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Saturday
28 April
2007
 NUCLEAR
CO2
CHALLENGE
The
Hon John Howard MP is out to sell the Australian public on Nuclear, in
fact, in his mind, he's already sold it. "What, we don't need a
referendum?
Election time is looming and Climate Change
is looming... hmm.
In a last
ditch effort to rebound from the Federal Governments non-Kyoto
attitude, Howard roars we're fair dinkum about Climate Change."If
you really care about
Climate Change you'll have to get serious
about nuclear".
It's
more like, "If you're
serious about climate change, you know nuclear is
too late". We need to
mitigate CO2 within 10 years not after.
Howard says there's no need
for a referendum - - Australia, your
chicken is ready!
Frankly, who's going to buy the old
model when the new one is so much
better.
It will take at least 10 years to
build a nuclear power station in
Australia. At which time solar will eat in and overtake the market
devalue and/or make nuclear redundant. You will decide on your
electrcity
bill - buy clean electricity or I don't care I just want the cheapest.
tick. and don't be suprised if the cheaper is solar... and left with a
turkey that lays radioactive eggs.
One thing for sure, as we continue
to research down the clean
coal road - as soon as solar is cheap enough - coal will be too dirty
to
bother with.
We need to become leaders in green
renewable
technology because
that is what will sell in the future - and the future is now in
preparation.
In the sixties it was music and
studios, today it is water and
renewables. Look out mobile phone here comes solar panels.
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The
secret other 'half-life' of
Nuclear.
Apparently Nuclear is
bad news for everything
but one thing; Global Warming. Nuclear doesn't produce any CO2, that's it, right. 
Well that's half right!
The other part
of the story is it does produce CO2 in every stage except in
the
nuclear process... but to get to the
other 'half-life', we have to
dig a bit deeper.
NUCLEAR
CO2 CHALLENGE
- to be determined by
an
impartial body -
Please
excuse the
un-scientific report and settle for a short description.
The
main CO2 activity is the digging up and processing of uranium. The
first thing
to qualify is there's high
grade uranium and low grade uranium... when the
high grade runs out we are left with low grade. The lower the grade the
more digging and processing until we reach a pollution level equal to
that of natural gas.
The downside is you have thousands of years of
nuclear waste. The good news is Solar and Renewables are within 10
years, "so we don't need no nuclear waste for thousands of years thank
you". Something needs to be said about oil - it wouldn't make sense to
burn it all.
Australia has
plenty of gas and may as well use that, it's cheap, plentiful, and it's
not radioactive. Australia has plenty of sun wind ocean and hot rocks.
How much CO2 is too much? How do we compare 100 years of coal and
thousands of years with nuclear. it does respect a
challenge - to be determined by an
impartial body.
"Uranium
is clearly a finite resource, with exploration having to look deeper
for new deposits. It will be increasingly constrained in the future by
the environmental costs of mining lower grade ores."
"Overseas,
some base-load power stations are nuclear. They produce little
pollution during normal operation, but much pollution (including carbon
dioxide emissions) from mining, enrichment, plant construction and
decommissioning, reprocessing and waste management. They also increase
the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons and have the capacity for
rare but catastrophic accidents."
Mark
Diesendorf
http://www.energyscience.org.au
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Does
nuclear energy produce CO2 ?
Proponents of nuclear power always say that one of the big benefits of
nuclear power is that it produces no Carbon dioxide (CO2).
This
is completely untrue, as a moment's consideration will
demonstrate that fossil fuels, especially oil in the form of gasoline
and diesel, are essential to every stage of the nuclear cycle, and CO2
is given off whenever these are used.
http://www.peakoil.org.au/nuclear.co2.htm
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The anti-nuclear case rests on 10 points:
1. Electricity Produced by NP is not CO2 free
2. Conventional NP offers an insignificant
contribution to world energy needs
3. Fast Breeder technology means uncontrollable
nuclear weapons proliferation
4. NP possession now implies Nuclear War later
5. NP is not economic - and is not insured
6. Routine discharges cause cancer
7. Nuclear Power Stations are vulnerable to terrorist
attack
8. The waste problem is not solved
9. Nuclear power stations are vulnerable to flooding
as sea levels rise
10. NP would suck funding away from the real longterm
solutions which are energy efficiency and renewable energy.
http://www.greenhealth.org.uk/Nuclear.htm
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Nuclear vs. Coal: CO2 emissions
The journal "The Nuclear Energy Option" by Professor Bernard Cohen
estimates that approximately 15 tonnes of CO2 is produced every minute
by large coal burning power stations, where as an equivalent amount of
energy can be produced in a nuclear power plant emitting almost five
millionths the amount of CO2.
However, similar to coal fired power plants, there are other sources of
pollution that must be taken into account when it comes to nuclear
energy. Emissions that must be taken into account include those
associated with the construction of the plant, mining and processing of
the fuel, routine operation of the plant (fuel delivery etc.), the
disposal of used fuel and other waste bi-products, and also the
decommissioning of the plant.
http://www.uow.edu.au/eng/phys/nukeweb/reactors_nuc_v_coal.html
So
the Nuclear Power solution will be a greenhouse emitter in a
relatively
short time frame and the benefits just aren't there once high grade
uranium runs out and/or especially when solar becomes competitive on
price.
We are then left with nuclear
waste - which to date - there is no safe
way to store the waste - no solution. We must then take into account -
if a solution is found - burying the
nuclear waste requires more energy and more CO2 emissions.
In the bigger picture,
Nuclear does not represent any significant CO2
savings.
Why
not just
continue using coal (we only contribute <2% of the
worlds CO2 emissions anyway) and make Australia the Best Nuclear Free
Country in the World, it would be great for the Tourism
Industry - not that I have anything too do with Tourism, see here.
We
have the sun
to fuel us, the wind in our nuclear free air to
breathe, renewable soil to feed us, what more could we want?
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NUCLEAR
CO2 CHALLENGE
Mr Macfarlane says
money will need to be spent to educate the public about the value of
nuclear power.
Macfarlane outlines Govt's
nuclear
industry plans
Federal
Industry and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane has detailed the
Government's nuclear plans for Australia, which he says are designed to
help lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Prime
Minister John Howard will today reveal more details about the
proposals in a speech to the Victorian Liberal Party conference.
ABC
NEWS ONLINE
http://www.abc.net.au/
Nuclear power a feasible
solution to climate change: PM
Saturday, April 28, 2007
He
says Australia's
only feasible options are clean coal technology and nuclear power.
"Part
of the solution must be to admit the use, in years to come, of nuclear
power," he said.
He
is
planning to invest in research for a nuclear power industry and change
legislative bans.
ABC
NEWS ONLINE
http://www.abc.net.au/
Greens will go to election
as
Australia's "nuclear-free" party
http://wa.greens.org.au/
Rudd strengthened, while
PM's
nuclear grenade could back-fire
http://www.theage.com.au/
Mud-slinging backfires on
Howard
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Rudd defends uranium u-turn
http://www.theage.com.au/
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