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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 03:57 pm
Kim Beazley: “There will be no nuclear power under a Beazley Labor government.”
- Before we think about mining uranium we should find out where Beazley’s uninterrupted supply of hot air is coming from.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 05 24 at 02:52 AM • permalink
- I didn’t think there was any power under a Beazley led Labor Party, nuclear or otherwise. I don’t think they’d rise in the polls, even if you detonated a nuclear bomb under them.Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 05 24 at 03:24 AM • permalink
- Given the utter lack of talent in the ALP, Howard could introduce a policy of sending paedophiles on day release to work in kindergartens, and still get re-elected.Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 05 24 at 03:44 AM • permalink
- Hey, anything that horrifies Bob Brown must have something going for it.Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 05 24 at 04:17 AM • permalink
- There will be no Beazley government under coal fired power.Posted by Hump B Bare on 2006 05 24 at 04:44 AM • permalink
- I would think that Beazley can’t really, truly believe all the stuff he’s been spouting since Latham fell off his perch but if that’s not the case then how can he bear to make such an embarrassingly foolish public spectacle of himself so often? Apart from which he’s supposed to be a Christian so lying should be out of the question. So he must really, truly believe what he’s saying. It makes me feel sad for him as a person. Obviously he’s lost the plot.
But if he’s the best the Labor party has then they should be out of power for a good while yet. That makes me feel happy.
There will be no nuclear power under a Beazley Labor government
OK, let me understand please. Is this Australia’s Al Gore? Does he also oppose use of coal? Farting cattle? Wood burning? Wind Power?
If one can radiate ones body from red, then to brown, then MAYBE to cancer from the SUN, every day and try to protect themselves with a cream…Why can’t one produce energy under infinitely improved technology to build facilities that will produce the necessity of power?
- Mental Floss,
Even if the plan goes ahead, it will be a political nightmare.
If you think the fiasco over Sydney’s second airport was bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. After all the environmental impacts studies have been done, the road blocks the greens will throw up, there will be reviews and additional environmental impacts studies , and then the fun will really start.
Those who thought nuclear power was a fabulous idea will be the first to scream bloody murder if the plant is built within a 1000 km of their suburb. Land developers will kick up a fuss about the project limiting their elbow room.
Even when all this is settled, you’re looking at the better part of a decade for the thing to be constructed and commissioned.
- By God, IT IS ADDUMO.
The BOY, GIRL, OR IT follows me everywhere. I wonder if IT can be trained to do tricks, like DOGS large CATS, BIRDS?
Well there is another kind of TRICK, where money is paid for sexual favors…Do YOU do that for people ADDUMO? Do YOU do IT often? Do YOU have a disease from doing IT?
Now the big question, ADDUMO did you find an unabridged dictionary, for use when YOU post?
- ADDUMO from the thread below #44
Of course El Cidious,
Millions of people come out to demonstrate against the war and it’s all a vast left wing conspiracy.
At last year’s Washington demonstrations, David Horowitz insistied that he heard the crowd not chanting “end the war”, but “Zalrqawi is our man”. Are you hearing those voices too?
“insistied” “Zalrqawi”
Damn and you were doing so well…Get a paper cut thumbing through the dictionary, did you ADDUMO?
My little pet…follows me everywhere…Bark ADDUMO, Bark…Sit…Sit….LOL.
- Oh, don’t we just love Labor’s “3 mines policy”
Nuclear waste is so evil and horrid we couldn’t possibly contemplate having it produced here in Australia (except in coal fired power stations but SHHHH about that…).
But it’s quite OK to mine uranium here and sell it to others to produce that horrid nuclear waste.
BUT only as long as we mine it from 3 mines only. Not 4 or 5, just 3 mines. No matter that one of those mines has the largest single reserve and resource of uranium in the world (Olympic Dam), as long as it is one of only 3 mines, it can produce as much as the stuff as it wants.
Of course with Australia’s coal reserves, nuclear power will be many years away, at least economically. (But is closer eonomically than solar, for instance). But that doesn’t mean we can’t all enjoy the sight of Bomber Beasley and the rest of the Labor Party squirming and twisting in semantic and logic death spirals trying to pander to the Greens at the same time as appearing to be sane.
It’s all great sport – and that’s the point but the mouth-frothers just don’t get the joke, which doubles the fun. ROFL!
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 24 at 09:53 AM • permalink
- Greens for Dead Miners!
See, you can always get to the left of Labor!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 24 at 10:01 AM • permalink
- What is it about you that attracts these obnoxious beasts, El Cid? Jeez, if it’s not Addumdum it’s carnivorous golf ducks.
Change the aftershave, man. It’s not working!Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 05 24 at 10:09 AM • permalink
- SwinishCapitalist
What is it about you that attracts these obnoxious beasts, El Cid? Jeez, if it’s not Addumdum it’s carnivorous golf ducks.
Change the aftershave, man. It’s not working!I have no idea…You are correct about the after shave…Bombay Sapphire, doesn’t cut it, and it stings like hell, but I am taking my Sand Wedge with me everywhere….lol.
Good news…played yesterday…NO duck attacks.
- Texas Bob
What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?
Ahhh yes, the consistency, is inconsistency to outright incoherence…Short answer, IT doesn’t have a clue…:).
Dug through the wife’s vehicle, yesterday…found 74 cents…so we jumped from $8.27 to $9.01 whole U.S. Bucks, (and change) for the Texas Bob Beer Fund…coming right along…:).
- #26 Stop Continental Drift! wrote:
Nuclear waste is so evil and horrid we couldn’t possibly contemplate having it produced here in Australia (except in coal fired power stations but SHHHH about that…).
How do coal-plants produce nuclear waste?
(I’m not disputing. It’s a serious question about something I know little about.)
- It means that there’s no point in rushing for nuclear power since it doesn’t personally bother A the Mo, which is, after all, the main reason for any RW course of action to be undertaken. It’s all about him, doncha see?Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 05 24 at 10:52 AM • permalink
- Bombay Sapphire?
I’m a Tanqueray man myself. Gives me that well-travelled air, y’know. Although I do get a few strange looks on the bus in the morning.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 05 24 at 10:58 AM • permalink
- “As an alternative, Beazley announced a programme to extract energy from hot air.”
In related news, Addammo denounced the Beazley proposal as ‘indentured servitude’ and declared he would refuse to serve, even if he was appointed a principal blowhard with full civil service benefits.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 24 at 11:04 AM • permalink
- You guys realy have to stay on the meds. Addamo in #23 was spot on, for once. There is no way Nukes will be built in Australia. Not a chance. Damn shame too. Australia is the world’s most suited place for the entire nuclear cycle. The largest reserves. The most urbanized country there is and perfect for waste disposal.
Just the worldwide waste disposal income would fund Australia’s various enviormental issues and generate none in return.
- ’Hey mates, could be worse, we could have a duck attack’.
Just the response I’ve been looking for!
Talk again soon Cid. Getting close to midnight here, well past my regular bedtime. And I need my beauty sleep. Adios.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 05 24 at 11:33 AM • permalink
- Seriously, Texas Bob, what do you guys need most over there? I mean, not that beer isn’t serious, but what else? When my brother did his tour in Iraq, he was always asking for books and handiwipes of all things (I can well imagine that access to shower facilities might, in certain circumstances, be limited, hence the handiwipes, I guess).
- Wow, thanks for the kind offer Paco. I’m based out of Camp Vacation, so I can’t complain at all about living conditions. Although this is my 3rd deployment to sunny Iraq, at least the living conditions improved each time. I travel around the country because of my job, and I see a lot of Joe’s sucking it down. I am thankful for what I’ve got. Books, however, are in short supply and alway appreciated. We stock a shelf in my office, and everytime someone sends a box, they are gone within the hour!
- paco, my care-box soldiers in Afghanistans were also mad for magazines. I sent Popular Mechanics, Discovery, American Science, Field & Stream (they looooved the swimsuit edition, which is the closest I could legally get to girlie mags – Afghanistan, you know), PC gaming magazines, football and baseball magazines, especially the fantasy game ones, and car magazines.
- Immasive
Thanks for bothering to read what I had to say.
As I said earlier, I think nuclear energy is fine and dandy, but getting there is going to be a long and painful process. Having worked at Australia’s research reactor for 4 years, I have some perspective on the matter – though I doubt anyone is interested.
The reactor (HIFAR) was built in the 60’s when the location was considered remote. Today, urban sprawl has led to homes being built right to the safety perimeter, and activist locals have been demanding it be moved for decades.
The risk HIFAR poses is a joke (even if there was an accident), but the pressure ANSTO is constantly under from safety groups, environmental groups, activist groups, was insane. Visitations from news crews became were common sight.
HIFAR is being replaced by a new research reactor. The plans for it replacing the existing reactor were resuscitated and shelved countless times, beginning in the 80’s. According to the ANSTO web site, the new one won’t reach completion till 2007.
The scrutiny, partisan stonewalling and buck passing for a power reactor would undoubtedly be on a far greater scale, and even the most optimistic of Howard supporters would agree that a change of government is possible along the way.
My feeling is that the public is pretty sanguine about the idea of nuclear power because it’s a distant reality. The Australian public were also in favour of Australia becoming a republic, until it went to referendum, and then the fear mongering went into top gear.
Once it becomes a certainty, get ready for the hysteria about Chernobyl’s and 3 Mile Islands in Australia. Before long, the politics surrounding the project will take on a life of its own.
- #33:
How do coal-plants produce nuclear waste?
Coal comes out of the ground, where there are also lots of other rocks. Almost all the rocks in the ground are radioactive at one level or another, and coal contains inclusions that have a number of radioisotopes in them, particularly thorium. (Thorium is a low-powered but cheap alternative to uranium, useful for power reactors but not for bombs. There’s more to that story, though.)
Bottom line: the ash from burning coal contains radioactive materials. There isn’t much in any given volume, but the total amount is at least an order of magnitude (ten times) greater than the original, optomistic specifications for the emissions of a nuclear power plant, and more like a thousand times what a currently licensable nuclear plant would be allowed to emit.
And because it’s diffuse, it’s allowed to spew all over the place. The total exposure to plant workers (let alone the general public) due to the “disaster” at Three Mile Island is roughly equivalent to what people a mile or so downwind get daily from a coal plant.
The Greenies aren’t against nuclear power. They’re either against power (meaning they want you to freeze in the dark and/or boil in the raging sun, trapped at home by having no transportation) or they’re too ignorant to pound sand. For the rank and file the latter is the high probability.
Regards,
Ric
- Addamo, At the further risk of being a lonely voice, your #45 was an accurate one.
I live part time in a part of Australia that refuses daylight savings time because:
1) Cows won’t know what time they need to get milked.
2) The extra hour of daylight will cause carpets and drapes to fade
3) Something about mes’s early morning erections and busses
What chance nuclear power?
- Nice to see some differing opinions not being instantly and summarily crushed under the jackbooted heel of Blair’s “minders” under the pernicious, watchful eye of that man with W twice in his name.
The Badgery’s Creek airport fiasco is a good example of trying to get a big but important project through, and it may take a more courageous politician than any we have to push through a nuke power agenda. It’s gotta end up in someone’s state or territory, and NIMBY will kick in hard. Maybe if Howard stays leader he might open the doors, but would a successor be a little more timid come next election?
Having said that, I think Beazley is once again on a loser, as usual opting for a non-policy. He’d be better off as a morals campaigner: “just say no!”.
It would seem that Oz is perfectly suited for an advanced nuclear industry.
- #33 ekb87:
How do coal-plants produce nuclear waste?Ric Locke gave the essential answer, but I’d put it a slightly different way.
Coal is a sedimentary rock; almost all sedimentary rocks have some proportion of heavy minerals in them, including the radioactive minerals of uranium and thorium. (These form in igneous rocks like granite and volcanics and get eroded down the stream to get deposited in sedimentary rocks.)
The % of radioactive minerals in coal is small, but when the coal is burnt in a power station the un-burnable component (1 – 7% of the coal) – known as ash – remains. Ash mostly consists of bits of rock and heavy minerals.
So, having burnt say 100 million of tonnes of coal, you get between 1 and 7 million tonnes of ‘ash’, which itself contains a relatively high % of radioactive minerals. (No requests for precise figures please 1) They are buried somewhere in my notes which are in a box under the house and 2) the figures are very variable dworld wide).
Ash is typically dumped in landfill, certainly without “nuclear safeguards”.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 24 at 06:36 PM • permalink
- That said, of course relevant State EPAs are aware of the situation (in spite of my facitious remarks); it is monitored and occurs within approved levels.
The point is that the emotional arguments about ‘how do we dispose of nuclear waste’ is only that – emotional. If they were so worried about ‘disposal of nuclear waste’ they would tackle the coal nuclear waste as well. Nuclear energy for most is one issue they think resonates with the public so they bore in on it and largely ignore equivalent problems.
BTW – to throw another catfish in the water.
I guess y’all know that the “nuclear accidents” at Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island weren’t caused by nuclear fission? I heard some dope on the radio yesterday, in the context of Howard’s recent promotion of a debate on nuclear energy – refer to the ‘nuclear explosion’ at Chernobyl – and the presenter didn’t pick that howler up, in fact she repeated it a few moments later.
The explosion at Chernobyl was caused by steam if I recall correctly. Not down-playing the resultant dispursal of radio active material but a bit of a difference between a ‘nuclear explosion’ and an explosion ata nuclear facility.
Heh. Just waiting for the mouth-frothers to pick THAT up.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 24 at 06:47 PM • permalink
- Stop Continental,
That’s the problem with anything nuclear. Bring up the subject and people go into a pavlovian reflex and immediately assume nuclear fallout, mushroom clouds and Godzilla like creatures. The critics are usually driven by fear and ignorance.
Yes Chernobyl was caused by a core meltdown which overheated steam, which in turn, blew the lid off the reactor. The disaster could have been significantly curtailed if the reactor has been surrounded by a containment building, which is a standard safety feature in Western Reactors.
Even the pathetic little Ozzy reactor is protected by a steel containment building (serious overkill), that is maintained below ambient pressure to provide a last line of defense against contamination escaping the building.
- #13 Proposed title for Latham book; “Protecting Your Children and Yourself from Reality”
ABC Fran Kelly file: Starting interview with General Electric person about their new green policy, FK said: ‘GE makes PLASTICS etc, so they are hardly green friendly’.
The learns her lines so well.
Is PLASTICS the ABC’s new Nuclear, after Nuclear becomes a nice word?
- Hi – long-time lurker, first-time poster.
I say we kill two birds with one stone. Move all of the dysfunctional Aboriginal ‘communities’ then use the site/s to bury the waste. Not only will it keep everything out of everyone’s back yard, it will also keep everyone out of the sacred sites. See? Win-Win!
- If you want to gift the troops… Operation Gratitude Over 140,000 packages sent to date. Check it out.Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 24 at 08:13 PM • permalink
- I think the whole situation is ironic. The Greens’ worst nightmare in nuclear power is going to be the saviour to stop global warming.
Personally, I think we should keep using our coal because it is shit cheap. We should also look at oilshale now the price of a barrel of oil has risen.
Nuclear doesn’t look that cost effective compared to these two alternatives but we should definitely mine more uranium, value add and receive waste from other countries.
Plenty of buck there.Posted by The (WHMECDM) President on 2006 05 24 at 08:48 PM • permalink
- Oh and Habib – my anti-animal rights campaign is up and running if you want to have a lookPosted by The (WHMECDM) President on 2006 05 24 at 08:52 PM • permalink
- #56 Addamo – Diverging from your stereotype is greatly unsettling and gives us nothing to work with.
If you continue on with these “commonsense” postings and fail to revert to your approved predictable opinions, I shall have no option but to tell Andrea.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 05 24 at 09:16 PM • permalink
- …it may take a more courageous politician than any we have to push through a nuke power agenda. It’s gotta end up in someone’s state or territory, and NIMBY will kick in hard.
Hey, why not build it on that big red rock you guys have out in the middle of nowhere? Looks like it’d make a good, solid base for a reactor. Coolant water might be a problem, though, I guess..
- Does anyone know if there’s an Australian equivalent to Operation Gratitude?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 05 24 at 11:05 PM • permalink
- Crass,crass… and deliberately so, I think.
There are oodles of sites in Australia where a repository could be dug for nuclear waste – either stored in containers or the worst stuff processed into something like synroc. You could do it under some towns and no-one would ever know by the effects on the surface.
Geologically stable and geologically dry – Christ you could bury the pyramids at some of the places (that’s meant to convey that the sites could accommodate a lot).
And of course a radioactive material in the eco system doesn’t do any harm. Uranium minerals are relatively quite soluable in water at surface conditions. Test the water downstream from the hundreds of uranium deposits that outcrop and you’ll see what I mean. The deposits in the Top End of Oz are weathering nicely in lucious tropical conditions and are breaking down into weathering minerals that get carted down the river systems and partially dissolved in the water table and in surface waters.
People have lived right on top of these outcropping radioactive deposits for thousands of years! Uranium minerals can be brightly coloured and are great for decorating one’s face and body.
So – learn to LOVE your ‘hot’ radioactive environment. Its quite natural.
..this message brought to you by the Anti
Global Warming CoolingClimate Change Collective.Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 24 at 11:14 PM • permalink
You could do it under some towns and no-one would ever know by the effects on the surface.
Well, I think Byron Bay disproves that little claim, thenk yew very much…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 05 24 at 11:46 PM • permalink
- I can just see the demonstrations and parades now: in the first row will be the evironmental activist, then the peace activists, then the labour activists and, bringing up the rear, the radioactivists.
Oh, and Addamo, why do you refer to me in post #23? I thought you were enamoured of our young Cid?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 05 25 at 01:07 AM • permalink
- Pretty soon Beazerly will be leanin’ over the podium smirking at us and pronouncing ‘nuclear’ as ‘nukklia’.
Bet on it –
Regards,
Alan Ramsey.Posted by Islam/cancer-Chuck Norris/answer on 2006 05 25 at 02:55 AM • permalink
- #69
I can just see the demonstrations and parades now: in the first row will be the evironmental activist, then the peace activists, then the labour activists and, bringing up the rear, the radioactivists
Very droll MM, but where pray tell would you place Lord Shorten of Beaconsfield – Hero of the masses and his sedan chair? He certainly wouldn’t want to be with the rabble labour activists, thank you. Surely the FIRST rank would be for “Workers’ Heros who are also Future Prime Ministers”Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 05 25 at 03:59 AM • permalink
- Personally, I think we should keep using our coal because it is shit cheap
True, and in Victoria at last estimate we had 700 years supply at current rates of consumption.
Problem is, greenies are dead against mining it. Victoria’s coal is low quality (70% water) and near the surface so it results in enormous open-cut mines, hated by the left. Make nice boating and fishing facilitis afterwards, however.
Look at the years of trouble Hazelwood had trying to extend its leases, and when it did got the go-ahead all hell broke loose:
The decision (to extend the mine) was immediately branded as “gutless” by environment groups. But Mr Bracks hailed the cap as an Australian first and an environmental win…
Yesterday’s decision means the $400 million Hazelwood expansion will go ahead. The Government gave Hazelwood an extra 43 million tonnes of coal as well as approving the mining of 436 million tonnes of coal within the company’s licence. This will require realigning the Strzelecki Highway, some of the Morwell River and moving 16 homes.
Mr Bracks, who yesterday ruled out nuclear power as an option for Victoria, said the decision “struck the right balance between our environmental priorities and the need for a secure and affordable energy supply”…
But Environment Victoria, the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Greenpeace were outraged by the move and vowed to fight it through the courts if necessary. Their main disappointment was that Hazelwood won extra coal…
Environment Victoria’s executive director, Marcus Godinho, said: “This is a gutless, tragic decision by Steve Bracks. Hazelwood was the Premier’s No. 1 environmental test. He has now failed.”
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 05 25 at 07:05 AM • permalink
- I should have added, that’s typical of the left: Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.Posted by walterplinge on 2006 05 25 at 07:07 AM • permalink
- 76 Skid
Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
I once made that very same suggestion to a theatah ahts quasi-activist proto-moonbat, back in the 1980s. She went white with horror, shut up for about two full seconds, then launched into a spontaneous full-screech tirade about how irresponsible I was for being willing “to risk contaminating the sun.” Oh yeah. These are the people we need to have in charge of our energy policy.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 05 26 at 12:33 PM • permalink
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Say, that’s catchy