antiGreen - "agreeing to disagree" Ok, we can. And thank you for conducting this discussion with civility - so rare in this kind of anonymised forum.
At points like this my colleague Chris Busby tends to quote Joseph Conrad's "Every sort of shouting is a transitory thing, after which the grim silence of facts remains." When faced with policy that may produce such very grim silences, decision makers must not be satisfied with agreeing to disagree. That's why UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher and Health Minister Yvette Cooper gave CERRIE the task of explaining the scientific disagreements and that's why CERRIE's failure was so reprehensible

Interesting hissy fit Sir Vivor, now that you've vented your spleen, the question you were asked was;

"where in the world is any nation achieving more than 10% of its energy needs from any combination of renewable sources? How are they doing it? And how might we improve on that?"

Over to you.

This has been a good debate, timely and necessary.
Of course we have only been dealing with the tip of the iceberg - failing to address the pathogenesis of internal emitters, the significant contribution to global warming from the industrial nuclear infrastructure underpinning nuclear power, the risks and medical consequences of a nuclear meltdown, disposal of 64,000 tons of US high level civilian nuclear waste for one million years(EPA recommendation)with the inevitable pollution of flora, fauna and humans inducing genetic abnormalities and malignancies in all future generations. Last but not least the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the risk of nuclear war and nuclear winter. I refer you to NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER TO GLOBAL WARMING, published by MUP.
For those interested in solutions to global warming and nuclear power, download and read Nuclear Free Carbon Free, A Roadmap for US Energy Policy from IEER.org.

Sir Vivor,

The long and short term studies for human impact for the various energy sources per kWhr were done by an independent group and presented in this paper (it can be found elsewhere as well)

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull333/33302041419.pdf

Where the number of fatalities per kWhr is the lowest for three nuclear technologies, and far lower than any renewable source.

This is largely due to the huge focus on safety at these plants that is not present for other technologies.

The issue of nuclear plants being a target is a complete fabrication. For this to work the warhead would have to penetrate the containment wall to get close enough to the reactor for the neutron burst to "ignite" the core otherwise, the only contamination would be to scatter the reactor parts.

If you want to create a dirtier bomb all you have to do is to clad the bomb in U238 which will increase the yield and the fall out far more than bombing a reactor, and would enable you to air burst it above a population centre.

Atom1,

The extraction of plutonium, and the fabrication of a weapon is not something that one does in a back yard meth lab. If as in the west, there is adequate tracking put in place on all fuel rods, then it is nearly impossible to steal. If the production of the rods and reprocessing was done on an exchange basis could very easily tell if one has been tampered with or missing.

A nation state that wants to produce a weapon has to enrich its own uranium and plutonium in order to build a weapon, and in most cases, for the money you spend, you get far greater fire power from conventional weapons.

Osama is not going to get one unless someone gives it to him.

Spindoc,

re:
"where in the world is any nation achieving more than 10% of its energy needs from any combination of renewable sources? How are they doing it? And how might we improve on that?"

I missed your question entirely, as it was not addressed directly to me. Mark Diesendorf pointed out Denmark, I believe, on 15 September. Is it possible Denmark produces 11% (within the decent and conservative bounds of a precise estimate)? You might want to reread his post and see if it meets your stringent criteria.

I wouldn't be so restrictive as you, though. I would include energy efficiency improvements.

But how would you, personally, put the "unused energy" slice into the other 89% of your energy-use pie chart, for a given nation (say, Denmark)?

And what's wrong with sending Hill's Hoists to Iran, if it helps prevent nuclear war? My only reservation is that they don't make them like they used to.

If only it were so simple. If I really though it would work, and I had the money to spare, I'd do it myself.
As for nuclear electricity, the smart money knows it's no viable alternative. If I had any money to spare, I'd be investing it in renewables.

:)

Good old Helen Caldicott just like Kevin Rudd why say something in a simple and informative manner. Much better to inject lots of big words, adopt a supercilious tone, denigrate anyone who disagrees and spout the same old rubbish.
Helen go and sit next to Kevin and you can chat to each other. What a lovely sight both blowing hard, taking no notice of what the other one is saying and neither making any sense whatsoever!