Dickie,

Thank you for drawing my attention to “The National Pollutant Inventory.” I have book marked the site for future reference.

However, to make sense of the data you have a colossal task ahead.

Firstly you must rank the polluting industries in terms of tonnes per year.

Secondly, you will have to discover yearly trends.

Thirdly, if you are going to comment on many different pollutants and/or potential pollutants you will have to invent a “figure of merit” for comparison purposes in order to rank industries.

Fourthly, you will have to find a denominator, so you can express results as a rate.

The University of Sydney carried out such a study for the Switkowski report in respect to CO2 emission. They reviewed 39 papers including the van Leeuwen Smith paper. Apparently the van Leeuwen paper was an “outlier.”

The Sydney group looked at all stages of fabrication and operation of plant and reported results as kg CO2/MW-h.

It is not going o be an easy task to rank all pollutants. It will also by its nature be very controversial, so more then one data source will have to be studied.

I freely admit that I have neither the resources nor qualifications to do this work. However, do not let me distract you from what is an important project. In fact I imagine it would be a suitable subject for a Ph.D.

How nice Australia is with her pastoral both landscapes and governments, since the very dawn of a colonization importing the most and exporting pollution, while more recently ballooning a foreign debt, which is a hidden way to conserve own nature on expense of the foreign “primitive” nations.

If something positive in a last decade of a national-liberal stagnation and colonial impotency Howard government demonstrates is reaching a vital understanding of a nuclear power for very existing of this UK-copycat in Southern hemisphere because between Islamism and English feudalism the last is seen to be a lesser devil anyway.

Logic,Helen Caldicot might be a medical doctor by trade, but from my understanding has devoted much of her time since the early 80's to campaigning against the nuclear industry. That's plenty of time to educate yourself well on a topic,particularly given that to become a medical doctor in Australia isnt easy, requires intelligence, and at the time that she would have trained would also have required a great deal of tenancity as as woman.I dont doubt for a moment that she has the capacity (at least) to be well educated on any subject that she chooses to turn her attention to.

You now draw the distinction between nuclear power and neclear physics,although you appear to refer to them as one before. yes, I understand the difference. My physics study stopped at the end of Yr 12, but I enjoyed the subject immensely and found nuclear physics (the study of subatomic particles) fascinating. We got to do a bit on this in chemistry too. Certainly not a very high level at all, but its given me at least a basic background.

From the doco I saw on the author this week, her main concern is not nuclear power (although she doesnt like it), its the continued push for nuclear and semi-nuclear weapons that she sees as dangerous. The targetting of power plants by terrorists to get waste material for dirty bombs was a related concern (and part the reason she was against power plants).

I am not altogether against the idea of nuclear power, just dont feel that it has been proven enough - no need to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. A report by switowski is not good enough for me - he stuffed telstra (even worse than when he took over) so I question his logic and judgement. One of my biggest problems is (if this is a fact) that liability limitation laws are needed for the industry to be able to afford insurance - that spells a very big warning to me. I would not like to see us go down this path.

Country Gal

I appreciate your willingness to discuss the issue. I have not made up my mind on nuclear power but there is a powerful anti nuke lobby that is often not adequately informed. I would like to see the matter seriously discussed without bias.

There is a lot of experience of successful generation of nuclear power in many countries. The case of Cherobyl should be dismissed as irrelevant because it was an incompetently built reactor run by cowboys. What you might expect from a totalitarian state.

The extreme green movement is always willing to knock anything without understanding any of it and they actually create a problem although their hearts are in the right place. They have developed a horror of nuclear power, which is understandable but because of their bias they fail to make an attempt to understand it.

What annoys me about Helen Caldicott is that there is no evidence that she has made any attempt to gain an understanding. The way she twists evidence on nuclear power is perhaps short of being ethical. If anyone with knowledge challenges her she makes an emotional plea rather than answer the question. I heard her on radio and saw her on TV and was disgusted with her performance.

I would be happy to see alternatives but the sun comes to us at such a low intensity it is hard to do much with it. Any solar electrical device has a low efficiency because of that and it is only available during the day. Let's face it we all like the good technologies, and now that the other two thirds of the world are starting to demand their share we will be in real trouble. The people in China and India want their share of the goodies, and why not? Alternatives are useful but they alone cannot solve the problem.

randwick:
Of course there are advantages and disadvantages for all energy sources. Nuclear has so many negatives (most already mentioned) – and who is going to pay for any disasters? Answer: governments, who must also subsidise the building of reactors.

You say “the total amount of nuclear waste is about 1% of all industrial hazardous waste”. I wonder what that would be as a ‘toxicity’ percentage? Who is going to pay forever and ever to store it and keep it secure? Old bumper sticker: “Nuclear is thalidomide forever”.

Where on earth did I get the notion that Alcoa is subsidised by the government? (and that this money be used instead for renewable technologies to avoid the use of nuclear power and coal). It was unfair to name Alcoa as the only one receiving heavily subsidised electricity from coal-burning power stations. I quote from 'Scorcher:The Dirty Politics of Climate Change' by economist Clive Hamilton, p117 “Overall, the total financial subsidy to aluminium smelters in Australia is estimated to be $410million….plus smelting pollution .... an additional subsidy…..worth at least $430 million per year”.

anti-green:
You ask “Could we have authenticated data comparing the economics of nuclear with other forms of power generation?”. I am confident that the cost of mining and refining uranium, 10 years building and the material needed for the very expensive reactors, the cost of running and maintaining them, and then decommissioning at the end of their life (20-30 years?) and storage of nuclear waste would show nuclear power is a ridiculously expensive way to boil water. We must not measure only in dollars - care for the earth and the creatures it supports must be taken into account. It is time we dropped the notion that environmentalists are the enemies of capitalism given the state of the planet. We have to work together.

logic:
What annoys me is your criticism of Helen Caldicott’s knowledge without one single example! Please read her book 'Nuclear Power is Not the Answer' and let us know what you do not agree with.

Anti-green

The ranking you refer to is already performed by the National Pollutant Industry.

For instance, up amongst the largest polluters for CO is the iron and steel manufacturers. Last year they emitted a "mere" 570,000,000 kilograms into our environment.

Now, Anti-green, I bet they're excited with the prospect of being contracted to supply their materials to assist with the 25 nuke reactors.

Blimey, it's unimaginable how much CO and all the other hazardous emissions they'll produce for the construction of 25 nuclear reactors.

Randwick. I suggest you correct the number of reactors you claimed in some of the countries you mentioned. No point in plucking figures from the air, is there?

The technology of Chernobyl is not relevant today, however,the radioactive releases are. After that disaster, huge quantities of milk in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Austria and Sweden were destroyed.

In some farms in Cumbria, Scotland and Wales, restrictions are still in place today. Sheep must continue to be checked and tested with special monitors to detect radiation from the Chernobyl fall-out, twenty years ago. The high radiation levels in those countries had not a thing to do with the existing background levels.

However, Logic stated: "To find radiation kilometers (sic) away from the site which suffered an accident is not significant unless the radiation is above the natural level which was always there."

Hey, but hang about. Didn't he also say: "having experience as an engineer ..............I am at least in a position to identify the charlatans."

Tsk tsk......naughty boy Logic!