ANSTO / OPAL - Good Neighbor

OPAL Core - ANSTO

As reported in the full press release:

A recent community survey indicated increased local appreciation of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and in particular the world's newest research reactor OPAL (Open Pool Australian Light-water).

Significantly 90% see the presence of an Australian nuclear science and technology facilityas important.

Southern Sydney residents feel the new OPAL nuclear reactor, which commenced operation almost a year ago, is safer than the old reactor. Perceptions that it is safe have risen 12% to 77% over the past three years and public feeling that is unsafe is down 13% to 19%.

Quantum Market Research, an independent research organisation, conducted the telephone survey of 550 residents of Sutherland, Bankstown and Illawarra as well as 150 from Adelaide.

This is consistent with similar polling elsewhere which show high levels of acceptance in the immediate vicinity of nuclear facilities, concluding once again that nuclear plants make good neighbors.

GNEP - Nuclear grade clubbing

According to recent news, Australia may be either entering directly into a bilateral agreement with the US (and other countries), formally enlisting in GNEP, or both.

The United States is claiming that Australia's role wold be research oriented. I have no problem with this claim. I believe all the chatter about waste is purely political - and being fanned heavily by Labor for their own gains.

Unless Canberra is full of complete idiots on both sides of the political aisle, the Coalition and Labour both clearly understand that 1) if Australia did accept high level waste from other countries, they could virtually name their price (and subsequently reprocess it and sell it on as reactor fuel - but I digress), but 2) agreeing to this without a lengthy public outreach programme including some very broad education of the general public - would be political suicide.

If you have a look around, you will discover that the US is signing bilateral nuclear agreements with just about every country with a research reactor. Others are dong it as well - including Australia. I believe, with respect to research, the US appears to be playing catch-up following several decades of little support for nuclear power technologies. Australia has a demonstrated research capability, very relevant capability in fact. Just consider how General Electric is capitalising on Australian ingenuity. Personally, one of the most disappointing lines on the page is:

GE has the exclusive rights to develop, commercialize and launch this third-generation uranium enrichment technology on a global basis.

Yet another example of others gaining from Australian innovation. Sure it's great to proudly proclaim "... that's Australian!". But to be blunt - proclamations don't pay the mortgage. It is not too difficult to imagine a day when Australian uranium is shipped to the US, enriched at a GE facility and then shipped back to Australia in the form of fresh fuel [and we don't need power reactors to savor this technological embarrassment, it's quite possible the OPAL reactor fuel could one day take this route. I am fairly certain Argentina gets its enriched fuel from the USA].

I mentioned other agreements. Canada is on the [nuclear] move. Comparisons between Australia and Canada can be quite entertaining. Similar size [33-Million to our 21-Million], loyal servants of Her Majesty, loving and hating America simultaneously, etc. Oh, and I almost forgot - a considerable quantity of the world's Uranium. One notable difference is that Canada not only embraced the nuclear fuel cycle over 5 decades ago, but Canadian engineers designed a unique breed of reactor [the CANDU] that has helped power Canada and more than a few other countries for quite some time now.

This past week the Canadian Province of Ontario announced a bold initiative [find even more here] that appears to be quite serious about mitigating Canada's contribution to climate change - which in case you are wondering is [on a per capita basis] about equal to the US and a little more than 90% of what we spew into the atmosphere here in Australia. Note the plan involves a blended array of strategies, including Nuclear, that will eliminate coal by 2014, not long after Australia plans to have developed our carbon trading strategy [just a bit embarrassing, no?].

And there's more. Canada, with not only a demonstrated research background, but a damn respectable industrial track record to boot, has also been 'invited' to join the GNEP. Here's what The Times Colonist had to say,

The initiative came to light in Canada in May 2006, when Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- like Canada, a major world supplier of uranium -- visited Ottawa and voiced interest in the U.S. proposal, but also concerns about its possible effect on the mining and export industries.

At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "Australia and Canada, as the two major uranium producers in the world, have considerable interest in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development, production and marketing."

He added that he and Howard had "agreed we're going to collaborate very closely together to make sure Australian and Canadian interests are closely protected while the Americans and others discuss the future of that industry."

At least they're being pragmatic about it. No sugar-coating speeches about research. They want to ensure their interests as a supplier of Uranium are protected. And I am confident that Australia's interest in GNEP are the same - as reported in Canada, if not here in Australia. Because, let's face it, mining jobs and healthy exports do pay the mortgage.

As you can probably tell, I have a great deal of respect for the Canadian nuclear programme. They are lean and mean, excellent planners [with the versatile NRU still fully utilised at 50 years old] and even better decision makers. With about 10% of the US population they have managed to essentially equal their technical capability with respect to nuclear power and surpassed them in closely related fields. The USA, for example imports 100% of their Molybdenum-99 [used to make Technetium-99m, the most utilised diagnostic radiopharmaceutical on the planet] and a LOT of that comes from Canada. And before you click that comment link to tell us all about their Maple reactors, take a look around your own glass house.

Canadians also have an interesting approach to increasing enrolment in nuclear engineering programmes.

Nuclear Bloggers

Not long after I began this Blog, I posted links to different anti-nuclear Bloggers and websites and maintain these links in the right margin of this Blog to this day - even the inactive ones. I do this to encourage/enable any readers to consider the full range of the nuclear debate. I believe nuclear power is a valid energy option and further that when considered objectively can be easily defended as one of several reliable sources of safe and clean energy.

But I haven't done much to promote the pro-nuclear sites and Bloggers. Sure many links are also to the right, but I've never discussed many of them.

New on the scene is a namesake of sorts. He goes by the title of Nuclear Man and calls his Blog 'Nuclear Australia'. While it's a bit sad that he appears to not be aware of this Blog [poor communication on my part]; I am delighted another Aussie feels passionate enough to actively participate. Nuclear Man is just getting started & I wish him well.

Also in Australia is Robert Merkel - who doesn't manage a pro-nuclear Blog per se [at least that I am aware of], but my impression is that he is in favour of nuclear power in Australia, or he is certainly keeping an objective and open mind about it. Robert's Blog is called The View from Benambra. He is also a contributing Blogger at Larvatus Prodeo. Many of his posts are related to nuclear power. He is well researched and articulate.

Within Australian Politics you will find Blogger, and Democratic Senator, Andrew Bartlett. Senator Bartlett's Blog is called The Bartlett Diaries. To my knowledge, he is against nuclear power technology in Australia, but is generally willing to host/enter into civilised debate and has even linked this Blog into some of his posts. He is also a fellow fan of Robert Merkel - who visits the Senator's Blog regularly.

Venturing outside of Australia we have Ruth Sponsler, NNadir, Rod Adams, Stewart Peterson and the professionals at NEI. All are well researched. Being an Industry group, NEI is stacked with information and statistics. Rod also runs the Atomic Show. Stewart features frequent 'Anti-nuclear quote of the day' posts. Ruth's posts are typically packed full of links/references for the detail deprived. NNadir is - from my perspective - a legend. Again, all links may be found in the right margin.

An informed, objective and open minded community will make the right decision.

Solar Thermal Plant startup

Rod at the Atomic Insights blog has some information on Nevada Solar One, a 64 MWe solar thermal plant that commenced operation in the American southwest this week.

See the post for the full story.


Meanwhile, NEI found an interesting Wall Street Journal article asking if Environmentalists are really in favour of anything???

US / Bush Proposal: A New International Climate Change Framework

You can find the Fact Sheet from the White House web page here. NEI's post on this topic is here.

I found some news stories quoting there are to be 15 major greenhouse gas emitting nations involved, but not much more detail on the related participation criteria.

I am very interested - and I think we all should be - on how a 'major emitter' is defined. 'Emissions per person' [i.e. per-capita] and/or possibly 'per unit of gross domestic product' (GDP) seem much more reasonable than country 'A' compared with country 'B' [despite the rhetoric of some politicians to that effect].

Comparing, for example, Australia with China is ridiculous in the nation-to-nation sense. But look at the two from a per-capita or per unit GDP perspective and the comparison paints a more relevant picture [referred to as the carbon-intensity]. I recommend a read of this report from from the EIA, and in particular Table 12 and Figures 85 and 86 along with the surrounding text. Note that some of the 'bad actors' frequently bashed by politicos [China, India and Brazil for example] not only have low per-capita emissions, but are also 'on or below the trend line' and projected to remain there or shift further below in the coming decades [i.e. they have low carbon-intensities]. This trend line is described as follows within the report:

In the figures, countries and regions that are plotted on the trend line produce roughly the average amount of carbon dioxide emissions per-capita relative to income per-capita. Countries and regions that appear above the trend line are more carbon-intensive than average, and those below the trend line are less carbon-intensive than average.

Who is above the trend line? Russia appears to be furthest away, then South Korea, 'Middle East', Australia/New Zealand [a gift from the US DOE to be combined with the Kiwis as they improve our average], followed by 'Other non-OECD in Europe and Eurasia' and finally Canada. We'll say the US is on the line - to be expected since they drew it.

So any way you slice the table and figures referenced above Australia is definitely one of the 15 major greenhouse gas emitters. In fact the only way to make our contribution appear irrelevant is to revert back to the simplistic [and to this blogger completely unjustified] nation-to-nation analysis.

As an international outlier on trends of this nature, one hopes there is even more incentive for some tangible action within Australia in the near future.

One word of warning about using carbon-intensity; I believe there is a risk that by focusing on individual intensities, one may lose the big picture - that, in absolute terms, global emissions must be stabilised and then subsequently reduced. Looking at carbon-intensities only helps identify which countries to focus on first.

Finally... note the data point furthest below the trend line [as well as very low with respect to per-capita emissions] - OECD Europe [with the highest installed and operational nuclear capacity of the group]. Is it any wonder?

NEI Comments on latest Greenpeace report.

Greenpeace has released a report on the economics of nuclear power.

David Bradish at NEI has reviewed and critiqued the report in a very thorough post that I highly recommend.

This appears to be, according to Mr. Bradish, more than what Greenpeace did prior to issuing their press release...