Crikey readers were understandably stirred by our question of Australia’s nuclear potential — the topic tends to be divisive after all. While some readers show interest in the technology, the vast majority feel that nuclear plants would do little good for the country even if we somehow got them running. Elsewhere, readers discussed Australia’s fraught position on China and the US.
On a nuclear Australia
Wayne Robinson writes: Nuclear power isn’t a near zero carbon dioxide emissions source. The uranium has to be mined, processed and concentrated to nuclear power plant level, all of which require energy probably obtained by burning fossil fuels. And then to construct the power plants, large amounts of steel and concrete are needed (probably more than other power plants), both of which lead to considerable CO2 emissions (manufacturing cement accounts for around 10% of all CO2 emissions). And then there’s the CO2 emissions involved in decommissioning the nuclear power plant at the end of its lifespan. And safely storing the nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years.
Robert Smith writes: We don’t even know how to manage the small amount of waste produced by the small reactor in NSW after many years of debate. How can we accomplish all the steps required to achieve nuclear energy?
On China relations
Malcolm Harrison writes: What can we do about our China problem, you ask. In short, stop throwing up a curtain a fear and paranoia which echoes a century of Australia’s worry about China and the “yellow peril”. As things stand right now, and in order to satisfy our barely concealed xenophobia towards a rising China, and also in order to satisfy our American masters we seem eager to shoot ourselves in the foot. Australia’s media reaction to China has lately been so offensive, its little wonder that the Chinese government doesn’t want to talk to us.
Ian Hunt writes: I can only agree that government policy is likely to become contrary to our national interests. US policy towards China is clearly to block the possibility that China will become a global technology leader. China’s growth and technological development is not an attack on the US, so we have absolutely no reason whatsoever to line up with the US in confronting China. Yet the government is clearly preparing for that. We should by now have refused to continue to be a US lap dog or the monkey for a US organ grinder, whichever is your preferred metaphor. This government will let us down by failing to have moved on.
Chris Davis writes: It has been monumental stupidity to lose so much of our technological and manufacturing ability over the past few decades, especially in high tech, industrial and transport areas. Not only has it deskilled young Australians, but the loss of associated manufacturing infrastructure greatly compromises our defence arrangements.
To make nuclear electricity carbon-free, all of those side processes would have to be made with non-carbon power. That would require clean power for mining, processing, enrichment, reprocessing. That would be straightforward, given the clean power. The theory has already been laid out for clean cement and steelmaking, but needs development. Ironically all of them require copious, steady, reliable electricity, and that can only be achieved by starting with a nuclear powered grid.
Let’s assume we bypass gen 1 nuclear power and go for thorium (gen 4) reactors. Less waste, no meltdown risks, just a tonne of infrastructure work.
Mike Smith – we would be starting with Gen III reactors, with passive cooling and walk-away safety. Initially at least, used fuel would go back to the supplier country. On the other hand, thorium reactors produce much less transuranics, as you imply, and would be easier to sell to the sceptics. However the need for mass production requires very conservative, thoroughly debugged designs. The current front runner for approved generic design is NuScale, currently going through the learning process of building a prototype for factory production. The most advanced thorium reactors are still being developed, in China. LFTRs do not require a large pressure vessel, so could be mass produced. A lot of resources are being thrown at that development, so we must expect an off-the-shelf Chinese thorium reactor to appear on the market sooner or later.
I don’t honestly think it will happen, but the thing with “always a pipe dream” is that if you never start it, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. I’m guessing it’d go for hundreds of billions. But the USA has blown more than this on “clean coal”, with nothing to show for it.
Billions, not hundreds of
https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/billion-dollar-kemper-clean-coal-energy-project-000015
“we must expect an off-the-shelf Chinese thorium reactor to appear on the market sooner or later.”
Then Politics would intervene as with Huawei and 5G.
Politics? Conservatives resist changes in the patterns of world trade.
In the 1940s shipbuilding moved from Britain to America, marked by the mass production of Liberty Ships. In the 1950s electronics moved to Japan with the mass production of transistor radios. In the 1960s car manufacturing moved to Japan with the mass production of better and cheaper cars. Currently, America is most capable of moving into mass production of reliable nuclear reactors. But we should not be surprised to see that trade shifting elsewhere, perhaps to China in the 2030s.
“Robert Smith writes: We don’t even know how to manage the small amount of waste produced by the small reactor in NSW after many years of debate. ”
With so much “useless land” in our desert country, there have been plans for years to store nuclear waste there. Given the relatively large distances from population centres, the safety standards might be relaxed – just a little.
But the big attraction for such a scheme is that Australia could willingly become the storage depository for the world’s nuclear waste. That idea was proposed late in Howard’s term and it remains deep in the background of all proposals to build a large permanent waste storage facility here in Australia. A nice little earner in the short term.
Did they sort out the problem of leakage? The land might be “useless”, but the artesian water isn’t
That’s my point – or part of it.
Dangle a few billion dollars in front of a government and they’ll be at it like a rat up a drainpipe.