122 comments on A Sustainable Futures Fund for a Fuel and Climate Emergency
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This is really not on. if you seriously believe that your comments on the energy costs of nuclear power and the availability of fuel is as you say then you are grossly misinformed, and are misinforming others
Your figures for the energy costs of mining and enrichment are complete nonsense.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf100.html
Energy Balances and CO2: WNA
The audited lifetime costs are around 1.35% of the energy generated is consumed in the production, including construction, mining, ENRICHMENT and all lifecycle costs.
As for not being able to understand why people who are concerned about peak oil should not always feel that we are in trouble on all minerals, that is because they have taken the trouble to inform themselves on the actual situation in different resources.
Oil and fossil fuels are produced only in very limited and specialised circumstances, other materials like uranium are a substantial proportion of the earth's crust.
We already know how to produce uranium by getting it from seawater:
http://npc.sarov.ru/english/digest/132004/appendix8.html
Fuel costs are such a small part of total nuclear generation costs that even at that price it would not greatly affect price per Kwh.
Of course, no one is going to bother whilst it is far cheaper to mine it, and when we need it costs can be vastly reduced anyway by a variety of strategies, as indicated in my quote.
How Australia chooses to power itself is entirely up to them, and the low population and good resources of the country probably mean that they could power themselves without nuclear power if they so choose - but at a cost.
It would be far, far cheaper to build the 20 or so nuclear plants that Australia would need, and contrary to your assertion you would certainly not need one coal plant for every two or three nuclear plants - that is quite absurd.
It seems a shame as your comparisons of renewable costs were pretty good, if some of them were perhaps a touch on the low side, maybe due to old data, and I can only imagine that you have some sort of blockage in looking at nuclear power.
The choices Australians need to make should be set out fairly to them, if those who advocate an all renewables future wish to argue their case it should be done from an accurate assessment of costs, not an entirely specious prospectus such as that given.
Maybe Australians will be happy to pay multiples of the price of alternatives - check out the price per Kwh of 75% nuclear France.
Ask them, but ask them fairly.
I might add that at virtually every step of the fuel process for nuclear...it can be energized by *nuclear* power. You don't have to build *fossil* powered production facilities, you can build *nuclear* ones.
So...in a country like france...80% of the energy to create and process nuclear fuel and waste is by carbon-free nuclear power.
DWalters
How much carbon is produced - note I didn't say could or would - by the construction of nuclear power plants and their total support/supply chain? Please include any carbon sinks destroyed by site selection.
Cheers
It's hard to say. The nuclear industry itself hasn't published any greenhouse gas emissions studies of construction, let alone complete lifecycle, of nuclear reactors and their fuel. Nor is there any independent official board or group entrusted with all the data to study things like lifecycle emissions.
So we're left with the estimates from various groups, from the political to the academic. And those give widely varying conclusions, from 50% to 0.1% the emissions of a similarly-sized coal-fired plant. Often though they have glaring omissions, like not considering different ore richnesses and so on, or assuming the lowest richness or the highest, or assuming the oldest and most inefficient uranium enrichment technology, or the newest and untried enrichment technology, and so on. But more often the conclusions are published without mentioning the methods and assumptions behind them.
What's clear is that it's not carbon zero, though like the wind and solar industries they often claim or at least strongly imply they are. If nothing else, the concrete used in the things causes emissions, since concrete is made with cement, which is made by roasting limestone and driving off the CO2 in the limestone; so even if your roasting oven were powered by entirely carbon free energy, that chemical process gives us CO2.
So basically all electricity generation technologies around produce some greenhouse gas emissions. The question is how much they produce relative to each-other.
But to me that's not the killing argument against nuclear. Rather, it's that uranium, like coal, oil and natural gas, is a depletable resource. The stuff's going to run short, and then after that run out. So we'd just be delaying the problem of how to get energy without depleting resources.
When you confront nuclear advocates with that they tend to start talking about getting it from seawater, breeder reactors and so on. The similarities between those arguments and "but what about tar sands? and also enhanced recover technology, and better efficiency for cars, and biodiesel, and -" are quite striking.
The timescales may or may not be different. Depending on whether you're talking about the same number of reactors as today but with as yet unproven technology and with breeders and fuel recovery and unconventional uranium, or the whole world current reactors and no breeders, you get anywhere between 7 and 1,000 years for how long the nuclear reactors would power the world - or part of it.
But in the end, the stuff runs short and later runs out. At that point we're again faced with the problem of running our civilisation without using stuff that runs out. I don't really see why we should be putting off dealing with this fundamental problem, handing it to future generations.
I mean, we have the technology now. If nobody had invented photovoltaic cells, solar thermal, geothermal, wind, water and tidal turbines, then fair enough, one depletable resource runs short so we change to another. But we have invented these things, and they have been proven to work, and be commercially successful - at least as commercially successful as nuclear, anyway. So why fuck about?
There is no such similarity, the analogy is entirely false.
Oil from tar sands involves removing an immense overburden of soil, or heating the area significantly, both of which are extremely energy intensive and very dirty processes.
To extract uranium form sea water you manufacture plastic membranes and suspend them in a cage in seawater where there is a current to pass water through the membrane, so most of the energy is provided by the current.
Apart from manufacture of the cages and membranes the only other energy involved is to lower the cages into position before use and to raise them 200 or so days later after they have absorbed the uranium.
When we need to we will build the cages out of plastic to give them a specific density similar to water and minimise the cables and support structure.
You are seeking to equate a very clean, energy efficient technology with a very energy expensive, dirty one.
You also have very significant mining operations involved in windpower, you know, as they are very materials intensive.
As is often the case Dave, you respond with your head up yer arse. You really need to start communicating without an agenda overlaying everything you say.
His analogy had nothing to do with the carbon footprint or energy intensity. It was a comparison of pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams vs. current realities.
But thanks for playing.
Cheers
Please - cut out the insults guys - you can argue without being rude...
You really area an ill-mannered chap, aren't you?
Thanks for showing so clearly the level you are on.
Rational debate is plainly too difficult for you, and that explains the prejudiced standpoint you so often show.
Do grow up.
Both of you - stop it.
I had thought my response was mild and in no way abusive - perhaps your comments would be better directed at those who wish to use gross abuse and offensive language.
I've directed my comments to everyone who deserved them.
Your "grow up" comment is just inflammatory - if you can't keep yourself under control, I will - got it ?
'Leave him! He's not worth it!' :-)
The analogy's not false at all.
With oil beyond the conventional, the EROEI drops as time goes on; with uranium ores beyond the conventional, the same holds.
With oil beyond the conventional, the promise is of dramatically increasing the recoverable reserves at a high energy cost, requiring unproven technology, and at a low rate of production. This is the same with uranium.
If these things were so technically simple, then they'd have been done regularly already. Less than 1kg of uranium has ever been extracted from seawater. There exist no public plans for commercial operations. It's lab stuff.
"Oh but the price of uranium today is too low, and -" - ah, much the same as gets said about oil. This or that unconventional oil extraction technique is always deemed to be economical at whatever today's price is plus 40% or so.
You cannot say that any electricity generation complete lifecycle is "very clean" or "very energy efficient." You can only give absolute figures for the emissions and efficiency, and/or say that relative to some other technology it's clean/dirty and in/efficient.
Wind turbines certainly require material to be mined for them, as do nuclear reactors. Both require maintenance which uses material. Let's suppose that wind turbines delivering X electrical energy used just as much material and energy as a nuclear reactor delivering X electrical energy - they actually use less, but let's be kind to nuclear and suppose it's the same. There remains the fuelling of the things; wind turbines require no fuel, nuclear reactors do. They thus require more resources and energy to keep fuelled than do wind turbines.
Thus, wind turbines produce less emissions and require less mineral resources in their complete lifecycle compared to nuclear; wind is clean and energy efficient relative to nuclear.
Of course nuclear and wind each have other advantages and disadvantages both, which must be considered along with their emissions and resource use.
In the end, this must be a decision of the public. If the public don't want nuclear reactors, they shouldn't have them. Likewise, if they don't want wind turbines ruining their view, they shouldn't have them, either. Each region should be given the choice:
I'd be interested to see if people worried so much about wind turbines ruining their pretty view when coal or nuclear steam towers were their alternative :D
Yes you're not even wrong, but it helps to actually have some numbers detailing where the truth lies.
Conveniently they've been posted numerous times. Consider the Rossing mine data, where the uranium mined in these mining operations yields 500 times the energy in light water reactors in the once through fuel cycle than is consumed in these mining operations. We wont bother with seawater extracting simply because conventional resources are so vast that we could run our current civilization for thousands of years before exploiting seawater becomes a reasonable thing to consider.
An incomplete analysis which is glaringly wrong on some points; Quoting some numbers:
Nuclear power plants built in the 1970’s used 40 metric tons of steel, and 190 cubic meters of concrete, for each megawatt of average capacity.
Modern wind energy systems, with good wind conditions, take 460 metric tons of steel and 870 cubic meters of concrete per megawatt.
Nuclear power uses 1/5th the concrete and 1/10th the steel as modern wind turbines before dispatchable energy systems are brought into play. Wind certainly has its advantages (financing, licensing, grid integration on small scales) but to portray it as universally inferior to nuclear is to be willfully ignorant.
Thanks for the response.
This combined with safety issues is my problem, too. While the operation of plants is relatively safe, it is not safe enough given the long term storage issue. When we have Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and depleted uranium shells being used in Iraq, how can anyone claim it is safe to keep this stuff lying around? How purely lucky have we been that none of the FSU warheads has gotten away?
It's like climate change: the risk is so great, why continue letting that genie out of the bottle? It's a no-brainer to me.
Let's add in that autonomy and change requires the people not be beholden to a small group of powerful interests and advocating nuclear becomes but a bizarre obsession to me. As I've said, the cost of the government supplying every home in America with solar power is less than the cost of one nuclear power station. The government is putting 20x that amount into yet another economic package.
3 billion to reduce US energy consumption by, what? 50%? 80%?, or 200,000,000,000 in welfare to bankers.
How much more simple do people need this to be before they get it?
Cheers
I prefer not to argue the safety issues, it just goes round and round. You point out Chernobyl, they pull out some stupid official figure of 25 deaths from it or something, you mention nuclear weapons, they say, "oh but modern designs don't allow nukes to be made from the spent fuel, and anyway nobody's used a nuke since 1945", etc. It's pointless.
The other thing is that they're pretty well-practiced at arguing about safety. That's why it goes round and round. I mean, say "nuclear reactor" to anyone and the first thing they think of is deadly radiation. The pro-nuke guys know this, so they prepare their arguments.
But they're less well-practiced at defending nuclear on the basis of emissions, and they're extremely weak on its using a depleting resource. "Oh but the latest reactor designs... fast breeders... extraction technologies..."
"Okay, then, the latest solar PV designs using inkjet printers to make them -"
"But that's not a commercially-proven technology."
"Neither are the latest reactor designs, fast breeders, or extraction technologies."
"No, you don't understand. The latest technology and science works perfectly and can be trusted when it's my favoured technology, and is imperfect and can't be trusted when it's not."
If you argue safety you go round and round. If you argue emissions and the depleting resource, they get a bit lost.
And let's face it, in principle nuclear could be made entirely safe. In practice, of course bloody not, we're human after all. But in principle, sure. But even in principle nuclear will always be relatively high emissions (compared to geothermal, wind and solar, at least - though not compared to hydroelectric), and will always use a depleting resource.
Just don't argue the safety issue. It goes round and round, it's pointless.
The figures I gave are audited figures authorised by the Swedish government of 1.35% of the total energy yield of a reactor being required as all the energy inputs including construction.
From that you can estimate the carbon input.
Since they are much more extensive and use much more materials wind-turbines also have significant carbon inputs.
The issue isn't wind, it's statements by nuclear nuts that nuclear is zero carbon. It ain't.
A little honesty would be appreciated. As would less defensiveness.
What's the carbon input of a home-built windmill, eh? Quit being argumentative. Look for solutions.
Cheers
No one is suggesting that nuclear, or for that matter any other energy source, is zero carbon.
The debate is about how much carbon is released, so this is a strawman argument.
Nuclear is anything but clean. It's not just about carbon. But even then, very clean? Maybe you should define your terms if you don't want them taken "wrong."
Cheers
I'd be interested to see the source of the 1.35% figure - I hope in English! If nothing else, I want to keep my household carbon emissions excel updated - I have a breakdown of the emissions per kWh by difference generation method.
Actually John Howard asked us repeatedly in recent years - and we just threw him out and replaced him with a government that says "no" to nuclear power.
Most states here don't even allow uranium mining...
Notably, the state with the largest uranium mine (Olympic Dam in South Australia) doesn't allow uranium to be shipped from its ports. The stuff has to go north and ship from Darwin in the Northern Territory. The NT govt has a couple of times said it might ban the use of its ports, too - but the Commonwealth government said they'd use their powers to override that legislation if they did.
Hey - I see today that even the coalition are giving up on nuclear power - the sun is shining in Canberra it seems and even they can see where the wind is blowing ...
http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/coalition-cools-on-nuclear-pla...
THE Federal Opposition has quietly ditched its support for a nuclear power industry in Australia.
Environment spokesman Greg Hunt has told The Age: "In the next 40 years, I think there is a zero chance of a nuclear power industry in Australia."
Mr Hunt said the Coalition's policy was changed at a shadow cabinet meeting in December, although no statement was issued at the time.
The new policy does not explicitly oppose nuclear-generated electricity, but goes close. The Coalition will no longer advocate nuclear power, recognising that its introduction would only be possible with bipartisan political support and widespread community support.
Well, they want some hope of attaining government in the next decade or so...
Strange since it was the good Dr Nelson who started the ball rolling leading to Howard commissioning the Switkowski Report. Hunt and Rudd might lose face if the wind shifts. Never say never. Word is from my Adelaide moles that Rann is a closet nuclearist but is reluctant to come out.
We've created one global well being crisis with fossil fuel and there are people like you that want to create another one. If left up to nukers the planet will die a green death, you know that eerie glowing Dr Who/X file green.
Your a very intelligent person for someone with brain-death Dave.
I notice that you don't try to defend the completely crap figures I was criticising - I have google earth, and I can't find the 15-25 coal plants specified in the original fantasy post for France's needs for enriching uranium - so what is your problem - you want to rely on total lies to support your case?
Guys - no personal insults - keep the debate civil please.
I don't agree with Dave on the nuclear topic but he is allowed to have his say.
I feel it is entirely up to the people of Australia what option they wish to pursue, and there is a stronger case there than in most countries for supplying their energy be renewables, and indeed expenditure by the Australians if they choose that option may help a lot of other people in poorer parts of the world by paying to develop, for instance, solar thermal energy.
My sole concern is that the options should be laid out to the people in Australia and elsewhere as fairly as we possibly can, and without distortion.
It is false according to reports that the Swedish government has accepted that nuclear energy uses anything like the amounts of energy indicated, ie needing one coal plant for every two to three nuclear reactors, and arguments should not be based upon such a demonstrably erroneous prospectus.
Having said that, I have no desire to turn this thread into a renewables vs nuclear debate, and was quite happy prior to this to deal with it on it's own terms, that is to look at how and with what cost Australia could be run on renewables alone, but am unwilling to allow what appear to me to be entirely misleading statements to stand unchallenged.
I would also like to clarify that I do not regard the poster who brought up the supposedly vast energy costs of nuclear as someone who is telling lies, as it appears he is under a great but genuine misapprehension, and I have provided authoritative figures to counter that, my remark was directed at the poster who thought it was inappropriate to challenge information on the grounds that it is false, and seemed happy to allow even inaccurate data to be disseminated as long as it supported his thesis.
Knowingly to provide false information however noble one thinks the cause to which it is in service is to lie.
I do hope we can get this thread back on track.
And yet somehow all renewable energy related threads on TOD ANZ (and maybe the rest, I haven't been keeping track) get redirected to this topic.
I'm getting fed up with this - I know you didn't start it this time Dave but I'm tired of people constantly rehashing the pro / anti nuclear argument on unrelated threads.
At some point in the (near) future I'm going to start pruning off topic chatter - move it to the daily Drumbeat or Bullroarer posts if you most go over this time and again - or, even better, put it into a post somehow related to nuclear energy.
It seems the industry PR campaign has been more than a little successful...
http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2005/06/when-pr-goes-nuclear.html
I gave no figures for nuclear energy, so they can't be wrong. You're not responding to what I said, you're doing the old internet thing of just spurting out a pre-made mix of arguments you've had with a thousand other people.
All I said was that when you're beginning the nuclear industry in your country, then you'd need to build a power plant to power the enrichment to fuel the nuclear plants. And that's true. Our grid doesn't have a spare 1GW to chuck into gas centrifuges. Of course, you can lower the power requirement if you're happy to wait longer for the fuel, but I was assuming we were talking about powering Australia substantially with nuclear within say 20 years, rather than say one reactor in 30 years.
If you import enriched fuel and so on, then sure, you can get your reactor going a lot quicker. But that wasn't how it was presented in the last couple of years, it was presented as an ore to power at the point complete cycle all happening domestically. Which means we'd have to build another power station before we could fuel the nuclear one.
Further, I said that the stuff is going to run out some day. The more reactors there are in the world, the quicker it'll run out. An imaginary thousand year supply becomes a fifty year supply if everyone goes nuclear; and if we're talking about nuclear as a way to avoid global warming, then having everyone - or close to everyone - go nuclear is what we're talking about, a few dozen reactors in Western countries will make bugger all difference to emissions.
Yes, we have technology for extracting uranium from seawater. We also have technology for making photovoltaic cells with inkjet printers. I'm only interested in current technology, who knows what the fuck will end up working in the future - I'm still waiting for the flying cars I was promised in the 1970s. Let's focus on what we know works today, prudent public policy focuses on what works. Britain invented the jet engine before WWII, but they still fought and won the war with propeller-driven craft. The Germans buggerised about with jets, and lost. In a task involving the fate of nations, we must put the bulk of our resources into technology we know works well. Of course at the same time we should put some resources into research, because you never know. But the bulk should be in proven stuff.
My costs for renewables were averaged over the costs in many countries around the world, and these are surprisingly low. On the other hand, I also gave the lowest reasonable estimates for load factors, so even if you think I was being optimistic about cost, the pessimism about load factors should balance it out.
Centrifuges could be outdated if this Australian developed technology succeeds
http://www.silex.com.au/
I believe they started in Sydney got taken over by Westinghouse now Toshiba (?). I'm not sure why progress has slowed. I believe Australia should get into waste disposal, nuclear electricity then enrichment in that order.
I wonder why this topic never goes away?
"I wonder why this topic never goes away?"
"Energy too cheap to meter!" maybe? I dunno, I blame the faith in Science!
Stuff like "take the train!" - it's too simple for some people. They want complex solutions to simple problems. "Oh if we get this new expensive insulation, then when we use our brand new quantum heat pump, the heat won't leak in, awesome!"
"Why not just turn the AC off, close the blinds, turn the fan on and have a cold drink?"
"But that's not very high tech, I dunno... Anyway how are we going to feed ourselves?"
"Well you could grow some spuds in your backyard, you're always complaining about mowing the lawn."
"Hey I heard about this new hydroponics system which uses nano membranes to dynamically separate the..."
Life's too simple for some people. They need Science! to make it more complicated for them, and save them from having to actually do anything.
Its interesting, but ultimately probably rather dangerous to pump prior to simply replacing diffusion plants with centrifuges. The promise of laser isotope seperation delayed this infrastructure upgrade 20 years ago in the US and France before, and the countries with the largest installed nuclear consumption of SWU's have the least efficient enrichment techniques. Funny that.
I suspect silex isn't vaporware, but isn't mature enough to replace centrifuge enrichment either. Build centrifuges now.