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The changes required can't happen overnight (especially here in Oz) - but we must make a start.

It will require a mix of energy solutions (you know this).

However, as you have typically shown on OLO ... you yourself just pay lip service.

@bonmot thanks! Straight praise is so rare it makes me feel weird.

@Bugsy no, the remark was certainly not intended your way, but directed at many folk I have encountered on my journey. I used to be one of them, rejecting nuclear because, among other reasons, John Howard supported it. Good one, Ben! Way to think like a grown-up!

But no, I don't find it bizarre, I find it consistent with what I think exists in Australia: a very strong culturally entrenched pattern of contrarianism, where certain people simply disagree with environmentalists on all fronts. Ergo, denying climate science, ridiculing any attempt to abate emissions, rejecting marine parks and... embracing nuclear and calling Greenies fools for not doing so. The env./Green movement has been so entrenched in nuclear rejection for so long, that those who identify themselves by NOT being Green have an equally ideologically entrenched embrace of nuclear. It's not because they are more scientific; their climate denial puts paid to that. The do it to oppose the people they don't like. They just happen to be right on that point!

So what would happen if the environmental movement embraced nuclear? These climate denying nuclear proponents would have 5 minutes in the sun, laughing at the stupid hippies, and then quickly find themselves consigned to irrelevance as the rest of us just got on with the job of cutting emissions. A large section of Australia who is not that passionate either way would be much happier that we are not still being told to rely on wind and solar alone which, they strongly suspect, are not up to the task on their own (and they are, of course, correct on that one).

This is basically the reason I am so "loud and proud" as a pro-nuclear environmentalist. I (along with others) need to provide an alternative model for other environmentalists to follow so that we can finally get some sensible action on climate change.

Following this conversation is so extremely odd in a way. In South Australia where Ben and I live the government did everything possible to avoid establishment of a long term repository for medium to high level nuclear waste although I think - as world citizens - that we could make a motza (and do a morally very positive thing) by placing the rest of the world's nuclear waste into the world's most stable geological formations. However, considering the extreme pubic resistance to nuclear energy it is inconceivable that nuclear generation of electricity would be supported until economic conditions become very desperate due to the decline of fossil energy. It would certainly never be supported on climate change grounds. But when the economy is eventually in desperate shape due to energy decline where does Ben and the other IFR proponents think the money (i.e. energy) will come from to build any kind of nuclear plant? The SA government is already cutting back on spending and these are supposed to be relatively good times. With the world now sliding down the net energy curve I simply don't see how IFRs - or any other form of big-investment, high tech, long term strategy energy source - will ever be built. Just because something seems like a really neat idea does not mean it will happen. Only energy (not optimism) can turn dreams into reality. Ben's website bubbles over with evangelistic, born-again positivism and belief in IFRs but despite obviously looking into these issues for some time it seems he does not really understand the way that energy is expressed in economic activity and that energy limits simply cannot be overcome. He is in no way unique in this regard but it is a pity to see such enthusiasm (that could be directed into more useful advocacy such as making feasible preparations for a low-energy future) going into something like promoting IFRs.

Mike,

As far as waste handling is concerned, the first step is not high tech reactors, but reprocessing which can reduce the waste by about 90%. Reactors like the IFR are to get rid of 90% of the last fraction.

Considering that most of the high level waste consists of spent rods, which don't actually need much space, the storage issue is more political than practical. The use of reprocessing and reactors such as CANDU and IFR would come close to eliminating the problem all together.

@michael_in_adelaide Extreme public resistance is not my experience, which to date is presentations to over 1,000 South Aussies. I find a surprising degree of outright acceptance and support. Where I find opposition, it is typically only weakly held and moves far and fast with some discussion. Entrenched opposition seems to be very small. It's just loud, and nuclear makes a good political football. So I reject that premise, that barrier is extremely tractable.

Many fossil baseload plants are seriously ageing, as well as being forced out of the market by their carbon intensity. e.g. Playford now going to operate only 6 months of the year. Loy Yang will not survive many years into the gradual reduction in free permits. NO form of baseload, be it fossil, renewable or nuclear is cheap. A lot of money will need to be found and spent in the next 1-2 decades on electricity generation infrastructure. I want all options available so that we spend it the best way.

As to the back end of your comment. Michael, it seems your world view and your work is entirely predicated on energy limits. Technologically, IFR blows this out of the water. We can, if we choose, have unlimited energy with no greenhouse gas or other pollution and no more mining. This goes a long way to solving our greatest sustainability problem being climate change, while raising questions about the potential implications for other areas of sustainability. Now THAT would make an interesting discussion. But please don't ask me to buy into the idea that a "low-energy future" is inevitable, feasible, realistic or desirable.

@Shadow Minister what are you referring to? The reprocessing the French do for current reactors gives a pretty pathetic and very expensive improvement compared pyroprocessing and then running fuel in IFR.