In this article Vaclav Smil explains why we will not see an IFR future:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/a-skeptic-looks-at-alternative-energy/0

The REALITY is that the IFR people are talking about rolling out a technology for which development is not even complete to cover an energy deficit that is already opening up NOW. People also need to understand that it not only takes time to convert an energy system - it takes energy itself to build energy infrastructure - that energy must come from somewhere.

Interesting to learn that Ben Heard receives money from the nuclear industry.

And just by the by I was fascinated to read about the bits of fuel rods washing up on the beach at Dounreay in the UK (and nearby):

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

"The beach has been closed since 1983 due to this danger,[1] caused by old fuel rod fragments being pumped into the sea.[1] In 2008, a clean-up project using Geiger counter-fitted robot submarines will search out and retrieve each particle individually, a process that will take years.[1] The particles still wash ashore, including as at 2009 -137 less radioactive particles on the publicly accessible but privately owned close-by Sandside Bay beach and one at a popular tourist beach at Dunnet.[7]"

Lovely!

Ben Heard states that my article (criticising Barry Brook’s proposals for nuclear power for Australia ) is dangerous, because it might “kill momentum” for the development of Integral fast Nuclear Reactors. Well, I had no idea that I had that kind of power. I must do this more often.

We’re told that the Integral Fast Reactor will be the solution to the stockpiles of nuclear waste and of depleted uranium. Well – this raises a very worrying question, particularly if, as Barry Brook wants, Australia gets a whole heap of these IFRs.

How do these wastes get to Australia’s new IFRs? Or indeed, to everybody else’s IFRs all around the world? By transport of plutonium and depleted uranium – in road transport, ships, planes? This raises the questions of accident risk, terrorist risk, weapons fuel proliferation risks and the enormous and costly program of security for all this transport.

The PRISM fast reactor is only at the discussion phase in Britain, as a way to deal with their heaps of plutonium wastes. They know already that deep underground burial would be safer,and cheaper.

Ben Heard does admit that nuclear power is a “high capital option”. But he claims that nuclear is much less expensive than solar thermal. Perhaps so - for the setting up. But what about the disposal ? Solar thermal does not leave us with radioactive wastes, to be secured and guarded for 300 years, on top of the costs of bringing in the plutonium, and building the final repository for the wastes.
And – here’s the rub. Nuclear power has, for the past 70 years, always required tax-payers’ money. The real impetus for IFR’s comes from the crisis of nuclear waste – a forlorn effort to turn the waste disaster into some kind of commercial success. The UK tried this with Sellafield - it was an economic and environmental disaster. Same with Japan's effort - the Monju nuclear reprocessing reactor. I doubt that the public will buy this magician's trick to turn a huge liability - nuclear waste - into some sort of commercial win. Noel Wauchope

You turn your back for 5 mins...

Been a little busy, as I am in the United States, mainly to discuss IFR with others who actually know what they are talking about.

What Jim Green does is called "smear". He does it because he has run dry on arguments. That I hardly ever mention it is another way of saying I have mentioned it, repeatedly, in forms that stick around, including about three times on my own blog. This is why Green knows about it.

My "consulting" to Heathgate is assistance with their mandatory reporting of greenhouse and energy under the NGER act. It is probably the least strategic (i.e. least interesting) work I have done all year, and made up about 3% of my revenue. The bulk is from the local Government sector, a smattering of other private, and some teaching work. Just in case anyone missed it, IFR is what puts Heathgate out of business.

Green illustrates how sick environmentalism is; that some regard it as a club to which the likes of him determine membership, rather than a set of values. Will he be asking for my tax returns to see all my donations? Would he like witnesses to the times I argued against nuclear? Presumably chucking in a whole qualification and career to retrain in sustainability does not count.

Noel, we were referring to IFR not SMR. There is, again, a difference. But you seem to be making a personal selling point of your ignorance. Do you know for example that spent nuclear fuel has no value from a weapons perspective? It's full of all the wrong isotopes for the job? Would be like trying to make a cake rise using cement? So why are you waving it around as scary? Oh yes, because that is what you do, leaving it to others to correct you.

Ben Heard is correct - used nuclear fuel from commercial reactors is so wrong for nuclear weapons that no one has ever used it to make a weapon - even to demonstrate the possibility that it can be done. Sure, you can find stories on the Internet and even some vague papers by supposed nuclear weapons,experts that claim the task is possible. However, every one of them hides behind the claim that the details are too secret to release.

Since there has never been a demonstration, the people who worry about "proliferation" ask the rest of us, some of whom have a little expertise of our own on the topic, to trust their assertions and models.

Since there is a word limit here, I'll point to a more detailed article that I wrote on the topic that includes additional references.

http://atomicinsights.com/2010/07/proving-a-negative-why-modern-used-nuclear-fuel-cannot-be-used-to-make-a-weapon.html

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

Heard and Adams have a narrow view of weapons proliferation.
These days nuclear weapons are becoming old hat.
There are cyberweapons now. for national states to develop.
But, better still,for terrorists, there are "dirty bombs". All they need is some radioactive material, and then whatever they like as an explosive. I think they use fertilisers. Lovely for spreading radioactivity into air and water.
All nuclear reactors produce radioactive wastes. These new smart aleck ones - SMRs, IFRs whatever you like - are not that different from "conventional" nuclear reactors, except that they cost astronomically more to build and to run.
Noel Wauchope

Jim Green, Thursday, 28 June 2012 1:45:37 AM

Big deal, Jim Green. Ben Heard is a climate consultant, he is not paid to promote the nuclear industry or promote uranium. Your post is incredibly misleading. On the other hand, you are paid by Friends of the Earth to campaign specifically against the nuclear industry. That is your job, regardless of the facts.

I take it that, considering you only managed a personal attack on Ben, you could not find anything substantial to criticise in this article?

Tom Keen