Several National MP’s have pushed for the Australian Parliament to discuss whether the land with more uranium than anywhere else should use nuclear power. Typical how it takes conservative politicians to raise the question about one of the most successful low-carbon generations there is. On the one hand a million animals might go extinct, seas will swallow up our cities and children won’t know what snow is. On the other hand, one forty year old plant in a modern democracy came unstuck when a 13 m tidal wave hit and at least one person died. The Greens are more afraid of nuclear power than they are of climate change.
If there really was a problem with global warming, we’d want conservatives in charge, because they’d solve the problem, and more cost effectively.
Unbeknown to most Australians there are 451 nuclear plants around the world. The only advanced nations that are truly without it are Australia and New Zealand. Nations like Norway, Ireland, and Poland don’t have nuclear power plants but are connected via a grid to countries which do.
The IEA last week published a report titled “Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System”. I’ll say more about that soon. I used the IEA data to create this graph.
Spot the superpower:
Nuclear power, capacity, country, IEA 2019. (Click to enlarge)
It helps to have a second graph. France looks very impressive above, but nuclear power provides 70% of its electricity. In the USA, that large spike is a mere 20% of total power (see below).
The USA is using every source of energy it can…
Nuclear power, share by generation fuel. (Click to enlarge)
So nearly everyone else has nukes. Though a consensus is only so useful. It doesn’t mean it’s cost effective for a wide brown isolated grid which has other options. We do, after all, have 300 years of coal power (and exports) at our disposal. And as we’ve seen in past studies, coal was still cheaper.
Should we have a discussion? What kind of crazy-land would not?
“Should we have a discussion? What kind of crazy-land would not?”
‘Green’land
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It’s funny. In the current climate that Green Land should be the one covered in ice. So apt 🙂
150
Posted already in the previous post :
“Nuke the silly buggers with nuclear power !
Here in South Australia we have excellent grade
Uranium ore and export it by the truck load
Generating nuclear power all across the world.
But we here in Australia treat it as if is poison.
Never to be used in Australia.
Where is the government with balls
That will demolish the Greenists
On this issue ?
120
Australia, sacrificed by the NWO lunatics on the pagan occult altar ….
101
Last time I looked lots of ARENA advisors (they hand out the easy money and set the Climate Policies) were “Independent” directors of Renewable Companies. No balls needed.
50
What about a discussion re an assisted Greenist migration program ?
Assist the silly buggers to migrate
To beautiful pure poor New Zealand ?
71
New Zealand, the country that managed to export Rutherford.
De-populated, de-industrialised, destitute and despairing, with the highest youth suicide in the World, obsessed with secular globalism and wedded to the oddest interpretation of “bicultural” to wit, an ethnocentric cultural elite and a multicultural hoi polloi.
In any event, plate tectonics, vulcanism and extensive hydro would theoretically render power by nuclear fission unwise or unnecessary, thorium fission and deuterium / tritium fusion potentially excepted.
However, it’s all moot as I doubt there’d be any funding or a even a country left after “decarbonisation” by 2050.
71
I find it interesting that NZ has been decimated by earthquakes in Christchurch then a major shooting which just so happens to allow a deeper Socialist agenda to be implemented ( gun control ).
A friend who is a kiwi and a Christian has alluded to harrassment by practitioners of a form of what we’d recognise as wicthcraft while living in Auckland.
If NZ is sliding down the slope into a “black hole” of sorts, this is the other side ( but possibly less talked about ) part of the picture. I think what people dont really recognize is that cultural decay usually arises from spiritual decay, and a rise of paganism and the dark arts would IMHO explain a behind-the-scenes driver of the breakdown of the integrity of families and society in broader terms.
82
Their Haka is a ceremony to invoke evil spirits to use against their enemies. Witch doctors use similar ceremonies to fill their warriors with evil spirits so as to fight more ferociously against their opponents.
50
Since when?
While you have every right to make a fool of yourself, Len, a bit of research could have saved you
from doing so.
20
Thank you Bill. Don’t panic if we don’t accept your “generous” offer at all.
We have enough fruit-cakes and fruit-loops or our own as it is without wanting any more.
The man who committed the massacre in Christchurch a couple of months ago was one of yours — born and grown up on Australian soil. So NO, we don’t want any more.
Send them all to Antarctica and then they can watch — and measure — the melting of the ice cap. Should keep them occupied forever… ‘cos that ice cap isn’t going anywhere unless Antarctica does.
We have a (so far) very stable national electricity grid … from lots of hydro, some geothermal, and a bit of coal, sod all PV and only a little (long may it stay that way!) wind. So eat yer hearts out 🙂
Australia’s efforts are a really scary warning about what not to do! It’s my humble and honest opinion that nuclear is the best for now and in the long term — Molten Salt reactors (LFTR). They are so much safer.
10
The issue is the RET, now running at A$16-19/MWhr on base load coal. Its about 20% of anyone’s bill. When a propeller operator says they are cheaper than coal its because under the Paris Agreement imposts they may be (assuming they can sell all their actual power under a State Government guarantedd minimum).
Meanwhile the end user gets slugged pro-rata and big power users face oblivion.
State Governments are going to increase the RET to make their Paris Climate Change commitment of zero net emissions by 2050.
Taking away the subsidy to solar and wind does not mean cancellation of the RET.
60
Hi Geoff,
I doubt that the RET is the only cost passed to us in relation to Renewables.
Additional costs of transmission and integration of renewables into a functioning system of baseload from coal plants are substantial and appear on our bills in disguise.
Disclaimer. No engineering input was used in the design and deconstruction of Australia’s electricity system.
KK
50
weigh this too: https://balance10.blogspot.com/2019/05/every-nuclear-generating-station-spews.html
220
That’s a good one there Bob, lots of green hyperbole, it’s a shame that they can’t cast their engineering scrutiny to Renewables in a similar fashion.
KK
210
Which makes a nuclear power station a little more efficient than a human body. Your factoid weighed and found wanting.
34
From the link: No terrorist will ever threaten one of our cities by blowing up a solar panel.
LOL so much projection right there, the tactical destruction of renewables is equivalent to torture with…….THE COMFY CHAIR!
160
Haha, yea. Please…. come and blow up our windmills and solar panel farms.
80
Ho! Ho! HO! The Union of Concerned Scientists!
I wonder if Anthony Watts’s dog got the chance for an individual vote there?
110
All that warm water ‘dumped’ back in the ocean must be leading to extra evaporation
And rain in droughty California !
Gosh that’s why they are having floods there !
Sarc/
PS I notice that that link provided gives NO evidence for it’s assertions. Yet more greenish blah !
121
To say that the Watermelon style of “Greenies” are “special” is a massive understatement.
In a “fair and compassionate” society, these people would be institutionalised (for their own benefit, but of course).
Unfortunately, because we mess most things up in Australia, the institution we chose was parliament (apparently, we have closed most of the appropriate facilities).
Lunatics running the asylum indeed.
81
Interesting that parliament house looks like a burial mound or midden…how apt….
51
Well spotted.
30
You wouldn’t say that if you had been inside, OriginalSteve…
You would be too busy running away in terror to waste breath on mere words 😛
40
Hi Bob,
I may have misunderstood the purpose of your link by assuming that you were showing something about the anti nuclear stance of the intractables.
Was that really an article expressing your own views as seems to have been the interpretation of most who read and red it?
KK
40
KK: That author did some work, regardless of his green-phrasing; nuclear is a very large subject as everyone pretty much knows; just to cover Fukushima requires a site larger than Joanne’s; my views are similar to those of my home stat (Cal) where we have had quite a bit of experience in this subject. I’m no nuclear engineer; someone must present the other side of an issue; I was totally astounded that Britain went for several nuclear projects in the last several years. It’s a subject requiring LOTS of foresight even to consider. I could not believe the complications (involving Franc and China) that Britain under May signed onto. May God keep aussieville from that Brit model, o yeah! -RD
30
So it does seem that I have misjudged your intent, you do seem to side with the writer.
I assumed that it was a post where the author was saying, “look at this crazy assessment”. I was wrong.
If only those pushing the concept of renewables would give their pet monkey similar scrutiny. If they did an honest analysis they would have their pet Euthanized for the good of all involved.
Amazing that despite the elapse of 2,000 years humanity is still in the same state of war with itself that was described in the Bible and that we have not solved the riddle of how to create and live in a safe, sensible, decent, honest community.
KK
30
from Dinn’s link:
All nuclear reactors emit Carbon 14, a radioactive isotope, invalidating the industry’s claim that reactors are “carbon free.”
Wow.
Look hate to break it to the kiddies at home, but if you fail to understand the concept of ‘carbon’ then you probably shouldn’t be attempting to write science blogs.
(and for those still not getting the point, CO2 is no more ‘Carbon’ that water is a flammable gas once used in airships for lift.)
70
Oh, I thought for a moment that the noise in my left ear was tinnitus caused by leftard bleating. Nope: it was leftard bleating, as in the Real Thing.
Mr. Din:
Go and research LFTR (that means Liquid Fuel Thorium Reactors) — the modern 21st Century reactor technology, Mr Din. Your thinking, ideas and complaints are all still in the 1950s just like all our politicians when anyone says NUCLEAR! — you are way out of date.
C14 is formed naturally in our atmosphere by passing cosmic rays. Last year, this year and the next two years is going to see a (smallish) uptick in C14 because we are currently experiencing the strongest exposure to GCRs since the start of the space age. No, there is nothing mankind can do about it. It’s out of our control. The C14 created by the atomic bomb tests of the 1950s is now almost entirely out of the atmosphere, leaving mostly only that the GCRs make. It demonstrated a half-life of seven years.
You’re a Silly boy. Go do some research for yourself rather than using that from out of date Dinosaurs!
Hint: search Youtube for “LFTR” and “Kirk Sorensen”. Mr Sorensen is a NUCLEAR engineer, so he knows more about what he’s talking about than you do. How do I know? Because all your arguments only apply to water cooled uranium fuelled reactors or what can be called Submarine Reactors … like Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and all the other ones … then, if you take it all in and consider it, you will understand why China is all over it like a bad rash! They know Future Value when they see it. Water cooled reactors are yesterday’s technology — old, expensive and dangerous.
10
“ and at least one person died ”
One can easily show that “smart phones” kill more people.
Not the phone part, the camera part.
The issue is stupid people and the so called “selfie.”
Examples, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waiTgRHCtPk
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Sorry, a few of those are not the result of the photo attempt. Also, a bit old.
Try a search — not hard to find.
30
Just the charging of smart phones kills – as I’ve pointed out before, much to the chagrin of Mr Fitzroy. That certainly makes smart phones more lethal than the Fukushima Daiichi incident.
50
Look at a freeway traffic flow and watch the [low] quality of driving in some cars, which look like the driver is mildly drunk, but only because they’ve got a ‘smart‘ phone to their ear, and don’t care at all about the safety implications, for them, or for anyone else they destroy.
Smartphone = Quintessence of double-speak
But nuclear power is bad.
90
Smartphones are just another opportunity for stupid people to kill themselves, falling off things trying to get the perfect selfie, texting while driving, walking onto roads distracted by facebook or streaming and I’m sure a few more that I haven’t thought of.
But thankfully stupid people are too stupid to operate a nuclear power station, so they are probably a lot safer than a smartphone.
And if you are one of those people who TXT’s when driving or walks on the streets with earphones head down looking at a screen, then you have well below average intelligence, you are seriously intellectually challenged.
20
There is plenty of evidence from reports that nuclear power per KWh is the safest technology. It used to be that Australia didn’t have NP because we had low cost coal power, but this doesn’t apply any more, since although we have low cost coal resources, governments so far are reluctant to encourage the latest low emissions technology. The Greens and the technology adverse sections of the Labor Party are the impediments to developing NP in Australia. Unless the Lobor Party support it, it won’t happen as the coalition doesn’t have the support to go it alone.
In my working experience in this industry, I have learned that heightened perceptions of risk are the main reasons opponents don’t want NP. This then calls for expanded information about radiation in particular, but also the risks of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle so that as an electorate we can make rational decisions.
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As you are familiar with the industry what would be the cheapest build …. Hele coal fired or state of the art nuclear power plant?
70
In Australia NIMBY clowns trump economics.
– The End –
91
For the uninitiated, the word NIMBY is an acronym for “not in my back yard.”
40
Supplemented with a BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
150
Short Answer: BOTH, not or.
You don’t just plonk a nuclear power plant down, especially in a country that’s never done it before.
You would go HELE Coal now, and start positioning for GenIV nukes when they’re sufficiently developed (we would need to commence preparations for that now).
And I am more than happy to have a small nuke power plant in my suburb. Maybe, eventually, everyone will have a small reactor buried in the back yard, a bit like everyone now has a PC (remember when the Computer industry couldn’t fathom why individual households would ever want/need their own computer).
131
China is experimenting with a couple of options.
http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-starts-work-landmark-fourth-generation-fast-/
I’ll keep an open mind on the economics, they are also spending big time on fusion power.
50
States without large coal deposits should invest in nuclear power plants. While it would be possible to ship thermal coal to South Australia and Tasmania a couple of CANDU plants around Port Augusta and one at Queenstown would greatly help those states, particularly the areas that are remote from current thermal and hydro generating plants.
60
Agreed, but its a choice South Australia has to decide in a State Election. Greens and Labor would be against it.
40
NUKE POWER PURCHASE:
DONT buy Westinghouse (old US technology like Fukushima was) buy Russian or Chinese.
Fusion is too far away if ever. My view probably never.
Thorium may take hold one day.
80
The China Infrastructure Bank would happily lend on a nuclear plant, but not Hele because of their green credentials.
20
World’s First AP1000 Nuclear Reactor Reaches Full Power
08/16/2018
China now has a total of 38 nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 36.9 GW.
In the first half of this year, China’s nuclear plants produced 4.07% of the country’s cumulative power generation of 1,618.26 TWh.
Cumulative nuclear power generation surged 12.52% over the same period in 2017
https://www.powermag.com/worlds-first-ap1000-nuclear-reactor-reaches-full-power/
120
But which nuclear process should we adopt? There are at least 6 different types in use now, and others being developed.
There is a lot of hype about thorium, but that is based on “projections” and we all know how reliable they can be. All nuclear processes can, and often do use some thorium. The new Chinese pebble reactor is one case.
The fluoride molten salt process which is exciting a lot of people has yet to be running, and the Chinese might be the first when they start up one plant in 2022. I say might be first because India, which has very big thorium reserves, is also working on this process. If it works, and fluoride salts are very corrosive, then with its ability to ‘burn up’ other radioactive wastes that would be the project to choose.
Then there is the homogeneous process using heavy water as the solvent come moderator. The American military failed completely in their attempt to convert (a small) one into a bomb. The Russians are starting a new larger (170MW) unit.
Others favour multiple small (modular) reactors with a more limited life but a simpler disposal problem.
IN any case nuclear isn’t currently that much cheaper than our existing supply, current USA plants supply at around $A80-100 per MWh, cheaper than renewables of course but cannot beat coal or (in the USA) gas from fracking.
In the meantime I suggest we let others do the development and concentrate on cheap coal fired plants. We have, even by the most pessimistic assessments, 100 years supply of black coal and that, as new low HELE types, should be the focus of our generation. Our politicians should sell the idea of these as lowering emissions. Besides it will take 5 years of blackouts and ever higher prices to convert the public to the idea of nuclear.
180
Excellent run down on the current situation Graeme.
Australians need to take a hard look at at our energy supply.
Renewables are abysmal. We need to build that HELE plant asap.
GeoffW
150
Thanks and I agree. A new station on the Hazelwood site should be sold as offering lower CO2 emissions (at least 40% reduction on the old plant, and around 30% or more on existing stations in Vic.), a more secure supply and employment locally. Dopey Dan won’t have a bar of it, and thereafter would be blamed for all blackouts by all except the Greens.
180
I would like to see one in Port Augusta. Playford Nuclear Facility. There is plenty of land there now they have cleared off the remains of the perfectly good coal station.
Even if it is never commissioned it would be worth every cent just to see the green heads explode in rage.
50
Fully agree Geoff.
Covers a lot of ground.
80
That’s the bare naked truth of the matter, Graeme3.
Few people realise the extent to which skillsets, knowledge, standards, regulation, are required to start building nuclear plants.
Fair enough, they can be developed, and brought in from other countries, but it takes time.
80
We need list of pro/cons of the different reactor designs.
Odd after 50 years that we are still using fuel rod water reactors that are made of 8 inch plate (only one factory in the world can bend), require a explosion containment building, and require custom turbines to handle the low temperature wet steam.
It is strange that it is taking forever to discovery or rediscover the optimum fission reactor design. It is almost as if there were special interest groups that working to stop or delay an unbelievably better fission reactor design.
There is red book uranium reserves of 80 years which could be extended by a factor of six without breeding by a change in reactor design.
The liquid fuel, no water, no fuel rod,l reactor is the best possible fission reactor design in terms of efficiency, safety, operating temperature, and safety, for fundamental engineering reasons that can be explained in pictures.
The liquid fuel design is the only thermal spectrum design (thermal spectrum is a reactor that slows down the neutrons to the speed of the fuel atoms which greatly increases the chance of neutron absorption) that can be used for breeding.
Note the liquid fuel, no water, no fuel reactor was built and tested in the US in the early 1970’s by the designer and patent holder of the pressure water reactor, Alvin Weinberg. The test has a complete success. The test results were not summarized and were hidden.
Weinberg did the rounds of congress at that time advising congressmen that large pressure water reactors were not safe, trying to promote a change. He has not successful for political reasons and was told if he did not think PWR were safe he should get out the nuclear ‘business’.
A NASA engineer, Kirk Sorensen, while looking for a fission reactor to use for a moon base tracked down the original scientists and engineers who were involved in the Oak Ridge laboratory test and found the complete test documentation had been moved to a local library. He sent the test results to all of the nuclear agencies roughly 15 years ago. Of course no action at that time.
There is now a company Terrestrial that has reached the second phase of the Canadian regulatory approval and expect to have three reactors installed 2024 or so in Canada.
The Terrestrial reactor design is a liquid fuel, no fuel rod, no water (Canadian/US company) reactor that is 6 times more fuel efficiency than a pressure water reactor, operate at atmospheric pressure and has no catastrophic failure modes.
There have been five serious failures of fuel rod, water cooled reactors.
The Terrestrial reactor design is walk away safe. It was a secondary passive backup cooling system (passive backup cooling is a metre of salt lining the reactor enclosure that has a slightly higher melting point than the reactor salt) that does not require flow or electrical power to protect from any possible catastrophic failure.
The molten salt melts at 400C and boils a 1400C. The Terrestrial reactor produces heat at 600C (47% thermal efficiency) as compared to a PWR reactor which produces heat at 315C (36% efficiency), in addition to being six times more fuel efficient.
There are trillions of dollars of heat applications that require a minimum of 400C. 600C is perfect as it always the use of standard turbines, and load shifting.. The molten salt enables heat to be stored for roughly 30 hours which enables a nuclear reactor to load shift power.
A typical PWR reactor has 50,000 fuel rods a third of which must be removed every 2 to 2 1/2 years.
The Terrestrial reactor is sealed, no flow into or out of the reactor except for one addition of fuel after roughly 3 years and the flow of extral molten salt into the reactor’s heat exchangers which are integral to the reactor.
The molten salt that flows into the reactor’s heat exchanger is run through a secondary heat exchanger that is provides additional isolation and to change to a standard commercial salt that is used in coal fired or gas fired steam plants.
The molten salt can be transported roughly a 1.5 kilometres which enables steam plants, chemical plants, and refineries to use the liquid fuel reactor’s heat.
The Terrestrial reactor graphite core has a life of 7 years. After 7 years the reactor is drained of the used fuel and a new reactor is installed.
The drained liquid fuel is stored in thick ready for transport containers, air cooled. As compared to hundreds of thousands of thin walled fuel rods which contain 2 1/2 years of radioactive noble gases and two water soluble fission products cesium and iodine. In the liquid fuel reactor the radioactive gases rise to the empty space above the fuel in the reactor where they are removed almost continuously. This is also true for Xeon gas which is a constant problem for PWR reactors as it absorbs neutrons which is the reason why it takes roughly 10 hours to restart a PWR reactor if it is shutdown.
The liquid fuel can easily be melted and the key elements separated using electro chemistry techniques.
150
This is not a bad site to start with https://whatisnuclear.com
30
That list of pro/cons does not list the problems of pressure water reactors which operate a 150 atmospheres as compared to liquid fuel reactor that operates at atmospheric pressure, that is six times more fuel efficient , and has no catastrophic failure modes.
To get from A (70% of the public do not support nuclear power, nuclear power reactors are very expensive, and long to construct)
To B (Nuclear reactors are mass produced, fail safe, and the preferred public choice over coal)
There needs to be some discussion of the why liquid fuel reactors are revolutionarily better than PWR.
20
Graeme, any real attempt at a sensible discussion is always shut down by the Greenist fear mongers.
That gets up my nose.
I really want them shut down down completely
For putting out such awful B S
And foisting it on the public as information.
Meanwhile . HELE plant in the Latrobe valley would
Not only help restore a stable & cheap power supply.
It would restore employment there as well
After 3 decades of jobs disappearing.
That has seen a huge spike in unemployment
And all the consequences of such high unemployment
90
The corrosivity of salts is different in a molten salts solution than in liquid water. It’s the water that corrodes. 😉
There were studies into suitable, compatible materials (e.g. J. W. KOGER) to determine optimum salt and salt-contact materials.
One of the advantages of the molten salt reactor is that some molten salt can be tapped off at arbitrary times to check how much of the “plumbing” has been dissolved. No shutdown necessary. It’s the same process as tapping off salts to extract isotopes useful for other purposes.
I looked at domestic nuclear power in a blog article of mine 5 years ago, discussing applicability, how investment in it could be promoted and an indication of a reasonable time scale.
It is a big mistake to pick winners in advancing technologies. If you need something now (or pretty soon), then you have to be pragmatic and choose what works best in the state of the art at the time of decision. By all means, leave options open for future growth.
BTW: Costs of NPP construction are often burdened by regulatory costs. The averaged cost of electricity from the UAE’s 4 new reactors being built by KEPCO works out to around AU$80/MWh. The contract includes turnkey operations, operator training, fuelling, etc for the life of the reactors. Somebody over there must have worked out that that was a better deal than burning domestic oil/gas for electrical power.
70
An EXCELLENT point that is totally unappreciated by most
There was an outstanding article outlining this effect across various nations over varioud periods by the Euan Mearns site by Roger Andrews
http://euanmearns.com/nuclear-capital-costs-three-mile-island-and-chernobyl/
50
I really like the CANDU reactor design – no need for enrichment and no need to shutdown for refuelling.
Cost is higher but the Canadians have been running them for a long time with prospect for an 80 year lifespan (with refurbishment).
https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurecandu-reactors-ageing-well-5856659/
They do have slightly positive void coefficient of reactivity but nothing like the Soviet RBMK (eg Chernobyl) reactors
https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/news-room/feature-articles/positive-void-coefficient-of-reactivity-CANDUs.cfm
10
Just from my point of view as a potty conspiracy guy…
If you can persuade coal and uranium-rich Australia to neglect those resources and clutter up its domestic energy with lots of green goo then you’ve shown you can push anything on anyone. That’s important for the self-esteem of New World Order perverts.
And, you know, to go full globo, you really have to be able to push anything on anyone. Never mind famine in the Ukrainian bread-basket, Haig’s meat-grinder at the Somme, Kool-Aid in Jonestown…
If you can persuade Australia not to make domestic use of its trump resources – while still mining and selling them at a furious rate for someone else’s domestic use – then you really have reached a pinnacle. That coal and uranium can be used to manufacture clunky green hardware in Asia which Australia can then import with cash earned from the sale of coal and uranium. Masterpiece of futility. Globos will totally love it.
It’s like telling a thirsty man not to drink from a pure spring he owns but to wait for someone to deliver tap water in a blue plastic bottle. (Maybe the tap water in the blue plastic bottle will be called My Pure Spring.)
350
Agreed that compliance will only be accepted from the top down so we should be asking who among us is in agreement, then we have two options either place a stopper in the top of the pipeline or the bottom, the first will allow us to clear the cr#p out without any more coming in the second will stop the cr#p but allow what’s already accumulated to remain.
While these solutions appear far fetched they’re a lot better than the current one of employing faulty suckers at the top hoping their intermittent power holds off the cr#p from above.
70
Here is another take on the topic from Martin Armstrong. Follow the money.
41
Australia’s uranium has been mined since 1954, and three mines are currently operating. More are planned. Australia’s known uranium resources are the world’s largest – almost one-third of the world total. In 2017 Australia produced 6937 tonnes of U3O8 (5882 tU).
source:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/australia.aspx
.
.
If uranium is produced in Australia, and you don’t need any for your own nuclear plants, that means it is all exported, and some one else uses it for electric power … while you develop an ultra-modern wind and solar powered “electric brownout grid”.
Who needs reliable consistent nuclear power ?
How boring !
With more and more renewables, Australia can start a national betting pool on when the next brownout (or blackout) will happen — much more fun than nuclear energy.
I think we need to send you Alexandria Occasionally Coherent to straighten out your green energy thinking. Please don’t send her back.
150
I think we have enough prize nincompoops in the UK and Australia already, thanks all the same!
60
RG
One “Hyphen” is enough thanks
40
I think Einstein got it right when he said:
“There are only two things which are infinite: human stupidity and the Universe and I’m not certain about the latter.“
00
The CAGW agenda is becoming clearer. See Global Warming – Just Follow the Money
In other words the real agenda is for much of the world to move to nuclear. The renewables crowd have been duped in by the real string masters to ban coal to help that cause. It has a long way to go.
90
It’s not just a consensus. It’s also the agenda by the rich and powerful. Just follow the money.
Yes nuclear is not cheap and is in fact very expensive short term and long term. Just follow the money.
Discussions are worth having but the puppet masters will try and push their agenda as much as possible across the world. Perhaps they are helping the renewables crowd to destroy our economy and then the real masters can take over our massive reserves of Uranium. They have done much worse in the past to other nations.
90
Wouldn’t the ‘real masters’ take over our massive reserves of uranium even if we weren’t using them?
Perhaps we could defend ourselves better from any such attacks with a strengthened economy powered by a reliable homegrown energy source?
70
‘Wouldn’t the ‘real masters’ take over our massive reserves …’
We have gas but our politicians sold it off to north Asia and Australians are going to import liquid gas from the US so that the little old lady up the road doesn’t freeze to death.
‘Perhaps we could defend ourselves …’
Too late, they are coming through the front door with bags of money.
Oz is the only G20 country where NP is banned by Federal law and most of us are immensely proud of the fact.
92
I don’t understand why you (don’t know about ‘most’, not these days) would be proud of not using nuclear power. Are you scared about all the people who get killed by nuclear power? Oh wait…
90
No, I’m against snake oil salesmen wanting us to invest in nuclear when we have 300 years of the finest black coal laying about.
61
“wanting us to invest in nuclear”
“WE” don’t have to invest in anything.
All “WE” have to do is:
1. Un-ban Nuclear;
2. Stop the insanity of subsidsing unreliables and then claiming they are cheaper (beyond moronic); and then
3. Let the best, most efficient solution* fill the massive, self-inflicted hole in our energy sector.
* I am tipping it will be a combination that continues to be dominated by Coal, along with some Gas, Hydro and emerging Nuclear. Without subsidies, Grid Wind and Solar will become novelty vanity projects, exactly how they should be.
We can all then return to treating the CAGW hysterics instead of humouring their neuroses.
The “renewables” charlatans will have to move on to the scare of how toxic and damaging disused solar panels and wind turbines are, and start their new industry for removing said environmental catastrophes – for a fee, of course.
You think I am joking…
70
To take away the ban on nuclear would require an act of parliament and the government doesn’t need the angst.
Subsidies come to an end next year, according to Angus Taylor.
Let the states decide for themselves whether they want a new coal fired power station and in this way the people will decide through the ballot box.
20
Jo your Title says 451 nuclear reactors and the IEA link says 452, is someone hiding a reactor somewhere?
Sorry to be pedantic and Bohring……
90
You had to go and Teller about the Oliphant in the room eh? Watt next…? I’m sure a Curie will be found for the uncertainty in reactor count, you can put a Fermi Bethe on it.
130
Yes and Ernest O. Lawrence’s favourite drink was a Piña Collider.
130
Energy drinks go well with fission chips, so I’ve heard. I think I prefer a Higgs boisson, even though they are very hard to find
110
I predict, in years to come there’ll be a nuclear war in the Middle East, which’ll leave only one country and the Persian Gulf .
Just Kuwait and sea.
101
This amazing series reminds of a nuclear chain reaction.
But surely it’s nearly out of fuel: that dangerous Uverbium.
60
Australia has a small reactor at Lucas Heights. This is a newer one built (about 5? years ago) replacing the first opened by Robert Menzies in 1962. Like the first it is used to produce radioactive medicines but would generate small amounts of electricity.
The Lucas Heights suburb used to be the largest rubbish dump available in (just outside) Sydney. When full, and topped with soil it became available as cheap(er) land for housing. The new residents complained endlessly about the old reactor, apparently not seeing it in their rush to make a quick buck. Incidentally I worked one time with the engineer who did the H&S on the new reactor and I have great confidence that he would have done a great job. Far more confidence in him than I have in the scare stories emanating from the ABC.
Not all reactors are large. “Bilibino Nuclear power plant (NPP) in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, houses the world’s smallest commercial nuclear reactor. The plant, owned and operated by state-owned Rosenergoatom, is equipped with four EGP-6 light water graphite reactors (LWGR) with gross power capacity of 12MWe each.” That’s about 70 wind turbines but with much more reliability.
140
Yonniestone: look for a sunken nuclear sub which has been forgotten 🙂
00
Having listened to Scott Adams try and make his mind up on ‘climate change’ for months now, collecting info as submitted from both ‘sides’, it was clear it was going to be impossible for an ordinary person to understand enough to be able to tell what was true.
His search for information turned up new Gen IV nuclear reactor research (and Australia is part of that forum), and he has concluded that whether man-caused CO2 emissions adversely affect our climate or not, nuclear power is the answer, as part of a spread of different kinds of energy generation. Scott has decided to support that idea.
Seems like a reasonable argument. Why wouldn’t our leaders be discussing it too?
130
‘… nuclear power is the answer, as part of a spread of different kinds of energy generation.’
Not for Australia, but that won’t stop the nuclear industry trying to convince the electorate that its cleaner than coal. Millennials are a key demographic and easily swayed.
43
Why not for Australia? I’m not saying don’t use coal, but how crazy are we not to also use the other resource we have?
150
Agree, even if initial involvement is low key with one plant running to give hands on experience and a foot in the door for when it becomes competitive in price with coal.
KK
80
We are part of the nuclear free zone and in political economy its a no brainer.
Our cousins across the gap are part of the collective.
‘The nuclear-free zone law does not make building land-based nuclear power plants illegal. However, the relatively small electricity system, abundance of other resources to generate electricity, and public opposition has meant a nuclear power plant has never gone beyond the investigation phase – a nuclear power plant was proposed north of Auckland in the early 1970s, but the discovery of large natural gas reserves in Taranaki saw the proposal shelved.’ wiki
South Australia is a perfect candidate for a nuclear power plant, but I can’t see Angus Taylor underwriting the project.
41
Five decades on…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight/audio/2018696911/beyond-gas-and-oil-can-alternative-energy-save-taranaki
“Taranaki workers who once earned six-figure salaries are having to rethink their lives after the government axed future offshore oil and gas exploration. Could alternative energy prove their saviour?”
50
Thanks for the update, its worse than I thought.
‘Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – who has described climate change as this generation’s nuclear free moment – reminded the more than 550 delegates that the offshore exploration ban was designed to help New Zealand meet its commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050 and achieve its target of 100 percent of electricity being generated from renewable energy sources by 2035.’
20
Whatever happened to the report by Dr Ziggy Switkowski, head of the Prime Minster’s nuclear task force and Chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation?
Of course the usual suspects say no: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/nuclear-power-stations-are-not-appropriate-for-australia-and-probably-never-will-be/
I would have thought the old Hazelwood power station site is ideal for redevelopment – but do the economics stack up versus coal?
120
Robber,
a new HELE type brown coal plant would generate electricity at a lower cost than existing designs of nuclear.
In the USA I believe they supply at 6-7 ¢ (USA) per kWh or about $A88-103 per MWh. The French supply at 62 to 67€ per MWh (or about the same cost.
Brown coal is really cheap, despite Dopey Dan, and plentiful – about 20% of SA has undeveloped brown coal deposits to go with its unworked black coal ones. The only cheaper source would be gas from bean eating Green Vegans.
101
Where I live there is a Gasfitter’s van with a sticker on the back that says “Save gas, f@rt in a jar.” Perhaps this could be the new slogan for Green Vegans
80
Thanks Graeme. I’m with you. Planning a post on the IEA material which says something similar.
As I’ve said many times before nothing is as cheap as old brown coal.
Have you posted source links before for those figures? (I can find them in past comments).
60
Jo,
Sorry not readily to hand. Will browse through euanmeans to see what I can find.
20
Jo:
This may be what you are looking for, but a fair bit of information to wade through.
https://euanmearns.com/uk-electricity-2050-part-4-nuclear-and-renewables-cost-comparisons/
Quite a number of comments come from those who know a lot (and a few who know nothing).
20
I assume that your reference to IEA
was not https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=487&t=3
20
A little dated but some of the charts might be useful.
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/analysis-of-comparative-performance-and-cost-effectiveness-of-uk-power-generation-technologies/
20
Careful. If the Vics consume their brown coal at 2013-14 rates they will completely run out of the stuff…in about 750 years.
Of course, with some fancy HELE you might get a thousand years. But that’s it! By 3020 children will not know what lignite is.
50
O/T
Lets not forget those who have died in vain.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-04/tank-man-reimagined-on-weibo-1/11156456
42
Sorry. Misthumbed. Mobile phone.
40
Sorry. Misthumbed. Mobile phone.
40
Could we just spend the RET $6,000 million
On R&D? It’s how countries succeed. Not medieval windmill solutions. Solar. Trains. Fixing imaginary problems. Crippling our manufacturing industries while we spend $100bn on laying NBN cables and $40 on the world’s worst diesel sumbmarines?
110
Perhaps on Thorium reactors. We have as much Thorium and could be the world’s major suppliers. India is building thorium reactors, partly because they have no uranium, oil or gas but also because it is a great opportunity. $6Billion of hidden carbon taxes is appalling and illegal but at least it could be spent on making us rich and with limitless power. India are nuclear. Perhaps we could try working with them? Or should we keep buying desalination plants and pumping water uphill and launching our own satellites and pretending 5G is not going to kill the NBN?
80
Yes indeed we have plenty of thorium in Oz.
Because it is illegal to mine and explore for thorium and uranium in most of Australia outside of the current mines, the thorium produced from our ilmenite and zircon mineral sand mines is ‘reburied’ at huge cost. This thorium resource could be utilised but states like NSW make it illegal to even explore for thorium.
About 10 years ago the NSW government decided they would allow some exploration for thorium and uranium although they refused to allow mining. They asked for exploration proposals but then took years to process and only approved a small handful of minor projects that would never progress. Sensible projects were ruled out including the company that I worked for – despite having a proven track record and a very clearcut exploration programme. The NSW government review process took many years and was clearly just a PR stunt.
Why would any company invest millions of dollars exploring for U and Th in NSW when mining of any successful discovery is illegal?
50
That’ per year. Hidden in our electricity bills. For nothing which makes sense.
110
Interestingly, nuclear has to include the costs for waste disposal and decommissioning in it’s operational budgets, I’d like to see coal fired plants do the same.
Note to those who think CO2 is a boon to the environment: If it is so good, then those who benefit like farmers (allegedly) should pay.
212
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/06/new-finding-phytoplankton-are-much-bigger-players-in-co2-levels-than-realized/#comment-2144393
30
‘ … those who benefit like farmers (allegedly) should pay.’
Free fertiliser deserves a luxury tax.
30
Of course we could do the opposite, and like fly ash, just dump the residue and let someone else clean it up. That would make nuclear ultra competitive.
26
Nahhhhh ! Just sell it as an excellent ingredient for making concrete !
30
They already do that, but the pile still grows, and if you live around Lake Macquarie, you are advised to limit the amount of fish you eat, as the leaching from the fly ash dump is making the aquatic wildlife toxic.
20
Farmers should pay for CO2? Sure, but who pays/recieves for cats, dogs, yeast, oceans, phytoplankton and microbia?
Let’s start a global market on a ubiquitous molecule, a building block of life, where most of the players can’t pay.
That’s a recipe for fraud and inefficiency…
120
Interesting Idea, but I’m talking about the extra, not the total amount of CO2, and I’m suggesting that if it was valuable there would be a market, like the oft suggested greenhouse enhancement. Otherwise it is dumped into the commons, without any cost. Would you accept that for spent Uranium? I’m sure that the public health outcomes, would be only slightly worse than current.
13
An artificial market based on government rigged assumptions where scientists who give the wrong answer are sacked and most of the “players” can’t pay or play. What could possibly go wrong?
And if we do that, why not a market for Oxygen, Water, or iron, magnesium, calcium…. there’s a whole periodic table to turn into “fixed” fake markets to strangle the economy with.
Yeah…
Jo the pragmatist would say — let’s stick to having nation wide pollution controls where industries have to make sure they keep the emissions below a minimum or dispose of safely. Worked for decades.
Some things can’t be turned into “free markets”. Only socialists don’t understand that it isn’t a free market if the government sets the supply and demand. Fake markets help financial sharks, cheats, psychopaths and GoldMan Sachs.
So, pick your team…
90
Well, I agree with pragmatic Jo, as it is the least worst of all alternatives.
30
ta. :- )
20
Peter,
If you have not already taken this step, you might find as many others have, that a non- pressure excursion into the lighter free enterprise literature is both enjoyable and entertaining. More so for the serious studies.
About 1990 I encouraged my employer, a major Aust resources company, to splash out on a private seminar with several of the world’s top property rights researchers flown in for a couple of days of informal discussion about what was hot then. By its last hours I had lost control of the meeting as people rushed to have their say about the latest and greatest. It was too hard to make a later publication. The rush from the intellectual excitement ignored factions, preconceptions, political bias etc and it was memorable.
In Australia these days I see no comparable events. No insult to Jo or others who work hard to maintain excitement, but it seems that the industry/ academia/bureaucracy divides are so overbearing that a repeat exercise might now be impossible. It is so sad that hubris and dogma have buried exercises that otherwise could have been the most memorable and rewarding in the careers of many people. Without them, I cannot understand what motivates and excites people through their careers. There are planes above the reward of money, but do we now see them in this climate of organised derision of “deniers”? Geoff
10
pFitzroy:
it’s built into food prices.
Food is a cheap as it is because of that extra CO2.
10
“Interestingly, nuclear has to include the costs for waste disposal and decommissioning in it’s operational budgets, I’d like to see coal fired plants do the same.”
Let’s start with “renewables”. Since they cannot produce the energy to self-replicate, let alone provide net energy to users, one can only surmise that their sole purpose is subsidy-farming.
Let’s tax the eco-charlatans that benefit from these rorts, at much harm to others, before we go anywhere near attacking farmers or any other free citizens for breathing.
50
Herein lies the great danger of preaching “markets” to the collectivists. (We really should have kept them down on the collective.)
They have now adopted The Market as their favourite idol, to be fed with the life-blood of producers and aspirationals. Since anything can be deemed a cost or product and all costs and products are determined by the great idol Market, taxing and regulating were never more fun and never more profitable for bureaucracies and for those corporate capitalists who never met a bureaucracy they didn’t like.
Instead of refraining what’s deemed bad, one pays to do what’s deemed bad. It’s all in the deeming and paying, so nobody has to stop doing anything. You just have to start paying to do it. It’s an elite-friendly system that a medieval indulgence salesman would totally love.
Good trick. But that’s all it is. Another trick. Another stunt. Pure G-Up.
30
Completely off topic but this is how Eion Musk tries to make money or more correctly raise money to keep making his unprofitable cars — sell heaps of carbon credits to existing car manufacturers. How much crazier can it get?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-03/secret-source-teslas-cash-has-been-revealed
90
There is something troubling me about Elon Musk and several other star entrepreneurs of our day.
Did Henry Ford spend a bit of time mucking about with cars then cross the road to become George Westinghouse? Then, after some lunch and few lines, did he then trot across to another building to become a Kingdom Brunel. Next, after a change of shirt and a few more lines, did he head over town and turn into Werner von Braun? Lastly, did he make some media appearances before hitting the clubs with the latest singer or actress?
No. Henry Ford worked with boundless application on cars.
My suspicions extend to many of the genius drop-outs and miracle kids of our day. I don’t believe in the comical and widely promoted story about Bill Gates hoodwinking IBM. I don’t believe in the profit-free rise of Amazon. It’s far more likely that all these data-collectors and MIC contractors are extensions of government. They are employed to go where government does not want to be seen to go. They are the flak-catchers and lightning rods of government. They are tentacles of government, the enactors and pre-enactors of government, and not just of the government you vote for. Isn’t it showing by now?
And it really is getting out of hand, this government which isn’t but actually is. It’s obvious that there is no infrastructure for vast fleets of electric cars. So why would all this fuss be made over another completely impractical technology if we weren’t being prepped for something else, for Agenda Pick-a-Number.
Can we just have our entrepreneurs back?
40
The 451 number is only civil reactors. There are an estimated 140 ships with nuclear reactors and also a number of military reactors used for power generation.
Russia built its first civilian use nuclear reactor in 1954 after a 3 year design and construct program. The unit was retired in 2002; making just short of 50 year operation:
https://ethw.org/Obninsk_Nuclear_Power_Plant
There is no point in Australia debating nuclear power. Nothing has happened in 70 years and nothing will happen in the next 11 years to 2030 when we are all toast – if you believe the dingbats. Even if the dingbats are wrong about 2030, I expect it will be 2130 before nuclear generation gets any traction in Australia. The Russians took 3 years to design and build their nuclear reactor. Australia will spend 150 years debating the risks before they start the environment impact statement. Producing that will take two or three generations. There is 300 years of coal supply to decide.
You never know there might be another Chernobyl but this time with full meltdown that will make most of Europe uninhabitable. Australia will then have to brace for increased immigration.
As an aside there are a few well regarded engineering companies backing small modular reactors. I expect that we will see these being shipped before we are all toast. We could set up power barges, like they have in Bangladesh, but using nuclear reactors. Just locate them in backwaters like Sydney Harbour and Port Phillip to supply our cities.
80
why talk about reducing CO2 at all?
with nuclear, we need to educate nuclear specialists first, I would think.
Sunshine State ‘in for snow’ as winter arrives in a flurry
The Australian-1 hour ago
Sunshine State ‘in for snow’ as winter arrives in a flurry … flurries may also fall in the northern tablelands around Glen Innes and Armidale…
VIDEO: 59sec: 4 Jun: 7News: Weather: Snow falls in Blue Mountains as east coast becomes winter wonderland
by Alex Chapman
https://7news.com.au/news/weather/weather-snow-falls-in-blue-mountains-as-east-coast-becomes-winter-wonderland-c-147539
photo gallery, video:
4 Jun: ArmidaleExpress: Snow blankets Goulburn overnight
by Emily Barton & Andrew Brown, Canberra Times
Several centimetres of snow fell across the Goulburn area, catching many residents off guard as they woke up on Tuesday morning.
Photos posted on social media show cars and backyards being covered in snow…
While Goulburn did not get below zero last night, strong winds and heavy rain made the apparent temperature feel as low as minus 4.6.
The Goulburn SES has said conditions has forced the closure of roads between Crookwell and Goulburn…
Ms Campbell said snow had not fallen on her property this early in the season previously.
“[We] usually see a small fall a few times in winter, but not this early,” she said.
“We have a major fall, like 3 to 4 inches, every three years.”…
Meanwhile, other parts of NSW also received a snow dump overnight, including parts of the Yass Valley and the Blue Mountains…
More than 75 centimetres of snow fell last week at Perisher, forcing the ski resort to open one week earlier than the traditional start to the season over the June long weekend…
https://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/6197865/snow-blankets-parts-of-southern-tablelands/?cs=9397
AUDIO: 13min46sec: 4 Jun: 2GB: Alan Jones: Alan Jones slams QLD government for paying to bring Al Gore to Australia
Taxpayers will fork out more than $320,000 for the Climate Week conference, where form US vice president Al Gore will “communicate the urgency of the climate crisis”.
“It is not believable,” says Alan, “that the Queensland government can be so awash with money as to bring this hypocrite Al Gore to Australia for a conference.
“When so many important instruments of government are underfunded, when farmers can’t feed their cattle in Queensland, and $320,000 goes to waste on this shonk.”
Australian businessman and former head of Western Mining, Trevor St Baker, says the government should have funded an opposing lecture at the conference to challenge Al Gore…
https://www.2gb.com/alan-jones-slams-qld-government-for-paying-to-bring-al-gore-to-aus/
60
we may laugh at Al Gore, but:
3 Jun: NationOfChange: Youth activists holding coordinated press conferences to raise awareness on landmark court case
The next hearing on the case will be Tuesday, June 4, at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
by Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams
Youthactivists in the U.S. and around the world are using June 1 as a day ofaction to support a landmark court case that could affect the climate crisis, holding coordinated press conferences to draw attention to the litigation…
The next hearing on the case (Juliana v. United States) will be Tuesday, June 4, at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals…
Emery Kiefer, campus program coordinator for the Al Gore-led Climate Reality Project, told The Guardian that youth activists are “becoming more and more involved and understanding the nexus of climate policy and the importance of elections and campaign,” a shift that’s leading to change as more and more people take the next generation seriously…
https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/06/03/youth-activists-holding-coordinated-press-conferences-to-raise-awareness-on-landmark-court-case/
1 Jun: Guardian: Youth climate activists set for nationwide rallies ahead of landmark case
Young people to hold day of action on Saturday highlighting lawsuit as youth-driven climate movement grows
by Lee van der Voo in Oregon
What’s unique about the campaign is what it signals: the infrastructure behind the youth climate movement is growing, decentralizing, and gaining momentum, all while activists set sights on the 2020 election…
Many of the groups tied to the effort are youth-led and recently galvanized over the urgency of climate action: US Youth Climate Strike, Sunrise Movement, Our Climate Voices. Other environmental groups supporting the effort, however, are well known, deeply resourced, and packed with adults who now see the kids as the vehicle for change: Greenpeace, Sierra Club, 350.org.
“Youth are an important catalyst for change because they’re the ones that people are finally starting to listen to,” said Emery Kiefer, who coordinates campus programs for the Climate Reality Project. That climate action group was founded by the former vice-president Al Gore and trains volunteers – 19,000 of them – to speak about climate change. Most of those volunteers are adults, many retirees, Kiefer said…
As Climate Reality plans voter education, registration, and get-out-the-vote drives for 2020, partnerships with those youth action groups are cementing.
***Climate Reality trained several of the kids now leading newer efforts: US Youth Climate Strike’s Haven Coleman, the Juliana plaintiff Levi Draheim, and Zero Hour’s Jaime Margolin…
“In the US, 2020 is going to be a very pivotal moment … I think that if we see mass voter turnout, especially mass voter turnout with people who are voting especially on the issue of climate change, we have a very hopeful chance,” (Katie Eder, Stanford-bound 19-year-old who is executive director for Future Coalition) said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/31/i-am-juliana-climate-protests-youth-activism
11
3 Jun: OberonReview: Snow, ice: Central Tablelands motorists urged to take care | Snow map
by Nadine Morton
EXTENSIVE snow and ice forecasts across large parts of the Central West on Monday have prompted a warning for motorists to take extra care on the roads.
Very cold temperatures are predicted, with snow possible above 900 metres…
Areas likely to receive snow are Oberon, Jenolan Caves, Blayney, Orange and Yetholme which is located midway between Bathurst and Lithgow…
A spokesperson for NSW Roads and Maritime Service said areas around Jindabyne, Adaminaby, Cooma, Batlow, Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow, Oberon, Blayney, Walcha, Armidale, Guyra and the Blue Mountains were most likely to be impacted by the statewide cold snap…
“Roads and Maritime Services will endeavour to maintain access along all major corridors within affected areas, including through salt spreading at key locations and using snow clearing equipment where necessary,” the (RMS) spokesperson said…
https://www.oberonreview.com.au/story/6195272/snowfall-and-ice-on-the-way-rms-urges-motorists-to-take-it-easy/?cs=12
20
As we keep hearing from the climate change believers climate science based on models predicts that temperature will increase above 1.5°C because of increasing CO2 levels, with dire consequences like all the ice melting and sea levels rising by 6 metres etc etc etc.
The question is whether the models include wind speed and direction as a factor in the calculation of temperature. If not there is a serious error. As said in Pat’s post “While Goulburn did not get below zero last night, strong winds and heavy rain made the apparent temperature feel as low as minus 4.6.”
If you look at BOM’s observations page for Goulburn, you can see how the wind speed affects temperature, you can see examples of the same temperature but higher wind speeds mean lower apparent temperatures.
If the temperature at say Mawson in the Antarctic increased from say -1°C to 2°C, in theory the ice would melt as predicted by the models. However with wind speed at say 40 KpH, the apparent temperature would be about -12°C the ice isn’t going to melt
30
The models can produce whatever the modeller tunes to get. The CO2 sensitivity is based on the US Standard Atmosphere and the pre-industrial atmospheric volume concentration of CO2 being 275ppm doubling to 550ppm.
You can do the same exercise using MODTRAN here:
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
Set the CO2 to 275ppm and select 1976 US Standard Atmosphere. You should get 269W/sq.m with all other settings as they are. Then change the CO2 to 550ppm and you should get 266W/sq.m. The difference of 3W/sq.m is the climate sensitivity without feedbacks. The various models then use positive feedback to produce scary numbers.
The actual models are very large and complex but all rely on producing something around the 3W/sq.m sensitivity – they would be discarded as wrong if they produced something else. It is well known that none of them model clouds in any meaningful way.
Even with an unsteady sun, global climate is controlled by vast expanses of water on the surface and its interconnectedness. The temperature of tropical oceans is limited to about 30C, at the upper limit, by the rapid increase in water vaporisation above 25C and the freezing point of water at the sea ice interface being -1.7C, as the lower limit. The area averaged temperature of the oceans is unsurprisingly 16C; near the middle of the maximum and the minimum. Obviously the area average can be altered a small amount by the amount of sea ice but that has been near steady on an annual basis for the last decade. If all the sea ice disappeared then one of the powerful negative feedbacks would be out of range and we would know that the planet is warming up. Last time there was no sea ice on a significant part of coastal Antarctica was before Drakes Passage came into existance.
It is interesting to look at the NASA data for ocean surface temperature:
https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MYD28M
Note the range on the scale at the bottom right of the image – -2 to 35C. I can assure everybody that, while oceans cover the planet, they will not need to alter that scale. Note that the earliest satellite data, now 35 years old, still has the same scale:
https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=AVHRR_CLIM_M
40
Isn’t Australia already involved with educating nuclear specialists? https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/generation-iv-nuclear-reactors.aspx
20
You all know how I rabbit on about Nameplate versus actual generated power.
In the U.S. the total generated power delivered by those nuclear Power plants comes in at 20% of all the power generated from every source.
20%
When you compare Nameplate, those same Nuclear power plants make up only 8.5% of Nameplate of every source of power generation.
In the U.S. Nuclear power plants regularly operate on a year round basis at 92% Capacity Factor, for the whole fleet of them.
They can be used cleverly, so they require refuelling every 18 Months or so, but between refuelling, they can operate at their maximum capability.
I know of one plant, Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo in California which had the full 12 Months of data collection for all electrical power generation in the U.S. for 2006 fall between two refuels. That one Reactor/Turbine/Generator delivered its power over that 12 Months of data collection at a Capacity Factor of 101.2%. It ran up after the refuel, went to maximum, and stayed there for 18 Months. One Reactor driving an 1120MW generator.
Using the best case scenario, it will take the largest wind plant in Australia, Macarthur, at a Nameplate of 420MW ….. NINE YEARS to deliver that same amount of generated power.
They’re designing new Nukes capable of driving 1500MW Units. A single Nuke with two 1500MW units will deliver more power in one year than EVERY wind plant in Australia combined.
Ten years ago now, back in 2009, I made a Series on Nuclear Power, if any of you wish to read about it. The permanent link to just that Series is at the link below, and the Intro has a list of all 11 Parts in that Series, with a title for each part so you can read any part of the process in isolation.
Nuclear Electrical Power Generation – Why The Fuss?
Tony.
160
Funny, isn’t it?
Mention the word Nuclear and the Greens and their followers just go ballistic.
And yet, Nuclear Medicine, now part of everyday life in so many ways, is somehow OK.
Uranium existing in the ground as the ore is already 0.7% enriched.
For nuclear medicine it goes through the different processes and is further enriched to around 3%.
For Nuclear power plants, it goes through five separate processes, and it is typically enriched to around 3% to 5%, Usually closer to that 3% mark.
After it is depleted during its use for power generation, the waste rods are depleted to between 0.6% and 1.5%, again closer to that lower mark, so the waste rods are in the main less enriched than the existing ore in the ground.
For weapons grade, it goes though many more processes and is up around 95% enriched.
It’s not a case of ‘holding your finger on the enrichment button’ so to speak, and keep going after nuclear power enrichment is reached, as the processes, many more of them, are completely different. (see Part Five of my Series, and note the top image of an unprotected hand holding a single already enriched fuel rod pellet)
Tony.
120
Hi Tony,
Thanks for all your reporting on the power sector.
In Washington State, we have one nuclear facility:
Columbia Generating Station
It has been down for refueling and upgrade for about a month.
I did not find a report just now, but the schedule had it coming back online this week or next.
Output of the CGS is sold to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and included in their 5 minute balancing chart:
BPA load and power
When it comes back, there will be a “cobalt” colored line at near 2,000 MW. It may take a bit of time for them to ramp up and get a steady output.
40
Tony
I’ve never had an answer to the question
“Being as potassium is an essential mineral and around around 7% is radioactive how do anti-nuclear campaigners get their dietary potassium?”
40
Answer: from bananas. What they don’t know can’t hurt them. It is just like the old bags protesting at Greenham Common RAF base (1981) when they didn’t know what they were protesting about – more a case of ‘don’t let knowledge get in the way of a good protest’. In fact those protests were the reason that ‘nuclear’ anything gets the bad press it does.
00
The green faction would say otherwise
Why Australia should shut down the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor
They’ve gone a bit quiet of late but I’m sure the likes of Noel Wauchope and Helen Caldicott are itching for an excuse to promote their fear-mongering if any debate on nuclear energy is brought up again.
40
According to Carbon Brief:
“Since 2000, the world has doubled its coal-fired power capacity to around 2,000 gigawatts (GW) after explosive growth in China and India. A further 236GW is being built and 336GW is planned.”
Meanwhile, here in Oz, how long before we give the sack to what’s left of our coal fired power capability?
70
Hi All,
These comments are from one who worked at the place for many years, had a good working knowledge of the operation of both reactors there, and also had a significant involvement in the negotiations for the siting of the then NSW Metropolitan Waste Disposal Authority’s giant rubbish tip (Menai Tip) on Commonwealth land that was part of the 1-mile (1.6 km) exclusion zone around the original HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights.
Both reactors at Lucas Heights were designed to produce the maximum possible flux of neutrons within their relatively tiny cores. They were never designed as power reactors. Any claim that they can generate electricity is easily shown to be false when the significance of the following simple facts is understood: HIFAR heated water to 54 deg C, and that water was virtually unpressurised. It had a maximum permitted fuel temperature of some 83 deg C., that is, well below the boiling point of water.
The newer OPAL reactor (the Wikipedia page is adequate) was commissioned in 2006, (rather more than 5 years ago). It is what is called an open pool design. It really does look like a swimming pool, although deep enough to be considered to be more like a diving pool. Maximum water temperature is, if anything, rather less than was HIFAR’s, and, with its open pool surface, is clearly completely unpressurised.
My point is this: there is absolutely no way that either of these reactors can be used to boil water to produce steam to drive turbines to generate electricity. Yes, it is a pity that the 10 MW and 20 MW respectively of heat is dissipated as low-grade heat at low temperatures, but that’s a consequence of their respective designs.
They are designed to produce intense beams and fluxes of neutrons, with the best possible access made available by the many, properly shielded, ports into and near to the vicinity of their respective cores.
It is these neutron fluxes that are used both for the production of specific medical and industrial radioisotopes, and the neutron beams used in the myriad of research activities for which those beams are absolutely essential.
As for the two big rubbish tips in the near vicinity of the Lucas Heights facility, to my knowledge the only use made of either of them for “residential” use is that the older one now has playing fields on a relatively small part of it.
The newer tip is still in use, as is that at Woodlawn Mine south of Goulburn, Sydney’s latest rubbish tip, for the collection of methane gas from buried household garbage for use by gas-fired electricity generators. Thus it continues to be an industrial site. It may be that because the grid-connected electricity generation plant there is registered as “Lucas Heights” with the AEMO that some might think that it is associated with the OPAL reactor. It has no connection whatsoever with the reactor.
To my knowledge, neither rubbish tip has any residences built on it.
140
Excellent to have the correct information, Paul. Thank-you.
50
I also had dealings with the Lucas heights facility. On one hand, I was involved in testing for waste contamination downstream on the Woronora River. The method involved regular samping of oysters, as they are filter feeders and preferentially absorb heavy metals. We needed 1-2 gms from each oyster and we generally collected about 20. The rest of the flesh was consumed at the staff lunch, but after the results were known. The other one was calibrating radon detectors for measuring radon levels in homes. I won’t bore you with the results but I can say that the highest levels of Radon come from the limestone mined at Bungendore, which supplies most of Sydney’s cement and concrete needs. Don’t live in Sydney apartments which do not have good ventilation is my advice.
[Peter, for what should be obvious reasons more supporting information would help. We don’t need a bunch of Sydney apartment dwellers descending upon us. I would like to know how many of your colleagues suffered from heavy metal poisoning though?] ED
40
This is the one of the better links
https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/radon
however, what we found was that building with lots of concrete and bad ventilation could get to levels about double the normal household amount, This included the building where I was working, sheesh. Also we found that like other forms of airborne pollution, the south western suburbs of Sydney had generally higher counts than the lower north shore, due to the prevailing North Easters. We were doing this in the early 80’s, but I have no idea where the results were published.
30
Radon buildup is a hidden “danger” of highly sealed buildings which is often done to reduce heating costs (and associated CO2 emissions). Of course the LNT model commonly used for evaluating the “danger” of ionizing radiation is complete rubbish so the issue is greatly overstated.
20
I believe that New York, being built on granite, has a Radon problem.
10
I was raised in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, USA.
The house had a dug-out cellar under ½ the house, with rocks exposed.
Check this page:
http://county-radon.info/PA/Clarion.html
Above the map, note 9.1 pCi/L
General info, and main page: http://pa-radon.info/PA_general.html
10
Contaminated fish eh?
I figured you for a lead paint chip kinda guy.
30
from fishing world no less https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/radon
There are source docs but this is a good overview
10
meant https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/radon soz
10
there are times when I hate google
http://www.fishingworld.com.au/news/dietary-advice-for-recreational-fishers-in-lake-macquarie
20
Yes we understand and empathise.
In the old days before Global Warming Change we got our scientific understanding from universities.
Now the universities can resemble Google and need to be approached with some circumspection.
KK
00
the most exaggerated CAGW propaganda to date from theirABC.
Paul Barclay, around 17min30sec, makes an announcement that it is worth noting this program was RECORDED before the recent election. I do wonder, tho, if Barclay had wanted it also BROADCAST prior to the election:
AUDIO: 54min07sec: 3 Jun: ABC Big Ideas: Paul Barclay: Climate change and health
Climate change poses a serious risk to public health: more bushfires, heat related deaths and hospitalisations, diminished safe drinking water, reduced crop production, and a growth in vector, and water borne diseases. Following Australia’s hottest summer on record, Paul Barclay speaks to a panel of experts about the relationship between climate change and public health, and how best to deal with threats posed by a hotter planet.
Recorded on 1 May 2019 at an Australian National University symposium.
Speakers:
Professor ***Sharon Friel – Director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance, ANU; Director, Menzies Centre for Governance, Policy and Health Equity, ANU
Howard Bamsey – Honorary Professor, ANU; Chair of the Global Water Partnership
Anna Rose – author; climate change campaigner, Farmers for Climate Action
Fiona Armstrong – founder and Executive Director, Climate and Health Alliance
Professor Mark Howden – Director of the Climate Change Institute, ANU; Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/climate-change-and-health/11155888
Guardian had no qualms about publishing the following before the election. Big Ideas has a CAGW believer in Mackay; Guardian has one in Mt. Isa! funny that:
14 May: Guardian Fair Go? Health: Inequality and climate change: the perfect storm threatening the health of Australia’s poorest
by Melissa Sweet
(from bottom: Reporting in this series is supported by VivCourt through the Guardian Civic Journalism Trust)
A multiplier effect
Hurricane Katrina is often held up as a textbook example of how climate change hits poor people hardest, and not only because the poorest areas in New Orleans were worst affected by flooding…
As ***Sharon Friel, professor of health equity at the Australian National University, outlines in a new book, Climate Change and the People’s Health, most of those who died because of Hurricane Katrina came from disadvantaged populations…
Friel’s book outlines myriad ways in which climate change interacts with other social determinants of health to create a multiplier effect that deepens and compounds health inequities…
While Friel says the relationships between climate change and health inequity are “messy and complex”, she argues that understanding there are common determinants of both problems provides an opportunity to “kill two birds with one stone”…
Friel calls for intersectoral action, with a focus on equality, environmental sustainability and health equity, to tackle the underlying “consumptagenic system” that drives both problems…
(WARMER IS BETTER?) A widely cited randomised trial, published in 2007 in the BMJ, found that insulating low-income households in New Zealand led to a significantly ***warmer, drier indoor environment, and resulted in significant improvements in health and comfort, a lower risk of children having time off school or adults having sick days off work, and a trend for fewer hospital admissions for respiratory conditions…
Dr Nick Towle, a medical educator at the University of Tasmania who helped organise a recent Doctors for the Environment Australia conference in Hobart, where delegates declared a climate emergency, says that addressing the intertwined issues of health inequities and climate change will require massive transformation in how governments operate…
Back in Mount Isa, Renee Blackman stresses the importance of local action in responding to both health inequities and climate change…
The Acoss’s election policy tracker suggests the Greens have the best policies for addressing poverty and climate change, while the Climate and Health Alliance scorecard gives the Greens top marks (8 out of 8), followed by Labor (4.5 out of 8) and the LNP (zero out of 8)…
Meanwhile, the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association scorecard records the Liberal National party as having no explicit commitment to health equity and, days out from an election, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia says the Greens are the only party to have addressed rural health issues so far. Some health organisations have not yet released an election scorecard.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/14/inequality-and-climate-change-the-perfect-storm-threatening-the-health-of-australias-poorest
11
some may wish to add to the comments:
4 Jun: CatallaxyFiles: Al Gore has done it again!
by Rafe Champion
Seven inches of snow at Bathurst and the road through the Blue Mountains blocked at Mt Victoria.
Nice work Al! (LINK ***SMH)
COMMENTS
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/06/04/al-gore-has-done-it-again/
***final paras of the SMH article by Jenny Noyes, Nick Bonyhady & Ben Grubb:
– The temperature at Observatory Hill in Sydney was just 13 degrees on Monday afternoon, according to Weatherzone, compared with a high of more than 27 degrees on Saturday.
***That recording was more than 7 degrees above the average high for this time of year.
Last week, smoke haze choked Sydney, shrouding the city in a thick fog following hazard reduction burns by the NSW Rural Fire Service. Those conditions were caused by the combination of very light winds and a temperature inversion resulting from a high pressure system.
Weatherzone is owned by the publisher of this website. –
60
3 Jun: SMH: ‘Hogwash’: Bob Brown blasts suggestion Adani convoy handed LNP government
By Tony Moore
“If only the Bob Brown Foundation was so powerful that it could determine governments,” Mr Brown said in Brisbane on Monday.
“If only. That’s hogwash.
“However I did note a 3 per cent swing to the Greens, which saved (Senator) Larissa Water’s seat in this state, so I will take some credit for the convoy doing that.
“That is a swing to the Greens nationwide across this country and there is this emerging feeling right across this country that the environment does matter and that what we do to the environment we do to the economy.”
***Mr Brown said if his Stop Adani convoy did not change the minds of ordinary Australians “that was a failure on my behalf”.
He said in Clermont he had spoken to the region’s indigenous “first Australians” but agreed he did not hold a meeting with the people of Clermont.
“I’ll try harder as we go into the future,” he said…
Mr Brown announced plans to widen the Stop Adani convoy approach by focusing on the mining company’s record in India.
“We will be holding a protest outside the Indian High Commission in Canberra on Saturday week to protest about (Indian billionaire Gautam) Adani’s behaviour in his home country,” he said…
He said the federal election outcome was not a demonstration that environmental issues had been rejected.
“People are busy about their livelihoods,” he said…
Mr Brown welcomed news former US vice president Al Gore would be running a three-day climate change workshop in Brisbane, beginning on Wednesday, World Environment Day…
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hogwash-bob-brown-blasts-suggestion-adani-convoy-handed-lnp-government-20190603-p51u07.html
20
Why does a first world nation of 26 million sit around waiting for the rest of the world to tell us what to do? Technology cargo cultists. Even our leftist politics is determined overseas. When they paint statues in the US and UK, we have to do so. When they throw eggs, we have to do so. When they become anti semitic, BDS, we have to do it. When they decide to move to windmill power, we have to follow.
Wouldn’t it be nice if our politicians and political parties stopped looking overseas with great hopes for direction. We are the world’s greatest mugs. We make nothing. We wait for tourists. We don’t even use our own coal and uranium. Too scared of international criticism by our customers.
120
The danger we become another Venezuela, Argentina, Chile is real. Our political classes are so subservient. Julie Bishop just kowtowed to everyone, handed over fortunes. Like Turnbull with his $444million in our money for nothing. Afraid to even criticize the appalling ABC while blaming the free press for too much influence. The ABC’s massive reach would be illegal if it was private.
Where are our own aircraft, our own cars, our own electronics. We make nothing. Now the association of engineers has invented a $6,000 a year government tax on employers who dare hire Australian engineers, to ensure standards. Of course all engineering will go overseas. Besides the power is too expensive here anyway, thanks to the government. What factory can run on windmills?
We might dream of nuclear power, but we cannot open a can of peas in South Australia unless a windmill is turning or they buy super expensive gas, with a carbon tax of $400 a tonne, thanks to the RET.
Our people need to wake up, but that’s hard with the ABC telling us the only problems conservative government and more gay rights and the urgent need for an ab*riginal parliament.
Sure, we should at least use what we are selling to the world, uranium and coal. We are told that it would be unethical to use either. Again by our customers. We are a nation of mugs, utterly misinformed by their ABC.
80
Before parliament now, $6,000 per year PER ENGINEER. If you have 20 engineers, you are going to have to pay $120,000 to have someone raid your engineering firm to check your engineers are doing their jobs professionally and that you are up to date? It’s like the payment we have to make to the fire brigade to check fire extinguishers. More and more money to the minders, quasi public servants who make sure no one can afford to run an engineering business in Australia. Where are the cow and sheep and chicken police? Car registration, to pay for the roads. There is no end for a greedy government demanding more and more money for nothing and wondering why the patient is dying. Soon there will be no engineering in Australia.
How can we think of going nuclear when you have no engineers, no physicists, no jobs. More health and occupation and weights inspectors than jobs. Then get rid of the coal, the gas, the cattle, the hamburgers, the aircraft, the cars, the trucks, the animals, the farmers and the manufacturers and the world will be a safer place. For whom? Inner city Greens who live in an unreal world fed by everyone else. Their avocadoes from Queensland, their Prosecco from Italy and their jobs from our taxes.
70
We should become a nation of nuclear technicians and we will. Only Canada has all conditions favourable to becoming a world nuclear hub, similar to those of Australia.
Australia must not sell yellow cake but rent the rods, to be installed and looked after for their life by Australian personnel. The same applies to all nuclear applications – science, medicine, engineering…
Nuclear Science is in the first place of course. Unless there is a critical mass (pun is intended) of sober engineers and scientists here, the social thinking will stay in 1950s and Aldermaston movement, paid by the Soviet Union.
Do not think we will live to see it. However, even coal will be finished one day.
40
This is not even beginning to happen. We need more than Lucas Heights, a plaything. All our cash is going into windmills and we as a country are learning nothing except how to install German windmills.
40
What we need is just one Win with a capital W, something like Arabs and Israelis doing a common nuclear project to the benefit of whole Gulf.
Unfortunately, it is much-much less probable than a capital F.., a faults chain in SE Australia energy network which will last few days. That will shake the society.
Or maybe not.
I grew up believing that people and countries are getting better. Some slower, some faster learn better ways, etc,.. Lately, there is plenty of evidence that it is a two way process and its outcome is as clear as was that of the last election.
41
I do not pretend to be neutral on this subject.
Like many Russian males, I was trained for my second, military, profession. In my case it was a submarine BCh5 commander, who looked after the pot. We had some reasonable technical and procedural information and we felt reasonably safe. All industries and all professions include potential hazards, some more – some less, correspondingly respectful approach must apply to all.
Now we know that many Soviet disasters were “hand-made” and could be easily avoided. Fukushima – probably not.
I am convinced Australia nuclear industry has a bright future. Green religion will go away but the need for energy will stay.
130
Good points Vladamir save that Fukushima could be easily have been avoided by placing the diesel backup generators on the land side of the facility rather than facing the sea (where they were place to reduce “visual pollution”).
There were other questionable actions by upper management and political figures that exacerbated what should have been temporary plant shutdown/refurbishment.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/07/05/156295055/report-bad-procedures-caused-the-fukushima-nuclear-disaster
30
***energy expert Jimmy Barnes joins the panel:
4 Jun: Guardian: Q&A: Labor made ‘huge error’ in being silent over coal, Joel Fitzgibbon says
Hunter MP says party feared losing inner-city seats in federal election if it revealed its pro-coal position
by Calla Wahlquist
Speaking on the ABC’s Q&A on Monday, the Hunter MP said Labor had remained silent on its pro-coal positions for fear of losing inner-city seats, and instead lost outer suburban and regional seats to the Coalition.
“We didn’t have any anti-coal generating policies but we weren’t prepared to talk about those things because no doubt we thought – and this is an admission from me and I’m happy to make it – we thought it was going to cost us votes in city seats,” he said. “And that was a huge error.”…
He said he raised concerns that Labor’s emphasis on its renewable energy policy, which was to achieve 50% electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030, alienated some voters.
“I warned my colleagues that our emphasis on one side of the equation and the omission to talk about the other was damaging us and damaging us very, very badly,” he said…
(Liberal MP for Boothby, Nicolle) Flint said the Coalition was “technology agnostic” on electricity generation but stressed the importance of “reliability,” invoking the 2016 South Australia blackout as an example of what could happen if the supply was not reliable.
***Panelist Jimmy Barnes corrected Flint, saying that blackout was caused by storm damage to transmission infrastructure and not, as was incorrectly suggested at the time, due to an overreliance on renewables…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/qa-labor-made-huge-error-in-being-silent-over-coal-joel-fitzgibbon-says
4 Jun: SMH: A very cool Jimmy Barnes outlines what’s uncool on Q&A
By Neil McMahon
Jimmy Barnes was on hand for Monday’s Q&A – and he really does work hard to make a living. A simple man, with a heart of gold, in a complicated land. And boy, was he welcome.
***For the third week since the election, the big point going forward seemed to be: how on earth did the party that did not win government get all the things wrong that it is not going to be able to implement? What on earth will the opposition do now that it can’t do anything?…
Then to the subject of climate change, and electricity supply, and the 2016 Adelaide blackout. “It was a miracle nobody was killed,” (Nicolle) Flint declared. “This is the impact of losing reliability of your power supply.”
Hang about, said Barnes. “Wasn’t there also, like, the fact that this was caused by extreme weather?”…
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/a-very-cool-jimmy-barnes-outlines-what-s-uncool-on-q-and-a-20190604-p51u6i.html
VIDEO: 1hr6min: 3 Jun: ABC Q&A: Jimmy Barnes Rocks Q&A
https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2019-03-06/11143576
10
***Fitzgibbon sticks to Labor’s 50% RE by 2030 policy:
3 Jun: NewcastleHerald: Joel Fitzgibbon says Labor will back any mining project that does not need taxpayer funding and meets environmental tests
by Matthew Kelly
He added that any mining project that did not need taxpayer funding and meet environmental tests would be backed by Labor.
“Most of our coal is exported and global demand for our relatively clean and efficient coal will remain strong for decades to come,” Mr Fitzgibbon, who added resources to his existing agriculture portfolio, told the Newcastle Herald.
***”On the domestic front, even if we manage to secure 50 percent of our electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030, the other 50 percent will be delivered by coal and gas generation.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said he was confident several evolving wind and solar projects across the Hunter electorate could co-exist with the coal industry…
“The Hunter has a great opportunity to create new jobs in the renewables sector while also providing base-load electricity from existing coal and new gas generators,” he said.
“The Bayswater and Earring coal generators will be in the system for at least 15 years.”…
Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union national president Tony Maher endorsed Mr Fitzgibbon’s role as Opposition energy spokesperson…
https://www.theherald.com.au/story/6197233/joel-fitzgibbon-says-labor-is-committed-to-the-coal-industry/
3 writers for this pathetic little piece:
30 May: Bloomberg: Al Gore Calls on His Alma Mater Harvard to Divest From Fossil Fuels
By Emily Chasan and Michael McDonald; With assistance by Janet Lorin
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said Harvard University should divest its $39 billion endowment of fossil-fuel investments.
“Fossil fuels can no longer compete,” Gore, who graduated from Harvard 50 years ago, said in comments to students at the school’s 2019 Class Day ceremony on Wednesday. “The largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, in Norway, financed completely by oil and gas revenues, has started divesting from fossil fuels, and so should Harvard University.”
Gore, who chairs sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management, said holding onto fossil fuels is a “moral issue” and he compared them to the school’s past decisions to divest tobacco- and some Apartheid-related stocks. “Why would Harvard University continue to support with its finances an industry like this that is in the process of threatening the future of humanity?” Gore asked.
U.S. universities, and Harvard in particular, have faced increasing calls from students to divest holdings in fossil-fuel companies…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-30/al-gore-calls-on-alma-mater-harvard-to-divest-fossil-fuel-shares
10
TdeF
I have been watching the series about Silicon Valley and it’s development (on Discovery Channel) recently in NZ.I presume it has been on in Australia.
Really interesting to see how much of it’s development relied on Federal Government “aid” via contracts initially. People complain about China and how their recent development has been aided so much by Beijing but it looks like a repeat to me.
Unfortunately in some ways all this green energy development appears to be similar,in away, except because it is not viable and has become a cult, the commercial developments need continuous subsidy.
The key difference between the 50s , 60s and 70s on what occurred in Silicon Valley was people ( esp. engineers) were solving real problems and so new viable companies could be spun off those developments and of course because they were real issues the money men came in to help finance them. Everyone did well financially and so things grew like a spiderweb. Of course not everything worked but enough did to keep it all going.
The Green energy subsidies are like a virus –continuously sucking money out of all aspects the economy. While it is obvious it has to stop I cannot see it happening any time soon.
So just imagine if Australia had the attitude from Government and individuals like Silicon Valley had back in the 50 & 60s and decided to attack the nuclear energy issue to make it more economic and safe at the same time. It could easily be a world leader instead of a follower as you note.
50
Such a pity, when Australian very early on was up there with the best of them.
That was until the fear of nuclear weapons, overtook all the useful aspects of nuclear research.
How many live have been saved due to nuclear medicine. How much panic has been created by Geiger carrying rationalist, on the hunt for levels they perceive dangerous , that are standard background radiation in many parts of our world? And in those parts of the world, there are less tumors.
40
EM Smith has posted again re Europe’s temperature anomalies.
And the apparent data diddling that is taking place.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/06/03/ghcn-v3-3-vs-v4-anomaly-graphs-europe/
20
Many thousands of tons and more,
Of high grade uranium ore,
Leave Australia today,
Fuelling plants far away,
Each a foreign reactor core.
70
theirABC continually trying to turn Queenslanders into Green voters:
4 Jun: ABC: In Queensland’s coal heartland, some locals are leaving mining jobs to work in renewables
ABC Rural By the National Regional Reporting Team’s Caitlyn Gribbin
Photo: Boilermaker Shaun Fisher is bucking the trend by ditching his coal mining job for one in the renewables sector
The push by some for a transition from coal-fired power to renewables has caused angst in coal mining communities and played a key role in the federal election result…
‘The energy from the sun goes to waste’: former coal miner
Shaun Fisher insisted he is not a greenie.
“No, of course not!” he said.
“I kill fish, I eat ’em, I do all that kind of stuff. Definitely not a greenie, no.”
But some may mistake the boilermaker for an environmental crusader…
Convincing coal mines to switch to solar…
But ***Jason Sharam’s north Queensland business is far from a standard operation in the industrial park…
His company, Linked Group Services, has been employing tradies, like Mr Fisher, who make products for coal mining companies…
“We’re trying to educate the miners, as much as anything, in regards to the opportunity to utilise renewables to drive down costs,” Mr Sharam said…READ ALL
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-04/meet-the-queenslanders-changing-the-energy-mix/11173962
***Jason Sharam is no stranger to the media:
28 Oct 2017: Guardian: ‘Way off the planet’: regional businesses use renewables to slash costs
From solar to running generators, some have quit the energy grid and several others are showing interest in ‘defecting’
by Joshua Robertson
In the heart of Queensland’s mining belt, a businessman who has grown his enterprise mostly off the back of the coal industry sees the energy sector going only one way.
“I think renewable energy is where the market’s going – what we class as the energy revolution,” says ***Jason Sharam…
In Mackay, as elsewhere in regional Australia, power prices are already eye-watering for small and medium businesses.
One of Sharam’s clients has gone off the grid to run a diesel generator, which is not cheap, but still cheaper than paying for network electricity at an average of 86 cents – and as much as $1.26 – a kilowatt-hour…
Sharam spoke at the Powering Queensland Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, where the Australian Solar Council chief executive, John Grimes, also addressed the Neg by punctuating his presentation with a picture of reforming Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev…
With solar now “the cheapest way of generating electricity, period” and wind close behind, it’s not the subsidy cuts that hurt the industry so much as the government’s signals to energy investors who deal in 10 to 15-year timeframes for new generation investments, (Grimes) says…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/28/way-off-the-planet-regional-businesses-use-renewables-to-slash-costs
26 Apr 2018: Teslarati: Tesla Powerpack battery to help Australian business go fully off-grid
By Simon Alvarez
In a statement to One Step Off The Grid, Linked Group Services managing director ***Jason Sharam noted that the decision to go off-grid was easy. According to Sharam, the combination of high electricity prices, an unreliable power network, and political involvement in the country’s energy problems ultimately became drivers for the business’ decision to become self-sustaining…
The company’s renewable energy project will involve the installation of a 100 kWh Tesla Powerpack battery storage unit paired with a 100 kW solar system comprised of 8 kW on a car port, 18 kW on a solar patio, 20 kW on a storage shed, and up to 50 kW on the company’s main building. According to Sharam, the company’s 100 kWh Powerpack is the first off-grid Tesla battery in Australia so far…
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-powerpack-battery-australia-business-off-grid/
20
who won the election? don’t ask theirABC. an unbearable near-11-mins of SHY:
AUDIO: 10min43sec: 4 Jun: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Morrison Government under fire for not releasing emissions figures
Labor and the Greens are alleging “political interference” by the Coalition in a bid to bury the data…
PIC: Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young (WITH DI NATALE) is calling for the Morrison Government to be more upfront about its emissions data. (ABC News: Jed Cooper)
With no sign of any post-election deal on a carbon price, the Greens will today announce plans to insert a climate trigger into environmental law.
That would mean that the impact on the climate would have to be considered before large projects, such as the Adani coal mine, could be approved.
Guest: Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens environment spokesperson
???(NO LINK) Supporting Information
They’ve been spinning for years now that they think they can reach Paris commitments in a canter. Well, all of the data shows otherwise.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/morrison-government-under-fire-over-emissions-figures/11175914
20
3 Jun: RenewEconomy: Morrison government fails first climate test – Greens demand answers on missing emissions data
by Michael Mazengarb
Greens leader Richard Di Natale has written to Senator Simon Birmingham, who represents the environment minister in the Senate, demanding answers, in a letter obtained by RenewEconomy…TEXT
The Climate Council slammed the Government for failing to release the data by the specified deadline…READ ON
https://reneweconomy.com.au/morrison-government-fails-first-climate-test-greens-demand-answers-on-missing-emissions-data-62173/
3 Jun: OneStepOffTheGrid: Queensland regional solar feed-in-tariffs cut ***as renewables push prices down
By Sophie Vorrath
Rooftop solar households in regional Queensland are set to receive more than 15 per cent less for the solar PV generated electricity they send back to the grid, after the state’s pricing regulator proposed a cut to the feed-in tariff.
The Queensland Competition Authority said in a statement released late Friday that it had set the 2019-20 solar tariff for customers on the Ergon network at 7.8 cents per kWh, around 1.5 cents per kWh lower than last year’s tariff of 9.4 cents per kWh…READ ON
https://onestepoffthegrid.com.au/queensland-regional-solar-feed-in-tariffs-cut-as-renewables-push-prices-down/
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How many are aware that Australia almost got its first Nuclear generating plant in the early 1960’s? It was to have been constructed on Commonwealth land on the shores of Jervis Bay NSW. The concept was very close to receiving the green light. It had been intensively researched and reviewed by the brightest minds (both scientific and financial) at the highest levels in Government and finance. So what happened?
The Greenies happened! Word got around, the protests commenced and sadly the Government lost its resolve. In the 60 years since, discussion on the subject has been closed down. The actions of a few environmentalists have cost the Australian people so much. Imagine what we could have done as a Nation in the decades that followed if that first nuclear power station had been allowed to proceed. The Environmental Lobby has so much to answer for.
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lengthy, read all:
3 Jun: CNBC: Reuters: INSIGHT-Can a derivative turn Europe’s green energy dream into virtual reality?
by Stephen Jewkes and Isla Binnie; Additional reporting by Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt, and Nina Chestney and Matthew Green in London
*European companies increasingly using virtual PPA deals
*Can finance clean energy while plugged into fossil fuels
*Ferrero, Kering, TIM considering such deals – sources
*Companies are under pressure from investors to go green
MILAN/MADRID: Italy’s Ferrero is famous for its red-and-white Kinder chocolate eggs. But soon it may hope to be able to slap more green on the wrapper…
Virtual PPAs are slowly beginning to gain traction in Europe, and other companies considering the option include French luxury group Kering and Telecom Italia , two separate industry sources told Reuters…
Many firms now fund schemes such as planting forests to offset emissions, but shareholders and authorities want companies to underwrite the direct addition of new renewable generation to grids…
Since PPAs do not require companies to reduce their overall greenhouse gas emissions, their direct contribution to tackling climate change may be limited…
The contracts are offered by middlemen, known as offtakers, often big energy trading companies like Switzerland’s DXT and utilities like Enel…
The offtaker will pay a refund if the price dips below the set rate.
The offtaker in turn enters into a mirror agreement with a corporate customer…
There are, of course, inherent risks…
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/03/reuters-america-insight-can-a-derivative-turn-europes-green-energy-dream-into-virtual-reality.html
3 Jun: Phys.org: How technology could help rural South Africa turn sunshine into income
by Thomas Wolfgang Thurner, The Conversation
Blockchain has been identified as one of the pivotal technologies alongside Artificial intelligence, Internet of things and Big Data. Interest in applying the blockchain technology to energy markets is slowly picking up…
If South Africa positions itself well, it could become a test bed for these technologies and thereby benefit from investments in research and development by major international corporations that have an interest in driving these trial runs…
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-technology-rural-south-africa-sunshine.html
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Welcome to snowy Southern Queensland Al.
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Meanwhile Hinkley Point nuke plant in the UK has seen its cost blowout to £20 billion plus for nameplate generation of 3260 MW. Duke Energy in Florida will do you a 3000 MW combined coal and natural gas power station for US$3 billion. UK electricity users will pay through the nose for the Hinckley fiasco for decades.
Given Australia’s propensity for white elephants like the NBN and desal plants, I am not convinced nuclear power will be any cheaper than good old coal.
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Meanwhile Hinkley Point nuke plant in the UK has seen its cost blowout to £20 billion plus for nameplate generation of 3260 MW. Duke Energy in Florida will do you a 3000 MW combined coal and natural gas power station for US$3 billion. UK electricity users will pay through the nose for the Hinckley fiasco for decades.
Given Australia’s propensity for white elephants like the NBN and desal plants, I am not convinced nuclear power will be any cheaper than good old coal.
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Sanjeev Gupta urges Canberra to underwrite energy plan
The Australian-13 hours ago
The industrialist argues that while renewables will form the backdrop of the nation’s energy supply in the next decade due to their declining cost and carbon neutral qualities, large quantities of ‘firming’ storage technologies may also be developed side-by-side to ensure the reliability of the nation’s electricity supply…
4 Jun: AFR: Solar deal marks ‘new era’ in China co-operation
by Michael Smith, China correspondent
Shanghai | British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta says a deal to build Australia’s largest solar plant with Chinese funding and technology heralds a “new era” in economic co-operation between the two countries which goes beyond selling products to each other…
“I’m very concerned (about the US-China trade war). It affects us in many ways,” Mr Gupta said in an interview in Shanghai on Monday…
Mr Gupta is the executive chairman of GFG Alliance, which owns the Whyalla steelworks in South Australia. The company on Monday signed an agreement with Chinese energy company Shanghai Electric to build the 280 megawatt (MW) Cultana Solar Farm project…
The project will power GFG’s Whyalla steelworks, which plans to expand to 10 million tonnes of steel output a year from 1.2 million tonnes…
“It is the biggest travesty of Australia. We export all our raw materials to China and other countries and they make the products and some of those products come back to Australia. Our industries get decimated in the process.”…
He also reaffirmed his support for underwriting guarantees which could lower the cost of solar power as proposed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)…
Shanghai Electric, a Chinese multinational which makes equipment used in coal, nuclear and renewable energy projects, will provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the project…READ ALL
https://www.afr.com/business/energy/solar-deal-marks-new-era-in-china-co-operation-20190603-p51u1c
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We shouldn’t want an Australian taxpayer subsidised solar plant because people might wrongly think that it’s the profit making part of the deal and not the upgrading of the Steelmaking plant.
Thanks anyhow Mr. Gupta.
KK
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3 Jun: REchargeNews: ‘Third GE wind turbine collapse would be sign something’s wrong’: insurer
CEO of insurance specialist points to relative rarity of collapses as US wind group continues probe
by Andrew Lee
Any third turbine collapse involving a GE machine in quick succession should set alarm bells ringing at the manufacturer, given the rarity of such incidents globally, said a leading insurer of renewable energy projects.
Fraser McLachlan, CEO of specialist insurer GCube, said the two collapses so far this year of GE turbines at US wind farms is already enough to give pause for thought.
The US OEM has said that the collapses – in New Mexico in February and then in Oklahoma 10 ten days ago – are being treated as “separate and isolated” incidents…
“Two I can say coincidence. Another one of these I’d definitely say there’s something going on and GE should be doing something about it.”
McLachlan said recorded incidents of the dramatic collapses have historically spanned all manufacturers, with a variety of factors at play.These include the emergency braking system causing the turbine to detach from the tower, or a defect in the towers themselves…
Recharge reported last week (LINK) how a new study by academics in the UK said the industry needs to do more work to understand the complex interaction of factors at play to bring turbines down.
The study by a team from the engineering department at Birmingham University, which looked at 48 tower collapses between 2000 and 2016, found costs of the incidents varied between £500,000-5m ($631,000-$6.3m).
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/1797738/third-ge-wind-turbine-collapse-would-be-sign-somethings-wrong-insurer
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Hi Pat,
Re #41: I presume you are highlighting the apparent inconsistency between the phrase in the opening text of the link there: “insurer CEO of insurance specialist points to relative rarity of collapses”, and the not-so-small-number after all at the end of the item of “48 tower collapses between 2000 and 2016”.
Let’s be quite, quite clear: if a nuclear reactor has any sort of accident or incident, let alone total structural collapse, local Green groups go ballistic, but wind turbine tower collapses (and that other accident event, wonderfully-euphemistically called “component liberation”, where blades and even nacelles are thrown off), are apparently all accepted as routine occurrences. The hypocrisy simply screams.
I checked the link above. I had similarly to laugh at another headline I saw there: “Natural disasters and insurance: a perfect storm for renewables”. In that regard, how often have we heard on the news (never on their-ABC) about how, when some violent, severe weather event crosses the US, the wind turbines and solar farms shut down and their owners pray that they are not destroyed by it, and all the while the nukes simply hunker down, soldier on, and provide much-needed power during very difficult times, just continuing to do, as “TonyfromOz” has already highlighted, their 24/7 power supply thing. Nuclear power stations are more expensive than equivalent coal-fired ones, but, where political leaders claim they are concerned about climate change, they have to realise that they may no longer ban nuclear power. What has emerged oh-so-clearly from the great renewables fiasco is that nuclear power is the only low-emissions technology that both works AND provides really drastic reductions in CO2 emissions.
Thanks for this post, Jo, and for the opportunity to comment.
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Not directly connected to this thread,an interesting article in Australian national suicide that it is – but can some kind Aussie tell me why I cannot connect to Andrew Bolts blog which Joanne has a side link to ?
Thanks as I am trying to get some real info non Cardinal George Pells appeal
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Michachael Smith News has articles on Cardinal George Pell’s appeal
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Pat, how did you miss this?
I found it on WUWT
The Queenslanders proved they were the most insightful electorate in the Federal election – maybe this has a chance !
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Analitik –
thanks for reminding me. wanted to post the following, but couldn’t find it (still can’t) on 2GB’s Wake Up Australia website. however, your comment got me looking again and I just found the audio at PlayerFM.
click “Play” under the headline.
AUDIO: 12min28sec: 4 Jun: PlayerFM: 2GB: Wake Up Australia: Coalition MPs push for nuclear power
with Mike McLaren
Michael is joined by Keith Pitt, Federal Liberal National member for Hinkler, who has joined a group of coalition MPs seeking to reactivate a campaign to lift the ban on nuclear power in Australia
In an effort to drive down power bills and reduce emissions, they will put forward the motion in the senate to set up a committee which will only go to a vote if more than one Senator objects.
https://player.fm/series/series-2343151/coalition-mps-push-for-nuclear-power
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Hi All,
If Jo’s count of 451 was correct when she published this article, then, if we allow the stage of going into Pilot Commercial Operation (which I read to be operating at 50% rated power), then, as of yesterday 4 June 2019, the count has gone to 452 with the next milestone in the commissioning of the Novovoronezh II-2 VVER-1200 reactor in South West Russia having been achieved. See:
http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Novovoronezh-II-2-starts-pilot-operation .
I am not here to nit-pick Jo’s count. What is important is the sheer scale and speed of nuclear power new-build: the count changes almost on a weekly basis. While Australia is sitting on its hands congratulating itself on its ban on nuclear power, the rest of the world, (the EU and to some extent the UK excepted), are getting on with the business of providing its citizens with, among the wider mix, safe, low-CO2-emissions electricity using nuclear generation. All that one can say is that we here in Australia do look rather silly.
Might I also recommend to those who are interested in nuclear power developments around the world that you take out a subscription to World Nuclear News. It is free. WNN certainly does try, as does the IAEA, to report just the facts. There is also a wealth of information available at its website on the state of nuclear power around the world, the state of development of the various nuclear power technologies, detailed explanations of the physics and the engineering principles that underpin those technologies, the state of play with emerging reactor technologies, etc.
I suppose I have to give the disclaimer on what is often an emotive topic: I have no connection whatsoever, certainly no financial connection, with WNN. I am providing this information so that others may know that, as well as the IAEA and the IEA, there is another authoritative news source about nuclear matters.
Paul Miskelly
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Abstract:
This paper presents evidence of the disruption of a transition from fossil fuels to nuclear power, and finds the benefits forgone as a consequence are substantial. Learning rates are presented for nuclear power in seven countries, comprising 58% of all power reactors ever built globally. Learning rates and deployment rates changed in the late-1960s and 1970s from rapidly falling costs and accelerating deployment to rapidly rising costs and stalled deployment. Historical nuclear global capacity, electricity generation and overnight construction costs are compared with the counterfactual that pre-disruption learning and deployment rates had continued to 2015. Had the early rates continued, nuclear power could now be around 10% of its current cost. The additional nuclear power could have substituted for 69,000–186,000 TWh of coal and gas generation, thereby avoiding up to 9.5 million deaths and 174 Gt CO2 emissions. In 2015 alone, nuclear power could have replaced up to 100% of coal-generated and 76% of gas-generated electricity, thereby avoiding up to 540,000 deaths and 11 Gt CO2. Rapid progress was achieved in the past and could be again, with appropriate policies. Research is needed to identify impediments to progress, and policy is needed to remove them.
Lang (2017) Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone
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For a short opinion piece on GWPF, see:
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN – IF NUCLEAR POWER DEPLOYMENT HAD NOT BEEN DISRUPTED
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Nuclear makes no sense whatsoever for Australia. Who’d build it? Look at the schemozzle that the UK found itself in with a projected nuclear plant. Let’s stick with coal and keep it simple.
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Read yet another article about using thorium as a nuclear fuel. It seems thorium as a “waste” product shut down the rare earth mining in the US. If the US replaced it’s aging nuke reactors with thorium reactors, not only would the US continue it’s power base of nuclear but would be able to reopen it’s rare earth mining industry and refine the “waste”.
And…thorium reactors “burn” the nuke waste of existing reactors.
And…thorium waste’s half lives are in the thousands of years and not millions
And…a run away “China Syndrome” would never occur making them extremely safe
And…thorium reactors produce, essentially, no weapons grade material
And…thorium becomes a valuable commodity instead of a environmental hazard
And…nations like India would become energy independent since they have a gazillion tonnes of the stuff
But…the downside is it’d still be a bit more pricey than coal and hydrocarbons.
But…with enough thorium reactors, one could simply manufacture hydrocarbon fuels
And…one could build portable reactors to the third world, even to France, to help with not only energy production but reduce deforestation, etc.
Thus, if the Greens had the sliver of one brain cell, they’d all be clamoring and demanding and “activating” for thorium power.
Alas….
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