... and while i am loathe to labor a point I feel a further comment or three is in order...( forgive me folks : ) )

"That's a security issue. I would argue that its safer recycling the waste here than transporting it all over the World and making it an easier target for terrorists..."

My point was that certain GOVERNMENTS would build their own breeder reactors which they could then easily siphon off Plutonium for weapons manufacture and sale to the highest bidder if we help profligate nuclear power stations, particularly the ones Wayne approves of so highly for their 'efficiency'.

Let me pose a question here: Just how safe do you think any country with Uranium ore will be from America if the US becomes as economically dependent upon Uranium as they are currently on an Oil Supply? Would Australia's interests be considered any more than the Iraqi's were if we declined to sell them yellowcake cheaply or tried to instigate a non-US cartel control over the transport of Uranium fuel rods??

Ahhhh don' fink So !

If the best use of Uranium we can come up with in 60 years is to make ludicrously powerful bombs and to boil a tub of water, besides the odd radioactive isotope creation - thank you, Lucas Heights, then ours is best left in the ground in my not so humble opinion.

Solar + wave + wind + geothermal energies until fusion can resolve the nuclear issue for once and for all - C'Moonnnn Australia! - Let's Really be the Clever and Ethical Country - Crikey!

Didn’t David Suzuki bore it up Howard over his nuclear ambitions.

Excellent!

*"Don't quote third world stats, Wayne. In Australia, 281 coal miners have died since 1902!"*

Pollution from coal burning has already shortened all of our lives. My data is indeed outdated. A new study into micro-particles was particularly alarming. It's actually 30,000 deaths.
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/cleanair.htm

*"In the meantime,a prototype "fusion" plant is under construction"*
Fusion reactors are a pipedream. Our grandparents were having this same conversation. Magnetic confinement can't bottle the sun.

"While I am certain that you would not make such a statement without some kind of published data as proof,"
It was in the Courier Mail today.

"..just how accurate do you feel that statement would be if successive governments had placed as much public fundng at the disposal of renewable energies"

I thought we were living in the real world and not fantasy land. Unless you have a time machine and intend to go back and change history ofcourse.
Coal and nuclear are the only proven options for supplying energy on this scale. Nuclear supplies over 70% of France's electrical power. If the World had embraced nuclear energy decades ago then we wouldn't have any Global Warming now.

*"Just how safe do you think any country with Uranium ore will be from America if the US becomes as economically dependent upon Uranium as they are currently on an Oil Supply? "*

I wholeheartedly agree. We should definitely build our own nuclear arsenal to deter America and any other aggressive state from attacking us.

Go for it WayneSmith.

'Nuclear supplies over 70% of France's electrical power. If the World had embraced nuclear energy decades ago then we wouldn't have any Global Warming now.'

Not only is France struggling with the quantity of nuclear waste it produces and problems with radioactive groundwater, the simple maths is that if all developed countries had 'embraced' nuclear to the same extent decades ago, the world supply of uranium would be depleted by now. Just like coal and oil it is a finite resource, once it's gone, it's gone forever.

"We should definitely build our own nuclear arsenal to deter America and any other aggressive state from attacking us."

And you have the audacity to say that "Ecowacky groups have big hearts but nothing much between the ears."

I say you have been hoist on your own petard and should slink back into the slimey, dark place you belong

A few more tidbits for Wayne:

A DOIR briefing note obtained by the Shire of Sutherland where the Lucas Heights reactor is:

"Be careful in terms of health impacts - don't really want a detailed study done of the health of Sutherland residents. Don't say no extra risk - say...acceptable risk".

The NSW Health Counter Disaster Unit reported that the Sutherland Shire community should be advised that an aqueous iodine solution is currently available without prescription throughout pharmacies within 3kms of the Lucas Heights reactor. Mmmmmm wonder how you would administer this iodine solution in a pediatric sense!?

And the entire nuclear chain emits huge amounts of CO2, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, SO2, sulphuric acid, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, radioactive emissions including radon gas, CFC gases, etc etc. This is just from uranium mining, tailing dams, yellowcake conversion, enrichment and transport.

Don't forget the tonnes of concrete required to build a reactor and the subsequent pollution! And have a look at the federal government's National Pollutant Registry on our uranium mines where our largest uranium mine is the biggest user of underground water in the southern hemisphere but still helping themselves to millions of litres daily from the Great Artesian Basin and this project is expanding!

Perhaps readers are unaware of another Australian company who was prosecuted twice last year. Fined $150,000 in the May and then fined for a different offence in October - $82,500. I can give you heaps more if you're interested Wayne unless you prefer to keep your head in the sand.

And stuff your fast reactors. This hasn't stopped the US from having to build a huge waste repository in the Yucca Mountains Nevada,where the costs have already blown out with one blunder after another. $6 billion dollars had already been spent up to 2002 from memory and rising fast!

You can not replace one flawed technology with another!

Blimey Wayne - you're sure living in la la land!

Ecowackies always use emotionally driven arguments rather than logical ones I've noticed. Insults and imaginative references to armageddon style scenario's. The public has been listening to this same tired dogma for decades now. The doom and gloom prophecies have failed to materialise. Give it a rest. Nobody is buying it.

"the simple maths is that if all developed countries had 'embraced' nuclear to the same extent decades ago, the world supply of uranium would be depleted by now."

You keep reiterating that fallacy. Do you guys even read prior postings before mouthing off your anti-nuclear ravings? Recycling of waste would ensure that existing Uranium supplies would endure atleast another thousand years. In a thousand years time we will doubtless have access to off-earth Uranium supplies. Assuming nuclear is still relied on.

Many new reactors use Thorium anyway. Another radioisotope in far greater abundance than Uranium.

"I say you have been hoist on your own petard and should slink back into the slimey, dark place you belong"

Why should we rely on America's nuclear umbrella to protect us? Are you a man or a mouse to prefer hiding under the skirt of another nation? As long as we rely on America's good will towards us we will always be their pawn. Nuclear weapons are never going away. It's time we grew up and accepted that fact. We are surrounded by nuclear arsenals so why shouldn't we build our own? Its a public decision anyhow.

"And stuff your fast reactors. This hasn't stopped the US from having to build a huge waste repository in the Yucca Mountains Nevada,where the costs have already blown out with one blunder after another. $6 billion dollars had already been spent up to 2002 from memory and rising fast!"

They built the waste repository because recycling is banned over there. Banned because of pressure from idiot greenies. Half a century of research and development in recycling could have led to fantastic new technologies but instead they put their heads in the sand along with the nuclear waste.