Even though solar is nuclear with the solar, wind and wave resources we have in Australia, or the whole planet for that matter, nuclear is both expensive and unnecessary.

Actually Helen, there are more risks and dangers from coal fired power, which still far and away kills and or harms many more people than the total sum of the three accidents you describe!
Coal fired power leaks far more radioactive material into the atmosphere and our waterways etc, than the nuclear option! Not only uranium; but lead, mercury and carcinogenic cadmium as well, just to mention a few!
And let's not link nuclear fuel with nuclear bombs, and the harm that can cause. These are two very different reactions!
I mean as bad as the accidents referred to are, not one has simply vaporized 45,000 people, in just a second of activation!
New pebble reactors simply prevent the chain reaction or fuel melt downs you referred to, and if you were fully informed, [and I suspect you actually are,] you would know it!
As opposed to the usual, release of endless misinformation, or descriptions of technological difficulties, already fifty years out of date. [Par for the course, activist scare/rumor-mongering!?]
And then there's thorium, which completely opposite to oxide reactors, consumes most of it's fuel, [around 95%,] with the waste being far less toxic than that produced by the oxide reactor!
And such waste as is produced by the thorium reactor, is eminently suitable, as long life space batteries.
And as hot as the process is, its not as hot as smelting titanium, or that created by the fusion reactor!
And we manage both of those in comparative safety!
Even then, nuclear power stations produce less background rads than do Scottish homes and buildings, which are traditionally built of granite, and expose the residents to more annual rads than any nearby nuclear power, as does high altitude flying!
If the actual facts be known, the antinuclear brigade, are in truth, the anti development brigade?
And as bad as the meltdowns referred to were, they are not threatening us with an Armageddon, but carbon clearly is!
Rhrosty.

Given economies of scale and the fact that both pebble and thorium reactors can be mass produced and trucked onsite, both of these options are now, cheaper than traditional coal fired power!
Which is still cheaper than wind or solar!
That said, nothing but nothing beats biogas,(methane) and a methane fed ceramic fuel cells, as the best most cost effective option!
And every home or domicile, produces enough biological waste to support this process 24/7!
Meaning, we only need a nuclear option for industry!
However, we could manage the latter with hydrogen, made from converting seawater to its constituent gases, via the, [seriously modernized] solar thermal powered, water molecule cracking method. And solar thermal, could be made to compete with coal fired power, just by mass producing the arrays, and incorporating economies of scale, which would be exactly how we would want to produce industry supporting hydrogen!
Given hydrogen can be mass produced as described, for just a couple of cents per cubic metre; and then stored as ready to use on demand, endlessly sustainable, cheaper than chips, energy!
We should be investigating that possibility.
And there would be far less energy (profit) losses, transmitting it as gas in a pipeline, rather than electricity in wires!
And, we're never likely to run out of sea water or sunshine!
Rhrosty.

Nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity. Get used to it. The authoritative life cycle analyses for the past 30 years or so have shown that nuclear power is the safest or close to the safest way to generate electricity. Here's a summary of the more recent, authoritative studies. You can find the many peer reviewed papers and other authoritative reports on line.

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal (elect,heat,cook–world avg)100,000 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal electricity – world avg 60,000 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal (elect,heat,cook – China) 170,000
Coal electricity- China 90,000
Coal – U.S. 15,000 (44% U.S. electricity)
Oil 36,000 (36% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas 4,000 (20% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop) 440 (0.2% global electricity)
Wind 150 (1.6% global electricity)
Hydro – global average 1,400 (15% global electricity)
Nuclear – global average 90 (17% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

If nuclear replaced coal for electricity generation world wide this would avoid around a million fatalities per year.

What more could Dr Caldicot and the anti nuke protesters want?

The anti-nuclear campaigners have been spreading their dishonest message for 50 years. They have caused widespread paranoia about nuclear power. They have done enormous damage.

Reading Helen Caldicott's argument, and the responses of Rhrosty and Peter Lang makes me yearn for an independent science based analysis that will produce a report that enables non-scientists such as myself to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Unfortunately, we have the most anti-scientific government in living memory, intent on cutting research, driving scientists out of the country and pursuing manifestly ideology based non-scientific policies.

How then does one make a rational choice between competing arguments?

But James O'Neill it is fairly easy to sort through the arguments. Caldicott's stuff is basically hysteria from the 1970s.. of the three incidents she cites only Chernobyl resulted in a significant number of deaths (in Japan I'm talking about deaths from the reactor incident itself, not the Tsunami).. not the one million she cites, that's straight propaganda, but certainly a number were killed at Chernobyl because management went out of their way to create an accident in a reactor without a containment shield..
and coal mining disasters have caused more..

One would hope Helen that you never get Cancer or need an MRI because if you took advantage of those devises then that would make you a Hypocrite. I sincerely hope you don't have a Smoke alarm in you house because what makes them work is Plutonium.

Are you a hypocrite, Helen?

To elaborate on Curmudgeon's info, there have been no deaths from the Three Mile Island incident (there may [about 30% chance last I read] be one cancer attributable in the long term), there have been no deaths directly from the reactor in Japan (while there were about 150 deaths attributed to the evacuation, it is thought that there would have been none from the radiation if the evacuation had not occurred) and the "million deaths" that Caldacot refers to is from a series of papers that were never published in English (you do have to wonder how good her Russian is) and have been totally discredited.

It is hard as a layperson to understand the science and put the actual risks involved into perspective, but when you look at the motivations of those talking (fear and profit are the main drivers in this debate IMO), it's not to hard to figure out who is and who is not worth listening to.

One has to wonder if people like Helen regret the particular hobbyhorse they climbed on years ago.

Hobby horse legs, like gravy train wheels, have a tendency to fall off over time.

It must be rather galling for these people to realise the legs have fallen off their horse, & they are now flogging a completely dead horse.

It must be even worse to realise that, after painting your hobby horse into a corner, there is now absolutely no way you can get off it, with even a shred of dignity.

I guess that is why they continue to push the same totally discredited garbage to the grave.

Rhrosty, Peter Lang, Curmudgeon, Grumbler, Hasbeen and Jayb

Nuclear waste dumps are an inevitable cost and problem of having a power reactor industry in Australia.

If nuclear waste dumps are so ultimately logical and rational and if there's many millions to be made from them, then:

1. there must be countries overseas that are making many $millions from hosting nuclear waste dumps? This doesn't include meaningless plans or business projections.

US Government plans made a decade ago are not valid post GFC.

Which countries are at present making millions from nuclear waste dumps?

High level waste dumps are working factories with circulating coolant. You can't just leave it in the ground and forget about it.

How much did the dumps cost to build?

Did government money build them, tax write-offs or subsidy funds?

If high level dumps are built in Australia who can guarantee that Foreign Company A or Country B will continue to pay for the upkeep, and honour Store in Australia contracts after 100 years, let alone 500 years? let alone 500,000 years?

Think of the terrorism, crime and invasion encouragement value of having 100s or 1,000s of tonnes of enriched, weapons grade, Plutonium in Australia? A cost effective investment for Australia?

Reactors need to be hardened to resist terrorist explosions and aircraft impacts. Noting Lucas Heights has been aircraft hardened.

You'd need a defence force to guard such dumps as police or security companies would be inadequate.

You also need an army to guard road or rail transport (against terrorism, sabotage and protestors) of reactor parts and nuclear waste.

Who pays for these military security costs?

Pete

Our nuke industry both weapons and power are interconnected so dangerous materials as waste are used for nuke weapons. There is no incentive to produce a safer means of power. The power side uses really old technology that is extremely unsafe and the waste lasts for up to billions of years.

Dr Helen Caldicott and Prof Chris Busby are not being alarmist. The dangers are real. Prof Busby has evidence of the USA using both depleted Uranium and small nuke weapons in Iraq. Perhaps better technology in nuclear Fusion is the answer but presently we have technology that is over 50 yrs old.

The price of nuke power is a fraud. There isn't a single reactor/power station anywhere that isn't heavily subsidised, and that's not even counting the cost of supporting infrastructure and handling, let alone disposal.
So far no-one is even CLOSE to finding a safe and sensible method of disposal, yet the associated problems last for tens of thousands of years, unlike any other source of generation.
Given the above it's absolutely idiotic to be even considering such for Australia.
We have amongst the best and most prolific sources for many forms of green power on the planet yet our government is hell-bent on crippling any attempt to develop them, and on top of their gutting of Science at every level one must surely come to believe that the Mad-Monk is determined to take us back to the 17th/18th century, in line with his religious and social beliefs.
Think also about this, that any Australian reactor and supply chain will be administered and over-sighted by our Public Service, that alone sends chills down my spine!
Anyone care to nominate ANY area of P.S. responsibility that ISN'T incompetent, wasteful, prone to corruption and downright dangerous to our health?
And you want to put nuclear radiation in THOSE hands?

Plantagenet come on mate, no straw men please.

We have so much totally useless land area, political stability, & the necessary infrastructure to be able to transport & store waste more effectively than anywhere else. It makes real sense to dump the residue, now depleted, back in the holes it came out of. What is more obvious.

That defense force guarding the place is another red herring. I'm sure you know our defense force are not allowed to do anything nasty to anyone in Oz ever. It was not such in my day, but our pongos might as well be totally disarmed while in Oz today.

One very sore point with my son was weekend duty onboard ship, when their instructions were to make no contact with any intruder, but to call the civilian police.

As for anyone sending extremely valuable Plutonium to be dumped, that is really covered in straw. Anyone with the stuff legitimately, will be using it to drive power houses, or bombs, not dumping it in Oz or anywhere else.

Dr Caldicott is delusional. She thinks she is the smartest kid in the room which is common with many types of mental illness. I do feel sorry for her but really you people using her for this nonsense should be ashamed of yourselves.

Caldicott will soon stand before a judge, and find if impossible to lie to Her.

Pete; FBR, can use and reuse this material?
Meaning, the half life can be reduced to just 300 years, and not the hundreds of thousands as some like to claim!
Surely we are smart enough to store this material for 300 years?
Even so, my preference for us, would be cheaper than coal thorium power, which just doesn't produce said toxic waste, but something far less toxic, and eminently suitable as long-life space batteries!
In inverse proportion, thorium reactors consume as much as 95% of their fuel, meaning, even such waste as is produced, is far less than in the oxide reaction.
And a very economical, reasonably safe option, until we perfect fusion power!
Power that will likely allow us to migrate to the stars.
Notice how adroitly the antinuclear brigade avoid discussing thorium power!
Arguably, because their par for the course, anti development propaganda, just can't be applied to cheaper than coal, thorium power.
And a reasonably safe option until we develop Ajay's viable fusion power, which could be the cheapest ever!?
And this is just the sort of almost endless ultra cheap energy, we need to allow us to migrate to the stars/depopulate the planet!
Already we know there are about a million or more earth type planets, orbiting similar suns, in our own galaxy!
It's only a matter of time before we develop the warp engine, we need to cover such vast distances.
And cover said distances, in just weeks rather than centuries?
Yes, nuclear weapons are indeed the worst and most powerful mas murdering weapons ever invented; and the sooner we convert this material solely to peaceful purpose, the better!
Yes, there could be some dangerous unintended consequences, safely disposing of the waste!
But whatever those consequences, they pale into complete insignificance, with the harm that could be done to us and the planet, if this material is instead, used as weapons of war.
Time to join in with the more sensible advocates, and just get all these weapons dismantled, and the material, used up in peaceful purpose, nuclear reactors!
Rhrosty.

Have to agree with rhosty, I too would love to see fusion power developed more. Renewables are great and I'm a big supporter of it but I do realise we can't power the country solely on renewable and we need something reliable during unfavourable conditions.

My ideal solution would be solar panels to every house in Australia with small self contained nuke power plants for state wide power and for remote communities.

Yes Rhrosty and nowhereman

Australia should be the test site for all nuclear technologies that have not been trialled on a VIABLE BUSINESS basis anywhere. Who can argue the economics of barely tested inventions?

After all - these are $multi-billion dollar experiments serving a thin market in a country with a very low nuclear knowledge base.

Taxpayers will love to fund it, engineers will love the money, and property owners will love to host these experiments.

Ho bout throwing in CARBON CAPTURE while we're being ridiculous?

And warp-speed intergalactic travel is an equally challenging, and may I say viable, business proposition. Lets dream the dream.

Don't get me wrong about nuclear weapons - see my latest blog post which I updated yesterday http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/why-would-india-want-to-develop-10000.html

Pete

I do agree carbon capture is stupid. Snake oil if you ask me.

About untested technologies: Chicken and egg problem. Just like Turnbull declaring we don't need any faster than 15Mbit connection because nothing now that requires that kind of bandwith. Should we have developed the aeroplane? First few iterations certainly wasn't anything to write home about.

Warp drive? How on earth are you going to power that, with fossil fuel? Nope, most likely with fission or fusion power. If you don't research the fundamentals, how are you going to unlock future techs?

Yes and its crucial that the Australian taxpayer is exposed to extremely high financial risks in testing and perfecting new nuclear technologies in Australia.

The logic of new nuclear technologies being developed and fielded in countries with existing nuclear power industries and thus a much higher nuclear knowledge base (like the US and France) is avoided and evaded.

The US and France know something the nuclear cargo cultists* don't.

* cargo cult = the belief that various ritualistic acts will lead to a bestowing of material wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

Thorium reactors were developed in the fifties, and are just not new technology. [China, is producing one a week?]
On and on the anti-nuclear/anti-development brigade go, trotting out misinformation or the endless scare campaign!
i.e, We don't want to be a test bed, and it'll cost way too much etc.
What?
Cheaper than coal thorium? Costing way too much?
Garbage in garbage out!
But particularly and as shown, when they can't argue with the facts!
And paramount among those facts is; we are not facing an extinction level event due to nuclear power options, but one that is becoming more and more likely, as we burn more and more carbon!
And one of the few affordable options to help us defeat that, is the nuclear option; but particularly, cheaper than coal thorium!
Now today, rather than wait until we are inundated virtually overnight, with a 3 metre wall of melt water!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty: Now today, rather than wait until we are inundated virtually overnight, with a 3 metre wall of melt water!

Over night? Well if you take it in relation the 4 Billion year old history of the Earth.

I agree with you Rhrosty, Nuclear is the way to go utilizing some of the new Technology that is available. Australia is lucky enough not to have many large earthquake fault line running through the Continent. It seems that just about every other Nuclear Power Plant is built straddling a fault line. Why is that?

As for storage of Waste. Australia does have lots of wide open spaces that could be utilized to store the Waste. We could store the Worlds Nuclear Waste here & we could make it safe from theft. Countries could pay for the storage & if they default on the storage then we would own it. Sooner or later Scientists will find a way to utilize it in a safe way & we will own the Worlds supply. It's a Win, Win.

New industry's, opportunities, employment & a huge financial reward to boot.

Hi Rhrosty

Time to commit yourself to Hari Krishna with a dull plastic sword.

1. Yes China is building ONE thorium TEST reactor that may be ready, not in 25 years, but maybe in 10 years http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100026863/china-going-for-broke-on-thorium-nuclear-power-and-good-luck-to-them/

2. China has 28 PWR* (that pressurised water reactors) under constuction over 20 years. Thats one about every 9 months (like babies) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China . After 65 years of commercial power reactor functioning and experimentation only PWR reactors have been proven reliable and economical :)

3. In 2007 it was reported China was constructing 562 new COAL-fired power stations over the next few years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China#Coal_2 .

So maybe one COAL fired power station per week.

Please send cash in lieu of abject apologies to the Master :)

Pete

after Fukushima, Germany had a sea change in attitude toward nuclear energy, and has been decommissioning its reactors, but relying on coal power in the meantime before renewables take up the slack.

The Germans are not taking any more chances on nuclear as a viable energy source, and the cost is also quite prohibitive.

The Germans love their children, too.

Not right there SHRODE. Germany now has a completely schizophrenic power industry.

They went all renewable & nuclear to reduce CO2 emissions, silly children.

They have discovered renewables are not working, & are killing their industry. Their ratbag greenies used Fukushima to force them to shut down their nuclear, so what do they do.

Yep they build a dozen, & now more, coal fired power stations, running on, wait for it, brown coal.

When the wind blows they have to give most of their wind power to Sweden to pump water up hill, because their grid can't handle it.

When it doesn't blow they have to buy hydro power from Sweden, some of it generated with the water their wind power pumped up hill.

You can easily see the hand of greenies in this wonderfully planned power system, can't you?

God help them, the Poms are almost as bad, & if we let a Green controlled Labor lot back in here, we will go the same way.

Sadly Dr Caldicott you are living in the distant past. The use of nuclear technology is very well understood these days and modern nuclear power technology is very advanced and safe. In fact if eventually the use of fossil fuels is significantly reduced across the planet, nuclear fission and eventually nuclear fusion, will be the mainstay of the massive power grids needed to maintain the majority of the world's major population areas.

Here is some excellent education for Helen Caldicott and all those who trust her integrity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6aL3wv4v0&feature=youtu.be

The video is newly released, by an authoritative source who is and not politically motivated and not associated with nor gets anything from any industry. Many people will take the time to watch a video but not read an article. So I think this video is a way to get some people to gain some appreciation of how badly they've been misled by the fear-mongering about radiation and nuclear power. I'd also encourage people to forward it.

My interest is in rational energy policy and the economics of the various alternatives, including nuclear power. I believe the irrational impediments we've imposed on nuclear power over the past 50 years or so are somewhat akin to regulating that every motorcar must have a man walk in front waving a red flag to warn horses of its approach. Wade Allison says unjustified safety regulations have increased the cost of nuclear energy by a factor of 2. Professor Bernard Cohen says regulatory ratcheting raised the cost of nuclear by a factor of 4 up to 1990. I suspect it has raised it another factor of 2 since then. Whereas the learning rates (cost reduction rates per doubling of capacity or energy output) are positive for all other electricity generation technologies, the learning rate for nuclear is negative. That is clearly not justifiable and is irrational. I suggest it is due almost entirely to the irrational fear of nuclear power.

AUSTRALIA and NUCLEAR POWER and WASTE
Radioactive waste disposal is a huge problem. It is best to store it on the surface even though that also has problems. Everywhere deep underground there is a water problem. Even storing it in a 3,000,000,000 year old granite such as we have in WA is not suitable. Granites have joints and cracks in them and water move through these, as they found in Scandinavia when they tried to store radioactive waste underground. As the waste breaks down over time it heats up and will spread wherever the underground water takes it. This is not reversible.
Use of nuclear power should be postponed until a method of consuming all the radioactive material in power production is found.
We are inflicting many problems on future generations do not let us add to their problems.
Lloyd

LLoyd,

"Radioactive waste disposal is a huge problem."

No it isn't.

It's a negligible problem if considered in proper perspective. The big picture perspective the anti-nuke activists fail to recognise is that if we allowed nuclear power (e.g. remove the irrational, unjustified, impediments we've imposed on it), it could largely substitute for fossil fuel baseload power generation over the decades ahead and doing so would avoid around 1 to 2 million fatalities per year world wide. That's the big picture.

Now to your comments about nuclear waste. It is a relatively trivial technical and cost impact if taken in proper perspective.

1. the quantities of waste are trivial compared with the chemical toxic wastes we release to the environment continuously, and compared with the quantities of CO2 released.

2. Nuclear wastes are contained and not released to the environment, whereas the toxic chemical wastes are released to the environment all over the world.

3. Nuclear waste disposal is about 1% of the total cost of electricity generation (see Figure: ES-2: http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2013/7061-ebenfc-execsum.pdf

4. Nuclear waste can be stored safely at or near surface or disposed of permanently in deep geological repository (DGR). There is negligible chance of any impacts on health from DGR. I'd urge you to research this; a good place to start would be with the excellent Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organisation's DGR site. Start at Home and progress down to the technical reports, e.g. TR-08-10 here: http://www.nwmo.ca/dgrsitecharacterizationtechnicalreports.

In simple terms it means:

cont ..

Horizontal hydraulic conductivities of the target formation are around 1E-14 m/s. Table 3 shows that the vertical permeability is about 10x less than the horizontal permeability; i.e. about 1E-15 m/s. These permeability values mean that, even if anything leaked from the engineered barriers and could travel in ground water without being absorbed by the rock, it would take many millions of years to reach the surface.

But there’s even more good news. See Section 7, p16, in this report: http://www.nwmo.ca/uploads/DGR%20PDF/sitecharactechrep/TR-08-31_Pressure_and_Head_Monitoring_DGR-1_to_4_R0.pdf . The pore pressures in the rock in the target formations are a massive ‘suck’. Under-pressures of 114 m below sea level (300m below ground surface). Those pressures cannot be explained by even the removals of kilometres thickness of ice sheet since the last glacial maximum. They date back hundreds of millions of years. They are important because they indicate that if water could have got through the rock it would have done so long ago and the pressures would have returned to near hydrostatic. The rock is impervious and water cannot get through it.