The thing that troubles me about the standardised Integral Fast Reactor is that only a year or so ago people were saying the same things about clean coal; it will work because it has to. Now it seems the problems with clean coal may be insurmountable. If IFRs aren't ready in time then what? Post 2030 when all fossil fuels are in severe decline or heavily carbon taxed that leaves us with gas backed renewables and Generation III nuclear. Except that gas will be very expensive and even nuclear fuel will be relatively more expensive. By then we'll also need longer range electric cars or synthetic fuel for transport. Another two or three billion of the world's have-nots will want to join the middle class with home air conditioning and a car in the driveway.

I think a likely scenario is that, Copenhagen notwithstanding, we'll burn every ounce of coal and even make petrol from it. Desperation for energy may be so great that several countries will build fast reactors whether the bugs have been solved or not. Therefore we had better do the best job we can.

The points you listed earlier in the article are valid and all good reasons for not going down the nuclear path, particularly in view of the short-term lifespan of nuclear power because of limited uranium resources.

Even if we were to use nuclear for the foreseeable future, we would still have to deal with the issue of energy sources again at a later date. And in the worst scenario possibly dealing with the fallout of another Chernobyl.

There is something very unnatural and concerning about having to bury radioactive waste in the nuclear solution, particularly if there is any leakage into the water table.

Part of the energy solution is learning to live with less as well as some back up from wind and solar at least at the domestic level.

Fossil fuels would not be the problem they are today if we stopped avoiding the issue of population sustainability but that road has already been travelled many times on OLO so I won't repeat what is easily found on other threads.

Yes, it is possible – that nuclear power has the potential to be of great benefit. Its proponents might be more believable than they have been in the past; perhaps. After sixty years of subsidy by piggy-backing on the world’s “defence” budgets the industry now wants more.

If it is so good, let its further development, and independent testing of safety and economic aspects, be done at its own expense.

Let future subsidies be removed (for the first time, and hopefully forever) from both fossil fuel and nuclear power generation. Transfer that expenditure to further development of less carbon-intense methods: wave, wind, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, geothermal including hot rocks, carbon-neutral biomass; all of which are proceeding with demonstrated potential, in total of all, to provide power competitive with properly accounted-for fossil or nuclear.

Let that be done in acknowledgment that, should ever there be cheap energy of infinite capacity to provide for human expansion, Homo sapiens will soon kill themselves off from both exhaustion of resources and poisoning themselves in their own waste. Strange that – all too similar to yeast proliferating in a wine vat. Homo sapiens – sapiens?

At last some common sense re atomic power from people who can reasonably claim to know something about it.
The Copenhagen debacle is costing heaps and getting nowhere. The expenditure and effort would have been far better utilized in obtaining world-wide consensus on the nuclear option
and the standardization of construction methods, safety standards, disposal of waste etc. Go nuclear or return to the caves. Other options at this stage are pipe dreams.

I have been reading comments for many years about the imminent fast breeder reactors that will alleviate the nuclear fuel shortage. But when are they actually going to arrive? At the present rate of consumption, there is about 60-70 years of uranium up to about $150/kg. All of the reactors now being installed or on order are "conventional". It is hard to see a scenario where enough FBRs are installed before there is a critical shortage of uranium. But time and again the nuclear boosters gloss over this inconvenient truth.

Given that this article was by journalists for a newspaper, it may be nitpicking to note that this was all nice sounding rhetoric with no hard facts.

However as has already been noted, the supposed new, better, safe, plants do not currently exist.

Reducing waste to background levels is no solution as radioactivity is not like adding salty water to the sea. If you add two cups of salty water together, the concentration does not increase.

If you add two cups of radiation together, the radiation increases.

If the proposition in the newspaper article, that we can use these new reactors and therefore we don't need more uranium mining, was true: the industry would be closing mines.

Notice also no mention of the cost of nuclear energy, of the regulatory apparatus, of waste disposal of current plants.

The other unspoken truth is our present crime against future generations.

If we place a small amount of waste in geological depository, (eg 1 tonne, plutonium-239, iodine-129 isotopes etc)but then have to provide for increasing waste in the future (based only on 2% energy growth), we bequeath to future generations a task of looking after 1*1.02^500 in 500 years or 20,000 tonnes.

The above was just for illustration of the principle. In fact the amount we produce now is much larger and the growth in energy demand is far greater.

So the real issue for all these nuclear industry pundits is to:

1) using actual industry practice - tell us what amount of waste is being sent into long-term storage
2) how will this grow
3) what does this leave for future generations in 100, and 500 years from now.

Oh please old zygote - stop smokin the stuff.

<< Given that this article was by journalists for a newspaper ... >>

It really is a problem, people.

Homo saps believe what they want to believe ... facts have nothing to do with it.

If this is typical, we (as a species) are stuffed - nuff said.

Food for thought:

"China’s civilian nuclear power industry — with 11 reactors operating and construction starting on as many as an additional 10 each year — is not known to have had a serious accident in 15 years of large-scale electricity production."

As far as fuel supply is concerned, there is sufficient uranium at higher prices for millenia, and when the thorium reactors become comercial, the low cost of thorium might even make uranium redundant.

By 2050 either Australia will have nuclear power, or will remain the world's worst polluter.

Dear Shadow Minister: Just wishing it will not make it so. If you care to follow reasoned discussions carefully, then you might look at Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen's website "Nuclear power – the energy balance" February 2008, http://www.stormsmith.nl/. In summary, you rapidly get into a situation of negative energy returns as the price of uranium increases (the price is NOT disconnected from the energy required to extract it)

Can you provide some evidence that thorium and other "advanced" reactors will be ready for commercial use before 2050? Facts, please, not just bold assertions- this subject is too important for wishful thinking to prevail.

old zygote .. Barry Brook is one of Australia's most senior highly respected scientists, please Google him, or follow the link under the article - you might escape looking foolish next time you call someone a journalist who is anything but. I can't believe someone posts like that and in their post proves they have no idea what's going on.

The only way we can continue to grow as a country and provide our children with the wealth they should inherit, and to satisfy the eco religion sweeping the world, though much of it is because money is attached (see COP15), is to go Nuclear.

We need to put money into research and develop a Nuclear power industry - we also need it to power all the desalination plants since the eco-lites will not let us build dams.

One day perhaps some reason will come to the eco-lites that you can't have everything .. if you cut back enough we may be without medicines for instance, and our children will suffer.

We need some restraint in the eco wars, if we just give way to everything they want, we will be back in the caves.

Odo, when you say “The only way we can continue to grow as a country and provide our children with the wealth they should inherit” do you mean that we must, ever into the future, continue expanding our economy?

If so, I appeal to you to take a bit more notice of some fundamental issues in Australia: for example, water sufficiency for urban and agricultural use; and the expanding pressure being placed upon them by our numbers. With present growth rate there will be an extra million in three years time.

Barry Brook is indeed a highly respected scientist. So are those working in the various renewables field. He does his stature no favours by denigrating the work of his colleagues of at least equal stature, and with greater expertise than his own in these areas.

colinsett

Where in the article did Barry Brook denigrate the work of his colleagues?

You neglect to mention that nuclear power stations rely for their economic viability on massive subsidies from government.
without subsidies they are unviable.

Jedimaster,

I wondered when anyone would be dumb enough to bring up that study by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen.

This report is the foundation for most of the anti nuke claims. The most stunning failure of this report is that the calculated energy required to extract low grade ore is out by a factor of 100, as evidenced by Rossing uranium mine and Olympic dam who are using about 1% of the power he predicted.

Similarily nearly all his other calculations such as the cost of reprocessing, waste production are also out by similar orders of magnitude, and he has ignore the newer more efficient reactors and their reuse of existing waste.

All in all the report is no longer a point of debate but ridicule, for all those that actually have anything to do with nuclear power.

Shadow Minister
Thank you for bringing these purported errors to my attention- although I have found that his conclusions are close to mine by different methodology.

I can now see why you call yourself "Shadow Minister" as your offensive and personally abusive language is only befitting of the political sub-class. I would much prefer to keep to the main line of argument and try to maintain some standards on OLO.

Jedimaster,

I am sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities. You presented an outdated and wildly inaccurate "study" commissioned and paid for by the greens.

To quote:

"This study has been widely discredited by various authors and institutions. For example, using assumptions from this study, the Rössing Uranium Mine, processing 125 ppm ore, would require 69 PJ/year to operate - seven times more than total electricity consumption and 1.1 times more than total energy consumption of Namibia. The measured energy usage at this mine is 1 PJ/year. Similar gross overestimations occur when applying the study's methodology for other low grade mines, like Olympic Dam, South Australia. Other less severe overestimations of energy usage and CO2 emissions are also found in the study."

JWSvL as a "top scientist" does not even possess a PhD and I can't find Ceedata consultancy.

If you purport that your methodology gets results close to his, I wonder how you can explain such a huge deviation from reality? I suspect that you methodology mimics most of the greens' studies which chose an answer and work the calculations until they get it.

The rejections of the studies by independent bodies does not stop them being circulated endlessly as "proof".

If you are so thin skinned, then dishing this tripe up as "reasoned discussion" and not expecting slurs on your intellect is naive.

Perhaps your name "Jedimaster" alludes to your preference for science fiction over science fact.

Q&A a statement such as:
“Renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar) use significantly more raw materials per unit of energy generated than even present-generation nuclear power stations and the full life-cycle emissions, including nuclear fuel production, are similar from both sources. When energy storage and fossil-fuel back-up are included, wind and solar emissions are much higher.”
That is a slap in the face for scientific colleagues specialising in renewables.

The ability of renewables to contribute to energy needs was the focus of a series of public lectures hosted by the Australian Academy of Science during the past year. Presentations were made from these industries, and from transitional ones.

Whether the energy to be generated came from waves, wind, solar/solar thermal, hot rocks, biofuel (not predating upon agriculture), gas, the developments outlined for scale and cost were impressive and plausible. They had no reason to defer to pronouncements of a competitive nature from outside their own areas of expertise. Were they in pursuit of exciting new technologies? Yes, and within reasonable time frames.

It is a pity that the fossil fuel industries will have us all tarred, feathered, and hung out to dry before the economic growth paradigm in which they are embedded can be reined in. All the alternatives, if given a reasonable chance, still have potential to provide the necessary breathing space. An optimistic IF.

Guys - the first two paragraphs refer to two separate problems - the "climate" and "energy" crises - both used as arguments for the establishment of a nuclear power industry (which I don't oppose). But aren't these two problems mutually exclusive? Surely the "dwindling supplies" of fossil fuels renders attempts to engineer a peak in CO2 emissions within the next two decades completely redundant?

collinsett

No, I don't think it is a slap in the face to his colleagues specialising in renewables.

If anything, it is a challenge. Barry would be the last to say that renewables can't play a part in overcoming our energy/climate change problems - it (the solution) has to be all encompassing, all playing a role - Barry is in there batting for everyone.

Some technologies have issues more so than others, so what - they can be overcome.