http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/13/2712317.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yhtsmcb
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/power-generation/i/2512/#
http://tinyurl.com/yh63dlr

Bob Carr says younger people are more open to the idea of nuclear power. (AFP: Torsten Blackwood). There needs to be a clear-headed debate in Australia about nuclear power.

A Herald/Nielsen poll published today claims one in two people would support the Federal Government considering nuclear power being used to reduce carbon emissions.

Mr Carr says those who came of age in the 1980s have closed their minds to the idea, but younger people are more open.

"There is a shift. People are more open to it again because they can see the damage that carbon dioxide is doing," he said.

"It is coal that's the poison and there's been impressive progress in the handling of nuclear waste and reactor safety."

With the ETS coming into play shortly, and the population steadily increasing, Australia rapidly needs to find alternatives to coal fired base load, and as yet renewables are not capable.

With nuclear expanding rapidly through the rest of the world and a 10 year lag from approval to generation are we on a Titanic accelerating towards an iceberg of our own making?

The twin Titanics of climate disaster and the inevitable nuclear meltdown. There are numerous examples of "foolproof" systems breaking down, either by neglect, cost savings, incompetence, bad design, unanticipated and out of the ordinary occurrences, malfeasance or just plain corporate evil.

The kids of today may not know about 5 mile island, Chernobyl, Bhopal etc but it only takes one and they will be as anti as any 80s Peter Garret.

The consequences of nuclear accidents are so severe that by any measure of cost/benefit they are not worth it.

We need nuclear power stations so those who want to make mega fortunes using Australia as the nuclear dump of the world have got a foot in the door.

For decades the nuclear industry has come up with promises that nuclear waste can be disposed of safely and that the nuclear industry can be trusted. Yet waste continues to piled up in all countries and decommissioned US nuclear warships are parked in places like Japan, too difficult and dangerous to demolish.

The rationalisation will be that because Australia supplies uranium it should remain ultimately responsible for the waste - 'from cradle to grave - and this means being the dumping ground. Clever rhetoric from the US State Department and had The Deputy John Howard still been PM the ships would already be unloading in South Australia (nice of Downer to volunteer South Oz!).

The answer shadow minister is no, not yet.
So we will use it must use it and we all need to understand just how much safer it now is.
That will not happen in this thread, it was no different in my thread some weeks ago.
But we will use it soon.

Shadow (obviously doesn't know what evil is in the mind of man)Minister.

Been there done that argument.It wasn't convincing then and still isn't. Replacing one sort of pollution with another, still doesn't strike me as solving the problem, merely delaying it (perhaps).

THE PROBLEM is what we have and continue to do to the earth....our life support system. Cut it anyway you want but we are using its finite resources at an unsustainable rate.

Quibbling about between untested technologies (remember our discussion about gen 3 & 4) is a bit like saying would you rather die of starvation or thirst?

Discussion pushing nuclear power is the least of our dramas.
The 35+ million in an already overburdened environment is more of an medium/long-term threat. Look about.

as I said then the solution will come from a SUITE not simply a mess of commercially run nuke plants. History shows that commercial drive can't be trusted with basic needs or resources.

But hey, the one true God, 'Feral Capitalism' will come to the rescue...and I'm the arch angel Gabriel and I did learn trumpet and
I have the sheet music for the 'last post' too.

The sky will only fall in if we put all our eggs in one solution either or mentality is big on dogma minuscule on smarts and a real solution.

Instead of discontinuing our baby bonus, changing our intake of refugees and unskilled immigrants (stricter character criteria being the fairest method), making abortions more acceptable and accessible to the public, NOT agreeing to an emissions-trading-scheme, and putting more effort incorporating renewable energy into our consumption, you mean?

And considering even if we DID go for nuclear, we'd STILL be way better off doing the above options anyway.

My answer- do the other things first- then check to see if we still need nuclear.