Essay by Eric Worrall
Why is it OK for Australia to build and operate nuclear submarines, but not OK to use nuclear power to produce zero carbon electricity?
Labor divided over nuclear as Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek reject SA Premier Peter Malinauskas’ energy push
Labor is seemingly divided over nuclear energy with Anthony Albanese and a senior Cabinet minister slapping down the party’s South Australian Premier after he called for an “open mind” to the zero carbon alternative.
Tyrone Clarke Digital Reporter
December 5, 2022 – 1:10PMPrime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Cabinet colleague Tanya Plibersek have dismissed Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas after he hit out at the “ill-founded” opposition to nuclear energy.
The Premier said he hoped the prosed construction of eight nuclear-propelled submarines in South Australia would “bust a few myths” around the energy alternative.
…
“In respect of my position on nuclear power for civil consumption, or use, I’ve always thought that the ideological opposition that exists in some quarters to nuclear power is ill-founded,” Mr Malinauskas told The Advertiser.
“Nuclear power is a source of baseload energy with zero carbon emissions. So, for someone like myself, who is dedicated to a decarbonisation effort, I think we should be open-minded to those technologies and I think it would be foolhardy to have a different approach.”
But some of the Premier’s federal allies were quick to rubbish his comments as the Coalition continue to spearhead the debate.
…
Read more: https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/labor-divided-over-nuclear-as-anthony-albanese-and-tanya-plibersek-reject-sa-premier-peter-malinauskas-energy-push/news-story/92242b0766943a2be8a24a66dd9c4860
Australia’s faltering embrace of nuclear submarines is a long overdue strategic necessity.
My ex-forces friends describe Australia’s conventional diesel powered submarine fleet as “floating coffins”.
The problem is Australia’s ageing diesel submarine fleet could be neutralised in hours by a long range heavy missile bombardment of Australia’s submarine bases and fuel depots. Within a few weeks of the fuel depots being destroyed, our diesel submarine fleet would be helpless.
Nuclear submarines would be far more difficult to neutralise. Even if Australia’s resupply infrastructure was completely destroyed, the superior range and underwater capability of nuclear subs would allow Australian nuclear submarines to wreck an enemy convoy, then do a quick sprint underwater to Hawaii or San Diego to re-arm.
But Australia’s rush to embrace nuclear submarines is making opponents of civilian nuclear energy look like idiots. How can nuclear power be too dangerous and impractical for civilian use, when we are rushing to embrace nuclear power for our national defence?
Interesting times ahead, for Australia’s zero carbon push.
The answer to the headline question is: different governments in charge, and the SA state government extremely idealogical on the nuclear issue
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas is pushing for civilian nukes, its the federal administration which is pushing back.
And Tanya Plibersek is just Pl(a)i(n)berse(r)k
Greenpeace and the like started as anti-nuclear groups.
My supposition is they oppose nuclear as it will work, and the green NGOs have a Luddite tendency
“Tendency?!!”
Don’t expect the climatistas to be governed by either internal logic or common sense any time soon.
I wonder how the SA premier feels about hosting a nuclear waste disposal site?
Dragging up this furphy again. There was a lengthy explanation of exactly how much nuclear waste exists after the spent rods have been processed in The Australian recently, and the shorter lifetimes of the small amount of final waste that has to be stored. Also Australia’s nuclear test sites are now accessible to the public, with the Montebello Islands considered one of Western Australia’s prime fishing sites with regular fishing charters. Perhaps some more research is worthwhile?
Let’s see, a stable craton with a huge, largely uninhabited interior desert.
Sounds perfect to me.
In fact, if the Aussies are going to start a site for their own waste, they might as well make a value added proposal and take nuclear waste from other countries – for a tidy fee!
Yes. Now let’s see what the SA premier thinks.
Well I don’t know about you, but I always get my best scientific guidance from politicians!
/sarc off
Getting the Premier to agree is an essential first step (there are plenty more).
Net-Zero. Why stop with carbon… with human life?
As for nuclear waste, now that the cold war is past, they need to select a fuel cycle with less fissile waste.
It’s not waste, it’s future fuel.
Exactly just because we’ve no way of using something today, that may not be true tomorrow.
There have been numerous suggestions that Australia host a nuclear waste disposal site. It has a lot going for it: tectonic stability, good weather, little rainfall, large uninhabited areas.
Unfortunately the toxic Greens and their stooges in the Labor party kill it every single time.
Nick,
How do you ‘feel’ about it? Yourself?
Have you ever studied the radiation physics and engineering design and decay times of the isotopes involved from various forms of reactor design and management?
If not, does your ‘feel’ or the ‘feel’ of anyone else matter much?
South Australia has very high potential for storage of nuclear fuels that have had their runs. Like, as an extreme example, in a mined-out part of the huge, underground, desert-setting of Roxby Downs mine, already a major global uranium producer a long way from other towns and cities.
In reality, these properties are not essential. The engineering of safe havens is well known and not all that costly.
The problem is interference run by people high on emotion and low on wisdom.
Geoff S
“If not, does your ‘feel’ or the ‘feel’ of anyone else matter much?”
Yes, of course it does. It is people like the Premier who will determine whether a waste disposal site can be found.
As to isotopes, yes I have. I am all too aware that Pu-239, which is produced in ton quantities, has a half-life of 24,000 years. Can it be kept safe for that time? Remembering also that in that time, someone might have the bright idea of digging it up and making bombs. Then there is Tc-99, half-life 211,000 years.
At the shorter end, stuff like Sr-90 and Cs-137, half-life around 30 years. It’s probably safe if we actually can bury it properly, but we don’t seem to actually do that, so it still becomes a problem for our grandchildren.
Plutonium is a fuel; it’s shameful that it’s wasted in the current fuel cycles. There are designs for reactors that will burn the plutonium, and as a result produce minimal amounts of waste.
Hivemind,
The commercial Candu reactors from Canada have that capability.
Burns can be made high or low depending to some extent on how the fuel cycle is designed and managed. Geoff S
Nick,
You know as well as I do that long half lives like Pu239 has, mean few decays per unit time, so a low safety concern. I used to have a 1 cm cube on my desk to scare Greenies, but it was confiscated by a government bloke lacking humour.
It really means bugger all that tonnes of Pu239 have been created. The key consideration is, are folk at risk from getting too close to too much for too long? Accumulated dose math. The historical answer for peaceful use is an emphatic NO!
People are not being harmed. It is quite simple engineering to keep people from harm from peaceful use of Pu239 and we know it works because of close to no harm to date. Making diffuse alarmist comments about keeping people safe for a half life or multiple thereof falls into a category like children telling each other fictional scare stories by flashlight on a camp outing. Children do this out of ignorance and for fun. Adults are supposed to be a bit above that mentality. (Except kinks like the deliberately lying Jane Fonda from Hollywood).
C’mon Nick, a person with your seniority and achievement should be ashamed to recycle discredited cold war Greenie slogans. A better direction would be to support electrical generation options for the future, especially nuclear. Geoff S
Sorry, Geoff. I wrote my piece before reading down to your much better one.
Nick Stokes is so dim he doesn’t understand that the longer the half-life of an isotope, the less radiation is emits per unit time.
Well said, Geoff, but there seem to be a lot of people who have never considered to necessarily inverse relationship between half life and level of activity.
OK, so Pu239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. So what is its specific activity? If its half-life is so long. it can’t be very much. i.e. there aren’t many disintegrations per second. Same goes for Tc99, in spades. At Los Alamos they used to juggle with (sub-critical) lumps of Uranium!
U-235 has a half-life of 700,000,000 years.
Are you being ignorant on purpose. That’s natural fissile uranium
That seems to be what they were juggling. OK, mixed with U-238, which has even longer half-life.
You can hold a small sphere of pure plutonium in your hand too , without any problem as the radiation occurring ( it will feel warm) wont penetrate the skin layer. But dust inside your lungs is a completely different story.
I presume if the Labor SA premier wants civilian nuclear power, he has plans to deal with the waste.
Well, let’s hear them!
Why is that relevant to whether he is pushing for civilian nuclear power? Surely you are not arguing he is such a dunce he hasn’t considered nuclear waste?
He may have thought about it. But would he be prepared to accept disposal in SA. Even if he would, could he get the SA public to agree?
It isn’t even clear if he is proposing that the nukes be located in SA.
You are plumbing new depths of absurdity Nick. “I volunteer Queensland as the site of our new South Australian nuclear programme”? Is this seriously what you are suggesting as a possibility?
As for waste, there are so many options. SA could store the waste in one of its planned facilities, or it could ship it to France for reprocessing, or it could be reprocessed in South Australia. No doubt more details will be revealed if this progresses.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-29/napandee-radioactive-waste-storage-facility-nuclear-kimba/100657832
Eric,
Your link is about a low level medical waste disposal at Kimba. Of it, they say:
“”This is still the right decision at the right site,” Resources Minister Keith Pitt said.
“It’s certainly got all of the right geological requirements, we have majority support from the local community and we should never forget that this has taken 40 years and I understand some 16 ministers,” he said. “
But after all that:
I wouldn’t be so sure, are there any politicians anywhere in the world who’ve thought about windless weeks and Net Zero?
Nature didn’t bother about nuclear waste at Oklo
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/meet-oklo-the-earths-two-billion-year-old-only-known-natural-nuclear-reactor
“We want people to learn about natural radioactivity, to make them aware of the fact that radioactivity is all around us, that it’s natural and that at low levels it’s not dangerous. Radioactivity is in the floors and walls of our homes, in the food we eat, in the air we breathe, and even in our own body,” said Ferrière”
I wonder how the SA premier feels about hosting a nuclear waste disposal site?
I wonder too Nick. Since CO2 is going to destroy civilization and the planet itself, wouldn’t a well designed nuclear disposal site in a remote area covering a teeny tiny percentage of the land mass be preferable to destroying the entire world?
And don’t start babbling about solar and wind, you already admitted in another thread that it won’t work without backup that doesn’t exist and that batteries won’t work.
On the mater of storing nuclear waste, people keep forgetting Radium Hill, an old under ground nuclear material mine.
I’d put one in my backyard if I coudl
To save building another 30,000 kms of transmission lines that would be required to support renewables, the suggestion is to locate SMRs at the sites of existing power stations. And SMR nuclear, along with coal and gas, is half the cost of wind and solar, when correctly comparing costs over the longer lifetimes of nuclear, coal and gas.
And don’t forget “batteries not included” is never mentioned when the cost of wind or solar is proclaimed by the climate cultists.
While both are nuclear, the comparison here is apples to oranges. Nuclear submarine reactors use highly enriched uranium, run 20 years without refueling, then are simply replaced and the old reactors buried (US Navy buries them at Hanford). The AUS subs will be based on a US design, so US like easy disposal.
Civilian low enriched Gen 3 electricity generation needs almost annual partial refueling. The spent fuel rods can be recycled (France and Japan) leaving a small volume of highly radioactive waste residue to be glassified and buried, or a bunch of spent rods pooled and then eventually dry casked (US) for which there is as yet no permanent storage solution. A mess.
AUS has plenty of natgas and coal. Use it while we develop and prove out one or more Gen 4 nuc generation concepts (U molten salt, T molten salt, TWR (Gates), SMR) all of which ‘solve’ the Gen 3 spent fuel rod problem to a large degree. See essay ‘Going Nuclear’ in ebook Blowing Smoke for details and references.
The French nuclear submarine reactors use low enriched uranium ( around 20%) compared to the US/UK navy reactors which are maybe 90% enrichment.
yes the refuelling is more often but they have permanent hull hatch openings above the reactor compartment for this purpose, its seen as a routine arrangement.
The HEU subs that Australia is thinking about are prohibited to them as a non nuclear weapon country, as its specifically banned under the nuclear proliferation treaty which Australia is a signatory to receive that level of enriched uranium.
For construction and treaty reasons the LEU french subs are the perfect match for Australia ( they were going to buy a developed diesel only version), but its “french’ so isnt going to happen and they will break the Non proliferation treaty instead
I suspect the “resupply in San Diego or Hawaii” was probably the clincher, a hypothetical aggressor like China more than has the capability to level Australia’s naval facilities, so resupply had to be to somewhere nearby. France is a bit too far.
The french diesel version of the Barracuda submarine for Australia would have US weapons systems.
The refuelling of subs is only done at naval shipyards at Norfolk Va and Bremerton Wa but the latest versions of UK and US reactors are lifetime fuel rods so dont need refuelling
Obama made HEU an issue and then Europe closed down its HEU reactors but I don’t see it as an issue.
I want Europe to restart HEU.
Which power station reactors ones are HEU ?
Most power stations are ultra low , under 5%
The proposed small modular reactors are at the top end of LEU range at 20%
Some Obama syndrome there
Rud,
I am forever fascinated by the safety aspects and the ever-increasing compliance costs for land-based reactor safety.
On a submarinem regarding radiation effects on people, the design is limited by the weight of shielding and the boundaries of the distance away from the radiation source that people can live and work. A sub is only so big.
So, consider a sub placed on land, like at an old coal-fired plant site. Successively take apart and remove all the parts non-operational of the sub not needed for safety. With the small remains, add as much protection like concrete walls as is called for (probably none) and shift the workforce to a distance to minimise radiation exposure. (Also probably not needed).
Now, why must the land-based site be the subject of further extreme permissions and studies and engineering before it is deemed safe enough to be approved?
It just does not figure.
Sure, there are differences of scale and output in this comparison of which I am well aware, but it just does not match up. We have cost increases of orders of magnitude for full complaince in (say) the US, as calculated in several papers by colleague Peter Lang.
Geoff S
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169
Yup. The negative nuc thing does not compute.
Handford is a low level radioactive waste site. Spent fuel is being stored at different locations in the US until a permanent geological repository is built.
This may never happen because it is not really an engineering problem.
When a US navy nuclear power is decommissioned, radioactive components except the core is are put in the reactor compartment and buried at hanford. That is where my ships ended up.
I have also seen them go by on a barge.
France manages its rods but then uranium is sent to Russia to be separated again. France has no plant to complete the cycle.
I first became professionally involved in the front end of the peaceful nuclear fuel cycle in 1971 after we discovered the world class Ranger uranium deposits on clapped out pastoral land 250 km east of Darwin. Very rapidly, we came up to steam with the future supply/demand/cost equations which had to be done well because the future of our companies was at risk from errors. There was already global opposition to uranium mining and use, much coming from shadowy rich people centred on Germany, a country not noted for success in international diplomacy.
Among the amazing technical dreams that the opposition created was the transformation of this boring, flat, hot, dusty, flood-prone, sparsely-settled region into a world-leading, must-be-protected, national park then world heritage listed place, bigger in area than 10 European countries. The country did not change, only its image created for public consumption.
The uranium and nuclear power industries were also given the lip gloss treatment. A highly successful technology, with a very impressive safety record at low fundamental cost of electricity, was transformed in the public eye by wave after wave of silly, often wrong, propaganda into the worst of ogres, horrible fears for the future of our children and even an end to all life on earth. Hollywood helped with gusto and impossible, distorted science.
Both the transformation of crappy scrub land with little potential for use (apart from mining) into a fairyland image of exotic wonders, plus the image of a highly significant, safe, low cost electrical generation method, are fantastically synthetic and mostly wrong. They are potted examples how how to succeed with scientific lies and expensive, relentless propaganda.
On balance, I quietly think, based on hands-on experience, that I am maybe in favour more nuclear electricity for Australia. Geoff S
Wasnt the Ranger uranium mine in operation but surrounded by the National Park.
Readers should know that unlike most countrys National Parks , Australia has a very low bar for such a designation often being the sort of landscape you describe and is normal NT pastoral country with some craggy ranges, some rivers and waterfalls and a lot of feral buffaloes ( not a native species)
Duker,
The excised Ranger project area, which was mined, was 78 sq km surrounded by 19,800 sq km of what became that UN world heritage listing. David and Goliath.
Within that huge surrounding region, we lost the makingst of an emerging new mineral province with what was likely to be global importance, plus a number of leases and licences already granted by the same Federal and Northern Territory governments that allowed the park and world heritage to proceed, by opposing us in courts.
We were there years before the park people. It is not as if we tried to mine in a park. Reality is that the park was used to stop mining.
Does this answer your question?
Let’s call a spade a spade: the so-called “climate crisis” is about controlling and oppressing people, not the weather. Once you understand that, the rest of their shenanigans falls into place.
exactly…it is all a Power Play…the world has to wake up
At least that is a semi-rational thought, even if the motivation is idiotic.
My ex-forces friends describe Australia’s conventional diesel powered submarine fleet as “floating coffins”.
Want to be a little careful there, Eric. Defence is Fight Club. People who are still active and ‘know stuff’ don’t talk about Fight Club.
People who are ex who ‘know stuff’ also don’t talk about Fight Club.
The people who do talk about Fight Club tend to moan cause they are not happy.
Not saying Defence is all unicorns and rainbows, but you need to learn to read between the lines.
It is a bit like the old cliche that at time of war (insert thing here) will last 3 minutes once the war starts. Really? Three minutes from when? Missiles have flight time, are we counting that?
The problem is Australia’s ageing diesel submarine fleet could be neutralised in hours by a long range heavy missile bombardment of Australia’s submarine bases and fuel depots.
Context is everything.
There was a very bemusing book I read a few years back on how Operation Sealion would have been a cake walk for the Germans and went on to describe how the British pillboxes could easily be defeated by German PaK and how German field artillery significantly outranged many of the obsolete British guns being brought back into service.
These points were technically correct.
The problem in context? These amazing German weapons were in France and to be successfully used in an invasion of Britain would need to be shipped – somehow – to Britain.
So, long range missiles? First point is that these long range missiles need to first combine to form a heavy missile bombardment. Second, if New Zealand… sorry, our natural enemy is in a position to bring about a heavy missile bombardment then the destruction of our submarine bases is likely to be an item on a long list of things that are now rooted.
(also – “The Bomber Will Always Get Through”. Theory and practice. Not always the same thing.)
Within a few weeks of the fuel depots being destroyed, our diesel submarine fleet would be helpless.
As will just about everything else. Having nuclear subs is only a token response if the ability to do anything else in the country is based on foot transport.
Look – I am pro nuke. I spent a chunk of my early career mining the stuff. I would happily live down wind of a nuclear power station. I just think there is a degree of ‘pub talk’ when discussing the how/what/why of the decision to go nuke for the subs. It is not a case of ‘nuke > Diesel’, it is a case of what can a SSN do that an SS can’t.
What people forget is that the Collins are not going to be straight replaced. They are getting extended. It is intended that SS and SSN will be operated at the same time.
Why?
Dunno. (and if I did know I wouldn’t be discussing it here. Fight Club)
But someone up the food chain has clearly decided that there is a strategic long term requirement for Australia to operate long long ranged (ie – Nuke) submarines.
If/When they stop talking about them and actually sign some contracts of course…
On the topic of Nuclear domestic power? The S.A. Premier surprises me. His predecessors from his own party were the people who blew up coal stations and Ultra Green in their power views. So… surprised…
Still won’t vote for him.
By the time you’re allowed to talk about it, it’s either obsolete or you’ve forgotten what you were going to say.
There is no need to invoke fight club. It is known that there are three things that land or sea ops are concerned about. Fuel, food(supplies), and munitions. Food being the last concern as people can theoretically go for a week or more without it. There other two if gone makes you useless.
Nuclear subs usually run with 60 days of food so munitions become their concern.
To expect the green blog to have anything close to consistency is insanity.
What? He’s writing literature or poetry?
Politicians generally have little to no military experience, nor do their offspring, waging war from the safety of distance from the front lines whilst speaking knowledgably on military matters.
During my 20 years in the Oz navy we often had ships that were ‘fitted for but not with’ various weapons and equipment. I doubt that anything has changed.
I’ve heard similar stories, like why Australia buys American when it comes to bomber aircraft. But I’m sure any potential aggressors have also heard such stories. A massive surprise attack along with a determined blockade of the Pacific and Indian Oceans could throw a spanner into that plan.
If decarbonising energy supplies was the actual objective as stated by the Climate Alarmist movement, then nuclear would be the obvious go to solution.
The fact nuclear is continuously blocked and banned by the Alarmists only goes to prove their ambitions have nothing to do with advancing ‘clean’ energy. Their actual goal outlined many times by the senior advocates of the insane cult is the destruction of affordable energy availability.
The blocking of nuclear power represents and highlights exactly what Climate Alarmism is all about. It is nothing more than a movement to deenergising society. The resultant deindustrialisation will lead to the collapse of civilised society. The activists pushing this insane project think they will be the ones remaking society in a form of their choosing. The reality is the destroyers of civilisation will be swept away, by the tsunami of change they have propagated.
Nuclear is not zero carbon.
How do you make and install that much concrete or steel in the first place?
How do you run the nuclear fuel enrichment and refuelling cycle, most of which is being strong armed yet again by Russia?
What happens when the place is abandoned years after? (Berkeley and Trawsfynydd being perfect examples).
In France Tesla’s are not zero emission either, they are mostly nuclear powered or in Germany coal powered, in the same way as Watt’s steam engines.
Not sure if you are asking me to answer your basic questions? I would happily do that, but those specifics are several levels of insignificance below the point I am trying to make.
The 21st century Luddites have organised the institutions into advocates for their ambitions. They, are orders of magnitude more dangerous than any atmospheric trace gas emitted by burning fossil fuels, or splitting atoms in a nuclear power generator could ever be.
There’s no “zero carbon” anything related to life on earth. Life as we know it is carbon-based. The climatistas would have you believe carbon is some kind of poison destroying everything, when the biological truth is closer to the other way around.
People aren’t zero carbon. The mules and oxen that farmers used in the good old pre-industrial days aren’t zero carbon. They all have to eat and breathe. Our bodily tissues are made of carbon compounds.
If militant vegans have their way, and move us backwards on the food chain to beans and rice, because pigs, chickens and cattle are so awful. we still wouldn’t be zero carbon. All those foods are carbon-based life forms, also.
Even if guilt-stricken climatistas insisted on ritual suicide for the entire human race, and gave the planet back to the birds and bees, there would still be hundreds of millions of ruminants roaming the globe, merrily farting methane into the atmosphere, just as they did before Homo sapiens arrived. There would still be seasonal fires, droughts, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and glacial cycles, just as there have been all along.
Solar panels and windmills aren’t “zero carbon,” either. They require massive pedestals of concrete and steel that require coal, and other minerals to make. They don’t use carbon fuel — as nuclear plants don’t use carbon fuel. The biggest differences between nukes and “renewables” is that solar and wind rely on less energy dense fuels, don’t generate base load power, and don’t plug in easily to existing power grids. To convert the entire grid to renewables would require vast rejiggering of transmission lines, transformers and battery backup, none of it “zero carbon.” Some of those alleged improvements haven’t been invented yet.
Targeting “carbon” as the big, fat, hairy vision of evil, the monster that humans MUST GIVE UP lest the planet perish, is a moral panic akin to the self-destructive mass manias described in the 1841 book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”
There’s not much science in this moral panic. It’s mostly emotion. Moreover, most of Asia and Africa, with 3/4ths of the world’s people, remain unmoved by Western hypochondria.
Until Westerners come to their senses, you can expect negligible progress.
Wind is not zero carbon. Solar is not zero carbon. Nothing is zero carbon.
Nor does it need to be, since CO2 does NOT drive the Earth’s temperature.
Looks like the Sky News report has now been repudiated
“South Australia’s premier has comprehensively rejected the future use of nuclear power generators in Australia, saying the “completely uneconomic” technology had already been thoroughly investigated and dismissed.“
Yes, he recanted lying through his teeth about what he said.
The Sky report seems exaggerated here. They seem to have built the whole thing on his saying that we should keep an open mind (as we should) and not be ideological. Very little is actually quoted. From that we go via Eric etc to saying that he’s pushing for nuclear power (which he never was)
the french subs were originally nuke ones but our no nuke policy ended up seeing them redesigned for diesel, and then scrapped at OUR cost.
the takeup of usa nuke subs got zero public notice before they announced it as a done deal, its not that popular a deal
They were never built , it was only a development contract that was cancelled. No actual construction occurred.
They plan is to choose between UK or US sub designs, a choice hasnt been made yet as its complicated and honestly beyond Australias ability currently
There seemed to be various delays and cost increases. That may have been scope creep, or the contractors may have been trying it on.
Ahh, found it – https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/06/02/australia-france-submarines-contract/