Nuclear debate

Wel I will admit I cannot see a lot of viable alternatives to nuclear power in the context of greenhouse emmissions over time, But it is interesting that this whole debate is raging in public at the exact same time that the parliament is in a protracted and controversial debate on allowing embryonic cloning...

The following excerpts are quoted from the (Australian) ABC from Mon 6th Nov.

To start with the PM supported Nuclear power as "an option...

The Prime Minister says nuclear power production must be an option in Australia and it would be foolish to ignore the option with the country's vast reserves of uranium....

"Nuclear power is potentially the cleanest and greenest of them all," he said.

"We would be foolish from a national interest point of view, with our vast reserves of uranium, to say that we are not going to consider nuclear power - not even going to look at it, we are going to say no to it before the debate even starts.

"One of the options that has got to be on the table is nuclear power, I believe that the world's attitudes toward nuclear power is changing and I believe that Australian attitudes towards nuclear power are changing."

This follows the release of a report commissioned by them, and controversially staffed by pro-nuclear supporters and scientists. It was led by the man who ran Telstra (The national phone company) while the share price freefell to a fraction of their value as the government started to privitise it...

A review by the Federal Government's nuclear energy task force has found a nuclear power industry could be commercially viable within 15 years.
The Federal Government says it believes the 15-year time frame is realistic.

A report by the Federal Government's nuclear energy task force has found that within 15 years a nuclear power industry in Australia could be commercially viable.

The task force is headed by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski and it is due to hand the draft report to the Government in a fortnight.

The report also suggests that when more countries invest in nuclear technology it will become cheaper.

Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane says the report shows that nuclear power is viable and should be carefully considered in Australia.

Mr Macfarlane says he agrees with the 15-year time frame suggested in the report.

"Fifteen-year time frame is realistic, you could see the beginning of construction of the first nuclear power station in Australia within the next decade and coming on-line and producing electricity on a constant basis within five years after that," he said.

"What we are seeing though is more and more evidence both here in Australia and also internationally through the International Energy Agency that nuclear power will be a price competitive option for Australia to consider in the years ahead," he said.

The review has also found that the cost of nuclear power will drop dramatically when more countries invest in nuclear technology and the price of fossil fuels goes up.

Th PM even touched on that bogeyman of the Kyoto protocol. Interesting take!

[He] ...will not be pressured into making changes that would place Australia at an economic and competitive disadvantage..."Australia is different from Europe, it is different from America, it is different from Asia," he said.

And then...

"In many respects the whole debate surrounding the Kyoto Protocol is being driven out of Europe rather than out of countries whose economic circumstances are similar to our own."

But there are always at least three sides, with one being the truth. This is another.

But a spokeswoman for the Wilderness Society is calling on the Government to rule out using nuclear power and instead investigate other options for generating baseload electricity - like the use of natural gas.

Queensland Conservation Council spokesman Toby Hutcheon does not believe Australia will have a nuclear power industry by 2021.

Furthur arguments include the fact that nations like the UK and USA still have a 20+ Year lead time. I wonder if this is a new "green' Howard government, a smokescreen for something else, or a real attempt to both secure future "Clean" power and improve the balance of trade by suplying enriched products to consumers overseas...

I will come back to this in a month or so to see where it has gone!

Australian issues: A quick primer.

It is very interesting that Australia has been in the grips of a prolonged drought for 7 years now. Finally the politicians have realized we have a problem! Why? Because several major cities and towns are now on severe water restrictions. Toowoomba recently proposed the building of a world best practice re-cycling plant to return up to 25% of the waste water to one of the cities dams. The federal government in their wisdom decided it was a wonderful idea, but to look like they where concerned about community feelings they had a referendum. And got rolled!
Now we have a city with no water, in fact it is illegal to use water outside of the house now! Brisbane down the hill a bit, the capital of the state, the gold and sunshine coasts, (well over half the state population) are all on very strict limitations.
Add to that the fact that Australia, has failed to sign the much vaunted Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions, (although we produce less than 1%), and now we have a huge fight brewing over the governments floating the possibility of nuclear power. As a nation Australia has about 1/3 of all the worlds known uranium resources. The argument goes that if we sell it for producing power, (and we do), then we should value add and keep some money. If you are going to enrich it why not use it, and reduce our current reliance on coal!
There are many other projects to use solar, wind and water, but all are decades away from even marginal economic viability. The other issues include our reliance on digging finite resources out of the ground to pay for our standard of living. As Australia will receive both the first major, and worse effects of global warming, largely due to ice melt and climate change, this is an issue I watch fairly closely, and will continue to monitor. In the coming week our PM has called a water summit, which will be an interesting sight, as we have one party in nation government and another in all but one state! The possibility of constructive outcomes is therefore somewhat negated by political imperatives... Oh well. The more things change...

P.S. There are no citations or references in this post, as it is merely a state-of-play in my mind. As i delve into the issues I will supply supporting and corroborating evidence. One of my pet peeves in the WWW is the number of unsupported opinions...

Daily Reader and Surfin links

Well away we go. I am surfing through my Google reader backlog, which is in the hundreds today. I will also later post some interesting illusions. This will be a good idea to get some interest going early on.

The first site I visited today was from a Google alert, and I found Bruce's Blog, which contained this little gem.

So what do you have to do to find happiness?

Are we wired up to be cheerful, or are some of us destined to languish in abject misery? Dorothy Wade reports on the new science of feeling good... But ordinary people believe they are happier than average (an obvious impossibility) and that they'll be even happier in 10 years' time. If true, it would be good news because research shows that happier people are healthier, more successful, harder-working, caring and more socially engaged. Misery makes people self-obsessed and inactive.

The article from the Sunday Times newspaper in the UK asks some interesting questions, Albeit with a lack of supporting evidence. Dorothy has interviewed some eminent experts, and waded through epiphany's, nimbus clouds in the soul and 5-year old inspirations to follow the story of what it means to be happy, and the scientific theories behind modern research in explaining it, all the way from the Pleistocene period! This well written and entertaining article goes on to pull together the "pieces of the jigsaw" to develop a stunning conclusion.

It's difficult to resist the logic of the happiness doctors. Stay in your Eeyore-ish bubble of existentialist angst and have a life that's short, sickly, friendless and self-obsessed. Or find a way to get happy, and long life, good health, job satisfaction and social success will be yours. You'd better start writing that gratitude letter now.

But best of all is this little gem.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

Men often complain about their wives' volatility. Now research confirms that women really are both happier and sadder. Positive and negative emotions are not polar opposites — you can have both in your life. Women experience more of all emotions except anger. First it was found that women experience twice as much depression as men. Next, researchers found that women report more positive emotion than men, more frequently and more intensely. It all points to men and women having a different emotional make-up. Cognitive psychologists say that men and women have different skills related to sending and receiving emotion. Women are expressive; men conceal or control their emotions. Women convey emotion through facial expression and communication; men express emotion through aggressive or distracting behavior. Does the difference lie in biology, social roles or just women's willingness to report emotion? That's up for debate.

Gotta love it. Anyway, I enjoyed having it all "summarized and structured". It makes you think a little...

My Ramblings

Racefan's Rambling at Last:

After years of using the internet, and search constantly for new and interesting info to absorb, I have finally decided to join the Blogosphere, and share some of the stuff I do and find. Searching for interesting and informative blogs has been, without a doubt, the single most effective method of trolling the net for interesting subjects. No-one can possibly "see" more than the tiniest fraction of the massive scale of the internet, (so few years into what I am sure will be a long history), so in a few years we will have no chance! When a Google search gives you millions or results, you will only ever have time to investigate a portion. Blogging is one way of finding like-minded people, and using the work they have done!

So, here I am with my small contribution. I am still getting organized, so will leave for now, but I will return with my first few thoughts and links REAL SOON.