Australian Politics Forum - Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'

locutius

Gold Member

Offline

You can't fight in here!
It's the War Room

Posts: 1817
Queensland
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #45 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 8:41am

muso wrote on Jan 19^th, 2009 at 9:13am:

Personally I don't give a damn as long as we are mining Uranium and selling it to countries that can use it to generate Electricity and contractually can't use it to make nuclear weapons.

The more we can displace coal fired energy generation by any other low footprint generation worldwide, the better off we'll all be in the long run. If that has to happen in countries where the population don't have their head up their collective arses, then so be it. Sweden is a good example.

There are three factors in this - small footprint, long term (including environmental) cost effectiveness and speed of implementation.

Sometimes we have to settle for energy generation that has a higher long term cost but we can implement it faster. A lot depends on how much we can do in the next 10 years.

Nope, not the only one. I agree with you muso.

So much of the alternative energy sources still need some or substancial technological refinement. I am a big fan of solar but it is not currently cost effective as far as I can see, economically or environmentally. Making more energy efficient devices is also some thing that technology can/will expand on.

I hope Rudd is grown up enough to go down the NP path and does something to educate the public properly. People may still disagree with it once they know a few more facts but it won't be the bogeyman knee jerk fear. I was against NP many years ago but had come to the same conclusions as yourself even before the latest nuclear debate.

I guess that's why I identify more closely with environmentalists than Greenies.

The only thing that really scared me about Howard's push was that the NP stations were headed for the private sector. I would only support it if it was 100% government enterprise. I have greater faith in the proper maintenance etc and the profits going back into the public purse.

Back to top

I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.

IP Logged

mantra

Gold Member

Offline

ozpolitic.com

Posts: 10750
Gender: female

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #46 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:17am

Quote:

Where?

There was an article in the Australian yesterday - I probably didn't read it thoroughly at the time, but it all boils down to the fact that it's going to cost the government too much and the coal industry has their hands out for a lot more.

THE Rudd Government's climate change strategy has been thrown into disarray by a warning that clean coal will not be viable under the proposed emissions trading scheme.

Clean coal is crucial to the Government's plans to tackle climate change, but the chief executive of the flagship ZeroGen project has told Resources Minister Martin Ferguson the carbon pollution reduction scheme will be a "significant barrier" to the development of clean coal technology.

"Australia's 5 per cent carbon reduction target accompanied by a weak carbon price will be nowhere near sufficient to generate the scale of investment needed to make clean coal technologies economically viable," Anthony Tarr warns Mr Ferguson in a letter obtained by The Australian.

ZeroGen is regarded as the most advanced clean coal project in the country, and a world leader. The Queensland government-backed company, supported by energy giant Shell, plans to develop a world-leading demonstration low-emission coal-fired power plant by 2012, followed by one of the world's first large-scale low-emission plants before 2017.

Kevin Rudd praised the ZeroGen project during a visit to its Stanwell site, outside Rockhampton, as Opposition leader in 2007, calling clean coal "critical for Australia's economic environmental future".

But Dr Tarr says the Rudd Government's ETS fails to distinguish between commercial operations and research-and-development projects.

"Low-emission technology deployments, along with many other first-of-a-kind technologies, have high risks involved," Dr Tarr warns in his letter. "Along with the high costs that project proponents will face as early movers, they will be forced to pay for permits for emissions generated whilst acquiring these valuable learnings.

"Projects such as ZeroGen would need to pay for permits to emit whilst the dirtiest coal generators in Australia are given permits free of cost."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24929818-11949,00.html

The Opposition says clean coal technology will never be developed if the Government puts all the revenue raised from selling permits under the ETS into compensation.

"ZeroGen was the only project of its type left in the world," Opposition resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane said.

"It was the project Kevin Rudd was lauding as his international project.

"If the Government doesn't breathe life back into ZeroGen and the project folds, basically there is no zero emission project in a developmental stage.

"The Government is conceding defeat on clean coal, which not only affects the domestic industry and the price of electricity but also says no one in the world is going to develop clean coal technology. The future for thermal coal is bleak."

Under the proposed ETS, assistance will be given to coal-fired generators in operation or that were committed to be constructed before June 2007, leaving projects such as ZeroGen out in the cold.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24935538-11949,00.html

Back to top

IP Logged

freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 49496 At my desk.	Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power' Reply #47 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:23am Obviously the price of electricity will have to go up before any alyternatives become viable. However, you will still get a reduction in consumption at lower prices. When you said not viable I assumed you meant there was a technical problem.
Back to top	People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words. IP Logged

muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power' Reply #48 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:26am This is a consequence of the global economic downturn. Carbon is trading at an all time low. It's still high enough to promote Nuclear Energy.
Back to top	1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not IP Logged

freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 49496 At my desk.	Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power' Reply #49 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:29am We should have gone with carbon taxes instead. The industry needs a steady price to lure investors.
Back to top	People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words. IP Logged

mantra

Gold Member

Offline

ozpolitic.com

Posts: 10750
Gender: female

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #50 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:43am

Quote:

Obviously the price of electricity will have to go up before any alyternatives become viable. However, you will still get a reduction in consumption at lower prices. When you said not viable I assumed you meant there was a technical problem.

I did infer that - but obviously experts believe there will be as well - otherwise the government would get right behind this industry. They don't want to keep throwing money at an uncertain industry that can't promise anything I assume - or else they're being held to ransom by the coal industry.

Quote:

We should have gone with carbon taxes instead. The industry needs a steady price to lure investors.

I agree

Quote:

Carbon is trading at an all time low.

It's still high enough to promote Nuclear Energy.

No never. The ramifications aren't worth it - but then again the anti-nuclear lobbyists aren't as powerful as the pro-nuclear lobbyists.

Back to top

IP Logged

tallowood Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 6048	Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power' Reply #51 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 11:06am How many fully qualified technicians experienced in building nuclear power stations do we have in Australia?
Back to top	ישראל חיה ערבים לערבים IP Logged

mozzaok

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 6741
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #52 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 12:06pm

Well I disagree with you Muso, and I still would like to hear what you meant with the earlier post, which seemed to imply that nuclear waste is not really an issue of any real concern.

I have always been led to believe that it is really toxic, for a really long time, and not just like naturally occurring radiation, which seemed to be the thrust of your earlier post.

Are you able to explain that in plain english terms, or at least in a manner simple enough to not require a degree in nuclear technology, to comprehend.

This is the big sticking point for me, so if you can change my mind on the waste factor, I would be prepared to change my ideas on australia employing nuclear power.

Back to top

OOPS!!! My Karma, ran over your Dogma!

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #53 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 1:55pm

mozzaok wrote on Jan 20^th, 2009 at 12:06pm:

Well I disagree with you Muso, and I still would like to hear what you meant with the earlier post, which seemed to imply that nuclear waste is not really an issue of any real concern.

I have always been led to believe that it is really toxic, for a really long time, and not just like naturally occurring radiation, which seemed to be the thrust of your earlier post.

Are you able to explain that in plain english terms, or at least in a manner simple enough to not require a degree in nuclear technology, to comprehend.

This is the big sticking point for me, so if you can change my mind on the waste factor, I would be prepared to change my ideas on australia employing nuclear power.

I'll give it a go later, but the bulk of radioactive waste is very low level. I'll get all my ducks in a row and explain some time.

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged

freediver

Gold Member

Offline

www.ozpolitic.com

Posts: 49496
At my desk.

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #54 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 2:06pm

I don't think there are any technical issues with waste disposal. It's just a matter of cost. I don't think the cost is prohibitive either. It's probably partly laziness that the US hasn't started burying theirs. Also, with rapid improvements in our understanding of geology as well as mining technology, it may work out a lot cheaper in the long run to store it for a century then bury it. Then it may simply be a matter of dropping it down a big hole. We are digging some very large wells into radioactive rock at the moment for geothermal energy. Each of these will only last a few decades I think. Maybe one of them will do.

Back to top

People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.

IP Logged

mozzaok

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 6741
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #55 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 3:26pm

Well FD, the , "Let's just drop it down a hole" solution, has never impressed me as being particularly well thought out, for the containment of the thousands of tons of high level waste produced each year.

This high level stuff carries a potential risk, for tens of thousands of years.

So, for longer than recorded human history dates back, we have to make sure this stuff is safely contained, for longer than that, into the future. No corrosion, no water contact, no environmental contact.

The US have in fact started work on a "hole", to put their high level waste, and expect it to be finished in another year or two.
It is the Yucca Mountain site.

So, the US has their sixty thousand tons of their own high level waste to start with, and then their is the waste from the rest of the world to deal with.
That was why Howard signed us up for GNEP, or whatever it was called, we are seen as a good place to dump the rest of the world's nuclear garbage. So as partners in the world nuclear club, we get to dig it up, then bury it again.

Back to top

OOPS!!! My Karma, ran over your Dogma!

IP Logged

mantra

Gold Member

Offline

ozpolitic.com

Posts: 10750
Gender: female

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #56 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 3:43pm

The technical issues are huge and unresolved. The nuclear lobbyists will say it's fine stuck down a hole as Mozzaok says and only one country was dumb enough to agree to become the world's nuclear waste dump - and that was us under the coalition.

Australia is considered geologically stable enough for a dump - but there is conflicting information and many dispute this.

This is a brief extract from Wiki.

The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to living organisms. Of particular concern are two long-lived fission products, Technetium-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and Iodine-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent nuclear fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years.

The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are Neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and Plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years). Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to successfully isolate it from the biosphere. This usually necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form.

Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, usually involving deep-geologic placement, although there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions.

This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years, according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.

Back to top

IP Logged

freediver

Gold Member

Offline

www.ozpolitic.com

Posts: 49496
At my desk.

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #57 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 3:43pm

Not just any old hole. One that has the appropriate geology and is deep enough to stop it leaking out. The geothermal heat is actually generated by radioactive decay - the same decay that powers nuclear reactors. There is no need to panic about this radioactive decay, just as there would be no reason to worry about waste in the same scenario. Tens or hundreds of thousands of years is not a significant amount of time for the geology of these areas.

I've heard that Yucca mountain is not a good choice. This is why it may be both safer and cheaper to wait while our understanding of geology improves.

Back to top

People who can't distinguish between etymology and entomology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.

IP Logged

Grendel

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 28080
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #58 - Jan 20^th, 2009 at 10:07pm

Quote:

The technical issues are huge and unresolved. The nuclear lobbyists will say it's fine stuck down a hole as Mozzaok says and only one country was dumb enough to agree to become the world's nuclear waste dump - and that was us under the coalition.

Now that is bulls#it mantra.
In fact ther only one really pushing it was former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Back to top

IP Logged

Grendel

Gold Member

Offline

OzPolitic

Posts: 28080
Gender: male

Re: Nuclear the 'only viable clean power'
Reply #59 - Jan 21^st, 2009 at 3:27am

For the forgetful
and uninformed...

Quote:

Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases, but it has many drawbacks. Now a radical new technology based on thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy - and a way to burn up old radioactive waste.

much more info here...

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1341/green-nuclear-power-coming-norway

oh look... we are doing something after all.

http://www.ga.gov.au/minerals/research/national/thorium/index.jsp

Back to top

« Last Edit: Jan 21^st, 2009 at 3:39am by Grendel »

IP Logged