Australian Nuclear discussions

[John Fedup]

WRT the cryosphere I recall a recent article that a mountain glacier in Italy is sliding down at a rate fast enough to prompt an evacuation of local villages. Time lapse photos of glaciers around the world are proof positive that climate change is happening so only the cause is being debated by some. Regarding nuclear versus renewable, clearly Australia has advantages for renewables compared to other regions. Whether the costs and ability to maintain base load are viable, that IMO is debatable. In Ontario, the former provincial government (Same party as junior's) embarked on green energy and enticed producers to invest by offering to pay 80 cents a kwhr compared to 4 cents for electricity from a CANDU reactor. The addtional infrastructure for transmission added to costs.

Nuclear has its problems here as well. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) says it needs 12 billion to expand and modernize Darlington NGS which really means 25 billion as every budget they submit ends up costing twice as much. It is difficult to build within budget when you have a regulatory agency demanding numerous design changes throughout the construction process. This seems to be the case for US and European programs as well. New commercial reactor designs from China and India might determine nuclear's eventual future from a fission perspective. Fusion is the ultimate solution but it's arrival has been "just around the corner" for decades now.

It would be interesting to know what kind of maintenance a Virginia nuclear reactor requires. This would pretty much determine if such a reactor would be suitable for a nation lacking a nuclear infrastructure. It requires no refuelling during its lifetime which is a huge plus. I doubt the US has much interest in expanding the technology beyond the US/UK.

 

[StingrayOZ]

I do think Hinkley is not a great example. I don't think its just Areva either as they have been able to do better else where. UK mega projects have a history of buggering up and these days its seems like the poms have enough trouble running a democracy.

The problem with this scenario is that there is nowhere to train nuclear engineers, where would the RAN find them?

Actually I think this isn't a huge issue.
You can do a Masters of nuclear engineering at UNSW today.
Nuclear Engineering

Also I don't think Australia would have any problem attracting nuclear engineers from the US, UK, Europe or say Argentina or further afield. We already have a core group of active nuclear technicians and engineers at ANSTO running our experimental reactor and in other science areas (the Syncotron). Even in my casual circle I can dig up two nuclear scientists/engineers that worked on UK subs, half a dozen nuclear techs and an IAEA inspector.

We have research refinement capability at ANSTO now, and we have worked out all the technology for laser enrichment and centrifuge technology. We already mine uranium ore.

However, I do think nuclear power will struggle in an open market. That isn't an impossible road block, if its identified strategically important to do so, no one has a commercially viable nuclear weapons program, it doesn't work that way. We are basically committing possibly up to $5 billion for Hydro 2.0. But Australia is just about perfect for solar and wind, it really is, and Australia is rolling out renewables faster per capita than anyone else on the planet has ever done. But nuclear could be useful to underpin 24/7 base line industry like aluminium smelters etc.

We could certainly do enrichment locally, and add value to our exports. We don't even need local nuclear power plants for that to occur. Doing so would give us the key technologies for SSN and uranium based nuclear weapons. We could overnight become one of the largest enriching nations on the planet, an energy superpower. Instead of just exporting bulk uranium ore, we could export ready to go fuel rods, on a lease basis, taking back spent fuel rods for processing. This would give us plenty of nuclear capability for what ever we wanted. We could then reprocess this and sell it back to customers, as most countries have pretty inefficient reactors.

For nuclear reactors, building smaller ones might be the go.. <500MW. Regional communities etc. Perth, Darwin, Alice, Broome, maybe Tassy, Antartica (if we establish a residential community there which I think is likely).

I am less convinced on SSN. While we have long transits, our concerns aren't really global. We don't really need our subs to patrol the Arctic, or the Atlantic, or South America. We don't really need to sustain 25+kts continuously. We would be quite happy to project power to the edge of the Indian ocean (Africa/Middle East/sub continent), Antarctic Ocean and across the Pacific and North to the South China Sea. Given Australia has turf in all of those locations or backing onto it, that is something we could do with big oceanic conventional subs. Big subs, that could take a reactor if we wanted them to. I just don't see it worth the cost, just build the very best diesel electric with lithium ion batteries, and that will be a game changer for a fraction of the cost, no issues like decommissioning (the UK hasn't actually broken up any of its SSN's, ever). They would be even quieter than SSN's, require less crewing, have unique capabilities.

 

[tonnyc]

I also want to point out that enrichment is not strictly necessary. The Canadian Deuterium-Uranium (CANDU) reactors that Canada uses runs fine with natural (unenriched) uranium and gets very good efficiency per tonne of unenriched uranium. Or you can feed it LEU and get very good output per tonne of LEU.

The drawback of CANDU is that it's designed to use heavy water (deuterium) as moderator because it's what allows it to use unenriched uranium and thus it's more expensive than ones that uses graphite. But hey, if one counts the investment in making an enrichment facility, it may prove more economical.

On the other hand, Australia does have the best uranium enrichment technology that is ironically not used anywhere in Australia. An Australian company whose name I forget has a laser-based enrichment method that's cheaper than the centrifuge method. This is licensed by a US company and they built the enrichment facility in the US since it's illegal to do so in Australia (or so I understand, IANAL).

From a military standpoint, even if we discount nuclear bombs, a nuclear-fueled ship or submarine does better with highly enriched uranium (HEU), since it allows a much longer time between refueling. Given the two factors (HEU as fuel and availability of uranium enrichment tech), Australia may want to invest in an enrichment facility anyway.

 

[StingrayOZ]

The technology is from a company called SILEX. Separation of isotopes by laser excitation - Wikipedia
The American program and plant had issues beyond commercial/tech viability. GE-T was basically bankrupt. The US wanted to re-enrich already depleted Uranium (yes, that is as dumb as it sounds).

Personally I think enrichment is a goer, and we can do anything with highly enriched uranium (SSN/Weapons etc), and export bulk low 20% enriched uranium.

I like the simplicity of the CANDU stuff, the deuterium could possibly come from SILEX (although I don't know if the process is ideal for something that light).

With HEU you can build a nice compact reactor fuelled for life for a sub. Or weapons. The HEU line wouldn't have to be massive. With weapons, we probably wouldn't need to deploy any in the current geopolitical state, just be a screw turn nuclear state.

We already have a pilot enrichment Silex facility in Sydney. So we would only need to "scale up slightly" what we already have.
GE fallout is Silex’s gain
Curious have much latent nuclear technology Australia seems to have lying around. It just isn't designed for large commercial enrichment, yet. We have been developing laser and centrifuge tech since the 1960's and are world leaders in both and only shut down centrifuge research in the early 2000's once we had perfected best tech.

Silex technology indicates a halving of enrichment costs. Fuel costs typically are ~30% of operation costs for a reactor.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...mmittees?url=isr/uranium/report/chapter12.pdf

Enriching locally in Australia would probably generate ~$10 billion a year. We provide 30% of the entire worlds supply of uranium. So leaving power generation out for Australia, enrichment would totally be profitable, particularly as we have a technology that makes it at half the cost. The Canadians are interested in partnering as well, possibly locking in ~60% of the market and doubling the refinement profits.

Something to think about as we move away from coal exports.

 

[John Newman]

@John Newman never say never. Have you been drinking the Fosters again? You know that stuff's not good for your guts.

The real point is that at some stage Australia may not have a choice about nuclear power and it may be either go down that road or return to the stone age and warm beer, or in Australia's case hot beer that even an esky won't keep cool in the slightest. You could have salties swimming in Sydney Harbour cobber. We're getting tropical fish in NZ now. The Greens, ALP & their union paymasters will have to swallow that dead rat, and don't worry we'll be having exactly the same conversation across the ditch too, and some of us will thoroughly enjoy some dead rats being swallowed by some pollies and associated organisations.

I am at present working my way through the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, but it'going to take some time because it's 1145 pages in length. The cryosphere is the snow and ice on the planet, and whilst most people when they think of climate change, they think of the atmosphere and sea level rise. Both the oceans (which cover 70% of the planet's surface) and the cryosphere are part of the hydrosphere which is all the planets water. Approximately 70% of the worlds freshwater is locked up in the cryosphere. It is these two which are causing concern at the moment because the heating processes in the ocean and increased uptake of atmospheric CO2, have changed both the pH levels causing phytoplankton and other sea life loss at the base of the food chain; and increasing ice melt means higher levels of freshwater and sediment entering the water column which changes the salinity. All these processes cannot be stopped because they have already started. However, what can be done is to mitigate the damage by reducing the amount of CO2 that the ocean absorbs, reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and importantly reduce the amount of ice mass loss so that we don't lose fresh water, and we don't lose any more albedo than we have too. The albedo is the planet's ability to reflect solar radiation back into space: too little and it gets too hot; too much it gets to cold. If there is too much cloud, debris, C02, CH6 (methane), acid droplets etc., in the atmosphere, then solar radiation is reflected back into space and the planet cools down.

Therefore, John a lot can and will change with govts, of all stripes, all over the world having to make some pretty hard decisions in the future and some will have to swallow some very large dead rats.

Right, you want a Benevolent Dictator, we'll export Jacinda to you soonish, and I am sure that @John Fedup will be keen to export his favourite pollie, Justin, as well. I am sure a couple of the pommy posters will export you Jeremy too.

Mate, I can never say never?

On the issue of the Left of Australian politics becoming pro Nuclear, then yes, I can 100% clearly and confidently say never, here's a bit of light reading of The Greens anti-Nuclear manifesto:

Nuclear and Uranium | The Australian Greens

It what alternate reality can you ever envisage them changing their spots? If the ALP ever took a jump to the right and started to favour Nuclear in any form, they would be at serious risk of becoming the 3rd political party because of mass defections of their left to The Greens. I simply can't imagine any circumstance that either the ALP or The Greens would support Nuclear.

As for the question of climate change (and Nuclear as a way of reducing carbon emissions) , even if one believed all the gloom and doom reports, what exactly can Australia do beyond what it is already doing?

The alarmists always like to point out that Australia is a high emitter of greenhouse gases, I agree, yes we certainly are on a per capita basis, we are a first world country after all, but it is the message that constantly gets thrown at the average Joe & Mary in the street to make them feel bad that we Australians are responsible for global climate change.

The stat that the alarmist don't talk about is that Australians only make up approx. 0.3% of the worlds population (eg, we are not the other 99.7%) and the last figure I saw was that Australia was responsible for approx. 1.3% of global green house gas emissions (eg, we are not responsible for the other 98.7%). Australia is pretty much a pimple on the elephants bum.

Sure we should all be cleaner and greener, and I think we are as a Nation becoming cleaner and greener, but even if you could somehow switch off Australia tomorrow, is it going to save the planet? Our 0.3% of the worlds population and our 1.3% of global emissions? I don't think so.

But hey, lets be radical, switch to Nuclear tomorrow, how much of our 1.3% of global emissions will disappear? 10%? 20%? 30% Maybe 40%? Not enough? Maybe we should ban cars? Ban air con? Ban street lights? Maybe stop immigration and also send the half a million plus Kiwis back across the ditch and they can become Jacinda's green house gas problem.

Anyway, just my opinion of course too.

Cheers,

PS, And no I haven't been drinking Fosters cats piss, seriously who drinks that $hit?

 

[Beam]

Mate, I can never say never?

On the issue of the Left of Australian politics becoming pro Nuclear, then yes, I can 100% clearly and confidently say never, here's a bit of light reading of The Greens anti-Nuclear manifesto:

Nuclear and Uranium | The Australian Greens

It what alternate reality can you ever envisage them changing their spots? If the ALP ever took a jump to the right and started to favour Nuclear in any form, they would be at serious risk of becoming the 3rd political party because of mass defections of their left to The Greens. I simply can't imagine any circumstance that either the ALP or The Greens would support Nuclear.

As for the question of climate change (and Nuclear as a way of reducing carbon emissions) , even if one believed all the gloom and doom reports, what exactly can Australia do beyond what it is already doing?

The alarmists always like to point out that Australia is a high emitter of greenhouse gases, I agree, yes we certainly are on a per capita basis, we are a first world country after all, but it is the message that constantly gets thrown at the average Joe & Mary in the street to make them feel bad that we Australians are responsible for global climate change.

The stat that the alarmist don't talk about is that Australians only make up approx. 0.3% of the worlds population (eg, we are not the other 99.7%) and the last figure I saw was that Australia was responsible for approx. 1.3% of global green house gas emissions (eg, we are not responsible for the other 98.7%). Australia is pretty much a pimple on the elephants bum.

Sure we should all be cleaner and greener, and I think we are as a Nation becoming cleaner and greener, but even if you could somehow switch off Australia tomorrow, is it going to save the planet? Our 0.3% of the worlds population and our 1.3% of global emissions? I don't think so.

But hey, lets be radical, switch to Nuclear tomorrow, how much of our 1.3% of global emissions will disappear? 10%? 20%? 30% Maybe 40%? Not enough? Maybe we should ban cars? Ban air con? Ban street lights? Maybe stop immigration and also send the half a million plus Kiwis back across the ditch and they can become Jacinda's green house gas problem.

Anyway, just my opinion of course too.

Cheers,

PS, And no I haven't been drinking Fosters cats piss, seriously who drinks that $hit?

Be interesting to see what The Greens' position would be on emerging thorium based nuclear power.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP0
708/08rp11

Thorium power generation | CommunityRun

 

[Black Jack Shellac]

Be interesting to see what The Greens' position would be on emerging thorium based nuclear power.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP0
708/08rp11

Thorium power generation | CommunityRun

Thorium is interesting, but it is not the fuel that makes it interesting, the underlying Molten Salt technology is quite interesting. I think it may be a good gen IV option - regardless if they run on Thorium or Uranium.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Mate, I can never say never?

On the issue of the Left of Australian politics becoming pro Nuclear, then yes, I can 100% clearly and confidently say never, here's a bit of light reading of The Greens anti-Nuclear manifesto:
Nuclear and Uranium | The Australian Greens

Are the greens left? Economically they seem pretty centre, and environmentally they backed Tony Abbott(!) on getting rid of the carbon tax/ETS scheme.

Shortly before the Senate was due to vote on the carbon bills, on 1 December 2009 Tony Abbott replaced Turnbull as leader of the Liberal Party.[21] Abbott immediately called a secret ballot on support for the ETS among coalition MPs, which was overwhelmingly rejected.[22] The Coalition then withdrew their support for the carbon pricing policy and joined the Greens and Independents in voting against the relevant legislation in the Parliament of Australia on 2 December 2009.[23] As the Rudd government required the support of either the Coalition or the Greens to secure passage of the bill, it was defeated in the Senate.

Carbon pricing in Australia - Wikipedia

On the left. Some unions are finding they could support nuclear.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...to-support-nuclear-power-20190919-p52t0e.html

Renewable will probably get rid of maybe 60-70% of emissions in a fairly straight forward way. However, remote communities, mining, ship transport etc are not easy things to solve with renewables. Aluminium smelters etc are such massive users, you probably want some base capacity to ensure supply. Why not on shore enrichment value adding and jobs to Australia? Nuclear is good for carbon emissions.

 

[ngatimozart]

Mate, I can never say never?

On the issue of the Left of Australian politics becoming pro Nuclear, then yes, I can 100% clearly and confidently say never, here's a bit of light reading of The Greens anti-Nuclear manifesto:

Nuclear and Uranium | The Australian Greens

It what alternate reality can you ever envisage them changing their spots? If the ALP ever took a jump to the right and started to favour Nuclear in any form, they would be at serious risk of becoming the 3rd political party because of mass defections of their left to The Greens. I simply can't imagine any circumstance that either the ALP or The Greens would support Nuclear.

As for the question of climate change (and Nuclear as a way of reducing carbon emissions) , even if one believed all the gloom and doom reports, what exactly can Australia do beyond what it is already doing?

The alarmists always like to point out that Australia is a high emitter of greenhouse gases, I agree, yes we certainly are on a per capita basis, we are a first world country after all, but it is the message that constantly gets thrown at the average Joe & Mary in the street to make them feel bad that we Australians are responsible for global climate change.

The stat that the alarmist don't talk about is that Australians only make up approx. 0.3% of the worlds population (eg, we are not the other 99.7%) and the last figure I saw was that Australia was responsible for approx. 1.3% of global green house gas emissions (eg, we are not responsible for the other 98.7%). Australia is pretty much a pimple on the elephants bum.

Sure we should all be cleaner and greener, and I think we are as a Nation becoming cleaner and greener, but even if you could somehow switch off Australia tomorrow, is it going to save the planet? Our 0.3% of the worlds population and our 1.3% of global emissions? I don't think so.

But hey, lets be radical, switch to Nuclear tomorrow, how much of our 1.3% of global emissions will disappear? 10%? 20%? 30% Maybe 40%? Not enough? Maybe we should ban cars? Ban air con? Ban street lights? Maybe stop immigration and also send the half a million plus Kiwis back across the ditch and they can become Jacinda's green house gas problem.

Anyway, just my opinion of course too.

Cheers,

PS, And no I haven't been drinking Fosters cats piss, seriously who drinks that $hit?

John, if you deport 1/2 million Kiwis back across the ditch you'll lower Australia's IQ dramatically. I agree that Australia isn't on the list of the biggest polluters; from memory China & US are at #1 & #2, however it's not about that, but mitigating the impacts that the global effects of climate change will have upon Australia. We aren't discussing causation here, but effect and the impacts that will have on human use systems. Like I said many pollies and groups are going to have to swallow some large dead rats in order to adjust to the changing climate. There are very few absolutes in nature and science, greenies and lefties having to accept nuclear power isn't one of them.

Are the greens left? Economically they seem pretty centre, and environmentally they backed Tony Abbott(!) on getting rid of the carbon tax/ETS scheme

In NZ they are rabid lefties.

Carbon pricing in Australia - Wikipedia

On the left. Some unions are finding they could support nuclear.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...to-support-nuclear-power-20190919-p52t0e.html

I note a bit of self interest with the AWU, but they do have a point.

 

[Ocean1Curse]

Post deleted by Moderator

@Ocean1Curse You have been on here long enough to know the RULES. No going OFF TOPIC and NO POLITICAL POSTS. You have already had one warning for this behaviour. This is a FINAL WARNING. Any more such posts and your future on here will be short. We are watching you.

Ngatimozart

 

[John Newman]

Are the greens left? Economically they seem pretty centre, and environmentally they backed Tony Abbott(!) on getting rid of the carbon tax/ETS scheme.

Carbon pricing in Australia - Wikipedia

On the left. Some unions are finding they could support nuclear.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...to-support-nuclear-power-20190919-p52t0e.html

Renewable will probably get rid of maybe 60-70% of emissions in a fairly straight forward way. However, remote communities, mining, ship transport etc are not easy things to solve with renewables. Aluminium smelters etc are such massive users, you probably want some base capacity to ensure supply. Why not on shore enrichment value adding and jobs to Australia? Nuclear is good for carbon emissions.

Mate, sorry but you are completely wrong about The Greens 'backing' Abbott, that is stretching the rubber band a bit too much.

The reason The Greens did not vote for the Rudd Government carbon tax in 2009 was because it didn't go far enough!

Greens will vote against ETS

The relevant quotes are:

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said his party, which holds five crossbench seats in the Senate, would vote against the emissions trading scheme if the target was just five per cent.

"We will be opposed to this legislation in the Senate," Senator Brown said.

Senator Brown said it appeared the Government was preparing for a double dissolution election, where members of both houses face the voters.

"My analysis is the chances are 20 per cent and increasing rapidly," he said.

"I think the government is lining up for the required moves for a potential double dissolution."

The Greens are seeking carbon reductions of 25 to 40 per cent by 2020

It wasn't a case of The Greens supporting Abbott, it was a case of not supporting the Rudd Government, two totally different things.

In 2011 The Greens subsequently supported Gillard in introducing a carbon tax, and in 2014 when it was repealed by Abbott, both The Greens and the ALP voted against the repeal.

Carbon tax repealed after Senate vote

The Greens supporting Abbott? Don't think so.


Regarding the point that some unions are finding they could support nuclear, yes I saw that report in the media, very progressive of the AWU, I congratulate them for trying to break free of the yoke, but lets be a bit more accurate too, it is one union, not unions to the best of my knowledge.


Whilst you and I appear to both support the establishment of a Nuclear industry, unfortunately the majority of the Left of this Country does not, and unfortunately I still believe that is where it starts and ends.

Unless the Left changes its anti-Nuclear spots, we will keep having this same circular argument for ever and a day.

Cheers,

 

[old faithful]

@John Newman in the interests of fairness etc., World Nuclear News is basically an industry body so there is somewhat of a bias in its reporting. Having said that, I do agree with your conclusion that at present there is no bipartisan or public support for an Australian nuclear industry, let alone RAN SSNs and that any discussion about SSNs in RAN service is really a waste of time until that dynamic changes.

However, having read the entrails of sheep, possums and wallabies, plus divined the dregs from the beer, rum and wine barrels, I have come to the following conclusion.

I would suggest that at some stage in the future (~20 years +/-10 years) Australia may have no choice, but to create a nuclear industry to support nuclear electricity generation plants as the climate in Australia becomes hotter and dryer, resulting in ever increasing demands for electricity to drive air-conditioning and cooling plants etc., that solar and other non coal, gas and hydrocarbon based generation capabilities cannot meet. If that is the case then SSNs in RAN service may not be so difficult an option to contemplate. My reasoning for this is that the Greens and the ALP left of centre to far left wingers may be forced to swallow a dead rat and choose between what they see as two Satans:

• Continue to burn coal to generate electricity, or
• Move to nuclear power generation.

Now which dead rat will they swallow, especially if there is no viable realistic cost effective third option?

But until something like this, or similar, happens this is just a hypothetical discussion - a what if and this topic doesn't need to be rehashed and beaten to death yet again.

EDIT: Just so that you touchy feely Aussies don't get upset, spit the dummy, toss all your toys out of the cot and severely stress your ticker, here in NZ both possums and wallabies, along with rabbits, stoats and weasels are pests to be eradicated on sight. We shoot 'em, trap 'em poison them, run 'em over, kill 'em any way we can. None of them are native to NZ, and they cause deleterious harm to our native flora and fauna.

What fauna?
Lol!

 

[John Newman]

John, if you deport 1/2 million Kiwis back across the ditch you'll lower Australia's IQ dramatically. I agree that Australia isn't on the list of the biggest polluters; from memory China & US are at #1 & #2, however it's not about that, but mitigating the impacts that the global effects of climate change will have upon Australia. We aren't discussing causation here, but effect and the impacts that will have on human use systems. Like I said many pollies and groups are going to have to swallow some large dead rats in order to adjust to the changing climate. There are very few absolutes in nature and science, greenies and lefties having to accept nuclear power isn't one of them.

Mate, how can you say its just about mitigating the impacts and global effects of climate change on Australia, and ignore the causation? That's ignoring the very big elephant in the room, that doesn't make sense to me.

Again, what exactly can Australia do all on its own, even if we achieved the utopian target of zero emissions or being emission neutral? Even if we reach and sustain a 50% decrease (which would bring our emissions down from approx 1.3% to 0.65% of total Global emissions), how is that mitigating the impacts when we are, as I said, a pimple on the Elephants bum in terms of global emissions.

I'd very much like to see Nuclear power and a Nuclear industry here in Oz (and eventually SSNs too, if proved to be what we needed), but as much as I would like to see all that happen, I still can't ever see it happening because of the anti-Nuclear zealots who will never change their views.

As for swallowing some large dead rats, I'm sure the anti-Nuclear zealots would rather choke on said rats than swallow them!

Cheers,

 

[ngatimozart]

What fauna?
Lol!

Birds, the feathered variety (not two legged human ), fish and other creatures, some of which go very nicely on the BBQ accompanied by a cold bevy.

 

[ngatimozart]

Mate, how can you say its just about mitigating the impacts and global effects of climate change on Australia, and ignore the causation? That's ignoring the very big elephant in the room, that doesn't make sense to me.

Again, what exactly can Australia do all on its own, even if we achieved the utopian target of zero emissions or being emission neutral? Even if we reach and sustain a 50% decrease (which would bring our emissions down from approx 1.3% to 0.65% of total Global emissions), how is that mitigating the impacts when we are, as I said, a pimple on the Elephants bum in terms of global emissions.

I'd very much like to see Nuclear power and a Nuclear industry here in Oz (and eventually SSNs too, if proved to be what we needed), but as much as I would like to see all that happen, I still can't ever see it happening because of the anti-Nuclear zealots who will never change their views.

As for swallowing some large dead rats, I'm sure the anti-Nuclear zealots would rather choke on said rats than swallow them!

Cheers,

John, I have put the causation to one side because of the political arguments that it causes and as you well know, politics are verboten here. In mitigation of the impacts I believe we can avoid the politics of causation and discuss possible, in this case nuclear industry options to help alleviate some of the problems that will arise from the impacts of climate change. This would have to be long term remedies because any climate change impacts will not be short term, but be for centuries and longer.

 

[ASSAIL]

Actually I think this isn't a huge issue.
You can do a Masters of nuclear engineering at UNSW today.
Nuclear Engineering.

I think it is an issue.
Yes they can complete a course but with one small reactor in the entire country, where will they gain the necessary practical experience on nuclear plant?
It’s like teaching surgery to doctors but denying them a cadaver to practice on and a thousand other theoretical skills which demand hands on experience to gain competency.

 

[tonnyc]

Rather than arguing about political parties and their stance, why not argue for the repeal of the ssction 22a of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999? That section says that that the Minister must not approve an action consisting of or involving the construction or operation of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, or a nuclear power station, or an enrichment plant, or a reprocessing facility.

Seems to me that enrichment, as much as it may make economic sense, can't go anywhere while this section is law.

 

[Ocean1Curse]

Well then there are two different problems here that a nuclear industry Aussie style would try to solve. One being Climate Change, and the rumours are from some people who have read on further than I about the most recent IPCC report is that the Earths resources have four hundred years left on the clock (but that's a debate for another day), and the other issue is Nuclear war. While nuclear energy can produce a more equitable distribution of energy, I am yet to see a combination or recipe of nuclear energy that can solve resource depletion. Now if you don't know I am a huge fan of Star Trek, but transforming energy into matter is simply, not possible.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Yes they can complete a course but with one small reactor in the entire country, where will they gain the necessary practical experience on nuclear plant?
It’s like teaching surgery to doctors but denying them a cadaver to practice on and a thousand other theoretical skills which demand hands on experience to gain competency.

Even worse our "reactor" won't give you much experience with PWR type setup commonly used. Our reactor is stunningly simple, it wasn't designed to give sub reactor type experience.


However, there are simulators, there are reactors overseas. You have to start somewhere. We do have a large number of chemical plants etc that require similar skills at the technical levels, but based around different science (Chemistry rather than nuclear physics). Oddly waiting for all the oil refineries and heavy industry to disappear is likely to make it hard to establish a nuclear industry.

Seems to me that enrichment, as much as it may make economic sense, can't go anywhere while this section is law.

Yep, major stumbling block. Unless you build a really really big research enrichment facility. But it is a law and laws can be changed if there is a will.

What is likely to happen is we will react to slow. If you want a nuclear reactor 20 years into the future, you have build today.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Mate, sorry but you are completely wrong about The Greens 'backing' Abbott, that is stretching the rubber band a bit too much.
...
Whilst you and I appear to both support the establishment of a Nuclear industry, unfortunately the majority of the Left of this Country does not, and unfortunately I still believe that is where it starts and ends.

Unless the Left changes its anti-Nuclear spots, we will keep having this same circular argument for ever and a day.

Cheers,

Well my point is the anti-nuclear stance isn't universal. Greenies were opposed to uranium mining, but we have that. For a long time uranium enrichment had to fight the coal and oil and gas lobby. Today, that isn't really the case. There were powerful people who opposed nuclear development in Australia. However that seems to be changing.

I'm open to nuclear options personally, I think enrichment is the most likely, its basically just an extension of what we mine. But even that is a huge up hill ask. To get to commercial power and nuclear submarines is a huge jump and a half.

Japan and Canada have huge nuclear industries and no nuclear subs.

China is the threat? Huge economy, huge nuclear industry. Has 6 functional type 093 and 2 or 3 subs used for training of the older 91 class.
Building SSN's is building for the wrong threat and building the wrong capability.