Protagorass,

I'm "Concealing the evidence"? What a mind numbingly stupid comment.

As a poster in this thread I wonder how you propose I managed to do it? Or is it simply your paranoia speaking.

I can only assume that by resorting to insults you cannot argue the case on its merit. By the strength of your arguments and links I can only assume that you hold a high powered position such as senior mail clerk?

I would certainly not buy a used car from you.
Once again you managed to provide links that look impressive, but in reality are irrelevant. For example considering the size of the US nuclear industry the $96bn waste storage facility for nearly a century's waste contributes less than 0.2c / Kwhr. When reprocessing is approved, this will be a major source of fuel and the disposal costs will reduce significantly.

I would certainly not buy a used car from you, when you cannot distinguish reality from fantasy.

Both those for and against he use of nuclear power have marshalled an impressive array of expert sources and painstakingly gleaned evidence to support their arguments. There is no doubt that there are some significant environmentalists who see nuclear as part of the mix. Spindoc quotes David Mackay’s valuable book which clearly shows that the UK will never be able to generate enough energy from all the available sustainable sources. MacKay’s argument is simple – he looks at the total energy needs of the UK at a particular point in time and demonstrates that sustainable energy will not cut it to meet that demand. If you marry his argument with that of Geoff Davies in Economia then the problem looks quite different. Nuclear, oil and coal are all finite resources – if growth was linear as exposed to exponential developing an economy based on these finite resources might make sense. Yet we have an economic system that presumes that growth is a good thing – a growth rate of 3% per annum seems modest but it will mean that we will run out of those finite resources. (There has been at least one study which argues that we need not need to worry about global warming because the rate of increase is such that we will run out of stuff to burn before we have done irreversible damage!) Therefore since sustainable will not cut it and since fossil and mineral sources will run out one is faced with only one conclusion: we need to develop a society that requires less energy. The choice is simple: either we reduce our energy demand or nature will do it for us. Therefore to go down the nuclear track is only a distraction; at best it may buy us some time but the real challenge is to develop a society that reduces its energy demand in line with what it can generate in a sustainable manner. Mackay’s book demonstrates that this will by no means be easy. ( His calculations with respect to what can be sustainably generated are very generous)

Dear Helen, your claims in relation to comments made before congress by Cochran and Paine? You referred to Gen IV reactors (none yet in service as I understand it) and then to generic “fast breeder” reactors. Was congress testimony related to Gen IV or FB reactors? The Gen IV is new and the FB reactors have been in service for many years, the first being Dounreay in the UK. Sorry I don’t understand your point.

Australia is <<producing more CO2 per capita than any other country>>

Wrong, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait top the list. Such statistical anomalies are maliciously used to make us feel guilty. These anomalies also include Ireland, Trinidad, Tobago, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. In emissions terms, all these put together don’t even register.

<<The truth is that very few people or organisations have calculated the true energetic cost of nuclear electricity>> really?

See IPCC report (Sims 2007) “The IPCC estimates that the total carbon intensity of nuclear power (including construction, fuel processing, and decommissioning) is less than 40 gCO2/kWh(e)” whoops Helen.

<<high grade reserves will last only one or two decades>>

Utter rubbish, do your homework. Almost all the recoverable uranium is in the oceans, which is topped up by rivers delivering 32,000 tons per year. Not mention plentiful Thorium which is the fuel used by Nuclear reactors in India. Fast breeder reactors are 60% more efficient than “once through” reactors (burning U235 and U238). Gen IV reactors are being designed to burn all current stocks of spent fuel from previous model rectors.

<<The stark truth is that bomb fuel can be made by any country from enriched uranium or plutonium manufactured in reactors (250 kilos yearly, 5 kilos makes a bomb).>>

What a load of old garbage, where do you get this from? Fuel grade enrichment is max 10%, Weapons grade enrichment must be 90% plus.

I’m with odo on this, “In years to come when it is realised what damage to progress has been done by people such as Helen, we should adopt the term "Caldicott".

A very dangerous lady.

Firstly...
'Reprocessing (of uranium fuel) provides the strongest link between commercial nuclear power and proliferation.'
- US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment Nuclear Proliferation and Safeguards, June 1977.

'If you can enrich Uranium-235 by 10% you can enrich it to higher percentages to make it weapons usable.'
- Former Australian Diplomat and author of 'Fact or Fission? The Truth About Australia's Nuclear Ambitions', Richard Broinowski.

'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.)

'Every known route to bombs involves either nuclear power or materials and technology which are available, which exist in commerce, as a direct and essential consequence of nuclear power.'
- Dr. Amory Lovins, director of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado.

'Any country has the right to master these (nuclear) operations for civilian uses. But in doing so, it also masters the most difficult steps in making a nuclear bomb.'
- Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

'The push to bring back nuclear power as an antidote to global warming is a big problem. If you build more nuclear power plants we have toxic waste at least, bomb making at worse.'
- Former US President Bill Clinton, Sep 2006.

Secondly...
Study shows: Nuclear energy on downward trend worldwide
No. 278/09
Berlin, 27.08.2009
http://www.bmu.de/english/current_press_releases/pm/44840.php

Atom1,

I agree with you that the technology to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel can just as easily be used for weapon production, they also happen to be extremely expensive on a small scale.

For example the reactors at Koeburg in Cape town run off fuel rods purchased elsewhere, and have the waste reprocessed in Japan, as trying to do it themselves cost twice as much.

Iran has been offered the light water reactors with the same fuel deal, and have refused insisting on the right in the non proliferation treaty to enrich uranium for fuel. The simple logic that this is hideously more expensive than the Koeburg option is why the world knows that this is for weapons.

In Australia selling yellow cake, instead of fuel rods, they are making proliferation much easier, as it is much more difficult to account for the uranium.

As the present "renewable" electricity generation is unattainably expensive for the developing world, they are simply choosing to ignore any requests to cut back on GHG.

Considering that the developing countries on their own generate 50% of the world's emissions and by 2030 will generate as much as the entire world does presently, reductions in GHG will require more than the rich man's toys they have presently.

SM, I hear what you're saying and glad you agree, re the links with weapons proliferation and the non-accountability of Australian sourced yellowcake to the world market (in which all military facilities remain exempt from UN safefuards which don't guarantee the extremely limited inspections of civil facilities anyway, nor prevent diversion of domestic U reserves).

On the whole, it now seems timely to question:
Where are the 50,000+ rallying in *favour* of nuclear power, while it also faces worldwide decline as existing reactors exceed their designed life span or approach hugely expensive decommissioning?
'Anti-nuclear rally enlivens German campaign'
http://planetark.org/wen/54544