xoddam

Very interested in your comments about "As nuclear energy proponents bribe and bluster planning permission for a reactor on Defense land somewhere near Karratha"

As I live in the area, I find this all news to me. Can you give me any more details?

Kaep,

I have seen you loosely interpreting the second law of thermodynamics. The law simply states that entropy always increases. As entropy is a measure of disorder, disorder always increases.

However, the term "order" used here has absolutely nothing to do with political or civil order in the way that the "flavours" of quarks have nothing to do with taste.

Energy consumption can only increase disorder so energy = order is fundementally incorrect.

I would not normally comment on this as it is off topic, but you have repeated this several times over various threads.

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

You don't need to go past the title page to know where it's headed. Radiation warning sign, Chernobyl, men in protective suits.

Sylvia.

Democritus,

I acknowledged your sea-cooling point and explained that water use figures include excess fresh-water evaporation, not gross flow.

Fossil,

I don't know of any plans. Karratha needs electricity and is far from NIMBYs and NOMPs (present company excepted?) -- therefore a better bet than Geelong.

KAEP,

Peak oil is *now*.

Nuclear power isn't getting cheaper. The economics are opaque, and quoted prices don't account for the insurance and long-term waste-management burdens which are invariably assumed by government (Sylvia, "decommissioning" is cheap because it just turns power stations into radioactive waste).

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/6/92951/26204
http://thebulletin.org/roundtable/nuclear-power-climate-change/

Wind power is cheaper than nuclear power *now*, and has been for a decade.

http://climateprotectioncampaign.typepad.com/cpc/2006/03/cost_of_wind_vs.html
http://www.ieer.org/reports/wind/summrec.html
http://hubbers.ca/blog/2007/10/03/canwea-and-wind-power-vs-nuclear/

The cost of solar power is falling *now*.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml
http://simontay78.wordpress.com/category/solar/
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11676-baking-boosts-efficiency-of-plastic-solar-cells.html
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/30/11351/3283

Biofuel production is booming *now*.

http://biopact.com/

Australia uses wind power, solar power and biofuel *now*, as do most countries.

Only a handful of countries use fission for energy. None uses it to make fuel.

*Hundreds* of research teams and businesses are developing and commercialising renewable energy technology, and it gets better every year.

The winner you've picked is a reactor type invented 40 years ago. Today's innovative nuclear ideas are very, very expensive research projects. There is a single operating PBNR today, in Beijing. One. And it's going to save us from Peak Oil!

Dude, every day plants make fuel from sunlight, easily converted into liquids good for existing equipment. The only fuel fission reactors might make (they don't now) is hydrogen via high-temperature steam electrolysis. Liquefying hydrogen then burning it in internal combustion engines is grossly inefficient (its efficiency benefits come from fuel cells), and can't work with existing fuel tanks or most engines. Fuel cells are cute, but hydrogen fuel for them can be produced more cheaply with biomass gasification.

One question for you: What's the "thermodynamic gradient" at the focus of a thousand heliostats? Or of a yellowbark tree?

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/environ/images/bushfire.gif

Yet you're telling us that high oil prices will mean we can neither make nor import solar panels, while we 'crack' liquid fuel for 'ace drilling contractors' in Australia.

What are you smoking?

Xoddam ("Only a handful of countries use fission for energy. None uses it to make fuel.")
The latter is incorrect. In several countries with research and power reactors the fission process is and has been used for reactor fuel via the reprocessing stage and for nuclear weapons fuel.

http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net
http://www.myspace.com/votenuclearfree

Sylvia,
re your remark:

"You don't need to go past the title page to know where it's headed. Radiation warning sign, Chernobyl, men in protective suits."

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

Me, I wouldn't be so quick to judge a book by its cover. Have a look at the table of contents, at the Frequently Asked Questions section (superb and very solid indeed), the preface, summary and, if you care to delve, the articles.

If you're serious about a commitment to nuclear energy, these are criticisms you must face. I thought it was a good idea myself, back in the '60's.