Risk ahead: overheating planet or nuclear disaster?

April 2007
From The Age (Aust)



This post links to an interesting debate about Nuclear Energy in Australia. Climate Action Brisbane does not support Nuclear Energy for Australia. It may be relevant in other places in the world where they lack the alternatives, though in Australia we have many alternatives. Specifically, why we don't agree with Nuclear Energy for Australia for these reasons:

• we have enormous amounts of sunshine and wind (all across the country - this distribution helps with baseload requirements),
  
• we don't have much spare water which is required for Nuclear Energy
  
• it would take a long time to have a nuclear reactor up and running in Australia - time we don't have with the Climate Crisis hanging over our heads
  
• the cost to build a reactor is enourmous
  
• the cost to decomission a reactor is many times bigger though we don't fully know because this has not been done anywhere in the world
  
• Uranium mining takes enormous amounts of energy and disturbs the carbon locked up in the ground, releasing it into the atmosphere
  
• Transporting the ore takes considerable energy
  
• Processing Uranium takes enormous amounts of energy, and as the amount of high-grade Uranium reduces, the cost to process less-pure forms requires more and more energy
  
• Nuclear proliferation is a real posssibility when Nuclear Energy and reactors are considered the norm along with all the radioactive wastes they produce
  
• A de-centralised model of energy generation is much more efficient and will produce far more jobs over a wide area rather than concentrated in one area. By spreading out our energy production we lessen the damage caused by a malfunction at any big centralised energy production centers (think terrorists here). Decentralised energy means that people are more in touch with where their energy comes from and will assist them to understand conservation and being more lean. (See "There is no shortage of energy" in ZMag: Global Warming: Limits of Solar and Wind Power)
  
• the world is moving away from Nuclear Energy - Germany is switching away from nuclear to solar for example
  
• did I mention that Australia has abundant solar and wind energy available to be tapped.
  
• because Nuclear and Clean Coal is what big business wants and is just wrong. These people don't get it. We have to change how we view the world. But no this statement does not mean we will be travelling around by horse and cart (for starters this is a very inefficient form of transport). It means that we will be leading leaner lives. It means that we will grow and eat more food locally. It means that we will have a greater use of decentralised water gathering (rainwater tanks, gray water systems) and more decentralised energy producing centers. It means that we must learn to accept other people. It means that there will be less need for agression, war and the military in general.
  

Read the article.

Read More......

Tech leaders call for 'green' policies

March 14, 2007
From Computerworld

group of technology executives said Wednesday that the world is facing an energy crisis, and they called on U.S. policymakers to embrace a "green tech" agenda focused on encouraging energy conservation and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources.

Members of TechNet, a network of technology-company CEOs, asked the U.S. government to double its funding for basic energy research, designate a federal agency that would oversee energy research and technologies, and increase tax incentives for new energy technologies. Six high-tech executives were in Washington to push the green tech policy agenda, saying a government partnership is needed to make the U.S. the world leader in new green technologies.

But the group said it also sees profit in new energy technologies. "It's a crisis that's going to bring about huge opportunities," said K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, a fuel-cell start-up. "New opportunities will make energy abundant, sustainable and available for all mankind."

While some executives compared the predicted energy crisis to the U.S. sending astronauts to the moon, John Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, said that comparison understates the problem. "We need much more than ... an Apollo Project," he said. "This is no single silver bullet. This is an entire re-industrialization of the planet."
...

Read the full article.

Read More......

PM denies nuclear inquiry linked to big business

From ABC News (Aust)

This article discusses cronyism surrounding managing the climate change problem.

Our Prime Minister, John Howard, was a climate change denier until just before the Walk Against Warming last year (2006). Our group organised the Brisbane (Australia) event for this. It was held on November 4th, a very rainy day. Howard called the news about climate change "sensationalism" or similar. The pressure was too great, especially after the walk was held and he had to change his view to admit that it is true. The difference is that he may understand it to be true, but he doesn't believe it. He is not sincere to the changes that will come about due to it and the changes that need to be made to manage it. A very conservative man.

The so called world leaders started banging heads trying to tackle this problem and they amazingly decided that nuclear energy is the way to go. Howard is fully behind it. The article this links to talks about how Howard launched an inquiry into a nuclear powered australia and it just so happens that a mate of his has put together a plan on building a nuclear energy infrastructure in Australia. How convenient.

I agree that in many places in the world there are no valid alternatives, but in Australia we have oodles of sunshine, excessive amounts of wind, a giant coastline with lots of waves, geothermal power from hot rocks and so on. Nuclear does produce energy greenhouse gas (GHG) emission free, however the process also includes these nasties:

• Mining of uranium takes enormous amounts of energy (producing GHG from fossil fuels to drive vehicles and coal) and always results in the poisoning of the local creeks, rivers and watertable;
  
• Uranium processing also takes a lot of energy (GHGs mostly from coal that provides 80% of Australia's energy needs);
  
• Transportation of the ore takes large amounts of energy (GHGs through fossil fueled engines)
  
• In the 50 years that the world has had nuclear energy, NO SAFE METHOD OF DISPOSAL has been found, and the danger from the radiation lasts hundreds of thousands of years
  
• The world is so fearful of terrorists. Surely a dirty bomb that uses nuclear waste is one of the scariest terror mechanism that terrorists could use
  

People need to understand ALL the facts before deciding what they want. I think if ALL the information is given to enough people, then nuclear power will never become a reality in Australia.

Read the article.

Read More......

Ministers ordered to take the bus

I would like to see these changes happen in Brisbane, all of Australia and all of the world of course. What a better way to improve public transport to the levels it needs to be than to have the people who pay for it and make the decisions about it, catch it! Go you Scots!

MURDO MACLEOD
Sunday 21st January 2007
From Scotsman (Scotland)

GET the bus, minister. Senior politicians and top civil servants will be forced out of their luxury limousines and onto public transport under a Scottish Labour manifesto pledge.

In a bid to appear more environmentally friendly, the party wants to crack down on the use of chauffeured vehicles and taxis by ministers and officials for trips, some of which could be walked in minutes.

It emerged last year that Scottish ministers had been driven the equivalent of 17 times around the world in the previous 12 months, despite urging voters to rely more on public transport.

Their trips generated an estimated 127 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Transport Minister Tavish Scott has used taxpayer-funded cars to make 250-mile round trips to catch flights home to his Shetland constituency for the weekend.

As well as the environmental cost, the Executive spends £575,000 a year on fuel and salaries related to its fleet of 22 cars and has spent almost £1m on new vehicles since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. It also spends an estimated £650,000 a year on taxis.

Ministers regularly use the cars to travel between the Scottish Parliament and the Executive's offices at St Andrew's House, a journey that only takes about eight minutes on foot.

But that is about to change, according to the latest draft of the Scottish Labour policy forum document which will form the basis of the manifesto for the Holyrood elections.

...

Read the article.

Read More......

Businesses dump 60% of all waste

Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

TWO-THIRDS OF the waste produced by Scottish businesses is still being dumped in landfill sites, swamping householders' efforts to recycle more of their rubbish.

Although ministers have invested heavily in schemes to increase domestic recycling, they have been accused of failing to tackle the mountains of waste generated by factories, shops, hotels and restaurants.

A survey for the government's green watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), reveals that nine million tonnes of rubbish a year is produced by commercial and industrial premises. Only 2.35 million tonnes of this is recycled, with six million tonnes ending up as landfill. As this rots it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.
continued...

The amount of business waste dwarfs that of ordinary households. In the year to March 2006, local councils collected 3.4 million tonnes of municipal waste, 2.5 million tonnes of which was landfilled and 0.83 million tonnes recycled.

Sepa waste manager John Ferguson said more should be done to tackle the environmental effects of business waste.

He said: "It is of concern that we remain so dependent on landfill in Scotland for the management of our commercial and industrial wastes.

"Given the impact on climate change of methane from the breakdown of biodegradable waste in landfill, we will be focusing more attention on alternatives to landfill disposal for wastes from commercial and industrial sources."

He suggested a framework for business waste being developed with the Scottish Executive would begin to address the problem. Some waste could be used to generate energy in biomass plants, he said, and increased recycling would improve business competitiveness.

Read the article.

Read More......