Flannery appeared a few hours ago on Democracy Now.

Video and audio available:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1454240

- enjoy! (I think)

What a fatuous beat up masquerading as science based comment. Clearly, most of the water is not lost or used up (ie discharged as steam) when "used". It is merely borrowed for cooling purposes and returned to the place it was drawn from.

Note from the author's quote, "as well as the higher temperature of the water discharged from the power plant, can negatively affect water quality etc."

Consequently, only the relatively small amount of water within the steam cycle needs to be clean. The cooling water can be of lesser quality and be sourced from the existing stocks of disgracefully managed urban waste water, storm water runoff and, wait for it, SEA WATER.

Yes, these clowns are trying to suggest that we have a critical shortage of sea water that will be placed in some sort of jeopardy by the cycling of 50 to 150 megalitres a day through a power plant. The irony is that the more water is fed through the cooling cycle, the lower its temperature will be when discharged. And the lower will be the variance between the temperature of the water source and the temperature of the discharge water.

For the record, 150 megalitres is only one hectare in area and 15 metres deep. So the daily discharge into a coastal current that is only 1km wide, flowing at only 1km/hour and at a depth of only 90 metres, will see the discharge water being diluted by a factor of 14,400 times. That is, it will only amount to 0.00694 of 1% of that volume.

How original, another bull$hit green "scarenario" to feed the bimboscenti. Go on, lap it up you morons, you just love it, don't you.

Surely geothermal power should be regarded as just another form of nuclear power. Those who quibble at this should pause to think where the earth's heat comes from. That's right, nuclear decay in the core.

It is very well for people to advocate wind and solar solutions, but until technology is developed to enable electrical energy to be stored cheaply, neither wind or solar will be a solution overnight.

Now that the world population has reached the level that requires most people to live in large megacities, which cannot survive without large amounts of cheap energy, we seem to be locked into the current arrangements for the forseeable future, global warming or not.

Looks like being a fun century.

Nuclear alarmists will have to find yet another scare tactic to add to the list of fizzers. Sure there is thermal pollution of once-through cooling water, but that's trivial compared to the atmospheric oven we will create by using more coal. Perhaps in some sites it could be used to improve the efficiency of desalination.

I wonder if green utopians realise that steam from hot granite geothermal contains radioactive radon gas. Or that sodium sulphur batteries (to store wind and solar electricity) will require exclusion zones. Go back to your bag of Halloween masks and try find something new to scare us with.

The use of sea water and efficient cooling can significantly reduce the thermal shock of the returning water to the surrounding environment.

The biggest issue is in fact radioactive contamination of the returning water. However the risks associated with this can be significantly reduced by having rigourous safety regimes.

Drought stricken Australia can ill-afford to replace an immigration-water-thirsty Liberal government with an even thirstier Kevin07 one: ZERO IMMIGRATION and a total nuclear power industry are the ONLY way Australia can survive drought and PEAKOIL induced civil collapse as an indivisible nation. At least ubtil GEOTHERMAL power laser-drilling technologies become mature in an estimated 30 years time.

There is no doubt that our drought has been significantly accelerated by immigration and that short term incumbent party political gains, higher GST revenues and a dilution of stable democracy have all been of great benefit to the business and public service industries at the expense of ordinary Australians. Despite Australians having more money in the bank under Howard, their freedoms and rights have been decimated as they must make room for closer and more aggressive government sposored and favoured foreigners.

The truth is that with nuclear industries Australia can enjoy greater economic growth without the drought, climate change, overcrowding, public service(transport,justice,health,police etc) gridlocks and aggression. That this is not widely known is a result of questionnable intellect and a lack of scientific background in our currently largely immigration-gerrymandered and branch-stacked elected governments.

The other truth is that our $currency is effectively locked to dwindling oil supplies and will devalue rapidly once petrol prices creep towards $5/litre. All that money you have in shares and the bank? It will be useless paper and you will still have the angry foreign neigbours and impossible living conditions in all major cities and towns. The federal government will be irrelevant, out-of-control & lacking the fuel resources to substantially exert influence in regional affairs now more influenced by foreign ownership and control.

An additional truth is that yellowcake mining already poses the worst nuclear risks. A well run total-nuclear industry that has leading research facilities will actually reduce the current risks.

Australia Must stop immigration, go total-nuclear-industries, invest in geothermal drilling technology and gradually realise a nation of QUALITY and not quantity is the best management practice(BMP) for Australia in an overcrowded world teetering on the brink.