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the nuke debate...

nukenuke

There has been movements afoot to revive the nuclear energy option. A lot of lies and wrong arguments are presented to make us swallow what we’ve rejected a long time ago for good reasons. So why does this stupid alchemy raise its head once more? Submarines? Well in regard to our trying to limit the damage from “climate change” — that global warming induced by our industrial busy-ness — some new kids on the block have been prompting us to revive the nuke option. Obviously they’re idiots taking us for fools. 

 

They came via the back door: for example, GreenJacked is one of these works prevented from sinking in mud by being accompanied with a few issues of ethical value. Say Geoff Russell wrote the book "GreenJacked!: The derailing of environmental action on climate change.” You should already be worried… Russell has written occasional articles for New Matilda since 2015 and Brave New Climate, a blog hosted by scientist and nuclear power advocate, Barry Brook since 2008. Russell believes that a reduction in human consumption of red meat and the expansion of nuclear power to displace coal-fired electricity generation are necessary to reduce the impacts of climate change. BOOM… What Russell believes in isn’t an imprimatur of proper solutions to solve the climate issue. GreenJacked!, published in 2014, more or less blames the “greens” for keeping us in the grip of coal-fired power. The cover of the book is beyond stupid and the arguments below are even more so: 

 

 

Today's anti-nuclear movement began as the anti-atomic weapons movement in the late 1950s. At this time, DNA repair mechanisms were unknown and there was only one known cause of cancer ... radiation. Then, during the next half century, DNA repair mechanisms of immense power were discovered along with many more causes of cancer. We now know radiation is a minor player compared to cigarettes, alcohol, red meat, processed meat and obesity; to name a few. We now know why Japanese people moving permanently from Tokyo to either Paris, New York or Sydney would experience a much bigger rise in cancer risk than if they moved into the area currently evacuated around the Fukushima reactors. 

 

Nevertheless, despite growing and increasingly sophisticated knowledge about cancer causes, the anti-nuclear movement kept nuclear power hamstrung using obsolete notions of the risks posed to DNA by radiation. This paved the way for our fossil fuelled world and kept our cleanest most potent energy source off the table as a response to climate change. GreenJacked explains, in lay language, the progress in our knowledge about cancer and shows that nuclear power is our best hope in the battle against a deteriorating climate and why we have to overturn long held but obsolete fears. 

 

Nobel Prize winning biologist Peter Doherty has endorsed GreenJacked, along with climate scientists and activists. If you are an anti-nuclear environmentalist concerned about our planet, then you need to open your mind, prepare to be amazed and read this book.

 

https://www.amazon.com.au/GreenJacked-derailing-environmental-action-cli...

 

 

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BULLSHIT ! Bullshitttttt! BULLDUST …..

 

 

This is bullshit from a dear fellow, a decent human mathematician, being possibly aligned, without his knowledge, to a rightwing cabal, trying to implement NUCLEAR ENERGY as a “clean energy” source in Australia. It is NOT CLEAN. Nuclear energy produces a large amount or “rubbish” (What? WAIST?) of the kind you do not want to bury in your backyard. This rubbish needs to be “recycled”. It’s an expensive process and eventually most of these recycling processes are designed to make nuclear weapon grade material. 

 

Making energy from fissile material has a limited life, that of the power plant to a maximum of 35 years after which the site and its engineering has to be “decommissioned” at a very large cost — much much higher than decommissioning a coal power plant. The construction of “safe” reactors demand an enormous amount of non-green making concrete the cost of which is rarely offset by electricity production. Most nuclear plants have been subsidised by governments. THEY ARE NOT PROFITABLE. On the scale of cancer producing products, asbestos would prove far safer than the “nuclear energy” production, yet we treat asbestos like the plague.

 

Cancer was a disease known before “nuclear” physics. Whether we knew or not the causes of cancer is irrelevant. That radiation was shown as a cause for cancer, was only for few specific but not exclusive observations, that came from people actually using nuclear material, such as clock dial painters and scientists dealing with the stuff. We know that this planet would be uninhabitable if most of the cosmic radiations were not arrested by the layers of the atmosphere up to the Van Allen Belt. Even X-rays can induce cancer. I know. My radiologist in Europe, Dr Robankov, died from exposure to his own machine that was leaking radiation like a lawn watering system. One of my “tutors” died from cancer induced from chain-smoking, but this is another story. Here, one has to add that after smoking, the second factor from getting lung cancer is radio-activity from Radon gas.

 

We have had to develop safeguards, with high security and safe-keeping accounting in regard to fissile materials. 

 

Radiation is used in minimal targeted doses to treat cancer. Sure. Above certain level, radiation will induce cancer to a certain proportion of people. It's a a game of statistics. In high level of radiation, the damage will be done to a much greater percentage of population. Like many things in life, there are statistical recognised risk factors in regard to people’s susceptibility. 

 

That Peter Doherty has endorsed GreenJacked! isn’t a reference of greatness. At this level it’s like accepting that a certain percentage of the population will die from Covid-19, whether vaccinated or not, because we lift the lockdown when we reach 70 per cent (what? Not 72.9 per cent? Hoy!) of general vaccination. It’s only a model of risk, with margins of error. Same capers with asbestos, same with smoking (I know some healthy smokers in their 90s) and with the cancers from some road tars and other aromatics…

 

It’s time to revive the ANTI-NUCLEAR option. With Scumo and his submarines, one can see the push for the nuclear energy option in Australia.... Overall, it’s more unsafe than smoking. 

 

AND MOST climate scientists and activists reject the nuke option. See below:

 

 

 

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/nuclear-power-stations-are-not-appropriate-for-australia-and-probably-never-will-be/?atb=DSA01b&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj6WFroGf8wIVCJhmAh3Kvw0ZEAAYAiAAEgI8a_D_BwE

 

Nuclear energy doesn’t make sense in Australia

Australia exports very large amounts of uranium to other countries – we are the third largest uranium producer in the world.

However, there are a number of reasons why nuclear power is not appropriate for Australia.

       Nuclear power stations are highly controversial, can’t be built under existing law in any Australian state or territory, are a more expensive source of power than renewable energy, and present significant challenges in terms of the storage and transport of nuclear waste, and use of water.

       Nuclear power stations also present significant community, health, environmental, and cost risks associated with potential impacts from extreme weather events and natural disasters, such as occurred in Fukushima, Japan in 2011. Nuclear power stations leave a long-term and prohibitively expensive legacy of site remediation, fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste storage.

       Australia is one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world, with enough renewable energy resources to power our country 500 times over. When compared with low risk, clean, reliable and affordable renewable energy and storage technology in Australia, nuclear power makes no sense.

Nuclear power stations are expensive

Nuclear power stations are extremely expensive to build. For example, the Hinkley nuclear power station under construction in the UK will cost 20 billion pounds (AU$36 billion). Nuclear cannot compete on a cost basis with wind and solar, which are the cheapest forms of new generation. The cost of energy from the Hinkley Power station is significantly higher than large-scale solar, wind and offshore wind energy in the UK.

 

Join the Climate Council for more helpful explainers from Australia’s leading climate communicators, straight to your inbox.

 

On average, nuclear power stations take a decade to build

The Hinkley power station will take nine years to build. The global average is 9.4 years. This would be even longer in Australia given there is currently no nuclear industry here. It is not unusual for nuclear power stations to take over a decade between the start of approvals and coming online. For comparison, wind and solar farms take just one to three years.

Australia cannot wait this long to replace our ageing fleet of coal power stations, which are already struggling to cope with extreme heat.

Nuclear power stations are inflexible and ill-suited to a modern grid

Nuclear power stations are inflexible – that is, they cannot quickly increase or decrease the amount of electricity they produce.

Nuclear power generation is not well suited to modern, fast and flexible electricity grids with large amounts of wind and solar generation. Unlike inflexible nuclear, fast response technologies such as batteries, pumped hydro and solar thermal can be turned on and off, or ramped up and down to balance electricity supply and demand.

In California, where wind and solar provides more than 30% of the state’s power needs, the last nuclear power plant will shut by 2026.

Nuclear power stations need a lot of water

Nuclear power stations require massive quantities of water to operate. In a dry continent like Australia, prone to hot summers and drought conditions which are only likely to get more severe as climate change worsens, it would be reckless to rely on a water-hungry power source like nuclear.

The bottom line is this: it makes no sense to build nuclear power stations in Australia.

For more information on what Australia needs to build a modern electricity grid, read the Climate Council’s report ‘Powering a 21st Century Economy: Secure, Clean, Affordable Electricity’.

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ΩΩΩ!

no, thanks...

Long-time anti-nuclear campaigner and writer Dr Helen Caldicott believes the risks of nuclear power outweigh the benefits.

 

AS AUSTRALIA grapples with the notion of introducing nuclear power as an energy source, it is imperative that people understand the intricacies of these new technologies including small modular reactors (SMR) and thorium reactors.

There are basically three types of SMRs which generate less than 300 megawatts of electricity compared to current 1000 megawatt reactors.

Light water reactors designs – smaller versions of present-day pressurised water reactors – will be built underground but with the same attendant problems as those at Fukushima and Three Mile Island.

They will be mass-produced, so large numbers must be sold yearly to make a profit, and should a safety problem arise like the Boeing Dreamliner plane, they all will have to be shut down interfering substantially with electricity supply.

Breaking: In a new report today, the Morrison Government has opened the door to nuclear power and more radioactive waste dumps in Australia. 
The Minerals Council and the nuclear lobby can’t contain their excitement calling it a “pathway to nuclear”. 

Um, no thanks!

— Sarah Hanson-Young(@sarahinthesen8) December 13, 2019

 

SMRs will be expensive because the cost of unit capacity increases with decrease in the size of the reactor. To alleviate costs, it is suggested that safety rules be relaxed including reducing security requirements and a reduction in the 10-mile emergency planning zone to 1000 feet.

High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR) or pebble bed reactors

Five billion tiny fuel kernels of high-enriched uranium or plutonium will be encased in tennis-ball-sized graphite spheres which must be made without cracks or imperfections, or else they could lead to an accident. A total of 450,000 such spheres will slowly be released continuously from a fuel silo, passing through the reactor core, and then re-circulated ten times. These reactors will be cooled by helium gas operating at high very temperatures (900 C).

The plans are to construct a reactor complex consisting of four HTGR modules located underground to be run by only two operators in a central control room. It is claimed that HTGRs will be so safe that a containment building will be unnecessary and operators can even leave the site – “walk away safe” reactors.

However, should temperatures unexpectedly exceed 1600 degrees, the carbon coating will release dangerous radioactive isotopes into the helium gas, and at 2000 degrees, the carbon would ignite creating a fierce graphite Chernobyl-type fire.

If a crack develops in the piping or building, radioactive helium would escape and air would rush in igniting the graphite.

Although HTGRs produce small amounts of low-level waste, they create larger volumes of high-level waste than conventional reactors.

HELEN CALDICOTT: Our nuclear arms obsession is a countdown to extinction https://t.co/WNPHmlTYjt @IndependentAus @drhcaldicott

— Michelle Pini (@vmp9) December 14, 2019

 Liquid metal fast reactors (PRISM)

It is claimed by the proponents that fast reactors will be safe, economically competitive, proliferation-resistant and sustainable.

They are to be fueled by plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and cooled by either liquid sodium or a lead-bismuth molten coolant creating a potentially explosive situation. Liquid sodium burns or explodes when exposed to air or water and lead-bismuth is extremely corrosive producing very volatile radioactive elements when irradiated.

There are two types of fast reactors: a simple plutonium fueled reactor and a “breeder”.  The plutonium reactor core can be surrounded by a blanket of uranium 238, the uranium captures neutrons and converts to plutonium creating ever more plutonium.

Three small plutonium fast reactors will be arranged together forming a module. Three of these modules will be buried underground and all nine reactors will connect to a fully automated central control room.

Only three reactor operators situated in one control room will be in control of nine reactors. Potentially, one operator could simultaneously face a catastrophic situation triggered by the loss of offsite power to one unit at full power, in another shut down for refuelling and in one in start-up mode. There is to be no emergency core cooling systems.

Fast reactors will require a massive infrastructure including a reprocessing plant to dissolve radioactive waste fuel rods in nitric acid, chemically removing the plutonium and a fuel fabrication facility to create new fuel rods. A total of 15,000 to 25,000 kilos of plutonium are required to operate a fuel cycle at a fast reactor and just 2.5 kilos is fuel for a nuclear weapon.

New nuclear power proposal needs public debate https://t.co/9HKfNiGRxy via @tokyo2020 #News #Fukushima pic.twitter.com/wM6yIEOH84

— Fukushima Info (@wakeupnowbe) September 4, 2019

 Thorium reactors   

Thorium itself is not a naturally fissionable material and requires a two-step process to produce fissionable fuel. It is mixed with either 20% enriched uranium 235 or plutonium, to initiate the process to produce fissionable uranium 233. Uranium 233, like plutonium, is fuel for nuclear weapons.

Thorium reactors also produces uranium 232, which decays to an extremely potent high-energy gamma emitter which can penetrate one meter of concrete, making the handling of spent nuclear fuel extraordinarily dangerous.

Thorium advocates say that thorium reactors produce little radioactive waste, however, they simply produce a different spectrum of waste from traditional reactors, including many dangerous isotopes with extremely long half-lives. Technetium 99 has a half-life of 300,000 years and iodine 129 a half-life of 15.7 million years.

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: The Fukushima nuclear meltdown continues unabated. Readings not spiking just continuing to spew https://t.co/1XE9KaFnM2

— The Bernie Zone  (@blysx) February 13, 2017

 

Originally published: https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/helen-caldicott-the-dangers-of-nuclear-power-in-australia,13597

decommissioned PMs and subs...

In reading the two excellent pieces by Paul Keating (“Relying on Japan, India is a mug’s game”, September 29) and Malcolm Turnbull (“Australia will have to go nuclear to run nuclear subs”, September 29), one is struck by the totally barren intellectual landscape in Scott Morrison’s government, especially in regard to the submarines fiasco and foreign affairs generally.

When two former prime ministers, from different political sides, find substantial cause to roundly criticise the government’s actions, we surely know there has been substantial failure. It appears there has been little or no forethought or intelligent planning in the current foreign affairs situation and all that matters is posturing and headlines. It is a great shame that Australia is no longer in capable, intelligent hands. 

Stuart Laurence, Cammeray

 

Australia is suffering a vacuum of political leadership so deep that every day, space is being given to ex-prime ministers to speak statesman-like about major decisions such as the subs deal and AUKUS. Turnbull and Keating, from opposite sides of the party divide, are trying to rescue us from the spin merchant who is supposedly leading our nation but is clearly not to be trusted. Ask the French, who have always remembered Australia’s sacrifices on their behalf in the two European wars, but now are reeling. 

Barry Laing, Castle Cove

 

Paul Keating, I miss your leadership. You always had a vision for Australia beyond the electoral cycle, unlike today, when we are governed by a bunch of mediocre middle managers. 

Annie Page, Elizabeth Bay

 

Keating again exposes the bigger picture of international relations in our region concisely, insightfully and acerbically. The PM and his current crop of sloganistic, vacuous dolts have little idea of policy in any area beyond planning for their own re-election. Come back, PK, we need you for PM. 

Don Carter, Oyster Bay 

 

“The prophet from the Shire”, “the growling policeman from Queensland”: how I’ve missed his brilliant acerbic turn of phrase. 

Peter Wilkosz, Byron Bay

 

Malcolm Turnbull makes some very good points regarding AUKUS. Must Australia have a local nuclear industry to run the subs? Will they actually be built in Australia? We will never know how much, if any, careful technical and strategic consultation went into this deal. Increasingly we are denied the background information. We wake up to find Australia’s alliance with the rest of the world has changed. We find ourselves forever in the dark, with not even a federal ICAC to resort to. 

David Catchlove, Newport

 

Clumsy, deceitful, costly, says Turnbull of the submarine saga. And he should know because he started it. Apart from the conservatives’ liking for assuring us only they can keep us safe from enemies of their own invention, a benefit of the contract was jobs in South Australia and this would save the seat of Christopher Pyne, which was at risk at the time, and, as it eventuated, one he only wanted for another year or so. The good news from Turnbull’s piece is that the agreement with the US and UK is a “statement of intent”. And that sounds a bit like something that’s not going to happen. 

Peter Bourke, Rockdale

 

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/no-brains-trust-among-current-political-leaders-20210928-p58vgj.html

 

 

Note:

Dismantling decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines has become a major task for US and Russian navies. After defuelling, normal practice is to cut the reactor section from the vessel for disposal in shallow land burial as low-level waste (the rest being recycled normally). In Russia the whole vessels, or the sealed reactor sections, sometimes remain stored afloat indefinitely, though Western-funded programmes are addressing this and all decommissioned submarines were due to be dismantled by 2012. By 2015, 195 out of 201 decommissioned Russian submarines had been dismantled, and the remainder as well as 14 support vessels were to be dismantled by 2020. Decommissioned British submarines are laid up, France has dismantled several of its retired submarines at Cherbourg.

For the USS Enterprise, after defuelling was completed in December 2016, the eight reactor compartments and associated piping were removed and shipped to Hanford for burial with the submarine reactor compartments.

 

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See also: The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is a defence and strategic policy think tank based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, founded by the Australian government and partly funded by the Australian Department of Defence as well as the United States Department of State and military contractors.[2][3]

 

And would you believe it? The ASPI is totally in favour of going nuclear subs... Fancy that!... So whatever the dumb and intelligent population of Aussieland thinks, this fellow, Marcus Hellyer, has priority of decisions, rubber-stamped by "the Prophet of the Shire". This is autocratic "democracy" at work. Hey, why not go the full hog and start building intercontinental nuclear missiles as well? Why not start WW3 rather than wait for it to come to us? This would make the pandemic and global warming pale in insignificance, wouldn't? And suddenly with 8 nuclear subs by 2040 (or so), we would be in the box seat, having leapfrogged Brazil, and a few other countries now vying for the nuke subs caper as well.

This ain't going to end well, is it? 

 

Note: the cover of Charlie Hebdo (CHARLIE HEBDO N° 7 published 01/09/2012) at top says : ESCROQUERIE NUCLEAIRE... which has been going on for 70 years in France... and of course every where else...  THE FRAUDULENT CONCEPT OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY is the basic meaning of ESCROQUERIE NUCLEAIRE... which eventually will lead to nuclear war...

 

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