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21 comments on The Bullroarer - Tuesday 18 March 2008
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While Plimer is notorious for claiming that GW is cyclical and not man made, I have to agree with him about SA's uranium resources. I'd paraphrase his argument as
1) SA should make the big bucks not others
2) no point in being half pregnant.
A vast area of SA has elevated background radiation, ranging from the old Maralinga A-bomb site to Olympic Dam and even the geothermal steam prospects. I wonder how their big Wattle Point wind farm did during the heatwave. Clearly as the pic shows SA needs more reliable water supply so desal has to be added to transport electrification as a big future power draw. Add increased AC as it gets hotter. I suspect their fossil fuel reserves only have a good decade left. However if that decade is dedicated to dithering then they might notice the Chinese etc are doing rather well on SA uranium while the Safstrines themselves are going backwards.
Rudd and Rann should either encourage the nuclear industry or ban it outright, not sit on the fence.
Is it irony, paradox or just some kind of dark karma that the guy who lost his court case against the creationists is now evangelising nuclear and "denying" (or at least downplaying) anthropogenic climate change?
What is it with some of these crusty old geologists?
Not sure about you aphoristic argumentation Boof... nuclear still appears to be still born here.
Big bucks is not a good argument. Lets plant poppies then.
Do we really want to be a "Saudi Arabia"? It can only be their perceived power that he admires.
The photo is of the Coorong somewhere closer to Kingston than Adelaide.
Yes, Adelaide water is becoming uncertain... perhaps we should reduce irrigation in the Murray Darling?
The links I provided above are of a method of cooling that uses solar heat. No, it won't provide that impressive frosty effect of modern compressor systems, but coupled with insulation and good house design, it could make summer bearable.
I think Adelaide's problems run deeper than living without aircon. They involve domestic water supply, rainfall for dryland crops (qv Goyder's Line) and irrigation needs. If they block off Lake Alexandrina to reduce evaporation it will also resemble the Coorong. Nobody seems to really know how long Leigh Creek coal or Cooper Basin gas will last but quietly the TPTB seem worried.
I read that the Submarine Corporation makes pressure vessels for the mining industry with special titanium welding techniques. That sounds like they could help the nuclear industry. Thus a nuke/desal at Whyalla or Pt Augusta could not only help Adelaide with reduced river water demands and low carbon electricity but also create city jobs.
I've discussed this with the ex-Adelaide diaspora here in Tassie and we'd all prefer nuclear electricity instead of coal power was coming through Basslink. It makes more sense though to locate the power plant in Whyalla since they are already in the mix.
There is an ex-Adelaide diaspora in Tassie ?
Who evicted them ? The Romans ?
Perhaps they didn't appreciate the aqueduct or the wine...?
Splitters !
I don't know. Given that uranium is so energy dense... wouldn't it make more sense to ship the required mass to a generator on Tassie... say somewhere near Launceston... and generate and distribute it from there, rather than incur the energy losses thru transmission?
I'm sure suitable land near George Town can be found.
There's a few of us ex-croweaters here but we reminisce about pie floaters not crows. A recurring reason for the move is a preference for cooler weather except it was 37C in Hobart last week. The suggestion of Georgetown is spooky since they reckon there is uranium near there, actually one of the sites touted for HFR geothermal...nukular-lite.
True that if Whyalla had a 1000MW nuke then there would be major transmission losses due to remoteness. Also the current transmission lines are 130 and 275kv and would need beefing up. However if Roxby Downs needs another 120MW and the talk is of 400ML/day desal it's logical to locate the plant there. Other factors are security and lack of nimbyism.
Why not do both. Send the excess power back through Basslink to Victoria rather than all the way from Whyalla?
Works for me, especially seeing as how Prof Garnaut wants to tighten the screws on on dirty damp La Trobe brown coal which is near the mainland connector for Basslink.
However Whyalla is the spot nearest to the expanding Olympic Dam
http://odx.bhpbilliton.com/expansion/index.asp
that has good sea currents. They also could turn off the pipeline from the Murray ..I've used the image before but Gav told me off for hogging bandwidth. That saves river water for Adelaide. That region will end up supplying 40% of the world's primary uranium, so I think they should have first dibs if charity begins at home. The people around there are battle hardened, think Baxter and Woomera riots.
Hey - I was just feeling sorry for those with dialup connections - it doesn't worry me how big the images are personally.
Anyway - I did suggest a solution - load your pickie up to Flickr, which converts it to a range of sizes automatically - embed a smaller one and link back to the original - easy...
37C ? You should have moved to Sydney - we haven't gone over 30 all "summer" :-)
I still say (in my broken record way) we're better off building a 1GW CSP plant in the South Aussie Desert than a nuke plant.
Georgetown obviously isn't as suitable for CSP - so Boof can have his cooling towers and occasional heavily guarded trans-shipments of fuel rods and waste passing by if he really must...
My reference to George Town was becuase this is
1) where the Gunn a ment of Tassie is going to build there pulp factory
2) the location of an Aluminium smelter and
3) close to Basslink.
... so a little nuclear power plant should feel right at home ;-)