Calaber
Nil Bastardo Carborundum
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2007
- Messages
- 4,334
- Reaction score
- 1,357
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Lower Hunter Region NSW
- Members Ride
- CG Captiva 5 Series 2
I wish the Greens here allowed us to use Hydro. Alas. They only support Wind and Solar.
Yep. Wind, because the Greens are full of it, and solar because they all think it shines out of their alimentary canals. With some of them, methane might be a more appropriate renewable........
I'm with Grennan on this one. Our political phobia about going nuclear is preventing us from developing advanced power generation and locking us into coal when it is obvious that coal fired power generation is using obsolete technology. This vast continent of ours is kidding itself it if believes it can meet its future base load requirements from solely renewable fuels, in the next 50 years or so, at least. Eventually, technology might catch up with demand and provide a truly large capacity, environmentally friendly power source but during those 50 plus years, we need a substantive substitute for coal. I don't think sun and wind alone can do it.
We live on the most stable portion of the earth's crust. Our "earthquakes" barely tickle the Richter scale. Tectonic plate movements barely affect us because we sit on one complete plate. Our most recent volcanic activity is measured in millions of years. Few countries can boast the geographic stability of this continent. Politically, we are small beer on the disruption scale, as our society and governance is basically stable - no chance of political/military juntas or overthrows, no civil wars. In other words, given the advanced state of technology of modern nuclear power plants, what exactly is it that stops us from going in that direction? Why are the opponents of nuclear power so stridently opposed to it, given its environmental advantages? Hell, we don't even have to import the fuel - it's here in abundance, like just about every other essential natural element, so controls on its extraction and processing can be closely controlled too.
We even have state governments that are prepared to accept nuclear waste from other countries to be stored at remote dump sites, because of the financial benefits to those States for accepting the stuff.
So, why don't we do it?