poppa x said:
Welcome back livers. Ii's been mighty lonely defending the righteous path of enlightenment over the past week. Your return means I can declare my first innings closed. Return to the bar and tell all my mates how well I played. "Ya shoulda seen the six I smashed off Razor boys. It was huge".
Is that the point where they start laughing it up for hours about your past boasts of phantom deeds?
poppa x said:
And Rayzor? You are so wrong about nuclear power. It's not perfect (nothing is) but it's sh*tloads cleaner and safer than coal.
Another strawman argument designed to dodge facts...how surprising!
I said nuclear power was energy negative, a financial black hole, short sighted considering limited global uranium supplies and has safety issues. Naturally, lacking any genuine knowledge of the subject (but still being in favour of it), you choose to dodge the first three most damning failings of nuclear power, comparing only its safety (which I'll get to later) to the worst alternative.
Proponents of nuclear power consistently fail to include (read: hide/ignore) the energy and environmental costs of mining and refining uranium. Nuclear power has proven to be a massive financial black hole during an era where oil has been far cheaper than it will ever be again.
We import a growing amount of diesel (currently around 30%), a fair portion of which goes to the mining and transport industries (both vital to a nuclear system). This figure will grow each year due to the fact Australian oil extraction has already peaked and is now in major decline.
Almost every stage of mining and refining uranium uses oil or oil derivatives in seriously intensive amounts. Yellowcake requires an 800C oil powered furnace and massive amounts of transportation at every stage of the process. A sustained fuel shortage due to global supply problems (which we're already overdue for) would push the already unsustainably high cost of nuclear power to apalling levels.
With very high grade ore (now in decline), the CO2 emmissions of the full nuclear life cycle is the equivalent of half the CO2 emmissions from a gas-fired power station. With low grade ore (increasingly the standard), CO2 emmissions are the equivalent of a gas-fired power station.
Gas-fired power stations are infinitely cheaper to build, maintain and safely dismantle than nuclear power stations. They also produce electricity at a far lower cost. Howard, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen to sell the US our natural gas (our last remaining abundant fossil fuel) at fixed rates well below current market price, while spruiking a scientifically untenable case for nuclear power. Gas-fired power stations are not a good alternative either, but they are a far better alternative than nuclear - provided we're not busy literally giving away our remaining reserves of natural gas.
While nuclear power stations do not emit CO2 (the CO2 they do emit being during the mining and refining of uranium, plus the cost of getting materials and the workforce to and fro), what materials do they need apart from uranium and what do they emit?
They take in massive amounts of cold water and expel hot water.
France had enormous problems over recent summers with its reactors because the hot water they have to expel from nuclear plants is (after all the practical storage time possible) pumped into the local rivers. Studies have conclusively proven that the resulting higher temperatures during a hot (for France) summer killed off much of the marine life in these rivers.
Lucky it's not as hot in Australia as it is in France huh? Lucky water (which we're already short of) doesn't evaporate faster at higher temperatures huh? Lucky we already have an abundance of water and existing healthy river systems here in Australia huh?
And finally, the safety issue. Sweden - who is the undisputed leader in both safety and operation of nuclear power plants - recently reported that only "pure luck" saved them from a catastropic meltdown in several reactors. Why? Because the electricity supply failed for a little over two hours - all reactors are vulnerable to the same problem and these incidences have occurred worldwide. Sounds like a hard task for potential terrorists doesn't it - why bother trying to smuggle or assemble a 'dirty bomb' when you can use the government endorsed power source?
Is Sweden, the world leader in nuclear technology, developing further nuclear power plants? No, they are going in the opposite direction at a frantic pace and developing solar, wind and bio-fuel agroforestry alternative energy sources. Ah, the irony...Sweden which has only a fraction of the solar potential which Australia has is going at it full tilt.
Britain is at present closing two reactors due to "significant leaks." Japan has had massive problems in recent years with near meltdowns due to earthquake activity and negligence caused by the unprofitability of nuclear (even in a country like Japan who has no oil or coal reserves to compete with nuclear).
Of course, storage here is no problem or cost issue because we can just stick it in a shallow hole and terminally poison out of the way Aboriginal land all over again. Hooray!
But most damning of all for nuclear and the Howard government, the CSIRO was set to release findings that geo-thermal solar power plants will be as cheap as coal-fired power plants within seven years (or sooner with something resembling adequate govt funding!), but were ordered by the Howard government and the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development (for whom the report was commissioned) to not publish the report.
Some quotes from the (eventually) leaked report:
The CRC's report claims a 35sqkm area with high levels of sunlight and low cloud cover "could produce Australia's entire current power demand" using solar thermal technology.
"Solar radiation is the largest renewable resource on earth and, if harnessed by existing technology, approximately 1.5 per cent of the world's desert area could generate the world's entire electricity demand," the report says.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/de...ory_id=483163&category=environment&m=5&y=2006
But of course, we'd rather use our deserts for other countries to test atom bombs in and to bury radioactive material there - you know it makes sense.
This study was completed long before Howard started raving about nuclear options (which will take as long to build as it would to fast track geo-thermal alternatives) and geo-thermal is already as cost efficient as wind power. Howard has slashed research funding for geo-thermal and talked about nothing but nuclear (in highly deceptive terms which don't come close to full disclosure) ever since - of course, still protecting the coal industry while he's at it.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not Howard is a scheming, moral-devoid deceiver of the public who is owned lock, stock and barrel by vested corporate interests...preferring to appease them than advance Australian technology which is genuinely sustainable and would provide this country with cutting edge, world's best practice, affordable energy technology.
Feel free to take a few air swings at the above then duck off to the pub declaring 'victory' poppa. Or perhaps you'd like to debate about desalination plants and other white elephant technology?
Perhaps you could just send 'Honest John' in to bat for you? He's hit tons of sixes in his dreams too.
