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The Forum > Article Comments > Nuclear power: time for a reasoned debate > Comments

Nuclear power: time for a reasoned debate : Comments

By Dennis Jensen, published 28/6/2005

Dennis Jensen argues the time is right for revisting the debate on nuclear energy for Australia.

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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.
Posted by Taz, Monday, 11 July 2005 7:59:21 AM
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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.
Posted by Taswegian, Monday, 11 July 2005 1:02:56 PM
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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
Posted by Taz, Monday, 11 July 2005 2:02:34 PM
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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.
Posted by Ian_W, Monday, 22 August 2005 11:11:51 PM
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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
Posted by martin callinan, Monday, 22 August 2005 11:51:29 PM
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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
Posted by Renée, Thursday, 21 December 2006 11:03:16 AM
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