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?