Examinator,

"Poisoning of the ground water in The US has occurred from two Gen 3 reactors."

Considering that the US has as yet no GenIII (high safety) reactors, this is unlikely. However, perhaps you could refer specifically to the incidents, so that we could be on the same page.

The failures within the new generation systems have not as yet led to the escape from site of any radiation, and serious failures should be close to non existent.

"Furthermore, core damage frequencies for these reactors are generally in the range of 1 core damage event for every 15-20 million years of operation " and even then, very few would see any radiation escape.

The comparison to airline industry is reasonable, but the MTBF of a nuke reactor is about 100 time longer than that of a Boeing.

There are about 15000 passenger planes flying and 438 reactors in service.

Assuming that there are 3000 reactors in service to provide 100% of the electricity, this would relate to one major incident every 200years. And with the containment vessels it is estimated that only the very worst would result in radiation escape.

The main reason that investors are unwilling to invest in nuclear is because of the political risk. Some plants have been built and met all the safety requirements, but have been shut due to protest. Those who have invested the money have made money. When there is the political will i.e. gov money invested, the returns are there.

I think money needs to continue to be invested in renewables, as we may well be able to provide much of what we need from these technologies. However, I doubt whether it will be in time to have an effect on climate change.

We are behind a lot of the world in nuclear power
We are going to be further behind.
But we are going to use it sooner rather than later.
We and the world will do a much better job than past failures.
But we may well have them.
We however will use nuclear.

SM
My bad no gen level was mentioned but one is quoted as being in the latest batch..I assumed it was gen 3, perhaps not.

Re my point of public purse mining...Are you telling me that power generators don't demand access to financial guarantees, subsidies and input from the Tax payer? I thought the point of capitalism was return for capital risk and effort.

Which commercial corp has accepted the full cost of any remediation of a site without "negotiating" the tax payer pick up a substantial part of the bill without resort to delaying actions in courts etc.? Hardies, Exxon, Bopal owners, big tobacco?

Are you saying power Generators are more socially responsible regardless of the unexpected costs?

US corp history wouldn't support that...Let's be real odds are that any commercial reactor would come from and be running would be awarded to a US Corp.
Again their record in commercialization of facilities Aust isn't good.

Which Nuclear power generating Corp has
a. Paid the full cost of remediation of a spent site.
b. Paid the full cost of indefinite storage of the waste?
c. What is the remediation method that is 60% effective....given that thorium (pick the radioactive element) from the a reactor including the non existent gen 4 reactors the size of any letter on this page wouldn't be 90% probability of being fatal.
d. Where are the long-term epidemiological/environmental studies that show the cumulative effect of the serial whoops' that have taken place...forget the theoretical infallibility argument that is an act of faith not fact.

So far, You are living up to your pseudonym, you're putting unreasonable credence in the terms like "world's best practice", and triple redundancy which are code for 'profitable' and "trust me"...rhetoric.

To me it's much like the GM argument the technology may be proven largely benign but I (with cause) distrust the purveyors of both.

By no mean am I wedded to a 'Not in my world' view. All I ask is less
self serving spin and wiggle proof solutions to a few basic issues.

Ten years from now , when Prime Minister Rudd has found his way to back down and start to build our first nuclear power station.

Gotta give it to ya Belly. Never let a chance go by to give a good old politicle plug for your beloved Krudd.

S--t, I mean Gee Wizz I hope you're wrong! I can't say what I really mean as although it is almost 2010, it is just to rude!

Aagh……move on move on people, nothing’s changed in the nuclear industry. Obfuscation prevails. Independent critiques, published by eminent scientists are described as hyperbole and exaggeration but hyperbole (not exaggeration) is preferable to silence which is what you get from the nuke industry - same old same old slugs and slimy!

If you want uranium oxide for the killer machines, you will have to extract a minimum 150,000 tonnes of rock and ore (releasing massive amounts of carbon)to get 24 tonnes of enriched UF6 for fuel (UO2), merely enough for one reactor for a year plus 146 tonnes of depleted uranium which has in recent years, been recycled to bomb the crap out of the Persian Gulf, Iraq and the Balkans:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5146778547681767408

With a renaissance of a water hungry nuclear industry, each single reactor will consume 35-65 million litres of water each day. Olympic Dam Uranium mine uses 35 million litres/day from the Great Artesian Basin – free of charge too!:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25943922-2682,00.html

As the atomic blasts increased in the past so did radiation cancers and they continue to do so. The entire world has suffered from radioactive fallout carried on prevailing winds.

Decay chains of radioactive fallout are short or long – many existing for thousands of years. The NSW Cancer Institute, last year, advised that the last decade has seen a 40% increase in thyroid cancer in men and a staggering 84% increase in women. There is a paucity of research and the best government departments can offer as a cause for the increase, is lack of iodised salt in diets. Hmmmmmm!

Nevertheless, scientists today are investigating thyroid cancer levels in Corsica, a Mediterranean island that is half French, half Italian territory. For one week the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl hovered over Corsica. Cesium 137 levels in goats' milk reached toxic levels, but the fact was kept quiet. Today, thyroid cancer rates in Corsica are much higher than on the mainland.

Sheep in Wales continue to become radioactive after grazing, 23 years after Chernobyl. I trust none slip through to the supermarkets!

An industry ever so foul!

“In Grims case, as ignorant as Malthus.”
Col Rouge, I'm amazed. I had you picked for a Malthusian. Being so much less ignorant than I, I am sure you would be familiar with Malthus's stand on public assistance to the poor. He proposed the gradual abolition of the poor laws by gradually reducing the number of persons qualifying for relief. He reasoned that poor relief acted against the longer-term interests of the poor by raising the price of commodities and undermining the independence and resilience of the peasant. In other words, the poor laws tended to "create the poor which they maintain”.
To me, that sounds very much like something you'd say, Col Rouge, as is:
“... As the human race, however, could not be improved in this way without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to breed should ever become general.”
I also found this comment of yours quite helpful:
“ Malthus even missed the “oil” revolution and had no concept of either a humble motor car or telephone.”
Modern agronomists have been known to claim “modern agriculture is about using the land to turn oil into food”.
You may recall we were discussing the use to total depletion of non renewable resources, like oil?
And I do appreciate being lectured on good debating practice by someone who so famously and invariably resorts to personal invective, in every debate.
Malthus's knowledge was incomplete, just as Isaac Newton's was (and every scientist's continues to be). This in no way invalidates his contribution to science, or his influence on many consequent thinkers of great note, including Darwin and Wallace. As Albert Bartlett has demonstrated, the arithmetic is undeniable; only the time frame is in question.