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The Forum > Article Comments > Federal inquiry gives glimpses of public opinion on nuclear power > Comments

Federal inquiry gives glimpses of public opinion on nuclear power : Comments

By Noel Wauchope, published 11/9/2019

Even on the pro-nuclear side, there are some reservations, and not all are sceptical of renewable energy.

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Wind, solar and the hoped-for energy storage will not be enough for what lies ahead. That includes electric car charging, desalination, gas appliance replacement and air conditioning as a public health issue. We would need about 6X as much installed wind and solar as the 2018 level plus 2 Twh of energy storage to get through heatwaves. There is no sign we will get anywhere near that amount of energy storage with pumped hydro or batteries.

Nuscale say their small modular reactor will generate electricity for US$60 per Mwh so where figures like A$240 came from is a mystery. That is a pressurised light water type of reactor. Australian uranium should be enriched overseas where there is a glut of facilities and fissioned in SMRs back here. Store the used fuel in the outback until 4th gen reactors are available to burn not only plutonium from the used fuel but also thorium. Over time we should be able to replace most coal and gas and genuinely slash emissions.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 8:26:10 AM
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This Author's extremely well-publicised views are well known! Is here with more of the same?

Simply put, the death toll attributable to power generation, as fatality per gigawatt, lowest for nuclear power, even lower than renewables.

But, Solar not available at night unless you add in storage! Which just doubles or triples the price!

Green advocates seem to think this is a good outcome because if it is horrendously expensive, folk will use less.

Sure we could use a lot less by going back to living in caves and running our food down with a stone tied to a stick! So much for a couple of million years of human progress/reaching for the unreachable stars!

Anti-nuclear advocates like the very vexatious and mischievious Author will always say that, OK, we might have nuclear power sometime in the future. That there's the inordinate build time, massive cost/inherent danger.

The least time from contract award to the commissioning of an operational nuclear reactor is around six months.

Yes but, say the anti-nuclear brigade, that was just a small one, using an already tried and test design. Well hallelujah. The penny drops.

Then they waffle on about Chernobyl/Fukushima as if what's proposed is anything remotely like either! Tantamount to comparing a piston engine plane to a jet-powered one!

Well yes, they are both aircraft! But where any technical resemblance ends!

Then, what about the highly toxic waste?

Well MSR uses it as unspent fuel that it more completely burns. And in the process produces a vastly less toxic material that has the halflife reduced to 300 years and as a product, eminently suitable as long life space batteries, that burn up with reentry!

And this mountainous nuclear waste, enough to power the planet for centuries!

WITH CARBON FREE FUEL!

We could but only if we are intelligently and independently led, provide a safe repository for this unspent fuel and spend it before burying it! For the annual billons, other nations would pay us for a service which could be done in absolute safety! TBC.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 11 September 2019 10:10:08 AM
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She's back. With exactly the same views.
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 10:14:25 AM
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The only other reliable, dispatchable, affordable power, to that of coal-fired power, is the nuclear option!

Time we stopped listening to this BS, shovelled by the usual suspects, by the shipload, just cracked on with MSR and thorium.

Moreover, MSR thorium, which is converted to U233, that is the mother of miracle cancer cure, alpha particle, bismuth 213. has been clinically trialled in, CONVENTIONAL WESTERN MEDICINE, European clinics around 2006. with reported success against stage four ovarian cancer, with little if any damage to surrounding tissue!

Ovarian cancer takes comparatively young women, at an annual rate that's greater P.A., than our road toll!? Life expectancy averaging just 5 years!

Brain cancer, comes with a life expectancy, from diagnoses to death of just 14 short months with just 2% surviving beyond 5 years!
Comes with an annual death toll greater than the road toll and remained stubbornly so, over three decades.

Bismuth 213, reportedly used to CURE other death sentence cancers like pancreatic cancer, myeloid leukemia.

Yes, it's true Thorium> U233 is not the only source of bismuth 213, which in MSR thorium is a virtually free byproduct!?

Noel who knows SFA about nuclear power and its vastly superior safety record, waffles on about gamma radiation.

Almost as if anyone was or would advocate running an unshielded reactor! Thorium is 4 times more abundant than uranium, has a half-life of 15 billion years or, a couple of billion more years than the life expectancy the universe!?

Which effectively means we can never run out of it!

Compare these numbers. A conventional 350 MW light water reactor, will during a 30-year operational lifetime, require 2551 tons of enriched uranium fuel, may be able to provide power from that combination for as low as 6 cents PKWH? Over that period produce 2550 tons of nuclear waste.

A MSR thorium, a FUJI 350 MW, will require just 1 ton of refined thorium, produce less than 5% waste, which as already described, eminently suitable as long life space batteries that burn up with reentry!
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 11 September 2019 11:30:01 AM
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From Noel Wauchope.
Disappointing to see that it looks as if Alan B and ttbn have not even read this article. There they go, accusing me of providing here "more of the same"- of my "well-publicised views"".

But in fact, in this article, I have not provided any of my own opinions. The article is a faithful summary of what people have said in their submissions to the Parliamentary Inquiry.

I fail to see how this could be interpreted as "vexatious and mischievous"".

And, by the way, Alan B. - there is no "i" in the last syllable of the word "Mischievous". Putting that"i" in changes the whole pronunciation and makes the word sound silly.
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 4:55:35 PM
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Well, thanks for that Christine or Noel or whatever other aliases you are using If there was a spelling mistake then blame it on Grammarly spell check, which checks, edits and corrects all my commentary!

[Even so, I do OK for a bloke that attended as many schools as I did and left school the day I was old enough with only 7 months high school. Everything else including 3 qualifications in tertiary disciplines down exclusively to me night school, community college and much burning of midnight oil!]

And your endlessly repeated activism is well known!

The tide has turned with only around 4% of a recent poll demonstrating disbelief in climate change!

The average citizen with a little more intelligence than a goldfish (you?) has to know that we have to have a nuclear future if we are to address climate change.

And indeed to our economic fortunes around without harming the enviroment, just the very opposite! I couldn't care less if you don't think I read you well enough!

Your attitude to (ignorance personified) Nuclear power is no secret and all too clearly hasn't changed either, as has your debating style which when hopelessly inadequate!

Simply shoots the messenger when you've no cogent reply or rebuttal! Your current knowledge of nuclear technology and safe waste disposal is to reiterate, SFA!

Y'll have a nice day now y'hear.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Wednesday, 11 September 2019 5:34:56 PM
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Dear Alan B.,

I'm more than happy to go nuclear power generation providing they build the power plants in someone else's backyard. How about a solid LNP electorate like ScuMo's seat of Cook or in Barnaby Joyce's neighbourhood? Would anyone like to second that? Do you reckon we could get the thumbs up from ScuMo on that proposition? No, I didn't think so!
Posted by Mr Opinion, Thursday, 12 September 2019 4:57:33 AM
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Hi Noel Wauchope

Well done for another excellent and timely article.

It frustrates civil engineers no end that:

- they can't build hugely expensive large reactors or

- base their careers on never commercially proven SMR technology.

Mr Opinion is right that no politician wants to lose political office by building a reactor in his/her electorate or state.

Even little SMRs serving Birdsville etc would create huge political and judicial controversy (costing 100s millions in lawyer/politician/environmental/security official pay) lasting decades.

Terrorists could easily blow up SMRs before arrival on the delivery trucks or inplace. All the safety measures of an SMR will count for little when a truck bomb or large hijacked aircraft turns an SMR into a radioactive fragment spreading "dirty bomb" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
Posted by plantagenet, Sunday, 15 September 2019 7:00:24 PM
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Noel,

Showing a cherry picked selection of submissions that agree with you proves nothing.

While coal continues to provide base load the argument is moot. However, as the % of renewables increases and correspondingly so does the price of electricity and its unreliability, then the mood will change.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 16 September 2019 5:11:27 AM
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In reply to "Shadow Minister" - those were not a "cherry picked" selection of submissions. They were ALL of the submissions published up to that date, and my article was a faithful summary of the views presented.
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Monday, 16 September 2019 6:36:59 AM
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Noel,

Considering that you only submitted snippets from some of the submission combined with your history of misrepresentation and the tiny sample (38) I would find any claim that this represented the main body of the public as absurd.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 16 September 2019 8:40:52 AM
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to Shadow Minister. Not a "tiny sample" It was all of the submissions published by that date. Themes were chosen as those most mentioned. Short quotations supplied that best expressed each writer's concern. On this occasion I was careful not to express my own personal views.
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Monday, 16 September 2019 8:53:03 AM
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Here is one you missed.

"Australia’s power system must be reliable, affordable and sustainable. Whilst
maintaining high reliability, Australia has to successfully make the transition of its
power system to a more affordable system with lower emissions.
In the long run, there may be only four practical technologies available for lowemissions power systems: hydro, solar PV, wind and nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the only one of these that is not weather-dependent.
Nuclear power has high reliability and generates close-to-zero emissions. The high
capital cost of traditional large-scale reactors may make them unfeasible in Australia
but the advent of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) with their lower capital cost and an
operating life of up to 80 years is likely to make them a game-changer in Australia."
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 16 September 2019 9:51:03 AM
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Thank you, Shadow Minister. It would be helpful if you were to supply the name of the author, or the Submission number. Since I (Noel Wauchope) wrote that aricle, many more have been published on the Parliamentary Committee's website.
Posted by ChristinaMac1, Monday, 16 September 2019 10:16:10 AM
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