"why is that PeterA, do you think there is a conspiracy afoot, you've been Caldicotted have you? I note you don't post your full name and address, of course you'd be exempt wouldn't you, but would line up for some finger wagging I'm sure."

Errr....rpg - I think PeterA was referring to links to support a poster's claims but it's not the first time you've let fly with a tirade of jabberwonky.

Helen Caldicott you are the first person that I have seen respond to what has been posted here. I am not suprised but when you use terms such as "Wing-nuttery", what do you mean? I have only ever seen you on TV where you have grossly exaggerated anything you have ever done. Where you always blame everyone else and where you have behaved extremly strangely.
Witness you with Switkowski. You either wrote furiously on the pad in front of you but when you thought the camera was not on you (Actually Helen it was) you then stared balefully in an almost demented manner whilst he was talking. It was a bizzare spectacle, in fact it was most disturbing. If a male had done this to any female on an ABC programe then there would have been grave repercussions for him.As it was the ABC are firmly on your side. Now was your behaviour "Wing nuttery"? The ABC and your mate Tony Jones are beyond the pale in my opinion.

When Helen goes to her eternal reward, she's going to wish she could jump into a nicely Cerenkov-lit reactor core.

rpg, you said: "I did, and since there has not been a world war since the development and use of Nuclear weapons, conclude that WWII would not have happened if there had been such weapons around."

I hadn't even mentioned nuclear weapons. I said: "Had nuclear power existed in WW2, much of Europe and the UK would have been rendered uninhabitable, essentially forever, due to conventional bombing alone. Something to think hard about."

Think harder.

Nuke weapons have not prevented wars, and your basis that they will always prevent nuclear war is based on the PAST ONLY; If it ever happens (and you survive) you may notice that hindsight is just not good enough.

We've come close to global nuclear war on several well documented occasions (notably the Berlin crisis of 1961, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, false alarms on 9 Nov 1979, 3 June 3 1983, NATO's Able Archer exercise of 1983, Colonel Petrov 23 Sep 1983, and 25 Jan 1995. http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php).

Did YOU choose to live with the threat of 4,400 nukes still on 24/7 alert?

Have you considered the dire consequences of climate change within hours from the use of even a fraction of these nukes?

Anyone who opposes WMDs should oppose the only energy sector which fuels them via infrastructure, expertise, covert research and the fuels themselves.

Nuclear power is a 20th Century white elephant; it being a "solution" for climate change is a red herring for uranium market profits and we could face a pandora's box of consequences.

Atom1 take a breath and calm down, Without nuke engery none of us would be here.
I've got solar panels on my house(8 years now) but I think we should explore nuke power the idea that we can't use it safly and develop even safer power plants is silly.

And the idea that Australia is leading the way on this just makes the autor look shrill.

Helen Caldicott is a paediatrician whose knowledge of the nuclear reactors is based mostly on activist propoganda as evidenced by her woefully ignorant analysis of the fast breeder reactor.

Just to expose some of the porkies she has just posted:

Fast breeder reactors exist and can already be used to dispose of the waste.

"Prototype FBRs have also been built cooled by other liquid metals such as mercury, lead etc, and one generation IV reactor proposal is for a helium cooled FBR.

FBRs usually use a mixed oxide fuel core of up to 20% plutonium dioxide (PuO2) and at least 80% uranium dioxide (UO2). The plutonium used can be supplied by the reprocessing from reactor outputs or 'off the shelf' dismantled nuclear weapons."

The sodium coolant is blanketed in helium, so a coolant breach is extremely unlikely to cause a sodium fire, nor is it possible to cause a meltdown with out the failure of several other systems.

If all the multiple redundant safeguards fail, the ultra strong containment wall (which was missing at Chernobyl) will contain any fall out.

Also the most expensive part of the existing fuel cycle is the enrichment of the uranium as both 235 and 238 are chemically identical. Plutonium, strontium etc can be relatively easily separated and re used. The road blocks to doing so are political and not technical as agencies are paranoid about anyone having access to plutonium.

Secondly the Candu and Gen IV reactors use as little as 1-2% of the uranium that standard reactors do for the same energy output, and as such produce proportionally less waste.

Protagoras,

Considering that Canada is the largest producer of uranium, if you consider mine tailings (which can be replaced from where they were extracted, and are very low level "waste") then Canada would rank highly. (as would Australia)

However, as the majority of their reactors are the earlier versions (not CANDU) this has no bearing what so ever on the future of the Candu reactors. I followed your references and found the conclusions of the articles you quoted differed considerably from yours.