Mr Bennetts please note.

In some or many (?) countries nuclear disaster insurance may be low because the taxpayer foots the bills after nuclear disasters.

In India nuclear projects have been severely delayed over the vexed insurance question.

In October 2011, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the Japanese government will spend at least 1 trillion yen ($13 billion) to clean up vast areas contaminated by radiation from the Fukuahima nuclear disaster.

Japan "faces the prospect of removing and disposing 29 million cubic meters of soil from a sprawling area in Fukushima, located 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, and four nearby prefectures".

see http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/us-japan-nuclear-noda-idUSTRE79J3W020111020?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+(News+%2F+US+%2F+International)

Pete

Well John, I hope you are right about the possibility of nuclear.
No, I don't worry much about waste, I think it can be managed sensibly.
If the worlds economy is in a good enough state to build a fleet of
nuclear power stations we should be able to launch the waste off to the sun.

As far as gas is concerned you & others may be interested in an article
by Jean Laherrere who is a well known geologist and expert on oil geology.

http://tinyurl.com/n7arawv

While I thought we had to be near the end of the decade before we saw
the beginning of the end of fracked oil & gas he sees it beginning this year.

JohnBennetts

The following comment is quite deceptive:

"Nuclear waste, left to itself, eventually becomes benign, through decay."

We are referring to high level waste in the form of spent fuel rods of current nuclear power reactors - not future reactors with untested performance on an industrial scale. This "if new reactor built" is largely a straw man for those with self interest in the nuclear industry.

It would take decades for new types of reactors to be built.

see http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/3b435d05dca2a3acca256e3d00178f7c/$FILE/JSC%20Nuclear%20Waste%20Report.pdf :

Page xvi:

"Proponents of the proposals claimed that the radioactive waste was not as dangerous as other hazards, such as petrol. The committee rejects these arguments. The community accepts these goods and associated risk because of a justifiable, demonstrable benefit. Generally this is not the case with radioactive waste."

Page 25 - 2.164 As the McKinnon Report noted in 1993:

“The handling and storage of [radioactive] waste… is an intractable problem worldwide.

...Intermediate and, particularly, high level waste disposal is, perhaps, the biggest single problem of the whole nuclear field”.8

Pete

Plantagent thinks that many countries pay for the massive cleanup costs following nuclear disasters.

What disasters?

Fukushima? The cost is inflated due to ambitions to reduce the radiation count far below any rational figure - perhaps even below that which pre-existed the incident and certainly much below clinically justified levels.

Chernobyl? It isn't sensible to load Chernobyl onto the backs of our futures, when (1) No such power station will ever be constructed again, especially not in Australia; (2) the disaster was due suicidal tests performed with the safety systems turned off and carried out by fools; and (3) Chernobyl didn't have a proper enclosure. Chernobyl is not a reasonable argument against future low cost, low risk, highly reliable electricity.

Three Mile Island, then? It was never a concern to those beyond the fenceline. Nobody inside the plant was injured or killed. The damage carried a dollar cost, but little more. There was no disaster.

I suggest that Plantagenet read about the costs to humans and to our natural world from "business as usual" disasters from coal, gas, even hydro, before he writes off nuclear options. Some true disasters work slowly and hence avoid publicity, but their cumulative effects may dwarf Black Death, World War II, the Pneumonia outbreak of 1917-1919 and many other real disasters.

There are plenty of sources - for example, simply Google "How coal burns Australia - The true cost of burning coal" or "coal + pollution + cost". It may surprise many otherwise well-informed folk to see the scope of the hidden costs of Business As Usual.

Note that I have not touched on Climate Change or Ocean Acidification, both of which concern me greatly, but I don't need them to make my point. Even IF carbon dioxide is not charged with ruining the atmosphere and the oceans, burning fossil fuels to produce electricity still works out more expensive and dangerous in the long run than nuclear electricity production. So why are we having this discussion? Let's get on with it.

John Bennetts

Although you are a nuclear advocate you appear to be unaware how politically on-the-nose the nuclear waste issue is in Australia.

Why are you dismissing the problem of medium and high level nuclear waste identified by Australian Government bodies?

See the Executive Summary of http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/3b435d05dca2a3acca256e3d00178f7c/$FILE/JSC%20Nuclear%20Waste%20Report.pdf

Are you aware Australian states and territories have refused to host a permanent, national, nuclear waste dump for decades and are still refusing?

Pete

Re Chernobyl, a friend of mine was at the International Atomic Commission
in Vienna in 1956 when the Russians described in a presentation their
new nuclear power station to an international gathering of nuclear engineers.
After the talk, some of those present expressed concern about some of
the design features, especially the graphite moderators and the way
that under certain conditions they can release energy.
The Russians brushed off the warnings.

In the Chernobyl event that was exactly what happened.

The Russian reactors have all since been modified and no other
reactors have the same design.
I hope nowadays no one would dismiss so lightly a warning.