With present policies Australia has no chance of reducing our C02 emissions by anywhere near 80 per cent by the year 2050. Before I explain why, I should say that I am a greenhouse sceptic taking the view that it is very unlikely that CO2 is having a major effect on changing climate. However, due to the extreme consequences of a potential large rise in temperature, I believe it is prudent to take reasonable and sensible measures to reduce C02 emissions.
Australia has got its head in the sand on two major issues that make the task of meeting our commitments virtually impossible. These are (a) we have a rapidly growing population and (b) we have no technology at hand today to achieve the targets except nuclear power which the government refuses to consider.
Read the complete article by Peter Ridd here http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7158&page=1
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So nukes are emission free? What about mining the uranium?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23436543-421,00.html
“BHP Billiton will need nearly half of South Australia’s current electricity supply to power its vastly expanded Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine.
The mining company wrote to potential suppliers this month revealing that power demand for the mine was expected to top 690megawatts when it reaches full production in 10 years.”
So where is the power going to come from – I guess we will need to build a nuclear reactor to supply the power. Maybe BHP can fund it.
from Benny Peiser:
A two-day bilateral summit is to culminate today with the signing of a new accord that will see France help the UK develop a new generation of nuclear power stations. Speaking on Tuesday on the eve of Sarkozy’s arrival, UK Business Minister John Hutton said he wanted Britain to become “the number one place in the world for companies to do business in new nuclear”.
–EurActiv, 27 March 2008
The revelation that Britain is to collaborate with France – which generates 79% of its electricity from nuclear stations – on future projects reinforces the sense that Britain is about to enter a new nuclear age. “It’s just like the late 50s and 60s when nuclear was being promoted as a source of free energy,” said John Large, a nuclear industry consultant. “Now it is being heralded as something to save the world.”
–Terry Macalister, The Guardian, 22 March 2008
Senior German energy executives warned yesterday that Europe’s biggest economy faces growing blackouts unless it follows the Franco-British lead in promoting new nuclear power stations. As commentators said Germany risked being left behind, Wulf Bernotat, E.ON chief executive, said the country could face an electricity shortage of 12 to 21 gigawatts (GW), according to official estimates from the German energy agency (Dena).
–David Gow, The Guardian, 24 March 2008
Worldwide there were 435 nuclear power reactors in operation at the end of 2006, totalling 370 GW(e) of generating capacity. In 2006 nuclear power supplied about 15% of the world’s electricity. Nuclear electricity generation in Western Europe in the low projection drops by almost 60% between 2005 and 2030, as projected retirements consistently outpace new construction. But nuclear power generation in the Far East grows by 80%, and in Eastern Europe by almost 50%. In the high projection, nuclear generation grows in all regions.
–Nuclear Technology Review 2007
Italy is probably the only country in the world that has dismantled by law the existing nuclear plants. It was the result of a referendum against nuclear power that was held twenty years ago and that led to the stopping of all nuclear energy activities in the country. In contrast to the case of Italy, France is engaged in the most ambitious nuclear program in the whole world, achieving the maximum ratio of nuclear energy to total electric power production, near 80%. France has 63 GWe of installed nuclear power, 58 reactors over 19 sites. Electricity prices in France remain low thanks to the huge past investments in nuclear power. French Families and small firms pay for electricity very low rates, nearly half than what Italians have to pay.
–Eugenio Saraceno, The Oil Drum, 25 March 2008
Politicians will need to have the courage to tell their citizens that the era of cheap electricity, cheap car petrol, cheap flights and holidays is over and finished. Will our political systems be resilient and visionary enough to deliver such messages and the required political action? Or will we have to wait until economic and ecological collapse will force sustainability upon us?
–Willy de Backer, 3e Intelligence, 26 March 2008
I am a bit ambivalent about Nuclear. To me it is bad for Australia because of the water usage. We should reall be trying to find sources of energy that don’t use water.
How viable do people see hot rock geothermal? We see a lot of it written about here in WA, but so far no action. Any ideas?
can a nuclear power plant be cooled with salt water/sea water?
I dont think water is a problem for nuclear if you locate them on or near the coast. Not sure of this, but I think the Nukes in France & UK are mainly on the coast for that reason.
Deep Geothermal could be called a frontier technology, I don’t think there is one in operation anywhere. Like most “frontier technologies” it might have about a 20%-30% chance. Very dependent on specific characteristics of each hot rock source.
Even though it’s a proven option I don’t think nuclear will get up in Australia – the Government will need a few years to reverse its view, then a few more to convince the public then another 10 or 15 to build the reactors.
There’s a lot of interest in geothermal – Tim Flannery, for one, is enthusiastic.
Solar Thermal may be a good option too as it is made more economically viable by the addition of storage (unlike photovoltaics). The ACT Government will consider it for a possible local power plant.
I’m hoping that the ACT Government doesn’t waste too much public money with its upcoming PV feed-in tarrif proposal.
Ender, maybe BHP could use photovoltaics for the 690 MW – assuming they only want to mine during the day that is.
If any of you can work out why the earth rotates, (it speeds up and slows down too and that is related to sunspot activity and other solar factors) then the answer to finding future energy seems not all that difficult.
Jen, BillC and Mr T – I’ve read somewhere that locating nuclear power plants near the coast and using salt water as a coolant actually results in a useful by-product – fresh water.
And I’m all in favour of geothermal as well but I believe that given the relative lack of hot rocks near the coast, lack of water is likely to be a more significant issue than with nuclear energy.
I agree, those pushing nuclear in Australia are flogging a dead horse, time to move on. Interesting how Italy has no nukes and buys most of its power from France, thats the way it goes.
Geothermal has been trialled for some time (decades) – the results dont always match the expectations unless you are parked over a hot spring or a fault line.
New technology in deep drilling has expanded the field of geothermal and this seems to have the most potential. However these developments will take time and power is needed now.
Open ended sea water cooling is controversial, the plants are usually located near estuaries and the heated discharge does great damage to breeding grounds. Better of to have a closed system but that would cost extra.
Mr T,To me it is bad for Australia because of the water usage.
Build an air cooled one then. When I worked in a power station there wasn’t much water usage as it was recycled. Same goes for nuclear reactors. The technology has improved a bit since the 50s and if it’s attached to a desalination plant – that problem solved.
My personal preference is for integral fast reactors they can be made passively safe (inherently safe is better but they are run sub-critical and out put is low) and they can run on recycled waste fuel. This of course solves to a great extent of what to with it and possibly existing stores of it and lengthens fuel life.
Jennifer: can a nuclear power plant be cooled with salt water/sea water?
They can and in cooling the core (often indirectly) it gets heated it can then be passed on to the desalinator whose high energy usage has to do with heating the water. It’s a concept that has probably crossed the mind of nuclear engineers but I’m not sure it has been seriously considered by members of the wider engineering community that would need to be involved. The IFR I mentioned above uses liquid sodium as a core coolant that is intern cooled by water to me it seems feasible.
Water though is not a favourite means of direct cooling the core because of higher risk of runaway.
New Paper from the Virtual World: Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Emissions
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002801.html
It might be an idea to understand how light water nuclear reactors actually work, (If I can find the paper describing it quickly) but LWR’s rely on water to moderate the nuclear reaction and loss of water actually stops the fission. These reactors cannot produce weapons grade fuel.
Those that use graphite or other moderators have only one purpose – production of weapon grade fuel – and those should not be built.
Re: Paul’s stabilising climate
Now this has to be one of the more inane ideas floating about in the AGW sea of silliness.
Anything that is in a state of thermal
equilibrium is dead.
So if stabilising climate requieres near zero emissions, then that means that the current atmospheric CO2 level is optimum, (but for whom or what?) and that zero CO2 emissions requires elimination of biological CO2 emitters, or life in general.
This leads me to point to something that Ludvig Von Mises wrote, and which I reproduced in my latest Henry Thornton article “Thus, long before the current global warming scare, Mises wrote:
“Some philosophies … look upon life as an absolute evil full of pain, suffering, and anguish, and apodictically deny that any purposeful human effort can render it tolerable. Happiness can be attained only by complete extinction of consciousness, volition, and life.
The only way toward bliss and salvation is to become perfectly passive, indifferent, and inert like the plants”.
So it is one thing to be concerned about the possible impact of the sum of many tiny human actions on the climate of the planet on which we find ourselves, for this is entirely consistent with choosing life. It is quite another thing to presume that we are doomed unless, whatever we are doing, we stop doing it right now.
I have also heard there’s a potential for Thorium based reactors. Despite having most of the world’s Uranium in Australia it wouldn’t last that long if everyone starts using it. Thorium however is very abundant. I also heard it operates ‘cooler’ so there’s even less chance of meltdown.
Anyone heard anything about Thorium?
Fort St Vrain in Colorado was using thorium with carbon dioxide cooling in the 1970’s. Later decommissioned
There’s about 3 to 4 times as much Thorium as Uranium.
Of course you can use seawater to cool a fission power reactor. There is a good example between LA and San Diego. Smallish concrete dome, car park with a few cars in it and large power lines running from it. No cooling towers at all. Quite unobtrusive really.
Australia’s population is close to the coast so this would be a good solution
Running out of uranium is only a problem if you don’t recycle the fuel.
In the meantime Australia will continue to burn lots of coal unless we want to run out of electricity. This is a bad idea but not because of CO2.
“I agree, those pushing nuclear in Australia are flogging a dead horse, time to move on. Interesting how Italy has no nukes and buys most of its power from France, thats the way it goes.”
You simply cannot take that attitude rog. The main thing is to discredit the environmentalists and keep pushing. We need the nuclear plants all around the coast. All around the coast and hopefully a coal liquification plant next to them and a new container dock for all the small towns. We ought to start with Picton.
There is no need to discharge the water out to sea. You can have the nuclear plant as a desalination plant. You could build a lake a little ways inland to discharge into. The main thing is that the plants that run on steam turbines need cool sea water and hence nuclear plants are natural desalinators.
But on the other hand there are new generation plants on the books that need far less water. There is a plant where the cooling agent is helium.
http://gt-mhr.ga.com/
Politically speaking its just immensely damaging for anyone to go around conceding that the bad guys have won. Nothing in nuclear happens in less than ten years. Energy prices will keep climbing all that time and beyond and what would have seemed a difficult political hurdle a few years back will not seem that way a few years hence but we might be in so much pain as to make the investment hard to manage.
These nuclear plants can simply never become white elephants. Since excess energy could be drained off for hydrolysis to provide the hydrogen atoms to liquify our carbon-heavy hydro-carbon resources. And since the extra energy itself would promote a progressing economy and therefore the need for further energy-consumption.
We ought to have the goal of being the greatest consumers, producers and exporters, per capita, of energy that the world has ever seen. This will save millions of lives around the world and we are well-placed to do this.
“However, due to the extreme consequences of a potential large rise in temperature, I believe it is prudent to take reasonable and sensible measures to reduce C02 emissions.”
But surely such thinking has just been pummelled into you? We cannot allow this sort of thing to determine policy. The only risk is a cooling risk. A cooling certainty.
Even supposing I’m wrong. I’m not wrong and I don’t accept the premise that I could be wrong. But supposing I am wrong. We know what to do under that scenario:
You have your nuclear plant and your liquified-coal plant next to it. The coal is heated and the hydrogen fed in and the whole lot is gassified. Then the SO2, NO2 and CO2 are “scrubbed” out and seperated. The CO2 is marketed as an industrial coolant and agricultural enhancer.
The SO2 is now plentiful and cheap. Some is used to manufacture H2SO4 for industry. But it gets to be real cheap. So to cool the world all we’d do is pressurize this gas in little cannisters and manufacture thousands of cheap small rockets with this SO2 in them.
Then everytime a commercial Jumbo were flying over both open water and the equator we’d just fire one of these rockets to burst in the upper stratosphere.
The whole operation would be dirt-cheap and fullproof. And in any case there can never be significant warming until Antarctica moves another 1000 km’s one would think. And at the current rate of 1cm per year thats 100 million years.
” Despite having most of the world’s Uranium in Australia it wouldn’t last that long if everyone starts using it.”
How about ten million years? That not long enough for you?
Uranium is as abundant as Zinc or Magnesium. Its sheer abundance means that nuclear energy can never encounter the same sort of factor cost inflation that the other fuels will suffer from (particularly gas turbines which will all soon have white elephant status).
When environmentalists talk about “sustainability” they are just engaging in ritualised lying and undermining national sovereignty and property rights.
But authentic sustainability has Uranium attached to it. Its ecologically irresponsible not to get nuclear off the ground asap.
If we were to outlaw restrictions to nuclear and outlaw height restrictions on buildings…. any talk of resource scarcity or population problems would soon become ridiculous.
“can a nuclear power plant be cooled with salt water/sea water?”
Most of them are. In fact if the water is too warm in the ocean this will retard their ability to produce energy in some regions since they have to keep things under a certain temperature.
Nuclear power plants are natural dedalinators when it comes down to it. The epitome of sustainability. Supplying fresh water, electricity, hydrogen for turning coal liquid or all the way to methane if we want it.
Or they could form the basis for getting fuels out of gassifying/liquifying carbon from all our trash.
The key to these processes is having enough heat to get up past 1200 degrees celsius and then being able to add hydrogen.
See you have your heavy water which keeps circulating and your sea water which you are running through to cool the heavy water. And so with the sea water you are going to get heaps of evaporation if you want it that can be redirected like a still. They usually just let all the water vapour up into the air.
New ones using helium as the coolant rather than heavy water. But one supposes you will still want the sea water cooling the helium. But the helium design can function at much higher heat.
There’s nothing we cannot do with these things. We’d wind up so famously rich we’d be reclaiming the deserts with underground piping that sent all the water through at the roots level to avoid evaporation.
We have to replace the environmentalists stingy vision of weeds and wilderness with an expansive vision of land reclamation and glorius human-assisted biodiversity.
GB – all boring and who cares – we want to know about the 182. We want their names and addresses so we can arrest them for sedition. Was Rog your campaign manager?
In the interests of further showing what the genocidalist, weeds-and-wilderness vision must be replaced by ……… I’ll link a couple of things.
Imagine if there were no height restrictions on buildings anywhere and ubiquitous nuclear power. We see what is possible in terms of lushness and biodiveristy at any human population level.
This proposed building takes its biodiversity right up into the air.
Now check this other thing out. These people have lighting that is concentrated specifically in the range of light that is needed for photosynthesis.
http://www.superled.net/index.html
So there you are with your liquified-coal/trash and nuclear plants. You have all this CO2 collected. And you have heaps of electricity. You can grow as much stuff as you like indoors.
In the paddocks of reclaimed desert lands, you might have aeroponic grass-growing all day and all night with the help of this lighting in the night-time.
In aeroponics the roots are exposed, and a thin spray is going on in the glasshouse… enough to produce this constant lush-green grass that the cows just love. And these things produce aeroponic grass by the truckload. Better yet with a good cheap supply of CO2.
Here is one expert, not funded by Exxon, talking about the growing power of CO2.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3368.html
So we have to get used to lushness and abundance and quit this addiction to the environmentalists genocidal plans and world-view. We need to think of man surrounded by biodiversity rather than wildnerness without people.
Yes all good. Now off you go and arrange all that – report back when you’re about to start.
Whats that supposed to mean traitor? Its time to start naming and shaming. I’ve seen enough. You guys aint got anything. You are just betraying this country and its people. And some of them are my friends.
So Peter Ridd likes welfare. Well he must do seeing nuclear has been a huge recipient of subsidies and despite over 50 years of nuc power plants this shows no sign of abating.
Can anybody show me one nuclear power plant, anywhere, that has never received a government subsidy, or if it has has paid it back? Or put it another way can anyone show me a nuclear power plant that has ever turned a profit i.e. without welfare? Evidence required for any answers please.
At least Peter and I agree on one thing, as a ‘greenie’ (bad language!) I think over population is a problem but perhaps thats because he did physics and I did electrical engineering (same thing really).