Australia going nuclear

skiwi · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:18 am Post subject: Australia going nuclear

BrazilianPO · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:33 am Post subject: Re: Australia going nuclear

Well, I know that it seems logical to go nuclear, but consider me one of those NIMBY guys. If they want to put those wind farms in my neighborhood, that is fine for me, I can stand the noise as long as I have electricity. But don't build a f... nuke next to me! Mad

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ucosty · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:36 am Post subject: Re: Australia going nuclear

So, Who didn't see that coming? Sad

SHiFTY · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 171

Great, I hope they do build them- I have been to a place in Victoria where they currently burn brown coal for electricity, it is filthy and causes massive environmental pollution, including vast amounts of CO2, sulphur, mercury and even uranium from the smokestacks and fly ash.

Also there is already a small research/medical reactor in NSW, and the ideal place for a waste repository- the place in the outback where the British exploded ~30 atomic bombs in the 1950s. So it's not like some pristine place where they have never had nuclear tech at all. Plus the Australians are a generally skilled, technologically adept society, with a bunch of uranium mines already shipping material around the world. It is a little irresponsible to sell the fuel but reject the waste IMHO.

To my mind, this sounds like a fantastic idea. Hopefully the technologists will win out and this will be adopted, because the alternative is coal, coal and more coal. Oh, and to the NIMBY guy: would you rather live next to a coal plant? I would choose the nuclear plant anyday.

gg3 · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:39 am Post subject: Re: Australia going nuclear

So would I (live next to a nuclear plant).

It's nothing short of astounding that a country can have a safe climate-clean fuel supply sufficient to keep them going for decades with no problem, and 80% of the population is opposed to using it.

And with the water shortages I hear are normal there, those reactors could use waste heat to power desalination facilities and produce clean drinking water. With probably fewer ambient radionuclides than are naturally occuring in the incoming seawater supply.

I suppose the NIMBYs can meanwhile be persuaded to move next to coal-fired power plants. Right.

Andy · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 16, 2004 Posts: 519

Of all industrial countries in the world with possibly the exception of Canada, Australia does not need to burn fossil or nuclear fuels for energy. These nuclear salesmen will stop at nothing to expand their market. Think about it, Australia has more square miles of desert per inhabitant than any other industrial country. Australia has a world class wave resource, good wind resource in many high population areas and with use of gasification technology, could have orders of magnitude lower impact coal. (Moral of story: If we use coal, we must use gasification technology preferably with geosequestration)

I would take an IGCC coal plant beside me any day versus any scale nuclear plant. The catastrophic risk from terrorism, war or simple malfunction and its associated impacts simply do not exist with any other energy generation technology. You can argue until you are blue, that is a simple fact. The ongoing health costs to downwind, downriver, downlake etc. inhabitants from continuing low-level releases of Pl, Sr etc. etc. are also an issue though the issue is vigorously debated and controversial within the scientific community.
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For ionizing radiation “…the human epidemiological evidence establishes—by any reasonable standard of proof—that there is no safe dose or dose-rate…the safe-dose hypothesis is not merely implausible—it is disproven.” Dr. J.W. Gofman 4

BrazilianPO · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:44 am Post subject: Re: Australia going nuclear

Andy · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 16, 2004 Posts: 519

SHiFTY · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 171

Andy · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 16, 2004 Posts: 519

No, it does not boil down to a choice between coal and nuclear. If you get away from the centralized energy mindset, you will see that distributed energy can take a lot of the load.

Let's do a little math here. It is conservatively estimated that the scope for efficiency in electricity use is at least 25 - 30% of current supply even accounting for demand growth. Right away, you do not have to generate 30 out of every 100 units currently generated. That leaves 70 units for us to find. Now wind can generate about 20% of the present supply without major issues, especially if a lot of CC gas is used or if we go the route of IGCC coal. Because the capacity for 100 units currently exists, if that capacity is maintained, wind can then supply 20% *100/70 = 28.5% of future supply or nearly 30%.

Now, solar tends to supply power during the high demand daylight period thus somewhat matching load and can supply evening loads if concentrating solar thermal with 5 - 8 hours low cost heat storage is built. Right away, you have another 10 - 15% of supply. Add in distributed photovoltaic on rooftops using upcoming technology like concentrators and thin film and you have the effect of daylight load appearing to the grid to be reduced by another 10 - 15%

All in all, gas, coal will only be required for about 40% of current supply and as new storage techniques become available, that percentage can be gradually reduced. Remember too that Australia has OTEC potential in the northeast, north and northwest and you should know OTEC is base load, just like nuclear, further reducing storage requirements. Add wave, whose power is generated many times out of phase with wind and storage needs are further reduced.

Just another point of clarification, the land requirements for solar are about equal to nuclear when the mines for uranium are included, the processing facilities are included and the proposed repositories are included. There are of course no land requirements for OTEC floaters.

We will agree to disagree on tritium, its effects and natural versus anthropogenic effects as well as strontium, plutonium etc.

On the scale up, you must be aware that the main limitation to scale up is storage. Physically, wind, solar etc. can be deployed just as fast as nuclear. Last year, over 11,000 MW of wind was installed worldwide and theindustry is nowhere near maturity. The expectation this year is 15,000 MW or about 4- 5 nukes. By 2020, I would not be surprised if 40 - 50,000 MW were being installed yearly worldwide. That is just wind!!!!!!

Same for solar but everything 10 years behind wind. Same for waves etc.
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For ionizing radiation “…the human epidemiological evidence establishes—by any reasonable standard of proof—that there is no safe dose or dose-rate…the safe-dose hypothesis is not merely implausible—it is disproven.” Dr. J.W. Gofman 4

ubercynicmeister · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:40 pm Post subject: Re: Australia going nuclear

This is one of the best distractions that the Howard Govt has ever thought of: Get people's minds off the high price of fuel by....UM, can anyone think of an issue likely to attract plenty of publicity?

OH, I've got it...NUCLEAR!!!

Yep, let's all pretend we're interested in nuclear power.

Problem with nuclear power: We got PLENTY O' electricity genewration capacity, but our power transmission lines are stuffed.

What we are running out of is CHEAP OIL. As far as I am aware (others my be able to correct me, here): Nuclear reactors produce...electricity...don't they? I cannot recall any nuclear installation that produced an "oil-sustitute"....anyone?

We're not running out of cheap electricity...we're running out of CHEAP OIL...so, let's distract people from what we really ARE running out of, by providing them with a false debate on what we a NOT running out of.

The "irony" (Killjoy, there's your favourite word, again!) is that the Greenies may well have helped the nuclear industry to distract everyone from the flop of Economic Ratioanlism's / Freemarket Fundamentalism's / Globalisation's complete lack of Peak Oil preparedness.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

We.

Need.

An.

Oil.

Substitute.

Not.

More.

Electricity.
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"To Get Rich you have to:

*Get up early;

*Work Hard;

*Strike Oil"

J Paul Getty

matt21811 · Heavy Crude Joined: May 21, 2005 Posts: 174

ubercynicmeister,
your oil replacement in Australia is called Ethanol.
It should be made from sugar cane and waste heat from a coal or nuclear power plant.

thor · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 453

Austrialia has a very low population density and enjoys perfect conditions for large scale solar, wind and geothermal alternatives. There is no need to go nuclear.

matt21811 · Heavy Crude Joined: May 21, 2005 Posts: 174

Thor,
Australia enjoys a large natural supply of Uranium and large, geologically stable, already irradiated areas for waste storage.
The is no need to go large scale solar, wind and geothermal.

BTW, where is the geothermal in Australia? Moree?

thor · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 453