Like a dog to his vomit, Atom1. So if the facts just don't add up, just repeat the mantra often enough and some turkey will believe it.

So the official paper made the same stupid mistake as the authors did? Whats new?

would the share-holders in uranium mining stocks please identify themselves before re-entering this discussion?

i can not imagine any other reason for promoting nuclear power when green alternatives are available.

well, that's not entirely true, there's your naive fools who imagine technology never fails, is never sabotaged, is never compromised by incompetent management, and genuine nutters.

i have watched atomic power plants being built with welding flaws that compromised the integrity of the containment vessel. "we have a schedule to meet,and she'll be right, anyway" was the management excuse. this always happens in human affairs, and the convenience of being able to put a nuclear power station next to consumers, as mentioned above, is not really a selling point to me.

Yair good on you Perseus. Still innately incapable of expressing any disagreement with anyone without being abjectly offensive. You’ve got a reasonable point to make in your first post. So why ruin it with your sputum?

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One of the biggest problems with nuclear is that power plants would be built and operated in an age great tension.

We really are on the cusp of civil upheaval, as fuel prices rise and cause inflation, unemployment and general unrest, if not absolute societal crisis.

OK, so nuclear power these days might be able to be made very safe…..in a nice happy society. But NOT in a disrupted turmoil-ridden one.

There is no way that we can get nuclear plants up and running on a large scale before oil shortages / unaffordability really hits us. And if we can implement biofuel supplies, along with various other essential elements of sustainability to the extent that society will continue to function in a reasonably coherent and calm manner after oil stops being our major power source, then we won’t need nuclear power, will we.

Yes nuclear would basically replace coal and gas, not oil. And yes it would be nice to wean ourselves right off of all fossil fuels quickly. If we are really smart, or greatly pressured, we will be able to greatly reduce the overall rate of consumption and substitute it with biofuels and other energy sources to some extent. But nuclear would not contribute to a quick weaning. The timeframe for its implementation is too long.

So by the time we have readjusted to the new overall energy regime to the point where society is confidently calm and coherent, and a nuclear industry can be safely implemented, we won’t need it!!

Perseus says:
"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."

Perseus, it used to be clear that the sun circled around the earth. It still seems much that way to most of us who celebrate the sun crossing the yardarm. And what difference does it make? In a simpler world, it would make none at all.

Alas, the world beneath our feet has become a complete surprise. It hurtles through space at insane velocities. The Solar system likely moving even faster, it its orbit around the centre of the Milky Way, and the motion of the galaxy in deep space adds further to what seems to us a very smooth ride.

And having provided a wider perspective, more in the way of a metaphor than a concrete explanation, I return to your opinion:
"[the water] is merely borrowed for cooling purposes and returned to the place it was drawn from"

Whether it is sea water or fresh water, it has been changed. Its temperature has changed, its volume has changed, and if chlorine or other measures for antifouling have been added, then its chemical composition has been changed.

There's some 40 or more years of literature about the environmental impacts of cooling water discharges from power stations. Surely some monkey with a typewriter, somewhere, some time, has written something you could use to bolster your preconceptions. Could you offer perhaps a link or two toward your argument?

Or are you content simply to offer a kneejerk opinion, about what appear self-evident, and which in a simpler world would maybe suffice, and then sit back and wait for the sun to cross the yardarm?

Insignificant:
The point you make is very relevant!.....There is NO NEED at all for us to be suffering from lack of fresh water and having to be nuked by Nuclear Power Plants and their deadly effluents!

The answer is Solar Powered Desalination Plants situated around the coastline of Australia (similar to the much vaunted and finally abandoned plan to position Bloodhound Missiles sites around the coastline in the late 50`s)
It IS the answer, however it will NEVER happen whilst we have Politicians who kow-tow to big business, instead of tackling the real isssues that are important to the future well-being of the country and it`s peoples, purely to satisfy their own short term profits and rewards as they live their luxurious lifestyle of today,oblivious to the looming disasters en route. After all, if things get too bad in OZ, the retired Pollies can move to a more hospitable abodes (eg: Arab Emirates) and continue their life unfettered by trivialities such as lack of drinking water!

Atom1

It's doubtful the kind of bombs they had in WW2 would have done much to a nuclear reactor containment building, and there are much softer targets, such as switching yards and transformers.

Sylvia.