Hi Mark, even if price parity is reached for the kWh a rooftop PV produces, there is simply no way this is the answer. 100,000s of little power stations generating on and off for 1/3 of a 24 hour day will screw up the distribution system, and we don't have the time or money to re-calibrate it We need to turn off the tap off large fossil base load, and that means large zero-carbon base load to replace it. That means we look at the option that tick those boxes, being at the moment solar thermal and nuclear, and see which is best. We all keep hoping to add HDR geothermal to that list, but it faces the same problems it did 30 years ago and that is not changing fast.

Except, of course, that they work on light. Not heat. Hence photo-voltaic. Not thermo-voltaic. Higher temperatures lower their performance. But then you knew that, right? Please tell me you knew that.

Hi Ben, I agree of course that Rooftop Solar PV won't provide all the answers. Hard to see industry being powered that way for example. But it still has an important role to play.

I read that California has just passed the 1GW installed base for Solar - quite a milestone and ranks them high in the world.

I think we need to embrace a mix of Renewables (Wind, Solar PV, CST and Geothermal and Tidal where it can work) as well as CCS if we are going to solve the problem.

I used to be a strong advocate of nuclear. But I have been pursuaded otherwise. The issue there is risk vs hazard. The risk is actually VERY low but the hazard is so high. And it's not the technology (that is actually good), it's the people side. I think the real lesson from Fukushima (a very old plant subject to a real black swan event) is not about the technology (which these days is very robust - far better than Fukushima) is that you cannot trust the people to be accountable and actually deal with any problems in an open and transparent manner - with concommittant dangers to the populace.

Until that people management issues is addressed, which is not a technology question, I am very concerned about the nuclear option.

Thorium might be interesting though as the hazard is far lower.

Regardless no alternative should be off the table at least as far asrational debate is concerned.

But, to return to my point, for the average consumer rooftop Solar PV is the only current viable option so it would be good to hear more about the move to grid parity

Yes, by all means keep it in the picture. But we need focus on solutions commensurate with the problem.

I will have to keep track of you because you are one of the few people I know who have moved in the other direction on nuclear.

Mark, critical hat on: the hazard is demonstrably not high. It is demonstrably exceedingly low. Fukushima was, as you say, about as Black Swan as it gets and no one has died, despite the event itself killing around 30,000. Meanwhile Fukushima Daiini (not Diaichi) just up the coast, of slightly newer design with a number of improved safety characteristics, was a virtual non-event. A new plant with an extra 30 years of design improvement including passive cooling??? Completely new territory again. I would say the hazard of living anywhere near the coast of Japan is pretty significant in comparison to living near a nuclear plant, wouldn't you?

Then the hazard of climate change is many orders of magnitude larger again. Please, reconsider. My take on nuclear and people is that if they can be as negligent as TEPCO and it still kills no-one in an event like the Sendai quake and tsunami, man, that is exactly the technology I want.

The renewables are well and truly on the table, we don't need to worry about advocating for them. They need to start speaking for themselves in competitiveness. Geothermal is the White Knight that can't seem to saddle up. CCS is phenomenally expensive and basically does not exist at scale, and has incomplete capture in the first place, and has the rest of the horrible impacts of mining and combusting fossil fuels.

In the face of that, we need to keep a very cool head in assessing the risk (and hazard) of nuclear. I am delivering a key note speech on this at an AGM this evening. Let me know if you would like a copy of the presentation.

Ben you make some good points.

I agree that despite the incredible nature of the Fukushima disaster it shows a relatively robust technology.

I also agree that the risk is actually very very low - even less with modern technology.

But with due respect I think you are confusing risk and hazard. Risk is the chance of something going wrong, hazard is the impact if it did. The hazard with nuclear is high by definition. It has the capacity that if something does go wrong the damage could be immense. And hazard is potentially made more impactful by human nature wanting to avoid accountability

And whilst I agree it's great that no one has been killed by Fukushima (yet), the disruption and threat to health alone is a problem. I doubt there will be many attributable fatalities, as indeed there weren't with Chernobyl which was worse (although I note they've been ranked on the same scale) but it has certainly caused issues. Most notably vast areas regarded as uninhabitable with Chernobyl. There is concern about food and fish stocks with Fukushima.

I think almost all of the problems with Fukushima are attributable to the fact that TEPCO was parsimonious with the truth (to put it kindly). This prevented appropriate action/mitigation at the time and impeded proper precautionary actions by the populace subsequently

Lastly, there's another factor that I think mitigates against nuclear as a solution. It's very long lead times when compared to renewables like Wind and Solar.

This a point well made by Jacobson & Deluchi in their (perhaps a little over ambitious and unrealistic but nevertheless insightful) 2010 paper on Energy Policy. Nuclear takes on average 11-19 years to deploy, Wind 2-5 and Solar similar. That's over a decade worth of CO2 offsets, even allowing for differences in scale, not to mention the lower emissions associated with plant construction and mining/refining the ore.

And I haven't even touched on waste disposal or proliferation issues. Both of which I think are manageable but neither of which are present with renewables.

So, while Nuclear is a whole lot better than coal (where risk and hazard are both high), I am still currently not in favour of it as a solution in Australia.

But it should be part of the debate and perhaps there are locations around the world where it may prove to be the best option.

Mark, brief response because parenting calls, nothing personal.

Promise I am not confusing risk and hazard. I love that distinction, use is a lot, and worked in risk communication for several years.

The potential hazard needs to be backed with evidence. The hazard of nuclear is not high by definition, that is wrong. Is the hazard of a car that it may one day just explode? I don't know if you would say yes, but I say no.

The great problem with renewables is that they can't actually solve the problem on their own by a very long shot. No where in the world have non-hydro renewables ever replaced fossil, and nor will they me thinks. So I continue to struggle with why they are even a feature of discussions such as those we are having.

No one will be killed by Fukushima, the quantifiable increase in risk of long term effects, even using Linear non-threshold approaches is insanely small. How they handle this will be critical. The notion of insisting on remediating a hazard that is barely quantifiable will do more damage to 200,000 currently homeless people than the hazard ever possibly could.

Large scale solar is nothing like fast to deploy. Wind is, but cannot replace fossil, so is irrelevant. Nuclear? France went from 5-80% nuclear in 22 years. Opponents seem to forget that we can built more than one at a time...Mining and refiniing the ore, the full lifecycle emissions, is a total beat up non issue, that is exactly the same for a large solar farm with all the glass, concrete and steel. Seriously, that one is just a dirty lie and I am sick of hearing it (not blaming you for that by the way, it's just persistent).

The uninhabitable areas of Chernobyl are now a biodiversity hotspot. Wolves, bears, and they even deliberately reintroduced endangered native horses to the area.

Proliferation? If you want material for nefarious purposes you build a centrifuge. You need neither a power plant or a power industry to do it.

Waste? You mean waste that is contained, as opposed to externalised like from fossil? You hang on to it for about 15 years then recycle it as fuel into an Integral Fast Reactor.

Or... you promote renewables, and watch the world build gas alongside it because it can't do the job.

We have to wake up to that and decide.

Gotta run, catch you later.

Hi Ben, understand parenting calls :) Happens here too.

Again some good points but a number of things on which we disagree and where I think you are wrong.

1) I stand by my claim on hazard. I'm sorry but while the risk of a full melt-down is obviously very small (a testament to industry risk management that there have been so few) the hazard of a meltdown is extremely high. Whilst I agree the exclusion zone around Chernobyl was probably too vast (an over-reaction) the fact is the core is STILL a serious problem. - There's a reason why nuclear has to have so many safety systems - we've never really had a catastrophic core meltdown and explosion anywhere in the world but if one were to happen the impact would be a disaster. So, you are wrong, with respect, the hazard IS high.

2) You state that renewables can't solve the problem by a long shot. I think this is debatable. Solar CST with TES is very promising. Distributed wind and solar, along the lines discussed by Diesendorf also offers some promise. These technologies supported by Geothermal, Hydro and Tidal where they can be deployed may make some sense. Whilst the Diesendorf plan is unproven and probably needs work it cannot be dismissed as simply unworkable on logic alone. It is worth trying and perhaps could be made to work in a location like Australia (although the grid investment required should not be underestimated).

3) On deployment times your argument is fallacious. You cannot dismiss a technology based on deployment times because you argue (erroneously in my view) that it won't work. It is a cold hard fact that wind and solar are much faster to deploy. They are also a great deal more flexible in terms of sites etc. Your point suggesting that opponents of nuclear forget that you can't build more than one plant at a time is a furphy - that is not being suggested. As you yourself note it took France 22 years to make nuclear a solution. That's 22 years we don't have. In less than half that time we could have significant Wind and Solar. This is worse in Australia where we simply lack the skills - probably better in places like Japan, Germany etc.

4) While I agree that some on the green side over exaggerate the CO2 emissions associated with the nuclear cycle you cannot ignore that they do exist for the fuel side (I will grant you that emissions per MW of building the plant capacity of the various solutions may be similar although I suspect that Wind and Solar would still win marginally). There is no "fuel" for emission with Solar or Wind.

5) On proliferation and waste, as I have said these can be managed, but I feel you are a little too glib with your dismissal of the problem. I am quite well aware of the technology required to build weapons. I have a PhD in atomic Physics. But you miss my point - and I think the point of the proliferation argument - and that is simply the amount of fuel in the system, assuming a wide scale nuclear power development, becomes a risk. A risk that needs to be managed and can be but you cannot simply wave it away. On waste, I am again familiar with the various options here and agree waste can be managed - but it requires effort and focus . perhaps most importantly - both these issues require the "people" side of nuclear to be under control - a point which I have already made is problematic. Perhaps most compellingly though is that the issues of proliferation and waste management are simply NOT a problem for Wind, Solar etc.

However, as I have said, I do not think Nuclear should be ruled everywhere for all time.

I think Germany has made a mistake in abandoning it and I think this will set back their progress on CO2 emission reduction.

I would also make the point that if we could exploit the Thorium approach many of my objections to Nuclear would be overcome or at least diminished (except alas the deployment time one)

I also think we have to acknowledge that climatic and geographic conditions in some places mitigate against effective wind and solar (Solar in the UK and other northern latitude locations would be hard to make work I think. Wind is an option there but it's hard to distribute over a wide enough area to ensure sufficient actual generation). And for wind to work (without the problem of gas backup which I agree is a big issue) you MUST be able to have it widely distributed, intelligently interconnected with load balancing and predictive anemometering AND supported by other technologies. In some places that will be much harder to achieve than others. But I would suggest in Australia less a difficulty.

I think we need to acknowledge that there is no single approach that will work globally, and it is a global issue. Every approach has it's pros and cons.

We need to focus on energy efficiency (some big early gains to be made there although of course it has its limits), renewables like Wind, Solar PV and Solar CST with TES (plus Geo, Tidal etc where they can fit), Nuclear in places where renewables are more problematic and even CCS (although at the moment an effective commercial solution there seems distant).

I appreciate the quality of the debate here by the way. And nothing should be off the table because of political and emotive reasons (something that unfairly dogs the nuclear option and makes it hard to have a sensible conversation about it).
Sorry for the long post

Hey Mark,
Well, that is kinda long actually, but that's ok! I'm enjoying some good debate too. I'm just home after a long drive to and from Mannum so I will probably attend to the bulk of this on Saturday, hope you will check in again. But I can't go to sleep without jumping on one thing!!!

Amidst a generally well constructed comment in which I still find plenty to disagree with, one thing knocked me on my arse:

"As you yourself note it took France 22 years to make nuclear a solution. That's 22 years we don't have."

Mate, are you f**king serious? Near-full decarbonisation of electricity in only 22 years is an incredible achievement, it was in France, and it would be in Australia or anywhere else. The Greens would be dancing in the street if they could get that outcome... provided they didn't need nuclear to do it.

Sure wind and solar might be quicker, provided you are ok with building something jaw-droppingly expensive that does not deliver much power. The comparison I am interested in making is with something that can close and replace a fossil fuel plant, plug and play as it were. And that's not solar or wind.

Here in SA they want to replace our Playford plant, a small fossil plant at 250 MW, with solar thermal based on the Spanish Andasol plant with the molten salt storage. They love to show pictures of it. They never seem to mention that the largest of these is 20 MW... that's right, the global flagship example of this technology is less than 1/10th the nameplate rating of a mini fossil baseload plant in Australia, and has successfully delivered 24 hour power for a full three months now. Replacing Playford would mean creating the largest solar thermal plant in the whole world by a factor of 10. It is just a bad joke to pretend, as people like Mark Diesendorf like to, that this technology is ready for rapid roll out to do the heavy lifting in Australia or anywhere else. So I'm sorry, but providing it is a sensible comparison we are making, I am quite correct in stating that nuclear would be faster.

BTW as for my remark about building more than one at a time, I don't mean to put words in you particular mouth, but this is constantly the implication when people wish to paint nuclear as slow and ineffective.

Ah, what the hell, I'm awake now.

1) Chernobyl was both a catastrophic core meltdown and an explosion. The entire contents of one reactor and part of the contents of a second were vapourised and carried by wind, the most harmful possible vector path for distributing this material. We appear to roughly agree one the outcome there (BTW the design was diabolically bad with no containment. It bears little relevance to a modern discussion of nuclear) Fukushima was also a full meltdown of at least one reactor and a significant meltdown of the spent fuel, and was a near perfect attack on the nuclear power sector (40 year old reactors, massive double external force, dickhead operators, crowded country) and the result are zero fatalities. The final word on the longer impact belongs to UNSCEAR and they have made it clear that they will not be rushed. Just how much worse are you hoping for? By what conceivable mechanism, likelihood put firmly aside for the sake of argument.

2) No, it is not "worth trying". We are not talking about an alternative brand of soap. We need an energy plan that stacks up because whatever we do, we will be economically stuck with. Blanketing a continent in some elegant web of interconnected renewables that are all supposed to make of for the shortcomings of the others is not such a plan.It does not stack up. For crying out loud, just include nuclear in said plan where it makes sense and use the others where they make sense.

3) As discussed above. Plus, site advantage of renewables??? Was possible site advantage is bestowed by having the site dictated by the location of the resource, which is invariably far from centres of demand? Far from connections? I will need more from you on this.

4) No need for either of us to guess. 2006 study by university of Sydney for full life cyle of nuclear gave 60g per kWh (10-110 range). A little worse than wind, a little better than solar, but they are all in the range we need. To me this is a non-issue. Even BZE could not get around this fact in their report.

5) Yes, fair call, too glib and more a function of the screaming kids. I do not wave it away. I am very interested in the safeguard systems. But hamstringing the power industry will do pretty much zero overall for proliferation. The problem is one of nefarious political will and enrichment technology, both of which are now quite independent of the power industry. To take the Australian example, marginal proliferation risk of this country ditching coal for nuclear? Close to zero. Nuclear power plants have also helped dispose of 16,000 warheads. I also insist on a bigger picture view of this. Global security is served by energy security and development, and nuclear power has a critical role in both.

5) Yes, but when wind and solar are simply NOT an effective path to decarbonisation, your point becomes moot. The commercialisation time frame for IFR is entirely acceptable for the benefits of rapid expansion of current technology.

Thorium. Yes indeed, or Gen IV uranium which basically brings the same suite of advantages and is closer to commercialisation. Waiting for these is no excuse for delay. The CO2 takes too long to break down. It accumulates and locks in heating. Every year counts. Close the coal now for Gen III+ technology, and let Gen IV hit the market and deal with expanding energy needs before eventually replacing the Gen III+.

Balancing wind across Australia would require true interconnection across the whole continent. SA has over half the nation's wind, spread over a reasonable area. At that scale, it does not balance at all. It is all or nothing. On the peak demand day last some, it delivered 5% of capacity, the wind was not blowing. The weather systems are too large. The South Australian Supply and Demand Outlook report provides some great discussion of this.

I think to close on this. I am very frustrated by this assumption that Australia is a "special case" that does not have to consider nuclear because of some amazing endowment of renewables. This is really, really not true. What makes us a special case is 22 million people with the highest level of per capita emissions in the OECD, with the world's best endowment of zero carbon fuel in uranium, refusing to use it, nay, refusing to talk about using it (our own good selves excluded). All zero carbon solutions, now, as their respective advantages and disadvantages dictate. An honest assessment on those terms gives nuclear a clear, and large, role in Australia for replacing fossil baseload.

Why not a thorium reactor? No meltdown risk

It really irks me that people do not read the law .
Doesn't take long.
Global responsibility is treason.

You are working for the Australian government. Read the LAW or someones going to have to drag you through the courts to explain it to you.

Well, as you can read I have actually said yes to thorium, merely pointed out that it is technically more distant that Gen IV uranium like IFR which is well and truly proven and demonstrated, which also has meltdown risk of effectively zero due to the expansion of metal oxide fuel automatically halting the reaction in the event of temperature rise.

As for the "law" bit... please enlighten. I'm not working for Aust Government (perhaps that was addressed to Mark?). Interested in what you have to say if you can refrain from the aggression.

Not me Ben, I've never worked for the government (except in the occasional consultative capacity). I've been in private industry since finishing my PhD back in 85.

I'm not sure it's wise to repsond to TPK - his posts are, to me, entirely incoherent and full of conspiracy theory leanings.

I'll try and resume our nuclear debate as soon as I can - as I think it is really important and I confess I may be able to be pursuaded to change my view if the evidence and arguments are strong enough.

We need to take action as time is running out. As the IEA has pointed out, especially with the plans of India and China, it looks certain that globally we going to lock in more than 2 degrees of warming. If that happens it will be a real problem.

Doug, solar hot water systems already get so hot in the sun that they regularly need to dump very hot water. Don't think your invention would really find a market.

But then you already knew that didn't you? Please tell me you knew that.

The Kleenex used to run a small solar hotwater concern.
Its viable if its true.

How long does co2 stay as co2? will it need constant refilling? or is it install and forget?
Also will ordinary rubber seals keep it inside or would it need to be a proper pressure tank?

Doug, with due respect you are dancing around the issue that once again you do not appear to know the difference between your ear and your elbow, as was the case for PV, as continues to be the case with climate change science.

"Why hasn't anyone done the simple experiment, at least as far as I know?"

Mate... by this comment am I seriously led to believe that you are asking whether there has ever been controlled investigation to the heat trapping properties of CO2? And perhaps we should do so in the interests of heating swimming pools??? If so, a guy called John Tyndall did a bit of work on that stuff and got some clear results... in the late 1850's. It's come along a bit since then.

Thankfully I have worked out that I need to get rid of the notification on all threads, so that I can finally tear myself away from a page that has become completely inane.

"What happened to it?". I think reality smacked it upside the head, that's what happened to it. Try telling "zero economic growth" to the poorest 2 billion and see how you are received.

Exactly Ben. Or the 99% who are currently represented apparently by the Occupy group!
Chris, you forgot to mention that the big winners from the carbon tax are of course the financial traders on the ASX or Wall Street. As far as Australia is concerned, most of our emissions will be "covered" by buying so-called "off sets" which will pour billions of our dollars into what exactly? We will pay this money, much if not most of which will be used to fund various financial scams as has been the case in Europe to what actual purpose? Could you explain this in terms of the cost to the Australian economy, the cost to our overseas aid programme, and very importantly, the benefits for the global temperature reduction? Also, could you explain how do you propose to monitor the carbon cuts made by these people in Africa and China - don't go near Europe, they are already buying credits from the Chinese, based on projects the Chinese put on "hold" provided the West pays money for them, so there is in fact no "reduction" in carbon dioxide there unless I am not able to add and subtract. . Then the European manufacturers simply continue to put out carbon dioxide. BTW, Australia will supposedly buy these credits for perhaps up to 20% of our current out put which will, on the most exceptionally high estiamtes by the IPCC, reduce the global temperature by at most 0.004 C which is absolutely immeasurable! And you are calling for celebration!!

Jeepers creepers Shirly, now nuclear power is responsible for wholesale slaughter in our oceans? What can't it do? I kinda thought maybe overfishing and climate change would be a wee bit more significant there...

Seriously, you're clutching pretty hard. Remind me again: Is climate change serious or not? I keep forgetting in these conversations, because the moment anyone mentions nuclear power, the climate crisis seems to fade away to a stage where we have all the time in the world to scale up technologies that are manifestly ill suited to the task, and the demise of polar ice in summer seems somehow less worrying.

Wind, sun and water...loads of energy. For sure. It's just so damn hard to concentrate, catch, store and then move from where we find it to where we need it... when we need it. Energy is a vastly different to electricity at the flick of a switch.

I know you respect Geoff Russell, so please ask him about this sometime. He will tell you the same things as me about the pros and cons of nuclear power, but you may listen to him. My final word is this though. Australian electricity is about 1000g CO2 per kWh. Denmark's is about 600g. France? 90g. Pick the nuclear nation.

@ Ben Heard: “Jeepers creepers Shirly, now nuclear power is responsible for wholesale slaughter in our oceans?”

Indeed Ben which is another reason why I endeavour at all times to convey documented facts - not fiction. Angry men don’t bother me Ben but what does amuse me are nuclear proponents who evade or ridicule the issues raised in my posts but who are unable or unwilling to refute my assertions.

The nuclear industry has spent tens of millions of dollars over the years attempting to portray itself as environmentally friendly and beneficial to wildlife. This is an industry that operates by falsification and false promises therefore I must decline your offer to debate with Geoff since his compassion for non-humans is clearly limited to sheep and cattle.

Incidentally Denmark has a population of 5.5 million and France’s reliance on nuclear energy is encountering significant problems with a warming climate. In fact France has had to resort to purchasing electricity from the UK. They are also significantly responsible for global anthropogenic radioactive emissions.

Alas for the nuclear and coal industry, the Californian EPA are taking a big stick to power plants that operate with once-through cooling (OTC) technology. The Californian government advised that as at 2008, 11 OTC power plants were operating with expired permits.

They also advised that the “San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) represents one example of impingement and entrainment impacts. Fish species impinged include northern anchovy, queenfish, Pacific sardine, Pacific pompano, jacksmelt, white seaperch, walleye surfperch, shiner perch, white croaker, bocaccio, jack mackerel, salema, sargo, yellowfin croaker, specklefin midshipman, black perch, California grunion, topsmelt, cabezon, deep body anchovy, and others.

“No estimates are available for impinged invertebrates at SONGS. Annual entrainment of fish larvae at SONGS is estimated to be nearly 6 billion. This figure does not include invertebrate plankton, which are also entrained.

“In summary, each year California power plants impinge about 9 million biological specimens. California power plants also annually entrain about 80 billion biological specimens, of which approximately 60 percent (48 billion) are larval fish. In addition, 57 marine tetrapods (seals, sea lions, or sea turtles) are impinged annually. Of these tetrapods, roughly 50 percent are killed.”

And only the foolish would separate abused ecosystems from the ravages of climate change. Ecosystems already on life support will be the first to crumble under the impacts of CC.

One wonders why Australia’s current nuclear lobby compares one obsolete and destructive technology with another? May I suggest that the nuclear lobby cease claiming that coal-fired plants emit more radiation than nuclear plants (See Bravenewclimate):

“Over the years there have been many occasions when it was asserted that coal-fired power stations emitted more radioactivity into the environment (from NORM) than was released anywhere in the nuclear fuel cycle. While having some basis in fact, the claim is generally not correct now where deployment of emission reduction technology – scrubbers, filters and flue gas desulphurization – acts to capture this material.” (Source: World Nuclear Association)

There are other claims by Australia’s nuclear lobby that I consider to be false or misleading. In addition, I have a collection of claims by Australia’s past nuclear “experts” which in the 21st century would be deemed comical. However, I imagine I have already exceeded a prudent word count for now.

Shirley - I can see the problem created by OTC plants, of which i was not aware. However this does seem solvable?

Also, although I clearly accept the science behind the increased concenttration of I-129 do you have any references to data that shows this is a problem? I'm aware of the thyroid cancer risk and the issues of concentration in the food chain.

It may well be,and orders of magnitude increases over the the pre-existing "natural" levels sounds a concern, but I couldn't find any data on what is regarded as a danger level.

Exactly, Dr Harrigan. The I-129 thing is a total beat-up of a non-issue. Even a '3 orders of magnitude increase' over basically zero is still pretty much zero. You're talking concentrations of parts per quadrillion instead of parts per quintillion.

Mark, do you have evidence to substantiate that?

I never accept anything without some sort of substantiation - which is why I have asked Shirley to back up her claim that it is a problem.

The paper to which she refers seems credible, it is probably true that the nuclear fuel cycle has increased the I-129 concentations of those orders of magnitude. We know I-129 can be a problem if sufficently concentrated and the paper establishes a credible machanism for natural cycling of the increased levels of I-129 into subsurface sea layers as well as rivers and estruaries. What is NOT established is whether or not the level indicated would be a concern.

This thread is about, I suggest, suitable responses to the carbon tax and the need to reduce CO2 emissions. The Nuclear option is an important component of that debate, and is a debate that I think should be had although at the moment I am more on the side of prefering to avoid the nuclear option (at least in Australia). Issues like this one, if credible, are pertinent to that consideration.

Unfortunately there are beat ups by the greens and white washes by the nuclear lobby on this, which doesn't help. I prefer to be guided by the evidence, in so far as it can be ascertained.

Mark, I simply used Shirley Birney's own numbers (which are verbatim from the original abstract) in a back-of-envelope calculation together with estimates of the volume of Earth's hydrosphere (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html). Even 140000 kg divided by the latter quantity is a very, very small number indeed - as I said, one best measured in parts per quadrillion.

Thanks Mark, I concur (useful source that on volume of water). I make it around 1 part in 10 to the power 16 (by mass, would be less by volume) or 1 in 10,000 million million. So even quadrillions are generous. It's about 0.1 parts per quadrillion. And that's in the projected future. By their figures today the amount is less than 4% of that, or around 0.004 parts per quadrillion (4 in 10 million million million) - vanishingly small.

However that may increase somewhat if, as they argue, circulation etc can move the amounts into just the immediate ocean subsurface

Nevertheless I think the obligation is on Shirley now to demonstrate why such an amount is an ossue or else the claim would appear to be overblown and is not a valid argument against nuclear.

@ Mark Harrigan: “It may well be,and orders of magnitude increases over the the pre-existing "natural" levels sounds a concern, but I couldn't find any data on what is regarded as a danger level.”

“A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” (BEIR VII)

Mark, the only thing about “low-level” radiation that’s not potentially dangerous is its name. I-129 is an accurate environmental tracer in identifying the spread of other radionuclides from the nuclear industry. Further, concentrations of radionuclides within marine biotic systems can be influenced by a number of factors, including the type of biota, its source, the radionuclide, and specific characteristics of the sampled specimens (age, gender) and the marine environment (salinity, etc.).

Macroalgae and zooplankton are strong indicator organisms (1,000 to 10,000 bioconcentration factor) for detecting a suite of radionuclides, including iodine 129/131, Americium-241 and the plutonium isotopes.

1) “ Iodine-129 is present in the wastes and groundwater at both the Hanford Site and Savannah River Site and contributes 13% of the offsite population dose, illustrating how the properties of this radionuclide magnify its risk….129I is a major by-product of nuclear fission that is of concern because of its mobility in the environment, excessive inventory, long half-life (~16 million years), and potential toxicity due to bioaccumulation through the food chain and bioconcentration in the thyroid gland. Currently, 146 Ci of 129I is inventoried in soils at two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites, the Hanford Site and the Savannah River Site (SRS), where it has been identified as a key risk driver in contaminated soils and groundwater”:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3067311/

2) “ Iodine-129 is one of the more important radionuclides of concern in the large inventory of spent reactor fuel and defence high-level waste.”:

http://epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/iodine.html#epadoing

3) “Several investigations point out iodine emissions as a significant contributor to aerosol budget, and in particular the marine aerosol, which can form micro particles that become cloud condensation nuclei (Baker et al., 2001; Pirjola et al., 2005; Saiz-Lopez et al., 2006). With sufficient influence on the extent of marine aerosol formation, the huge amounts of iodine marine (bio-) emissions (1012 g y-1 or 1.4x103 atoms cm-2 s-1) are suggested to have direct affect on the global climate forcing.” (Adobe PDF)

Not all I-129 stays in the sea and its dispersal from the nuclear industry is spread far and wide across the NH and beyond.

contd......

Hi Shirley - I can see you've done a lot of work but I'm afraid it doesn't comvince me.

First of all I-129 is mainly a beta emitter (which means it's radioactive decay is via electron emission). This makes it a virtually harmless external hazard but a harmful hazard if ingested.

Therefore your comment about linear no threshold is actually irrelevant. For it to apply it depends on exposure (which in this case means ingestion) and with respect to concentrations in the biosphere assuming it is dispersed (which as a gaseuos form it generally would be and the paper you originally referenced talks about) the probability of ingestion of ANY is practically zero. So what matters is how much of it gets ingested (there even a small dose is not good)

To estabish it as a credible hazard globally over a wide area you would have to be able to point to 3 things happening

1) Significant production (on the figures from your original paper that isn't the case)
2) A physical mechanism to concentrate it - that's plausible in the upper ocean layers as the paper outlines but the concentrations would still be vanishingly small and you haven't pointed to any evidence to support that
3) a biological concentration mechanism based on accumluation up the food chain - again that's plausible but I see no evidence for it and it depends on 1&2 being true which they aren't

So, with respect, the global hazard simply does not exist.

What you have, I think, comprehensively established with your links to papers etc is that in locales near nuclear plants or where fuel processing or waste is not properly managed (i.e. there is a local escape of I-129 that is NOT dispersed) there is a risk of potentially harmul levels of I-129 accumulating in the local environment which represent a hazard. However this is already known.

The EPA in the USA is responsible for monitoing this and there are some good explanatory notes here http://epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/iodine.html

It represents part of the hazard and downsides of a nuclear approach - but this has to weighed against the downsides of alternatives (such as Coal which is well known to affect the health of many hundreds of thousands and which WHO attrobutes premuture deaths of many hundreds of thousands every year) - see here http://www.the9billion.com/2011/03/24/death-rate-from-nuclear-power-vs-coal/ and here http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-human-cost-of-energy to get a simple comparison.

It is all, I am afraid, a matter of relative risk - well explained here http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053.600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power.html

Also, with respect, I think your use of inflammatory language and smearing of the nuclear industry and the IAEA might play well to the greens, who are ideologically blind to any science they don't like, but they don't make for a valid argument.

The debate about nuclear, with it's pros and cons, needs to be a rational and evidence based one. I personally am in favour of developing renewables as fast as we can, as I think they are preferable to nuclear for a number of reasons. But nuclear has a number of things going for it. (1) it works and (2) it provides a very low CO2 emissions profile (really zero apart from the small amounts associated with the fuel cycle which are not large).

There are issues with nuclear, no doubt, but over exaggerating the negatives is neither rational nor truthful

@ Mark H: “Hi Shirley - I can see you've done a lot of work but I'm afraid it doesn't comvince me.”

No problem Mark since I’ve been doing “a lot of work” prior to 1985 when pro-nuclear Perth millionaire Bob Oliver told the West Australian that we could create a huge inland sea on the Nullabor Plain by blasting a canal using nuclear explosions through from the Southern Ocean. His vision of changing Australia’s climate sadly evaporated when it was pointed out that none of the Nullabor was below sea level.

Now I’m reminded of Sir Ernest Titterton who called for a nuclear power plant to be built in WA’s semi-arid goldfields and ‘all the nuclear waste generated in the world should be stored down an old mine shaft at Kalgoorlie.’

Meanwhile in the desert of eastern Washington State rests more than 200000 m3 of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste, a legacy of over 60 years of nuclear weapons production. Seemingly there are no plans to “store it down an old mine shaft.”

U.S. reactors have so far generated about 65,000 tonnes of spent fuel, of which 75 percent is stored in pools where there are more than 30 million such rods:

http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/spent_nuclear_fuel_pools_in_the_us_reducing_the_deadly_risks_of_storage

Of course there is only so far the one-percenters can ride a dead horse Mark, especially if it's radioactive whilst feigning shock horror over the world’s carbon pollution.

It’s only the one percenters who are amoral and ethics-free and lacking the moral capacity to differentiate between right and wrong and then slap the “greens” around whilst trivialising the carnage the nuclear industry has wrought on the biosphere for 66 years with impunity.

The one percenters includes the IAEA who gagged the WHO, who issued no more grave warnings on health and radioactivity after 1959 when it signed an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency; clause 12.40.

The one percenters condone the slaughter of trillions of marine life; contaminating the oceans in the Northern Hemisphere is acceptable because it’s a cheap way to bludge off the environment; the explosion at the ignominious Tricastin plant in France in July was a mere peccadillo, the flourishing "loose nukes" black market is all "green" hyperbole, etc etc etc .

@ Ben Heard: “1) Climate change impacts attributable to the energy sector 2) Particulate air pollution attributable to the energy sector 3) Heavy metals and other pollutants from combustion of fossil fuels (plenty of carcinogens among them by the way) 4) Lack of access to reliable energy.”

Ben, uranium *is* a heavy metal. Hopefully the grab sample below will enhance your knowledge of heavy metals to enable you to speak with some authority on the nuclear fuel cycle?:

pubs.pembina.org/reports/ClearingAir_UraniumMining.pdf

John Nicol, the pro-nuclear Swartznegger (sic) was a dud for the atomic industry and he is not the governor of California.

Shirley, all told a particularly weak response to a very clear question of responsible decision making in a complex reality from me, and a very persuasive technical demolition of your premise from Mark. It came with the added bonus of speaking to me like I am an idiot, which I am not. I made that mistake to you early in the thread. In both cases, it does nothing to enhance what we are trying to say.

I have reached the disturbing conclusion that those who really occupy the anti-nuclear role have given themselves permission to take an incredibly difficult set of interrelated, complex challenges of energy/development/climate/pollution and simply hold a line of "Nuclear is bad". It's an intellectual luxury I jettisoned a few years ago. I'll avoid engagement from now on I think. Please keep that focus of your's on the climate crisis; it's the only thing I can imagine might generate a re-think.

Well Ben you did say: “ No one will be killed by Fukushima, the quantifiable increase in risk of long term effects, even using Linear non-threshold approaches is insanely small.”

Sorry Ben but you are wrong on both accounts. Workers have already been killed at Fukushima. Workers have been killed at coal mines too but on both accounts, probably not from radiation or coal. Lingering deaths from exposure to both hazards usually comes later.

And by May 2009, the US Department of Labor boasted they had paid more than $1 billion in compensation and medical benefits to 9,134 Tennessee residents under the Occupational Illness Compensation Programme Act.

Victims of radiation cancers in the nuclear industry and eligible for compensation range from workers who were exposed to radiation in 1951 onwards to “residual” radiation periods up to October 2009.

The Department of Labor advised that “Nationwide, since the act was implemented in 2001, the Dept. of Labor said it had paid 51,331 claimants more than $4.8 billion in compensation and medical benefits.” The suffering of the victims is immense and continues and the range of radiation cancers is horrific.

So we sure do breed them funny in South Australia Ben. Dr Jim Green wrote:

“Adelaide University academic Barry Brook has made even more of a goose of himself than Switkowski.

Even after the first explosion at Fukushima, Brook said: “The risk of meltdown is extremely small, and the death toll from any such accident, even if it occurred, will be zero.

“There will be no breach of containment and no release of radioactivity beyond, at the very most, some venting of mildly radioactive steam to relieve pressure. Those spreading FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] at the moment will be the ones left with egg on their faces….

“I am happy to be quoted forever after on the above if I’m wrong…..but I won’t be,” said Brook.

Well let's quote away. And egg on the faces of FUDs Mr Brook? Is that an omelette on your face?

Wilma, It is a pity if you find "it" irritating, but there really is no compulsion here, as I have remarked earlier, for you to read every post, and you have obviously skipped most of it. What I find most irritating on this thread is the way in which the text bounces around once you have filled the limited text box. Using the mouse to return to add a bit or correct something seems to send the whole thing into a convulsion - or is ir just my computer. I have informed the editors but nothing has changed, and I have found the same thing happens on other PCs. Any comments?

BTW, I wouldn't expect that modern nuclear reactors would need to be closed during a heatwave, as the cooling rate must surely be simply a design feature.to cope with what ever temperatures come up. I wouldn't think it would, for instance, be more challenging to build one in the tropics than in Sweden. John Nicol

Hi Wilma, as Ben has pointed out your concerns about insurance are not well placed. Capital cost is undoubtedly an issue as, to date, most nuclear plants have tended to be very large affairs (of the order of 1GW capacity) - which also contributed to their long lead times before being ready to operate (an argument against them I think). But, to be fair, this need not necessarily be the case and there are a number of providers (GE for example) that are focusing on smaller plants which obviates that issue somewhat.

Ben's argument about 1GW nuclear vs a similar capacity solar is true, but I think a little disingenuous. The largest installed solar plants are of the order of 50 to a few 100MW (and some of these are actually several facilities linked together) but that is changing all the time and can in fact be an advantage since it lowers initial capital cost and allows for more flexibility. One can easily achieve 1000GW capacity just by building enough smaller scale plants. In the past capital efficiencies have argued against smaller scale nuclear capacity but, as mentioned above, that is changing. So I think it is a bit of an "old paradigm" to always think in terms of plants needing gigawatt capacity. What matters is total generation, less important is plant unit size.

There have also been some promising new developments with Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) (ah the jargon so CST with TES) that are rapidly driving towards 100% capacity (ie allowing load factors close to the rated capacity) 24x7.

But I am overdue in replying to Ben in our debate about the merits or otherwise of Nuclear and will do so in a post on another day.

For now, I would say that I think we cannot afford (at a global level) to rule out any alternative. We need to be reducing fossil fuel based emissions as soon as we responsibly can do so, and that means a four fold approach of energy efficiency, renewables (mainly solar and wind), CCS (not popular and yet to prove itself but I think it's a must) and nuclear where it can be done swiftly and with risk*hazard at acceptably low levels. In Australia, as my former boss Ziggy Switkowski has pointed out, getting nuclear going will take a long time - which is one reason why it's much lower on my personal wish list.

Collisions

It doesn't. The warm, they rise, they collide, they cool, they fall (bit simplistic but that's the basics)

Heat only escapes the earth via Thermal radiation some of which is absorbed by GHG and reflected back helping make the earth warmer.

Thanks Ben, but really not deserved or special. As Chris Mooney says on desmogblog .

"If you can’t admit it when you’re wrong, you also can’t know when you’re right".

There's a few on here who might learn from that.

(It's in a very interesting post about the conniptions and knots Anthony Watts is tying himself up in because he simply can't admist he was wrong in relation to the BEST study <which I'm sure you know he stated he would accept unequivocally>)

You might enjoy reading it. It is about "defensive reasoning" - something many who deny AGW are guilty of but simply cannot see. The link is here http://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts-and-defensive-reasoning-three-episodes

There's also a very interesting video about "being wrong" on TED that I encourage anyone to view.

It's outstanding, informative, entertaining and not a little salutory

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

P.S. I am reading various posts on your blog when I find the chance but am rather busy at the moment with organising a house sale, finding a new one and raising funds for a new business venture, not to mention shepparding my son though his VCE exams - just fitting posts on threads in between that and doing the odd tweet on interesting climate science that I become aware of.

Will get in touch in due course

Oops - a little typo above should read :

"If you can’t admit it when you’re wrong, you also can’t know when you’re right".

There's a few on here who might learn from that.

(It's in a very interesting post about the conniptions and knots Anthony Watts is tying himself up in because he simply can't admidt he was wrong in relation to the BEST study on desmogblog - link here http://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts-and-defensive-reasoning-three-episodes)

There's also a great TED talk on being wrong

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

which is informative, entertaining and not a little salutory

The David Evans self published piece of non-scientific media trash has been rebutted comprehensively on SKS here http://www.skepticalscience.com/david-evans-understanding-goes-cold.html

The fact that he has republished it more recently on the Australian Climate Science Coalitions web page (a real doyen of truth in science that is recyclying discredited rubbish from Fox Media similar to that Doug cotton tried to perpetrate on readers of the conversation on a different thread) doesn't make it any more valid.

NOR is he qualified.

What Mr Cotton has not disclosed (probably because he doesn't know) is that Dr Evans is a mathematician and an electrical engineer. The spurious attempt to give him some sort of climate credentials relates to the fact that he wrote some programs on modelling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products for the Australian Greenhouse office.

he has ZERO published science on climate science to his name and no qualifications in the field.

He is obviously a very clever and talented modeller and programmer. Good luck to him.

But all the issues he raises in the link Doug has provided have been rebutted countless times.

How typical of the pseudo skeptics though to jump on every opportunity to sow doubt and make a virtue out of it rather than indulge in positive inquiry and critical thinking.

As soon as Mr cotton found this link he has been ALL over the conversation promoting it.
(So I'm here rebutting him)

Not much self criticism or reflection again

Shirley - what's to give up? You continue to offer passionate rhetoric supported by alarmist news media about nuclear. I get that you are passionately agains nuclear as a power source and i respect that. I just don't entirely agree with you.

I have said publicly that there are issues with waste management and safety. There is clear evidence that these can be well managed.

BUT I have said (to Ben, amongst others) that I lack confidence in the human ability to actually manage it properly - partly because the hazard of mismanagement can be so devastating to people and human health and partly because greed and human nature often drive against the sort of accountability that might mitigate against such problems.

The link you provided to the story in Jharkhand (which I will accept on face value although I am always a little mistrustful of mdeia reports on ANY topic) is a classic example of my concern.

But you haven't really addressd my question and the concern that is relevant to this thread.

How do we balance the pros and cons of nuclear as part of the debate about a solution to AGW (which even noted former anti-nuke proponents like James Lovelock has publicly stated is a far bigger risk to the planet)?

I asked if you can provide that shows that external costs of nuclear are a problem when balanced against the climate issues. With respect I don't think you have done that - just continued to present a passionate concern about nuclear (possibly well founded) but without any balance.

Very selective response Mark Harrigan and typical of one in denial who uses a strawman argument to portray anti-nuclear citizens as ideologues.

"How do we balance the pros and cons of nuclear as part of the debate about a solution to AGW..."

Bad company corrupts good character so leave me out thank you very much. And I already know a good deal about nuclear costs and externalities.. Nuclear - a solution? Same dog as coal, different haircut.

Goodbye.