Is nuclear the answer?

[nabraxas]

Nuclear power is not the answer

to tackling climate change or security of supply, according to

the UK's Sustainable Development Commission.

In response to the Government’s current Energy Review, the SDC nuclear report draws together the most comprehensive evidence base available, to find that there is no justification for bringing forward a new nuclear power programme at present. The report, Nuclear power in a low carbon economy, has been agreed by all 16 SDC commissioners.

Based on eight new research papers, the SDC report gives a balanced examination of the pros and cons of nuclear power. Its research recognizes that nuclear is a low carbon technology, with an impressive safety record in the UK. Nuclear could generate large quantities of electricity, contribute to stabilising CO2 emissions and add to the diversity of the UK’s energy supply.

However, the research establishes that even if the UK’s existing nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only give an 8% cut on CO2 emissions by 2035 (and nothing before 2010). This must be set against the risks.

The report identifies five major disadvantages to nuclear power:

1. Long-term waste – no long term solutions are yet available, let alone acceptable to the general public; it is impossible to guarantee safety over the long-term disposal of waste.

2. Cost – the economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain. There is little, if any, justification for public subsidy, but if estimated costs escalate, there’s a clear risk that the taxpayer will be have to pick up the tab.

3. Inflexibility – nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised distribution system for the next 50 years, at exactly the time when opportunities for microgeneration and local distribution network are stronger than ever.

4. Undermining energy efficiency – a new nuclear programme would give out the wrong signal to consumers and businesses, implying that a major technological fix is all that’s required, weakening the urgent action needed on energy efficiency.

5. International security – if the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we cannot deny other countries the same technology*. With lower safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks.

On balance, the SDC finds that these problems outweigh the advantages of nuclear. However, the SDC does not rule out further research into new nuclear technologies and pursuing answers to the waste problem, as future technological developments may justify a re-examination of the issue.

*Under the terms of the Framework Convention on Climate Change

Webpage

& yet Mr Blair (& now Howerd) ignores this advice & continues to push nuclear power as the only way forward.

[Auxin]

Naturally they will totally ignore this and continue in constructing their Highly experimental breeder reactor designed by my country (and not built here because an accident would wipe out tens of millions of people).

The US, UK, and Australia- proudly working together to make europe into a uninhabitable nuclear wasteland

[Dirty Old Man]

Naturally they will totally ignore this and continue in constructing their Highly experimental breeder reactor designed by my country (and not built here because an accident would wipe out tens of millions of people).

The US, UK, and Australia- proudly working together to make europe into a uninhabitable nuclear wasteland

Would it really wipe out tens of millions of people? It might expose tens of millions to higher than background radiation levels in the case of an accident.

[nabraxas]

Background Radiation: A slippery slope which slides up whenever the nuclear industry slips up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (Department of the Air Force, 1957, 1962), the lifetime radiation dose from "natural sources" is given as 10 rem (10,000 mrem).

A 1973 book titled Nuclear Energy: Its Physics and its Social Challenge (by David Rittenhouse Inglis, Addison-Wesley Publishing, page 130), Table 5-1: Radiation Exposure in the United States, gives radiation as 193.2 mrem per year: 126.0 mrem from "natural sources" and 67.2 mrem from "man-made" sources. The table was based on the 1963 report of the Federal Radiation Council and adapted from I. Asimov and T. Dobzhansky, Ref. 6.

In 1976, the average "natural" background radiation was 88 mrem a year, according to a March 8th, 1976 EPA report by Gertrude Dixon (referred to in NO NUKES, by Anna Gyorgy & Friends (1979, page 80)).

In 2002, the average background radiation dose in America is claimed to be about 320 mrem to 360 mrem; about half of this (160 mrem to 180 mrem) is said to be from "natural" sources, at least in San Diego County where this writer lives, as published in the local North County Times.

Webpage

[Dirty Old Man]

Point taken: Background radiation levels appear to have doubled in th e last 30 years.

My point is even the exposure increased 10 or 100 fold the resulting health implications are negligible. The respiratory health risks associated with fossil fuel power generation far outweigh them.

I am not advocating nuclear power, but I try to keep a realistic view on the risks/benefits. Although expensive, I think a combination of wind, solar, tidal and geothermal power generation is the answer.

[Auxin]

Would it really wipe out tens of millions of people? It might expose tens of millions to higher than background radiation levels in the case of an accident.

Breeder reactors are well known to have a extremely high potential for the china syndrome in the event of a major meltdown (because they can keep producing their own plutonium on the fly). Imagine 10+ chernobyl reactors being tossed into a volcano a few seconds before it erupts- thats what the new generation breeder reactors would be like in a meltdown.

[Dirty Old Man]

China syndrome is a myth.

Sure Fast breeder reactors are more prone to meltdown accidents, but are the consequences of a meltdown really that much worse than on a more conventional water cooled reactor?

Why do you say "10+ chernobyl reactors being tossed into a volcano a few seconds before it erupts"? This would only be the case if there was 10+ times as much material? The only extra material would be the blanket of U238 rods surrounding the core.

I might be wrong, but I am guessing that the consequneces of a fast breeder reactor explosion would not be as bad as they are typically cooled by liquid metals rather than water. Vaporised water would probably spread fallout over a much greater distance then something like lead or potassium.

[Cptn Insane'O]

Howard is only in it for the cash, and to keep his buddies in controll of the energy. Does he do anything good for Australian people? The sooner we vote his scamming ass out, the better for everyone, for now and way way way into the future. Vote green I say. That Bob Brown is an absolute Champion!!!

[Rev]

Finding a way to build human economic structures on models that dont require propping up by infinite growth is the answer

[trixxy3]

I like the points Peter Garrett brought up on JJJ about how america is still having trouble finding places to store its nuclear waste, some 40 years after it began its nuclear program (???). Even from a political standpoint about whos electorate the waste would go into and the catfighting that would bring amongst politicians, while entertaining, wouldn't be good.

Probably my biggest concern is that if every major energy consuming country goes nuclear to a large degree, the level of background radiation will not just increase slightly but dramatically. I assume it'd be everywhere in minute degrees, get into the food chain, like levels of mercury have done in fish recently, and you got humans consuming this slightly contaminated stuff, causing what damage over time, who knows.

There has to be a decent use for uranium and nuclear power somewhere along the line, but I'm uncertain whether it is wise to use it as a major energy source, perhaps small quantities like the current structure, mixed in with a lot of other load of biodiverity energy sources. That would be good, but extremely costly.

[Alice]

i always thought that it was better to use nuclear power than to burn fossil fuels. because, even tho nuclear waste is nasty shit, the volume of nuclear waste produced per unit energy is far, far smaller than the the CO2 etc spewed into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels....

i must emphasise that i know very little about this topic... but this is my perception of the situation...

so please people, feel free to educate me here

and lets just ignore sustainable energy production for a moment and focus on which of these 2 (fossil fuels vs nuclear) is the better option (given the reluctance of those in power to switch to wind, water, solar etc)

just how much nuclear waste (tonnes) would be generated if australia was powered entirely by nuclear energy?

and how much CO2 and other fossil fuel pollutants would be generated from powering australia entirely by fossil fuels for the year?

if the volume of nuclear waste is so very small, then why all the fuss about burying it in the desert or something? i know that it remains radioactive for an extremely long time, but isn't a couple of barrels of nuclear waste burried 1km under the ground better than spewing billions of tonnes of CO2 into the air?

[occidentalis]

At current levels of demand, there is around 250 years of uranium available. Of this, there is approximately 50 years worth of high grade ore (0.1% uranium) with the quality become lesser as time goes on, until it gets down to 0.01% at which point the energy economics of mining and processing becomes unsustainable. At that point it is better to burn the deisel used in mining equipment for electricity because you will have a net loss if you use it to mine the ore. Again, these figures are for current rates of use.

If nuclear energy really is going to provide a way of avoiding fossil fuel dependence, then we will have to replace some of our fossil fuel powered generation systems with nuclear powered ones. This means that the rate of uranium use will increase by between 3 and 10 times depending on the scenario. That leaves us with between 85 and 25 years of uranium deposits available.

Why bother? At some point, we will need to become a renewable energy society anyway, and that point is not very far in the future.

[devance]

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

Oklo: Natural Nuclear Reactors

It came as a great surprise to most, therefore, when, in 1972, French physicist Francis Perrin declared that nature had beaten humans to the punch by creating the world’s first nuclear reactors. Indeed, he argued, nature had a two-billion-year head start.1 Fifteen natural fission reactors have been found in three different ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. These are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors.2

[Auxin]

China syndrome is a myth.

Sure Fast breeder reactors are more prone to meltdown accidents, but are the consequences of a meltdown really that much worse than on a more conventional water cooled reactor?

Why do you say "10+ chernobyl reactors being tossed into a volcano a few seconds before it erupts"? This would only be the case if there was 10+ times as much material? The only extra material would be the blanket of U238 rods surrounding the core.

When the reaction went out of controll that blanket of U238 would Rapidly start converting to plutonium- thats how a breeder works, the U238 is converted to plutonium on the fly in a controlled fashion when the reaction is controlled, in meltdown it would run wild.

China syndrome isnt a myth, it just wouldnt produce a volcano- in a bad meltdown the fissile material could potentially hit the water table and the blast of steam would spread fallout into the atmosphere.

Also, as you said, there is a ton of U238 in breeders- while not drastically radioactive it is a hevy metal poison very destructive to the kidneys and known to cause birth defects.

Lastly the experimental european breeder will be bigger than chernobyl was.

i always thought that it was better to use nuclear power than to burn fossil fuels. because, even tho nuclear waste is nasty shit, the volume of nuclear waste produced per unit energy is far, far smaller than the the CO2 etc spewed into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels....

Hemp is quite efficient at removing CO2 from the ecosystem whereas nuclear waste 'disposal' is a myth.

if the volume of nuclear waste is so very small, then why all the fuss about burying it in the desert or something? i know that it remains radioactive for an extremely long time, but isn't a couple of barrels of nuclear waste burried 1km under the ground better than spewing billions of tonnes of CO2 into the air?

Its not a few barrels, its millions of tons of nuclear waste. I live by a reactor and know folks on the inside, small spills are commonplace, several years ago Over 10,000 gallons of nuclear waste leaked from the underground storage tanks and hit the water table (that waste is now inching its way to the second largest river in north america which empties into the pacific- due to ocean currents your grandchildrens generation will be swimming in this waste). Historically at this site they even dumped waste into open air trenches and reverse pumped it into wells! thinking that in a desert there is no water table and now the annual brushfires cause an increase in background radiation because a sizeable chunk of desert is radioactive.

Moreover a byproduct of the site I live near is depleted UF6 which is used to make weapons of mass destruction for use in foreign wars.

The human race is neither technologically advanced enough nor moral enough for safe use of nuclear energy.

[devance]

I think radiation or simular might be the selective factor for survival.

Thats assuming one would want too.

Only colleges students are so optimistic.

[botanika]

Yeah the shits bad for the environment, so are wind turbines killing birds and solar panels that require some level of manufacturing...but until we stop wanting ipod nano's and lcd big screen TV's to watch footy the stuff will be mined, used and burried and any future renewable energies will still be sold to us by thirsty corporations. I dont like Howard either but its not his fault, the australian people voted him in and kept him in. We sell raw materials to buy products we want - supply and demand. As a nation we spend more time reading newspapers full of ads about real estate, cars, the footy and electronics than renewable energies and how we can live together more sustainably or safely.

[Rev]

trust howard to bring up a non issue to engage debate whilst more sneaky legislation is slipped through

parliament

by god the intellectual portrait of this country is like the old 'his masters voice ' pictures

its a NON-ISSUE!

of course nuclear energy is fucked!

we already know this

how dimwitted are we?????????

greenhouse versus nuclear is like

"oh yeah lets lower the carbs in our diet and eat radium instead"

Its unlikely climate change will make the world unliveable, just less comfortable

and though it may detsroy some ecosystems and most current civilisations we can be assured humanity will persist (we made it through a bloody ice age didnt we! and thrived!)

the same cannot be said of major nuclear disasters

[Endrogen]

Why bother? At some point, we will need to become a renewable energy society anyway, and that point is not very far in the future.

Nuclear energy would be a valid option if we had already invested in it. But it seems it is all to easy to follow the world trend and sign those contracts. It sucks that future energy sources havn't been considered and nuclear will be hastily implemented.

if the ITER Organisation is established in 2006, the first plasma should be possible in ITER by the end of 2016

[SaBReT00tH]

IMO, they already have renewable energy sources, including ones which run off the earth's infinite gravity (something to do with the earth's electromagnetic fields). I've talked to an old Polish man from Adelaide who used to teach physics at an elite Adelaide private school, and who was interviewed by the Discovery channel because he apparently has invented one of the only proven toy cars which runs purely on gravity and won't run out of power. I believe the higher authorities just choose not to release these types of energy into the mainstream yet because it'll destroy their 100 billion dollar crude oil and nuclear companies they own, and of course the introduction of a nuclear power station isn't even related to this, it's most probably and definitely going to be used to manufacture nukes so George Bush's Sheriff John Howard can have some of his own in case 'terrorists' attack us, LoL!! That reminds me of that Lone Gunmen episode where they discover a car which runs on water which a genius invented and was assasinated by secret agents working for oil companies, lol!!

NovUs 0rD0 SecL0rUm!!!!

P.S. This old polish man remarkably told me of a miracle invention created by an inventor in Poland which is a bumper bar for cars which reverberates the energy force of objects it hits, so if you are driving that car and you crash at 100kM per hour, the impact may be only 20kM per hour for example. He was telling me how lots of people were trying to silence and destroy this project because if it was released everyone would want one and car insurance companies, medical insurance, etc would be destroyed as there wouldn't be many more accidents and people wanting these types of insurances.

Edited May 24, 2006 by SaBReT00tH

[occidentalis]

trust howard to bring up a non issue to engage debate whilst more sneaky legislation is slipped through

parliament

That's it

Howard knows that the workers who got him in last election are realising that he's shafted them with the IR 'reforms'. If this is publically discussed in the lead up to the next election then labor will get a foothold. His own words: "Nuclear power is an excellent wedge for the left".

[Cptn Insane'O]

As a nation we spend more time reading newspapers full of ads about real estate, cars, the footy and electronics than renewable energies and how we can live together more sustainably or safely.

The newspapers and TV stations (except SBS perhaps) are strongly biased in Howard's favor (even ABC has to keep on his good side). Ever wondered why people like Packer and Murdoch are so keen to dominate the media. Its so they can make you believe what they want you to believe. These businessmen make much more money under a Liberal system than a Labour system. They are parisites on our society! so they will show Howard as a strong, popular leader-always smiling and rubbing sholders with powerful leaders, and make Beasley (for instance) seem second rate. They air non-issues such as the nuclear debate rather than the other issues people would object to. They will give Howard his full say and the other parties incoherent snippets. They manage to give the impression that all is well and good under Howard and everyone is happy, when like a parisite, Howard is sucking dry the wealth of our society. What's the first thing Howard did when he had controll of the senate? He brings out the Industrial relations reforms. What australian would want a pay decrease? Who is Howard working for? Not the people that's for sure. Howard is power hungry! he dissolved ATSIC, he brought in voluntary student unionism, he is making it illegal to strike and illegal to speak out against him (sedition). The list goes on. He basically spends most of his time grasping for power and controll and what does he do that we would want? How did this meaniac get in??? VIA THE MEDIA. THAT'S HOW!

The war in IRAQ...Howard was straight in for that. To secure the oil, the POWER. They just couldn't wait for an opportunity to get in there and grab that oil. But by using FEAR we are all led to believe that they needed to topple Saddam because he was going to attack us. Next it will be Iran. We are not at war with our muslim friends, we are at peace! But Our leaders are making war with them. Binladen is a dick because he also starts war. He is just like our leader- a murderer! It only takes a couple of dicks to start a war.

What goes around comes around and if we go in starting war it will come back on us good australian people! All because Howard and Bush etc were trying to scam some Oil. They F#%ed that up and now we're paying more than ever at the bowser. Howard killed in my name, that makes me responsible...I'm not cool with that are you? I hear we just lost our wheat contract with Iraq. That's a lot of aussie farmers missing out thanks to Howard's scamming ass. What goes around comes around! Do we want a scammer like binladen sorry, Howard loose at the wheel? He is only in the job thanks to the media's powers of deception and manipulation.

Anyway, on a positive note, anyone noticed Howard is starting to show signs of becoming senile? Yes, actually loosing his mind, time for him to call it a day. Funny how Murdoch now reckons it's time for Howard to move on.

To wrap this up I say be very critical of the info you get and what the source is. Chances are its totally biased toward Howard in every way. I say vote Howard's scamming ass out and vote Green in! The Greens say No War, No Nuclear reactors, Yes to conservation of our natural wealth, and who is going to bring on Hemp Crop in Aus? You guessed it it's that Bloody champion BOB BROWN!!! So wear your thongs to the voting booths this election and Vote Green, They're as Australian as a beer at a BBQ.

[Dirty Old Man]

The newspapers and TV stations (except SBS perhaps) are strongly biased in Howard's favor....

I couldn't agree more. Although, in my opinion they are biased towards labor under a labor government but nowhere near as much.

Just read an interesting fact:

If you don't factor in the radioactive waste produced (which needs to be stored safely for a few million years), nuclear power stations release of a few grams of radioactive material per year into the atmosphere. A coal burning powerstation releases a few tons of radioactive material per year. The thousands of tons of coal burnt each year are loaded with impurities, including lots of uranium and thorium. The smoke stacks ensure this is spread over great distances.

[occidentalis]

A coal burning powerstation releases a few tons of radioactive material per year. The thousands of tons of coal burnt each year are loaded with impurities, including lots of uranium and thorium. The smoke stacks ensure this is spread over great distances.

Yes apparently if it was feasible to extract the uranium from coal and use that in fission it would generate more energy than just burning the coal!

[Dirty Old Man]

Yes apparently if it was feasible to extract the uranium from coal and use that in fission it would generate more energy than just burning the coal!

Wow, thats pretty amazing!

[Rev]

They talk the talk but will our first new plant be built in view of parliamnet house?

and will the waste be stored in johnnies electorate?