47.5% coal
11.9% gas
26.3% nuclear
2.2% biomass
1.2% waste
4.3% hydro
4.8% wind
0.35% solar

While the greens and Labor have been shouting “solar, not nuclear” for a third of a century, world electricity generation from coal and gas has soared dramatically by 6418 billion kWh/y between 1980 and 2006.
Nuclear added 1821 billion kWh, ALL renewables added a mere 381.

Germany is lauded as a model for “green” electricity.
In 2006, 47.5% of its electricity came from coal, 11.9 from gas, 26.3 from nuclear, 2.2 from biomass, 1.2 from waste, 4.3 from hydro, 4.8 from wind and 0.35% from solar. It subsidises coal, wind and solar, but not nuclear. Nuclear subsidises the others.

Then, knowing all of this is the reality, we have to listen to or read the apologists for this disgusting and immoral behaviour rave on with BS. People like me are easy to flick off, particularly being female; they just accuse me of being ‘hysterical’ (Christopher Dunn) and, subject closed? They’ve done it again! Clever isn’t it? No, not when you see through the games and BS? I’m old enough, not to be ‘done over’ any more! I know what the reality is, and they know, that people like me know. Why do they spend the energy and act so defensively? Scared! We just might have more impact on public opinion than they have - regardless of the monies spent putting BS ads to air!

Residential use of water is about 4%. The rest is mininig and other industries. In order to secure big savings of our precious water resources we have restrictions imposed on residents.
By the way, BHP has not even started building any desalination plant, yet. Voila!
regards
Rena

Free to whom Rena? The workers? We’re not told of the dangers to workers. I don’t even know if they’re told! Free? What about the cost to indigenous people? What about the cost to the people of SA, when Olympic Dam was getting their water for nothing, while the people of Adelaide were almost on their last rations? Free to whom? BHP is building a desalination plant just to provide sufficient water when they extend Olympic Dam by a huge amount. What energy is going to be used for this? Coal fired power station? How much will BHP pay for that? Less than a resident for domestic use?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And when the big mining companies engage in ripping out the resources (usually on top or below aboriginal land?) they get all the freebies, and the people pay - in one way or another! Not FREE Rena!

Trawsfynydd will cost the taxpayer nearly £1.5bn (AU$ 2.7 bn) to safely shut down. and will not be completed until 2098. Across the UK, decommissioning costs for the 19 sites that no longer produce electricity are put at £73b ($133b) up 18% since an estimate give in 2005.

Many of Japan’s nuclear power plants are still runnng past their use by date simply because of these kind of costs.

As further evidence that nukers life in a fantasyland: without any citation or reference more credible than “according to reports from overseas” and merely in passing the usually harmless but always mischievous Des Moore of the Institute for Private Enterprise recently wrote in the Australian Financial Review that off the shelf “mini nuclear power plans” would soon be available . I want one now!

“One must take the fact into account that nuclear power plants are available 90% of the time while for wind mills it is about 30%. For good measure, one might as well also include in the comparison the life duration of the energy sources: 60 years for nuclear and 20 years for wind machines. Furthermore, one must acknowledge the fact that wind farms take longer to build than individual wind machines: a 1000 MW nuclear power plant is equivalent to 500 wind machines of 2MW. Inflation and cost escalation will therefore also impact the bottom line of a wind farm project, albeit at a constant rate. Finally, the construction cost escalation factor applied to nuclear applies even more to wind since the latter’s consumption of steel and concrete are roughly 11 and 4.5 times as high as for the former’s.

When all the above factors are integrated in the analysis, one comes to the conclusion that wind might well end up again being more expensive than nuclear.”

(And I’ll add that the production life of the newer pebble bed reactors is approximately double that quoted above)

As the Lazard chart says: “This assessment,however, does not take into account issues such as dispatch characteristics, capacity factors, fuel and other costs needed to compare generation technologies”

Some caveat.

A “modest” increase in the price of carbon would make nuclear power competitive, according to the
Uranium mining, processing and nuclear energy review report of 2007. .

On the other hand, if our power economy slides towards gas (decorated with wind, etc), we will eventually find these costs in their turn escalating, while overseas nuclear gets cheaper and cheaper. Then, as the climate worsens we will find we have gas generating plant which is only 10 or 20 years old, which we must then dismantle and replace - with even less construction time to escape the vengeance ahead.

Yes, Bernard has been grinding the axe for gas in both articles. That’s methane gas by the way, of which 1 or 2% leakage exceeds any saving in CO2.

How much compensation did the people of Chernobyl receive?
I fear, that when politicians assert that we ‘need to have a rational debate’ they really mean, ‘you lot need to realize that we’re right and you’re just plain stupid’!

Then they resort to abuse and ridicule, like one Christopher ‘Robin’ on the other site!

(the scientific and peer-reviewed term for this powergen combination is unprintable, even on Crikey)

(And while solar domestic is inoffensive, domestic wind turbines on a house block are like a revolving dog. Beef up your life insurance.)

Disappointing.

For my recent analyses of nuclear power costs, please read these two posts:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/23/recent-nuclear-power-cost-estimates-separating-fact-from-myth/

and

http://wp.me/piCIJ-hQ

The reality is that nuclear power will be the fastest, cheapest and only feasible way to replace fossil fuels. Renewables will have a role, but cannot do it alone (or even do it mostly).

My broader point is this — if wind and solar really are so cheap and low risk right now, why aren’t utilities dashing to invest in them without subsidies, feed-in tariffs etc?