Terry Krieg, retired secondary school teacher of geography and geology from Port Lincoln, South Australia was recently interviewed for the ABC's Ockham's Razor. Terry describes himself as a climate skeptic but begrudgingly accepts the worldwide decisions and trends toward emissions reduction.
The teacher's done some homework and concluded the right path, the logical path, the only path, for Australia must include nuclear energy.
A few excerpts:
Currently around the world sun and wind contribute just .6% of world energy total. And that's expected to reach 2.8% by 2030. US energy experts wrote solar off in the 1980s suggesting it would never deliver more than a fraction of their energy needs. They've been proved right despite some continuing research. Germany today presents a very disturbing and confusing picture. Solar subsidies in 2007/8 totaled $4.3 billion US and for just .7% of its electricity.
...Now with wind power the Danish experience is instructive. They have the most expensive power in the EU, have stopped building wind farms, have been unable to reduce their emissions and have now closed five turbine manufacturing plants with a loss of 3000 jobs.
How can these technologies ever enable the necessary reduction in emissions from electricity production - in Australia or anywhere else for that matter? As I've said before, if anyone believes it can be done without nuclear, please point to an example - just one, anywhere on the planet. [Not fair to include large-scale hydro countries... not an option for Australia.]
For the rest of the report, follow this link.
A September 2010 article in The Adelaide Review may also be of interest.
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