I’m sure quite a few regular commenters are keen for me to lift my ban on discussions of nuclear power (imposed to prevent the threadjacking effects of this topic). So, I thought I would open it up to all comers with a couple of observations of my own:
(1) Nuclear power isn’t going away any time soon. Nuclear plants generate a lot of power and most of them seem likely to outlive their originally planned operational lifetime. So, there doesn’t seem to be much point in being “anti-nuclear” in the sense of hoping for a world without nuclear energy – that horse bolted decades ago.
(2) Except in China (and maybe India) nuclear power isn’t getting bigger any time soon. Following the failure of Obama’s energy bill and the GFC, the US “nuclear renaissance” is dead in the water, and the same is true in Europe. While residual anti-nuclear sentiment plays a role here, the big problem is economics.
(3) The only plausible path to an Australian nuclear power industry involves the use of modern plant designs and regulatory systems with a proven track record in the US and/or Europe and Japan. Given point (2), that path won’t open up any time soon. So, for the foreseeable future, nuclear isn’t an option for Australia, and there is little or nothing we can, or should, do about it. When there, are, say 50 new plants in the developed world with 5-10 years of operating history behind them, it would make sense for us to take another look. On the most optimistic possible projections, that might happen sometime after 2030.
That’s it from me. I won’t moderate the thread except to delete personal attacks and similar violations of the comment policy.
John Quiggin 
Sloganism there, Fran. Apart from being unnecessary nuclear is the only energy system capable of requiring huge chunks of Australia being fenced off as unaccessible if someone really stuffs up. With toxic waste reaching the Danude, I think that human stuff ups are very much on most European minds right now. “I checked the dam just last week and it was safe”.
That is very Abbottesque to suggest that what happened in the past is in the past, it can’t happen again.
OK Finrod, what’s your plan for the time when coal, oil and uranium run out and have wreck the climate in the process? In the real world, about 5 billion out of 6 billion will then die. The simple physical fact is that without adequate clean, sustainable energy our whole system collapses; agriculture, transport and manufacture.
We have racheted population up with enormous energy use by historical standards. This population will die back without new energy sources to sustain it. This is the real world physical fact.
People use the phrase “real world” glibly and they often mean the market or the business world. In fact, that is not the real world at all. It’s a very artificial world in many ways. The real world is the physical environment of material and energy which underpins our economic system.
@Fran Barlow
Fran – nuclear is not “progress”. It is a short term extremely blinkered extremely high risk material. None of its risks can be costed effectively. My point is we can do better than that. Thats real progress. If as JQ says the best we can do is to supply materials to other countries or act as a nuclear waste dump here then this thinking is flawed also but not as flawed as yours.
Many a poor outcome has been conceived as a series of incremental steps to a disastrous outcome in the history of man. First we say no to nuclear, then we accept digging it up and shipping it out to some other country, then we agree to accept other countries shipping their radio active waste here, then, then then…and before we know it some bright spark says “well we are already participating and producing the materials for supply to other countries…why shouldnt we add value here. Its a logical economic step… to an illogical outcome. People forget completely along the way why we didnt want it in the first place and before you know it, its here.
Why you keep pushing this ugly barrow of pro nuke arguments Fran is beyond me. There is only one answer to nuclear use and thats to say no loudly and clearly to start with and to leave it in the ground. Anything less is just irresponsible in the extreme. The people who fought hard for 40 and 50 years to get rid of this stuff after Hiroshima and Nagasaki didnt do it for nothing. They didnt do it so that half a century later, people with short term memories could idly blog on its entirely spurious economic costings and ponder its economic benefits. World leaders are not now trying to reduce the worlds arsenal of nuclear weapons so that others can blog on mindlessly about the benefits of nuclear use either. There is an obvious and direct link between nuclear use and misuse and no amount of human care or compliance can predict who will own power in the future (and whether they will misuse nuclear) and nor can they predict mistakes, accidents and failures.The costs and risks of these accidents is just too high for it to ever make it on to the cost benefit analysis table.
In fact I will bet most if not all costings on nuclear do not even count these risks which is just stubbornly myopic and verging on insane. There are deep black holes in your pro nuke costings.
Your purported concern over a uranium shortage is nonsense.
http://channellingthestrongforce.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-nuclear-power-sustainable.html
Please outline a credible scenario whereby this might happen.
Please understand that in the long run (once fossil fuels are depleted beyond the point of usefulness, we will have either a nuclear powered world, or we will have reverted to a pre-industrial civilisation, most likely with great woe along the way. There is no third path. ‘Renewables’, as they are called, will not cut it. They cannot, by their very nature. Intermattency, variability and low energy density are killers for any ‘renewables’ scenario. If this were not the case, we would already be achieving success with them, and they would be either taking over significant chunks of energy generation without any need for fossil fuel backup, or the FF industries would be fighting a tooth-and-nail public campaign against them to preserve FF market share, rather than hailing them as the way of the future.
Hermit:
Could be. But we don’t really know the cost of nuclear.
That is to get a sufficiently robust grid to meet demand peaks
The cost of the grid is not the main cost issue.
One of the stupidest ideas of all time is burning coal, especially brown coal, to smelt Aluminium. And if the proposition is to smelt Aluminium using nuclear energy then there is absolutely no way that Australia will be able to compete at doing this with more technically-capable countries, even if they get their Uranium from Australia.
@Chris O’Neill
This seems a bit defeatist. What’s really needed to smelt Al is lots of cheap electrical power. Nuclear can provide this. We can avail ourselves of the technical expertise of NPP exporters such as S Korea to assist us in that. We certainly have an excellent carrot in the form of U reserves to incentivise them.
@peterm
The Travelling Wave Reactor is an interesting idea, but it seems unnecessary. Read a very interesting critique of it here:
TerraPower’s Travelling Wave Reactor – why not use an IFR?
@Fran Barlow
Well it would be if that were close to being accurate, rather than simply one of those things people wanting a thought free slapdown of nuclear power love to repeat. It’s not only delusional opponents of action on climate change who love to repeat old lines, regardless of how many times they are refuted.
Actually Fran, it’s quite true. If we only used “once through” thermal reactors without breeding, and if this kind of reactor supplied 100% of the world’s electricity , we would indeed burn through all the known reserves of uranium, recoverable at the current market price in less than 10 years.
Of course I understand that we could use breed reactors instead and there are plenty of unconventional uranium sources we could extract at prices higher than we pay now, but the point stands. It’s not false, it just doesn’t tell the whole story. Equating this to a climate change denial position is just silly.
I wish I could say you are better than this normally. How about you be a little less oppositional and a little more constructive?
This is a comeback? You’ve just proven Fran’s point.
@Finrod
What do you mean? What’s false about what I wrote?
Finrod,
If we can anticipate plausible failure scenarios then we can prevent them. It is the scenarios that we do not anticipate that are the problem, and there seems to be a steady stream of such.
From comments at another Blog it seems that the Queensland government have done a deal with the Papua New Guinea government to obtain cheap green energy for the smelter up there so that smelter stable energy supply problem is solved.
Nothing, Sam. It’s simply that your reply supports Fran’s position, not yours.
If Scotland can go nuclear free and carbon free? Why are we even discussing nukophilia in this trumped-up thread?
see:
http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/3423/
What do you mean? Do you have examples of the problems you are referring to?
You’re talking about a proposed hydroelectric project. I know hydro power is cheap, and a very good candidate for Al smelting. I also know that hydro resources are in limited supply compared to the present and future levels of demand for power worldwide. I’m also aware that ‘renewables’ advocates love to conflate hydro with wind and solar to disguise the pathetic performance of the latter two.
@Sam
I think you’ve made an interesting point about recoverable reserves at current prices. It makes you wonder about how much more uranium would be discovered in Australia if the price went up. As an aside, using the once through system would not be a bad idea in terms of nuclear weapons proliferation… as the supply of mined uranium decreased the temptation to use fissile material in weapons would increase – potentially reducing the number of nuclear weapons.
You should learn to distinguish between serious engineering proposals and the press releases of politicians.
@Finrod
No it doesn’t support Fran’s position. Fran was telling John that what he said was not worth noting, because it isn’t true.
I say that in fact it is true, and it is also worth noting. John’s argument is not a smackdown against nuclear power, it’s too weak a point for that, but it does deserve to be raised. It means that if the world were to go nuclear it would be forced to use a different, currently un-commercial technology. I’ve no doubt we could do that, and that humans are clever enough to make it work, but is this a point worth raising? Absolutely.
@Sam
OK Sam. You don’t need to agree with me for the practical results of your comment to be as I have described.
@Finrod
OK Sam. You don’t need to agree with me for the practical results of your comment to be as I have described.
That’s strictly true, but in addition the practical results of my comment are not as you described.
@Sam
Well then, we can go our respective ways each content with the results we suppose have been achieved.
Start with a toxic radioactive chemical sludge pooring into the Danude, Finrod. Safe one day, broken the next. This is the way that disasters happen. And everyone is surprised. And the responsible operators are tracked down and punished. And it will never happen again. But it does. Who would want to live in India within a weeks wind distance from their new reactors after we have seen the performance of their engineering works at their showcase sporting facilities.
Of coarse that would never happen in Australia!!
Deary me. It shouldn’t have to be specified that I was referring to issues within the nuclear power industry, but I guess with you the specification is necessary.
You probably do not know that such government announcements are written on the basis of substantial input by engineers and others (co-ordinating staff and finance offices etc).
If you think there is some point to distinguish the announcement from the engineering – then identify it.
Otherwise please post your propaganda somewhere else.
Do you want to end up as the future victim of Scottish laughter?
Finrod, you seem to be focusing more on snark than on positive contributions to the discussion. If you want to continue in this vein, please take it to one of the sandpit posts.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. Sandpit posts?
I understand that Scotland has quite a bit in the way of hydro resources. This puts Scotland in a good position to offset the negative effects of trying to integrate wind into their grid, although it also means that the hydro resources in question are then no longer available to the same ectent for peak power and for export. Ultimately the proposed new ‘renewable’ source (offshore wind) will prove far too expensive, and in the end the intermittency issue will extract its pound of flesh.
It may be possible for a particularly windy geographical location with a relatively low population and superb hydro resources to obtain a dignificant fraftion of their power from wind at great expense, especially id they haveneighbours who are willing to trade electrical power with them, but this is not a solution the bulk of humanity is in a position to employ. I suspect that if this foolish project actually goes ahead, it will fie out when the wind farms readh their ~20 year useby date, and the public backlash will keep it off the agenda from then on.
Proposing that wind is OK because the Scots think they can do it based on their favourable wind resources is like saying the rest of the world should go geothermal because Iceland has lots of volcanoes.
@Finrod
Let me explain Finrod – the meaning of fresh sand – Im regularly confined there (Im part of the rude left). Its the Profs way of saying if you are guilty of the following crimes
1. swamping the threads (offputting to others).
2. Non evidential posts that incline towards sarcasm or put downs of others beliefs.
3. The sand pit is a part of this blog where you can have a rip roaring argument without bothering about lwering the general tone of an otherwise intelligent blog (some like the space for the former given economics can get people quite heated but others get frightened away by too much heat).
Anything Ive forgotten someone else can add.
Anything with the word sand in it means you have free reignb which is very nice of the Prof. Otherwise keep it polite. Posts dripping with sarcasm and put downs arent polite.
And ditto, Finrod,
“is like saying the rest of the world should go geothermal because Iceland has lots of volcanoes”
to say that Australia should go Nuclear just because we have uranium and the US uses Nuclear.
The resource that Australia has the most of, by a massive margin, is solar energy in at least 6 forms. We also have the resources to utilise that energy abundance. Economically the most beneficial and dynamic energy resource to utilise is solar energy, not necessarily because it is the most economic but because it creates the most economic activity throughout the economy. As many commenters have demonstrated intermittancy of any ons part of the energy generation mix in a broadly renewable energy system does not amount total intermittency. Quite the contrary. It does however mean that there needs to be a greater level of redundancy. Some see this as a bad thing when it is in fact a good thing as it means that the overall system is less stressed and contains greater overall reliability.
With renewables it is all good.
Lets look at the realities of CO2 avoidance in European electricity generation. These charts of electricity generation by fuel source speak a thousand words:
France: http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/FRELEC.pdf
Germany: http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/DEELEC.pdf
UK: http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/GBELEC.pdf
Denmark: http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/DKELEC.pdf
And how do the per capita CO2 emissions stack up:
CO2 emissions per capita: Denmark, France, Germany, UK
A number of observations spring to mind:
1. It is abundantly clear that nuclear power has contributed vastly more to CO2 emissions abatement than wind or solar and will do so for the foreseeable future.
2. Nuclear power is capable of completely displacing fossil fuels for electricity generation. The same is true of hydro where there are sufficient resources. But there is no indication that solar and wind can do so in the real world.
2. Denmark the poster child of wind power still relies on fossil fuels as it’s principal source of electricity. The most noteworthy change is replacement of some coal by gas.
I invite readers to also look at the per capita CO2 emissions for Sweden and Switzerland. Both have a mix of hydro and nuclear supplying the bulk of their power.
At the end of the day we need to ask ourselves how interested are we in abatement of CO2 emissions as opposed to wishful thinking.
Ahhh, my Co2 chart link seems to be broken. Try again:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:AUS&dl=en&hl=en&q=australia+co2+emissions+chart#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:FRA:GBR:DEU:DNK:SWE:CHE:NLD
@Finrod
Id also like to say I always thought I was part of the middle until everyone else moved to the right and is now threatening to sink the ship economus…hence Im moving to the left until those on the right threatening to crash/sink the ship get more balanced and get the plot again.
@Finrod
Who on earth is proposing that:
This is your fabrication. So why lampoon it?
Everyone else probably knows that the mix of sustainable energy sources will vary region to region.
So I hope you have, at least, learnt this.
@Finrod
If that’s true then why isn’t someone else doing this? I doubt that nuclear could beat hydro anytime in the near future and of course, a Carbon price is not going to change this.
@BilB
Uranium and thorium can by dug up and moved around. Volcanoes and wind currents cannot.
I’m aware that renewables advocates claim that technology to harvest power from wind and solar on the scale necessary to sustain our civilisation is in hand, but it is simply not true. No major industrial country on earth has achieved it, and without effective power storage technology (not currently available and not in sight), none ever will. To understand the details of why this is so, I advise people to check out various articles and threads on BNC. To start with, check out one of the critiques of the ZCA2020 plan:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/
A resource is only a resource if it can actually be used to advantage.
Needing greater redundancy than other options to have a hope of being effective is not a positive. The energy sector, more so than any other, cannot be treated as a jobs program, or a corporate welfare program. It’s just too vital. Everything else fundamentally depends on it. It must underpin the wealth of all. A civilisation can, if it so chooses, manage some sectors of the economy as parasitic, loss-making activities supported by productive sectors, but it can’t do it with the energy sector and hope to survive.
Isn’t the supposed favourability of Scottish offshore wind the basis of the assumption that Scotland can become 100% renewable-powered?
@Finrod
says “Please understand that in the long run (once fossil fuels are depleted beyond the point of usefulness, we will have either a nuclear powered world, or we will have reverted to a pre-industrial civilisation”
Another one who is Ernestines words cannot count beyond two . Its either fossil fuels or nuclear. I object to this comment on the grounds that Fin cant really have any true knowledge of the pre industrial age and I also add that the post industrial age has not eradicated poverty nor has it eradicated difficult lives. Who are you to say “post industrial” is superior to “pre industrial”. You simply dont know Fin. Maybe the burden of post industrial is self defeating to the longevity of man whereas pre industrial saw little change for millenia. My point is …that much of the crap the post industrial age has delivered in real terms we dont really need. We buy “stuff” because we are educated my MSM to think we want it but in reality it is totally unnecessary and often has a high environmental cost.
I dont really know Fin. Is the post industrial life better? For whom and where? That is the question. Its certainly not globally better when you think of the nastiness that post industrial weaponry has delivered…and thats just one example. Global poverty hasnt been reduced, resources are endangered, the environment is under threat.
Maybe just maybe industrialisation brought as many problems as it did benefits. Please dont tell me “where would we be without remote control TVs or Ipods”.
On the grand scheme of things every age has its fads.
Also, a Carbon price, if it’s genuine, will get rid of coal-burning to smelt Aluminium in Australia. So there won’t be any non-hydro Aluminium smelting in Australia. Nuclear just can’t compete.
and Finrod bravenewclimate is one space that has been linked to death here (and I mean to death) and we know they are pushy pro nukers …and dont have a lot of credibility. We have all heard all that “bravenewclimate” has to offer before (which isnt much)…and I wonder who stumps up their money. The miners Ill bet.
The Russians seem enthusiastic:
http://www.powertecrussia.com/blog/technology-developments-russian-nuclear-power/
Here is the text of the relevent passage:
Aluminium and nuclear power
Since 2007 Rosatom and RUSAL, now the world’s largest aluminium and alumina producer, have been undertaking a feasibility study on a nuclear power generation and aluminium smelter at Primorye in Russia’s far east. This proposal is taking shape as a US$ 10 billion project involving four 1000 MWe reactors and a 600,000 t/yr smelter with Atomstroyexport having a controlling share in the nuclear side. The smelter will require about one third of the output from 4 GWe, and electricity exports to China and North and South Korea are envisaged.
In October 2007 a $7 billion project was announced for the world’s biggest aluminium smelter in the Saratov region, complete with two new nuclear reactors to power it. The 1.05 million tonne per year aluminium smelter is to be built by RUSAL at Balakovo, and would require about 15 billion kWh/yr. The initial plan was for the existing Balakovo nuclear power plant of four 950 MWe reactors to be expanded with two more – the smelter would require a little over one third of the output of the expanded power plant. However, in February 2010 it was reported that RUSAL proposed to build its own 2000 MWe nuclear power station, with construction to start in 2011.
@Alice
It’s true that I haven’t experienced a completely pre-industrial lifestyle firsthand, I did spend the first six years of my life in a small house in the bush with no electricity connected. This probably gives me a bit more direct experience of some aspects of pre-industrial life than a lot of others. When people have been in that situation for a long time, they generally leap at the chance to adopt something more modern.
I don’t know about ‘post-industrial. I think I’ll stick with ‘industrial’.
I’m a bit more concerned about having enough power to run Haber-Bosch than I am about the telly remote.
It’s run By Prof. Brook, who started it out as a climate change and low carbon power advocacy blog. The gradual change in its emphasis stemmed from his own conversion to the nuclear cause over a number of months of looking into the case for various power sources. I guess the funding comes from his institute, therefore unlimately from the government. I’d be suprised to learn that there’s some secret pro-nuclear conspiricy in government circles to set such a thing up as a front for the pro-nuke movement. Pleasantly suprised, but suprised nonetheless.
Don’t be too sure about that. As demand grows, utilities running hydroelectric stations will be able to charge premium bucks for peaking power, and hydro is in short supply in Australia. Nuclear may be competative after all, especially after the NPP has been amortised.
@Finrod
I wouldnt mind digging deeper into Bravenew climate’s funding source Finrod – if you have any info?. I didnt say there was any conspiracy from government circles to fund pro nuclear initiatives (but that cannot be discounted seeing as many industrialised nations operate their governments ever more closely aligned to the oligarchies of powerful industry lobbying groups). More likely the funding conspiracy would arise from those with a vested interest in digging up uranium and shipping into global markets…as I suggested mining companies more likely.
Any government conspiracy usually entails the peanuts of kickbacks to their political party donations and aside from that… the self interest enrichment of politically involved individuals not particularly obvious to their party.
Finrod, you’re swamping the thread. Nothing more in this thread please. The sandpit is open.
@Alice
I have no more details than can be found in the About page of BNC. The information given there strongly suggests that the funding is coming from The Environment Institute, which is in turn presumably funded by the University of Adelaide. Unless Barry’s paying for it himself.
Very well. From now on I’ll post in the sandpit.
What’s the point of setting up a thread about a specific topic, then getting upset when it turns out people have lots to say about it?
@BilB
This may surprise you BilB that I’ve been using solar and other forms of renewable energy for years. I have not paid an electricity bill since 2008 and I make most of my own car fuel. Somehow I’ve gotten a different perspective from the industrial heavyweights of whom you speak. I can only see things from ground level. My inescapable conclusion is that solar is not the technology of the future but merely a niche application. It is just too expensive and intermittent but I’m sure you have an answer to that. I await your link to the breakthrough solar technology and an explanation as to why we are still stuck with these pesky coal plants.
I almost long for the day when coal, oil and gas are not longer there to keep the lights on and put food in our bellies. Then we’ll know who is living in the real world.
John Quiggan,
I am surprised by your opening comments, especially point 3. You say:
“The only plausible path to an Australian nuclear power industry involves the use of modern plant designs and regulatory systems with a proven track record in the US and/or Europe and Japan.”
I offer an alternative approach. If we accept that even the old nuclear plants are already 10 to 100 times safer than coal, why do we need the US and EU type nuclear regulatory systems? These are what are making nuclear more expensive than they need to be (but still much cheaper than wind, solar or any other non-hydro renewable). Why don’t we argue to remove all the impediments to nuclear and implement least cost nuclear power? If all the impediments were removed, nuclear would, eventually, be cheaper than fossil fuels. It is only more expensive now because of the impeiments society has imposed on it over the past 50 years.
“So, for the foreseeable future, nuclear isn’t an option for Australia, and there is little or nothing we can, or should, do about it.”
If the government wanted to take a lead, and explain the options and the costs, public perceptions could change quickly (for all except the totally entrenched, anti-nuclear fringe).
Given that renewable energy cannot make any significant reduction in GHG emissions, and nor can energy efficiency improvements, are you suggesting that we should give up on setting fourth on a direction to make significant cuts to our GHG emissions? Without nuclear, where are the cuts going to come from? It seems that the IPCC, OECD and all the other G20 nations recognise that little progress can be made unless we replace fossil fuels with nuclear. It needs to be low cost so it will more quickly substitute for fossil fuels for heat and land transport.