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The Forum > Article Comments > Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality > Comments

Kevin Scarce sometimes scarce on nuclear reality : Comments

By Noel Wauchope, published 7/7/2015

On June 29 Kevin Scarce, chief of South Australia's Nuclear Royal Commission, was interviewed by Ian Henschke on ABC Radio 891 Adelaide.

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Another excellent article Noel.

I think South Australia doesn't have the Critical Mass of money - $$Billions - required to start a nuclear industry. Neither does Abbott.

Notice how your critics adopt a We're tough blokes practical Engineers tone.

How about nuclear terrorism and unbalanced insider sabotage? If a bloke can crash his passenger jet how about an intentional dump. A problem that Nuclear Reactor Host States don't want to think about.

"...Japan [UK, US, France, Canada, South Korea] is no more immune to nuclear terrorism than it was to a catastrophic reactor accident [which happened at Fukushima]. In this context, the combination of safety and security concerns represented by spent fuel pools at reactors is a critical variable in the risk profile arising from the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Japan’s choices have global significance for the threat of nuclear terrorism, and therefore demands serious consideration as part of a national and international risk-benefit assessment of the future evolution of nuclear power." see http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=0de7e0e84dc3aff619f936a70&id=06f03f7a60&e=ae85b3aafb

All reactors produce some high level waste in fuel rod form requiring spent fuel pools to disperse the heat of the rods.

Claims for future (but not yet industrially developed) reactors are about as useful as claiming rocket assisted aircraft (feasible) can solve some passenger airline problems.

Engineer blokes with other people's money.
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 7:13:35 PM
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(from Noel Wauchope)
True, neither the Abbott government nor South Australia have the critical mass of money.
But the global nuclear industry, (desperate to market its product internationally) DOES have the money. Or - more correctly, the scheme to lock Australia into importing radioactive trash.

To quote from nuclear proponent Oscar Archer:
"Australia establishes the world’s first multinational repository for used fuel - what's often called nuclear waste. This is established on the IRONCLAD COMMITMENT (my emphasis) to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors to demonstrate the recycling of the used nuclear fuel"

The development of the intermediate repository and the first reactors is funded by our international partners who purchase the world-first service Australia provides"
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Sunday, 12 July 2015 11:40:41 AM
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Things are a changing !
I notice recently a number of economists are at last understanding that
the whole world's GDP is falling, and that there is a sense of
inevitability about it.
In these conditions a switch to nuclear power is fast becoming financially impossible.

As governments are now realising that wind and solar are dead ends,
there is a need for a different tack.
They are a dead end in that while they can keep padding out our energy
system they cannot do more that just holding on, and cannot replace themselves.
I support the governments ban of wind, but they should have included solar.
If they cannot support themselves financially that is proof they cannot do the job.

Other schemes such as geothermal and tidal need government money
pushed at them.
We have a fundamental problem in that we need an energy system that
can achieve an ERoEI in the range 30 to 100 that can perform at that
level for at least the next two hundred years.

That might give time to produce the wealth to get fusion operational.
Posted by Bazz, Sunday, 12 July 2015 10:59:32 PM
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