Wayne - You're on the short list for receiving the prestigious "Five Star Hoppy Badge" for "Twit of the Year"!

Whether countries "reprocess" their nuke waste or use the "direct disposal" method has nothing to do with the greenies in the US.

Many countries choose the "direct disposal" method for future retrieval since used reactor fuel is a potentially valuable resource and there is a reluctance for intractable burial, therefore it is stored in a manner which allows access for future use.

Lucas Heights uses the "reprocessing" method where the spent fuel rods are sent to Europe. The uranium and plutonium are extracted to be re-used as a reactor fuel (MOX) and the remainder is returned to Australia where it is treated as an intermediate level radioactive waste. This material has no conceivable future use and must be disposed of and handled safely for hundreds of years.

Would you advise me of the countries operating a "thorium" reactor?

Workers extracting thorium have a high rate of lung and pancreas cancers - which often surface many years after exposure. Th. invades bone and causes genetic alteration. Th. X-rays can produce liver cancer.

Assuming India may be operating a thorium reactor in the near future, they will require 2.2 tonnes of plutonium annually as a seed. Proponents of all things nuclear claim this is a good way of disposing of plutonium as thorium literally gobbles it up! So what happens when they run out of plutonium?

And if you are suggesting thorium is the way to go, well my friend, it need only be monitored for 500 hundred years rather than thousands
- is this what you are so excited about?

And our Australian scientists have been promoting Synroc as an infallible way of storing IL and HL waste. Funny that since it's been around since the late 80's and no-one appears interested except the yanks who have, between yawns, considered Synroc as a means of containing their abominable military waste.

Good luck with your award, Wayne!

Wow Wayne, you keep digging deeper don't you?
"The doom and gloom prophecies have failed to materialise."

I gather you don't read the papers then? In my lifetime alone the world's population has exploded from barely 2 billion to over 6 billion. Tell me that's not a population bomb.
Global warming? I suppose you still think that is 'voodoo science'.
I could go on all day: crashing fish numbers in the ocean, extinction of animals, dieback, deforestation or just simple airborne pollution that kills thousands a year through lung disease.

I guess you also believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden?

As for finding uranium on other planets, that is really clutching at straws. Why on earth should humans be allowed off Earth to pollute and plunder other planets?

To graduate from kindergarden we need to show responsibility and wisdom.
I don't think our history as planet trashers give us the right to infect other planets.

I wonder, does the government have any WayneSmith fridge magnets.
If there are many more where you come from I'm now alert and extremely alarmed.

Wayne, your irrationality is becoming ever more obvious as you ‘develop’ your argument supporting man-made nuclear power.

Claiming ‘The Courier Mail’ as written proof of one of your claims? Surely you of all people have reason to doubt the accuracy of things you read in newspapers or did the SMH get it right in your case? Or is the Courier Mail incapable of making such blatant transgressions and we should trust them as a source of information implicitly?

“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 of course. Coal and nuclear are the only proven options for supplying energy on this scale. …. If the World had embraced nuclear energy decades ago then we wouldn't have any Global Warming now…”

Last time I checked cars, planes and trains all were sources of Global Warming as is burning down the Amazon Forests!

You use the exact form to put your case as you were vilifying. You state: ‘if we had done this back then...’ whereas I merely asked the question: ‘how accurate you felt a statement would be if this had happened….’ I never made any statement that this had happened already or was any kind of current reality. I was pointing out that current reality (ie the state of our nuclear industry) is only the way it is because governments poured vast quantities of our money into an inherently deadly alternative to coal whereas a safer, viable option was available in the various renewable energy sources that cannot be used (yet) for weapons purposes.

As for Coal and Nuclear being the only proven options for supplying energy on this scale? You are ignoring a simple fact: namely, all power stations rely upon boiling water to produce steam to drive turbines which then generate electricity. LNG, Solar radiation and geothermal transfer are all proven methods of boiling vast quantities of water: all with vastly less environmental damage to our planet, which we must continue to live on for the foreseeable future

You are right in only one aspect of your belief Wayne – the future of world energy supplies does lie in Nuclear reactions. Your great failing is in it’s location – it is perfectly located some 146 million kilometres from the surface of our planet.

The following table explains this quite clearly - now if we could just get governments to transfer their funding into development of utilising this enrgy we will be well on the way to a glorious scientific future.

1.04 × 10^19J — total energy from the Sun that hits the Earth in one minute
1.339 × 10^19J — 3719.5 TWh — total production of electrical energy in the US in 2001
1.05 × 10^20 J — energy consumed by the United States in one year (2001)
1.33 × 10^20 J — energy released by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
4.26 × 10^20 J — energy consumed by the world in one year (2001)
6.2 × 10^20 J — total energy from the Sun that hits the Earth in one hour
6.0 × 10^21 J — energy in world's estimated natural gas reserves (2003)
7.4 × 10^21 J — energy in world's estimated petroleum reserves (2003)
2.6 × 10^22 J — energy in world's estimated coal reserves (2003)
3.9 × 10^22 J — energy in world's estimated total fossil fuel reserves (2003)
1.5 × 10^23J — total energy from the Sun that hits the Earth in 24 hours

(Source: Wikipedia)

Dickie, can i suggest you research 'fast breeder reactors' and why some people thought these were a keen idea - and why no-one currently operates one (as far as we know)?

And could i just point out a little known or claimed idea? Nuclear power stations were only ever funded by world governments as a 'legitimate' reason for, and source of, producing quantities of weapons grade Uranium and Plutonium. The power supply byproduct is what they used to justify their existance and massive expenditure to us dumb slobs who pay for it.

Ditto Braindrain and Accent

I was merely hoping to evoke a sensible response from Wayne who is too ill-informed to address any issues we've raised!

I can have a more intelligent debate with me trusty ole dawg - but Wayne wins the "Twit of the Year" Award, hands down!

It seems to me that some people will not face up to the real problem.

That is how are we going to produce enough energy to ease the world into a
smaller population while at the same time keeping the peace and having a modicom of lifes necessities ?

Electricity generation uses 70% of the hydrocarbon feedstock.
This may already have started depleting so that will on its own help the greenhouse.
In Australia that figure will be much less whatever it is as we mostly use coal.

Distributed systems; everyone his own power station.
Solar and windpower are unreliable generators.
To use them means very large number of batteries.
Are the inputs for manufacture of solar cells, windfarms and batteries available ?
Are the people available to build, install and maintain distributed systems ?
I suspect not. The magnatude is so great that it will be unmanagable.
What hope for hot rocks ? Possibly our best alternative bet.

Failing that there are no magic bullets.
So you are stuck with coal and/or nuclear; live with it !