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The Forum > Article Comments > Nuclear is for Life: a cultural revolution > Comments

Nuclear is for Life: a cultural revolution : Comments

By Tom Quirk, published 8/2/2016

The simple central message of this book is that we have been mistaken about the hazards of nuclear power. Some of this has been willful and some well intentioned.

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Pt Augusta might suit a pebble reactor, which is cooled by helium, not water.

These reactors have no rods, just marbles of fuel. the fuel is coated in super tough refractory grade graphite? And the helium is piped up through the reactor, which keeps the balls up and moving around.

These things can be mass produced in factories and trucked to almost anywhere, and put into service within weeks, rather than the years needed for conventional systems.

Moreover, as need grows, more modules can be trucked out and bolted on! Decommissioning is just the same thing done in reverse. Given they can be trucked onsite, means they probably replace diesel engines in shipping and subs?

Meaning, they can probably run for up to 25 years before needing to refuel? By which time diesel powered shipping may have run into peak oil and become prohibitively costly.

The big advantage, with pebble reactors, is the fact, if these things ever run out of coolant? the graphite capsules surrounding the fissile material prevents any possibility of an accidental melt down, via a pooling of unprotected fissile material! Like Chernobyl or Fukushima!

Which by any reckoning, were the model T version of nuclear reactors! We are not limited to that technology or old type oxide reactors, nor are we compelled to use the national grid, which is extremely vulnerable and a costly great white elephant which doubles the distribution costs!

Very local supply could include allowable competition, which would force those who supply energy, be they public entities or private suppliers to compete for business. as opposed to current practise, where a single supplier can even levy a charge against a property holder, just because the service passes the property?

Free enterprise must include a truly free market and fair competition! All that's missing is the essential government regulations to enable just that competition and carbon free energy options!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Monday, 8 February 2016 2:08:07 PM
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The ideal place for a nuclear reactor is Wilson's Promotory, with seawater available on both sides, no permanent inhabitants close by and short power line run to the Latrobe Valley distributor. The brown coal plants there could be closed down.
Posted by Outrider, Monday, 8 February 2016 2:49:31 PM
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Cobber, Port Augusta is much better suited to solar thermal, and that could be constructed much faster than nuclear.

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Taswegian, Spencer Gulf is a lot wider at Port Pirie. If a reactor is to be built anywhere in SA, it should be there.

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Rhrosty, Gas cooled reactors are expensive and pebble bed reactors have never got past the prototype stage. Economically it's a non starter in such a sunny location.

The national grid is far from a white elephant. It is effective at getting electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed, with relatively small losses. Poor regulation has resulted in relatively high charges. But the solution is better regulation, not a costly duplication of infrastructure in some places.
Posted by Aidan, Monday, 8 February 2016 8:57:57 PM
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As always Adian you're full of it!

Your idea of using the RBA to fund an expanded economy was tried in Zimbabwe. And one supposes where you got the idea, of how to ruin an economy without really trying.

And yes a solar thermal plant not necessarily connected to an energy wasting grid, could be the way to?

And nothing wrong with sensible duplication that actually reduces costs.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 9:55:53 AM
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Rhosty,

For the past two years you were telling anyone who'd listen that the Chinese were on the brink of a commercial thorium reactor, until I asked for evidence. Whereupon you caved like a house of cards.
Now without missing a beat you're sure that the Indians are gunna build one this year.

No they aren't. No one has built one and no one will build one this decade. There are no 40mw thorium reactors as you assert. And no one is even sure the myriad technical problems around thorium can ever be overcome. I think and hope they will, but it won't happen this side of 2025 and probably long after that.

You have to stop believing marketing hype from people whose only real expertise is generating government subsidies.

Ditto pebble reactors.

"Free enterprise must include a truly free market and fair competition! All that's missing is the essential government regulations to enable just that competition and carbon free energy options"
Quiet a giggle. The only thing stopping a free market is more regulation!!. She's be a natural blonde if only she used more peroxide.

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We won't go nuclear. Its too hard politically and the scare campaigns are too easily run. The cost to fight the green spoilers would be prohibitive. It might happen if we were truly convinced that CO2 was gunna kill us all. But, while people are prepared to pay lip-service to the so-called consensus, there is no constituency for actually taking hard decisions that might actual affect people.
Posted by mhaze, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 12:32:32 PM
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The aftereffects of fukashima have yet to be realised, let alone mentioning having such a potent piece of machinery here.
Posted by 579, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 1:19:59 PM
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