See the article "Nuclear energy & greenhouse Is going nuclear the answer?" By Mark Diesendorf at http://evatt.org.au/publications/papers/167.html.

Of course, since it is on the Evatt Foundation site, it can be dismissed as Left propaganda. Unfortunately for those who would hold that view, it is a careful analysis. If you read this and still advocate nuclear energy as a major solution to reduction of greenhouse emissions then I suggest exploring issues such as Bishop Usher's view of the time of origin of the planet.

De

Des

Do acredited studies in engineering or at least in physics with attention to nuclear physics. Then get some practical experience in electricity production and then come and tell us your opinions on Mark Diesendorf's article. I have yet to meet another engineer (I am one) who is quite so one sided on this issue.

Logic, Public policy and the decision process should not require people to be experts, only that they are reasonably intelligent and are committed to challenging the assertions of others in order to arrive at the best possible approach to the truth having regard to the knowledge to hand; indeed the assertion that they do and the resulting tendency to leave it to the experts has bedevilled us for decades if not centuries. Consider much of the argument about global warming, especially the hockey stick graph.

The variables in Diesenedorf’s article would seem to come down to 1, concentration and 2, amount of uranium oxide which can be mined which determine how long the resource will last, 3, energy input required to convert the ore to fuel, 4, the yield of fast breeder reactors (and some other variables which I probably have missed). And the issues or options concern 5, the source of energy to undertake the processing and reprocessing and 6. the emissions volume of those processes and 7, the resulting time that it takes for the emissions involved to be compensated for by the operation of the nuclear power plant.

Diesendorf uses data from other studies which he quotes and whom he emphasises were independent of the nuclear industry.

What of these variables and issues, specifically, do you disagree with in Diesendorf’s article? Do you consider that there is enough ore to last for twice as long? Or that the input will generate less CO2? Or that disposal will be less costly and/or less dangerous? Or what?

Des

Firstly sorry that I was unfairly hard on you and I do apologise for unacceptable behaviour.

The view that nuclear power does not result in a reduction of CO2 makes no sense at all but the question is not which items I disagree with. The point is what do knowledgable people think of it? If you consider that his main atribute is that he is not working for the nuclear industry that is not a good reason for accepting his views.

Regarding experts intelligent people without training do not generally know who is an expert and who is not, and therein lies the problem. Often anyone who has worked with the nuclear industry is imediately suspect and that is a problem - they are the ones with the best knowledge. Professor Price from Monash University Engineering Department has worked in the nuclear industry but also with alternatve energy and with brown coal. A former colleage of mine he was once concerned about nuclear power but on ABC radio came out in support.

He is a real expert with real life practical experience but is likely to be drowned out in a chorus of self styled experts and academics.

Once again humblest apologies for the tenor of my first reply. I see that you are a reasonable man of intelligence and logic.

The UK's "Sustainable Development Commission" has produced http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Nuclear-paper2-reducingCO2emissions.pdf , and in section 4 it discusses, and in section 7.2 links, some good references on nuclear energy's indirect carbon emissions.

Now-a-days natural gas's pretax cost per joule is about 30 times that of uranium. Its tax yield exceeds that of uranium by a much larger factor, and this has some tendency to bias the judgment of tax-supported scholars, a group that includes some members of the SDC and some of the authors they link.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion without exhaust gas:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html

This thread needs to return to the basics.

Instead of coal or natural gas, nukes run on uranium. Like coal, uranium has to be mined. It also has to be converted, enriched and transported. Add that up and you get more greenhouse gas emissions than a natural gas-fired power plant, according to one of the few studies done on the complicated issue by the scientists at the German Oko-Institut. Meanwhile, the nuclear industry would have you believe that solar and wind power create more greenhouse gases than nuclear.

Not only does nuclear power contribute to the greenhouse effect, and so, indirectly affecting the planet's health and our well-being, it very well could affect our health and the planet's health directly -- by killing everything in sight in an accident.

When atom of a special type of element, uranium 235, is bombarded by neutrons, the uranium releases more neutrons that split more uranium atoms in a chain reaction. This is fission. Nuclear power plants use the heat given off from that process to boil water. The steam from that water turns the same basic turbines that you find in other power plants fueled by natural gas or coal to make the heat. It's a huge, scary engineering problem just meant to boil water. As antinuclear guru Amory Lovins quipped, it's like using a chainsaw to cut butter.

The difference is the radioactivity is contained -- at least we hope it remains contained -- within the reactor where the fission is constantly exploding at a molecular level. If that radioactivity escapes the reactor (that happens on occasion) or is released through contaminated water spills (that happens with great regularity), then it's a health and safety problem.

Continued...