Well, Mr. Green of the greenies, you'll just have to inure yourself to the use of more cheap coal energy. You don't say which of the 'renewables' are getting cheaper, but the price of power is certainly not getting cheaper. SA has more windmills, for instance, than any other state; but SA also has the dearest electricity costs in the world, and climbing all the time.

Your don't want coal; your don't want nuclear. Not much longer now before you have us all in the dark.

Another piece from a Green Luddite

<<But a swag of countries in the Middle East and North Africa have put nuclear power on the back-burner, including Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Israel, Morocco, Algeria and Libya>>

Now how do you suppose they are meeting their energy needs --one guess?

Three places that have prematurely retired nuclear power stations have each recorded an increase in emissions in the past year.. Germany, Japan and California. I believe more than forty new reactors are construction around the world. For an industry that is supposed to be on the wane it is showing remarkable signs of life.

Here in Oz we are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at non-hydro renewables for a lousy 7% penetration. The financial help includes a 20% quota the RET, renewable energy certificates that reward generators another 30%, purchase rebates, soft loans and absurdly generous feed-in tariffs. Yet no large coal fired station has closed down nor will they as the gas price continues to escalate. I can only conclude Mr Green is happy for us to keep burning coal.

Hi Jim,

This is a very curious article. It seems to be firmly jammed between “be careful what you wish for” and “now look what you’ve done”

Cherry picking is never a good look if one is to be taken seriously, and my goodness, did you cherry pick this one.

The IAEC Report.

I’d firstly like to draw our attention to the bits in the IAEC annual report that you conveniently excluded.

They relate to trend lines, licenses to operate and upgrades. The trend line is to renew licenses, replace old reactors with higher capacity multi-function reactors and a more cost effective range of small/medium reactors. Agency projections indicate significant growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide — between 23 and 100%

The Agency, “identified conventional uranium resources recoverable at a cost of less than
$130/kg U at 5.3 million tonnes of uranium (Mt U). Uranium production worldwide rose significantly”.

You say “So annual growth of a little over 1%”, naughty, naughty Jim. Not annual at all, just this year to date.

It actually says, “1% more than at the beginning of the year. Only three reactors were permanently shut down”.

Figures were skewed by 13 permanent shutdowns in 2011 (12 of which followed Fukushima).

The Renewables Industry.

On the other hand we have the “success” of your de-carbonization brigade. No Kyoto, China and India have changed clause 2b in Warsaw to eliminate any binding commitments by the biggest emitters. The global RENIXX renewable industry index has collapsed by 90%, the emissions trading markets have closed or collapsed, CHINA'S Suntech, the world's largest solar panel producer, plunged to bankruptcy in just a year.

All the US subsidized green energy companies have folded or defaulted on loans at a cost of $9.9bn.

In the EU green subsidies have hit the wall and are being withdrawn, the UK has just issues 173 “Fracking” licenses and the EU has declined this week, to impose any new restrictions on Fracking in the EU. Yummy.

Cont’d

Cont’d

Germany is to build 9 new coal fired PowerStation’s by 2017, three of which will burn Lignite! They are still burning lignite at 24.5% and hard coal at 22.8% as at 2008, but coal imports are growing at 17% p.a.

The USA has energy prices at 60% less than the EU thanks to Fracking, and the EU is hemorrhaging industry to the USA, Asia and South America.

Motivation and Purpose.

So Jim, when you misrepresent the IAEC Report in such a way that you are able to extract glee from your confected conclusions, it begs the question why? And what to you hope to achieve?

Clearly nuclear power generation is something you wish to see the end of however, your push for de-carbonization has backfired spectacularly. There was a time when it looked as though the shift to renewables was well on track globally and there was even room to trash all things nuclear.

Then came the disintegration of the entire global infrastructure built upon de-carbonization. There is nothing left of it. So by attacking nuclear, you left developed and developing nations with the one option you fought in the first place, carbon based fuels.

Congratulations! What it was you sought to avoid, you created!

Next we will see the new government start the process of defunding the activist NGO’s, that have their snouts in our pockets to fund your activism. I think you might find your organization on the following list? Kiss it goodbye Jim.

The Australian Conservation Foundation $2.9m
The Wilderness Society $125,000
Environment Victoria $4.0m
Total Environment Centre $450,000
Environmental Defenders $1.2m
Conservation Councils, VIC.QLD and W.A Grants under GVEHO schemes, $$?
Friends of the Earth $65,000

Time to formulate your “exit plan” and dust of your c.v.

The capital cost per unit generated for renewables is between 18 and 22 cents per KWH. For modern nuclear reactors in China that cost is under 5c per KWH.

There has not been a fatal accident in the western developed world from the nuclear reactor section of nuclear generation. Per unit of power generated the accident rate from the fuel supply chain for coal is 40 times the nuclear rate. The record of safe operation for US nuclear submarines is 5,400 reactor years.

Physicist Dr Robert Hargraves states "Radiation protection guidelines based on acute doses are far too conservative, needlessly displacing thousands of people from areas near Fukushima where radiations are well below the safe level of 100 mSv/yr.

In Taiwan over a 20 year period 8,000 people were accidently exposed to 400 mSv of radiation from contaminated structural steel. Linear No Threshold rules predicted an increase in cancers from 186 to 242. The actual result was a fall from 186 to 5. That is right! In a normal population of 8,000 the expected normal cancer rate was 186 cases. The exposed population only suffered from 5 cases. Can someone please tell me where I can be conveniently exposed to 20mSv of radiation for each of the next 20 years.