Sodium cooling has a very bad track record. The near disaster at the Fermi Fast Breeder and the accidents the Monju fast breeder has suffered tend to indicate that sodium cooling is a no no. It is retrograde technology proven unsafe in previous eras. The money wasted on sodium cooled reactors in reactors directly led to unsafe ECCS in Mk1 reactors generically. (See the Ergen report). Further, why merely please foreign reactor builders when Australia Engineers have concluded as follows:

“The Magazine of Engineers Australia”, Vol 80, No. 9, Sept 2008, page 20

“Economically viable Power from the Sun

Half of Australia’s renewable energy target could be generated from solar power by 2020, according to engineering services company WorleyParsons. Speaking at the company’s full-year results presentation last month, the managing director of the company’s EcoNomics initiative Peter Meurs said the power would come from solar thermal powerstations which would be based on mature and proven technology already in use in California. A full-scale powerstation could be built without going through various pilot stages.

Meurs said the company’s research has found that Australia’s desert regions would be ideal locations for such plants and the optimal size would be 250 Mega Watts. The first plant could be completed by 2011 and a total of 34 plants by 2020. Potential locations would be desert regions not too far from industrial users, for instance the Pilbara region in Western Australia. end quote.

Further, within the time span the non engineer Brook talks of, the Higgs Boson will have been isolated and the power of the neutron at last described properly. Fission is not the end of science. The vast sums it has stolen from government since 1942 is out of all proportion to the benefits it has failed to deliver. Even Dr H bomb, Edward Teller though that reactors were so risky they should be built deep underground.

Uh-uh Noel, you can't have it both ways. By all means write what you like on whatever technical issue you like, whether you're a nurse, nuclear physicist or nappy changer. But if you're going to play in that sandpit, if you're going advance a position on what are fundamentally technical issues, you don't get to throw up your hands and refuse to engage with 'incomprehensible' scientific information when that position is challenged. Otherwise you're just inventing your own reality.

Further, I think the newspaper article Noel is responding to is, actually, a great piece of nuclear futurism. It is in the same vein as those written by Edward Teller and the great, loyal Australian, Ernest Titterton (while he was in the pay of Britain and the US). They both wrote of the glories of nuclear powered automobiles. I am sorely disappointed this dream, along with the nuclear powered aircraft that the US spent billions on (to be shelved by President Kennedy because it was a waste of money), never came to pass. I would dearly love to buy strontium thermal batteries to power my 1956 VW Beetle. Imagine 190 kilos of strontium 90 in the nose of my beetle, powering a big electric motor in the back. It would be absolutely zero emissions. Until I hit a tree or roll it over. Slim risk really, it will never happen to me... So Adelaide would rarely need to be evacuated.... Accidents only happen to other people don't they? And in other countries? When there is a solar energy spill, it's called "Having a nice day".

Well done, Noel.

I thank you.

For this fine article and for your future further eloquent expert input into the campaign to get Barry Brook dismissed from Adelaide Uni.

The Bye Bye Barry Brook campaign is just beginning.

How long will Barry last as the atomic academic puppet professor?

The smart money is on "not very long".

Bye Bye Barry Brook.

Bye Bye Barry Brook

is a campaign for the dismissal of puppet professor atomic academic Barry Brook from Adelaide University for incompetence and malfeasance.

Brook has made statements in support of the nuclear industry which are false.

Brook has made false statements in support of the nuclear industry which are outside his field of competence.

Brook has made false statements in support of the nuclear industry which are outside his field of competence and which are certain to lead to adverse public health outcomes.

These charges are evidenced by Brook's public statements during March and April 2011, regarding the developing disaster at the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in northern Japan.

These charges are evidenced by Brook's public statements during 2011 and 2012, promoting the false and criminal notion of "radiophobia", whereby Australians have been fraudulently deceived into allowing nuclear industry activities which inevitably cause great public health harms.

>>dazzling the readers with scientific data, much of which is incomprehensible to the ordinary person<<

What a low-down dirty underhand tactic! The hide of those bastards: making use of scientific data in a debate about technological issues is definitely not cricket.

So I eagerly await your retraction of your article which is full of scientific data much of which is incomprehensible to the ordinary person. But I doubt that will happen because I'm sure you stand by every word you've said.

Good for you. Everyone has a right to an opinion on nuclear power. And boy do they love to exercise it. If commentators with some knowledge of the topic want to point some of the errors in your argument then good for them too - even if you can't understand everything they say.

Cheers,

Tony