You think Australia has a Nuclear Future

[Grunt]

P
(Trying to be on Grunt's side, but without the doom and gloom!)

I use the doom and gloom to try and get people to realise the seriousness of this. Unless we start making changes NOW my version of the future won't be too far off.

Here is a timeline that doesn't seem to far off.

[Grunt]

I had a look at the genpets. Someone is having a lend of us. The gen-pets are never shown outside of there packaging. Real advertising would never show it in the packaging.
Someone has gone to a lot of effort for a joke. No wonder why the world is fricked.

[Daddles]

No wonder why the world is fricked.

And I worry about people who use Apple Macs

Richard

[bitingmidge]

No wonder why the world is fricked.

I think that was the point he was trying to make, and he did it particularly well too I reckon.

http://www.brandejs.ca/portfolio5/gp03.php

But you can have your own for $1800.

Cheers,

P

[Andy Mac]

Hey Grunt, I don't think its a 'joke' in the usual sense, its a take, on many levels. The Genpets aren't meant to be considered real, and if viewers do fall for it, the artist has made the point even more forcibly than he intended. We have come to accept that level of technology as not only possible, but also acceptable!?:eek:
Here's another artist, an Australian, doing stuff like this with a take on GM technology:
http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/

Cheers,

[Eddie Jones]

Aluminium plants noted for their huge consumption of electricity.

True, but that has bugger all to do with my post, obvious to anyone with a rough understanding of written English. If you are having trouble, the question was:

"Please explain a way to move electricity from a power plant to the consumer that doesn’t use copper."

I merely pointed out that aluminium, NOT copper is used for HV electrical distribution. Understand now?

[bitingmidge]

I use the doom and gloom to try and get people to realise the seriousness of this. Unless we start making changes NOW my version of the future won't be too far off.

While I happen to agree with you completely, I think the doomsayers actually are a bit of a turn-off. For all the reasons stated previously, they've been at it a long time and don't have many converts.

In the seventies I ran an argument many times with friends out there doing it that their "alternative lifestylers" weren't actually actually alternative lifestyles at all, and I still believe that.

I think that the "mainstream" consumer based lifestyle adopted by 95% of the community is actually the "alternative", so I guess I live on the fringe of the alternative.

Live fast, die young, have a good looking corpse.

P

[Bodgy]

Live fast, die young, have a good looking corpse.

P

Too late, Midge!

[Bushmiller]

Just to return to original post for a while and to make a few comments without getting too deep:

The basic law of economics will probably dictate when we seriously consider alternative fuels whether it is for our motor vehicles or the production of electricity. And for that matter when we start to conserve energy.

We consider our petrol expensive in Australia, but where it is expensive, such as continental Europe, the car engines are much smaller than ours.

The same goes for power stations. We have incredibly cheap coal in Australia and lots of it. In excess of 300 years at the current rate of consumption. Ironically, although we don't use it ouselves, we also happen to have the largest individual supply of Uranium, but it too is finite and nowhere near as plentiful: At the proposed levels of consumption about 9 years worth. After that lower grade ores would have to be mined.

The proponents of nuclear power usually choose to ignore the high costs on mining uranium ore and the extremely high cost of building a nuclear power station compared to other types of plant.

Power stations produce around 35% of the world's greenhouse gases. So when we talk about savings, we are talking about savings in this sector only.

Other sources of greenhouse gases are transport, other industries, fires and animal flatulence (although the latter is methane rather than CO2, but still significant, particularly if you are standing alongside). This is not an exhaustive list.

Unfortunately, few people discuss this topic without a vested interest. For example is it a coincidence that Mr Howard comes back from the US sprouting about opening up the nuclear debate? Could it be that he would like to climb further into bed with George W and sell him a little bit of uranium? Is that why he was advocating value-adding the uranium ore by enriching it? Is that why he suggested we embark on a programme to take back the spent waste and store it in Australia?

Everybody has a vested interest or predjudice: Me too.

Nuclear power stations require huge amounts of cooling water for their reactors. This may require them, in Australia at least, to be built near the coastline so they can access sea water which is the only plentiful water on our dry continent. Unfortunately the majority of the population live on or near the coast, so which of you would like to put up your hand for a nuke over the back fence? How far away is safe? Chernobyl is in the Ukraine. Scientists in Sweeden detected excessivie radiation on their clothing and asked questions. Russia wasn't going to say anything.

Building stations out in the desert is not really on because of the lack of water and the transmission losses in conveying the power to populated regions.

Lastly, for the moment, we all know about Chernobyl, which admittedly was a poorly designed BWR (Boiling Water Reactor), but the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 was a PWR (Pressurised Water Reactor), a much better design, in the US and in a populated area. It came closer to a core meltdown than most authorities are prepared to admit. No effects of the radiation leakage have been proven or manifested themselves, but this is the cost of the cleanup.

"The TMI-2 Cleanup

The cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at TMI-2 took nearly 12 years and cost approximately $973 million. The cleanup was uniquely challenging technically and radiologically. Plant surfaces had to be decontaminated. Water used and stored during the cleanup had to be processed. And about 100 tonnes of damaged uranium fuel had to be removed from the reactor vessel -- all without hazard to cleanup workers or the public. A cleanup plan was developed and carried out safely and successfully by a team of more than 1000 skilled workers. It began in August 1979, with the first shipments of accident-generated low-level radiological waste to Richland, Washington. In the cleanup's closing phases, in 1991, final measurements were taken of the fuel remaining in inaccessible parts of the reactor vessel. Approximately one percent of the fuel and debris remains in the vessel. "

If you would like to see the sequence of events at TMI in 1979, visit
http://www.tmia.com/accident/28.html

The offical death toll at Chernobyl...... 55.
See Elena's "Kidd of Speed" site mentioned in other posts and decide for yourselves whether that is a reasonable assessment. For me I think the eventual toll could be 55,000 plus. Incidentally her site has changed since I last looked. It appears she is trying to raise money for orphaned children in the Ukraine now.

My predjudice? For my sins I work in the power industry.

Regards
Paul
(Lucky I didn't get in too deep!)

[Bushmiller]

Just another link re Three Mile Island. It does show the panic that sets in when nuclear is involved.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/tmi/tmi04.htm

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

A link to Elena's "Kidd of Speed" Chernobyl disaster site. Her site is distinctly amateurish, which probably adds to it's credibility, but it does take some negotiating.

http://www.elenafilatova.com/
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter2.html

These are two pages I think are too important to miss. View them in the reverse order. My apologies to those of you who have already found them. (I am always surprised to find not everyone is as inept as me with computers.)

I find her broken English very refreshing: like sitting under victory rostrum for formula one car when race finished and victor wasting magnum of finest french champagne on scantily-clad, cheer lady.

Regards
Paul

[ernknot]

I don't care how power is generated as long as i can keep my shed powered up and my tools running.

[Bushmiller]

Ernknot

Interestingly, Tasmania recently joined the competitive electricity market on the eastern seaboard when the Bass Strait line was commissioned. The Tasmanian wholesale price reduced by about a third. I wonder if the retail cost to your shed and power tools reduced by the same amount.

Probably not....

Regards
Paul

[woodbe]

Bushmiller, thanks for your posts.

It's good to hear some thoughts from someone in the industry. Please try not to scare us about nuclear accidents, haven't you heard that nuclear reactors are safe now? What were you thinking?

I tripped over the 'kid of speed' site some years ago. It's an impressive work, but has been generally debunked as faked up. Apparently the photos are really from the Chernobyl area, but were taken on an organised tour, not a daredevil motorcycle ride through the radiation zone.

woodbe.

[bitingmidge]

I tripped over the 'kid of speed' site some years ago. It's an impressive work, but has been generally debunked as faked up.

I've tried a number of times to work out who is having a lend of who there. Instinctively I think that there are as many people (more perhaps) with a vested interest in nuclear proliferation who don't want us to believe things are that bad!

Initially the site was debunked as fake, and there are enough abandoned buildings (and buildings that look abandoned) in that part of the world to make that a plausible argument. If that had been the case, she'd done a great job.

When the argument softened to "she was really on a bus" then my sympathy for the "for" side melted somewhat. What did they mean? The photos are real, but be careful, as soon as you oppose nuclear power there is a danger you may become the sort of person that takes bus trips??

A Ukrainian girl who can afford a motorcycle is capable of faking more than a few photos, so if one is to question the truth, is she actually a girl, is she from the Ukraine, or is she actually a western Greenpeace impostor?

It's interesting, since this thread began, has anyone else noticed pictures of sick kids published in Oz? Invariably they are smiling, or published in a positive light. Two that come to mind: "Brave little Sophie", and Wayne Bennett's son (onthe ABC's Australian Story).

Both shot in black and white and caught with a neutral expression could have expressed the dangers of "sunshine and fresh air" had the photographer chosen to present them in this light.

Photographs don't actually tell the truth.

If you don't believe me, how often have you taken a snap of something, and had to tell the person you were showing it: "but the cow looks a lot smaller in the photograph" or "the sunset was a lot redder than this" or "it's much better than this you just can't photograph it".

Well photographers can catch stuff that doesn't actually exist!

There you go! Back on thread!

Service with a smile.

P