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42 comments on The Trouble With Energy - Part 4
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42 comments on The Trouble With Energy - Part 4
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Two things:
1) Where's the nukes? Sure Australia should be moving to renewable sources as well, but given time horizons and rates of installation, it should also have a program of building nuclear power stations ASAP. It's got the raw resources, it's got the space, it's a no brainer.
2) The single most important thing Australia could do as a society is reject america as a model to follow. Wholescale turning the back on that, and with it the soulless suburbs, zoning, poor energy economy, car culture, etc. would do much to improve matters. Australia is far too much US-lite.
Garyp
Yes, nuclear could provide a significant part of the solution, but not if we just impliment the current once through reactor technology. This is not only highly wasteful in terms of fuel it is also the main contributor to the nuclear waste disposal problem.
Australia could develop a standard reactor type backed by the Australian government in a similar fashion to the development of the CANDU reactor by Canada. Ours should be based around a liquid thorium cycle.
Using nuclear power, especially LFTR, would come as close to a Silver Bullet as any technology we have in the near future, (10-20 years). High coolant temperatures of around 600ºc give efficiencies of about 50% for electrical generation. Liquid fluoride salts eliminate high energy coolants reducing the problem of containment. The Thorium fuel cycle produces a negligible waste stream compared to common PWRs, and using the “Green Freedom” energy to gasoline system you have a carbon neutral system to produce chemical feed stocks while eliminating the need to drill or import oil.
"Australia is far too much US-lite."
but then masses are far too hypnotised by the MSM. can't change that easily Gary :)