http://www.fin24.com/Business/Six-nuclear-power-stations-planned-20100908

South Africa, the country most similar to Australia in having vast cheap coal reserves and uranium, has opted for the more expensive nuclear generation in order to meet its emission targets.

By building 6 near identical plants it dramatically reduces the cost per plant, and gets zero emission power at a fraction of the cost of "renewables" such as solar and wind.

The question is when will Australia dig its head out of the sand and follow the other major economies and install the safest and cheapest emission free technology available to Australia.

Don't hold your breath.

>>The question is when will Australia dig its head out of the sand and follow the other major economies and install the safest and cheapest emission free technology available to Australia<<

Nuclear power has become a "cause".

A cause that has its roots in the cold war, and its social history in bearded weirdies in duffel coats on the Aldermaston March.

Links to emotions of comradeship and smelly socks in the cause of freedom? Plenty.

Links to the real world of energy production: none.

It is the same cause as climate change.

Shadow Minister, please answer in full the following questions.

1) Is nuclear waste "safe"?

2) How much nuclear waste will be produced from these 6 nuclear plants?

3) Where will the waste be stored?

4) How will the waste be stored?

Zero emissions hey?

So you find an outcrop of uranium-bearing minerals out in the sticks (how do you get there? what fuel does your machine use?).

You decide to drill it and see if it is viable (once again, how did you get there and what fuel does the drill rig use?).

You fly and drive executives and company people all over the place doing a feasability study, and use electricity for computer modelling etc.

Mines often are located away from the electricity grid, so you have to either run a wire or use a generator.

Then you need those big trucks and excavators to dig the stuff, and prilled amonia to blow holes in the ground.

Of course, you would need a lot of steel and concrete to create a working mine, and fly hundreds of workers in and out, not to mention the energy uses of the camp.

Then there's the energy used to process the minerals, and the energy to transport them.

OK, maybe you could argue that at that point you may start using the "emission free" electricity to try and deal with the waste, although nobody has worked out how to do this safely yet.

You get the picture.

With around 40% of the worlds uranium, and around 30% of the worlds economically viable uranium reserves (similar amount to Canada), if it was a goer we would already be doing it. Dont kid yourself, they would have tried to link it to the cold war,ozone hole, and millenium bug and any other trendy issue. Jarvis bay was the chosen site historically, but nowadays it is considered so safe you might as well put the reactors in Townsville or Darwin.

You can not have it both ways.
We are told coal is not safe, in fact it does do more damage than Nuclear wast.
Then the Bogey man is let loose, the half life of waste is, who cares?
Nuclear reaction is taking place beneath our feet now naturally.
Some of the silly anti Nuclear stuff, some real fear ,is because it may very well harm our exports of? coal.
Enough waste is to be generated by country's using it to destroy us if it is miss used right now.
No one intends to leaving it laying in school yards.
We WILL go nuclear, sooner the better.

Pat,

If you want to use that measure, then everything has some emissions in its cycle including wind, solar etc. And per unit of energy generated, nuclear is still the lowest. The amount of energy going into a 1MW wind generator and the long power connection is huge, and with a 20-25% average generation, it takes many years or decades to pay off.

As for waste, with reprocessing, the volume of waste is reduced, and what is left has only a tiny fraction of the radioactivity of the original waste.

This has been done very effectively in France.

As for "renewable" power, there is no commercially viable base load supply yet.

Considering the growth in power demand, to even meet the 5% reduction target by 2020 will either require nuclear power or a technology we presently don't possess.

Its a bit of a dead issue really. Some are blinded by the current political and social trends, it really has bypassed traditional scientific processes and become a religion. France may be closer than many countries to working out what to do with the waste, but they certainly havent discovered a safe method of disposal.
You make a valid point, that maybe the waste isnt as bad as it could be or used to be, but it remains radioactive for approximately 10 000 years. We dont know who will be in power or what condition the world will be in in 10 years time (economic crisis, climate change, wars etc.), but we are all of a sudden very confident that we can manage to safely store something so dangerous and toxic for 10 000 years.

Shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic...

Shadow Minister you didn't answer my questions about nuclear waste.

1) Is nuclear waste safe?

2) How much nuclear waste will be produced from these 6 nuclear plants?

3) Where will the waste be stored?

4) How will the waste be stored?

5) One extra question: For how long will the waste be stored?

These are precise questions, needing precise answers. So rather than a generalised overview on waste reduction, could you please answer the questions properly and fully please, one by one? Thank you.

Rudy,

Your questions are purile. The amount of waste is entirely dependent on the output, the design of the reactors, the reprocessing method, the reseeding technique etc.

Yes the radio activity of the waste can be reduced by a factor of 1000 so that it is nearly safe enough to be handled.

Perhaps you could answer these questions

Are the following safe:

The ash from coal (heavy metals)
The residue from copper or steel production

How much waste will be produced from the construction of wind turbines?
How, where, and how long will is this waste be stored?

By the time that the vast majority of the radio active isotopes are removed, the tiny quantity of low level waste is not nearly as environmentally toxic as the billions of tonnes of coal ash full of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and cadmium.

If as predicted, the future generators can re use this waste, the 10 000 years will be a non issue.

Um yeah. *Rolls eyes, looks at watch, shuffles towards the door*... Smiles condescendingly at the simple one.

Insults are a poor substitute for an IQ

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Well SM, maybe maybe not but i have no doubt that no matter how you rig a nuclear power station it still requires a reaction to work. So no matter what happens if there is a mistake it will be a disaster. Thinking man can be trusted with nuclear power is like thinking nazi's can be trusted with gas, it's a fools paradise. Nuclear power has so many problems from design, operation, cost right through to waste that the whole argument is as futile as the global warming debate. Solar is the answer, it only requires the will and commitment by government to fund it and the needs will be fulfilled. Every domestic house hold could be serviced now with the available technology and with development it could do the job on a wider scale. Stop looking for the easy answer or even giving in to the wants of big business. Nuclear is a disaster waiting to happen, we have already had it once so where will it lead if the planet is littered with the toxic bombs.

Ditto Nairbe [dead excuse the pun] against Nuclear power here, Africa or anywhere! Healthier and safer alternatives sourced, funded and implemented!

The green movement has spent so many years vilifying the nuclear industry, and dramatising the dangers, that the population in general believes that any nuclear power station is a bomb waiting to go off, and that wind and solar are completely risk free.

The harsh reality is that any industrial process has its dangers, and the intense focus on the dangers of nuclear industry have resulted in plants that are the safest form of generation on the planet.

If you look at the deaths per GWhr of power, nuclear (even including Chernobyl) has less than half the fatalities per unit power of any other source including wind. If one excludes Chernobyl, the nuclear industry becomes safer by another order of magnitude.

For example, if you took all the high level waste generated in the US for the past 40 years you could store in on a single football field. If waste was reprocessed, this would be further reduced, and the level of radioactivity would reduce to about 1/1000.

If, as planned, the reprocessed uranium is re used in the new technology reactors, the final waste volume will only be a tiny fraction, and the storage facilities presently being built will suffice for centuries.

The Boers have always been a very pragmatic people and the Africans are no slouch at calling a spade a spade so this common sense approach is almost an expectation. We were like that here once, but with the current crop of pollies on both sides we have politically correct enablers rather than insightful enablers.

We can't have coal and we can't have nuclear and all the other technologies are useless to the grid even when combined, so it could be guinea pigs running in little fly wheels in vast guinea electro farms if not for the mammal mafia. There is no synopsis in the greens energy agenda for global carbon free power; they have a salami approach, slice by slice because banning coal would see the immediate crash of the global economy. I am sure that global emissions would reduce remarkably for about 5 minutes if we stopped burning coal, until we understood that this “no power” is the status quo and we started to burn anything resembling wood daily for heat and cooking. The suburbs would have the sort of smoke haze that the queen’s birthday weekend had after cracker night. We cannot regress, it’s not in us and it is not in 99% of the cocooned urban greenies typing away on their coal fired computers.

For those anti-nuclear activists, worth a visit to the following: nuclearinfo.net for some enlightenment on the benefits & safety around nuclear energy.

Without meaning to be insulting, The main problem is that the fellow is working backwards from the outcome. Solar pre-heating at coal-fired power station considerably reduces the amount of coal they use, up to about 40% I believe. Shouldnt all our power stations have this simple measure installed, before we go mucking round with nuclear?

I don't question the overall safety record of the nuclear power industry. But do question the cost of the safety programs that are required to operate a plant. Cost may well reduce as more plants come on line globally but it is still a seriously subsidised form of power generation. Solar preheating is a fantastic idea especially in a country like Australia combined with some kind of carbon capture this would still be a better way to go.
In the end the sun is the largest controlled nuclear reaction getting around, so let's stop avoiding it and deal with it. There is just as much misinformation around about solar as there is about nuclear, it's one of the joys of the misinformation super highway we call the blundernet. So shall we have a poorly thought out power network globally to match the internet? I hope not.

Considering that the boiler water is re circulated, it is already at about 50C and is passed through economiser tubes where the heat is extracted from the flue gas to heat it to 80+C.

As most of the energy goes into evaporating the water, these economisers save a few % of the energy.

Solar preheating would only work a few hours a day, and where the power stations are situated, there is often cloud cover, so I would be surprised if the solar pre heating could deliver more than a fraction of 1 percent efficiency improvements.

Nuclear power is 2-3x more expensive than coal, but is still less than half the price of any available renewable source. It is also not subject to the weather or time of day. It would therefore require subsidy, but far less than wind or solar.

With respect, you would be surprised if it is a fraction of one percent, and I seem to recall a figure of up to 40 percent. Sorry I cant reference it properly, but I would think the CSIRO website might have some credible figures. Certainly, the idea is up and running and people are putting money into it, so despite your dismissive approach and assumptions of such a small percentage, somebody cleverer than me and you thinks it might be a goer.
Dont get me wrong, I am certainly of the thinking we need to have nuclear weapons (and the cynical view we already have them). Places like India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, and many others have them- so being realistic we need them just in case. Just trying to tie it in with electricity generation/climate change is (in my opinion) rubbish.
Weapons yes, electricity no.

Sad to say but Shadow Minister's comments lost all relevance on this topic the moment he declared nuclear waste is safe for people to physically handle.

Pat,

The cooling towers you see expel huge quantities of waste heat, so there is little motivation for solar.

I would respectfully suggest that the efficiencies you read were not for steam driven systems.

If I was dismissive it was because when talking about nuclear there are always people claiming that nuclear will not be necessary because of xy or z new and unproven technology that will come to the rescue.

There is no magic bullet.

Tboy,

Firstly, I said that it was almost safe to handle, secondly, the reprocessed waste has a radiation level that would not inflict radiation burns if handled, but are still higher than recommended for handling.

Depleted uranium from the enrichment process has a radiation level so low that handling is not considered a risk, and has a similar toxicity to lead.

I would suggest that you expand you reading beyond the "chicken little" literature of the greens.

Tboy:>> Sad to say but Shadow Minister's comments lost all relevance on this topic the moment he declared nuclear waste is safe for people to physically handle.<<

Tboy when we are taught to march they scream left right, left right, left right. But by the few one line comments you have contributed I bet you march left, left, left.

Shadow Minister, further to your Chicken Little greens comment, I recall an old Warner Brothers cartoon where they convince Chicken Little that the sky can't fall, he ponders for a while, then goes about screaming "the earth is rising, the earth is rising"......I thought it appropriate to your comment.

Sad to say, but Shadow Minister's comments lost all relevance on this topic the moment he declared nuclear waste is almost safe for people to physically handle.

Tboy,

Yet another vacuous and unsupported comment.

Perhaps you would deign to exercise a few grey cells and tell us all from your vast source of knowledge what risks reprocessed uranium poses. From schoolboy like comments I would wager that you don't have a clue.

Or in your own words "put up or shut up".