Politics Should Australia go nuclear?

[little graham]

I don't think power can be guarenteed with such a distributed system.

Were you thinking when you said coal emits more radiation than nuclear?

 

[knife]

Look at what the Germans are doing, phasing out nuclear power

So instead they import nuclear energy from neighboring France, the largest Nuclear industry in the world while they close down the only profitable energy utilities in Germany, which are Nuclear. The German's also actively encourage Nuclear power development in the Baltics states and particularity in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Considering recent developments between Europe and Russia, I'm sure the assumption of reliable supplies of Russian electricity and gas imports will now be under question.

They've given enormous subsidies to mandated renewables, and German consumers now have some of the most expensive household energy costs in the world. ~50% of the energy bill for German consumers is now taxes and fees, a substantial % of that going to subsidising the renewable industry, meanwhile German Industry is almost entirely exempt from paying the subsidy and gets electricity at wholesale prices almost 50% cheaper than households. The EU says its an unfair subsidy to German Industry and wants it ended, but the Germans are fighting it because if its scrapped they'll see an exodus of their manufacturing industry to lower energy cost countries.

The Germans also now have enormous problems with energy supply security and are about to start paying to keep private utilities' power plants, running on highly polluting lignite (brown coal), that operate so rarely that they are no longer profitable to run. This, to ensure energy supply security because Germany is now at risk of power shortages. The number of interventions required to prevent blackouts and overloads have surged since 2006. Some figures have nearly 30% of the year requiring transmission interventions to prevent widespread power outages. This at times means shutting off supply to major industrial centres.

 

[The_Reaper]

You're now in the gutter. You must be pretty uneducated to think its either coal or nuclear. That menatality when out with the cold war. Even though nuclears carbon footprint is not much lower than coal.

Look at what the Germans are doing, phasing out nuclear power forced on them. Look what the south Australians are doing with renewables

Buying power from the French?

 

[Taylor]

Were you thinking when you said coal emits more radiation than nuclear?

If you stand outside the fence of a coal plant the radiation is more.

It's a little broadcast fact, coal pumps a lot of radiation out.

 

[Papa Juggs]

I don't think power can be guarenteed with such a distributed system.

Correct.

This is why the power goes out when trees fall on power lines.

 

[CountryRace]

na such keep selling uranium to other countries...

smegheads

 

[Long Live HFC]

Radiation on the West Coast of U.S, constantly ignored by any authorities.

Dead seas in the Pacific, scores of dead fish.

lol.

 

[Pie eyed]

I have always been of the view that Australia should go nuclear, but...and it's a considered but...not while we have a moron like Tony Abbott in power.

 

[Power Raid]

The significance of just one mine in SA
The expansion of Olympic Dam would have seen some 15,000t of U3O8 produced each year (http://www.mining-technology.com/projects/olympic-dam/). Which is about 20-25% of the worlds current demand (being 68,000t per year). 75% of the current demand is met by mining whilst 25% is met by reprocessing tailings, spent fuel rods and the mega tonnes to mega watts program decommissioning bombs (which is finishing). Meaning there is a need for 25% additional supply within 3 years!

Why now
It is however expected that uranium demand will double in the next 20 years and SA should position itself with the growth in demand and the 25% current shortfall in production as we run out of bombs to reprocess.

Why SA
WA and the NT are blessed with great uranium deposits but the Saudi Arabia of uranium is SA.

Australia has 1,706,100 tonnes 29% percentage of world resources and most of that is in SA

SA would only need 200t annually for its own use and all of Australia would only need 2,500 tonnes at most. Meaning we have 680 years worth without another drill hole or any efficiencies. With efficiencies we would have 136,400 years supply.

The 99.3% thing
99.3% of U308 is U238 and 0.7% U235. We currently mine the U, process it to U3O8 then enrich the 0.7% to 4-5% to put into reactors. The spent fuel still contain 1% U235 meaning we have haven't used 20% of the 235 or 99.44% of the total uranium mined.

Note to power all of SA 1GW power station supplemented by wind, solar etc would suffice and would only use 200t U3O8 per year but only use actually use 1t.

Gen IV reactors will burn far more efficiently and are expected to generate 100 to 300 times more efficiently than current reactors. The Russian BN1200 will produce power at $0.023/kwh which makes it the cleanest cheapest power.


The crazy bit
At $200-300/lb U3O8 (7-10 times current price), but only an increase of around 20% in costs, we can mine U3O8 from sea water. That equates to some 4,000,000,000t. There are much lower hanging fruit including the current resources, further exploration and the logical ones like taking uranium out of phosphate before we spread it all over our farms as fertiliser and coal before we burn it and let it fall out over our cities.



Nuclear industry in OZ
Personally I don't want to see Gen 3+ reactors built in Oz but I am all for Gen4 reactors, nuclear medicine and becoming a world leader in the entire nuclear cycle (including education). This is something we do not need to pay US companies the privilege of working for them (like the car industry)!

I don't care if we never build a reactor (technically we already have one) but I do care that we are currently just digging it up and not getting involved with the smart part of the industry.

 

[pokerspiv]

At the end of the day it all comes down to economics.

The main reason we haven't gone nuclear already is because we still have shitloads of coal, and coal is cheaper.

When regulations becomes less of an obstacle and coal becomes scarcer nuclear power will happen.

 

[clogged]

At the end of the day it all comes down to economics.

The main reason we haven't gone nuclear already is because we still have shitloads of coal, and coal is cheaper.

When regulations becomes less of an obstacle and coal becomes scarcer nuclear power will happen.

Yep, this. Plus nuclear only starts to make sense if you have a weapons program.

 

[Footy Smarts]

So instead they import nuclear energy from neighboring France, the largest Nuclear industry in the world while they close down the only profitable energy utilities in Germany, which are Nuclear. The German's also actively encourage Nuclear power development in the Baltics states and particularity in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Considering recent developments between Europe and Russia, I'm sure the assumption of reliable supplies of Russian electricity and gas imports will now be under question.

They've given enormous subsidies to mandated renewables, and German consumers now have some of the most expensive household energy costs in the world. ~50% of the energy bill for German consumers is now taxes and fees, a substantial % of that going to subsidising the renewable industry, meanwhile German Industry is almost entirely exempt from paying the subsidy and gets electricity at wholesale prices almost 50% cheaper than households. The EU says its an unfair subsidy to German Industry and wants it ended, but the Germans are fighting it because if its scrapped they'll see an exodus of their manufacturing industry to lower energy cost countries.

The Germans also now have enormous problems with energy supply security and are about to start paying to keep private utilities' power plants, running on highly polluting lignite (brown coal), that operate so rarely that they are no longer profitable to run. This, to ensure energy supply security because Germany is now at risk of power shortages. The number of interventions required to prevent blackouts and overloads have surged since 2006. Some figures have nearly 30% of the year requiring transmission interventions to prevent widespread power outages. This at times means shutting off supply to major industrial centres.

So much wrong in one post. This covers your first sentence. You'll have to google the rest of the mistakes but fair to say they're extensive:

http://energytransition.de/2014/03/german-imports-of-nuclear-power-myth-revisited/

 

[Power Raid]

Yep, this. Plus nuclear only starts to make sense if you have a weapons program.

WTF?

 

[Taylor]

I assume it's like having a space program allows development of ICBM technology.

Interesting that we could get better efficiency from the mines if the cast off material produced weapons.

We could sell them for $200m a pop. haha

 

[Qsaint]

Were you thinking when you said coal emits more radiation than nuclear?

In volume it does

 

[little graham]

A South Australian wind farm has won the bid to provide the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) with renewable energy.

The Hornsdale Wind Farm is one of three Australian wind farms selected to deliver power to the ACT.

The 20-year deal will see the construction of the first stage of Hornsdale’s $900 million wind farm in the mid-north of South Australia near Jamestown.

“This project will contribute to South Australia’s $10 billion low carbon investment target as well as the 50 per cent renewable energy targets, both to be achieved by 2025.”

The ACT Government’s 200 MW wind auction will deliver approximately 33 per cent of Canberra’s electricity supply by 2017.

http://www.theleadsouthaustralia.co...l-wind-power-to-australian-capital-territory/

Just a couple of years to get 1 third of the power. Going nuclear would take a couple of decades and a serious threat for thousands of years.

Really is a no brainer.

 

[CountryRace]

RobbieGray17 said: ↑
Radiation on the West Coast of U.S, constantly ignored by any authorities.

Dead seas in the Pacific, scores of dead fish.

lol.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was in fact good for the pacific sea life?

 

[little graham]

Almost 7,000 workers are involved in decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi, which suffered a triple meltdown after it was struck by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Removing melted fuel and dismantling the ruined facility is expected to take four decades.

http://fukushimaupdate.com/worker-dies-at-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant/

4 decades is along time for a basic mistake by American engineers who ignored history and didn't build a sea wall or allow for the possibility power would be cut to the area. This will cost billions as well as have a massive carbon footprint.

 

[Long Live HFC]

RobbieGray17 said: ↑
Radiation on the West Coast of U.S, constantly ignored by any authorities.

Dead seas in the Pacific, scores of dead fish.



The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was in fact good for the pacific sea life?

mate, radiation is one thing that you can't hide. anyone with the appropriate equipment can test radiation levels. the government is as capable of keeping a secret about radiation levels as they are to make the moon disappear. the radiation that reached the west coast of the USA is well below dangerous levels. and the fisherman living near fukashima are still catching their fish safely.

go to school you ignorant twat.

 

[little graham]

. and the fisherman living near fukashima are still catching their fish safely.

go to school you ignorant twat.

You should take your own advice.

One of the samples of the 37 black sea bream specimens caught some 37 kilometers south of the crippled power plant tested at 12,400 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, making it 124 times deadlier than the threshold considered safe for human consumption, Japan's Fisheries Research Agency announced.

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-fish-cesium-radiation-548/

 

[Long Live HFC]

You should take your own advice.


http://rt.com/news/fukushima-fish-cesium-radiation-548/

you should stop reading RT lol.

This is part of a continuing effort to communicate the findings of researchers investigating the fate of Fukushima derived radiation in the marine environment. A recently published study by Kanisch and Aust of the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Hamburg reports that Fukushima sourced cesium (Cs) has been detected in fish collected in the north Atlantic Ocean. Like fish sampled thus far in the north Pacific the contribution of Cs to overall exposure of human consumers to radiation by consuming these fish is very small. In the Atlantic given that only modest atmospheric deposition of Cs has occurred radiation from Cs isotopes to human fish consumers is 26000-fold lower than the naturally occurring isotope polonium-210. The authors conclude that the typical consumption of 10kg of affected fish per year:
"...is not expected to cause concern according to present guidelines for radiation protection."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/06/1260715/-Fukushima-Cesium-in-North-Atlantic-Ocean-Fish#
http://skeptoid.com/blog/2013/09/02/are-your-days-of-eating-pacific-ocean-fish-really-over/

 

[CountryRace]

mate, radiation is one thing that you can't hide. anyone with the appropriate equipment can test radiation levels. the government is as capable of keeping a secret about radiation levels as they are to make the moon disappear. the radiation that reached the west coast of the USA is well below dangerous levels. and the fisherman living near fukashima are still catching their fish safely.

go to school you ignorant twat.

There are far more dead sea animals at the bottom of the ocean.

than before fukashima

 

[Taylor]

Why does that report dilute numbers by comparing cesium (atomic number 55) to polonium (atomic number 84) as though the naturally occurring rate of one mitigates the other when not mentioning the naturally occurring level of the first?

 

[Long Live HFC]

There are far more dead sea animals at the bottom of the ocean.

than before fukashima

from pretend radiation?

CAN I EAT FISH FROM THE PACIFIC?

For the most part the answer is YES. Some fisheries in Japan are still closed because of radioactive contamination. Bottom fish are especially prone to contamination because the fallout collects on the seafloor where they live. Contaminated fish shouldn’t be making it to your grocery store, but I can’t guarantee that so if you are worried just eat fish from somewhere other than Japan.
Fish from the rest of the Pacific are safe. To say it mildly, most fish are kinda lazy. They really don’t travel that far so when you catch a Mahi Mahi off the coast of Hawaii its only going to be as contaminated as the water there, which isn’t very much.Hyperactive fish, such as tuna may be more radioactive than local lazy fish because they migrate so far. As Miriam pointed out in this post, there is a detectable increase of radiation in tuna because they were at one point closer to Fukushima, but the levels are not hazardous.
To alleviate fears that you may be glowing due to ingestion too many visits to your local sushi joint, Fischer et al. figured out exactly how much damaging radiation you would receive from eating a tower of tuna rolls. Seriously. Science is just that awesome. Supermarket tuna hunters would receive 0.9 μSv of radiation, while the outdoors subsistence tuna hunter would receive 4.7 μSv. These values are about the same or a little less than the amount a person receives from natural sources.
To put 0.9 μSv of radiation in perspective check out this awesome graph of radiation by xkcd. You’ll get the same amount of radiation by eating 9 bananas. Monkeys might be doomed, but you are not.

http://deepseanews.com/2013/11/true-facts-about-ocean-radiation-and-the-fukushima-disaster/

 

[Long Live HFC]

Why does that report dilute numbers by comparing cesium (atomic number 55) to polonium (atomic number 84) as though the naturally occurring rate of one mitigates the other when not mentioning the naturally occurring level of the first?

I think maybe that was a bit of context? i'm sure the actual report (which I haven't read) would provide far more detail than a pop science link.