It will only take one community where the lowest paid workers are driving Mercs for others to decide nuclear waste repositories aren't so bad after all. With Swedish style underground cask storage of high level waste it will be near impossible for informal groups to divert material. It would be a lot easier to put chemicals in the surface water supply.

How about equal-alarmism for coal wastes? You have overburden dumps, ash dumps with toxic leakages like arsenic, low level dispersion of radioactivity from smokestacks and the tiny problem of 2-3 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of coal burned. Perhaps the coal industry should also dispose of its waste; in Australia that will be about half a million cubic metres of CO2 every day for years. Contrast that to a few cubic metres of waste per year from a nuclear reactor. Most of that will be reprocessed in next generation reactors so the waste disposal problem becomes a lot smaller, both in terms of volume and decay time.

If you think that wind and solar can make any real dent in coal burning then you are really voting for continued radioactivity not less.

I have to agree with Taswegian. Solar and wind will not cut it. Geothermal seems to have gone to sleep and clean coal technology is not going to work. For a start it would need almost 50% of the plants output to operate.

The latest nuclear technology is vastly different from the technology alluded to in the article. There would be very little waste from the latest generation of fast reactors compared to the old technology. Certainly not enough for weapons grade fuel.

It is time Australians of all persuasions pulled their heads out of the sand and got a grip on reality. Why is Australia's per capita CO2 output so high? We rely on coal fired power stations. If we are going to "save the planet" the only option is to shut down the coal burners ASAP. Modern nuclear technology can provide a clean, reliable base load electricity supply for industry, electric trains, electric cars and households.

It will cost more to produce but what would the cost be if we added Rudd's ETS costs to current production methods? And we would still be burning coal. Wake up Australia!

So Taswegian putting your hand up for a waste dump in your back yard are we? Good for you. Someone prepared to be a guinea pig is always heartening. I wonder how your neighbors feel about it?

Yes Mikk, they would rather be drowned by rising seas or choke on CO2.
Here is another interesting read on this topic http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article5513-carbon-capture-wont-work-penny---from-terry-d-mcgee.aspx

mikk if I lived in the dry outback I'd rather live next door to an N-waste repository than a coal fired power station. Much lower radioactivity levels plus cleaner air. You realise that most smoke alarms contain a small amount of plutonium byproduct just metres away.

What's up Jim, the Liberals are not forming government yet, but you obviously feel they are a threat, which is valid I guess.

The way the ALP is going, they are going to lose the next election by being such weasles with constant spin that eventually no one will have any idea what they stand for.

Saying Nuclear power leads to Nuclear war is yet another emotional stretch of ALP standards, it's blatant scaremongering.

If we get stuck with switching off Coal Fired Power Plants becuase the eco twits have managed to scare up enough support, then we have no alternative to Nuclear Power, none.

All the "renewables" are non existant beyond trivial amounts of power input and cannot sustain a city load. Probably never will.

We have a chance now to adopt Nuclear, get good at it and lead the world, and it's GREEN! No CO2, isn't that wonderful for those that believe CO2 is bad?

The waste, well look at what Prof Barry Brooks says, and if continue to evolve Nuclear Power, we could get to the stage by, say, 15th or 20th generation of going back and reusing all the waste.

Who knows what wonders we could up with, if it isn't killed by deniers and naysayers all predicting doom if we do anything, beyind the trivial of course.

Let's not "Caldicott" an opportunity.