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The Forum > Article Comments > A nuclear powered world > Comments

A nuclear powered world : Comments

By Peter Gellatly, published 28/9/2007

Without early, broadscale adoption of nuclear power, unremitting world energy demand will make a mockery of greenhouse amelioration.

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Peter Gellatly’s analysis of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership meeting in Austria has sent me scurrying to all that technical stuff about the various “generations” of nuclear power, and “pebble bed reactors” etc.

We know that:
- uranium mining and milling is bad for the workers’ health, the community’s health, and the environment
- the total uranium to nuclear waste cycle causes greenhouse gases
- nuclear power increases weapons proliferation, and terrorism risks
- there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear wastes
- the nuclear industry is surrounded with secrecy, suspicion and the erosion of civil liberties
- the whole thing is so bloody expensive that it’s a joke (France’s much-touted nuclear power has huge debt and is propped up, indeed run, by the tax-payer)

But – given all that, let us applaud Mr Gellatly for giving us some factual technical stuff to show that the implementation of the famous GNEP is fraught with problems and security risks.

We sure do need such informed comment.
My own opinion is that the GNEP is just one great con job for a desperate nuclear industry which is about to experience a still-birth.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com
Posted by ChristinaMac, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:32:33 AM
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Thank you for a very readable synopsis of a very complex issue.

I look forward to reading any other material you may produce at this level.
Posted by bigmal, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:41:39 AM
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The nuclear power generation debate has not progressed much.

Immediately post-world war II we were told that nuclear-generated power would be too cheap to be worth metering.

Some minor differences do exist. In those days there was not too much pretence about a nuclear arms/duclear power divide; and money was no object in spending for development(bomb/power).

Today a veil of pretence has been drawn between arms and power generation. And finance for nuclear development is not quite the open cheque-book it used to be.

Now we see nuclear industry proponents having to lobby for dough. That is a sign of some progress. Otherwise it is a re-run of the story from half a century back: - we, the nuclear industry experts, have all the answers. Just trust us.
Posted by colinsett, Friday, 28 September 2007 9:48:18 AM
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It seems glib but a vote against nuclear is a vote for coal. Note that a new coal loader has been approved for Newcastle as part of the Aussie contribution to climate change. Low carbon forms of baseload generation (geothermal, solar with storage etc) are at the minor experimental stage and may not be able to expand by a factor of thousands. Asian customers seem to have designs on most of northwest Australia's finite gas reserves with little thought for southern Australia. While people decry the nuclear industry's plutonium byproduct they happily use transuranics like americium in smoke detectors.

As the custodian of 40% of the world's uranium it would be myopic of Australia not 'go nuclear'. That is electrical generation, reprocessing (using local technology), waste disposal, desalination and perhaps hydrogen generation. The big worry is that the next generation of reactors may hit a stumbling block so that thorium etc may not eventuate. We will do it tough anyway for the next 20 years because of oil depletion, climate change (helped by our profligate coal use), delays in nuclear construction and finding out if indeed some other technologies scale up. I say we go nuclear immediately.
Posted by Taswegian, Friday, 28 September 2007 10:30:55 AM
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Taswegian - a vote against nuclear is NOT a vote for coal.

Both of them are old out-dated technologies, quite out of step with 21st Century energy efficiencies and renewable technologies - especially decentralised ones. As Schumacher said so long ago, indeed "Small is Beautiful"

Where the myopia lies is in thinking that some short term money gain is going to compensate for long-term disaster. It is indeed a King Midas-like attitude.

Taswegian him or herself shows this Midas-like attitude, in thinking that it'll be fine to "do it tough" for the next 20 years or so. I guess that means that the Chip Goodyear's and the uranium shareholders of today will do very nicely, thank you. But our kids and grand-kids will inherit the hot world, and the statistically inevitable nuclear holocaust.

It's small comfort that the mega-rich of today might very well cop some of the cancers in the increasing world radiation from the nuclear industry (and from negligent processes in medical radiation waste etc, too)

20 years or so is far too late for nuclear to help combat global warming, if indeed it actually was greenhouse-emission free (which it's not).

So the nuclear hype is indeed a con. The uranium bubble may well be the next bubble to burst.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com
Posted by ChristinaMac, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:11:05 AM
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Peter Gellatly has written a most interesting and informative article. There is no doubt in my mind that the future will see a continual growth in the nuclear power industry. This is to be welcomed. On ground of health and safety alone nuclear generation wins hands down over almost every other commercial and/or practical mode of generation. [Please refer to the recent report chaired by Dr. Switkowski for details].

I have read the anti-nuclear posts and in my view they do match with the empirical evidence of safety. While the industry has advanced sensible and practical methods of dealing with “waste,” including further processing and conversion to MOX fuel.

It would seem to me that the anti-nuclear political lobby is basing their objections on outdated paradigms and false assumptions.

What if Kevin Rudd’s fiscal conservative, social democratic party wins the coming election? Surprisingly, this will result in only a slight hiccup on the path to an Australian nuclear industry. Any fiscal conservative would understand the rational economic arguments in favour of nuclear. In any case labour in government tends to be more respectable and less under the influence of its green and loony tai
Posted by anti-green, Friday, 28 September 2007 11:19:50 AM
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