Shadow Minister

There is absolutely nothing to be gained from rushing into it and buying obsolete technology from the US and the Brits. If as some say there is much more efficient technology on the way then it makes sense to wait for it.

You consistently refused to talk about the disposal of nuclear waste other than to say that with future technology there should be less of it (but more potent one would surmise).

You also refused to state your position on the willing acceptance by John Howard that Australia's outback (especially South Australia according to the ever-ingratiating Alexander Downer) should become the dumping ground for the US and other countries.

Typical Liberals, why not 'exploit' the outback if there is a dollar in it in the here and now for the few and bugger the costs to the millions of future generations who will breathe the toxic dust over thousands of years. Same as after the British nuclear tests and under the watch of (no guessing needed), the Liberals.

Cornflower,

In previous posts I have dealt with these issues at length.

The reactors in the US and Britian presently running are designs from the 70s, but there are more designs running in Canada, France and Japan. Of special interest to me are the CANDU reactors in Canada of which 6 have been running for about a decade. These reactors require only lightly enriched uranium to run (producing 3x as much fuel from the natural uranium) and thus requiring far less mining.

The reprocessing is not popular presently mostly due to it producing large quantities of fissile material as a by product, however, for every 10 tonnes of spent fuel it produces about 3 tonnes of re useable uranium, some plutonium, and some other isotopes which can be used for various industrial and medical purposes.

The final product is about 7 tonnes of spent material, which has had nearly all the dangerous isotopes removed and has a level of radioactivity of about 1/1000 of the original spent rods. So much so, that it is almost safe enough to handle.

The gen IV reactors being planned will eventually (in a few decades) even be able to use that waste as fuel.

The technical solutions to most of the anti nuke concerns exist, but seldom are published as frequently as the scare stories based on technology from decades ago.

The reason to start looking now is that it will probably take a good few years to formulate a secure plan for nuclear power in the country that addresses the entire fuel cycle, and a further decade to design and build the plants so if there is any serious intention to reduce CO2 emissions, the sooner the planning is started the better.

Um, how exactly does our cost of living go UP if we install solar panels? Usually what tends to happen is people start MAKING money from their power bills via the excess electricity generated by their panels.

So by installing solar into houses, homeowners save a LOT of money- hell, every panel installed onto business will save them so much on their electricity bills too.
Assuming we do NOT privatize electricity, there is no reason the price would go up due to lowering demand.
Therefore, everyone SAVES money, no longer worries about electricity bills or paying wages- thus getting a higher and cheaper standard of living.

Nuclear on the other hand would be much MORE expensive because on top of the various employment, maintenance, ore purchasing and logistical costs, are the costs of installing and implementing the various safety and quarantine measures. Not to mention it needs a LOT of water (which, last time I checked, we were running short on).

King Hazza,

How wonderfully naive you are.

At $15 000 for a 1kW unit that will generate about 6 kWhrs per day if the sun shines.

Assuming that you get 250 days of power this equals 1500kWhrs at 25c which equals a saving of $375 p.a. or a payback of 40 years. This is assuming that there is no cost of replacement of inverters etc.

Now considering that municipalities size their infrastructure according the maximum demand which makes up the majority of the charge of 25c to the customer, of which only about 5c is actually for the power, if done on a mase scale, will have to be made up for elsewhere.

The actual cost of generation is closer to 2.5c kWhr at the station which gives a real payback of 400 years.

The subsidy was to subsidise the solar industry, but was cut because it actually made very little difference to the carbon foot print of Aus.

If you actually paid to have one installed, my only comment is that "there's one born every minute."

Nice Shadow Minister- you totally dodged the entire home-installation option with a lame joke and absolutely NO explanation.

"if you WERE talking about home installation"
No really? I only mentioned it in my first sentence, second sentence and every sentence in my last post except the costs of running a nuclear station- you had to have known that is obviously what I talked about.

Considering power bills average a few hundred bucks a month, even if you barely generated enough power to sustain yourself, it still means every couple of months each commercially-purchased higher-output meter-square solar panel effectively pays for itself.

Now, these bills are being covered by existing energy producers, I don't see how nuclear saves cost, other than the present fact that it is regarded as carbon neutral by the carbon industry. All of the other existing costs of running coal or gas are still there- with additional costs (which I already mentioned and you also completely ignored)

And this ignores possible government-owned manufacturers and providers, making quite possibly the simplest, most easy-to-assemble and cheap-to-make devices on the planet possibly being created. All other power sources require more complicated and customized mechanisms which are much less capable of being mass-produced.

Naivety indeed.

How many solar panels to run a smelter?
A water desalinater?
We are bound to use Nuclear power is it understood we are already behind 22 country's in doing so?