Australian Politics Forum - A nuclear Australia

mellie

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 8142
Sydney
Gender: female

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #30 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 12:45am

Quote:

Change tap washers

Well, someone's got to do it, and if we are going to stop immigrating at the rate we are, (I hope so) then we are going to need home-grown tradies willing to work for peanuts, changing washers in the future.

This and those willing to mine our thorium also.

Don't knock tradies, because applying a stigma to their craft might result in a tradie complex, and I don't particularly feel like nor do I even know how to change my own toilet roll, much less a washer, do you?

Wink

Back to top

All together now Labor voters.......&&&&lap-tops, pink-bats refugees and Clunker-cars&&&&insurance.AES256

IP Logged

Bobby.

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 118645
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #31 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 12:54am

Mellie
Quote:

eventually thorium will deplete eventually also

Do I have to work out how many years supply we have to convince you?

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/348/new-age-nuclear?page=0%2C3

Quote:

It's also an element in which Australia is well blessed - we have the largest known thorium reserves in the world. Thorium mining is also less complex than uranium mining; and the ore doesn't even require enrichment before use in an ADS reactor.

Back to top

IP Logged

mellie

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 8142
Sydney
Gender: female

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #32 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 1:10am

Quote:

Do I have to work out how many years supply we have to convince you?

No, but have you taken our Chinese/foreign investors into consideration since then?

Of which have an endless appetite for our Western Australian republic mining industry, apparently.

...We need to put something into our constitution to stop irresponsible governments depleting/selling off our crucial resources at their will...whenever they need to make up the budget deficit fast.

Cool

Back to top

All together now Labor voters.......&&&&lap-tops, pink-bats refugees and Clunker-cars&&&&insurance.AES256

IP Logged

Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 118645 Melbourne Gender:	Re: A nuclear Australia Reply #33 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 1:32am Mellie Quote: No, but have you taken our Chinese/foreign investors into consideration since then? Wouldn't the Chinese love to buy Thorium pebbles ready to go in Australian designed Thorium reactors with power cheaper & safer than coal?
Back to top	IP Logged

mellie

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 8142
Sydney
Gender: female

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #34 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 2:56am

Bobby. wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 1:32am:

Mellie
Quote:

No, but have you taken our Chinese/foreign investors into consideration since then?

Wouldn't the Chinese love to buy Thorium pebbles ready to go
in Australian designed Thorium reactors with power cheaper
& safer than coal?

No, they would just rather buy Australia and be done with it.

Cool

Back to top

All together now Labor voters.......&&&&lap-tops, pink-bats refugees and Clunker-cars&&&&insurance.AES256

IP Logged

mantra

Gold Member

Offline

ozpolitic.com

Posts: 10750
Gender: female

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #35 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 6:38am

mellie wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 1:10am:

[quote]
...We need to put something into our constitution to stop irresponsible governments depleting/selling off our crucial resources at their will...whenever they need to make up the budget deficit fast.

Cool

That's why we need a resource tax - and a decent one. The quicker we realise that we can't continually rely on mining for our export dollars - the quicker this country will start being innovative.

Quote:

Why not make a huge leap & go straight to Thorium?

Because we haven't got the time to waste - nor the money.

Quote:

It's probably more viable than the never ever clean coal technology

True.

Back to top

IP Logged

Bobby.

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 118645
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #36 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 8:28am

Quote: Quote:

Bobby Quote:

Why not make a huge leap & go straight to Thorium?

Mantra
Quote:

Because we haven't got the time to waste - nor the money.

That is a shallow answer.
We found plenty of money which was borrowed for sub-standard school halls
& pink batts - installed incorrectly.
I would rather pour money into technology.

Back to top

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #37 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 8:35am

Bobby. wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 8:28am:

Quote: Quote:

Bobby Quote:

Why not make a huge leap & go straight to Thorium?

Mantra
Quote:

Because we haven't got the time to waste - nor the money.

That is a shallow answer.
We found plenty of money which was borrowed for sub-standard school halls
& pink batts - installed incorrectly.
I would rather pour money into technology.

Thorium is a smart solution, but the technology is 30 years down the track, especially accelerator based technology.

Uranium fission reactors are already avaliable as packages. They are tried and tested. If we are going to go this way, we need to build one new reactor for every mainland state every 5 years from 2020.

One of the advantages of Thorium for Australia is that we have the world's biggest Thorium reserves. Thorium has far fewer waste issues than Uranium, and could be a replacement technology for Uranium by 2050.

Sir lastnail wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 12:23am:

It's probably more viable than the never ever clean coal technology Wink

Clean coal is a pipe-dream that nobody really believed in. We need to look at other things we can do with coal, such as chemical manufacture.

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged

Bobby.

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 118645
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #38 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 8:51am

Mantra
Quote:

Thorium is a smart solution, but the technology is 30 years down the track, especially accelerator based technology.

A 300 Mega Watt Thorium reactor was already used for 6 years
and was shut down in 1989 due to engineering problems.
See Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300

Thorium was already providing electricity 21 years ago.
Going on your figures of 30 years required to get the engineering right
we could have a viable reactor in 9 years time.

It would still require something akin to the Manhatten project but
we could do it if we hire the right people.
Our future needs to be based on technology & value adding not
just digging stuff out of the ground & letting others
make money out of it.

Back to top

IP Logged

muso

Gold Member

Offline

Posts: 13151
Gladstone, Queensland
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #39 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 9:01am

Bobby. wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 8:51am:

It would still require something akin to the Manhatten project but
we could do it if we hire the right people.
Our future needs to be based on technology & value adding not
just digging stuff out of the ground & letting others
make money out of it.

It might come to that, but the Manhattan project and the Apollo program (which is the other analogy often used) cost megabucks.

It's the most expensive option, but as I said, it might just come to that as a result of 'democratic inertia'. I'll explain what I mean by that if you like.

Back to top

1523 people like this. The remaining 7,134,765,234 do not

IP Logged

Bobby.

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 118645
Melbourne
Gender: male

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #40 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 9:27am

Mantra.
Quote:

I'll explain what I mean by that if you like.

It's a free world so if it's relevant yes.

I would dearly love Australia to be holding the Aces.
I want us to have a monopoly over the raw materials
& the technology.
I want to see every other country looking up to us
as world leaders.
I want them to be jealous of us.
I want a prosperous future for Australia.

Back to top

IP Logged

Bobby. Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 118645 Melbourne Gender:	Re: A nuclear Australia Reply #41 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 4:15pm No reply as yet. ???
Back to top	IP Logged

Darwin

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 1037

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #42 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 4:45pm

Australia should move to nuclear power generation, esp or first in Vic and SA where very dirty brown coal is burned. But with Gen 4 fast breeder reactors.

Secondly, we could make a motza taking the world’s high grade nuclear waste for storage in the exhausted Broken Hill lead mines. would benefit Pt Pirie where the stuff can be unloaded and Broken Hill.

Eventually we will need more renewable energy: nuclear fusion would be good but when will it be commercially rolled out? Secondly, solar energy but collected in space where we can get intense, uninterrupted sunlight.

Back to top

IP Logged

Darwin Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 1037	Re: A nuclear Australia Reply #43 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 5:17pm Uranium is not that abundant. If every country switched to nuclear there is maybe 30 years supply and no guarantee fusion will be ready then. Thorium is a much better bet as are breeder reactors.
Back to top	IP Logged

Darwin

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 1037

Re: A nuclear Australia
Reply #44 - Aug 15^th, 2010 at 5:18pm

Bobby. wrote on Aug 15^th, 2010 at 9:27am:

Mantra.
Quote:

I'll explain what I mean by that if you like.

It's a free world so if it's relevant yes.

I would dearly love Australia to be holding the Aces.
I want us to have a monopoly over the raw materials
& the technology.
I want to see every other country looking up to us
as world leaders.
I want them to be jealous of us.
I want a prosperous future for Australia.

Where we could shine is in storing and eventually reprocessing of waste.

Oh and world leaders? Our MRRT and the NBN make us the frontrunner there. Other countries are now looking at running out FTTH and other reource-rich countries are considering levying their own MRRT.

Back to top

IP Logged