Stupid Uranium
Uranium is strange stuff. It sits in the grounds for eons causing presumably no harm at all, and then it's dug up, refined and used to safely* produce practically pollution-free electricity. The only major drawback is you're left with nasty nuclear waste. Now why can't you simply dilute the nuclear waste and put it straight back where it came from? No worries, eh?
OK, admittedly you have to consider geological stability, water catchment areas, environmental issues and general human activity when choosing a suitable storage site. But Australia has no shortage of land and it's incredibly geologically stable. The Great Artesian Basin is vast but it doesn't stretch everywhere across Australia (23% of the continent in fact). Surely there are dozens of places you could store nuclear waste with no problems.
Although Australia has no nuclear power stations, a couple of decades ago Australian scientists studied naturally-occuring ores that trap radioactive materials and used them as the basis for developing a new uranium-containment ceramic called Synroc (synthetic rock). Synroc, according to the lads at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, is far superior in various aspects to the previous methods of nuclear disposal.
Additionally, a number of naturally-occuring nuclear reactors existed millions of years ago in Africa. These natural reactors can no longer occur today due to the fact that uranium has decayed over the ages to a non-usuable concentration. What is interesting is the radioactive by-products from these natural nuclear reactions remain geologically trapped, which may give scientists insight into desiging new means of waste storage.
I doubt that Australia will adopt nuclear-power in the near future with its vast amounts of coal (and blatant scare-mongering from the far-left). However, with countries such as France (where nuclear-power accounts for 79% of its electricty generation) producing large amounts of nuclear waste, some form of safe and practical disposal is obviously needed. Former prime-minister (and beer-drinking champion) Bob Hawke recently suggested that Australia could stand to make a lot of money if it handled the world's nuclear waste. Personally, I reckon that's a foolish idea. Why store it in our beloved sun-burnt country when we can store it in New Zealand?
True-blue Aussie: "That's right, mate. We don't bloody care if you're 'nuclear-free' - or a 'country' for that matter. Consider this payback for all that welfare you mob been claiming over the years."
*The number of deaths and injuries relating to coal-power (mining included) are signifcantly higher than that of nuclear-power. Yet no word on how many people or birds have died from wind-power related accidents.
Update: Sciam Blog discusses nuclear power.
OK, admittedly you have to consider geological stability, water catchment areas, environmental issues and general human activity when choosing a suitable storage site. But Australia has no shortage of land and it's incredibly geologically stable. The Great Artesian Basin is vast but it doesn't stretch everywhere across Australia (23% of the continent in fact). Surely there are dozens of places you could store nuclear waste with no problems.
Although Australia has no nuclear power stations, a couple of decades ago Australian scientists studied naturally-occuring ores that trap radioactive materials and used them as the basis for developing a new uranium-containment ceramic called Synroc (synthetic rock). Synroc, according to the lads at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, is far superior in various aspects to the previous methods of nuclear disposal.
Additionally, a number of naturally-occuring nuclear reactors existed millions of years ago in Africa. These natural reactors can no longer occur today due to the fact that uranium has decayed over the ages to a non-usuable concentration. What is interesting is the radioactive by-products from these natural nuclear reactions remain geologically trapped, which may give scientists insight into desiging new means of waste storage.
I doubt that Australia will adopt nuclear-power in the near future with its vast amounts of coal (and blatant scare-mongering from the far-left). However, with countries such as France (where nuclear-power accounts for 79% of its electricty generation) producing large amounts of nuclear waste, some form of safe and practical disposal is obviously needed. Former prime-minister (and beer-drinking champion) Bob Hawke recently suggested that Australia could stand to make a lot of money if it handled the world's nuclear waste. Personally, I reckon that's a foolish idea. Why store it in our beloved sun-burnt country when we can store it in New Zealand?
True-blue Aussie: "That's right, mate. We don't bloody care if you're 'nuclear-free' - or a 'country' for that matter. Consider this payback for all that welfare you mob been claiming over the years."
*The number of deaths and injuries relating to coal-power (mining included) are signifcantly higher than that of nuclear-power. Yet no word on how many people or birds have died from wind-power related accidents.
Update: Sciam Blog discusses nuclear power.
posted by Engels at 10:47 am
7 Comments:
It definitely was in my blog. It was an "issue" for weeks.
The irony/hypocrisy is that the pollie who said nay, had previously approved a mine in WA that threatens the lives a couple of rare birds.
Hmmm, I could have used the Latin phrase "rara avis" in that entry. This is what happens when you date a journo student like I did, you pick up obscure words...
and STI's
Oh, do behave Whitz.
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