According to ABC Online, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate on the benefits and risks of nuclear power as an alternative energy source.
"The world's got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal," he said.
"Coal is looking very dangerous - there ought to be a debate."
Mr Carr says a new energy source needs to be found because alternative power sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen are not yet viable options.
"You could have a wind farm across all of outback New South Wales," he said. "It'd kill every kookaburra but it wouldn't provide the base-load [power] we need."
Warwick - You argument about horse manure is just that - manure. The manure problem was not global and the manure was used as fertiliser in sustainable farming practices that we have largely abandoned in our quest for profits.
Sustainablity is foreign concept for most people as most corporations and governments are short term - per quarter. Humans are short term as most problems are considered solved if the solution can be put off until after the affected person is dead. This is exactly what most solutions for nuclear waste are - store it until I no longer care.
Reducing power consumption and relying on renewable resources such as wind and solar will last at least 500 million years until our sun becomes a red supergiant. True we may not be able to waste power the way we do but that is one of the prices we should be prepared to pay if we want our civilisation to last beyond the next resource shortage. Uranium is limited too.
I would have no problem living next to a Nulear PP.
I've been working with ionizing radiation for over 10 years and my kinds dont have two heads.
Geoff, Talking about "distracting furphy", I wonder if you realise that our city air quality has been improving for decades ?
In my opinion this entire issue of "sustainabilty" is one of the great furphies of our times. To illustrate what I mean, just think back to late 18C and I am sure horse manure in city streets was a huge problem. If contemporary Greens could be transported back to those days I can imagine the arguments that all this increasing pony poo was "unsustainable". My point is that nobody at that point could forsee the solution was being discovered in the automobile.
The history of our progress is marked by unforseen beneficial discoveries. This preoccupation with "sustainablity" should be abandoned.
Just to confirm what I have been saying - read this from http://au.news.yahoo.com/050605/2/ulmq.html
"Building a nuclear waste dump in NSW is against the law and does not make sense, says Premier Bob Carr.
Mr Carr warned the federal government against establishing a nuclear waste dump in NSW, saying it contravened state legislation."
Pretty much confirms what I have been saying. Build the nuke plants and ignore the waste problems.
Ok so Loius has no problems living beside a nuclear plant - how about the rest of you?
U238 is relatively harmless true however nuclear plants to not use much U238 - they prefer to enrich it and use a mix of U235 and U238 as you well know. After being in the reactor there are all sorts of radionucleides in the waste including plutonium and the extremely dangerous strontium-90. If this is re-processed to be re-used then it becomes almost all plutonium that is almost directly weapons grade.
Geoff - I totally agree - for the price of one nuclear plant we could better invest the money in electricity conservation to avoid building the plant in the first place. Also if we invest in water conservation then we will not need such a large de-salination plant so we do not need the nuclear power.
this is such a distracting furphy, no? the real question is whether we willl have sufficient energy to meet our current and future needs. and will we have that energy without compromising our health and the health of others? are we 'sustainably harvesting' for our energy needs? or are we 'mining' and just stripping out what we need as we go along....and hoping nobody breaks a leg in the many big black holes we leave lying about the place? or has his brains fried by high voltage transmission lines? or scrambled by microwaves? or chokes to death on the millions of tonnes of soot from vehicle and industrial exhausts? surely the question needs to include 'why are there no incentives to invest in sustainable practices, and why are non sustainable practices given such a 'leg up' in terms of current fed and state government policy?
Ender,
I have no problem with nuclear power - I was one of the team which discovered and evaluated Yeelirrie in West Australia in the early 1970's.
While in high concentrations uranium 235 is dangerous, u238 which forms 97% of naturally occurring uranium is harmless.
As an aside, the Jabiluka uranium deposit in the NT was found when the exploration company discovered elevated levels of uranium in the streams draining the deposit. It was "natural pollution" that allowed it's discovery in the first place.
I would have no difficulty living next to a nuclear reactor.
Look my comments may have sounded frivolous however they conceal a deeper meaning. I fully realise that power stations are built in industrial areas however the usual thought is that they will be built a long way from me.
When you think of nuclear power please think of it being built in the industrial suburb next to YOU. See if you you like it as much then. I mean they have to be built somewhere. When the fuel rods are first removed from the core they are too hot to transport. They are left in large ponds of water for a couple of years until they are 'safe' to transport. Imagine this amount of nuclear material in the next suburb.
Usually when people call for nuclear power they mean it to be actually built somewhere else. This is cynicism of the highest order. To be in favour of nuclear power as long as it is out of sight - out of mind is wrong. Sure you can build it in the country somewhere however why should those country people, who use less electricity, put up with the dangers of a nuclear plant to supply the city with power.
Loius - there has been critisism of nuclear energy in France, Sweden is shutting down its reactors and Germany is scaling down nuclear power. China can do what it wants free of protest however this is not usually regarded as a good thing. The French have done a good job if convincing its people that unlimited energy is worth the cost. Is actually easy because we, the current generation, do not pay the major price of nuclear power. We are leaving a legacy for future generations to clean up.
Steve,
I merely note the total absence of "criticism" by the usual suspects of the use of nuclear energy in France. I am not concerned with the cost of French power since France is essentially a socialist state in which the state and industry are inseperable; in such states costs and prices are essentially meaningless numbers.
China is also commissioning 2 nuclear reactors per year - not much noise about that from our local greenies too I notice.
Exactly becasue nuclear power is supposed to be safe and clean and the waste harmless so why should we put it in some industrial area where it can be forgotten. We normally put dangerous materials in industrial areas so are you saying that nuke power is not safe?
I can put solar panels on my roof so why can't I have a nuclear power plant next to my school?