Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Nuclear Power: Do you support it?

Do you Support the use of Nuclear Power In Australia?

  • Yes

    Votes: 112 64.4%
  • No

    Votes: 35 20.1%
  • I need more info before making a decision

    Votes: 27 15.5%

  • Total voters
    174
There are long term costs associated with coal/fossil fuels as well. Are any of these passed on to coal energy producers? Increased rates of cancer in populations associated in mining and burning of coal? Cost of smog?

I am hesitant in bringing up the cost of global warming and the cost of fighting wars for oil, but

Our energy needs will not decrease not matter how efficient we become. Add to this Asia's growing middle class. Fossil fuels will run out. Green energy cannot currently support our ever increasing demand for energy, currently. Im sure people will say otherwise.

I say all of this as somebody who voted Green last election and a massive supporter of green tech (one of my first posts was in the GRK thread as I have been interested in this company long before I was interested in investing)

Fiftyeight
 
I don't think you need to be "green" to be thinking of alternative energies, i reckon if the TRUE cost were accounted for, the decision would be a straight forward business case.

CanOz
 
Fossil fuels will run out. Green energy cannot currently support our ever increasing demand for energy, currently. Im sure people will say otherwise.
In a purely technical sense it can indeed be done with "green" energy. It's just an engineering issue which, in most parts of the world, is solvable.

What the alternatives can't do however is do it as cheaply as fossil fuels. Indeed the alternatives are too expensive economically to be workable in many cases. But then the same is true of nuclear power so that's no solution either.

In terms of the actual resources, most estimates show coal to be plentiful whereas uranium is comparatively scarce. That is assuming, of course, that we can use either of those without totally ruining the ecology.

Estimates vary slightly, but in terms of worldwide electricity generation here's where it comes from:

Coal =41%
Gas = 21%
Hydro = 16%
Nuclear = 13%
Oil = 6%
Others (mostly wind) = 3%

There are huge regional variations in that both internationally and even within the same country. For example, Australia relies very heavily on coal with most of the rest from gas and hydro plus a bit of wind. Oil use is trivial, and nuclear is zero.

But even within Australia there are big differences. For example, Victoria is over 80% from coal, Tasmania's electricity is primarily hydro, and the NT is almost totally reliant on gas. :2twocents
 
Thanks for the detailed replys smurf.

Using current technology, political environment and lets assume man made global warming, what would your solution be for one the major cities in OZ say Perth for example?
 
Using current technology, political environment and lets assume man made global warming, what would your solution be for one the major cities in OZ say Perth for example?
I'll give you a bigger example than Perth....

Technically, it's entirely feasible to run the whole of Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas and SA (which already have an interconnected grid) fully on renewable energy. It would be technically easier and cheaper if PNG were added into the system, but is possible without it.

For that to work basically relies on a few key points:

1. Large scale wind generation in SA, Vic and Tasmania (including the Bass Strait islands) as a bulk energy source.

2. Large scale solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic, generation primarily in Qld and NSW with smaller scale use in Vic and SA.

3. Hydro in Tas, NSW, PNG and to a lesser extent Qld and Vic as the storage medium and a major energy source in its' own right.

4. An upgraded transmission network linking it all together.

Technically it's all very doable although it's not cost competitive under current circumstances with coal or gas (but the gap is steadily reducing).

As for the politics, well that's the hard part. It's no secret that there is organised opposition to any attempt at building any of this and that won't likely go away. So technically it's doable but politically it's easier to stick with coal and gas rather than do battle with greens.

In terms of how a fully renewable system as I've described would "look", the answer is that about 30% of the total generation would be hydro, about 15% solar and the other 55% would mostly be from wind (much of it stabilised and re-dispatched via hydro). If dry geothermal can be made to work then it represents an alternative to much of the wind and hydro although that's a technical uncertainty at this stage.

And yes, we do have enough suitable sites for hydro and wind to make this work at least in a technical (as distinct from political) sense.

In practice, I think a few bits and pieces will be built but none of the major parties have what it takes to get us to a fully renewable system. It goes against the ideology of all of them - Labor is joined at the hip with coal mining unions etc, Liberals focus on short term profit and don't like the inherent central planning in such a scheme meanwhile Greens will never support the very thing the party was formed specifically to oppose (dams). So you'd be pretty safe to invest in coal or gas for quite a while yet. :2twocents
 
I don't think you need to be "green" to be thinking of alternative energies, i reckon if the TRUE cost were accounted for, the decision would be a straight forward business case.

CanOz

Agreed.

It's one of the reasons utility prices are going up - less users of the system, and increased inefficiency.

Centralised power producers for my mind will be in a prolonged down trend until they completely upturn their business model. Because any of the old tricks, exacerbate the original problem.
 
I did not realise wind could provide so much energy. It is spoken about these days as "old technology". Any rough ideas on on the size of the land that would needed.

It must be very inefficient pumping water up a hill as a storage method, cant believe that's the best we have come up with haha

So this system is technically viable but not cost competitive (yet) or politically viable. What in your opinion is the best place to start? For example if Gillard or Abott came out with something to take to the election, what would make you think, well at least we are on the correct path? Might be a carbon policy change, further R&D, the beginnings of infrastructure, aything? or are you happy with the current set up?

Not very well written but I hope you get the gist of what I am asking.
 
I did not realise wind could provide so much energy. It is spoken about these days as "old technology". Any rough ideas on on the size of the land that would needed.
All the options we have are either "old technology" or are far too expensive.

Nuclear power is a 1950's technology in commercial use, based on ideas from the 1940's. It's an old technology too, just like the others.

Wind and solar are the only "new" forms of large scale generation, in that they are the only things being used on a significant scale today which haven't been around for at least 40 years in this country. Everything else is either too small and not capable of scaling up, still at the R&D stage, or too expensive.

It must be very inefficient pumping water up a hill as a storage method, cant believe that's the best we have come up with haha

It is not the technically best method but it's the cheapest and most proven. Hydro is inherently efficient by its' very nature, and pumped storage returns to the grid at least 70% of the energy taken out for storage (and it can be pushed a bit higher than that).

The oldest working power station on a major grid in Australia is the Lake Margaret hydro-electric scheme in Tasmania. But, and here's the point, this "working museum" complete with its' 99 year old equipment is still more than twice as efficient technically as a modern nuclear plant. And needless to say, a modern hydro turbine and alternator set is more efficient than one built a century ago.

There are certainly other options for storing energy as heat, chemically (batteries), compressed air and the like. But at present, large scale hydro pumped storage is generally the cheapest when we're talking about storing enough energy to run entire cities etc. The other technologies are certainly getting better however.

There are lots of sites in NSW and Tas where such things could be built, and a fair amount of engineering investigation has actually been done into them at various times. But there is at present no real point in building them, and of course doing so would mean a battle since greens and dams don't mix well.

So this system is technically viable but not cost competitive (yet) or politically viable. What in your opinion is the best place to start? For example if Gillard or Abott came out with something to take to the election, what would make you think, well at least we are on the correct path? Might be a carbon policy change, further R&D, the beginnings of infrastructure, aything? or are you happy with the current set up?

Public and political acceptance that (1) it needs to happen and (2) that renewables are a legitimate option which can be made to work reliably and (3) there will be economic and environmental trade offs in doing it - there's no such thing as zero environmental impact.

Get that in place and then it's fairly straightforward to make a transition gradually over a period of time. But it won't happen as long as a protest group springs up every time someone tries to build a wind farm, dam or even just a transmission line.

In terms of actual physical infrastructure, the places to start are:

1. Development of hydro generation in PNG with a cable link to Queensland. Origin Energy has been pursuing this. In the absence of large scale geothermal, this represents the single largest "magic bullet" for renewable energy supply in Australia.

2. Additional transmission capacity between SA and Vic / NSW. There have been various proposals, but thus far the actual capacity is still fairly limited particularly in the direction of exporting energy from SA (capacity being higher in the opposite direction).

3. The TasWind project on King Island is effectively the first stage of what eventually becomes a baseload source to supply 600 MW into Victoria. Hydro Tas is pursuing it, although there's well organised opposition from the usual suspects who will quite likely kill the idea.

4. Get on and prove (or otherwise) hot dry rocks as a generating technology. The saga of this one is pretty much following the steps of the brown coal industry a century ago - it's taking far too long due to unwillingness to take on the technical risk. There's a need for someone to take charge and get the job done - if that's government then so be it but it needs to happen and happen quickly.
 
For the record, supply into the main grid (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas, SA) literally right now is from:

Black coal =53%
Brown coal = 25%
Gas = 11%
Hydro = 8%
Wind = 3%

This doesn't count distributed generation such as solar panels on houses etc however.

Looking at a time of higher demand, for example last Thursday night at 6pm, it was:

Black coal = 50%
Brown coal = 20%
Hydro = 12%
Gas = 12%
Wind = 6%

So basically we have a system based on coal, with some hydro and gas plus a bit of wind. That's what we actually have at present.
 
Just had a read of your posts smurf.

Just about to head out, but I think you have convinced me. Will ponder this over the weekend and do some more research of my own.

Can I ask how you are so informed?
 
Just had a read of your posts smurf.

Just about to head out, but I think you have convinced me. Will ponder this over the weekend and do some more research of my own.

Can I ask how you are so informed?


Because it is his job, just feel privileged your getting information that not many in Aust are privy to.:xyxthumbs

There is nothing better than acurate info, to develop an informed understanding of the real issues.
Not just reacting to spin and garbage pumped out by the media
 
I'd support nucelear power in Australia ONLY if we start building along term storage facility at the same time as construction on the first power station occurs.

Fukushima was so bad not because of a core meltdown, but because the storage ponds lost most of the water covering spent fuel rods that had been stored near the reactor for decades. Similar issues occur in the USA.

I'd also like the Govt to work with other countries on the best way to reprocess spent fuel rods so as to remove the issue of storage all together.

Once they have achieved that, then we can get down to the dirty politics of where to build them - might be good to start highlighting all the health issues of those living near coal fired power stations and compare that to those living near nuclear reactors.
 
Once they have achieved that, then we can get down to the dirty politics of where to build them - might be good to start highlighting all the health issues of those living near coal fired power stations and compare that to those living near nuclear reactors.
There are certainly health issues associated with coal-fired generation, although to some extent there is hype there as well as fact.

Many people probably aren't aware that it was only in the 1980's that we stopped running coal-fired generation within walking distance of the city centers of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. So whilst there are issues with coal, it's been cleaned up and moved out a lot compared to how it used to be. Melbourne had some heavy oil-fired plant in operation until the early 1980's too.

Apart from emissions from burning the fuel, all (well, at least most) of those old plants are full of asbestos too. The stuff was pretty much everywhere in some of them. Needless to say, this is a major driver of statistics which show shorter than average life expectancy amongst power station workers and, in at least one well documented case that I'm aware of, the entire region where power generation was for many years by far the largest employer.
 
Really appreciate your professional input into this discussion Smurf. The analysis of how Australia could relatively easily be serviced with renewable energy was excellent.

Unfortunately your comments highlight just how removed our current system is from rational and responsible decision making to simply making as much money as possible. It would be good (fantastic even) to inject some rationality into the public conversation on moving Australia to a renewable energy path.

Cheers
 
Regarding the fate of power workers who were exposed to asbestos.

I'm pretty sure (very sure ) that the thousands of workers in the Yallorn Power stations were at risk from asbestos. I also understand that these workers have been dispersed and relevant records lost.
 
Fundamentally, the concept of a renewable system is pretty much the same as agriculture.

You have an intermittent energy supply (food), which is stored (gain silos etc) then made available as required.

Or you have an intermittent energy supply (wind, solar radiation, rainfall etc) which is stored (as water pumped up a hill) then made available as required.

Provided that it is not over loaded, that is there is sufficient production established to meet demand, and the storage is large enough to ride out the variations, then there is no reason why it cannot be reliable.

Nuclear? In short, I just don't see the point of switching from a relatively abundant but still finite natural resource (coal) to one that is comparatively scarce, difficult to handle and which involves ongoing dependence on overseas technology and companies. If it was cheap and there was an unlimited supply of uranium then maybe, but it's not cheap and it's not unlimited. :2twocents
 
Regarding the fate of power workers who were exposed to asbestos.

I'm pretty sure (very sure ) that the thousands of workers in the Yallorn Power stations were at risk from asbestos. I also understand that these workers have been dispersed and relevant records lost.

It worries me, I worked in Power Stations from the early 1970's through to 2011. It will be interesting to see how mine and my workmates health evolves in our later years.
I am in contact with several of them and the only ones that appear to be suffering health problems due to asbestos, appear to be ex navy. Time will tell if that ratio changes.

Back to the 70's, asbestos lagging was knocked off pipes, it was like walking through a snow storm.
No plastic wrapping, dust masks, or screening then, thinking back it is a bit frightening.:cry:
But hey what did anyone know, especially a 15 year old kid.:eek:

Anyway back to nuclear power.
 
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/ (Wind Storm)

Thought this might be relevant as smurf had mentioned this as a solution.

If wind towers in a community struggling economically kicks up this much of a stink regarding wind towers, nuclear will never go ahead in Australia.

Fiftyeight
 
TasWind (the King Island wind farm project referred to) is a 600 MW wind farm and associated cable feeding directly to Victoria. A notable feature is that the average output would be 45% of peak capacity since King Island has fairly consistent wind, that being the reason to build it there in the first place.

Technically, a possible future extension of the project is a cable running south to Tasmania, enabling integration with the existing hydro-electric system thus creating the possibility of it becoming a firm (non-intermittent) source of supply. This is not proposed at this stage, but is a technically possible future addition.

Construction cost of the project is estimated at $2 billion. If it goes ahead, construction is planned for 2017 - 2019. The project website is www.taswind.com.au

The project is highly contentious and a proper opinion poll with a formal voting process has been run by independent consultants on King Island. The result is 59% support for the wind farm. Needless to say, opponents aren't giving up without a fight.

Apart from the location on King Island and both being Hydro Tasmania projects, TasWind is separate to the King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project (KIREIP) which is here http://www.kingislandrenewableenergy.com.au :2twocents
 
It would appear W.A is moving away from coal, as more coal fired steam plant is scheduled to shut down in the near future.
It will leave the State with a big exposure and dependence on gas and renewables.
 
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