Some Good News for Jim and Sue,

It is true that the traditional Light Water Reactors need considerable cooling to work efficiently. In some cases this cooling is provided by water derived from rivers, as is the case in France.

In many parts of the World the reactors are situated on the coast and use seawater that is abundant. Note: A large seawater cooled, coal fired powerstation, operates at Gladstone Queensland.

Jim and Sue should also be aware that the majority of the Australian population, and thus industry are located in coastal cities. It is close to these cities that seawater cooled nuclear power stations should be installed to power major desalination plants.

A bit more good news; a new generation of gas cooled reactors are on the way, with the South African Pebble Bed system leading the way. These stations could use air cooling systems, or hybrid cooling systems that are very economical in water use.

I am pleased to be the bearer of factual scientific news to Jim and Sue, and trust that they will appreciate this delve into scientific reality.

Best regards,

Michael Clarke (Dr.), FIEAust, FAusIMM, RPEQ

Shellback

What kind of attack on a power plant are you envisaging that could have the result you're describing?

Power reactors have been built in less than five years. While things like wind farms can individually be built in less time, how long would it take overall to build equivalent renewable energy supplies?

Note that solar panels take two or three years just to recover the energy used to make them.

It costs more to build a particular generating capacity out of wind farms or solar panels than it does to build, and subsequently decommission, the equivalent nuclear generating capacity. A nuclear plant producing 1GW would cost about $2 billion to $3 billion to build. A solar plant with the same (on average, which is a problem in itself)) power output would cost more like $10 billion. The decommissioning cost of the nuclear plant would be around $300 million, and would in any case be incurred 40 or 50 years downstream. It typically adds a fraction of a cent per kWh to the cost of power.

Do we need to reduce CO2 emissions to zero? Is it even a good idea (probably not - think ice age). If a nuclear plant produces power for a fraction of the net CO2 output of the fossil fuel plant it replaces, then we're ahead.

Renewables have emissions associated with their construction as well.

If "electricity isn't the problem" then there's no need to solve it. Of course, it's part of the problem and addressing CO2 emissions resulting from electricity generation represents part of a solution.

If we had nuclear power available in quantity, we could use the power to produce hydrogen to replace fossil fuels in vehicles.

There are no absolutely radiation free zones in the world? There's always some radiation, and always has been.

Is there a serious risk that if Australia adopted nuclear power, that the result would be that Australia developed a bomb?

Sylvia.

Sylvia "There's always some radiation, and always has been".

Irrelevant, because human-made ionizing radiation is IN ADDITION TO natural background radiation, and its effects are cumulative.

"Is there a serious risk that if Australia adopted nuclear power, that the result would be that Australia developed a bomb?"

Yes. See THE NUCLEAR POWER - WEAPONS CONNECTION here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=214632362&blogID=288871569

Have you been to SA's suffering mound springs? I have.

BHPB's Olympic Dam mine remains our driest state's largest electricity and water consumer.
Currently licenced to 42Ml/day and - unlike you and I - exempt from paying for it under the Roxby Indenture Act.
Expansion of the mine: up to 155Ml/day (Olympic Dam EIS) and a 400 MW power plant - hardly trivial.

http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net

Thank you, MikeC, for a timely dose of reality. Note how most of the anti-nuc posters have fallen back on the usual tangents after the veracity of the authors central claim has been soundly repudiated.

What this entire thread clearly demonstrates is the way the green movement is capable of dragging out dubious factoids and linking them to any convenient issue of public concern. At present, due to the drought, the community has a heightened sensitivity to water supply issues and, surprise, surprise, along come the global village idiots to dry hump their monomania on any convenient leg.

And thank you KAEP. Your syntax scares me sometimes and you spend excess time in places I would not go. But we know the lights are on and someone is home.

Perseus, re:

"The way Sir Vivor et al continue with this totally baseless notion that water passing through a heat exchanger is somehow "used up" ...".

I Said what? I didn't say that, nor did the original article. You said that. Perseus, you have conjured an opinion out of thin air and you now seem convinced it is a fact.

Go back and read over what was written in the article. Have a look at the links I posted, documenting concerns about water availability in the face of climate change, growing populations and projected increases in electricity demands. Think outside your garden fence.

As for Sylvia naming all the countries that are still relying on nuclear electricity, she and others might care to read

"Nuclear Power, Climate Policy and Sustainability: An Assessment by the Austrian Nuclear Advisory Board"
Vienna, Austria, 2007
www.nirs.org/climate/background/austriangovtreport607.pdf

Which comprehensively discusses the result of an Austrian reassessment of nuclear electricity in response to claims that atomic power has a useful greenhouse abatement contribution to make.

The Austrians have decided to continue to move away from nuclear. I expect that the fraction of nuclear electricity in their grid will continue to decrease.

Interesting in light of our upcoming Federal election. What party in Australia besides the Lyndon LaRouche inspired Citizen's Electoral Council is gung-ho on nuclear reactors? Maybe there is a coalition member somewhere out there willing to risk a "moral victory" by offering jobs, prosperity and radioactive gaseous effluents to his or her constituents, but I doubt it. Shall we leave it to the Naturist Lifestyle Party?

Maybe if Lyndon came over from America he could convince us all?

Is it rumoured that he can sell the concept of an ice cube to an Eskimo

The points that Sir Vivor and Xoddam missed or chose to ignore from my previous post were:

-There are alternatives to using fresh water, such as sea water and air. While these are a little more expensive, they are both technologies presently used where water is scarce.

I can therefore repeat my assertion that water consumption is a very flimsy barrier against nuclear power.

While present reactors (1980s design) are slightly less efficient than Coal, this is simply due to the low steam temperature at which they generate. While 45% efficiency is probably a decade away, 37% (more efficient than coal) merely requires technology readily available now.

Geothermal energy mentioned above is subject to the same laws of physics, and due to the lower steam temperatures is likely to use twice as much cooling per kWhr than coal. Should we then ban this technology, or simply use fresh water friendly technologies such as I have mentioned for the nuclear solution?