Sure nuclear is slow and expensive but it works. Just ask the French who have numerous neighborhoods with reactors, no doubt with much of their uranium sourced in Australia. On the other hand there is no compelling evidence that clean coal will work anytime soon, that windpower can fill more than a fraction of the gap, that experimental technologies (geothermal, solar thermal, wavepower) are ready for a massive scale-up or that we will happily become extremely frugal with energy. Northwest Shelf gas is proving slow to develop and appears to be effectively pre-sold to Asian customers who are lining up.

Add to that the prediction of battery cars charged from a beefed up grid and the hypocrisy of exporting so much uranium. Therefore I believe the massive coal phase-out needed to meet climate targets is unattainable without a recession. Nuclear is the lifeline and should start now.

People are uncomfortable with nuclear power. As long as the Greens and Labor continue to promise the energy equivalent of bread and circuses, acceptance of nuclear power will not be forthcoming.

If Labor are elected tomorrow, people may have to start facing reality, as the Labor leadership discovers, if they don't know it already, that it's much easier to talk about a non-nuclear CO2 reduced future than to achieve one.

James Norman has well outlined the way in which the Howard government's sudden discovery of climate change became the occasion for their enthusiastic push for the nuclear industry.

This coincided quite remarkably with Howard's supposedly "social only" visit to George W. Bush last year. Almost immediately the U.S.A's continuing problem of radioactive waste suddenly became Australia's responsibility.

By another remarkable coincidence, Howard suddenly paid attention to the "Little Children Are Sacred" Report on aboriginal social problems. Never mind that Howard had ignored aboriginal requests for help, over the past 11 years. Also, never mind that he ignored all recommendations of that report.
Howard suddenly found it necessary to take over aboriginal communities, change the communal land ownership and remove the permit system.

By means of this legislation and legislation for nuclear waste dumping in the Northern territory, Howard set the scene for the uranium/nuclear bonanza to get going. And the Hugh Morgans, Michael Angwins, Ron Walkers, Robert de Crespignys, Rod Carnegies etc salivated.

But then – as Norman says – it all faded away, with the resistance of public and politicians to nuclear power plants.

So – Howard’s nuclear Achilles’ heel has indeed become invisible, during this election campaign.

But what I want to know is this: Given that Howard’ nuclear push, (and Rudd’s uranium push) have become unpalatable subjects for the politicians – why does this silence have to be adopted also by the mainstream media?

Why don’t we hear about the pickle (especially financial) that Japan’s nuclear industry has been in, since that earthquake?

Why don’t we hear about the time and and financial blowout of the supposedly great “new generation” nuclear reactor in Finland?

Why don’t we hear about the UK’s continuing problem trying to restart the nuclear industry?

Why don’t we hear about the U.S. schronic nuclera waste problem?
Why don’t we hear about the legal actions being taken by indigenous people in the U.S. (the Navajo), or about the military veterans, (U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia) seeking compensation for their uranium-caused cancers?
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Taswegian says "Just ask the French" about nuclear power.Well. a recent poll did just that:

French Shun Nuclear Energy, Choose Conservation
Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research November 04, 2007- "The overwhelming majority of people in France agree there is a need to conserve energy and favour renewable sources.

According to a poll by CSA. 96 per cent of respondents think conserving energy should be a priority, and 94 per cent think the European country should focus on developing solar and wind power.

Polling Data
On the topic of energy, do you think (the following) should be a priority?

Conserving energy: yes - 96%, no -4% not sure -- 0
Developing renewable energy: yes - 94%, no - 5% not sure - 1%

Developing nuclear energy: yes - 35%, no - 61% not sure - 4%

As I continue to investigate the French situation on nuclear power, it becomes more apparent that:
1. French nuclear power is actually very expensive - but debts are covered up and the government regulates the price of electricity.
2. Disposal of nuclear waste is a murky and expensive thing.
3. There is a very strong push among communities in France to develop energy efficiency and renewanble energy.

Taswegian doesn't seem to know about the remarkable advances with Concentrated Solar Power - happening in Spain, Algeria, China.

I don't think that you are bothering to keep up to date, Taswegian.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Or Cloncurry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloncurry_solar_power_station

Shame about the $90 per MWh, compared with about $40 per MWh from nuclear. Also a shame that after a day of overcast sky (and they do occur in Cloncurry), the plant will produce no power, which means it will require 100% backup (whether via the grid or otherwise).

Finland's new nuclear plant is suffering first of kind costs. The existence of such costs were identified in the Switkowski report. The idea is that you don't keep building first of kind reactors. If Finland were to build another reactor like the Olkiluoto that's had delays, things would go more smoothly. A third even more so, and so on.

Sylvia.

1. Easily won, near surface, high quality oil and coal was virtually a free energy source. It was a gift.

2. Uranium power is a boutique energy source, wholly dependant on massive inputs from the above.

3. Any world-scale attempt to replace the former with the latter will result in a bonfire of precious remaining oil energy.

4. And when all the reactors, processing facilities and dumps begin to rot from the inside out, as they must inevitably do in a radioactive environment - there may be insufficient precious liquid fuel to devote to the monumental task of cleaning it all up.

This is the way the world ends -

- with an insane whimper.

ChristinaMac

Thank you for your keen observations. As it happens I live in a solar powered house and I produce more electricity than I use. Is that your situation as well? Admittedly I don't have first hand experience of running a nuclear power station but I am continuously exposed to radioactivity.

No doubt some small scale energy experiments are going gangbusters. However Australia will soon need at least 20 gigawatts of ultra-low emissions continuous electrical output. The baby experiments will need to turn into strapping teenagers that can support themselves. If that doesn't happen then green dreamers (including perhaps the next PM) will be the best friend the coal industry ever had.

"Just ask the French who have numerous neighborhoods with reactors, no doubt with much of their uranium sourced in Australia."

France enjoys some independence by its re-processing of depleted uranium. Last year, France produced the least amount of uranium of any other country - just 5 tonnes whilst Australia came second to Canada with 7,600 tonnes from just 3 uranium mines.

There is now the real prospect of a resurgence in U mines operating all over this nation, encroaching on thousands of square kilometres of Australia's land mass and further contaminating our already fragile eco systems.

"Environmental Management at Australian Uranium Mines

"Ranger Mine (ERA)

"ERA has been recognised for its world-class environmental management, achieving ISO 14001 certification in 2003." How fraudulent is that?

However, a Senate Inquiry during 2003 found that ERA had a pattern of under-performance and non-compliance. This company was prosecuted last year and fined $150,000 for endangering workers' health.

In July 2006, some 100 workers were also exposed to contaminated drinking water at the Heathgate uranium mine.

The continuing propaganda by this industry is an insult to people's intelligence.

The mining of uranium is depleting other valuable resources - energy and water - particularly our precious reserves of ground water which are now seriously contaminated.

If Australia managed its population in a sustainable manner, renewable energy could become a reality and well able to service a small nation of 21 million people.

Or perhaps the pro-nukes may consider the prospect of living in close proximity to a uranium mine in the not too distant future?

Should they choose not to, they will not be protected by distance. There is much scientific evidence revealing that prevailing winds have no respect for country or creed.

Perhaps they should take a holiday in a mining area where generations of my family have resided. They could then witness the hazardous plumes from mining operations, which have the potential to travel great distances, crossing many boundaries whilst travelling on a course of ecological and environmental destruction.

I prognosticate that in the near future you will all hear more and more about nuclear power.

The health and safety record of the civil industry is exemplary; the following is extracted from the Switkowski report:

Table 6.1 of the report gives “Direct fatalities per GWe*/Year” for a number of industries. [Deaths from pollution fires or radiation accidents are excluded}.

Coal 0.876; oil 0.436; hydro 4.265 ;etc.,etc., nuclear reactors 0.006.

In other words nuclear is the safest mode of power generation available to us. While deaths from coal mines and dam failures are notorious.

The health and environmental effects from Chernobyl are described in several papers in the journal “Health Physics “volume 93, no 5 of November 2007.

Acute radiation sickness mortality 28 persons in 1986. 19 have died in the period 1987-2004 but not necessarily due to radiation.

15 deaths are recorded from the over 4000 cases of thyroid cancer.

There are of course many predicted deaths from exposure to the general population. However doses to the general population and even to most of the liquidators were low.

“Apart from the large increase in thyroid cancer incidence in young people, there are at present no clearly demonstrated radiation –related increase in cancer risk.” [Cardis E. J Radiol Prot 2006; 26:127-140].

For comparison examples of every day risks in Australia as “Risk of fatality per million person years. [Switkowski table 6.3)

Smoking 20 cigarettes /day 5000; Motoring 144; etc. Nuclear industry contribution to background radiation 0.018.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Gwe= 10E9 Watts of electricity generated. Total energy in Joules =Watts x seconds. [3.15E7 seconds in a year of 365 days].

See the political scorecard, great photos, short videos, interviews, graphics and facts on weapons, wastes, water and indigenous land issues at:
http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net

Become a friend at:
http://www.myspace.com/votenuclearfree

I am sorry to keep harping on the subject, but would the anti nukes including Christinamac put "Thorium Power" into Google and then come back and tell us that nuclear energy isn't the power source of the future.

David

Nuclear is Australia's lifeline-bridge over PEAKOIL and should start now.

If Australia's yellowcake mining&exports were not making a bloody mess, both global-security wise and with radioactive wastes, and we were already building Hot-Rock-Geothermal power plants in every capital city, I too would be ANTI-NUCLEAR.

But Neither Rudd nor Howard have the guts to forego huge Uranium export income no matter the cost to Environment or global-security.
Neither do they have the WISDOM to invest in Geothermal power stations.

So, as things stand, Australia has NO CHOICE but to go Total-PBR-Nuclear-Industries.

Why go nuclear?

*Research and education is imperative to raise the proficiency of significant numbers of Australians to World standard in nuclear engineering and science. At least to the level where we become a world force in laser-based nuclear fusion technology- the power source of Stars. Remember, Whilst nuclear-fission should not be necessary for Australia, Nuclear-fusion will be critical to our much longer term future.

*To clean up the yellowcake mess with state-of-the-art, safer mining technologies(eg Colorado in-ground ore drilling&solvation) and at-site PBR enshrouding of Uranium ores

*In a chaotic PEAKOIL world where we have exported tons of Yellowcake a nuclear threat will be real. Only the hint that Australia has nuclear-programs that could include nuclear weapons would DETER future nuclear-violence. We can never control the future threat of nuclear war in a PEAKOIL scenario. Maybe if we STOP yellowcake export? But We CAN DETER nuclear attacks on Australia if we go Total-Nuclear-Industries.

Continued ..

now that i think about it, probably the only way to force ozzies to become active citizens is to announce the construction of a nuclear power plant in the neighborhood.

suddenly, they will realize democracy is useful and necessary.

shame really, that howard didn't get started sooner on his new clean green program. he has been a disaster. he is also the typical ozzie liberal.

if i'm still around in 5 years, i'll say kevvie is a disaster too, and many will nod their heads and say "disappointing". it's not the person, it's the system.

Why go PBR fuel?

*Value-added PBR exports will give the $A value when current world currencies rapidly devalue at PEAKOIL. PBR fuel(approx the size of billiard balls) and reactors will perhaps be the only priority export when marine diesel is $20/litre.

*PBR cannot cause meltdown in reactors. PBRfuel is no more useful to bomb makers than a car batttery.

*PBRfuel can be safely deposited in deep ocean subduction trenches and not even Rn/Kr gases can escape additional post-disposal plastic coatings. Ultimate subduction back into the Earth's crust is faster that leaving wastes in caves for eternity.

*Exported PBR reactors do not need long stsrt-up times. Australia must invest in fast deployed mini-reactors of 1-10MW. These reactors whilst not suitable for transport would be the size of a shipping container and able to power cities, ships and heavy military equipment in order to replace oil for peak-usage heavy-transport applications post-PEAKOIL.

NOTES:

The large reactors of the Switkowski report are NOT viable. If we need these reactors its going to be within 1-2 years not 25 years. Australia must invest in small reactors with rapid installation times and less vulnerable distributed profiles.Remember how hard it was for the US to get al the SCUD missiles in Iraq?

No matter who is in government when petrol gets closer to $5/litre, I promise everyone reading this that Australia will go TNI(Total-Nuclear-Industries). Its only natural for a country with 40% of the world's reserves, a deep respect for global law&order and a soon to be "passion" about THERMODYNAMIC SCIENCE.

It won't be long (less than 20 years) before you see I am right.

VK, try googling monazite as well. That is the stuff thorium hangs around in.
Your suggested Thorium Power site impressed me no more than did Ernie Titterton’s rantings about nuclear safety when he was on the go.

From elsewhere:
“The US Geological Survey (in its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries) has reported 300,000 t of thorium ‘reserves’ for Australia, but has added the qualification that the monazite would probably not be recovered for its thorium content unless there was demand for the rare earth metals in the monazite.”

India, from its resource in Kerala has plenty of particularly “hot” monazite. And could potentially make a rupee or two by exporting as much as the world asks for. Better quality even than Brazil’s copious resources. Australia has “hot” monazite which caused irritation to alluvial tin miners in their day. Best aussie prospects seem to be in north-west and north-east Queensland. And it is beach-sand stuff – do we want to re-visit the angst which was associated with that, apart from gratuitous concentration of radio-active material?

If enough determination, resources, and time, were put into thorium-nuclear enterprise then no doubt something would come out of it. It has taken Uranium-nuclear sixty years to arrive at a stalemate. Prospects for thorium seem no better.

David cites Thorium as an energy savior ("would the anti nukes put "Thorium Power" into Google and then come back and tell us that nuclear energy isn't the power source of the future.") Ok...

1. It, too, is a finite resource. Old thinking. Move on.

2. Electricity accounts for just 36% of global greenhouse gas emissions (International Energy Agency). 64% of emissions come from transport, agriculture, industry and deforestation.

3. The big one: Weapons proliferation.
- Neutron bombardment of thorium (indirectly) produces uranium-233, a fissile material that can be used in nuclear weapons.
- The USA has successfully tested weapons using Uranium-233 cores, and India may have investigated the military use of Thorium/Uranium-233 in addition to its civil applications.
- "Thorium (Th-232) absorbs a neutron to become Th-233 which normally decays to protactinium-233 and then U-233. The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle." - World Nuclear Association, 2006.
- "No thorium system would negate proliferation risks altogether."
- Friedman, John S., 1997, "More power to thorium?", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 53, No.5, September/October; Feiveson, 2001.

If you oppose nuclear WMD's (a fraction of which also risks sudden climate change in the form of nuclear winter), you should vote nuclear free.
http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net
http://www.icanw.org

Taswegian,

Plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles enhance the ability of the grid to cope with variability in supply and demand, and therefore enable higher penetration of intermittent renewable generation:

http://www.udel.edu/V2G/

Batteries get better every year.

There are *lots* of emerging technologies that promise to make this obsession with nuclear power look like a sad old fad.

For a long time photovoltaic enthusiasts have hoped and guessed that PV power would fall in price to reach "grid parity" by 2015. That prediction is looking ever more prescient as the technology improves. The number of Silicon Valley startups (and others) working on it means that if even half of them succeed, PV power *will* be as cheap as grid power within the decade. I'm confident that at least one will achieve it; maybe many of them.

"A few years ago, DVD players cost $1,000, now they’re $39 at Wal-Mart. Solar’s going to be like that, too."

http://www.google.com/search?q=grid+parity+by+2015

For some inexplicable reason installed solar PV system costs in Australia are presently over double the ones I can find quoted online for Europe and the USA, which are on a downward trend and currently around $4.60/watt. "Grid parity" is achievable around the $1/watt mark, and subsidies from climate-conscious governments and peak-constrained power utilities mean that solar PV systems are viable for some privileged consumers well above that price.

Solar thermal power promises to do what solar PV will never do alone, and provide centralised baseload renewable generation with steam accumulators or thermal storage.

Wave machines, run-of-river small-scale hydro power, submerged free-wheeling tidal turbines, and gradual improvements to large-scale wind turbines are all coming along nicely.

Efficiency and demand reduction have enormous untapped scope.

In the developing world biofuels are expanding like nobody's business. If *they* can become self-sufficient in liquid fuels, why shouldn't *we*?

Nuclear power can't help us over the peak oil hump without power storage and/or hydrogen. With biofuels and power storage and/or hydrogen, we don't need nuclear power.

India's communities too have been protesting over the nuclear industry, the mining of mineral sands and the desecration and contamination of coastal and river areas in their locations.

http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2007/villages_and_communities_again_1.html

http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/jun/env-sminerals.htm

Mining thorium is no less dangerous than uranium. Perhaps the required period for monitoring of waste is less - reduced to a mere 500 years!

Studies on thorium workers have shown that breathing thorium dust may cause an increased chance of developing lung disease and cancer of the lung or pancreas many years after being exposed. Changes in the genetic material of body cells have also been shown to occur in workers who breathed thorium dust.

Liver diseases and effects on the blood have been found in people injected with thorium in order to take special x-rays. Many types of cancer have also been shown to occur in these people many years after thorium was injected into their bodies. Since thorium is radioactive and may be stored in bone for a long time, bone cancer is also a potential concern for people exposed to thorium.

Animal studies have shown that breathing in thorium may result in lung damage. Other studies in animals suggest drinking massive amounts of thorium can cause death from metal poisoning. The presence of large amounts of thorium in your environment could result in exposure to more hazardous radioactive decay products of thorium, such as radium and thoron, which is an isotope of radon. Source: ATSDR

It is important to note that approximately 70% of Australia’s GHG emissions come from transport, agriculture, land clearing and industrial emissions.

Is there anyone out there who can advise me how thorium or uranium fueled reactors are capable of reducing the massive emissions from these sources? In fact won't they add to the already excessive industrial emissions?

And given that today's emissions of carbon based atmospheric chemicals will remain relatively benign for a hundred years or so, before revealing its destructive force, we need to take action immediately - not decades down the track.

Wouldn't the most sensible immediate solution be the fast-tracking of the comparatively simple implementation of renewable energies?

Global primary uranium production appears to have peaked in 2005 as it fell 5% in 2006, due to a 15% drop in Canada and 20% down in Australia. Continuation of uranium mining in Australia depends on the results of the BHP Billiton feasibility study ending in 2009 into the Olympic Dam expansion. This may well be turned down as the initial four-year excavation will rely on imported supplies of diesel, the price of which in 2010 to 2014 can only be guessed. Also the farmers may take priority over water supplies if the current drought continues.

In any case the prospective output of the project has been committed to the Chinese, Indians and Russians, leaving nothing for the birth of an Australian nuclear sector.

Meanwhile the so-called secondary supplies of nuclear fuel are running out, which together with the decrease in mining production will lead to a reduction of nuclear generation in the US and France. The situation will come clear in a year or two's time if or as the current trend continues.

And of course, these renewable energy techniques are out there already proven and commercially viable, able to produce the unlimited cheap energy that modern day society needs to function in its present profligate way.

David

Wind farming IS now a proven, commercial industry. Several are operating very satisfactorily and in Western Australia, the Emu Downs project is contributing largely to fuelling the Kwinana desalination plant. At least in calm conditions, wind is replaced with gas fired plants which are considerably less polluting than coal.

I occasionally access threads pertaining to the hybrid wind/solar plants where in the case of diminished wind, solar takes over. Research continues and the potential here could be realised in the not too distant future and hopefully, costs will become more affordable.

Sceptics continue to spread their propaganda that climate change is not human induced, however, only a drongo would deny that mankind's contribution to pollution is enormous.

Only a drongo would deny that the world's eco systems are now drastically contaminated from anthropogenic pollution.

Already thousands of people are dying from polluted water, polluted crops and polluted air and the overriding fact is that the pollution stems from hydrocarbons, though governments (particularly Howard's government) remain mute on the true number of deaths resulting from radiation-related diseases including those exposed to depleted uranium and occupational hazards.

In addition, medical tests on the Arctic Inuits reveal that these people have the highest rates in the world of man-made dioxins, PCBs and other industrial chemicals. This is a result of the transboundary nature of these bio-accumulative chemicals and the ingestion by marine life, the staple diet of the Arctic people. Yet any outsider would consider the Arctic to be the most pristine area in the world.

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v026/26.3johansen.html

And while China is now polluting in similar fashion to the West, it is comforting to learn that they are in fact addressing the issue of climate altering pollution very seriously.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue_marble_blog/archives/2007/11/6274_china_surges_ah.html

It is an ignominious fact that the Federal government in our country has resisted all pressure to also act responsibly and Hiroshima John (if returned to office) will quickly find his tongue to again elaborate his grand plans for a more radioactive planet.

Why Australia should go Total-Nuclear-Industries now.

Its like the Australian populace has been wading out 100's of mtrs into crocodile infested waters up to their armpits. Everything is safe as there are satisfactory crocodile safeguards. The rest of the world is crocodile crazy so business is brisk.

Even if Australia hadn't blindly followed their leaders (both parties) into these crocodile-waters the rest of the world would still find crocodiles for sale elsewhwere and after PEAKOIL they knew they could just come and take our undeveloped crocodiles anyway, amidst-the-PEAKOIL-chaos.

But the Australian people, like little children, up to their armpits in crocodiles, put their fingers to their noses and said to each other "no one can see we have crocodiles, we're hiding. And we will just tell everyone who asks that we are pure. We are a CROCODILE FREE NATION"

Well petrol hit $5/litre and the Australian people let their outdated yellowcakodile industry flummox along while the rest of the world went safer and cleaner Pebblebedodile value-added industries.

The rest of the world prospered. The crocodile business was good. But the $A collapsed to the same value as the paper-it-was-written-on as it was secretly tied to OIL-futures which of course collapsed.

So here we have all the Australian people, up to their necks in crocodiles with increasingly fearsome foreigners plotting to invade and take our crocodile wealth. They have Crocodile powered ships and we can't even find the fuel to get a single F-111C off the tarmac. Presently, Australians everywhere started crying like John Howard when he lost the 2007 election and saying, "Why didn't we value-add our crocodiles to pebblebedodiles as a $currency-bridge-over-PEAKOIL when we had the chance? Why oh why didn't we build Hot-Rock-Geothermal power plants in every capital city? All we have now is puss-box-green-power, which is so widespread. We can't afford the oil to send people out to great distances to maintain them. Oh Woe is us! We were the most prosperous of all OECD nations. Why has it come to this?"

Then some smart alec from up the back yelled out "Because it's-all-THERMODYNAMICS and you're all-too-F#*@ing-stupid!"

Kaep, the problem is that the unwashed have no knowledge of such things as thermodynamics and they all believe in perpetual motion. Fortunately, or even perhaps unfortunately, JWH will no longer be there to guide the ship of state, so we might, just might, see a change in direction, but I am not holding my breath.

David

Now that it is apparent that Labor have won this election, it will be interesting to see how long it takes before they come to realise that for all they've been saying about non-nuclear solutions to CO2 output, nuclear is the only one that can be made to work on a useful scale.

Sylvia.

And here's the best part for all the true-thermodynamics-believers ..

If Xoddam, Dickie et al are right, post-PEAKOIL, the Indonesians and Chinese will invade us in solar and wind powered ships to get our CROCODILES. So they will have two chances, of getting our crocodiles, Buckley's and none .

Of course the Chinese and Indonesians WILL be using mini 10Mw crocodile reactors in their ships and support vehicles.

And that is one smaller reason among the myriad of others why we must have mini PBR reactors well before post-PEAKOIL too.

And particularly among those other reasons, I know, given our healthy mistrust of long term nuclear solutions that Australia will be big enough and intelligent enough to dump all our nuclear reactors and mining after PEAKOIL. As soon as we have taken this nation to a full conversion to inexhaustable, sustainable Hot-Rock-Geothermal electric power and its auxilliary function as a high power density water cracking facility for the production of HYDROGEN based transport fuels to run this nation for many millennia. And not just run ut, but run it in the luxuriant style to which we have become accustomed.

And notwithstanding our abdication from nuclear status post-Geothermal, we know that our brief and necessary flirtaion with nuclear power will have given us the many proficient engineers and scientists who will be capable of propelling this nation towards the SUSTAINABLE ENERGY holy-grail of affordable laser and sonic based Nuclear Fusion modalities.

Why do pro-nukes on this thread resist offering solutions to the following questions I am reiterating from an earlier post.

For instance what do they recommend to mitigate emissions from motor vehicles, which last year in Australia, released 2 billion, 2 million kgs of carbon monoxide. Since the release of CO from motor vehicles has been combusted, it therefore converts to atmospheric CO2.

Are they concerned that livestock and feed crops now occupy 58% of Australia's land mass, releasing the largest amount of methane, a greenhouse gas?

How will nuclear energy assist in reducing the massive amounts of water used in uranium mining, particularly when this industry is set to significantly expand?

Are they concerned about the enormous increase in radioactive tailings and the encroachment of thousands of square miles of our bush-lands to mine uranium?

For instance, Canada, the largest uranium miner, has already produced some 214 million tonnes of radioactive tailings and the Canadian people have grown vociferous in their protests.

How will nuclear energy reduce the massive amounts of water used in uranium mining, particularly when this industry is set to significantly expand?

With the resource industry set to continue for some time, how will nuclear energy mitigate the massive amounts of hazardous stack emissions released in processing gold, nickel, aluminium, lime, bricks etc, particularly SO2 and particulates which are responsible for acid rain and the lack of rain?

Will Rudd reinstate a "command and control" regulatory system?

Why can't pro-nukers grasp the reality that power stations and pollutant energy supplies are only part of the problem?

John Howard's government, captured by pollutant industries and the big end of town, have been an abject failure in mitigating environmental degradation and must take some responsiblity for the irreversible damage caused to our environment.

Tonight the people of Australia have spoken. The Greens, I suspect have also been more successful than in previous elections.

This I believe is due to the fact that ordinary folk are not "unwashed" half-wits, not interested in KAEP's irrelevant thermodynamics, and as a result, have overwhelmingly rejected the propaganda spread by the nuclear industry.

I'd have to wonder how wind farms and solar power generators reduce the emissions from non-electricity generation sources as well.

Nuclear power doesn't allow the total elimination of CO2 emissions, but that's not necessary.

Water consumption by the nuclear mining industry is not large by comparison with other uses, and the industry's product is sufficiently valuable that the water needs can be met by desalination and pipelines where necessary. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, the energy requirements for the desalination are trivial by comparison with the energy content of the resulting uranium.

As for the thousands of square kilometres devoted to Uranium mining, I'd have to wonder whether it really is thousands, but even if it is, what of it? Australia's area is over 7 million square kilometres. We can afford to devote a fraction of a percent of it to energy supply.

However, there is another approach to reducing emissions that is more cost effective than wind and solar - decommission some coal fired generators (particular brown coal generators) and replace them by natural gas generators. That more than halves the CO2 output per unit energy generated. Our natural gas supplies are not as extensive as coal, but there's more than enough for the time being. Then in 40 years, when the gas generators are reaching the end of their useful lives, we can revisit the problem to see whether technology offers a better solution, such as fusion.

Sylvia ("for all they've been saying about non-nuclear solutions to CO2 output, nuclear is the only one that can be made to work on a useful scale.") this is blatantly untrue.

Firstly, a combination of energy efficiency and conservation has both vast and immediate effect and potential, and saves money.

Existing energy efficiency measures could cut energy use in the manufacturing, residential and commercial sectors by up to 30%, reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 15% and it would pay for itself in just four years. This report (by the Australian Ministerial Council on Energy) was signed off by every State environment minister.

Wind power has had an average annual growth of about 25% over the past 20 years, while in recent years grid connected solar power has grown annually by 60%. Renewable energy is now the fastest growing of all energy industries and is worth $54 billion annually.

Australia already generates an equivalent amount of electricity from bio-energy to supply all homes in Tas. By 2020 bio-energy could supply a third of Australia's electricity if it expands at the current 3% average for industrialised countries, generating an estimated 250,000 jobs.

Australia could supply nearly 10% of its electricity demand from solar by 2020 simply by installing 3kW solar PV systems (ie, solar photo voltaic alone, excluding solar thermal or gas boosted solar) on a third of Australian households. (Business Council on Sustainable Energy).

The combination of decentralised and sustainable options can supply both base and peak load, offset with natural gas to help bridge the larger scale changes.

We have existing commercial solutions operating now around the world and vast potential for Australia to become a real world leader in energy conservation, efficiency and clean, sustainable electricity generating. But again - 64% of global emissions do NOT stem from generating electricity.

Wrong again Sylvia ("Water consumption by the nuclear mining industry is not large by comparison with other uses").

BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine is currently licenced to 42Ml/day. Expansion would add a further 120Ml/day (EIS) - that's 162,000,000 litres, daily, requiring a 400MW desal power station - equivalent to the Hazelwood coal power station expansion. And they're exempt from even paying for that water, despite their record profit.

The government's own Parliamentary Research Paper of 4/12/06 states that a nuclear power plant would require "per megawatt, 20 to 83% more water than for other power stations".

Just some Coalition MP's opposing N power:

Nick Minchin (SA)
"We would be very, very unwise to allow our opponents to lumber us as the party favouring nuclear power".
"It is unviable and if we allow the Greens to suck us in on the greenhouse argument over nuclear we really are mugs."
- June 26, 2005, Liberal Party Federal Council meeting.

Peter Slipper Fisher (Qld)
"I am strongly opposed to a nuclear reactor being located on the Sunshine Coast."

Alexander Somlyay Fairfax (Qld) doesn't want nuclear reactors in his electorate.

Teresa Gambaro Petrie (Qld) 'wouldn't agree to a reactor.'

Gary Hardgrave Moreton (Qld) "My electorate is not suitable."

Warren Entsch Leichhardt (Qld)
"Who in their right mind would even think about putting a nuclear power plant in a place like Port Douglas?"

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull Wentworth (NSW)
"My electorate is an inner city electorate and there isn't a lot of free space, so it's probably a theoretical exercise."

Joanna Gash Gilmore (NSW)
Ms Gash told The Age she would resign if a nuclear reactor was ever constructed at Jervis Bay in NSW and has a petition on her website opposing a reactor in her electorate.

Alby Schultz Hume (NSW)
"There won't be any nuclear reactor in the electorate of Hume, mate."

Russell Broadbent McMillan (Vic)
Nuclear power would happen "over my dead body".

Mark Baker Braddon (Tas)
"I can't see the need for a nuclear power plant in Tasmania in my lifetime."

I discovered this on the UIC web site in News section dated 23-nov-2007.

IPCC summary report
The Summary for Policy Makers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes nuclear power as a currently available commercial climate change mitigation technology, and advanced nuclear power as an option before 2030. Overall, the IPCC reports greater confidence that the effects of global warming are evident and serious, and that action is needed to limit the consequences of future climate change. The component reports were published earlier in 2007.
IPCC 17/11/07.

Well said Xoddam, a ray of light in yet another rehash of apocalypse and doom. Keep the faith

Wind may be growing at 25% a year, but it's from a very low base, such that it currently represents only about 1% of capacity. Indeed, demand is rising faster than wind capacity. It is only because the penetration is so low that wind farms have not destabilised the grid to the point of requiring additional non-wind capacity to be installed to compensate.

Installing 3KW PV panels at one third of Australian households would cost in excess of $70 billion. It is hardly a practical proposition.

Desalinating water requires about 6kWh per kilolitre, so 162,000,000 litres per day would require 972,000 kWh per day, or an average power of 40MW, not 400MW. The consumption of 162ML per day should be compared with Australia's average daily farm irrigation of 27GL. As I said, it's not large by comparison with other uses.

The fact that nuclear power stations (as currently implemented) require more cooling water than coal fired stations is of no particular consequence. Nuclear power stations can be built near the sea and cooled by sea water

Sylvia

I wholeheartedly agree with you on your proposal to replace coal fired plants with gas and I have argued for a conversion to gas for some time. For an interim period, gas fired plants would show a significant reduction in the emissions of CO2.

"As for the thousands of square kilometres devoted to Uranium mining, I'd have to wonder whether it really is thousands, but even if it is, what of it? Australia's area is over 7 million square kilometres. We can afford to devote a fraction of a percent of it to energy supply."

As previously mentioned, livestock and crops already occupy some 3.7 million square metres of Australia's land mass.

There are about a hundred uranium players listed in Australia and you may be interested to learn how much land mass some of those companies occupy at present:

.....Company.... ...............Square Kilometres

Fusion Energy...................1,300 WA

Marmota Energy.................7,000 SA

Rubicon Resources...... ..10,000 WA

Buffalo....................................2,000 NT, Qld

Archer Expl. ............................5,693 SA

Chesser.................................2,603 SA

Southern Uranium...............10,393 SA

United Uranium.......... ........4,073 Vic

Centram............................10,000 Charlie Creek survey project
" .".........................................25,000 Chilling project

Kalgoorlie/Boulder Res. .....5,040 WA, SA

Deep Yellow Ltd..................56,105 (Kms) WA, NT

Palace Resources..............12,400

Mega Uranium..................27,000 WA, NT, Qld, SA

Only 87 uranium players to go now Sylvia with some much larger than those above. I strongly disagree with you when you describe these tenements as merely a "fraction of a percent" of Australia's land mass, particularly when uranium mining renders our lands, uninhabitable.

It is also interesting to note that from the 194 countries on this planet, only 34 have gone nuclear.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:j2KzzWs3pQwJ:www.radiation.org/press/limerick_0405.html+death+totals+nuclear+reactors&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=au&lr=lang_en

Why do anti-nukes on this thread resist reading solutions to their inane questions. I reiterated them several times in earlier posts.

For instance I recommend nuclear cracking of steam to produce HYDROGEN based fuel for cars. Mini PBR reactors for shipping and heavy military equiment. Yet they can't read simple english.

I have told them that Autralia exports yellowcake and the only thing they can do is to push for PBR-value-added and in-ground solvation Uranium extraction technologies.

What hope is their for Australia when it is being wanked back to the dark ages by ignoramuses who can't even fathom that the entire Universe is run on thermodynamic laws. Those laws have even more relevance to Australians because as petrol reaches $5/litre their mastery means the difference between our being prosperous and DUST.

I will make a prediction. Kevin10 will be the Howard07 of Australian politics if he doesn't understand the gravitas of thermodynamics in coming times. If Rudd's government fails to get over their ENERGY policy constipation, the Australian people will oust them as sure as they just ousted Howard out for treating Australian citizens as personal commodities to be bought and sold on the global market. Howard's sin went beyond buffoonery and reached the dizzy heights of BETRAYAL with the attempted Snowy sale, workchoices, unsustainable immigration into drought and buying farmers out for a pittance in lean times.

Rudd's failure to even consider or introduce GEOTHERMAL and Total-Nuclear-Industries into the national energy mix will see him ousted in 2010. Having spoken to many people about thermodynamics and PEAKOIL I am continually surprised at how au-fait Australians are with such a difficult subject. I put this down to education syllabi and the impact of discussion webs on the net. I am also surprised at how piggish and ignornt Labor leaders like Robert Mclelland are about thermodynamics and Nuclear power. I put this down to the cloistered, insular nature of the Labor Party and the fact that their incestuous polling is ALREADY not reaching average Australians. A bad sign!

Continued..

Continuing..

Australians have understood the dangers of Howard's betrayal and acted.

Australians are now keenly aware of the next threat of foreign invasion stealing precious energy resources like Uranium and will choose the next Government on the basis of which future government can engender a futureproof Australian lifestyle based on high-density Geothermal Power and Total-Nuclear Industries.

The consensus is that Australians want to face the future on our terms as ENERGY leaders in a world whose $currencies will soon be based on ENERGY. We will not go into the night, wanked back to the stone age by ignorant war-of-the-worlds-artillerymen who don't have the mental capacity to understand the overwhelming BENEFITS of a Nuclear energy bridge AS WELL AS its inherent risks, nor the crippling $cost, distribution and maintenance problems associated with puss-box-green-power technologies.

Its ALL THERMODYNAMICS ... from now on Australian Governments will rise and fall on their ENERGY policies

I was going to stay out of any further debate, but the figure quotes by Dick Head need some explanation.

That are not the area being mined, it is the area of the tenements over which the companies have leases to carry out exploration, a vast difference.

If you want to see a big mine, go to Kalgorlie and have a look at the big pit there. Even that is is less than 100 square kilometres and believe me it is big.

There is so much mis information being peddled by the anti nukes that no further discussion of a rational nature is possible. Give up Kaep, let them all go back to donkey carts and cooking fires fueled by the dung of same.

David

Of course the nuclear issue was kept hidden during the election, and now that Rudd has won the election it won't be mentioned for at least three years.

The dogmatic left is religious, and as such, criticises anybody mentioning nuclear power (the only real alternative at the moment) as immoral.

It is because such people are so irrational (think about it...how can one call themselves an environmentalist yet be religiously opposed, unwilling to even look at - nuclear power?) that we'll fall behind.

Much of the world has already moved to nuclear, yet we have the dogmatic, verbal diahorrea spewing left, are backward looking, not forward.

Also bizarre in all this is such people's desire to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which is now set to happen, letting China, India, and Brazil, the filthiest polluters on earth - off the hook.

Bravo for religiousity, for it has arrived in Government.

The nuclear power station proposal will come back onto the plan
the day after the first day long power blackout.

There is one thing that may make it unnecessary and that is the solar
thermal power station experiment as at Liddel power station.
If that can be made to work then all existing coal fired power stations
may be able to be retrofitted with solar thermal.
The overnight heat is supplied from molten salt stored during the day.
I don't think they have that working yet. I have read that there is
station in Spain that has successfully managed such a system.

Other wise nuclear is inevitable, so just live with it.

Yo Benjamin,

Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998. Our recently-elected conservative Government negotiated a very cheap deal for Australia that would permit business to continue as usual, with an easily-met target and special concessions for reduced rates of land-clearing.

That same government would cheerfully have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on these hard-won generous terms, if the incoming US administration in 2000 had not decided to renege on the deal signed by the previous US government, and asked Australian leaders for support.

Brazil is not one of "the filthiest polluters on Earth". Brazil has some incredibly advantageous renewable energy supplies and it exploits them very productively. Fully 50% of the liquid fuel consumed in that country is domestically-produced ethanol from the sugar cane crop, and a very impressive 90% of Brazilian electricity is generated from renewable energy sources (principally large-dam hydroelectricity, which does admittedly have its environmental problems). Brazil has in the past been notorious for land-clearing, but in recent years conservation and reforestation have begun to see impressive results. Slash-and-burn, once a dominant technique for preparing cattle pasture and croplands, is becoming a thing of the past.

China *is* a filthy polluter due to its enormous coal consumption and poor enforcement of environmental standards, but in its defence it too has very impressive renewable energy commitments, with 128GW of installed hydroelectric capacity, fully 38GW of that in relatively less-harmful small-scale installations. China also has solid commitments to wind power and biomass power, and is dramatically improving the thermal efficiency of its coal-fired electricity and domestic heating sectors by wide adoption of small-scale urban cogeneration facilities using clean(er) fluid-bed furnaces.

KAEP,

I'm sure you said geothermal and nuclear energy were supposed to produce *liquid* fuel for use in our current stock of vehicles. How did that work again? Or do you propose to add to the cost of your water-cracking program, the replacement of every petrol tank in the country with a cryogenic liquid-hydrogen tank? How much energy exactly is discarded in the process of high-temperature electrolysis followed by liquifaction followed by internal combustion, as opposed to using a battery?

"I was going to stay out of any further debate, but the figure quotes by Dick Head need some explanation.

"That are not the area being mined, it is the area of the tenements over which the companies have leases to carry out exploration, a vast difference."

Errr....VK3AUU

Do you have a problem with English? The first part of your second paragraph indicates that you have or perhaps the "V" in your name stands for "vacuous?"

The majority of people would understand that I was referring to uranium rights and tenements and no-where have I stated that these tenements are being mined. Is the "D/Head" you refer to a Freudian slip?

Could you also advise how you managed to allude the "profanity" monitor or perhaps Graham will be kind enough to enlighten me?

My post, advising of the official, documented area size of those tenements was in reference to a previous statement I had made and also in response to Sylvia's post.

Rest assured, many of the tenements exhibit considerable uranium prospects while others have known reserves.

"Alliance said that the $4.4 billion in-ground value of initial resources estimate for Four Mile highlighted its significance as the "most substantive uranium discovery in Australia since 1985 (which was Olympic Dam, now 1.7 million tonnes)."

Then you have the mining entrepreneurs who abide by the adage:

"Never spoil a good exploration prospect by drilling a hole."

"If you want to see a big mine, go to Kalgorlie and have a look at the big pit there. Even that is is (sic)less than 100 square kilometres and believe me it is big." (VK3AUU)

That sure is one big "D/Head" statement, VK3AUU!

Wishful thinking or simply more misinformation?

The size of KCGM's (Barrick/Newmont) super pit, set for a moderate expansion in Kalgoorlie, is currently about 6 square kilometres.

There's no need to exaggerate VK. I'm sure you will be comforted to know that size does not always matter!

The two great falsehoods of the anti nuclear camp are:

1 - Nuclear energy is expensive.

True it is more expensive than coal, but not by much. When compared to other sources, it is starting to look cheaper all the time. It is still overwhelmingly cheaper than renewable energy.

The figures quoted by the anti nuke camp are almost always quoting 1970s /1980s design systems which are comparitively in the infancy of nuclear design.

2 - Renewable energy sources are still in their infancy and technological advances will make future installations comercially viable (ie without the huge direct and indirect subsidies they experience now).

There has been significant research in the subject for 40 years, and while there has been rapid progress over the last 10 years, the industry is becoming mature and the gains are harder to get. While we can still expect progress, the magnitude of the advances we need to stop emmissions growth, let alone reverse it, are probably well over the horizon.

Considering that the most cost effective sites are already being developed for wind farms, the law of diminishing returns will rapidly begin to apply to this technology too.

When 2010 design reactors and 2010 renewable sources are compared on a level playing field, there is no question that for the next 50 years or so meeting the Kyoto targets without nuclear is a pipe dream.

It is my belief that we should seriously consider enriching the uranium
to power station rod stage and then lease it to power stations.
If they do not return the rods they get no more fuel.

This implies we have to store the returning depleted fuel.
I have been told by someone who should know, and I have seen a
reference to it that there is a process that can reduce the half life very considerably to 300 years.

If this is so then I think as we have the space we owe it to everyone
to engage in this system and keep the fuel away from any chance of it
being used for weapons.

Shadow Minister,

Wind power may indeed be considered a mature technology and may eventually begin to see diminishing returns. Nevertheless it *is* a cheap and universally-available non-fossil-fuel electricity generating technology, so there is no good reason not to pursue deployment of wind power up to the economic limits of its penetration, eg. to 20% of electricity production in any network.

Other mature renewable technologies are also comparably cheap wherever there is a suitable resource available: traditional geothermal power, hydroelectricity (including newer but no-less-efficient micro-hydro) and biomass power from agricultural or forestry wastes, are all price-competitive even with coal.

This cannot be said of all renewable power technologies; the most promising *are* in their infancy and *are* showing rapid cost improvements, as are the kinds of power-storage technologies which will be needed to permit intermittent renewables to come into their own.

Solar PV has a venerable history but is making impressive strides in commercial development. Wave and tidal power are about where wind was in the early 1980s -- barely beginning to be used for electricity production, nowhere near competitive with established technology, but they promise comparable progress to that which wind has achieved in the last two decades. Liquid biofuel technology may be 200 years old, but it is in its infancy when it comes to commercial development as a competitor to petroleum.

Australia already has wind farms, wave power systems, micro-hydro systems, solar systems, deployed and expanding and connected to the grid and earning money. We have several companies pursuing hot-rock-geothermal prospects. Other Australian companies are deploying promising wave and solar power technologies on the other side of the world. On the other hand Australian nuclear power is still all talk.

Remind me, when was a nuclear power station last completed on time and on budget, anywhere in the world? Let alone in a country that had never before used nuclear power?

News for you. People are building wind turbines and installing solar power equipment in Australia *right now*. They will produce electricity right away and make an immediate financial return.

Try that with a nuclear reactor.

"If they do not return the rods they get no more fuel."

Let's hope we are not dumbing down that prospect.

The non-return of fuel rods has the potential to create an international crisis.

Dickie,
My understanding of the proposal by someone who should know is
that the fuel rods for power stations would have to have a lot of
processing to make them weapon suitable and that many times the amount
of power fuel consignment is needed for a weapon.
So once the reactor is fuelled they can only replace the spent fuel by
returning it.
The situation is the same as now, but they do not have to return the
fuel. The whole process can be monitored by the IAEC including the
shipment and storage of waste.

I am assured that it could be made leak proof.

Xoddam,

I see that we concur on wind power. It is definitely the most efficient source of renewable energy, and when it is situated near the point of consumption, then it can come close to the cost of non renewable sources of power. However, when far from the point of consumption, the reticulation costs can be several times the cost of the generation. I would expect the contribution from wind to be higher than 20%.

The other technologies:

Sun: the next best choice, but still expensive, and of limited use at peak demand at 5pm-7pm. Maybe 10%

Hydro: 0.1% would be optomistic in Australia.

Wave: Also not a new technology. The main failing is that no wave generation system has survived the once in 10 year storm or waves and are normally beaten into scrap metal.

Geothermal: Limited to access to hot rocks close to the surface: I don't have firm figures, but I would guess slightly better than Hydro.

Biofuel, a) reuse of waste material - very cost effective, in waste dumps, sugar mills and pulp mills, but limited to maybe 0.5%.
b) specially grown biofuels, extremely expensive.

As for storage, the only cost effective method presently is the Hydro scheme, others are 10s to 100s of times more expensive and not even close to being feasible in our lifetimes.

With regards to the cost and time over runs of nuclear, these are predominatly due to "green" obstruction tactics.

Wind and solar generation being installed presently only makes a profit with massive subsidisation far in excess of what the nuclear industry gets.

The only solar or wind generation that pays for itself on its own merits are ones installed at home where power is 20+c kWhr not 4c as on the grid. This is worth doing, but the rest are expensive window dressings.

Shadow Minister

The cost benefit of having wind or solar at or close to one's home is largely illusory, and is a result of the pricing structure. Even if large numbers of people were to install such systems, it would not reduce the network infrastructure required, because it would still have to be there for when there was insufficient wind or sun. Since less energy would be sold to the consumer, the price of the energy that is sold would have to rise to cover those fixed infrastructure costs. To avoid this amounting to a cross subsidy to people with wind/solar generation, strictly speaking the price change should apply only to them, though this would inevitably be characterised by greenies as a "tax on sustainability" so probably wouldn't happen.

This is analogous to the situation regarding non-intermittent generation whose fixed costs have to be covered even if they are producing less energy because they're sometimes displaced by intermittent sources.

I think you'll find that the believed geothermal (hot rock) resources are more than adequate to supply our entire needs for a long time, but this technology has yet to be proven.

While greenies have undoubtedly contributed to time and cost overruns on nuclear plants, I think that these are more often the result of first of kind risks. If the industry could settle on a design and build multiple incarnations of it, both the costs and construction times would come down.

Looks like we are stuck with nuclear power generation in the forseeable future if we want to close down our coal burning stations.

I see the Chinese have just contracted for six new Nuclear power stations. It is estimated that by 2050 China will need 350 gigawatts of nuclear power. That is something of the order of the current world nuclear power capacity. They are desperate to close down the coal burning system because of the atmospheric pollution in all the larger cities.

One would presume that India is heading in the same direction as the Russians have signed a deal to build four new nuclear power stations.

The incoming Labor government will have to move us in the same direction, even much against their will and the NIMBY attitude of the population. Fortunately, we have extended lengths of sparsely inhabited coastline, not yet occupied by the sea-change set, on which to site these stations.

David

Shadow minister,
Xoddam is correct;
> I would expect the contribution from wind to be higher than 20%.

Twenty percent is near the maximum although I believe some systems are
achieving nearer 25%.
The limitation is caused by network stability problems.
However that is not the only figure of concern.
Over a year most systems are only getting 15% of their rated output.
That is a very big capital expenditure for such a low productive
output.

You did omit one of the most promising systems, Thermal Solar as
applied at Liddel in an experimental installation.
With an attack of money and engineering it could perhaps solve
many problems and can be retrofitted to existing coal fired stations.

There is a link to it on the NSW government web site.

The following wind energy proposal is one I shall follow with interest particularly when it promises to supply power to over one million homes:

http://www.renewable-energy-world.com/display_article/293212/123/ARTCL/none/NEWS/UK-to-build-%E2%82%AC43-billion-offshore-wind-farm-in-the-Atlantic/?dcmp=REW_ARCH

No doubt the pro-nuke, recently deposed Federal government must take some responsibility for forcing our geniuses off-shore. Will the following solar proposals, in the near future, retire the coal and nuclear industries to where they belong - in the dusty archives of history?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2048420.htm

Here's another one:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44725/story.htm

Or how about this?:

Million Solar Roofs

"U.S. Department of Energy seeks to place one million solar energy systems on U.S. roofs by year 2010. This initiative will use existing grants to help communities, businesses, governments, and utilities increase solar energy systems sales. One key feature involves the use of solar systems in federal buildings."
Local Contact: Jamie Evans, 303.275.4813 jamey.evans@ee.doe.gov.

Yes indeed, exciting times ahead and the word "luddite" has a totally new connotation for the 21st century! Nuclear advocates = luddites!

Dickie,

The first article you cited left out some words after "could supply electricity for over 1 million homes." The missing words are "on average." Appliances don't run well on average power, and this is no trivial issue.

The second cited article says "... within two years it will be able to economically store its hot water for more than 16 hours." Which is fine, provided the energy to heat the water was there in the first place. Not so hot after an overcast day, though. Again, not a trivial issue.

Those of us who are opposing the introduction of wind and solar power are doing so because we do not believe that it performs as advertised, and that in consequence significant amounts of money are being wasted that could be better used to deal with CO2 emissions in other ways.

Shadow Minister,

Long-distance, low-loss transmission of electric power is a problem solved long ago. A 570km line has operated between the main islands of New Zealand since 1965. Hydroelectric power is exported 1200km from Mozambique to South Africa, and a 1700km line exists in Congo (formerly Zaire). The new 3GW high-voltage DC line from the Three Gorges Dam to Guangdong in China is over 900km. The longest such link in Australia to date is the 390km-long Basslink opened last year. I am somewhat surprised Australia hasn't exploited this technology more extensively before now.

Most reactive power losses with HVDC are in the conversion stations at either end; line losses are very low and increase only logarithmically with distance; total power loss is typically just over 10%.

An ambitious European, Middle Eastern and North African project envisages transmitting solar energy on a large scale from the Sahara to Europe:

http://www.trecers.net/

There is absolutely no reason why 1000km and greater distances should not be covered by HVDC transmission lines from geothermal and solar thermal power stations in the Australian outback to the sites of demand in our coastal cities. It's not free, but it's not prohibitively expensive either: one day we might export our abundant renewable electricity by cable to Indonesia and beyond.

The biggest part of existing power transmission costs is actually thermal wear-and-tear on substation equipment (transformers between AC long-distance transmission and local distribution voltages) during peak hour. It is in order to reduce these substantial costs that utilities are prepared to subsidise otherwise-uneconomical rooftop solar panels in aircon-peak-constrained suburbs like Blacktown.

Wind farms compete with power stations as remote sources of electricity, not with retail prices at local sites. Consumer-scale wind turbines are hopelessly uneconomical by comparison with 200m-tall utility-scale turbines costing several million dollars each and generating between 2 and 7 megawatts at capacity factors above 35%.

Rooftop solar PV panels are a better bet on the consumer scale, and they're not there yet. Give them 8-10 years. By that time I'll wager batteries, electric cars and other storage technology will have improved out of sight as well.

ARTILLERYMAN: We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves. Look, the global oil giants clap eyes on us and we're dead, right?

So we gotta make a new life where they'll never find us. You know where? Underground.

You should see it down there - hundreds of miles of drains - sweet and clean now after the rain, dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch.

And what's so bad about living off solar&wind trickle power? It's not been so great living up here off coal power, if
you want my opinion.

Take a look around you at the world we've come to know
Does it seem to be much more than a crazy circus show
But maybe from the PEAKOIL madness something beautiful will grow
In a brave new world

With just a handful of men we'll start - we'll start all over again - all over again - all over again - all over again.

One day we might even export our abundant renewable electricity by cable to Indonesia and beyond ..

NUCLEAR POWER DUDE: In the cellar was a set of solar panels scarcely ten feet long, that had taken him a week to prepare. I could have done that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers.

ARTILLERYMAN: It's doing the workin' and the thinkin' that wears a feller out. I'm ready for a bit of a rest. How about a drink eh? Nothing but champagne, now I'm the boss.

KAEP,

How does nuclear power "mass-synthesize liquid fuels"?

I bet you that plants will *always* provide more combustible liquids for transport fuel than nuclear fission.

As for oil giants, either they're with me or they are doomed. Nuclear energy, including gas-cooled pebble-bed reactors, may have a role to play, but without some serious evidence I won't believe it can "bridge peak oil". Keep on digging.

Sylvia,

Sunshine and wind were never advertised as continuous energy supplies; intermittency is universally acknolwledged. Your claims that they require equal (and expensive) backup capacity at low penetrations are grossly exaggerated.

A portion of intermittent capacity can be considered every bit as reliable as thermal generation capacity. Conventional turbines are available for dispatch 85-90% of the time. A fraction of wind power is equally reliable, depending on penetration but typically between 10% and 25% of nameplate capacity.

At low penetrations, existing variability of demand exceeds variability of intermittent generation. Because the two are positively correlated, intermittent sources displace peakers rather than requiring any additional backup at all.

At higher penetrations, the variability of intermittent generation may exceed the variability of demand, and require *modest* additional peaking or storage capacity to ensure demand can always be met. The expense of most peakers is more in fuel than capital, so running them at a low capacity factor is ideal, not expensive.

It is entirely appropriate that intermittent power suppliers be required to fund this additional peaking capacity.

Overcast days *are* "a trivial issue" for solar thermal power in the wide brown land; approximately as "trivial" as nuclear reactor scrams, for instance.

Older solar thermal power plants in California and Israel keep their generators running overnight with fossil fuels; the same is an option in Australia for rare cloudy desert days when thermal storage proves inadequate.

You should however note that days that are overcast across inland Australia are also likely to be days of above-average regional wind energy supply and reduced demand to run cooling equipment.

Artilleryman,

Can't you figure it out?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy

This article indicates the BMP for hydrogen based fuels is METHANOL, produced at mini-PBR nuclear sites from Hydrogen gas and a waste-CO2 stream from a linked, possibly small clean coal power station.

Remember: ITS ALL THERMODYNAMICS FROM THIS POINT ON. The imminent disappearance of oil and the blatant overestimation of reserves by certain influential producing countries(Brazil, Russia) are just a clue to what is really happening. The pump price of gas over the NEXT 3 years will tell the real story and we had better be dressed READY for the occasion, a nuclear boot on the left foot, a Geothermal boot on the other and yes a green energy hat if it can help.

And if its NOT safe, secure well researched PBR technology going from in-ground-drill solvation-uranium-extraction to deep-sea-subduction-zone-disposal then its NOT ON.

AS for human overpopulation from henceforth it also must be .. IF ITS NOT ON TS NOT ON. You know that other PBR protection?

I mean people CAN keep breeding like rabbits GOING 4 ECONOMIC GROWTH if they like. I can't stop them. But they are all going to be knee deep in dead bodies within 20 years if they are UNLUCKY enough to survive.

Those individuals espousing Go 4 GROWTH and whining about what planet WE will leave for their GRANDCHILDREN are quite simply a bloody ignorant DISGRACE.

With THERMODYNAMICS its proper planning to PREVENT Poor Performance. That planning involves having the maximum ENTROPY gradient from electric power generation station SOURCE to coastal sea SINK that you think you will need at PEAKOIL and treble it! You don't muck about with the second-law-of-thermodynamics as it applies to human civilisaions and LIFE. Especially when its Australian lives, digger.

How the hell can wanting sufficent, proactive investment and belief in the potential for our country to become a world leader in sustainable, clean, safer technology be considered "backwards thinking"? Do some here propose energy efficiency and conservation "backwards" and irrational too?

NUCLEAR POWER IN DECLINE:
Brussels 21.11.2007
Nuclear energy: New report highlights nuclear decline in spite of industry talk of renaissance.
'World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2007'
http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/206/206845.nuclear_energy@en.htm

Quote: "False promises for a nuclear revival could lead to misplaced public expenditure, delaying a more intelligent and sustainable approach to energy supply. In addition, plans for building new reactors would be in direct competition for the limited manufacturing capacity that is already stretched by the maintenance costs for existing (aging) reactors."

The report:
http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/206/206749.the_world_nuclear_industry_status_report@en.pdf

Conclusions:
http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics/dokbin/
206/206808.conclusions_world_nuclear_industry_statu@en.pdf

As far as "The whole process can be monitored by the IAEC including the shipment and storage of waste" (I think you mean the IAEA)
- Are you sure? When military nuclear facilities are exempt from the "safegaurds" system and even the Director General of the IAEA Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, has noted that the IAEA's basic rights of inspection are "fairly limited", that the safeguards system suffers from "vulnerabilities" and it "clearly needs reinforcement", that efforts to improve the system have been "half-hearted", and that the safeguards system operates on a "shoestring budget ... comparable to that of a local police department ".
(http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/index.html)

Shadow Minister ("Biofuel
a) reuse of waste material - very cost effective, in waste dumps, sugar mills and pulp mills, but limited to maybe 0.5%.
b) specially grown biofuels, extremely expensive.")
as I pointed out earlier, Australia ALREADY generates enough electricity (again, this is just just 64% of global contribution to GHG emissions - I wonder when that will kick into peoples' minds) from bio-energy to supply all homes in Tas. By 2020 bio-energy could supply a third of Australia's electricity if it expands at the current 3% average for industrialised countries, generating an estimated 250,000 jobs.

The facts still stand on nuclear:
- Too slow (10-15 yrs for a reactor plus a further 10 or more to recoup its energy costs),
- Contributes to GHG emissions at every stage other than the fission process: U mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reprocessing, all facility construction and maintenance, reactor decomissioning, waste storage and management, and all related transports. The 2006 Switkowski report states that wind power is three times more greenhouse-friendly than nuclear power.
- Contributes to nuclear WMDs via infrastructure, expertise, covert research, the fuels themselves and ineffective, un-enforceable international "safeguards"
- Contributes to known and proven terrorism risks, massive water use, wastes for which there remains no solution for the periods required
- Diverts attention from world-leading sustainable, existing safer alternatives and research.

Move on.

"Expansion of nuclear fuel cycle activities need not be part of a response to climate change.
"The draft report appears to the Review Panel to underestimate the challenge that will confront Australia if it should choose to expand the scope of its nuclear activities". - the Australian Government's official peer review of the Ziggy Switkowski draft report, chaired by (pro-nuclear) Australian Chief Scientist Dr Jim Peacock, (9/12/2000).

Isn't amazing how all these alternate technologies "Could" contribute to the generation of the electricity that we need. It remains to be seen how much they actually "Will" contribute though.

There are a lot of dreamers out there still.

Dream on.

David

Sylvia

"The missing words are "on average." Appliances don't run well on average power, and this is no trivial issue."

It's acknowledged at this stage of wind power research that an alternative energy back-up is necessary. This problem pales into insignificance compared to the infinite dilemma created from the disposal of radioactive waste and the additional, adverse radiation effects on all life forms.

The UK wind project to which you refer promises to significantly mitigate the obstacles of unreliable wind sources:

"Building a wind farm exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean could open up a whole new area for offshore development."

Furthermore, wind and solar energy could be supplemented by biomass or geothermal.

During 2006, $100 billion was invested in renewables and the market shows no sign of abating.

"Curious" is the description for the argument from the pro-nukes. Nuclear reactors have been operating since 1951 and yet supply only 16% of the worlds energy needs.

However, according to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, renewable energy already supplies 18% of the world's electricity.

The US's 104 operating reactors supply just 19% of America's energy needs. Doesn't this indicate that the US would need to manufacture hundreds of new reactors in a minimum timeframe to make a difference? That won't happen.

And according to the UIC, as of 06/07 the US had only 7 reactors on order or planned.

Despite the 104 "clean energy" nuclear reactors in the US, the rise in radiation-related and other cancers gives cause for concern:

Between 1973 - 1999 kids (median age now 6 for diagnoses) cancers rose by:

Bone and joint:................................44 %

Brain cancers...................................51 %

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemias.........61.7 %

Adult cancers rose by:

Malignant melanomas..................156 %

Leukemias......................................45 %

Liver cancers................................104 %

Lung cancers.................................103 %

Testis...............................................67 %

Prostate..........................................105 %

Non Hodgkin Lymphona............. 88 %

Thyroid Cancers.............................71 %

Protests and denials from the NRC and the IAEA ring hollow when they continue to dumb down the effects of radiation on human health (including low-level radiation) but the science has long proven there is no margin for error in this redundant industry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/national/17nuke.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1196219904-s3drTvOHvV2SRxmNittZBA

http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/feb98/nuclear.html

Sylvie,

By solar at home, I was talking about solar water heating, which is cost effective. This also deals with the storage issue. Wind depends on where you are.

Yes, this is mostly because of the relative high cost of domestic power, but this can contribute significantly to power consumed if not the infrastructure needed.

Xoddam,

Long distance reticulation exists, but the cost of infrastructure is prohibitive and only cost effective on massive supplies > 1GW typically from large single sources to major reticulation points. It would not be feasible for scattered small supplies.

The other reason that this would not be feasible for wind farms is the difference between average and peak generation of 5 times. This means building infrastructure for 1GW for average generation of 200MW.

Dickie,

As the background rate of radiation has not increased over the last 30 years, attributing these cancers to nuclear power is extremely tenuous. I could also say that world temperatures have risen 2 degrees in 30 years and as this has a high corelation with cancer, global warming is responsible for the extra cancer suffering.

A more likely explanation is that people are living to a greater age, and as you age you become more susceptible to cancer. For example someone age 70 has five times the chance of developing cancer of a 20 year old over the same period.

Extending life expenctancy by 10 years will probably increase cancer incidence in the general population by 100% on average.

Make no mistake, I believe that all these technologies should be used as effectively as possible, but the targets of Kyoto are going to be very tough to meet, and excluding one of the most effective tools to do the job is foolhardy.

Someone's listening!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Rudd-govt-good-news-for-geothermals/2007/11/29/1196037035464.html

However if the Rudd Government are serious about staying beyond 2010 then the $50 million for Petratherm's 5 geothermal drilling projects must be upgraded to 90% of the $500million energy fund. This should entail hot rock geothermal drilling projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for starters.

If that spending went well then the need for a nuclear bridge could be reexmined.

However a Stern warning. Petrol prices could be $4-5/litre by 2010, with crippling effects on the $A and social cohesion in this country. If so I can promise all the goldilocks on this forum that Australia WILL go nuclear .. or perish beginning with an abrupt dismantling of Federalism as fuel shortages make it impossible for any prime minister to control state governments with foreign allegiances.

ITS ALL THERMODYNAMICS .. "ENERGY = ORDER".

“This should entail hot rock geothermal drilling projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for starters.” (Kaep).

The thermodynamics are up the creek without a paddle for those sites, unless Geoscience Australia and such-like could do with a bit of expert help. The same sort of help needed by the scientifically literate who have grave disquiet about so many aspects of the nuclear industry.

Sylvia argued the requirements for BHPB's Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion, claiming 40MW compared to what I'd (they'd) stated (400MW and 162Ml/day water):
"With Olympic Dam already the state's biggest consumer of electricity, the proposed expansion would more than triple its power demand to about 400 megawatts."
BHP snubs SA carbon reductions
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22838774-5005200,00.html

And the latest on the troubled nuclear industry France:

France imports 'record levels' of power on nuclear outages
26/11/2007 : Platts

France imported "massive" levels of power to make up for a shortfall in nuclear power production in the country during October and the start of November, according to a report Monday.

The report in French daily Les Echos quotes Dominique Maillard,
chairman of the French grid manager RTE, as saying state power company
EDF is being forced to import "record levels" of power.

Output is down because technical problems at several nuclear power plants have prolonged periods of maintenance, leaving some reactors offline for longer than scheduled periods, the paper said.

A recent fall in temperatures to below seasonal norms has made this situation worse, it added. Over the year, the availability of France's nuclear power reactors is set to fall to 80%, "its lowest level for eight years," the report said.

Already in October, France increased its imports of power by 143% and reduced its exports by 21%, and "the scenario is likely to repeat itself often this winter," according to Les Echos.

According to the report, EDF's biggest headache concerns the cleaning of steam generators. The company has had problems with reactors at the Bugey, Chinon, Cruas, Paluel and Saint-Alban nuclear power plants, the paper said.

Some 13% of France's total nuclear power generating capacity is
currently off-line, according to last available information from EDF on Friday. Seven reactors representing 7,900 MW from a total nameplate generating capacity of 62,720 MW were stopped in the week to November
23, according to information from EDF.

Neither RTE nor EDF were available immediately Monday to comment on the report.

"As the background rate of radiation has not increased over the last 30 years, attributing these cancers to nuclear power is extremely tenuous."

Shadow

If humans were only being exposed to background radiation, we would not be having this debate.

Make no bones about it, man has contaminated this planet with massive amounts of anthropogenic radiation, causing irreversible health and environmental destruction.

This destruction is not short lived, it cannot be "cured" and the fact that it is still mandatory for farmers in particular areas in Wales, to test every one of their livestock for radiation from the fall-out from Chernobyl and destroy them where necessary, reveals the heinous impacts and the transboundary nature of man-made releases of radiation.

"Because of man's activities, background radiation exposure is gradually increasing as greater quantities of naturally ocurring radioactive materials are being released into the biosphere (for example, through uranium mining).

"We have added significantly to the unavoidable radiation exposure of all people on earth because of fallout from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear power plant discharges, particularly in the case of a large-scale accident like Chernobyl.

"The medical profession has also added to our average radiation exposure through the use of x-rays.

"In addition, small quantities of medical and industrial radioisotopes (man-made radioactive substances used for "tracers" or therapeutic purposes) often end up in soil, water or air.

"Although the term "background radiation" is not meant to include bomb fallout, reactor discharges, medical exposures or environmental contamination from radioisotopes, it is nevertheless a fact that people all over the world are being exposed to increasing doses of radiation because of these factors." http://www.ccnr.org/nfb_uranium_3.html#K.5.

Depleted Uranium:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/133581_du04.html

Low-level Radiation:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/2005/pr-abrams-102605.html

For pro-nukes to continue recommending a massive increase in uranium or thorium mining, to supply fuel for over 2 thousand nuclear reactors world-wide, reveals a consortium of extremely radical geriatrics who have little respect for their fellow humans or for the planet on which they reside.

And poor old Atomic John is no doubt licking his wounds and pondering on his shattered dream of nuclear energy for the people of this nation!

Oh KAEP,

*Methanol*!

From *CO2*, the new vital energy feedstock!

Slowly I begin to comprehend.

Recipe:

Burn coal.

Extract pure CO2 from the flue gas. (How exactly?)

Make heat by splitting atomic nuclei (stir up radioactive minerals, concentrate fissile ones, pack into marbles, combine, stand back).

Make electricity from heat by boiling water.

Make hydrogen (and oxygen) from water, heat and electricity by high-temperature electrolysis.

Note that steam reformation of hydrocarbon fuel produces hydrogen at a fraction of the cost of HTE. The intermediate Water Gas Shift reaction makes CO2+H2 from CO+H2O.

Make carbon monoxide (plus water) with the *reverse* Water Gas Shift reaction from hydrogen and pure CO2 in the presence of a dessicant.

Make neuro-toxic CH3OH by combining CO over a catalyst with more hard-won electrolytic hydrogen.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

You purify combustion exhaust, then reconstitute it with concentrated thermal and electrical energy. Plants do the same thing with ambient CO2 and sunlight.

You are beginning to look seriously THERMODYNAMICALLY challenged.

(And why on earth *methanol*, when Fischer-Tropsch would provide familiar alkanes from CO? What's a BMP, btw?)

You'll need a long drill to reach 400-degree rock beneath Sydney.

KAEP, I don't think you would recognise thermodynamic efficiency if it bit you on the bum.

Shadow Minister,

If it's worthwhile wiring several million houses with capacity for 20kW or more of appliances most of them will never use (maybe they turn on a third 2400W heater, four nights a year), isn't it worthwhile reticulating a few hundred 3MW wind turbines at Warwick and Toowoomba for the sake of 1MW "average" power?

And if wiring is justified to tens of thousands of 400W highway lamps for night-time-only use, isn't it also worthwhile reticulating a bunch of 1500MW solar thermal plants with overnight heat storage hard by Moree, Longreach and Bourke for 24-hour baseload, prolonged country-wide overcasts possibly excepted?

None of these places lacks gigawatts of existing HVAC power transimission capacity. Converting to DC could quadruple the capacity of existing cables while *reducing* line losses.

Sylvia's "100% backup" claim was at least plausible; these new objections to intermittency are imaginary.

Dickie...

Well said, above.

This site and collection of resources will remain and will be included in the National Archives. The name may be soon updated:
http://www.VoteNuclearFree.net

“I do not like this word bomb. It is not a bomb; it is a device which is exploding.”
- Jacques Le Blanc – French Ambassador to New Zealand (describing France’s nuclear tests).

So many Artillerymen, so many double digit IQs.

There is a hot-rock-Geothermal project being considered in the Hunter valley. The geology is not unlike Sydney.

Oh and winos drank methanol for years before blindness set in. If they drank gasoline they would've been dead in a week. Go figure!

And the best of all: when you consider human overpopulation and the murder of some 6 billion people in 2025. When you consider that the only thing that stands between us and that fate is TOTAL-PBR-NUCLEAR-INDUSTRIES then truly:

SEX is the greatest threat to mankind - to an extent that makes the worst nuclear nightmare scenarios IN-SIG-NIFICANT.

As for the rabid ranting and compulsion to bite that anti-nukes portray, here's a story :

There once was an ant(artilleryman with green power dreams) who fancied an elephant(nuclear power). One day his lust got the better of him and he ascended the elephant's leg to her unmentionable parts where he commenced thrusting.

A monkey(nuclear free party members) saw this and in a fit of jealousy, spitefulness and rage, picked up a coconut and threw it. It hit the elephant in her most tender spot and she let loose a cry that turned the whole jungle to flight.

Well, the ant hearing this was heartened, pumped harder and cried out "take it bitch, take it!"

xoddam,

Whether something is worthwhile depends on its cost, the benefit it provides, and the cost of possible alternatives that provide an equivalent benefit. You cannot just argue that because one thing is worthwhile, another thing of a superficially similar nature must also be worthwhile.

To level the load represented by a house without losing the benefit of the uneven consumption would require hugely expensive local energy storage, so it makes sense to provide cabling to handle the peak load.

The benefit from wind farms consists almost entirely of a reduction in CO2 release. There are cheaper ways of achieving that, so on a rational cost benefit analysis wind farms would not be built. This makes it difficult to find a justification for building any transmission capacity for them at all, let alone capacity to handle their peak output.

Sylvia.

"The benefit from wind farms consists almost entirely of a reduction in CO2 release. There are cheaper ways of achieving that,"

Sylvia

You have alluded to cheaper ways of achieving reductions of CO2 a couple of times.

Can you clarify those methods you allude to, please?

Dickie,

With respect, I think other things than pollution by radioactive materials may share responsibility for increased cancer and chronic disease rates: contaminants from decaying plastics and other chemical agents; respiration of microparticulate pollution from diesel engine exhausts; increased cohabitation with dust-mites due to wall-to-wall carpets.

I can tell you a few cheaper ways (than wind turbines) of reducing emissions myself.

First I'll repeat that wind power *has a capacity value* (so its net benefit is greater than mere fuel-saving), and at low penetrations doesn't necessarily require any more backup than pre-existing peaking capacity provides.

Lower-cost emissions reductions include:

Retirement of old inefficient electrical appliances and industrial equipment, replacing with more efficient designs.

Energy-efficient new buildings and refits, including cogeneration and absorbtion cooling driven by waste heat (as opposed to compression cooling driven by electric motors).

Replacement of all electric space heaters with fuel-burning equivalents (using cogeneration where scale permits).

Replacement of all electric hot-water heaters with solar or fuel-burning equivalents (cogeneration ditto).

Provision of quality public transport to areas of high car-use, persuading people to drive less.

Replacement of industrial furnaces with cogenerating equipment, and waste-heat power-recovery (bottoming cycle) cogeneration where heat is exhausted to the environment.

At the cost of a little labour, mid-to-large-scale heating and cogeneration can be done with biomass fuel (wood or processed-straw pellets) instead of gas. This is not only cheap and efficient, it's carbon-neutral.

Replacement of large coal-fired steam-turbine power stations with smaller combined-cycle gas-fired ones. Capital equipment is cheaper and emissions are lower, but fuel costs are higher; on the other hand fuel-saving measures are cheaper to integrate since CCGT can handle variable-power situations responsively and efficiently.

Retirement of older petroleum-guzzling vehicles, replacing with more efficient designs.

Wind power is more visible than most of these measures, but it is not therefore deserving of a greater share of funds.

On the other hand, today's wind power is a cheap fuel-saving measure by comparison with contemporary nuclear power technology.

KAEP,

You appear to be in the throes of neural meltdown.

Dickie,

Our base load generation is currently predominantly coal, including the worst carbon emitter of all - brown coal.

Generation based on natural gas produces significantly less than half as much CO2 per unit energy generated as does brown coal generation.

When wind farms are running, they displace natural gas powered generation, so the CO2 benefit is limited.

For a given desired amount of CO2 reduction, it is cheaper to retire brown coal generation and replace it by an equivalent amount of natural gas generation, than it is to build wind farms.

Sylvia

And even the 2006 Ziggy Switkowski report states that wind power is three times more greenhouse-friendly than nuclear power...

In any case, see http://beyondzeroemissions.org/solutions regarding clean, sustainable base and peak load power.

Atom1;
Base load from wind ? No matter how widespread the windfarms
there will always be a time when the wind drops over say 75 % of the
wind farms. Even if it just halves in speed the loss of power is to
the cube root of the wind speed.
The implications of that bit of maths is dramatic.

Would you enter a lift under those conditions ?
Would you be a passenger in an aircraft landing at night if the
landing lights might fade out ?
Would you like to be on an operating table when the wind drops ?

Power is not guaranteed now but the mtbf is good enough that the above
risks are reasonable.
It will not be possible to make a reasonable guarantee that the power
will be available at full load 24 hours a day.

If you read the link you gave us, you will see that they do not give
a guarantee either. They just rely on load shedding.

Sylvia

I am in agreement with your suggestion, however, I do not believe that coal fired conversion to gas will happen. You will see from my posts on earlier threads that I have advocated for gas fired power plants at least for an interim period which significantly mitigates releases of CO2.

I am not au fait with the economics of our gas reserves, however, it appears that this industry is more intent on exporting this product than supplying the domestic market.

What is of concern is that 5 new coal fired plants in australia last year were given the nod with more in the planning phase.

http://www.cana.net.au/nomorepollutingpower/NoCoalNationalStatement.pdf

"With respect, I think other things than pollution by radioactive materials may share responsibility for increased cancer and chronic disease rates: contaminants from decaying plastics and other chemical agents; respiration of microparticulate pollution from diesel engine exhausts;"

Xoddam, I am also in agreement with your statement above. Last century saw the manufacture of many hundreds of synthetic chemicals - many carcinogenic, mutagenic and/or teratogenic. This is an industry which also functions in secrecy.

Therefore, why do we continue down that path of further polluting human health and our eco systems and the environment when the nuclear industry, apart from RA emissions, releases massive amounts of lethal chemicals. Uranium mining and milling for instance emits the following hazards:

Molybdenum, arsenic, nickel, selenium, ammonia, hydrazine, copper, zinc, chromium, noble gases, dioxins and furans, hexachlorobenzene, hydrogen fluoride, SO2, CO2, VOCs, PMs, benzene, sulphuric acid, CO, hydrochloric acid, lead, mercury, NOx etc.

Last year Olympic Dam alone emitted 2,400,000 kgs of PM10 and 1,500,000 kgs of NOx.

Reports on the release of radioactive substances, for some reason, are not for public viewing. Why?

Curiously, Australian companies are not required to test for the far more lethal PM 2.5 (particulate matter.)

Canadian U miners produce up to 18,000,000 tonnes of waste rock each year and their VOCs emissions in 2004, were the equivalent of 300,000 cars on the roads annually.

Will we too, take this dead-end path?

http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/ClearingAir_UraniumMining.pdf

One would think from all the Hooray on this and other pages that the Uranium mining industry was the only one that emitted pollutants into the atmosphere, or was the only industry responsible for deaths due to its emissions. I would suggest that the participants in this forum do some solid research on this subject and then come back to us before engaging in this blanket condemnation of the nuclear industry.

David

There is no doubt that the human reproductive cycle MUST be included in the price of our journey into the future. We CANNOT survive as a civilised population in a 2025 world of 9 billion people crowded into limited coastal cities and all of us wanting per capita energy usage far greater than even that of today. It is absurdist bunkum to consider otherwise.

Besides, if China can successfully introduce one child per woman policies then so can the rest of the world, including Australia. As petrol prices continue to rise and drought worsens, this will become a highly charged issue and ultimately a reality.

Finally, a brief flirtation with nuclear power may also be part of the price of our future, if $billion investments in Geothermal power are not soon forthcoming.

Those resisting nuclear power on the grounds that existing mining is an environmental tragedy are merely powerless dupes who do not have the mental accuity to see that Total-PBR-Nuclear-Industries are the only way to clean up the current radiocative mess. Anti-nukes can't stop Labor or future coalition parties from U-mining. Both parties are very greedy, self-serving machinations who will NEVER stop mining Uranium especially while growing world demand is creating record prices for yellowcake and will create even higher prices for much safer, value-added PBR fuels and ultra high tech mini reactors.

Continued nuclear=free=australia squatting about U-mining on this forum are a waste of space. In obfuscating serious issues for Australia's future they are a threat to this nation's security.

"other things than pollution by radioactive materials may share responsibility for increased cancer and chronic disease rates.."

This is not in dispute for certain cancers. But why add avoidable additional radioactive contamination to the mix? Remember - exposure to ionizing radiation is CUMULATIVE and ADDITIONAL to natural background radiation.

David ("One would think from all the Hooray on this and other pages that the Uranium mining industry was the only one that emitted pollutants") Not at all, however this topic is "Nuclear vision - from inevitable to invisible" -- the uranium industry being its source.

KAEP, I'm not even going to entertain your irrationality that "Continued nuclear=free=australia squatting about U-mining on this forum... are a threat to this nation's security" when there exists proven indirect and direct links to nuclear military and the ineffectiveness of the safeguards system.

"John Carlson, Director of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, has admitted that Australians will not inspect Chinese nuclear facilities to ensure compliance with controls safeguarding non proliferation. He also confirmed that international inspectors would not visit enrichment or conversion facilities in China to ensure Australian uranium did not end up in nuclear weapons." - The Age, (5/9/06).

While (China) had enough uranium resources to support its nuclear weapons program, Madame Fu said China would need to import uranium to meet it's power demands." - An admission from China's Australian Ambassador that Australia supplying uranium to China would support their nuclear weapons program by diverting their own uranium reserves for this purpose. ('The Australian', 2/12/05).

http://www.icanw.org

"I would suggest that the participants in this forum do some solid research on this subject and then come back to us before engaging in this blanket condemnation of the nuclear industry." (VK3AAU)

VK3AAU

I can offer information on my research. What part are you interested in?

I was born and bred in a mining community. So were my parents, my grandparents and my great-grand parents arrived in that community in 1897.

Of course, "only" some 1600 have been killed on mines in my small area last century. That does not include the thousands who died from silicosis, pneumonicosis or other mining-related diseases. Who cares? It wasn't you or me.

However, I shall refrain from posting off-topic though my research ensures me that the mining of uranium mining is the most environmentally destructive.

"Continued nuclear=free=australia squatting about U-mining on this forum are a waste of space. In obfuscating serious issues for Australia's future they are a threat to this nation's security."

KAEP

You may continue to bury your head in the sand. The fact is that only some 30 countries have nuclear reactors. I have already reminded you that there are 194 nations on this planet.

In addition, 18 of those countries with nuclear energy are developing nations and according to the UIC (06/07), only 3 Western countries have "planned" for any new reactors.

Naturally they are the Western countries who are among the largest producers of RA hazardous wastes - Canada, America and Japan.

Planning for new reactors is a good way for these countries to recycle the tonnes of waste that are lanquishing in and contaminating those nations, particularly now that our Australian sycophants have expressed a desire to offer reprocessing assistance and repositories on Australian soil.

You fail to acknowledge that a nuclear future for Australia (or anywhere else) is too little, too late. Building just one reactor could take up to a couple of decades.

Your argument for PBR's is ridiculously inane since Mother Nature does not make a habit of procrastinating.

Let's face it KAEP. You're impressionable and factually a member of the minority.

Dicky

The fact: the 30 countries having nuclear reactors contain 90% of the world's people and are all gearing up to buy OUR Uranium. You only remind me you are a Labour party shill. The Labour party seems content to sit on the fence with Yellowcake exports. Rudd must quit Uranium mining OR go Total-PBR-Nuclear industries. Rudd will be ousted at the next election if yellowcake exports continue.

That only 3 Western countries have "planned" for any new reactors is a baldface lie.

RA hazardous wastes are IN-SIG-NIFICANT, compared to the human lust to KILL for the survival of their families when petrol prices go over $5/litre.
Naturally, as you display such ignorance I predict you would be one of the worst offenders.

Planning for new PBR reactors is a good way for ALL countries to make NUCLEAR POWER more efficient, cost effective and safer than ANY other power generation scheme than GEOTHERMAL. Your concerns about new technologies creating greater risks don't add up. They are based on ignorance.

I acknowledge that a nuclear future for Australia is too little, too late. But using it as a bridge over PEAKOIL while we perfect unlimited hot rock GEOTHERAL power is both viable and sensible.

Building just one LARGE reactor could take up to a couple of decades, sure, but you already know I propose 1-10MW mini PBR units that could be in service for cities, shipping and the military within 5 years. Your allusion to my supporting the Switkowski report is just PROPAGANDA.

Your argument against PBR's is ridiculously inane because you have NO argument. ?? " Mother Nature does not make a habit of procrastinating."?? what a joke!

Let's face it Dicky. You're no more capable at propaganda or psycho-analysis than you are at researching science topics.

I hope that other readers of this forum get as big a laugh from your posts as I do.

*ITS ALL THERMODYNAMICS*

Atom1: PBR fuels CANNOT be used in WMDs. If you participate in the discussion please have the decency to do the research first.

Wow! KAEP's robust thermal dynamics have won the day - for the opposition with an own-goal.
Definitely no call for a Pebble-bed Reactor.
Just keep KAEP stoked, and he will generate enough steam to provide all the energy needed.
We had some reservations about you KAEP, but now your stamina is no longer in doubt.

KAEP, don't assume for a second that I've not done several years of (non-vested interest, unpaid) research first.

As for PBRs and nuclear weapons:
- The nature of the fuel pebbles may make it somewhat more difficult to separate plutonium from irradiated fuel, but plutonium separation is certainly not impossible.
- Uranium (or depleted uranium) targets could be inserted to produce thorium targets could be inserted to produce uranium-233.
- The enriched uranium fuel could be further enriched for weapons*
- The reliance on enriched uranium will encourage the use of and perhaps be used to produce highly enriched uranium for weapons.
- And in China's pebble bed test reactor, "What to do with growing piles of nuclear waste is a problem that not even this reactor can solve". - 'Catalyst', ABC TV, Feb 2007.

* "From the point of view of someone concerned about arms control, is any enrichment facility suspect?"
"Oh, of course". - Physicist C. Paul Robinson, former director of Sandia National Laboratories, also led nuclear weapons programs at Los Alamos and served as a U.S. arms control negotiator in the late 1980s. (On Line News Hour,May 27, 2005.)

As for PBR reactors being "a good way for ALL countries to make nuclear power more efficient, cost effective and safer than ANY other power generation scheme than GEOTHERMAL" - Wow, I've not known solar arrays or wind turbines to have been proven terrorist targets. You?

Anyway, it's all a moot point. Even a doubling of nuclear power globally would reduce CO2 emissions by just 5%, taking 10-15 yrs for a reactor in Australia (Ziggy's report, though unwanted and voted OUT) plus typically a further 10 yrs for a single power reactor to recoup its energy input costs.

Atom1

"plus typically a further 10 yrs for a single power reactor to recoup its energy input costs"

In this context, that's rather misleading. The 10 years includes the energy inputs required for decommissioning. If one accepts the validity of the study that produced the figure, a nuclear plant is in energy credit 3.5 years after commissioning.

"That only 3 Western countries have "planned" for any new reactors is a baldface lie."

KAEP, You will need to redirect your fervid wrath to your buddies at the UIC.

http://www.uic.com.au/reactors.htm

"Building just one LARGE reactor could take up to a couple of decades, sure, but you already know I propose 1-10MW mini PBR units that could be in service for cities, shipping and the military within 5 years."

Five Years? No, no, no KAEP. In your dreams, boy. Do your research on the Eskom project.....please?!! Lawsuits, delays, delays!

"RA hazardous wastes are IN-SIG-NIFICANT, compared to the human lust to KILL for the survival of their families when petrol prices go over $5/litre."

KAEP, May I suggest you seek counselling for your homicidal tendencies?


Sylvia

The Yucca Mountain repository project is now more than 10 years overdue with a 35% increase in costs to those estimated in 2001.

Figures estimate that the blowout is in the billions.

In addition, whitehouse submissions reveal that over 75 years, $300 billion will be required for the clean up and decontamination of existing civil and military sites.

Equally as bad is the industry's failure to plan for the prospect of new reactors and the size of Yucca Mountain is now deemed inadequate and so a second one is being proposed.

Liability settlements are being made to utility companies for the delays - all adding to huge blowouts in budgets.

In addition, concerns are now being expressed because of earthquake faults in the vicinity.

You don't really believe that governments and industry are capable of accurately assessing final costs for nuclear energy, do you?

And surely you don't believe they have the consumers' interest at heart?

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=8675&type=0

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:UzeLsd4btPYJ:www.lvrj.com/news/10257277.html+Yucca+Mountain+cost+2007%3F&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au&lr=lang_en

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:MEY_EAWufA4J:physicists.org/fyi/2007/110.html+Yucca+Mountain+estimated+total+expenditure&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=au&lr=lang_en

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/06/970629235257.htm

Dickie,

Amounts of money and cost increases are really meaningless unless adequate context is provided.

The particular context of interest is the effect these costs have on the price of nuclear generated electricity if it is to be self funding.

Without that, the large numbers are are just that - large numbers.

Sylvia.

Sylvia

"Air-brushing" the facts will not eradicate the documented evidence.

Despite this industry's promise more than 50 years ago of energy "too cheap to meter," America's nuclear power continues to be dependent on taxpayer handouts to survive.

From 1947-1999 the US's nuclear industry was given over $115 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies. Including Price Anderson limitations on nuclear liability, the federal subsidies reach $145.4 billion and rising fast.

To put this in perspective, federal government subsidies for wind and solar totalled $5.7 billion over the same period. The management of radioactive waste and the requirements for reactor decommissioning also require additional funds.

Other aspects of nuclear power, such as the pollution from uranium mining, risks from nuclear weapons proliferation, dangers of reactor accidents, and the legacy of radioactive waste, are further hidden costs.

The high capital costs and long construction times of reactors do in fact, make new reactors prohibitively expensive unless they are heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

The US Energy Policy Act of 2005 contains over $13 billion dollars in new subsidies and tax breaks, as well as other incentives, for the nuclear industry, including:

Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits industry liability in case of a severe accident; the rest of the tab would be picked up by taxpayers – possibly over $500 billion.

More than $1 billion for research and development of new reactor designs and reprocessing technologies.

Authorization of $2 billion in "risk insurance" to pay the industry for delays in construction and operation licensing for 6 new reactors, including delays due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or litigation.

Authorization of more than $1.25 billion for the construction of a nuclear plant in Idaho.

Tax credits for electricity production, estimated to cost $5.7 billion by 2025.

Unlimited loan guarantees to back up to 80% of the cost of construction in case of default.

Even with these incentives, Standard & Poor recently concluded that such subsidies "may not be enough to mitigate the risks associated with operating issues and high capital costs that could hinder credit quality."

With global electricity demand conservatively projected to double by 2030 indicating an increase of > 1500 GW additional generation. As all renewable energy generation in the world is in the order of 350GW, much of which is Hydro, the chances of reducing greenhouse gas emmission by renewable alone is zero.

Like wise, nuclear generation alone is unlikely to meet the requirements.

As for the costs of nuclear generation and subsidies, they still compare favourably to renewable.

Most reactors today are built in under five years (first concrete to first power), with four years being state of the art and three years being the aim with prefabrication. Several years are required for preliminary approvals before construction.

The major obstacle is the "green" objections which causes cost over runs and delays. As the situation with climate change worsens, and renewables fail to deliver, the public's attitude will change dramatically and the resistance experienced today will crumble.

Your numbers are out a bit, SM. Existing installed capacity is approx. 3700GW, producing about 700TWh per year. *Some* projections may be for demand to double (or add a mere 1500GW) by 2030, but this almost certainly assumes continued neglect for the large potential for profitable efficiency improvements.

To reduce peak electric demand by one kilowatt costs a fraction of the price that it costs to increase supply capacity by the same kilowatt. This holds true for a huge range of appliances and for all generators except for the most modest cogeneration installations. *If* a serious effort were made to improve electric efficiency, *no* capacity expansion would be required.

As things stand of course the 'go for growth' meme holds sway, and I don't know what might be done to dissuade eg. China from its ambition to quadruple its economy (whilst merely doubling energy consumption -- China is serious about efficiency improvements and has a very large potential to achieve them) by 2020. So I do expect capacity to expand somewhat. That doesn't mean Australia has to follow suit, even as we expand exports to China and its competitors.

Oh and by your own logic:

As all nuclear power today amounts to a mere 400GW, the chances of reducing greenhouse emissions using nuclear power alone are zero.

The biggest and cheapest emissions reductions come from doing more with less. Funds -- public and private -- should be directed first and foremost into improved efficiency. But we must retire our coal-fired dinosaurs somehow, and replacing them with nuclear-powered dinosaurs isn't such a wise move.

Intermittent renewable electricity isn't cheap and it has its problems. I, too, doubt that it will provide 1500GW of "base load" capacity by 2030. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing at all.

Xoddam,

The figures I quoted were power generated not capacity and I don't dispute your figures.

As I said previously in my post, nuclear cannot do it by itself either. This is not an either / or situation.

The biggest savings will come from efficiency increases, and yes they have been considered in the figures I quoted.

In spite of the increased spending on both nuclear and renewables, they are both projected to supply a decreased percentage of power in 2030 as they are out stripped by coal fired generation, mostly based in the non OECD countries.

My preference is for firstly energy efficiency, secondly for renewable energy, and lastly for nuclear.

However, with current projections, any loss of nuclear power generation will not be filled by renewable, but by coal fired generation.

I prefer nuclear to coal not to renewable. Opposition to nuclear is support for coal either directly or indirectly. Waiting for some magic bullet to save us is fanciful bordering on negligent.

Shadow Minister, of course "the chances of reducing greenhouse gas emmission by renewable alone is zero. Like wise, nuclear generation alone is unlikely to meet the requirements". As I've reiterated from the IEA, APPROX. TWO THIRDS of global GHG emissions stem NOT from generating electricity but are from industry, agriculture, transport and deforestation.

Nuclear, even if fast enough, affordable, safe enough (insurable), even if not related to WMDs both directly and indirectly or emitting GHG at every stage other than the fission process, and assuming a (non-existent, even after 60 years) long term waste management solution, CANNOT EVEN ADDRESS 36% OF THE GHG ISSUE.

Sylvia attempts to dismiss the 10 year total energy cost recouping time of a nuclear power reactor due to a significant part pertaining to decommissioning - a crucial (and extremely expensive) aspect to the safety and any longevity of the nuclear industry. You've dug your own hole there, I'm afraid.

http://www.icanw.org

"Opposition to nuclear is support for coal either directly or indirectly."
No, it is not and that is an insult to those of us working on a sustainable and safer future. A combination of
1. energy conservation
2. energy efficiency (domestic and industry)
3. decentralised renewables
4. larger scale renewables (eg solar thermal & sustainable biomass)
5. natural gas as a bridging technology
6. emerging technologies (eg solar sliver cells, quantum dots)
... all the while addressing transport and deforestation, would be more than adequate to achieve necessary emissions reductions.

And a phasing out of the nuclear industry, its inherent fueling of many covert operations, and the decommissioning of weapons fuel to run existing reactors (as partially in Russia) will help minimise the risk of a most sudden future climate change due to nuclear winter.

http://www.icanw.org

In the cellar was a set of solar panels scarcely ten feet long, that had taken him a week to prepare. I could have done that much in a day, and I suddenly had my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers.

ARTILLERYMAN: It's doing the workin' and the thinkin' that wears a feller out. I'm ready for a bit of a rest. How about a drink eh? Nothing but champagne, now I'm the boss.

Here's why Australia WILL go NUCLEAR despite all the ranting and raving of the mentally bereft anti-nukies.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/population-tops-21-million/2007/12/04/1196530651951.html

I take this article to mean that the Labour Party has decided to GO 4GROWTH like Howard. And like Howard they will be kicked out in 3 years.

The drought, bushfire, gridlock and ENERGY SHORTAGE damage they are going to do to this nation with unsustainable immigration and population growth over the next 3 years! It will negate any silly little KYOTO signature and put this nation at the forefront of the worst polluting nations on the planet. Shame!

Labor's finished! Brendan Nelson WILL, if he survives, have no alternative but to go nuclear to clean up the bloody mess!

And as all the anti-nukes whinge, I'm going to laugh all the way to the bank.

You can't bloody immigrate 160,000 energy drunk sluts into drought,
energy and soon to be fuel shortages. And for what? Increased GST and bloody captive votes. Some democracy Labor is espousing.

And I especially feel sorry for aborigines. The more immigrant people coming to Australia the more aborigines and their culture will be devalued. How do you say sorry for that?

Wait & see .... ITS ALL THERMODYNAMICS.

2nd Law: Increase the size of the system, decrease the energy input and WHAM -- violent Dec..aaaa..y commences to propagate!

Atom1,

I am sorry that reality offends you.

Just to replace the existing coal generated electricity consumption you would need 200 000 odd 1-2MW wind turbines by 2050. or roughly 5000 p.a. The present construction rate is not even 10% of that.

Natural gas halves the CO2 and is insufficient to replace the coal.

The other technologies are still on the drawing board or limited to close to present capacities.

This does not even cater for the increased demand from the growth of the economy.

Just because you say it again and again does not make it true. Show me that I am wrong and I will become a believer.

KAEP ("And as all the anti-nukes whinge..") it is you doing the winging here.

Those opposed to the nuclear industry are actually, in the words of a colleague, "pro-DNA", not necessarily pro-coal, and for the time being, compared with the previous government, able now to focus primarily on the valid and unresolved proliferation and waste concerns regarding Australia's uranium exports.

SM, yes it's disingenuous to state that anti-nuke = pro coal. Are all anti-coal'ers pro-nuke? Of course not.

Yes, natural gas is half the CO2 emissions of coal, per MW as I understand it. And nuclear is three times the GHG of wind and up to 83% more water than for other power stations - ignoring mining/milling and the cooling of spent reactor fuel.

Energy efficiency and conservation: nil of the above.

As I've pointed out, the COMBINATION of existing technologies
+ decentralised generating capacity
+ emerging technologies (currently receiving the fraction of the investment of fossil fuels or nuclear globally)
+ addressing the 64% of GHG that do NOT come from generating electricity will see us through.

Existing energy efficiency measures could cut energy use in the manufacturing, residential and commercial sectors by up to 30%, reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 15% and it would pay for itself in just four years. This report (by the Australian Ministerial Council on Energy) was signed off by every State environment minister.

Australia ALREADY generates an equivalent amount of electricity from bio-energy to supply all homes in Tas. By 2020 bio-energy could supply a third of Australia's electricity if it expands at the current 3% average for industrialised countries, generating an estimated 250,000 jobs.

Australia could supply nearly 10% of its electricity demand from solar by 2020 simply by installing 3kW solar PV systems (ie, solar photo voltaic alone, excluding solar thermal or gas boosted solar) on a third of Australian households (Business Council on Sustainable Energy).

Wind power, while not being a single solution in itself, has an important role to play. It's had an average annual growth of about 25% over the past 20 years, while in recent years grid connected solar power has grown annually by 60%. Renewable energy is now the fastest growing of all energy industries and is worth $54 billion annually. More: http://www.foe.org.au/campaigns/anti-nuclear/issues/clean-energy

Atom1, you seem to be forgetting that the energy that you are going to get from biofuels will be subtracted from the energy that we will be needing to supply food to our ever burgeoning population. You also need to address that problem.

I notice that you are also betraying your lack of confidence in all these alternate forms of energy by using the word "could" instead of the word "will" if your proposals had credibility. This seems to be a universal problem with all the anti-nukes.

David