Thread: Nuclear Power - debate / poll

A few more comments:-

Reserves - and this applies to both uranium and coal as well as other minerals such as oil or gas.

The reserve of a mineral is the amount that has been proved to exist using accepted standards and methods of proof. In many cases (e.g. ASX reports) the word "reserve" has specific legal meaning. Since proving the size of reserves is expensive, nobody is going to voluntarily prove reserves further ahead than is needed to get a supply contract or justify the expenditure to start a mine, although sometimes the amount proved turns out to be more than expected. Consequently, reserves rarely extend more than a decade or two into the future, and provide no real indication of how much of the substance is actually there.
In the case of coal, although not reserves, the worldwide quantities known to exist are enormous. A couple of local examples - In the Sydney Basin, several coal seams totalling tens of metres in thickness are known to exist over the entire area bounded by the coast and a line from North of Newcastle west to near Mudgee and then to Lithgow and to Wollongong. In general mining has only taken place along the edge of this, although there used to be a mine at Balmain in Sydney. The majority of Bass Strait is underlain by multiple coal seams with thicknesses in places in excess of 100m. Some of this would be expensive to mine, but to suggest any shortage is ludicrous. The same sort of situation exists in many places round the world. (These data are well established as a byproduct of oil and gas exploration)
As far as uranium reserves go, take the case of Australia - with a two mine policy, who in their right mind would spend money looking for it? Despite this, there are a number of other ore bodies so obvious that the owners want to develop them! So how many other bodies could be found if we really looked?

Wave power:- The problem with wave power is that so far building systems that can live in the open ocean exposed to salt water and severe weather have the problem that they are very expensive, both in money and energy, and are high maintenance - and have a relatively short life.

Hot rock:- This looks promising, but is relatively expensive to develop and seems to be relatively high maintenance.

Solar Voltaic:- Although on the face of it, this is impossibly expensive, I think that there is a real opening for it in the form of home installations supplying power back into the grid. The reason I think it will work, is that there are a lot of people prepared to put their money where their thoughts are with renewable energy, and it has the advantage that money is spent in small amounts, and the power uses the existing grid - and because a lot of the power is generated close to where it is used, it saves on distribution costs.

John

Originally Posted by nobbydoldrums

Frank, have a read of the article I linked to under the biofuels forum on here. Even in a gasifier, wood pulp has terrible carbon economics.

Wood uses a hell of a lot of energy in reducing it to a form suitable for burning or reacting. The currently utilized gasifiers like Shell also usually need a pulverized low moisture feed and are far more suited to lignite. Biowaste and wood can be used, it just requires a lot of it's own energy in breaking it into pieces and drying it.

If we take greenhouse effect to be "serious business", then wood pulp and other biofuels are probably the worst contenders in terms of carbon economics, making fossil fuels are a lot more attractive option.

If you're looking at the sustainability picture and forgetting about carbon, then obviously biofuels are the attractive option.

On another note, it seems rather amusing that after decades of ****-farting around, IPCC suddenly issues a report and everyone (including our beloved prime minister) become instant converts to the new religion of climate change.

In all that time, nothing has changed; the same old data sources have been used and all new findings are based on atmospheric computer models (many argue which are extreme simplifications and make serious assumptions). Suddenly the head of the IARC Syun-Ichi Akasofu resigns (a dissident of the climate change movement and a man with access to serious climate data).

Probably a bit much of a rant for here but it seems uncanny that this stuff is such a massive focus now, particularly when china is building a new pulverized coal fired power station every 5 days. You'd almost think that someone wants Aus of of the coal game?

Oh, and don't think that Flannery's suggestion of stopping Aus exports of coal would affect anyone but us. There are many players who would love to grab that market share off Aus right now.

Yes, there is a lot of Kafuffel about using wood in small regional based power stations using sustainable wood supplies, but that word sustainable is very misused, the Aust. Greenhouse Office (AGO) says that burning wood in power stations is Greenhouse Gas (GG) neutral. Trouble is the AGO only measures Carbon Dioxide, why, because they have a world wide accepted PROTOCOL for it's measurement. AGO is not concerned with other GG's like Methane (23 times more potent GG than CO2), Formaldahyde, Nitrous oxides, Carbon Monoxide and a whole heap of other nasties including Dioxins and BAP's (one of the cancer causing elements found in Tobacco smoke) all because they DONT have a PROTOCOL for measuring the *****, so it doesn't exist, This is from the Federal Government that is telling us to get into bed with their bosses and light up a safe Nuclear Plant, remeber when cigarettes where good for you.
Australia could cut it's GG by 1/3 overnight by banning Domestic Wood Heaters, but Howard and his Bosses want Nuclear because they (Howards Bosses) are going to make Squillions of $, it's not about cleaning the AIR we all breathe, its about MONEY, Regards Frank.

Originally Posted by Tank

........
Australia could cut it's GG by 1/3 overnight by banning Domestic Wood Heaters, .....

I very much doubt that - wood heating represents an insignificant part of the total energy consumption in Australia (although not some other countries) - and regardless of how you measure the greenhouse contribution of them it is not going to be very much. (And my view is that they are close to greenhouse neutral depending on what you burn) In terms of local air pollution, they are in some places a major contributor, but any replacement of them, while shifting the pollution elsewhere, is likely to contribute almost as much or more greenhouse gases.

The reason they are unlikely to be banned is that too many voters have them! Nothing to do with nuclear power, although the power industry dislikes them for obvious reasons.

Originally Posted by Tank

but Howard and his Bosses want Nuclear because they (Howards Bosses) are going to make Squillions of $, it's not about cleaning the AIR we all breathe, its about MONEY, Regards Frank.

Dunno about anyone making squillions off it. The CAPEX, operating costs and project lag time for nuclear plants are horrendous. I'd don't know the numbers, but I'd have thought building one would require substantial govt assistance to make it worthwhile. A nuclear industry also adds a fair bit in value insofar as technological expertise and support industries.

Most of "them" - i.e. vested interests currently raping Aus for all it's worth are generally not that forward thinking or patient. There are better returns to be made in petrochem, minerals and even wind power!

Originally Posted by nobbydoldrums

Dunno about anyone making squillions off it. ......
Most of "them" - i.e. vested interests currently raping Aus for all it's worth are generally not that forward thinking or patient. There are better returns to be made in petrochem, minerals and even wind power!

You're right in general - the costs make any nuclear power in Australia unlikely unless the cost of coal fired power is raised to at least double by, for example, requiring carbon sequestration or carbon tax.

"them" to an increasing extent, is YOU - or to be more precise, your super fund. A larger and larger proportion of Australia's (and the world's) capital is in managed funds of one kind or another, and their managers look only to the quarterly balance sheet, because this is what their annual bonus depends on. And you encourage them by choosing the super fund with the best return.

While interest rates remain high (and the current rates are still high by both historic and international standards) you can expect managers, and especially fund managers, to have little interest in any forward thinking beyond the current quarter.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I very much doubt that - wood heating represents an insignificant part of the total energy consumption in Australia (although not some other countries) - and regardless of how you measure the greenhouse contribution of them it is not going to be very much. (And my view is that they are close to greenhouse neutral depending on what you burn) In terms of local air pollution, they are in some places a major contributor, but any replacement of them, while shifting the pollution elsewhere, is likely to contribute almost as much or more greenhouse gases.

The reason they are unlikely to be banned is that too many voters have them! Nothing to do with nuclear power, although the power industry dislikes them for obvious reasons.

John, why would you doubt that, what do you base that statement that DWH pollution would be insignificant. 1 DWH operated as in Lab tests for AS4013 emissions compliance tests emits 5grams of Particulate Matter (PM) (with the great majority being PM2.5 which cannot be blocked by the bodies defence system and passes straight to the blood system, WHO says there is NO SAFE LEVEL of exposure to woodsmoke) per kg of wood burnt. 1/2 of Sydney and Melbourne's air pollution measured over a whole year (considering DWH only run for about 5 months or so/ year) is directly attributal to emissions from DWH, during the winter months it is as high as 75%. Launceston and Canberra are the 2 most air polluted cities in Australia as a direct result of DWH, these aren't my figures these are published figures available to anyone that cares to look, stats from CSIRO DAR, EPA NSW and Vic, NHMRC, NEPC, NPI, every year 4000 Australians die as a direct result of exposure to Particulate Pollution, I certainly wouldn't say this was insignificant and the major contributor is the DWH, NSW DoH, EPA NSW. Sydney and Melbourne have only about 13 to 15% of households with DWH, but in country towns DWH ownership is 60%+ and the problem is more than 4 times worse than in the city. John can you name any other household appliance that state governments issue Dont Use warnings and have Buy-Back schemes for and more and more councils are banning new installations. Now a DWH operated ouside Lab tests in situ (home) because of imprpoer operation, i.e. lighting up at the first sign of cool weather and keeping it alight for months on end, means that DWH are allowed to smoulder overnight and while the owner is at work, so the average DWH is on Smoulder setting for up 16 hours a day, at this setting a single DWH will emit more than 100 times the AS4013 limit. Or put another way, more pollution in one 24 hour period than the entire life time emission from a modern ULP car. A modern coal power station per Unit of Heat produced is 10 times cleaner than a DWH operating within the AS4013 limits, then multiply that by 100 for the average DWH in a home and you can see Electricity is up to 1000 times cleaner. and dont kid yourself that wood is a renewable resource, State Forests cant keep up with the 3 million tonnes/year from Woodchipping, how are they going to keep up with the 6 million tonnes/year legally harvested and around another 6 million tonnes/year taken illegally, teas ready got to go, Regards Frank.

I voted Yes to Nuclear.
We also voted Yes to a wind farm near us but don't know how the overall vote went.
I see it as Australia should have solar hot water and Solar Voltaic on as many buildings as possible. I know this won't supply all the power but it would help and also increase the grid reliability.

Wind and wave power can also help with needs of the nation. We could then use things like gas power stations for peak generation and coal as the base load.

If enough Solar was installed then it would get cheaper and the research to improve it would also increase so as they need replacing they could be upgraded.

Originally Posted by nobbydoldrums

Dunno about anyone making squillions off it. The CAPEX, operating costs and project lag time for nuclear plants are horrendous. I'd don't know the numbers, but I'd have thought building one would require substantial govt assistance to make it worthwhile. A nuclear industry also adds a fair bit in value insofar as technological expertise and support industries.

Most of "them" - i.e. vested interests currently raping Aus for all it's worth are generally not that forward thinking or patient. There are better returns to be made in petrochem, minerals and even wind power!

Well only last week a few of johnies buddies started a new Nuclear Corp., I dont imagine they will be doing this because they wish to clean up the environment, Regards Frank