The first step in having a reasoned debate is to establish the context. I don't think the Australian people will be unduely concerned about the death rate inherent in coal. After all, no one is forced to be a coal miner, so presumably the people do it because they're willing to take the risk.

So the very first question is whether Australia can continue to depend on coal for its power. People have no reason to look at the merits of other power generation schemes until they are convinced that continuation and expansion of coal fired generation is not an option.

I don't believe that arguments about the scale of other approaches will do much good either. We could build 22,500 wind generators if we had to, and we could cover 2500 square kilometres of land with a solar generator. Australia isn't exactly short of space.

Not that either of these is a complete solution - there would need to be short term storage and backup arrangements to match supply to demand - which adds to the cost.

Cost is where the true debate lies. It's what the public will pay attention to. So, the required steps are

a) Convince the public that they cannot continue to use coal.
b) Show them how much it costs to avoid nuclear power.

Then if the public still wants non-nuclear generation, it's their choice.

Sylvia.

Dennis i'm all for a debate including nuclear but can we get away from this default all or nothing position and also consider a combo model?

Stabilising Carbon Emmissions

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/brkfast/stories/m1075783.ram
-a combination approach to energy production, admitting, no renewables alone won’t do it, so we should look at coal with carbon sequestration, energy efficiency, (not to forget recycling of our waste resources), renewables, nuclear, and gas.

Also if we are to look at the nuclear we do a cost benefit analysis including subsidies, security, waste management and decommissioning.

I agree more data For example if all houses in Australia were almost independent of power supply lines how much of our energy needs are met? If a mix and match, some tidal some wind some photo voltaic all combined with architecture to minimise energy use how much of our needs is satisfied? What is our need/ Do we all have every imaginable power device including cars?
How much is nuclear subsidised? What would the cost, for cost is what seems to concern us, if one or more exploded or imploded? How much land would go out of producton? What is the line loss if nuclear stations wer placed in terra nullis, the aboriginal territories and how more expensive is this campared with local siting (and danger)?
etc.

I agree that we need to look at an entire energy portfolio, where all methods of power generation are considered. You can see further details of what I have said both in parliament and in the media by looking up Hansard at www.aph.gov.au.

On the issue of explosions-there are now Generation 4 nuclear reactors (which are the ones we should examine, such as pebble bed nuclear reactors) which are designed in a way such that meltdown is impossible. The problem with the PWRs and so on in use is that they are glorified ship propulsion plants. Gen 4 are designed with electricity generation in mind.

The simple fact is, the only genuine options at present in terms of baseload power supply are nuclear or fossil fuels. The so-called renewables have promised much, and delivered little.

With cost, it is important to note that nuclear power is the only electricity generation method where the cost of decommissioning is built into the cost of electricity. The futility of other methods not doing so can be seen in abandoned power plants, such as in Kwinana and East Perth in my own neck of the woods.

In my view, the choice of power generation methods, based on economic, environmental and future resource cost projections should be left in the hands of those most expert-the power utilities. If they deem nuclear unsuitable for their purposes, so be it. However, if they are being artificially constrained by legislation, then I think that this needs to change.

Of course, government oversight is essential.

Dennis

Hear Hear. We need clear debate based on the evidence.

Renewables promise much, and have so far delivered little, like nuclear energy. In 2002 nuclear energy supplied 2% of the world’s total energy production, based primarily in nuclear armed states.

But with the onset of climate change, the scarcity of oil and the growing demand for energy, we need to think carefully about future investment.

World electricity demand is expected to double by 2030 and the electricity sector is expected to invest US$9.8 Trillion to meet this demand, 60 per cent of that outside the OECD. Where this money is spent will directly affect the lives of billions of people.

So I take exception to the assertion that the power utilities are the most expert body to determine our energy future. Is it their business to take responsibility for the future of Australians, and indeed the needs of those in the poorest countries, or should they be responsible to their shareholders?

I have little doubt that a parent company with nuclear operations who part owns an Australian generator or utility would view nuclear power suitable for their purposes. But I don’t say “so be it”, I say ‘let's have the evidence’, I say ‘is this in the interests of Australians?’

Victoria’s baseload demand is about 4000 MWe. By my calculations, it would take 800 5MW turbines (such as those being built off shore in Europe) to deliver this power. Sure the wind doesn’t blow all the time in the one place. So let’s say we had 1600 of them dotted in small farms along Victoria’s coast (that’d be 50km apart) they’d easily meet baseload demand, doubling it at times.

But what of the cost? Well, based on current projects of comparable scale to Victoria's demand, nuclear stations would be more expensive.

All this though has to be viewed in the light of the fact that we waste perhaps up to half of the power we use today anyway.

"Time for a reasoned debate."
Yes. Hopefully about power in general - society's wants and needs, versus environmental capacity to supply.
How far can humanity go in providing power for all of its present and projected numbers?
Will there be aparthied in such provision? Do we recognise the rights of all peoples throughout the world to access a standard of living to which we of the "west" have become accustomed, and are reluctant to relinquish?
These western standards are underpinned by cheap energy. And the current economic paradigm decrees continuing growth, preferably at 4 per cent (doubling in less than two decades). Unless there is fundamental change in economic thought (and none in sight) this growth will be in parallel with increased energy use.
We of the "more developed" countries number about 1 billion. Do we have any fundamental right to discourage those 5 billion in the "less developed" countries from aspirations to our standard of affluence by denying them equal access to energy?
Yes, an energy crisis is approaching. Even with continuing imbalance favouring just the billion. Probably, it will manifest itself, alarmingly, within a decade. Yes, renewables will be incapable of deflecting it sufficiently. But, saying that nuclear is capable of doing the task is to continue the disinformation which has too often been a characteristic of that industry for the past half century.
If nuclear were to take over from coal and oil, within about a decade of the required number of nuclear power stations coming on stream, the available rich ores of uranium would be depleted. From then on, the energy needed to mine and extract uranium would be greater than the energy obtained from it.
What else from the pro-uranium lobby is tripe? plenty.

Dennis
>On the issue of explosions- which are designed in a way such that meltdown is impossible.

I totally agree safety from a modern well regulated plant should no be a concern. Who's backyard will still cause problems :)

>The simple fact is, the only genuine options at present in terms of baseload power supply are nuclear or fossil fuels. The so-called renewables have promised much, and delivered little.

With due respect
http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Media/PR_NucPwr_05vi20.pdf
Nuclear Power's Scorned Small-Scale Competitors Are Walloping It in the Marketplace

-documented that worldwide, the decentralized, low- or no-carbon sources of electricity—cogeneration and renewables, all claimed by nuclear advocates to be too small and too slow to help much with climate change—are already bigger than nuclear power and are quickly leaving it in the dust

and as my earlie post indicated they should not be expected to replace everything all at once.

>In my view, the choice of power generation methods, based on economic, environmental and future resource cost projections should be left in the hands of those most expert-the power utilities.

Dennis they are only expert in the delivery of a service for profit, not the big picture which should involve all parties since this is a critical issue facing the nation. If we had left it to your experts the Franklin River would now be damned and all most if not all our native forests would be turned to plantation forests.

> If they deem nuclear unsuitable for their purposes, so be it. However, if they are being artificially constrained by legislation, then I think that this needs to change.

Are you truly a local or a visiting Republican on a goodwill visit?

It certainly looks like Mr Howard wants an American style working poor workforce, are we going to have the same loosening of environmental regulations that has happened under the Bush administration?

For the record I’m a swinging voter & agree some changes need to be made to unfair dismissal but not to this extent, so I don't make it my hobby bashing Liberals just for the fun of it.

Already we're seeing a number of agenda surfacing, complete with misinformation.

Martin, widespread wind farms cannot provide a reliable supply. Look at

http://www.vestas.com/pdf/produkter/AktuelleBrochurer/v100/V100%20UK.pdf

which is a wind generator designed for low wind areas. Its cut in speed is over 14km/h. To produce its nominal power output it requires about 50km/h.

Then look at the wind speeds across victoria at 9am on the 24th of June in

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW0300.shtml

There was almost nowhere in Victoria that could have allowed this wind generator to produce any power at all. The implication is that the entire baseload would have to be provided by some other capacity at that time on that day. That capacity has to be sitting there, built, and with a fuel supply, ready to run when its needed.

Neohuman, the reason combined heat and power systems can be efficient, is that they provide low grade heat as a by product of generating power. This can be a substitute for other sources of low grade heat. But it's only useful if that's what you need. If your problem is that the house is too hot, then CHP does nothing for you - you need an air conditioner.

The fact that these other methods of producing power have been taken up doesn't prove that they're a cost effective way of providing power to the majority of Australians who live in cities and towns.

I have the impression that perhaps even the problem to be addressed hasn't been stated. So I'll have a go:

a) The primary requirement is to provide power to Australian users of power at a level that matches the demand whenever it occurs.

b) No further increases of CO2 emissions are to be produced as a result of increasing power demand.

c) The cost of the power is to be minimised within the above constraints.

d ) A solution may (probably will) consist of a number of disperate parts, but a part is not a partial solution. Only when all the parts are brought together to form a complete solution is there a solution at all.

Sylvia.

Sylvia. If the use of alternative power sources is raising at the rate that neohuman's article is suggesting they probably are cost effective, given that it’s a competitive market (an assumption on my part). I realise that many new sources of power generation receive some subsidy, but they probably don’t come close to the subsidies, benefits and encouragement that coal, gas and oil companies receive ( I think there are plans for a new port up in NW WA).

It’s possible that I haven’t noticed, but I haven’t heard many screams of protest over the years that the government is keeping good ausie companies from the potential profits of local nuclear power generation (not just mining uranium to sell elsewhere). Could this be because it is not cost effective or that the profit margins are too small and the damage potential (environmental, economic and publicity) to survive in a privatised energy market?

I don’t know very much about the energy market so any input into the market viability of nuclear power would be welcome.

I wonder if maintaining such a centralised energy delivery system as large generation (by whichever means) will remain viable in the near future, im just playing Arthur C Clarke here but the trend with many renewable energy sources seems to be toward localised generation and distribution

The most obvious way to 'generate' energy is to save it. At some point we have to recognise we're a long way from sustainability. I can't see why any of the renewable options alone, let alone in combination, can't happen alongside non-replacement of coal stations as they get older, over the coming decades. The fact is, if coal and nuclear power stations had to pay the real costs (of carbon sequestration and waste disposal respectively), they would not be able to compete with renewables.

Sylvia,

I am not sure I understand your case that widespread wind farms cannot provide reliable supply.

If there is enough wind to justify many wind farms and winds are variable along a 2500km coast line, then a comprehensive array must be able to produce an average.

For your statement to be sound, the average, year round, 24h, wind speed off shore along the whole coast of Victoria must be less than 14km an hour. Is it? At many single places along coastal Victoria people have thought it a good idea to build wind farms. These generate power most of the time because there is wind in excess of 14km/h.

Presumably the wind is blowing enough at these many single places enough for them to be viable. – and these are not the more efficient larger scale towers way off shore, such as are being built in other places in the world.

I see the BOM’s site, I see the performance stats for turbines. Looks like 9am June 24th was a really calm morning in many coastal towns, yet at Gabo Island there was a 28km/h southerly, at Hogan Island (off Wilson’s Promontory) it was blowing at 19km/h, and the advisory for much of Bass Straight was for 10 knots or more (18km/h).

My agenda is to highlight the characteristics of the options we have available, several of which are burdened by old fashioned preconceptions. My belief is that renewables, especially wind and solar towers, are competitive options.

I'll start the ball rolling by suggesting a site for Australia's first nuclear power plant; either Woomera or Broken Hill. Neither place has much water or high amp power lines but they do have battle hardened residents. Woomera has a major uranium mine and a waste site close by but a State Premier who is or was anti-nuclear despite looming energy shortages in SA. Broken Hill in NSW has a premier who is pro-nuclear. Logically the plant should be of the fourth generation type funded by some private/public partnership. A decison needs to be made in the next few years as there will be calls for the 'environmental' pricing of coal and China's nuclear program leaves us far behind.

Based on the comments so far, there are three things that I think need to be clarified:

First, one poster presented data on the deaths per TW-hr for various sources, and another poster made then a comment on choosing to be a coal miner (i.e., on public risks vs. worker risks). It needs to be made clear that the deaths per TW-hr presented for fossil fuels like coal only considered industrial (coal plant) accidents and coal mining accidents. That is, it only considered accidents that affect workers. More generally, only immediate deaths clearly attributable to an event were included. Deaths from the effects of pollution (which are statistical in nature, where specific “victims” can’t be identified) are not included. For coal, these pollution-related health risks, which are incurred on the general public (as opposed to voluntary workers) are orders of magnitude greater than the industrial (worker) losses. Most studies estimate that coal plants in the US (for example) cause ~25,000 premature deaths every single year. Worldwide, the figure is hundreds of thousands per year. By contrast, Western (non-Soviet) nuclear power has never released any significant quantity of pollution into the environment, and has never (over its 40-year history) had any measurable effect on public health. Even Chernobyl’s (one time) effects are very small compared to the ANNUAL effects of coal. Even the most conservative (high) estimates suggest on the order of a few thousand eventual deaths (versus hundreds of thousands annually from coal). The maximum consequences of a Western nuclear plant accident, even the worst conceivable event, will be far smaller than Chernobyl, and orders of magnitude smaller than coal’s annual effects.

Whereas you can choose not to be a coal miner, you can’t choose not to breathe the polluted air. It’s also hard to avoid eating mercury contaminated food (like fish). Not only are nuclear’s worker risks far lower than those of coal, its public health risks are orders of magnitude lower.

continued.....

Second, concerning the practicality of providing most, or all, of the energy using renewable sources, cost isn’t the primary thing limiting wind’s ability to contribute, nor is having enough land area. It is intermittantcy, i.e., the fact that the wind does not always blow. Currently, and for the foreseeable future, there is no remotely economical way to store such mass quantities of energy. Windfarms, on average, only produce power ~30% of the time. Most experts believe that intermittantcy will limit wind’s contribution to ~15-20% of overall generation. Intermittancy is less of an issue for solar power, which generally produces power at times of peak demand. Unfortunately, the cost for power from solar cells remains at ~25 cents/kW-hr, over five times that of traditional sources. Solar thermal plants (which, unlike solar cells on roofs, require the dedication of large amounts of land area) are cheaper than solar cells, but are still measurably more expensive than coal or nuclear.

Finally, concerning subsidies for coal vs. nuclear, etc… it must be noted that nuclear is generally the least subsidized of all sources, especially if unaccounted pollution effects are counted as a subsidy. The US EPA estimates the costs of coal plant emissions at well over 100 billion per year, none of which is paid for by the coal utilities (i.e., reflected in the coal power cost). By contrast, nuclear power’s “external costs” are negligible. It produces a tiny volume of toxic waste material that is completely contained and isolated from the environment. Nuclear is also required to demonstrate that this material will remain isolated from the environment until it is no longer toxic. All the costs associated with these extremely stringent requirements are fully reflected in the power cost. In the US (anyway), all waste management and disposal (e.g. Yucca Mtn.) activities, as well as all plant decommissioning costs, are fully paid for by the utility, not the government. Scientific estimates of external costs (such as the European Commission’s “ExternE study) show external costs of only ~0.2 cents/kW-hr for nuclear, versus ~5 cents/kW-hr for coal.

Martin, I think there is little doubt that wind farms could provide the required amount of power, on average. The problem is that power consumption cannot be averaged out. Power is consumed at whatever rate prevails at the particular moment in time. As you point out, on that morning in June, there was significant wind at a couple of places, and if the entire wind generation capacity had been at those places, then things would have been fine. But a few days earlier the situation was different, with other places being optimum. The 26th of April is another day when winds were low - indeed, I think the situation was worse on that day.

BTW, wind forecasts for Bass Straight are misleading for this purpose, because they are not a snapshot, but cover a significant period of time.

The issue then is how to cope with significant deviations from the average output. It is not sufficient to say, "oh, then we'll use coal." If coal fired power stations are only run when the wind is low, this alters their economics, and has to be factored into the costs of wind power. In addition, if the total capacity of the system is to be increased to cope with rising demand, then new non-wind capacity has to be built in parallel with the wind capacity to cope with the deviations in wind output.

Elsewhere in the world, pumped storage is being used where hydroelectric generators are reversible. They can take surplus wind power, and pump water up into a reservoir, and later that water can be used to handle shortfalls in wind generation. This can certainly work, but again its cost has to be factored into the cost of wind generation.

These considerations are why I suggested that parts of a solution are not partial solutions. It's much too easy to leave out costs by throwing them over the fence into someone else's camp. This also applies to cogeneration type schemes unless they are completely disjoint from the grid.

Sylvia, just in case you were not aware of it there is a pump storage hydro system at Wivenhoe Dam in SE Qld. Basic details at http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/182.html

This reinforces the conventional generation system. My understanding is that it is used to pump when loads are load and generate when loads are high thereby providing a more even load for the coal fired stations.

It is also able to be brought up to full load very quickly so it is useful if something else falls over.

R0bert

We could post here for weeks trading links & debating and get nowhere.

Here’s a proposal which I would like feedback on.

We use a multimedia/outlest/format with different stages to gain the information, debate and publicize the topic. In a way it could be similar to what happened with the Republic consultation, true public participation in vital national decisions. Pollies won’t like that though.

First thing we need access to or request a study that independently investigates a cost benefits analysis comparison of:

all energy sources
including energy efficiency
resource recycling –un-recycled waste in landfill out gas and contribute GW- of other factors like land clearing and plantations may be applicable

in the nation wide context of stabilising greenhouse gases to an agreed level to offset or mitigate global warming.

We could request a extended or number of debates on SBS Insight, request that someone like Four Corners and or ABC Catalyst do one or more introduction programmes, one or more Blog debates from experts putting forward their cases in text which could be used with public feedback as a form of public consultation which helps set the context for the Insight debates.

It would be required that the relevant politicians attend for the Live TV debate as well as making themselves available for either live phone in questions and or text questions after the debate.

What is the point of all the interactive media with access to the relevant info if we don’t use it?

An informed debate, with participation from all interested parties including the public isn't that what we want?
What do you think Dennis?

There is needless fear about nuclear energy on the count of the danger of radiation. Radiation causes damage the same way as other pollution which is by releasing free radicals. Free radicals are quencehed by antioxidants produced in our body or in the diet. If there is an increased risk - as there is for space travel the solution is to increase the antioxidants in the diet. This would be an overall benefit, so why not do it anyhow and take the GST off them? Keith

Sylvia,

Power consumption can be averaged out. The average is called baseload (for Victoria it’s ~4000 MWe), the daily variability is called intermittent load (for Victoria it’s between 4,000 and 5,500MWe) and then there’s peak load (for Victoria it’s between 5,000 and 5,900Mwe – 2002 figures).

I’m saying that enough wind turbines, spread out far enough, can deliver this power. Needless to say though, this will never actually be 100% required as wind will only be a part of an energy mix.

My point was not that “there was significant wind at a couple of places” at all. My evidence demonstrated that only at the time and places you cited were there wind speeds according to your argument.

I have provided evidence that sufficient wind did exist at the time you chose and, I suggest to all, that this wind did not exist exclusively around the anemometer that measured it but also for hundreds of kilometers around these different points. Obviously the towns you checked on the date you selected did not experience these winds.

The forecasts for Bass Straight are not as much misleading as just inconvenient for your argument. Wind farms don’t want a snapshot, they want a significant period of wind.

You say the issue then is how to cope with significant deviations; I am doing my best to say that enough wind turbines over a large enough area will average out these variations. You say it is not sufficient to say "oh, then we'll use coal." I say it is. During the next few decades coal will sell power at the market price. If the market price becomes insufficient for coal to be viable then the market will either find a replacement for coal or raise the price to acquire coal derived electricity.

I agree with your most basic point but it seem you are unjustifiably down-playing the economic viability of renewables.

Martin,

Clearly we're not going to agree. You think I'm overstating the cost of using wind power, and I think you're not fully understanding the implications of variability of wind and the financial impact on existing capacity of using it as a backup for wind power.

One thing is abundantly clear, then, which is that trying to have a public debate on the merits would be an exercise in futility. The same sorts of disagreements would arise, together with other hammers thrown into the works by those who do have their own agenga to pursue, even if we do not. Most of the general public would simply not be in a position to form a view as to who was right.

The nearest to a solution that I can see is to ask either CSIRO, or the NEMMCO (the operator of the electricity market in SE Australia), to do a study of the likely cost of electricity with and without nuclear power, but without any further increase in CO2, and for the results to be offered to the public to decide whether or not they want to go with the nuclear option.

Sylvia.

I think the energy debate can be 'dumbed down' by using the benchmark figure of 50%. That is, after a 10 year all-out belt-tightening effort on renewables and conservation we will still replace only 50% of our current energy use. Beyond that business and consumers are going way out of their comfort zone. To quote Darryl Kerrigan, those who think it will be easy 'are dreaming'. So where's the other 50% going to come from?

Taswegian do you bother reading other people's posts?
The point about looking at a combination of energy sources has already been acknowledged.

Sylvia that's what I said from the start.

Maybe Pollie can fill us in on the big energy and resource effeciency drive the gov is going to start to make business more competitive, so it can compliment energy CO2 reductions from generation sources.

Lets not forget that we are talking about “nuclear power”. People have been totally focused on the Fission form. There is another option, FUSION which if can be made to produce power in sufficient quantities is undoubtedly the power source of the future. Just recently a FUSION plant has been producing 10 MW equivalent. It is early days yet and there are still hurdles to jump but nobody mentions it. What worries me is the narrow focus that governments, especially Australian, take to these issues. I have not heard of any Australian involvement in this research or even investigation of the cold fusion (yes cold fusion) that the US Navy just finished studies indicating that there is something going on (New scientist article. Date unsure?)

While Fusion is some 30-40 years off getting to practical implementation for power generation, is it not sensible to be involved? Yes I know that it could be further away but should we not keep a finger in this pie? Obviously the BIG, advantage for fusion is the environmental benefits with insignificant green house impact or long term waste management issues compared to other alternatives. I think it is obvious at this stage that renewables alone will not solve power generation problems. And with fission with all the technical and environmental issues mainly with waste storage and decommissioning and the public backlash it might not get off the ground sooner than fusion anyway.

So my point is governments and private interests should be in ALL technologies. Sometimes Australian gets left behind these big advances. Pity since the scientists and engineers are as good as anywhere in the world.

Reasoned debate, yes, but also a broad minded debate

Hi Bigfish. I am well aware of the fusion research. By way of background, before I got into politics, I was a research scientist. My background is physics and materials science (to PhD level).

I have been thoroughly briefed on fusion research by a group from ANU, Flinders, Sydney Uni, ANSTO, and AINSE on the ITER fusion project. This is a US$10b project, and looks very promising, having a Q-factor of around 5 (meaning 5 times energy out to energy in). They are not assuming any breakthroughs, this is a conservative project. Of course, advances would probably raise the Q-factor more. I am supportive of this work.

Dennis

Sylvia

There will be a parliamentary inquiry looking at nuclear energy as well as the uranium issue. This is something that I have successfully pushed for, and believe that, being a standing committee (with Coalition, Labor and Independents) it is an appropriate forum to consider factors relating to nuclear energy.

MArtin, wind and solar really are not good baseload options. Assuming that wind can be "averaged out", you end up with 20% of rated capacity (European experience). You would need 120 000 generators, costing over $200 billion, or 25% of GDP, or 15 years defence budget!

Dennis

Big Fish I'm inclined to think if an innovation has legs it will be commercialised within two or three years. For example look at the way hybrid cars have overshadowed fuel cell cars in spite of a head start. I hope fusion scientists are not nutty professors playing with big toys at the public's expense, only to ask for more money later on. It seems like good insurance to implement what works now then switch if the superior technology is affordable. To make the switch we will still have to have a viable economy in 40 years or whenever. To me that means a max effort on renewables and efficiency with fission as the baseload generator. It seems though we will make a lot of mistakes before coming to that position.

Although fusion power is promising, the reason fusion power is not mentioned is that it has been promising for forty years. It has proved a lot more difficult to achieve a practical generator than I think anyone ever imagined.

Presumably it will come one day, but at the moment it makes no sense to plan on the basis of its existence.

Last I heard, cold fusion had been debunked, and belongs in the same category as spoon bending. It was never plausible that a chemical process could drive a nuclear reaction.

A parliamentary enquiry into power is a total waste of time and money. These things are almost invariably politically driven. The problem is an engineering and financial one, and has to be addressed by the engineers and economists.

Sylvia.

Sylvia.
>A parliamentary enquiry into power is a total waste of time and money. These things are almost invariably politically driven.

I agree, unfortunately with the degeneration of political accountability into spin, an ineffective/powerless opposition and a government that wants to gag it’s scientists –see the CSIRO bows to the spin doctors- ‘these things are almost invariably politically driven’ rubber stamps.

>The problem is an engineering and financial one, and has to be addressed by the engineers and economists.

Yes if they have the right terms of reference otherwise we are back at a Fracklin River scenario.

Dennis, the “European Experience” (20% of rated capacity) that you oh so happily quote is an old but popular “anti windfarm” figure for single European wind farms (data drawn from 1978 – 1987, comparing isolated small scale windfarm delivery to their 'theoretical' peak delivery).

The point is that wind turbines are far larger and far more efficient in 2005, and by connecting them up by a dispersed and integrated power network you can circumvent the obvious limitation of regional variance in wind speed.

So your 'make-up figures', in exclamation, are rubbish.

Dennis, I should have also said that you are right, wind and solar are not good baseload options compared to coal - but only if you accept the idea that the cost of emitting carbon into the atmosphere is zero!

I don’t think the cost of emitting 27 tonnes per person a year (as Australians do) is zero!

I, along with the world’s climatologists (who are sure enough to publish their work in the last few years), think there is an adverse effect of these emission. For this reason, I think that the more costly option of renewable energy is, in fact, worthwhile.

I think I've finally come up with a resolution for this.

We install cutout devices on every consumer's power line. This device constantly monitors the power taken by the consumer, and sends that information back to NEMCO.

Consumers will then be divided into two groups. The first group believes that windfarms can provide adequate power continuously. When the windfarm generated power drops below the aggregate demand by the group, members of the group will have their power disconnected, to limit the load represented by that group.

The other consumers will be provided with power from a separate non-intermittent supply. This may include other wind-generating capacity, but will in that case also include backup generators. Those consumers will have to pay extra for this guarantee of supply. The extra money will pay for the backup generators.

That way, people get to put their money, or not, as the case may be, where their mouth is. Those who have misguided ideas about the practiciality of unbacked-up wind-farms will suffer power cuts, but won't inflict them on others. They can spend the money they save on various other gambling schemes based on their belief in a law of averages.

BTW, the baseload is not an average (as I've said before). The baseload is the load that exists continuously, 24 hours a day. Any variations in total load are additions to the baseload, not simply deviations from it.

The other thing I don't think is necesarily fully understood here is that the power consumed at any moment in time has to equal the power generated at that moment (apart from the fraction of a second required to power to transit the grid). Power generated 5 seconds ago is not available to meet demand that exists now. Nor is power that will be generated in five second's time.

Sylvia.

Most of what has been said is true however in my opinion I do not see the need for nuclear power at all. A mixture of wind and solar thermal plus solar thermal plants producing storable natural gas would do the trick. What other posters have said is that we need an intelligent distributed grid - one that battery electric cars form a part of.

Read this post on my blog http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/06/solar_power_is_.html.

For clean coal we would have to bury 140 million tons of CO2 per year.

On TV last night a Tas Hydro executive seemed to be saying a key reason for the Basslink undersea cable was for Tasmania to access coal fired electricity when dam levels were low. If you accept the link between climate change and fossil fuels this seems to be a circular process; we need to burn more coal because dam levels are low and the reason we have low water levels is because we burn more coal. Using less doesn't seem to be an option.

My understanding of 'baseload' is minimum output plus a variable amount, which is more easily done when fuel use can be controllled. Don't sell your shares in coal companies just yet.

I am not going to pretend that I have the technical knowledge that others such as Sylvia possess. I find her posts particularly well argued but also dismissive.

OK wind power, solar power aren't producing sufficient returns - YET. However this doesn't mean we should ditch these alternatives in favour of a power source that produces an indefinite and toxic waste and also is potentially a disaster in the making (Chernobyl).

We must continue to develop renewables - our ability to produce solar cells has improved - who knows where the capacity for micro cell storage may lead. Nanotechnology can come into play here. I know I can easily be 'knocked out' by the more technically educated (such as Sylvia) here, but I am concerned when new technologies such as renewables are given such short shrift. Surely we should be looking at every possibility for alternatives to oil and nuclear power?

Just a thought - feel free to inform me of my ignorance.

I'm sorry if I seem dismissive on occasions. What I try to do, and I seem to annoy a lot of people this way, for some reason, is to discover the facts, apply approriate (and I hope transparent) analysis, and therey by reach conclusions. If people dislike the conclusions, the facts and analysis are there to be disagreed with. But it makes no sense just to disagree with the conclusion.

I get frustrated when people offer what they see as counter proposals that are alleged to be solutions, but where insufficient attention has been made to the detail.

My background is engineering - of software, as it happens - but engineering nevertheless. Unlike politicians and managers, engineers work with real constraints that cannot be ignored, and the systems they build either work or they don't. If a problem is over constrained, then there is no solution, and the engineers cannot provide one no matter how much people wave their hands.

An example of an over-constrained problem is one where renewables are required to provide reliable power at a cost below what the engineers can achieve.

If you constrain the problem less, for example by omitting the cost requirement, then you can ask the engineers how much it will cost. But there's then no point in trying to argue if you don't like the answer.

Another example of an overconstrained problem is where you require that reliable power be provided by wind-farms alone. It seems clear to me that that problem is not capable of a solution. I remain bemused that others think otherwise.

Sylvia.

Sylvia - while I am not an engineer I have analysed the situation in my own limited way. There is no question that renewables are going to be cheaper but how expensive is climate change? Nuclear power is at least twice as expensive a coal even with all the massive subsidies that it receives like the Price Anderson Act in the US. Wind power is getting cheaper all the time however there is also no suggestion that all Australia's power needs can be generated with wind power alone.

A mixture of wind and solar thermal is ideal for peak demand when it is the most sunny and windy during the day. Solar thermal plants placed near gas pipelines can produce methane and/or hydrogen that can be stored. Base load can be generated in normal CCGT plants 24X7 from this store of renewably produced gas. Current natural gas supplies will last long enough for the solar manufacturing plants to come online.

Australia with its abundant land area and some of the best wind resources in the world simply does not need nuclear power.

Sylvia, In response to your

“What I try to do, …… is to discover the facts, apply appropriate (and I hope transparent) analysis, and there by reach conclusions.”

Coming after your
“Last I heard, cold fusion had been debunked, and belongs in the same category as spoon bending”

Have a look at the following site. One of a few about this subject.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/Collections/USNavy.htm

Hardly iron clad proof but certainly not in the spoon bending category …..yet.

And your attitude is partly what I am frustrated about in these discussions. People do not consider the out of the box thinking that might just be the next big thing. Now although fusion has been promised for years, several countries, USA, France, Japan, Germany, Russia etc are putting in 10 billion dollars into a facility in France to try and prove its potential, with strikingly France putting in a large portion of that. (Funny, France, who has the best nuclear power industry, do they know something?). This is based on pilot program that did generate excess power beyond input. See Pollie message below mine.

And Australia must get involved in this and other areas including wind power, solar etc. There could be big returns. Let’s not close our minds to just economic constraints because can anyone reliably predict all the effects/benefits/problems of a yet to be discovery or breakthrough. Engineers and scientists can provide innovative solutions eg SynRoc. So as a Chemical engineer to a software engineer. Careful about the conclusions one makes, we might miss out on something.

The Big Fish, I think you're confusing two very different areas.

Things that might exist in the future are all very well, but we cannot build them now. Our problem with CO2 coupled with an ever increasing power demand mean that things have to be built now, and the only things that we can build are things for which we already possess the technology.

Out of the box thinking leads to future technologies, but it cannot guarantee to deliver on any particular timescale, so we cannot use it in our planning.

In ten or twenty years time, it might be shown that some of the things we build now were a waste of money, because other technologies have been proved that could have done the job better.

But that's a better situation than finding ourselves up a creek without a paddle because the new technologies didn't deliver, and we didn't build anything else.

Sylvia.

Martin, you dismiss the 20% windfarm figure as being "from single windfarms". The point that you appear to miss is that, at its very best (and assuming that your dispersal and wind conditions mean that "you can average it out", which clearly you can't) you are still only going to have that 20% average (some turbines will be at 100% rated capacity, others at 0%). Sorry, but there is simply no way of getting around that, no matter how much your agenda might wish that it was not the case.

In essence, for all of our current baseload, you would need around 120 000 wind turbines, costing over $200 billion. For some perspective, depending on who you believe, the capital costs for Australia to go completely nuclear (at current baseload) would be aound $50b to $100b. All costs, including decommissioning, would be less than the figure needed for capital costs of wind generators to meet current needs.

Dispersal helps with being able to get power from somewhere so that there is some evening out of periodicity (even though the averaging out would still result in quite a lot of variability), but that 20-odd% is something you somply cannot get away from.

Dennis

Dennis, your “20% of rated capacity” figure is a ‘talking point’ put about by anti wind farm lobby, as is the “120,000 wind turbines” line. They can’t be verified. I understand the capacity factors for Australia’s wind farms varybetween 20% and 50%.

Far from trying to ‘get away’ from this fact, I suggest that despite the amazing factwe don’t have ‘24 hour a day, 365 days a year, very strong winds’, large wind networks can deliver 24/7 at a competitive price. Isn’t the valueof deliverable wind energy the real issue?

What a ‘network’ of wind farms ‘gets around’ though is the fact that, unlike the wnid in one spot, a wind network can always deliver. This is an important point.

I am suggesting that the prospects of wnid farm networks and thermal solar generators tobe viable sources of bulk electricity are excellent. I think thier limitations are greatly exaggerated by competitors, their lobbyists and those they’ve captured.

I think renewable industries deserve political support, if only to provide R&D to enable smart development. The wayto support them si to highlight a few facts and debunk the spin put out by their competitors.

I have one question for you Dennis. Do you think that emitting carbon into the atmosphere has a cost?

I say it does. I think climate change is a paradigm shift that our old ways are unable to cope with. I say it’ll push up the price of coal power thereby making noncarbon alternatives yet more competitive. I also reckon thatrenewable power has better prospects than nuclear power. I say we wean ourselves off coal in the nextfew decades until renewables, in whatever form, can take the entire load.

Do you think that emitting carbon into the atmosphere has a cost?

Where do you stand?

Also see the Howard Government’s Energy White Paperpresentation.
http://www.auswea.com.au/auswea/downloads/Tradewinds/TW2_Sarea_Coates_AGO.pps

Martin these sort of debates never get anywhere. Like Sylvia i'd like to see the gov get the CSIRO to do a wide ranging cost benefit analysis that included all the options. Then we can discuss it with Dennis.

So Dennis when will we get that? Not just on nuclear.
Also when will the government be start a intensive energy effeciency drive for business and domestic users?

BTW just found two new options for desalination plants that use less energy. Tried to pass pass that onto Sydney water but I won't hold my breath that they will get back to me.

Dennis
The reasoned debate seems to be about the wrong subject.

When are we going to have a reasoned debate about how long we can expect to consume the earth's natural resources at an ever increasing rate?

When are we going to have a reasoned debate about what we are going to do when we have exhausted the earth's resources?

When are we going to have some leaders who have a vision which extends beyond the next election?

Although Sylvia makes several good points on our energy debate in her conclusion (June 28), her points, a)Convince the public that they cannot continue to use coal, b) Show them how much it costs to avoid nuclear power, seem to miss the fact we have an abundance of natural gas to burn.

Other arguments tendered are high on feel good alternatives and short on engineering solutions. Regardless of the power source its engineering that will save the day and on this score we must wade in to get the necessary experience in what ever technology remains as the world struggles to reduce greenhouse.

In this less than perfect world any generating system has its own problems. I ask contributors in this debate to put themselves out in the field for a bit.

Earlier this year a nephew retired from another season of tower rigging across the country that included work on isolated wind farms. A friend also works for Vestas in manufacturing nacelle units (near our old house) that weigh sixty tons or more. Somebody has to erect them all.

During the late sixties some of us fought the extension of hydro schemes along our beloved wild rivers. We had engineering advice back then on many alternatives like reversing hydro storage on good days and believe it, a submersed cable to the interstate grids for peak versus base load stability on both sides of the strait. Later I walked peaks and ridges for pleasure with a project engineer who had the task of convincing governments to hide some of the vast scheme’s overland transmission lines further west.

As competition policy developed, states sold their enterprises. I recall the battle of a lone engineer struggling to maintain his transmission control system when another arm of our federal government retrieved his microwave link frequencies as we did with the mines on the far side of town. The premier had broken his generating monopoly into many pieces. They weren’t talking to him, us or each other and none had a technician to boot.

What’s different today?

Most Australian states have gas.

Taz

This document from the ABS

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/0C2AA58A90E887B3CA256E60007BAB57?Open

gives the total electricity generation in 2001-2 as 216,316 GWh, which is about 778 * 10^15 Joules, or 778 Peta Joules (PJ).

This document

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/706f445c586e288cca256b35007b4f30?OpenDocument

gives the known natural gas reserves for Australia as 26,000 PJ, or enough to provide Australia's total electricity supply for about 20 years, assuming 60% conversion efficiency (which represents state of the art technology).

Burning natural gas produces about half the CO2 that coal does per unit of energy. For every addition MW of capacity required, 1MW of existing coal capacity would have to be retired, and 2MW of gas powered capacity built.

Natural gas costs more per unit of energy than does coal even before the effects of retiring existing capacity are considered.

While it's true that the natural gas would not be consumed intially at a rate that will use it all in 20 odd years, the need to use 2MW worth for each addition MW of capacity means that consumption of NG would ramp up quite quickly.

There may be more gas out there, but we don't know that.

It seems to me that switching to natural gas is neither cheap, nor anything like a long term solution.

Sylvia.

Although I have never been one for stats, it’s all too academic; one of Sylvia’s links gives a map showing those vast gas reserves actually spreading through all states. But being a practical man I know something about the difficulty in converting those reserves into another form of resource.

My father got wildly excited years ago watching a rig offshore working in the shallows with binoculars. He knew when they hit gas in the Yolla field only fifty kilometres from our place. It was a long time before any of that gas came ashore. Meantime a workmate on the other side was collared for a big job, either Gidgealpa or the far away Andes. He did exquisite free hand welding on industrial pipelines. Whata choice! Google confirms it was in 1963.

Then we were converting major industry west of Melbourne from brown coal burning to oil and cleaning up a bit of smog into the bargain. Within a decade we switched much of it to gas. A that time combustion efficiencies were my bread and butter. Where there is a will there is a way.

For anyone interested in stats, I have long been curious about the quantity of energy going up in smoke every bushfire season. We have a renewable right under our noses and it is wide spread across the continent like our ancient gas reserves.

After twelve years working in the pulp and paper industry on both sides of Bass Strait I developed a soft spot for cellulose and its many uses including fuel. A times I worked with specialist teams, physicists and engineers doing research on organics in combustion.

With the right conditions we can burn almost anything but this line of thinking is only valid if as Sylvia says our gas reserves are truly inadequate.

Caustic liquor recovery was one such project and at one stage when the pilot reactor had grown up I was asked to return and help finish the controls around the largest air compressor installed in the Southern hemisphere. That was our oxygen supply for the big reactor.

In analysing the future of combustion here we must not dismiss the opportunities for better greenhouse outcomes by converting fuels from solids, to liquids or gas in the combustion process. Unfortunately a big bushfire does it so well.

On this score I recently obtained a wad of papers from Barney Foran (CSIRO – dare I suggest this lot of research is pensioned off too?). I suggested elsewhere our dreaded blue gum was an ideal target species for reconsidering crops as fuel. E. globulus now grows almost anywhere in the world as a weed.

It’s been quite a while since we played with orange peel and matches.

Taz, agree about biomass not sure about gas. The pipeline from PNG seems to confirm Australia's lack of long term gas reserves. Also the tap can be turned off by hostile forces holding us to ransom. I've often thought about the huge calorific value of tree crops which don't take resources away from food production. In Germany a woodchip based biomass-to-liquids plant will produce enough diesel to replace more than 10% of imported fuel. Here of course we chop down 300 year old trees and mash them into paper feedstock. Even with a B-T-L industry we'd have to go back to pushbikes or partly battery powered cars. The charge for those batteries could come from a grid connecting nuclear plants, windfarms, woodfired thermal, hydro, solar rooftops and so on.

before discussing the nuclear option, Australians should think about using energy as economically as water!

Why is this not the case? Because the government gives no guidelines to enforce it like in Europe.

In the housing sector there is a huge potential to save energy. With better insulation and double glassing, the standard "brick / chopstick" houses energy consumption for heating in winter and cooling in summer could be reduced by 70%.

Become reasonable and skip the SUV to bring the kids to school. A small economic car does the same for half the costs and 1/3rd of petrol. But it would not support Australia's car manufacturers, because Holden and Ford do not produce economic cars here.

Nothing is done in the industry either. Just to mention an example: I do not know one laser cutting business which would use the waste energy of a 6kW laser instead of blowing the 54kW with huge chillers outside. It would be easy to produce all hot water for free with a simple heat exchanger. Why not get refunds for that as for solar hot water systems?

We are just at the beginning of saving energy
The Europeans are 20 years ahead.

Chris

Taswegian; at least in trees it seems we share a common ancestry. Damn the Hydro (and the paper) we still need some old fashioned wood heat. They installed a big transformer for my planned floor heating but by then I was cruising the “alternatives” and building designs that included a little solar passive help. Back on our abandoned hobby “farm” we left a reserve. It was home to our last white goshawk amongst other things.

Hands off guns! (n)

I made a brief comment at the end of another topic about my concern that much comment smacks of elitism when it comes to environmental science. Also people in policy need to get out and do things to have a grip on the practical. When Rosslyn Beeby moved to the Canberra Times we had an upsurge in output from a select group but with respect they are not the voice of the masses. A night flight over Melbourne gives a measure of that.

I am actually fascinated by the idea of hydro electricity and a walk up the old wooden penstocks to Lake Margaret confirmed my view that it was a good thing. But it’s not until you hold an insulator in a switchyard and contemplate the thunderstorms still happening across the ranges that you get a real feel for the industry. I had similar thoughts while issuing radios to the team protecting facilities at North West Cape.

Martin Callinan’s article in the Canberra Times yesterday on US energy policy and recent moves isolating Australia was accompanied by a photo. It showed a worker “Odd man out” silhouetted in a sea of high voltage transmission lines.

I was impressed by that picture.

Just to bring the thread back to the nuclear option, the following link argues the plethora of reasons why nuclear power is not so clean or green or even economic.

"· In the nuclear fuel process, uranium enrichment depends on great amounts of electricity, most of which is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants releasing all of the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants, in Ohio and Indiana, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment.

· The operations of nuclear power plants release dangerous air emissions in the form of radioactive gases, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon.

· Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal, and similar issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise -- as does the matter of the unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations. Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure.

· Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents could easily kill 100,000 people."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501291.html

I'm convinced that today's middle class is unwilling to cut their average energy use more than about 20%. Beyond that they will scream blue murder. In my opinion only nuclear can fill the gap. I've mentioned before I live in a solar house and drive a partly biofuelled car. While some of the objections to nuclear are undoubtedly true I think we will have to make a pact with the Devil. Also keep handy a list of what's wrong with coal and the limits to renewables every time we hear what's wrong with nuclear. I think the clamour for climate stable adequate energy will drown out the antinuclear voices, perhaps within a decade.

So far we have a discussion that is mostly about power sources and sometimes about consumers but no one is looking at the grid. It’s a monster and there are both follies and savings to be made here.

What bothers me most though is debate itself. Most of us can quote others or massage figures to suit ourselves. Where are the experts from these industries? Let’s have some engineers with their feet on the ground before we run away with our own ideas.

Who here has experience in say handling anything nuclear? I can say industrial safety is a practice learned only on the job and it is best handed down through a master apprentice relationship. There are no short cuts to valid experience and its all part of our dilemma.

I would expect that there is plenty of overseas expertise available on nuclear power plants, and Australia is an attractive place to live. There should be no difficulty getting people to move here for a time while the local skillbase is constructed.

Indeed open an immigration list for skilled nuclear power plant staff, and watch how quickly it fills up.

Sylvia.

Chris a lack of a reply by Dennis on a energy effeciency drive speaks volumes on par with their opposition to the Kyoto treaty. Why should they show some vision and commonsense now?

A interesting bit of local renewables history is that Sir Joh during his time in Qld supported renewables research but the funding was cut by Labor when it got in.

BTW the Page Research Centre, The National Party think-tank, has began a study into alternative energy options, including nuclear energy, which it says it's particularly keen to investigate.

We can only hope that the Nats in Canberra can show some vision and commonsense on this, that is sorely laking with their Lib colleagues.

Reading Ziggy Switkowski's bio
http://www.users.on.net/~markd/CEOs/Switkowski.htm
suggests he knows nuclear physics, high finance and pleasing government masters. Now he has left Telstra he could do a feasibility study on Australia's nuclear options. Before I moved to the Styx (literally and metaphorically)I worked for a while with advisors to a senior Canberra minister. Frankly I was appalled just how little they knew about the real world. Ditto the folks who give solar rebates; they can't or won't discuss cost effectiveness. Secondly what may seem obvious to a technocrat may not wash with the public. Remember a Queensland energy executive topped himself last year. Therefore we need 'switched on' energy advice, either Ziggy or an import perhaps.

We have had a rather hollow energy debate so far. A particular comment “ there is plenty of overseas expertise available on nuclear power plants ” followed by “open an immigration list for skilled nuclear power plant staff, and watch how quickly it fills up” shows a flippant disregard of a history of doing things our way. It could only come from someone outside the loop.

I ask, do we now expect to continue importing everything including our clothes from China?

The desire to build something as big and as controversial as a string of nuclear power plants here must come initially from those who probably can.

Let’s return to our industrial legacy. Here I can go back to that big lab in Ascot Vale where Bob Menzies opened the local technology contribution from ICI and so on.

http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/598.html

On the same note; when Vestas came to us they sent our mate back to Europe for a quick brushing up. Most of his crew today are locals from our home town. It makes no sense to me if folk in this debate can’t make their own knives and forks or build a wheel.

Taz, I find your position on the issue of staffing to be inconsistent. Maybe I've miscontrued it, but it seems that on the one hand you're arguing that we have no experience of operating nuclear power plants, and on the other you don't like the idea of importing it.

The effect of your combined position is that we can't build and operate nuclear power plants, or at least not in the required time scale.

We are not going to develop this technology from scratch. No doubt we could do, but it would take time, be exceedingly costly, and above all is an absurd approach to solving our power problem.

The technology and experience already exists in the world. It makes no sense for us not to make use of that.

Sylvia.

Taking us all headlong into the nuclear power industry at this stage is a drastic step for some (read the debate) and it should not be left to the likes of this forum to educate our public or our politicians in the necessary steps on the way forward. That should come from what little of our power industry we still own or operate.

Sylvia: My position is more about us owning at least some part this process than it is about stirring for a particular direction in our need to expand our generating systems. Any new position must be sold to the public via a chain of trusted enterprises like those already in the electricity market. We have the engineering talent, or at least we had it to do that. We also have time. As I said before natural gas is everywhere.

The last thing we need now is our politicians or would be politicians rushing round looking for quick solutions to our power demands. My go slow is all about getting the right people into this debate, skilled technician rather than clever lobbyists.

We have another problem yet to be mentioned, we also have a history of state political parties offering large blocks of discount power to selected industries at election times. Let’s try dealing with that here

The G8 Summit has endorsed the Bush position that hydrogen and clean coal has the problem solved. I guess by year's end we will see the smokestacks at Eraring dismantled and hydrogen cars in local showrooms.

Good point Taz about electricity discounts. In the California crisis we saw aluminium smelters selling back their quota so households could run airconditioners. The theory had been that metal refining was an economic cornerstone that underpinned the whole economy. Seems like it was more about making money.

Hmmm

And current proven reserves of Uranium will probably last something like 100 years based on current demand. Any increase of uranium use for power generation will probably match new reserves that are economically feasible to extract so potentially meaning we have nuclear energy for 1 maybe 2 centuries (and yes I remember the cries of oil shortages in the 70-80’s with only 2-3 decades of reserves left). But then we are left with 30,000 years of waste management. Oh but Breeder reactors could be used but are still significant decades from full potential which could provide true long term energy. But great terrorists targets and management issues over their life(and waste ..again). I suppose breeders probably fall in same category with Fusion reactors in implementation time frame. But fusion waste management seems just a bit easier to handle and reserves are just a tad more long term. But lets not think outside the box too much....

Yes I know sarcasm gets me nowhere...but thought provoking I hope.
Lets not stick to only Fission....we may be blinkered from better LONG TERM solutions.

How relevant are we? It’s a pity we have so few participants in this debate and on something as important as our future energy sources, but then that is the nature of this forum and others on the www.

Let’s look at the start. A pollie fires off a salvo to see where it lands and it lands in a mire of ideologies where perhaps none are directly related to the nuts and bolts of electricity supply or the management of the process.

There was a broadside in return on economics, easy enough since everybody has to pay for what ever stands solid in the battle ground, but what are those pillars of wisdom today?

Like battleships of old on the high seas, big strategies have become somewhat redundant in the emerging picture of flexibility and integration of little units around the grid. Fifty years ago I could not imagine any of us phase locking our tiny home generator to the network for a return of excess energy.

How smart are our monopolies and their agents on these boarder questions as we look forward?

I suggest it’s up to us to see that our pollies don’t run away with the ball kicked off the arena by a particular team. We have time to consider all strategies. Let’s continue.

Energy is the biggest game in town but the public won't realise it til it's not there. The latte set will have to brace themselves for a likely revival of plans to dam the Gordon below Franklin, the standout item on Bob Brown's CV. Meanwhile they will still want their greenhouse unfriendly air travel.

Maybe uranium based fission is only good for 100 years. A lot could change in that time, not only experimental technologies but massive investment in low yield technologies like wind with energy storage. A 'smarter' world might have less conflict which might permit breeder reactors, maybe not. It's like taking medicine with side effects; if you don't take it in time you don't survive anyway.

Continuing our energy debate, we had the technical structures but it was hands off pollies. Australians are good at peer group analysis and invention. We developed the organisation for enhancing our previous technical advance through information sharing. We had a formal grapevine and it reflected our society. I wonder who here remembers that.

All our environment issues demand solutions that are authorised by a totally independent group of experts nominated and recognised by their peers in a variety of associated industries. In my recent observations of public debate on vexed questions, water, climate, energy etc. such a forum exists only in parts.

Underpinning much of our post war industrial development and the competency of technicians involved was a structure called NATA. What’s nata? I recall it has roots in the electrical industries.

http://www.nata.asn.au/fs_gen_enq_form.htm

NATA is today much more than a forum or an umbrella group of experts as it continues to underpin our technical advance in many fields including measurements used in science and manufacturing. Please note also the links to forensic science and pathology in our hospitals. The original principals incorporated are universal.

Unfortunately some of our environment enterprises lumber on under different truth seeking regimes. Please note too I see a difference between our independent QAS systems and the role of NATA as a model for review of practices in any industry

An interesting perspective and the call for a reasoned debate is well timed. However some of the facts are skewed. Of all the alternative power sources, tidal is one of the highest energy densities and cannot be simply discarded as unachievable. However one can debate the relative efficiencies and availabilites endlessly but the discussion is misplaced. The largest component of energy consumption in australia, as in most of the rest of the western world is transport and car related. The average car is approximatly 90-100 kW, is usually occupied by a single person while the average dwelling consumes around 2-3 kW and houses a couple or family. The overwhelmingly largest component of greenhouse emissions comes from cars and trucks not the power stations. Furthermore a power station is substantially more efficient than a car engine.
In order to pre-empt the suggestion, our network of power transmission is nowhere near adequate to distribute electicity for transport consumption. If we discard the tidal option as unfeasible then the construction of a power network adequate for our transport needs is orders of magnitude more complex.


So... the argument over nuclear power is a complete furfee which is driven by a misplaced sense of environmentalism. The greatest burden of energy consumption and greeenhouse emissions are cars.

Ian,

Tidal has great potential, as do many alternative sources. Lack of investment, and incentives to invest, in renewables has restricted overall development in the renewable energy sector. Solar and Wind have so far enjoyed more support than Tidal, and I’m led to believe that this has more to do with comparative plant and research costs than large scale economic potential.

With Crude contracts selling for US$65.72 this morning, it seems inevitable that the renewable energy sector will attract more investment overall, which has got to be a good thing.

For a breakdown of the proportion of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions per sector, see:

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/2003/facts/pubs/overview.pdf

martin

I am in no way a scientist, engineer or economist but after the research I’ve done I have some questions and concerns that I’d really like to understand. Considering the bigger picture of environmental impact and sustainability I can’t understand how uranium isn’t (in a very rough sense) just all the issues and problems of fossil fuels wrapped up with a different name in a different package. It’s another unrenewable resource with an inevitable expiry date. Surely if we become too reliant on this as a power supply there would be a great feeling of déjà vu in however many years it would take for it to inevitably run out. Also while it has often been promoted in the media that nuclear power could be the answer to the current crisis of climate change it feels like the other environmental issues that this radioactive resource would undoubtedly raise are being quietly overlooked.

Another concern that I don’t fully understand is why would the government push an idea with so many apparent holes? After reading Helen Caldicotts book that illustrates all the stages of the nuclear power processing from, mining, shipping, processing, building plants and machinery, shipping waste and then waste management, I wonder if the government would push nuclear power now is because of all the industry it creates? Industry creates jobs and stimulates the economy which to a lot of Australians is the kind of promise that sways their vote, a definite concern for the politicians.

Feel free to discuss and disagree

Renée