jayjd12

I was reading about this last year in Townsville, seems that the Government have got the go ahead! Any views?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21146826-2,00.html

Mid Lifer.

Yeah why not ? As long as its not in my back yard eh ? Seems the general port of call.So cancel the Bribie Island one and the Sunshine Coast one and I'll be ok with it.

Vash the Stampede

Sounds good.

I've long been anti-nuclear - but the way the world is going, I don't think we have too many alternative options. Green power is ideal, yet slow to develop and often difficult to implement effectively; not every state can be like Tassie and draw 80% of its electricity from hydro-electric stations.

The federal government needs to act quickly and decisively on this one. Fingers crossed!

jayjd12

Quickly and decisively suits me as well Vash, I am wondering not only about the visual and economic impact, I guess we would see a dramatic decline in property prices in the surrounding areas.

Cheers


Jay

rocket01

Cool, least it reduces global warming :P

Swerv-o

Good on them I say. It seems ridiculous that this country has boundless amounts of lovely Uranium sitting around, and it gets mined and sold to the chinese.

As the influence of oil wanes, Australias Uranium reserves will help to strengthen the economy. Not just in terms of exporting energy, but also in terms of exporting the knowledge of using nuclear power.

John Howard may be a lot of things, but I think he is spot on with his plans for a nuclear Australia...

S

MartinLuther

If nuclear power is so great why did the newly independent generators of the UK start using gas fired power stations? Why has the UK government ended up with a load of reactors that nobody wants? Why do people think the Irish are complaining about the radioactive pollution of the Irish Sea?

It's because nuclear power is not cheap and is not green. I'm amazed at how many people are prepared to believe this just because politicians says so.

As well as Uranium, Australia has lots of land, sea and sunshine, all of which can be used to generate electricity which would be cheaper and cleaner in the long run.

Swerv-o

Nuclear power requires an initially large investment, which is why the independents went for gas - much less capital investment in the short term. There is also less govenanace surrounding gas fired power stations than Nuclear ones. However, the gas is running out, and - as the Ukraine discovered - it's not wise to anger Moscow - the chief exporter of natural gas to europe.

Australia does have lots of land, se and sunshine, however they seem extremely reluctant to us any of it to generate electricity, and to be honest, renewable sources can only go some way to fulfilling the energy requirments, and are so much less flexible in terms of operating availability.

Also, the logistics of utilising, for instance solar energy are huge for a country this big. The best sunlight falls in the outback, so that is the logical place to place a load of solar panels, but the populated areas are so far away from where you can generate the electricity that huge amounts of energy are lost in the supply network. Holistically, this makes the process extremely inefficient.

Nuclear power isn't cheap, and is effectively still a fossil fuel. However it does represent a phenomenal energy release potential, is virtually instantaneous and doesn't generate greenhouse gases that pollute the atmosphere. If the drought continues and Australia needs to turn to desalinated water to provide for population, industry and agriculture, an unbelieveable amount of energy is going to need to be generated. Realistically, I think that only Nuclear power is likely to be able to meet that rising demand.

S

dshole

Nuclear fission has a place, but is not the amazing fix that everyone touts it as being. One thing that fission energy requires is a lot of water, something that is in high demand in Australia.

In terms of re-newable energy, it has been estimated that a single 30km square Solar site would provide all of Australia's energy needs. Of course this would have to grow.

There is also evidence to suggest that a single site in SA can provide geo-thermal energy for the next 75 year. Again to all of Australia.

The problem is political will. No government (left of right) is brave enough to take this on as an issue. The are scared of upsetting the electorate.

At least the EU/UK are making efforts.

All Australia seems to do is continue to fuel speculation regarding "carbon sequestation" which is consider by a lot of experts as being a pipe dream.

Amazulu

The financial problem with nukes is that they cost so much to build. They are ideal for providing large base loads as they are not easy to switch in and out. Base load electricity is the cheapest type of electricity and is the least profitable to produce, hence it takes a long time to recoup the financial outlay. For this reason the government needs to subsidise them heavily.

It's great news in Australia is going down the nuclear road. 3-4 nukes should be enough, 3 on the east coast and 1 on the west.

bridie

Dont see why, we used to live fairly near Dungeness nucleur power plant in Kent, there were these strange little cottage/house things there that fetched an absolute fortune, and they were literally a short walk to the reactors!! Very sought after, I know a few famous people owned some of them and they went for huge amounts of £££s given what and where they were...

Swerv-o

I agree - Carbon sequestration is very unlikely to happen, and also has dangers associated with it. And it still doesn't address the fundamental issue that carbon based fuels (with the exception of biomass) are non renewable.

The country needs to examine its energy usage, and develop a harmonised approach. Certainly, just building nuclear power stations to the exclusion of all else isn't going to work - we need to develop a blend of different power sources that effectively complement each other.

Solar energy may be all well, and good, but it doesn't work at night, so what provides the evening and night capacity? You can't just store it in vast batteries until people need it. Also, you are limited to a fixed rate of energy production. You can't just turn it up when demand increases. This is when you need to turn the reactors, to complement the supply when the renewables cant produce. Only using nuclear energy at night would be an effective method of prolonging the life of the nuclear fuel, hence reducing the waste products. Excess capacity could be used to run desal and pumping plants to refil dams.

Geothermal power is an excellent form of energy, and, joule for joule may well be able to meet 75% of Australias energy needs, but, again, the logistics of transporting anergy from one site in South Australia to the rest of the country are completely impractical. Over such distances, I2R losses will sap most of the generated electricity away heating the power lines.

Energy usage needs to be considered as a whole, not on a state by state basis and not selecting just one source. I personally feel that a nuclear programme is the only way to deal with the short to medium term energy issues until other reseorces can be brought on line to complement it.

S

Swerv-o

Yes, I think that would be good. Also consider the decomissioning costs associated with a nuclear powerstation - there are large costs hidden there, long after the 25-30 year life of the power station.

The newer generation of PWR reactors have a much shorter rise times than the older magnox ones, and can be turned down to half power overnight, depending on demand.

S

MartinLuther

It would be interesting to compare the carbon budget of nukes with that of something like windpower. How much carbon is produced in the building a nuke, obtaining the fuel and managing the waste as compared to how much carbon is produced in making, maintaining and removal of a wind-turbine? Although fission itself doesn't generate C02 the activities around it do. And let's not forget the other serious types of pollution caused by nukes.

I know that the gas has run out in the UK, but the question still stands and the answer is that gas generated electricity is cheaper than nuclear generated electricity. In the UK it also had the unexpected side benefit of reducing the UK's carbon emissions. Aus could use gas as a stop-gap until they can get more sustainable "truly" green solutions off the ground.

As for powering desalination plants, I think the money would be better spent on better management of existing resources including preservation and recycling. The return on better management would also come a lot quicker than the desalination solution.

MartinLuther

I think we can all agree that it would be unwise to generate power by solar alone. A green solution would use a mix of technologies.

You can store electricity - this is the primary purpose of Dinorwig. Also when I worked for National Power in the UK they were developing a system for storing electricity which was effectively based on big batteries.