Nuclear power - do we need it?

[andrewts]

I think that there are too many left running the shop with their whinging and carrying on. Nuclear Power is about as safe as it would want to be, and output is abundant.

Lets face it, there is however going to be waste. We can store it underground in a rural area, where it is out of harms way. The only reason I can see for not storing it underground in urban areas is because the land has had the **** kicked out of it by us, and to make a big hole under the city for it to cave into in the event of an earthquake, for example (if such a thing should happen) seems a bit silly to me... :

[GXL078]

No, but I think burnouts contribute to global warming and should be banned.

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by andrewts

I think that there are too many left running the shop with their whinging and carrying on. Nuclear Power is about as safe as it would want to be, and output is abundant.

Lets face it, there is however going to be waste. We can store it underground in a rural area, where it is out of harms way. The only reason I can see for not storing it underground in urban areas is because the land has had the **** kicked out of it by us, and to make a big hole under the city for it to cave into in the event of an earthquake, for example (if such a thing should happen) seems a bit silly to me... :

And how would those rural areas benefit from nuclear power? Earth quakes can happen anywhere......

[Sourbastard]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

Here is an open question to anybody that wants to give an answer..... Where will the waste be dumped/stored?? In the sates that beneifit from the power stations, or ship it ""outback" where nobody cares about????

How about store it at the maralinga nuclear test site. You wont have to worry about how much more radioactive it gets then will you.

[mcflux]

How about the golf course at Alice Springs? At least the green will be "green" then

[Sourbastard]

Originally Posted by Ghia5L

How about the golf course at Alice Springs? At least the green will be "green" then

and they can play at night!

[Sourbastard]

I want to be the first kid on the block with an army of 8 foot tall radioative wombat-men hybrid warriors to inflict pain upon mankind from my orbiting battle fortress.

[mcflux]

There'll be no such thing as a Bogie anymore though... All shots above Par will be a Double-Bogie at minimum due to the, err, "Blinky" growth factor

[Psycho Chicken]

Originally Posted by tassiexr8

accidents like Chernobyl are impossible with Thorium.

Accidents like Chernobyl are also impossible with correctly followed safety proceedures and a non-stalinist government.

But hey, wombats with glowing eyes rock.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Psycho Chicken

But hey, wombats with glowing eyes rock.

And you could see drop bears at night ... without artificial lighting.

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by sourbastard

How about store it at the maralinga nuclear test site. You wont have to worry about how much more radioactive it gets then will you.

How about Rose Bay in Sydney??

[Psycho Chicken]

I know it's an old post, but whatever.

Originally Posted by EF, What else?

I think the issue would be what would happen of the means of delivery were to fail? I mean, if the waste was barreled inside a rocket of some sort, to be sent out to space, what kind of disasters would we be facing if there was a major malfunction, such as the Apollo One take off (I think it was Apollo One), or the space shuttle mishaps. And the shuttle crashes have been in the last 15 years or so. Not exactly yesterdays news.

Apollo 1 wasn't a launch, it was a test on the pad. Half the cause was the pressurised pure oxygen in the command module, as well as a crap load of wiring that shorted out. Both being no issue in an unmanned rocket that was pointed at the sun.

Two shuttle crashes, both of which were preventable. Mind you only one of those was in the 15 years you gave. You'd be hard pressed to find a shuttle crash before the 80's though.

Not to mention countless probes have been launched with nuclear batteries onboard and no problems there.

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by Psycho Chicken

I know it's an old post, but whatever.



Apollo 1 wasn't a launch, it was a test on the pad. Half the cause was the pressurised pure oxygen in the command module, as well as a crap load of wiring that shorted out. Both being no issue in an unmanned rocket that was pointed at the sun.

Two shuttle crashes, both of which were preventable. Mind you only one of those was in the 15 years you gave. You'd be hard pressed to find a shuttle crash before the 80's though.

Not to mention countless probes have been launched with nuclear batteries onboard and no problems there.

The idea of shooting this stuff at the sun has merit. But I believe that the USA has run out of, or almost, run out of saturn V rockets.

This way the stuff can be disposed of in a user pays system. No tax payer dollars should be used to get rid of it. And each country should take responsibility for its own launch's. That is, we should launch from woomera and cape york, if that ever get of the ground (no pun intended). And the lauch paths should only be over the areas that benefit from the power stations that the waste came from, or over no population at all. All very expensive, given the cost of building, maintaining, and decomissioning, I doubt that very many Australians would be very happy at the sudden rise in the cost of electricity.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

That is, we should launch from woomera and cape york,

Cant use Woomera after the end of the V8 Supercar season. 888 Racing are using it for testing

[Psycho Chicken]

I don't know how viable the option is, but it sure as hell sounds fun. Two Saturn V's left (neither working, suprise suprise), but I think rocketry has advanced a bit in the last 40 years ;)

[Outbackjack]

I wonder how long a capsule with this stuff inside would take to get to the sun? Once the suns gravity got hold of it it would pick up some awsome speeds. And yes rocketry has come a long way. I think the risk factors are quite small, but with this stuff, any kind of accident/mishap really spells disaster.

[Sourbastard]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

How about Rose Bay in Sydney??

Why dont we just store it in your fridge.

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Cant use Woomera after the end of the V8 Supercar season. 888 Racing are using it for testing

Are they using the old runway there??

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by sourbastard

Why dont we just store it in your fridge.

Naaah the beer will get hot and all our food will be cooked way before we are ready to eat it. What if we stuff it in the opera house??

[Sourbastard]

Im all turned around on this issue now. Yes keep the uranium where it belongs in the ground, because its not radioactive there, only when you pull it out and sprinkle it on your cereal.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

And yes rocketry has come a long way. I think the risk factors are quite small, but with this stuff, any kind of accident/mishap really spells disaster.

Launch it out over Nth Korea. If it falls down who cares

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

Are they using the old runway there??

I think so ...unless they've built a new one.

[OLDFORDNUT]

sooner the better just not next door to me.lol.but after only 2 major accidents(both in poor countries)i think it must be a pretty safe bet these days,but ive seen stories on sbs that say there has been quite a few close calls.

[Sapper]

Originally Posted by Outbackjack

The idea of shooting this stuff at the sun has merit. But I believe that the USA has run out of, or almost, run out of saturn V rockets.

This way the stuff can be disposed of in a user pays system. No tax payer dollars should be used to get rid of it. And each country should take responsibility for its own launch's. That is, we should launch from woomera and cape york, if that ever get of the ground (no pun intended). And the lauch paths should only be over the areas that benefit from the power stations that the waste came from, or over no population at all. All very expensive, given the cost of building, maintaining, and decomissioning, I doubt that very many Australians would be very happy at the sudden rise in the cost of electricity.

Bear in mind that there is a huge cost of manpower, finances and materials to do something like this. Half the reason that nuclear power is so beneficial is that compared to all other sources of energy, it uses by far the smallest amount of resources.

There is a scandanavian country (can't remember which) that has developed an excellent way to dispose of nuclear waste underground. Even the normally environmentally anal EU is happy with it.

Things like solar and wind power, tough renewable, produce little actual electrical power for the resources required to set them up. And, where as ALL other sources of electricity just convert energy from one form to another, nuclear power generates energy through converting mass into energy which has a much better yield (the speed of light squared is a VERY big number).

[AshMan]

Australia is one of the largest sources of Uranium in the world, and countries like china and america send the bloody nuclear waste back over here anyway!

[red_hotxr6]

it is probably inevitable that it will happen lets just hope that they have learnt what to do and what not to do so they dont make the same mistakes that were made when the first ones were built, which would in turn make it a lot safer.

[Hardtopxb]

China,is at the moment building and bringing on line 1 Coal burning power station every 10 minutes,they are building and populating a city the size of Newcastle every month..Makes Australia's 3/4%( on a good day) of world polution production look a bit like a drop in the ocean..I'm not denying we need to do something to reduce our output,but overall we are not contributing anywhere near America's 27% or China's16% and rising..

[Outbackjack]

Originally Posted by AshMan

Australia is one of the largest sources of Uranium in the world, and countries like china and america send the bloody nuclear waste back over here anyway!

Ay???? When does china and the US send their waste back here???

[xr8-200]

I saw a presentation on nuclear power a couple of weeks ago which I found interesting. It had an example of the differnce in waste between a nuclear power station and a coal power station both producing the same amount of power (enough for 1.25 mil people). It stated that over a year the coal plant would produce about 7mil tons of CO2 emmissions and the nuclear plant would produce about 3.5 tons of waste, 2 tons of which arent dangerous and can be buried leaving 1.5 tons of hazardous waste.

[james22]

Yes, the sooner the better

[VKXY]

I vote FOR nuclear but only if it involves Thorium technology instead of the filthy Uranium SCAM. Truth: Uranium technology has hardly evolved from the 1950's, so what if we have you beaut computers, the reactors work the same way, the control systems have just been retro-fitted, computer screens instead of dials, lights, and valves. LET'S GET THIS THROUGH. To produce Uranium fuel, first you have to mine it. That produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of low level radio-active waste which stays radio-active for tens of thousands of years. Then the ore concentrate (yellowcake, Uranium Oxide) has to be concentrated to increase the amount of fissionable Uranium. Less than 1% of natural Uranium will burn in a reactor. The rest is rubbish. While concentrating the yellowcake large amounts of radioactive fluids are produced, which I may mention, NO-ONE has figured out what to do with, also, there are over 400,000 tonnes of this nasty radio-active liquid stored in huge oil tank type containers in the USA, have been since the 1950's, they are beginning to leak, and they don't have a plan. This is almost never spoken of, or mentioned.This is also unbelievably stupid. The running and security of these storage areas is a huge cost never incorporated into costings because it would blow out the figures to unworkable. Uranium is filthy because all of its by-products stay nasty for many human lifetimes. Once you have considered the hundreds or thousands of tonnes of radio-active waste you have made in order to make the fuel, then you can start thinking about the actual waste from the reactor, after the usable fuel has been burned. It is much worse than the production waste. They never tell the public the whole story do they. Thorium technology is a newer technology, that won't go on its own. Thorium needs a particle beam fired into it to make it burn. Safety of this is, NO MELTDOWNS. Turn off the beam and the reactor sputters to a halt and cools down. THORIUM reactors can also burn and destroy completely, waste Uranium, Plutonium, Americium and all the other really nasty rubbish, we have been scratching our heads about for over 50 years. Effectively rendering down High level waste that would have stayed seriously dangerous for tens of thousands of years, into energy and the waste stays hugh level for less than 50 years. I ask you, which technology would you like to be running, Uranium or Thorium? Huh!, Australia also just happens to posses most of the worlds Thorium reserves, but as usual, our pollies are sitting on their *****, playing with fire they don't understand, while those that do and advise them of the options, continue to bang their heads on their voting cards. Australia has a chance to be at the forefront of world power generation by developing Thorium power systems. BUT, what are they looking at playing with, Uranium. Anyone hear PM mention Thorium, NO. I really do hope the Thorium message sinks in. The waste they have already pumped into geologically stable ground, safe for humans, won't go anywhere for a million years, has already migrated, leaked and soaked it way, over ten thousand times further than their good guesstimates, to late now, isn't it. It is so dangerous anyone getting within coo-ee would die from radiation burns, and now it on the move. Other countries like France, Germany, Russia, India and the USA are or have already produced running Thorium reactors. WHY ARE AUSTRALIANS SITTING AT THE BACK OF THE CUE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO TELL US WHAT TO DO?????? Stand up, walk to the front and open your mouth. You may find that they all nod their heads in agreeance, and then follow your lead, but time is running out, and we are still sitting on our hands. Go to GetUp.com suggest Thorium Power Generation as a MUST HAVE for Australians. Make it a political agenda. Let us lead before we follow.

My two bobs worth. (Steam coming out of ears, help, I'm melting down, arrgghh!)

P.S. Solar light concentrators, (mirrors) shining on a target produce thousands of degrees temp. That would make a lot of steam for power. As far as I am aware, this has only been used for testing refractory materials for spacecraft. It would only produce during the day, but heat accumulators, which every power station already has, could store that heat for night use.
I have an inkling that the new Victorian Solar power design runs along these lines.

P.P.S. (Completely outlandish, but may work idea) Build a pipeline from the sea to Lake Eyre, since the lake is below sea level, I believe that gravity would cause the siphon effect to keep it full, always. No more dry as a bone Lake Eyre, I think it would moisten the air for Western QLD and NSW, more rainfall in those areas, less of, I'm sorry, the land is so stuffed now, you can't have cattle and sheep running around anymore. Enviromental impact could involve the introduction of ocean species to the lake. Lake Eyre does have some rather strange and interesting local water creatures that stay dormant until it rains again, I've seen em with my own eyes. Fish and crustaceans. For some reason, sea birds from thousands of miles away on the coast know that there is water in the lake and move in for a feed, sea gulls and pelicans, in the dead centre.

P.P.P.S. The U.S. found a great way to get rid of the Uranium that won't burn in a reactor, they make depleted Uranium weapons out of it, it is very hard, very heavy and will punch through a tanks armour like butter while catching fire and burning everything near it.
The slight drawback is, now depleted Uranium is all over the place, will stay radio-active for as long as it does, contaminates your own troops as well as any civilians, and really the whole area should be fenced of. But, in reality, this crap dust is now blowing around everywhere, smart, NOT.

I'll shut up now, but,

I'll be back. (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

VKXY