Thread: Nuclear Power - debate / poll

Originally Posted by Tank

I couldn't leave without some comment on the Posts on this topic, seems most of you have no idea of the impact of Chernobyl, one said, "without the sky falling in", well maybe you should speak to the families of the THOUSANDS that died, ......... so PLEASE take the time to investigate Nuclear and the alternatives, as it is abundantly clear that little thought has gone into these posts, Regards Frank.

Hi Frank,

My comment about "without the sky falling in" was in relation to Three Mile Island not Chernobyl. I agree about the devastating effects of Chernobyl but that was an exception - while individual disasters are less intense in the coal/oil industry, there are more of them and the cumulative impact on peopleand the environment is greater - more deaths, more environment damage but over a greater period of time - I don't have stats - just my thoughts.

I actually think the thought that has gone into these posts is actually very good - not a lot of emotive outbursts just thoughts of people who irrespective of their views have at least thought about it.

Cheers

Garry

There has been a lot of comment about the waste and its storage. I remember reading a paper about 18 months ago that indicated that if all the worlds power requirements were to be generated by nuclear power the world uranium reserves would be used up in about 50 years - however the waste can be reprocessed and used again - the problem is its weapons grade and if it falls inot to wrong hands could be an issue.

So if processed uranium was just used once it would have to be stored for hundreds of thousands of years, however using current technology it is safe enough for reprocessing after about 30-50 years so the realistic storage period is at least workable with a reprocessing cycle of of about 30/50 years - while there are certainly storage issues related to the waste - recyling it means the storage period could be relatively shorter than what it could be.

Garry

Nuclear

For what it will cost to provide enough nuclear power plants to power Australia, we could have enough solar panels on every roof of every home to do exactly the same thing!

If a solar panel breaks, big deal, if a nuclear plant breaks?

And it will take 20yrs to build the nuclear plants, we could have solar done in 5!

Originally Posted by Lucy

For what it will cost to provide enough nuclear power plants to power Australia, we could have enough solar panels on every roof of every home to do exactly the same thing!

If a solar panel breaks, big deal, if a nuclear plant breaks?

And it will take 20yrs to build the nuclear plants, we could have solar done in 5!

I tend to agree, but the cost of maintaining and replacing photovoltaic panels once they are to old to be feasible may only defer todays problems for the next 15 - 25years, then you have the batteries, controllers, low voltage wiring , low voltage appliances.
Out of interest I wonder how much power the average plasma TV uses in a year. Cause we all must have one. It's the latest fad.

whether or not we went Nuclear I'd imagine it would have very little effect on the coal mining industry in Australia, the majority of the coal goes to export, we only get the crap for power.

Yes nuclear has waste products, aren't these imported and buried in the desert somewhere anyway? There is no saying our decendants couldn't find a use for it, just like we have with coal, oil, gold etc........

(Perhaps to power their own personal TARDIS or something)

Originally Posted by Tank

Wood if managed properly and not mined like it is now is another alternative, Wood powered power stations and Sustainable Plantation wood supplies burnt in wood gasifier turbines are a viable alternative and add another form of income for the beleaguered farming community

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.

Nuclear power is not the answer.
1. Economic cost.
Claims about the economic cost compared with other energy sources are generally based on existing reactors. Because new ones are so expensive to construct, advocates of nuclear power omit capital costs. New Scientist estimated that if construction costs were included, the price of nuclear energy in the US would rise from 5 cents per kilowatt hour to 14 cents/kwh.
Subsidies hide the true cost of nuclear power. In the first 15 years of its development the nuclear industry received 30 times as much financial support as wind energy research. The same amount of support for wind energy would have produced 5 times as many jobs and 2.3 times as much energy.
2. Energy cost.
Energy is needed to build reactors, mine and mill ore, enrich uranium, fabricate fuel elements, decommission and dismantle reactors, transport and store waste. In order for nuclear power to make a significant contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases we would need to replace all existing reactors and build 2-3000 next generation reactors of 1000 megawatt capacity over the next fifty years at a rate of one a week. The known reserves of high grade uranium ore (3.5 million tonnes) would supply those reactors for less than a decade. Use of low grade ore below 0.01% would consume more energy than it produced. Reprocessing is very expensive and dangerous.

So nuclear power is not economical, is not "green" and is not sustainable