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.