As much as I think Howard can be full of it, going nuclear isn't that bad of an idea. It's a proven power source with very low emissions and very safe.

Why the objection? Currently coal is doing far more damage than could ever be conceived by the mishandling of some spent uranium.

I'm confused why people are happy with coal yet fear nuclear energy.

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Oh, I'm not happy with coal, the emissions are terrifying. Of course, as it stands today, nobody knows how to store nuclear waste, and even modern, fancy-pants reactors produce a rather large amount of waste and have caused some fairly serious issues.

Then there is the issue of fuel supply, we're still mining the fuel (which is finite) out of the ground and doing a wonderful jobs of destroying natural habitats and losing undiscovered native plants in the process.

Finally, Australia doesn't really require the power load generated by even a small nuclear power plant (particularly Western Australia) and Australia is well positioned to take advantage of renewable energy technologies and has the scientific and engineering know-how to take those technologies to the next level.

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sorry, didn't bother to create an account, i already have too many. But i wanted to react.

About the nuclear waste : are you sure about what you say? Sure, nuclear energy produces nuclear waste, but not very much. As far as i know, most of the wastes are low radioactivity products (such as the clothes used by the crew), and the radioactivity will decay over a (short) time. Now, agreed, there is the problem of the rest. I think i heard that some technology about vitrifying the waste were used. Anyway, i believe that those wastes are a few tons every years and are a much lesser problem that the ecological impact of most other kind of energy.

About the fuel : Like you said, it is a finite supply, that will likely only last for 50-100 years, and a very big ecological problem.

Finally, you say that Australia doesn't really require the power load generated by a small nuclear power plant. I don't know your country (i'm from Belgium), but in my country (which is much smaller than yours), we have a nuclear power plant, and i can tell you that it is totally necessary. We NEED the power. Btw, when i studied engineering, i did a project about the renewable energy, and i can tell you that those kind of energy won't cut it. They are a order of magnitude less than nuclear power. We would need to cover Belgium with solar panels/wind turbines/... in order to produce a fraction of what the nuclear power plant produce.

And i don't understand why the general public is so violently opposed to the nuclear energy. I'm afraid that the politic world in Belgium is trying to stop the nuclear, and i sincerely believe it's a very bad thing (btw, i'm not a right-wing extremist, i usually voted greens/socialists, but i'm a scientist too). The nuclear energy is the only kind of large scale power source we can easily use nowadays, without huge disadvantage.

But i think that the energy source of the future is nuclear fusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion). This will truly have no disadvantage such as pollution. The only problem will probably be that most ppl will be opposed to that, just because of the "nuclear" in the name. What a shame...

PS : i just wanted to comment about the nuclear energy, i don't know Howard at all and don't have any opinion on him.

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Remember that in Australia there are only 20 million people, and an awful lot of space. Western Australia requires about 3.5GW of power (cite) distributed across a very large area. It's just not feasible to have big plants.

They're still talking about building 200MW plants around here (e.g. Bluewaters in Collie). A 200MW solar plant can be built.

As shermozle already mentioned, Australia has no nuclear infrastructure today. Money would have to be spent to set up the infrastructure (not just build the plants), the Government would also have to deal with the coal industry (e.g. keep using coal as well, or pay them out). Australia is also well positioned to take advantage of renewable resources.

Finally, still, no one seems to know what to do with the waste.

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Even harder to handle is the NUCLEAR WASTE that comes from COAL:
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

Yes, burning coal has generated a lot more radioactive waste than all the nuclear power/weapon usage ever combined. (You have to keep in mind that coal has been used for longer time and nuclear power still accounts to a rather small portion of the energy production on this planet.) It's killing more people to cancer than what the "nuclear power" could ever do. That waste is also very wide spread all over the athmosphere and land.. Unlike the nuclear waste made by nuclear plants - which can be sealed off to safe places, re-enriched etc.

Futhermore you have to keep in mind that for instance the "horrible" chernobyl case has killed only <30 people. The usage of coal is far, far more lethal thing than any nuclear accidents combined. But this all is missing the point actually so let's stop splitting the hair.

Okay, I like the idea of photovoltaics and other renewables myself too. It's just still a bit expensive to do. Wind is also nice, and you got the ocean (tide etc) there too. Producing enough energy for Australia is only a part of problem. Most likely your economy is heavily supported by export/import ratio of goods - which includes coal. The changes in demand and supply have multiplicative effects in the economy. Nuclear power - being okay in proper hands - might be actually pretty good and environment friendly export (both the ores and the rest of the technology too) to outbalance the loss of foreign exchange.

If you go raving just by some silly hippie ideals all you're going to achieve is to making Australia one of the poorest countries in the world. Perhaps you're aok living off the land without electricity and education and work and stuff but the others are not.

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So, your argument is a bit all over the place.

You're right, coal is a poor way to produce energy. As well as radioisotopes, it also dumps a whole pile of heavy metals and things we don't want into the atmosphere. I am aware of this.

For nuclear waste, it is possible to reenrich, but eventually it stops being cost-effective to do so, and nuclear waste has to be disposed of. The entire disposal procedure is flawed, since it assumes that the human race as we know it will still be around in 250,000 years to tell people what those warning signs actually mean.

You're right, coal and natural gas are big exports for Australia. If Australia went nuclear and those industries dried up, the exact same problem would still exist. Perhaps Australia could instead become a world leader in exporting renewable energy technology.

Fundamentally, you're failing to realise that Australia still has numerous natural resources to take advantage of and export around the world. Australia's energy demands can be met with non-nuclear solutions while still reaching the emissions targets that are being talked about.

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Anonymous, nuclear doesn't make _economic_ sense, regardless of your views on the nuclear fuel cycle. The UK is due to spend over 70 billion pounds (around 180 billion South Pacific Bananas) just to decommission what they already have! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Decommissioning_Authority) Once you factor in these costs, it starts making those crazy renewables seem incredible reasonable. No country in the world runs nuke power inside a truly free market. It just wouldn't be competitive.

It's even worse for Australia. We don't have any experience with this stuff, so all the technology and personnel would have to be imported, just like the replacement research reactor at Lucas Heights was.

Howard is using this as a wedge issue. He knows Labor is divided over the issue, and they will have months of fun taunting Peter Garrett if the Labor conference backs the expansion of uranium mining.

Davyd, love the graphic. I might nick at least the bit with Howard's head in the middle. That's choice.

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That would look hilarious with the new radiation symbol. People running in terror from the rays emitted by Howard's head.

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I hear he also causes cancer.

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Scotland has 5 million people living here, but we have 2 nuclear power plants and all of Britain's nuclear weapons are stored here. I notice however, that Scotland is 22 times more dense population wise than Australia (which after living here all my life seems impossible).

When Scotland becomes independent, the bombs will be the first thing to go.

On a more relevant note, the way I see it, It's either nuclear power or no power. (probably not in Australia, it'd be impractical) It's the lesser of 2 evils.

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Ok, so you've said yourself that you feel nuclear power would be impractical in Australia.

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http://nuclearinfo.net

The sort of jingoistic reactions you post imply you're not actually interested in rational debate.

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Yep, that certainly seem a non-partisan source.

Just to shoot down _one_ of the sources referenced there, about cost of power:
http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=49

You'll notice the graph it uses (http://www.nei.org/documents/U.S._Nuclear_Industry_Production_Costs.pdf) uses this formula:
Production cost = Operations and Maintenance Costs + Fuel Costs

Note the missing "clean up the mess when we're all done" bit?

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Sorry, that "clean up the mess" cost is included.

It's 0.15 cents per KW-Hr.

I was a primary author of that site. I'd be delighted to know about mistakes in it.

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Just to be clear. It's 0.1 cents per KW-Hr for waste disposal, 0.05 cents per KW-Hr for decommissioning.

The Captial costs are very uncertain at this point in time though.

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So, it's certainly economically sound, but completely uncosted? Sounds like something that Federal Government would say. Wouldn't you agree?

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Rational debate is just so boring, though.

(Also, it seems to be held onto by some scientists as a valid and effective way of influencing public opinion and therefore democratic decision. Whoops!)

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Correct, I'm not.

We're both men of science, but basically, until people come up with complete solutions, I don't think nuclear fission is a wise choice. The best thing about science is my right to think that nuclear energy for use in Australia is simply a crock of shit.

It's worth pointing out, while we're here, that energy estimates have been wrong in the past. In the Eastern states, a number of power plants were constructed, and then mothballed, because growth did not exceed generation capacity. This leaves me wondering if energy requirement estimates are simply wrong again. Maybe instead we can do more to offset the peak load against the base load (I hear they recently demonstrated some cool tricks for this in the Netherlands using refridgerated warehouses).

And maybe, as men of science, we should be actually working to set the trend of the future, by capturing a source of energy that doesn't destroy this planet, rather than just putting the problem off for another hundred years. Nuclear energy just isn't responsible, sustainable or ethical.

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It took years of political fight over the decision where to built the next ITER research reactor at.. Technologically we should have most of the important pieces ready already - all that is left is testing, making it more feasible economically, and some engineering (plumberman's work as they used to call it at the Manhattan Project). Without all the politics we would already *have* it ready. And in use.

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Technologically, we've got a research reactor, designed for something completely different. You're also forgetting the uranium mining and refining industry that would have to be created.

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Davyd, the point about science is to try to predict the future from the known laws of nature. The point of economics and politics is to try to influence human affairs (hopefully) for the better. Science has pretty much lined up that burning fossil fuels is causing dangerous global warming. Economics predicts that if things continue as they are at present the use of fossil fuels will increase.

From Australia's perspective the cheapest way (most economical) to generate the electricity we need is to burn fossil fuels. This is also the case in many other parts of the world. So should we do the right thing economically or scientifically?

Nuclear energy is much less likely to be harmful to the environment than fossil fuels and can be scaled to provide the energy needs of the planet.

"Nuclear energy just isn't responsible, sustainable or ethical."

Nuclear energy is certainly sustainable. There is enough Uranium and Thorium in the earth's crust to last for countless generations. The science of nucelar waste disposal is well advanced.

http://www.skb.se/templates/SKBPage____8735.aspx

Whether it is employed responsibally or ethically is up to human instituations. There are certainly examples around the world where it has been employed both responibally and ethically and I would argue that Australia could emulate those practises.

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So, on sustainability, there is more than just how much fuel is available (which is of course finite), the resource also has to be mined. We're still destroying habitats, cultural landmarks (albeit not western-cultural landmarks), eradicating endangered species and generally just putting the problem off for a few hundred years.

I do love "Nuclear energy is much less likely to be harmful to the environment than fossil fuels", which admits that the end result is completely unknown. As a species, we don't have the science or engineering know how to even begin to imagine how what we're doing will affect this planet in the future. We have never built a structure that lasted 3000 years, let alone 250,000 years and with our current engineering skills there are very few indications that we could.

Emissions and climate change are real problems, but if we were all to be wiped out tomorrow, eventually this planet would reach a new equilibrium. That nuclear waste would still be there. Hardly ethical.

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Uranium mining is about 2% of Australia's total mining effort. The massive iron ore mines in the Pilbara have far greater impact environmental impact than Uranium mining. Every single mineral extraction project has some environmental impact and banning all mining within Australia is not an economic option.

"I do love "Nuclear energy is much less likely to be harmful to the environment than fossil fuels", which admits that the end result is completely unknown."

Davyd, I'm a Scientist. I admit the limits of my knowledge but the end result of nuclear waste is far from unknown. Even Chernobyl was a far greater human disaster than an environmental one. 20-odd years later the local ecology is doing well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm

We are not building a structure for 100,000 yers, were burying waste in engineered canisters. The science of how the packages erode is now rather well understood and there are natural analogues of the various processes involved. Finally, nature itself has solved the problem. Almost 2 billion years ago natural reactors formed in the Oklo Uranium deposits. The waste from this process has not moved more than a few meters over 2 billion years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

"Emissions and climate change are real problems, but if we were all to be wiped out tomorrow, eventually this planet would reach a new equilibrium. That nuclear waste would still be there. Hardly ethical."

By this definition our entire civilization is unethical. The state of Victoria alone produces 90,000 tonnes of waste of various toxicities. Victoria does not even have a dump for this stuff, let alone a well engineered repository.

Like everything one needs a sense of scale of the problem. Victoria could cut it's greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production by 80% by building 6 new 1 GW nuclear reactors. This would produce around 200 tonnes of high level waste per year, less than 1 % it current toxic waste production.

I agree with the Labour party that efficiency needs to be addressed. This will buy us some time but we will not be able to cut our Greenhouse gas production to the level required without closing our coal-fired power stations. We need to build something to replace them. It's not easy to reliabally generate tens of GW of electricity without with CO2 emissions or nuclear energy.

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So why do you want to contribute towards making the problem worse?

I maintain that as a society we should actually be looking towards reducing our energy consumption through the combination of technology and legislation that forces the adoption of technology. It would also be nice to improve the efficiency of our energy generation (latest generation coal<->energy production is still only 46% efficient with cogeneration). Finally, something that I keep repeating, shouldn't the money be spent on something that doesn't smell entirely like the "easy way out"?

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"So why do you want to contribute towards making the problem worse?"

Everything has a set of drawbacks. Wind requires large amounts of steel, concrete and copper (more mining). Solar photovoltaics have substantial toxicity issues. Both need backup supplies of either energy storage or gas fired fossil fuels. Anything operating on the scale needed to supply tens of gigawatts of power will have a significant environmental impact, however it should not involve emitting hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

"Finally, something that I keep repeating, shouldn't the money be spent on something that doesn't smell entirely like the "easy way out"?"

To deal with a problem as big and significant as global warming involves taking the easy way out in as many different ways as possible and even then it will still be difficult.

Nuclear Power is by no means the final solution in itself but it can really help.

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http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/politix/Radioactive_Garrett.html

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It's pretty sad. When Rudd took power, I expressed concern over what promises he'd had to make. I wonder what we'll come to regret under a Rudd Government.

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Hi,

You said that we don't have any plausible solutions to deal with the nuclear waste. I dislike / hate John Howard as much as the next person. But Australia should go Nuclear , if only for the reason of using Synroc deal with a nuclear waste problem.

Synroc is Australian developed technology, that is so good even the US Military uses it to store and dispose of their weapons related nuclear waste.

It is highly successfully at immobilising radiation from the waste that everyone seems to be so scared about.
See http://www.uic.com.au/nip21.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synroc.

Synroc is the solution to the nuclear waste problem...
As for Australia's emissions and greenhouse gas, climate change problem, I don't believe we should rule out nuclear power just because the general public are ignorant of one of the best nuclear waste radiation immobilisation tools currently in existence.


Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234 :)

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Synroc is a technology so good that AFAIK, it has never been used commercially (and is thus completely unproven). It doesn't magically solve the problem. Synroc is still radioactive, and still needs to be stored.

So where do you store the (solid) waste? Well, you do what the British did and store it buried in a cliff made of chalk. One that is now about to fall into the North Sea. It's funny, we can't even engineer 50 years into the future, let alone 1,000 years or longer. Why are people so arrogant as to think they've solved these problems when they quite obviously haven't?

Wouldn't you be more proud if Australia could export cutting edge, renewable, ethical, sustainable energy technologies to the rest of the world, instead of what amounts to a cheap, nasty hack? I certainly would.

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What's more, all these vitrification processes (and the touted re-enriching mentioned above) produce yet MORE waste that needs to be store. That's the problem with this stuff, everything it touches while being processed becomes radioactive. So sure, you might make the waste solid and chemically inert, but in the process you've created more waste and, what's more, the now-vitrified waste takes up more space and mass.

It's important to note that neither the USA nor the UK have permanent nuclear waste storage facilities. America is building one, to much opposition from Nevada residents. The UK still hasn't tackled that particular hot potato. These are countries that have had nuclear power for many decades.

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What are you doing to minimise the dependency on coal/nuclear power plants?

1. Do you use CFLs instead of Tubelights and Incandescent bulbs?

2. Do you use LED cluster bulbs?

3. Do you harness solar energy for your domestic use?

AND... unrelated...

4. Do you use bio-fuel like Jatropha oil for your vehicle?

It'd be cool if much of the lighting could be complemented by CFls/LED bulbs running on power from Sun.

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We purchase NaturalPower. We don't offset the emissions of our car, but I attempt to bus as often as possible.

I would very much like to see an increased uptake of LED lighting. It's just so efficient.

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Davyd,

I live in Romania, a country that uses nuclear power, and that in a few months will actually double the nuclear power produced (700 MW -> 1400 MW). The energy from the NPP is also used to heat up cities, and it proved to be less radio-active than the heat from the Thermal Power Plants. Regarding the storage of the nuclear waste, it isn't really such a big problem. The waste can actually be reprocessed, and only a small amount of High Level Waste remains.

There are a lot of ways in which you could get the High Level Waste to be stored safe. The Swedes have a very interesting one, that can store the waste until it returns to natural radiation levels. It is called the KBS-3, and a very brief description is also available on Wikipedia.

The only problem that I can see with nuclear energy is not pollution, as this can be safely taken care of, but rather having to build other power sources that can also produce or consume power, whether it is daytime or nighttime. This is mainly because a nuclear solution cannot have a varied power output over a short period of time, and you need in the daytime to produce more (usually with the help of Hidro), and in the night to consume more (by pumping water back into the lakes with the same Hidro as into the daytime).

I know that Nuclear Energy is not perfect, but it's damned close, considering our requirements.

Cheers,
Razvan

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See, I think you're misinformed about the power situation in Australia, especially in Western Australia. First off someone will have to invent a superconducting distribution grid.

I think the most telling fact is that in the only place in Australia where a nuke plant might possibly be useful, both sides of the state parliament don't want it, and we're talking about people who can't agree on what day of the week it is!

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This book is timely and is available from the Co-Op Bookshop.

Scorcher: The Dirty Polotics of Climate Change
Clive Hamilton
ISBN 9780977594900

Reading it, I'm ashamed of the behaviour of the incumbent government over Kyoto and their continuing obfuscation of the greenhouse and energy issues.

One point about this nuclear debate is that solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, geothermal, wind, and tidal power have no need for the regulatory and physical safeguards that nuclear will require. This means the ability to develop and deploy these sources of power offers a faster response to the environmental issues that science has identified.

Davyd, your point about widespread populations in Australia and hence distribution difficulties is well made and I wonder how many of the electricity providers have done research on network performance for a finely distributed production model.

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