Nuclear power - do we need it?

[Sourbastard]

Originally Posted by jabba

Not being a smart ***, But can the both of you explain what your are talking about to the uneducated. Yes that is me and I bet a quiet a few others.
Sour b@st@rd:
How does water vapour contribute to Greenhouse gasses?
Why is water vapour as a greenhouse gas so bad?
What is your reason for mocking the concept of "Green house effect"?

As Ghia5l pointed out Water vapour does alot more to trap heat than C02 does in climatic feedback/flux. http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html#wv that explains it far better then I can at the moment.

If you ask most Greenies exactly what is the greenhouse effect, you will get an incoherant answer based on something about pollution, an ozone layer, a melting ice cap, a dead penguin, and a whale named bob who does one hell of an Elvis Impression. Climate Change is vastly complex, and occurs over millenia, not decades.

Essentially its all a crock. The earth can still be considered to be in an Ice Age. The ice caps, especially the Antarctic, will eventually dissappear. Not because of Man. But because of nature. The reason there are extremely large oil deposits in the Antarctic, is because it was previously covered in dense jungle flora and fauna during the mesozoic era. Not Ice. The planet has fluxuated in and out of minor and major ice ages many times over its existance. They occur conditionally when the planet decides they will occur and end when its good and bloody ready.

Secondly when you weigh up the amount of pollution that mankind creates compared to volcanic activity, the amounts we create pale into insignificance compared to what the planet is able to produce itself.

When it comes down to it, most climate studies are based at most on decades of data, when they need to be based on far greater periods of time. Our weather patterns move on scales more comparable to geologic time scales, as opposed to the 5 minute while you wait climate change trauma of the week newsletters we get currently.

So melt away ice caps, life flourished before they were there, and will certainly flourish after they are gone.

[jabba]

Thanks for your reply mate.. Yeh I did read Ghia5L and I thought thats what you were refering to. It is so true that you learn something every day.

Matt

[mcflux]

Conversely, the melting icecaps can lead to global cooling too ;)

Initial temperature rise leads to ice caps melting. Ice caps spread over polar seas, and refreeze due to the seas being 0 or below (seawater has a freezing point of around -2*C I think)

Increase icecap coverage leads to more heat reflected back to space. Earth gets cooler. Ocean cools. Ice caps expand further. More heat reflected back to space. Earth gets cooler. Ocean cools. etc etc

One possibility ;)

[GasoLane]

Yes...
Having owned a couple of old V12 Jags with Lucas Electrics the scary thing is the one in Syd built in Lucas heights!!

[Outbackjack]

There is no doubt about it, John Howard is a master politician (read sleeze bag). He has almost buried the debate/revaltions about his draconian IR laws with this fantasy about Australia becoming a nuclear state..... He must laugh himself to sleep every night in his nice warm tax payer provided bed.

[Van D]

Why don't they figure out something to clean up the emmisions caused from burning coal?

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by Walkinshaw

Polution man, its strangeling me, making my life a black abyss. Why is the world so dark.

I'm off to cut myself.

I drive a diesel buring truck and a large V8, and burn nitrous oxide!!!!

What am I doing to the world?????

Arrrrrrrrrr the humanity.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by sourbastard

As Ghia5l pointed out Water vapour does alot more to trap heat than C02 does in climatic feedback/flux. http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/gases.html#wv that explains it far better then I can at the moment.

If you ask most Greenies exactly what is the greenhouse effect, you will get an incoherant answer based on something about pollution, an ozone layer, a melting ice cap, a dead penguin, and a whale named bob who does one hell of an Elvis Impression. Climate Change is vastly complex, and occurs over millenia, not decades.

Essentially its all a crock. The earth can still be considered to be in an Ice Age. The ice caps, especially the Antarctic, will eventually dissappear. Not because of Man. But because of nature. The reason there are extremely large oil deposits in the Antarctic, is because it was previously covered in dense jungle flora and fauna during the mesozoic era. Not Ice. The planet has fluxuated in and out of minor and major ice ages many times over its existance. They occur conditionally when the planet decides they will occur and end when its good and bloody ready.

Secondly when you weigh up the amount of pollution that mankind creates compared to volcanic activity, the amounts we create pale into insignificance compared to what the planet is able to produce itself.

When it comes down to it, most climate studies are based at most on decades of data, when they need to be based on far greater periods of time. Our weather patterns move on scales more comparable to geologic time scales, as opposed to the 5 minute while you wait climate change trauma of the week newsletters we get currently.

So melt away ice caps, life flourished before they were there, and will certainly flourish after they are gone.

If you don't consider humanity the center of the know universe, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously? :lookedat:

[xfalconz]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

There is no doubt about it, John Howard is a master politician (read sleeze bag). He has almost buried the debate/revaltions about his draconian IR laws with this fantasy about Australia becoming a nuclear state..... He must laugh himself to sleep every night in his nice warm tax payer provided bed.

He will probabaly laugh even more when he builds nuclear power stations to serve the main cities and buries the waste somewhere out your way! Bastard!

[gtfpv]

mate the real thing that worries me is not nuclear energy here or uranium sales . it's all the waste that comes back to australia with the deal . our country is big and dessolate . UNCLE SAM considers it the best place to bury spent uranium , if we accept the deals more money can be made taking waste than everything else .
australian economists wouldnt be interested in a deal like that now would they . that would be as silly as selling off vegemite, arnotts,quantas, telstra . and you name it , THEY COULDN'T BE SO SILLY COULD THEY.????

[charles_wif_xf]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

mate the real thing that worries me is not nuclear energy here or uranium sales . it's all the waste that comes back to australia with the deal . our country is big and dessolate . UNCLE SAM considers it the best place to bury spent uranium , if we accept the deals more money can be made taking waste than everything else .
australian economists wouldnt be interested in a deal like that now would they . that would be as silly as selling off vegemite, arnotts,quantas, telstra . and you name it , THEY COULDN'T BE SO SILLY COULD THEY.????

The current government would sell their mothers if they could. Lately, it's been the US saying jump and little tosspot Howard saying how high.

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by xfalconz

He will probabaly laugh even more when he builds nuclear power stations to serve the main cities and buries the waste somewhere out your way! Bastard!

Yeah, he is already working on that one... SOB.

[Sourbastard]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

If you don't consider humanity the center of the know universe, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously? :lookedat:

lol what was I thinking.

*Sourbastard converts the XP to run on Canola Oil and sews his own underwear out of hemp*

Combine Harvesters kill whales maaaaan!

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by sourbastard

lol what was I thinking.

*Sourbastard converts the XP to run on Canola Oil and sews his own underwear out of hemp*

Combine Harvesters kill whales maaaaan!

Forgive me, the leprechaun sitting on my bottle of red wine was telling me what to post last night..... and I was listening.


Combine Harvesters are an Australian invention! How many do you reckon we can sell to the Japanese?

A couple of surf boats on each side, towed behind a Japanese "Whale Research" ship........

[mcflux]

Originally Posted by sourbastard

*Sourbastard ... sews his own underwear out of hemp*

You have underwear?!?

[ben_725]

I work in a coal fired power station and know wat gos on. the company i work for has been considering more green friendly ways to produce power for years, to produce the amount of power coming from one of the stations i work at you would need thousands of wind turbines and even more solar panels, its just not practical, so the next reasonable approach to produce power without burning coal woould be nuculear. also you hav more chance of being killed by a nuculear attack from another country than a repeat of chernobly. just my 2c

[mik]

Originally Posted by ben_725

I work in a coal fired power station and know wat gos on. the company i work for has been considering more green friendly ways to produce power for years, to produce the amount of power coming from one of the stations i work at you would need thousands of wind turbines and even more solar panels, its just not practical, so the next reasonable approach to produce power without burning coal woould be nuculear. also you hav more chance of being killed by a nuculear attack from another country than a repeat of chernobly. just my 2c

you might be right but you`ve heard the old saying to err is human, any thing man made can screw up if it does`nt we can screw it up, chernoble estimated deaths was 290,000 dead and still dying, i`d rather pay a little extra for some other sort of power

[red_hotxr6]

Why not just do the job properly instead of keep shouting, i dont want another chernobol, you have the right building the proper tools the right people for the job and hey presto you have a cleaner more efficient power system. Actually does any one here know what actually happened to cause that accident.?

[boss-290]

We have enough coal recources to keep us going for 300 years.

[Jeeepers]

Originally Posted by mik

nup dont need it, solar power, wave power, hydro power, wind power plenty of other types of power generation

Solar is too expensive and inefficient at this stage, Wave?? Surfers would gripe at that one, not to mention conservationists. Hydro is working now, but how many dams do you want fowling our waterways? Wind is ok, but an ugly approach, as well as consuming vast areas of land to be effective.
I'm a yes, assuming we wouldn't go cheap on design like Russia and others.

[mik]

Originally Posted by redfin

Solar is too expensive and inefficient at this stage, Wave?? Surfers would gripe at that one, not to mention conservationists. Hydro is working now, but how many dams do you want fowling our waterways? Wind is ok, but an ugly approach, as well as consuming vast areas of land to be effective.
I'm a yes, assuming we wouldn't go cheap on design like Russia and others.

we have 14000 odd kilometers of coastline or is it miles?? correct me someone, so neither wave power or wind power would be that much of an impost if put in the right places, they would be barely noticeable, i don`t know for sure but i`m betting if we went wind cost would be initially higher but in the long run, it would turn out cheaper ,no waste for a start, no huge security costs, no risc of terrorist problems, and 0 potential health problems(except for that rare parrot), there has not been a mention of using the tidal forces for generation of power either, the cheap solution is not always best.....my 2 bobs worth

[mik]

Originally Posted by red_hotxr6

Why not just do the job properly instead of keep shouting, i dont want another chernobol, you have the right building the proper tools the right people for the job and hey presto you have a cleaner more efficient power system. Actually does any one here know what actually happened to cause that accident.?

the plant was basicly run down, and a gunho foreman decided he knew best and went above the paremeters set out officially for the reactor, while instruments were reading incorrectly and having mechanical malfunctions, was a documentry on it on foxtel i think, worth looking at.

[charles_wif_xf]

Originally Posted by redfin

Solar is too expensive and inefficient at this stage, Wave?? Surfers would gripe at that one, not to mention conservationists. Hydro is working now, but how many dams do you want fowling our waterways? Wind is ok, but an ugly approach, as well as consuming vast areas of land to be effective.
I'm a yes, assuming we wouldn't go cheap on design like Russia and others.

If we are adamant about saving the environment, then financial cost should be the last of our concerns. If the solar, wind, etc technologies will work if widespread enough, the money should be created (creating inflation in the process but who cares if the world is saved) to fund these utilities.

[mcflux]

Originally Posted by mik

we have 14000 odd kilometers of coastline or is it miles?? correct me someone, so neither wave power or wind power would be that much of an impost if put in the right places, they would be barely noticeable, i don`t know for sure but i`m betting if we went wind cost would be initially higher but in the long run, it would turn out cheaper ,no waste for a start, no huge security costs, no risc of terrorist problems, and 0 potential health problems(except for that rare parrot), there has not been a mention of using the tidal forces for generation of power either, the cheap solution is not always best.....my 2 bobs worth

How much of that coastline has regular, decent-sized waves?

How much of that coastline has regular, decent-strength winds?

No huge security or terrorist problems? So patrolling 14,000kms of coastline power supply is easier than guarding a single plant (coal/nuclear/etc)?

Cheaper? No waste? What do you mean by "no waste", and why would this be cheaper? I consider a dead wind turbine from a lightning strike as considerable waste, which would be costly to fix.

Tidal forces are similar to wave power, there are few sites which would be economically and environmentally viable for housing tidal power stations. Marine ecosystems are much more fragile than terrestrial ecosystems generally.

I agree with your statement that the cheap solution is not always the best, but in the case where you have an unreliable and potentially environmentally-damaging expensive option (let's choose tidal in this instance), versus a cheap option (which is generally reliable if fossil-fuel based, and let's say environmentally damaging), I'd be picking the cheap option, depending on the potential environmental damage each option could cause. If both caused on a ranking scale an equal amount of environmental damage (atmospheric pollution & ash ponds versus marine habitat destruction), you would be crazy to pick the expensive option!

That's my $0.02million

[mik]

how much coastline does have regular waves?, im betting with 14000 ks to choose from you could find plenty and whats the matter with inland
the 20 or 30 wind turbines that i have driven past over 2 years there is rarely any not running and that was inland victoria so i would not expect that to be a problem they seem very efficient with light winds, im not sure what the percentage is but a huge amount of australia is desert and or basicly unused so the argument of not having anywhere to put turbines is crap, and if they were going too the trouble of taking out australias power supply (which i doubt) its much more efficient to sabotage a couple of power stations than combing australia for wind generators.
has there been a single turbine taken out by lightning ?? possibly but i would imagine they would have some protection from lightning built in to them as other high structures have.
i`m not a greenie but i do think we could do a lot of other things other than than go the nuclear option which will still cost plenty regardles, your entitled to your opinion (as am i), i suspect we will have one whether its the right way to go or not if its a vote getter time will tell.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by mik

you might be right but you`ve heard the old saying to err is human, any thing man made can screw up if it does`nt we can screw it up, chernoble estimated deaths was 290,000 dead and still dying, i`d rather pay a little extra for some other sort of power

This kind've thinking is like the people who sold plugs to put in power sockets, when electricity first became popular, to stop the power leaking out and killing you!(True story!)

Chernobyl was 20 years ago, things have moved on a little since then. As for the deaths, according to Wikpedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_accident which states that.... World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that as many as 9000 people, among the approximately 6.6 million most highly exposed, may die from some form of cancer (one of the induced diseases).

And from the Uranium Information Centre http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htmThe Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety. The resulting steam explosion and fire released at least five percent of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind. 28 people died within four months from radiation or thermal burns, 19 have subsequently died, and there have been around nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident: total 56 fatalities as of 2004. An authoritative UN report in 2000 concluded that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed. This was confirmed in a very thorough 2005 study.

When I went to school 56 is a long way from 290,000!

[4.9 EF Futura]

mate the real thing that worries me is not nuclear energy here or uranium sales . it's all the waste that comes back to australia with the deal . our country is big and dessolate . UNCLE SAM considers it the best place to bury spent uranium , if we accept the deals more money can be made taking waste than everything else .
australian economists wouldnt be interested in a deal like that now would they . that would be as silly as selling off vegemite, arnotts,quantas, telstra . and you name it , THEY COULDN'T BE SO SILLY COULD THEY.????

The current government would sell their mothers if they could. Lately, it's been the US saying jump and little tosspot Howard saying how high.

Havent looked at this thread for a while... but im wondering... what the economists and the government have to do with the sale of private companies?

Lol... AFF is now using Vegemite to attack our political leaders?!?!?

Thats drawing a fairly long string to the bow, is it not??

If we are adamant about saving the environment, then financial cost should be the last of our concerns. If the solar, wind, etc technologies will work if widespread enough, the money should be created (creating inflation in the process but who cares if the world is saved) to fund these utilities.

I'm no big city economist but im fairly confident you cant "create" money at your own whim. i.e.

Govt: "we need to print twice as much money to pay for this wind farm"
Wind farm supplier: "well then consider the price doubled"

A $100 note doesnt mean its worth $100. It's worth whatever amount of "x" you can swap for the $100 note...

[mcflux]

Originally Posted by mik

how much coastline does have regular waves?, im betting with 14000 ks to choose from you could find plenty and whats the matter with inland
the 20 or 30 wind turbines that i have driven past over 2 years there is rarely any not running and that was inland victoria so i would not expect that to be a problem they seem very efficient with light winds, im not sure what the percentage is but a huge amount of australia is desert and or basicly unused so the argument of not having anywhere to put turbines is crap, and if they were going too the trouble of taking out australias power supply (which i doubt) its much more efficient to sabotage a couple of power stations than combing australia for wind generators.
has there been a single turbine taken out by lightning ?? possibly but i would imagine they would have some protection from lightning built in to them as other high structures have.
i`m not a greenie but i do think we could do a lot of other things other than than go the nuclear option which will still cost plenty regardles, your entitled to your opinion (as am i), i suspect we will have one whether its the right way to go or not if its a vote getter time will tell.

I doubt there are many places around the australian coastline which have:

A) regular wave activity where waves are of similar amplitude and frequency
B) where such waves exist, there are no fragile ecosystems
C) in a geographically-favourable area

The 20 or 30 wind turbines you've driven past would probably provide power for (at a guess) a few towns, assuming constant maximum wind loads. They actually require decent winds to operate, and what you feel on the ground is different to the wind activity 100m or so above ground level where they operate from.

There's a major town in western australia which obtains its power from diesel generators. Although wind and/or solar energy is renewable, it was found that implementing these measures would be too unreliable and in fact would consume more diesel than running the generators 24/7 (generators would still be needed for times where there's calm winds, or cloudy days, or night time). Generators running 24/7 have been reported to have efficiencies of up to 50%, which is pretty decent.

Yes, there is much land available for placing wind turbines. But is there regular high wind activity there to make them operate efficiently?

Yes, it would be easier to target a single large power plant, but you'd have to compare security costs vs terrorist attacks/impact between a point source and many many smaller sources.

But we're both entitled to our opinions as you've said.

[mik]

ok it was projected deaths.
, a spokesman for Geneva-based WHO, said it stood by its figures. He said the predicted eventual number of extra deaths in the hardest-hit areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia was estimated to be 4000.

Another 5000 deaths were predicted among those who had been living in less-contaminated zones of the three countries at the time of the disaster, he said.

Mr Haertl also noted that WHO had not done a European-wide study and said Greenpeace's figures appeared to assume one.

The Greenpeace report said that a further 200,000 people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus could have died as a result of medical conditions – such as cardiovascular diseases – attributable to the disaster, but that there was no accepted methodology to calculate deaths from such diseases.

The report said the incidence of cancer in Belarus had jumped 40 per cent between 1990 and 2000, with children not yet born at the time of the disaster showing an 88.5-fold increase in thyroid cancers.

Mr Haertl questioned Greenpeace's estimated 10 per cent death rate for thyroid cancers among children and adolescents. "We actually know the death rate is one percent. They are overstating the figures," he said.

Leukaemia is also reported to be on the increase in the Chernobyl region, as are cases of intestinal, rectal, breast, bladder, kidney and lung cancers, the Greenpeace report said.

The relocation of hundreds of thousands of people has put further strains on the population.

"The Chernobyl accident disrupted whole societies in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia," Greenpeace concluded.

"A complex interaction between factors such as poor health, increased costs of health systems, relocation of people, loss of agricultural territories, contamination of foodstuffs, economic crisis, the costs of remediation to the states, political problems, a weakened workforce ... creates a general crisis."
Ukraine health ministry 2006
31 dead in the initial explosion
4000 deaths from cancer in Belarus , Ukraine and Russia according to a un report (2005)
30,000 to 60,000 according to a british study(2006)
2.4 million Ukranians (428,000 children) suffer from health problems directly linked too the disaster. We could argue figures all night but either way i don`t want a reactor in my backyard thanks.

[Outbackjack]

With the news now emerging that the Government tried to cover up the recent gas leak at Lucas Heights, we should ask ourselves, can we trust the Government? (any Government) to run such a dangerous buisness as nuclear power.