The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
ANSTO poll goes radioactive, quietly changes no to yes
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The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has been caught out trying to manipulate a web poll on its own web site. On Friday Crikey noted that ANSTO had run a poll on its web page for the question “Should nuclear power be a part of Australia’s future energy mix?” which that day had votes “against it” running way ahead of support.
Thursday and Friday saw a big spike in traffic to the site, perhaps because nuclear opponents were drawing attention to it and urging people to vote. “I am against it” went further ahead. But sometime over the weekend, someone at ANSTO changed the poll, removing “I’m against it” and replacing it with “It is one of the options”.
This prompted a flurry of emails to ANSTO this morning from enraged nuclear opponents angry that the outcome of the poll had been entirely reversed. Crikey asked ANSTO’s media manager Sharon Kelly what had happened. According to Kelly, ANSTO’s web manager Peter Hindmarsh amended the poll without authorisation over the weekend because of the “Against It” vote spike. It has now been altered again, with “It is one of the options” replaced with “No”, rather closer in meaning to the original option, with an explanation of why it was changed.
Prior to Crikey’s call, Hindmarsh had responded to emails of protest about the change by saying he would “manually add your vote to the existing ‘no’ count, when I summarise at the end of the month.” “This is a small but perfect example of the dishonesty that surrounds the ‘debate’ about nuclear power in Australia,” Greens spokesman on nuclear issues Senator Scott Ludlam said. “ANSTO ran a popularity poll on their website, which they lost comprehensively. Instead of learning something, they decided to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’. What a perfect symbol for the way the larger nuclear power debate is being run in Australia.” I’m relatively agnostic about nuclear power. Ross Garnaut summed the issue up best in the Climate Change review last year when he noted that, given we don’t have a nuclear industry and it’ll take a massive investment in infrastructure and skills to get one going, we should concentrate on areas like renewables where we already have a developing industry. But there’s also a disingenuousness about many nuclear advocates on the issue. It’s ironic that many of them hail from the Right, which normally harbours deep suspicions of big government and supports privatisation of public utilities, despite the fact that nuclear power would require massive public funding and the re-entry of government into power generation, even when holdouts like the NSW and Queensland Governments are looking to exit the industry. And dodgy web polls don’t exactly aid their cause. |
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40 Comments
What an epic PR fail. Thanks for nothing, ANSTO.
Though to then say ‘this symbolises the whole debate’ is a bit much.
Well done ANSTO. Way to encourage an open debate.
Interesting that so many were against it before the change anyway. Might suggest that a lot of opponents check the site regularly? At first guess though I would have said mostly supporters would visit the ANSTO site? Who knows.
I’m now slightly more certain we won’t have any nuclear power in Australia within 15 years.
Again the weight of logic is against nuclear power as an economically and enviromentally valid alternate energy ( not to mention the waste dilemma), so tricks are substituted for facts.
It’s still dishonest, what about people who voted for “it is one of the options” ? Ressetting the counters and extending the time would be fair. Inasmuch as a poll that uses cookies as its method of preventing repeat voting can mean anything.
What is this “weight of logic” ?
Frankly, ANSTO has placed itself in a no-win situation. Better to cut and run.
First, find and hang a scapegoat. Second, deny that it is corporate policy to massage the truth. Third, take down the offending pages from the site. Fourth, no correspondence will be entered into…
Let’s wait and watch the 4-step game as it evolves.
For mine, though, nuclear power is unlikely to proceed in Australia for one major reason, that being that it is currently illegal and no political party will move to change this in the foreseeable future.
The second reason is that no nuclear power station anywhere in the world operates entirely without governmental backing, in part because insurance for the industry is unavailable without governments accepting responsibility for the end-of-life cleanup and disposal issues, which are simply not able to be insured and are thus an impenetrable roadblock.
So… Garnaut was correct. Renewables or fry.
See Mr Murdoch and Fairfax Corp this is why people pay are willing to pay for Crikey and apparently not your publications.
A quick google search and not a single mention of this on any major Australian newspaper site.
On the contrary, the rising numbers of people who see nuclear as the rescuer of the climate are likely to be coming from the concerned left. It is certainly time for us to be asking ourselves why we rejected a nuclear industry for Australia.
Face it, that was 1971, when nearly every nation that developed a nuclear industry also developed bombs. Perhaps we put a stop to a nuclear arms race in Southeast Asia. But that was then, when there were dictators in Indonesia, Philippines and ruling Timor. Our right wing could persuade our fearful that the Reds were pushing over the dominos towards us. Similarly the Soviet army gave raison d’être to the nuclear hawks in NATO.
Times have changed. It is overdue time to catch up with the rest of the developed world and replace carbon-based fuels with the carbon-free solution of nuclear energy. It may well take our left-wing to overthrow objections that are a generation out of date.
Weigh of logic ….. let me see …..hmmmm
1) It’s not greenhouse nuetral at all, as huge amounts of energy are used to mine and refine.
2) It requires enormous amounts of capital to establish a nuclear power plant, capital better used elsewhere.
3)It requires a lot of time to build a nuclear power plant, time we don’t have.
4)It has the potential to lead to weapons proloferation.
5)The waste is the most toxic long lived pollution known to mankind and we don’t really know what to do with it.
6)It provides a target for terrorism.
Meski, with respect you’d be better lobbying for gains in efficencies whilst true alternatives have a chance to come online. The nuclear hobby horse is dead.
Stephen @ 4:54:
1), 2) and 3) also apply to industrial-scale solar and wind
4) no one who seriously wants nuclear weapons is going to be stopped by lack of access to a civilian nuclear power program
5) is a furphy; deep (1 km-plus) burial in stable continental crust (which Australia has in abundance) is but one solution; consuming it in Gen IV reactors would be better still
6) does that mean we shouldn’t build office blocks, railway stations or aeroplanes either?
No Mark, I think we need to build whatever we need to serve us into the future, whatever the “fallout from 911 and the london/madrid bombings, if a nuclearplant becomes a target then there goes the neigborhood for who knows how long?
As for points 1/2/3 I think your missing the keyidea. Nuclear powerstations differ by magnitudes in cost , construction time, complexity compared to wind,geothermal, solar.
Mark @ 5:25pm.
1, 2 and 3 do not apply to anywhere near the extent for solar thermal or wind. Solar PV, perhaps, but the economies of scale should eat away at that for a while.
OTOH, nuclear technologies are well known, costs (both whole of life carbon utilisation and monetary) are precisely calculated and the money is simply not justified.
besides which… what exactly is your response to Point 1 made by me @2:56pm? The minor issue is that nuclear is illegal and that no political party will change this till Hell freezes over. Forgotten that? Now, where is your business plan?
I repeat, renewables or fry. There is simply no other option on the table. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.
Illegal is just the current state of legislation, easily changed. Carbon utilisation? For the first plant, but thereafter, there’s nothing to stop you from using nuclear generated energy to mine/refine/transport and build more plants. Costs? Well, we’re tossing figures in the trillions to fix the climate change problem… Time, well, yes, which is why *now* is a good time to start.
Renewables. See breeder reactor, one that produces more fuel than it consumes. A nuclear renewable, if you like.
Meski, Surely you jest.
If changing this legislation is really “simple”, how about a Crikey poll? You know in your heart that nothing this visceral can be simple, when the major parties are falling over themselves in their efforts not to scare the horses. Think: lowest common denominator. Think: risk averse. Think: middle of the road.
Then forget trying to change the law until the sh_t is well and truly in the fan for all of the Barnaby Joyces to see.
I might even agree with your optimistic sentiment, however the fact remains that nuclear - any kind of nuclear - is too far off.
You are about 10 years ahead of your time, if ever.
Now, let’s concentrate on (1) linear array solar thermal and (2) wind, because these are the two most flexible, constructable, technologically solid options available. Flawed, yes - but at least available.
John Bennetts says that “no political party will change this till Hell freezes over”.
That’s just a matter of time. Eventually, our energised climate will begin to deliver disasters on a scale that by comparison Hell will seem to have frozen over. The most hopelessly ignorant of our politicians and their voters will be so impressed that their fears of nuclear will be forgotten.
It may happen earlier. The Renewable Energy Target legislation will certainly get consumers demanding “what energy are we going to use instead?” Without massive supplies of energy (or massive cheating), the MRET simply cannot be met.
Roger you make a good. I’m sure when the sh!t hits the fan there will be much panic and reckless decision making. Nuclear will have a good chance of getting a guernsey, even if if it never should have, in a too little too late world.
Roger,Stephen and I now agree… provided that the sh_t hits the fan and irrational behaviour becomes the norm.
That is: a nuclear apologist (Roger), a waverer (me) and an antagonist (Stephen). Lovely! However, sh_t waits for no man.
Sad, really.
Cripes, John B @ 2:56pm, what’s the point of any discussion on a politically-oriented site at all if the idea of changing laws is off the table?
And your assertions re points 1-3 are arguable to say the least.
How embarrassing for ANSTO. I hope they’re embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for them.
Mark,
I have checked your references. They are somewhat deficient when it comes to thermal storgae of thermal solar heat collected from NS arrays. Thus out of date and useless. I stand by my assertions re points 1-3 and suggest respectfully that you widen your view.
Also, give it a break - law changes re nuclear power generation are simply not feasible in Australia at present. Tough luck, but them’s the breaks.
I could could cite refs for thermal storage for solar thermal arrays, but commercial imperatives prevent me from doing so. I have stayed with publicly available information. Perhaps there is costed info out there, but not to my knowledge. It comes with a big capital cost, though. The current trend towards solar thermal installation as an input to an existing (coal fired) thermal power station appears to me to be an ideal starting point to sort out the main issues, before trying to construct a solar thermal only power station, with or without thermal mass storage.
Thanks for the references - these sites appear to be more serious than some others on these topics.
Just for fun, if fusion ever gets moving properly, would you consider it renewable?
In the short term at least, it will require mining lithium.
I’m embarrassed for them, and I’m pro-nuke. If wind power is so environmentally friendly, why do so many environmental groups oppose it? (NIMBY, it kills the (insert name of some endangered critter) )
Law changes not feasible? Then I’m sorry, there’s not a chance in h*ll we’ll go close to meeting the targets we are supposed to. Let’s look forward to Venuses ‘searing black calm’[1] for the future.
[1] thanks to Larry Niven for that description.
@Evan: In the long term, fusion is a worthy goal. But can it output more power than is input? It isn’t technically a renewable (see iron limit) but practically it is.
Strictly speaking, Evan, I’d say fusion is not renewable, as the tritium and or deuterium is consumed. But as Meski says, it’s hard to imagine this being a practical issue. Same with lithium - it’s not a rare element in Earth’s crust; I think you can extract reasonable amounts from sea salt as well. I must admit you’ve got me, though - how does fusion use Li?
By the way, I don’t consider dry geothermal to be renewable, either - it’s basically mining heat.
Not too sure on the physics in a fusion reactor. Just going on some propoganda I received from the ITER guys who are looking for funding. They explicitly mentioned fusing Lithium; I guess it’s just the next one up the chain, and easier to mine than tri/dueterium?
What’s dry geothermal? Presumably not using water….
In any case, I thought the heat source was renewed with radiogenic heat? Again, outside my expertise.
The Lithium heading in this entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
Provides some clues. Looks like they might use lithium to creat tritium.
Sorry, by ‘dry geothermal’ I meant what is more generally known as ‘hot dry rock’ geothermal, as opposed to the natural hydrothermal systems currently tapped in volcanically active places like New Zealand, California and Iceland.
Oh and yes, radiogenic heat generation continues, but far too low-intensity to replace the heat extracted any time soon. I haven’t crunched the numbers myself (probably should, one of these days), but I’m pretty sure you’re looking at millennia before the pre-extraction thermal state would be restored.
John B @10.54pm, What makes you think irrational behaviour is not already the current norm?
My predicition is based on the idea that he future will be shaped by the same dynamics as the present and the past.
Our use of the word “renewables” is horribly out of date. When I had long hair and smoked dope, we persuaded each other that the world was going to run out of coal, oil and uranium by 1980 or so, after which we would have to resort to what we called “renewables”, by which we meant a vegetable garden for home and market, firewood for the house, charcoal for our cars, and wind or solar for our lights and music. It took years before we discovered that only the very rich could afford enough land and gear to live in such holy poverty.
However, the modern world will never run out of coal or uranium (or coal to make oil). Ironically, it is quickly running out of soil to support farmers, firewood, biofuels, bio sequestration or bio anything. When you hear the word “offset”, you’ll know that money is changing hands on a false promise.
What we are running out of even more quickly is places to put our waste. Singapore is creating a new island out of its rubbish. India recycles all of its rubbish and bans plastic bags. Dwarfing all of these wastes is the wastes from burning hydrocarbons, amounting to 1.6 kg of CO2 above every single square metre of land, sea and ice. The atmosphere is full!
In some visions of production fusion tokamaks, the vacuum chamber is lined with lithium. Because fusion is rich in excess neutrons, the irradiation of the lithium produces tritium, which is drawn off at the vacuum pumps to be used fresh in the fuel pellets. Unlike aged sources of tritium, it is not contaminated by helium-3, which is a strong neutron absorber.
Following on from D-T fusion, where the colliding particles only have one proton to repel each other, subsequent designs plan Li-T or Li-D fusion. Ignition is more difficult due to the three protons in lithium, however the spallation of lithium is exothermic and provides energetic tritons and neutrons into the plasma.
“Renewable” energy sources as an expression of ideal should be dropped. Land allocation to biofuel cultivation has trashed large areas both of forest and of food farming, adding to the carbon budget and bringing the global famine closer, and it still amounts to combusting hydrocarbons for energy.
As for ANSTO, if it was vote-spammed, serve them right for conducting web polls. On an intellectual level with radio stations polling “should Brad apologise to Ange?” or similar.
Yeah James, I’m generally disinclined to bio-mass projects. They really are just dicking around on the edges of an actual solution. Huge amounts of land, energy input and transport components. Then aside from the carbon neutrality or otherwise, there are shonky sustainability outcomes in general. As an example, clearing rainforest to grow more sugar cane, or soil quality loss due to cropping methods.
Hang on everyone, I want to know what the CEO of ANSTO reckons. You know - Dr Strangelove.
(He must be mighty pleased with that Argentinian mob INVAP too. How dare those pesky greenies refer to our esteemed colleagues as ‘the dodgy brothers of reactor construction’ when we went to tender. It’s only been 2 years delay on medical isotope production due to a minor technical hitch. Why are people so unkind?)
The CEO of ANSTO is, as you would expect, deeply embarrassed. I’m not sure whether this represents steps 1, 2, 3 or all of them in John B @ 2:56’s damage control 4-step shuffle.
Ah yairs I think you refer to this on the Greens media list today, and whaddya know? It’s from the CEO and his name is not Dr Strangelove. I could have sworn ….
“ANSTO apologises for poll changes
ANSTO is interested in stimulating public debate and discussion about nuclear science and technology. In so doing, it recently began a web poll on whether nuclear power should be part of Australia’s future energy mix.
As a result of a dramatic change in poll voting patterns over the weekend, a staff member, without authority, modified the poll by changing the “I am against it” answer to “It is one of the options” at around 7.30am today. This was an unauthorised change. ANSTO acknowledges that both making a change and changing the answer “I am against it” to “It is one of the options” was a serious error of judgement by the staff member. This gave misleading and incorrect results to web visitors and poll participants.
Following an approach by an online news service, the staff member then changed the answer to “No” in a bid to correct the situation.
When ANSTO management became aware of the situation, it took action to restore the poll to the original answer and also included “No” to ensure all voters in the intervening period would be included in the statistics.
As the CEO of ANSTO, I wish to apologise unreservedly to stakeholders and participants for this unauthorised intervention in the poll results. The poll is on the front page of the ANSTO website at http://www.ansto.gov.au.
Dr Adi Paterson
Chief Executive Officer
Posted: 26 October 2009”
Oh my gosh, does this mean we can’t rely on the scientific impeccability of the poll?
James, Evan, Roger, Stephen and Mark,
Your comments have been serious and encouraging. You are all awake, alive and aware to the problems humankind faces.
Pity about ANSTO. They need to name and crucify the underling, so that top management can be publicly cleansed.
See you all on the next thread.
And Tom.
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