John Howard has confirmed that nuclear power is going to be an important part of Australia's future energy needs and it's about time. Finally, Australia has a Prime Minister gutsy enough to face down the noisy minority ecowacky brigade and do what is right for Australia. As opposed to appeasing these ignorant tree hugging fools.

The chief arguments against nuclear power as espoused by these luddites has always been cost and waste. Ironically these two very real problems were in fact created by the environmentalists themselves and are easily solved.

Back in the early days when fission was still state of the art cutting edge science and the first reactors were being explored for commercial energy consumption, it was assumed that recycling of spent fuel(waste) would ofcourse be a part of the nuclear cycle. Recycling the waste with Breeder reactors would have mean't that the fuel could be reused over and over. Allowing supplies to last many times longer, thousands of years in fact, and vastly reducing waste.

Green groups pressured the American government into banning recycling technology. Instead of recycling it, the waste was transported around the Globe and either recycled elsewhere or buried. As a result, Nuclear energy costs became uncompetitive with coal. Instead of a nuclear era we stayed with coal and now have Global Warming as a result. In other words GreenPeace and similar domestic terrorism outfits can be blamed for recent climate changes.

Even with the US ban on recycling if all of the existing nuclear waste in the World was placed in 40 gallon drums unstacked they wouldn't fill a football stadium.

Nuclear power is the most compact energy source we have. It's clean and safe. We should have embraced it decades ago. It is the only serious alternative to coal which takes 10,000 lives every year. Last year nobody died from nuclear energy.

One little slip with nuclear power and there will be no future. It never ceases to amaze me that people call for nuclear power as clean and safe (it is neither)when lunatics in Iraq and North Korea are threatening the world with the very stuff some people want to make their toast in the mornings with.

One little slip with nuclear power and there will be no future. It never ceases to amaze me that people call for nuclear power as clean and safe (it is neither)when lunatics in Iraq and North Korea are threatening the world with the very stuff some people want to make their toast in the mornings with.

There has only ever been one major catastrophe with nuclear energy and that a generation ago. A result of sloppy Russian safety protocols and a near total disregard for the environment. There has never been a Chernobyl in the West and new reactor designs are far safer than those pioneering plants. Some of which are still going half a century after construction after running 24/7 without mishap.

Compared to other power sources nuclear has had a rather dull trial by fire. Whale oil which used to power lanterns almost wiped out one of the most amazing creatures on the planet. Fossil fuels have killed millions. Wood burning has wiped out much of our planets essential forests. The Amazon is now a shadow of its former glory.

Nuclear energy has been through its trial by fire that all new technologies must face. To ignore it after so much research has been done and mistakes learned from is childish.

Perhaps back in the caveman era a similar discussion took place tens of thousands of years ago. Daring individuals advanced the idea of using fire to stave off the winter chill, cook food and provide light. Aren't we lucky the luddite members of the tribe who were fearful of this great new technological advancement were just a minority.

Otherwise we'd still be living in caves.

Thasnks, Wayne Smith! How terribly comforting to learn from you that the nuclear waste problem has been solved. I think you should let the UK parliament know about this -- they'e having trouble deciding what to do with the waste.
Also - the State of Nevada in the U.S. - they'd be happy to hear about this, as would other US states - some of whom are sueing the US government over the unsatisfactory handling of the US nuclear wastes.
And - as for our Prime Minister being "gutsy" - well - we never doubted it. John Howard was gutsy enough to lie about the GST, to lie about Irag's "weapons of mass destruction", to lie about the UN being at fault in the wheat scandal - rather than the AWB and the govrenment.
He is gutsy enough to lie about his secret talks with George W. Bush and plans for Austral;ia taking in the US nuclear wastes
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

http://www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Hmmm... interesting. I see you are trying to rig the Sydney morning Herald poll by posting links to it all around the anti-nuclear websites. Devious. Clever and perfectly legal but nonetheless devious. Wish I'd thought of it but I only just stumbled across the poll.

Sydney morning Herald Poll on Nuclear Energy!
http://www.smh.com.au/polls/national/form.html

Just as I'd always suspected, the public is largely split on the issue and as they get most of their information from particularly bad b-grade Hollywood movies it would only require some educational material in letter boxes and on television to bring them over to the benefits of nuclear power.

An informed public isn't going to swallow the gutter science and fearmongering from the anti-nuclear lobby. Their heyday was in the 60's. You lost the last semblances of credibility when you protested the Cassini space launch and predicted it would destroy the World.

Did you know that coal plants produce more radiation than nuclear plants? There is Uranium and other radioisotopes in coal beds. It gets burned up and pumped into our atmosphere.

The nuclear 'waste' you hate so much is actually contained.

How come you guys never protest coal? Are the fossil fuel lobby paying your bills or something?

“Finally, Australia has a Prime Minister gutsy enough to face down the noisy minority ecowacky brigade and do what is right for Australia. As opposed to appeasing these ignorant tree hugging fools”.

Comeon Wayne, you do yourself and the credibility of your argument a great disservice by branding those opposed to nuclear energy in such a simplistic and hostile manner.

The whole nuclear energy deal is very risky in terms of leakage, waste products, accidents and sabotage…and baseline economics.

Now, if we could guarantee that their would always be adequate funding and that safety regulations would never be relaxed and that there was no threat from overseas or internally from terrorists or other malcontents, and that nuclear power would solve our energy woes and lead to huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, then I could probably go along with.

But NONE of these things are guaranteed! Far from guaranteed.

If a nuclear energy industry was developed in conjunction with an overall sustainability strategy, that included population stabilisation, then I might be able to support it, even with all the above concerns.

But it won’t be part of a sustainability strategy. It will to prop up the continuous growth paradigm, and take us rapidly further away from sustainability.

So all in all, it gets a big fat NO from me!

Incidentally Wayne, our previous discussion on this topic or related matters is not complete http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=31#1887