are building a rail gun with it when we get a chance .regards the motorcycle messiah