Nuclear power is important for other countries, but not for energy rich Australia, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says.

Encouraging the development of geothermal energy, however, was exceptionally important, he said.

The federal opposition has reignited the nuclear energy debate, with frontbencher Ian McFarlane saying Australia must have nuclear power if it is to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

"The position of the government is very clear, we will not support nuclear power in Australia because we don't need to," Mr Ferguson told ABC Radio.

"As a person who actually encouraged the development of our uranium mining industry, I understand the importance of nuclear power beyond Australia.

"But unlike Australia, a lot of those countries are not energy rich."

Geothermal energy - pumping water below the earth's surface so it passes through molten hot rocks to produce steam for electricity - had huge potential for Australia, Mr Ferguson said.

"For example just one per cent of Australia's geothermal energy could equate to 26,000 times Australia's total energy consumption at any one time.

"So from the Australian government's point of view, encouragement of geothermal activity is exceptionally important.

"I would have thought that given our renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020 ... we could see a significant contribution of that 20 per cent from the geothermal industry."

This guy has had hot rocks melting any brain he had!

If it's good enough for other countries to use Nuclear for any reason and it's to have far less effect on the environment when managed properly and global warming too (if you believe that), then regardless of our energy wealth, why should we not use Nuclear power too.

I can not understand how a country like Australia, with so many natural resources,(e.g sunshine) can think about atomic energy, as at the same time many other countries with less resources, think about getting out of atomic energy and using renewable resources.
As I visited Australia 2 years ago I was really surprised that Australia was not leading with technology using renewable sources

Nina, welcome to the forum and I hope you enjoyed your time in Australia and get here again sometime.

I understand how people can see that Australia has a lot more sunny days in some parts of the country than much of Europe and therefore should think of solar energy and more and more people do use solar energy and also there is some commercial uses.

But it is not quite as simple as just constructing solar or wind power plants for you need to look at the total picture aside from prohibitive cost, and a few points are:
1. Australia is generally a very dry continent when there are not storms in various places and it is particularly drier in inland regions where there is far more sunshine than in coastal regions where well over 90% of people live because that is where rainfall for dams is best.
It follows that it is also where you need your power and solar power by the coast is not going to be so great because that is where you also have far cloudier conditions associated with rain and coastal weather.

2. Putting any power plants inland also raises the problem of water - a much needed component of power stations, and then if that problem was able to be overcome you have

3 .the transmission losses of distance [if you have something at the end of a power cable in your home, feel the cable after the appliance has been on for a while and it will feel warm and that is energy loss, the same as happens with HV power systems transmission but on a much larger scale]

4. And the obvious one, the sun is not out for the whole day and even in summer with longer hours, there is going to be less energy able to be absorbed in earlier and later hours when the sun is lower in the sky.

There are incentives for people to install solar systems for hotwater and also for home power generation using roof mounted solar cells and battery systems, systems that are rather expensive and not able to be afforded by your average home owners, but some do with the government incentives.

But power used in homes is but a tiny ammount of that used in a developed societywhere what is called base load power is largely that of industry, commercial buildings, community lighting, water and sewerage plants and railway and tram systems to mention the main ones and a lot of that power is required for the better part of 24 hours/day whereas systems like solar and wind cannot provide 24 hour commercial/industrial power, only a small percentage [5-10%]being able to be provided from those sources.

The ministers suggestion of piping water down into the earth to use the earth's core heat could be done by any country and New Zealand has been doing something similar for some power for many years[they actually tap into underground hot water/steam sources because they have some close to the surface] and they now have concerns that the pressure of that source may be dropping off.

There is also a lot of energy conservation efforts that home owners are encouraged to use, from economy shower heads and efficient lighting to much better home insulation and designing to make use of the sun - passive solar design it is called, and all thses efforts can do a little to help and thus postpone new power needs which will come in any country as population expands, and through the accumulated efforts of what I will call fringe generation - solar, wind and gas, efficiency programs and an interconnection of the eastern Australian states where 80-90% of population resides, it has been over ten years since the last major coal fuel power station was commissioned.

Now seeing as coal power stations have a nominal life span of 30 years and that has been significantly stretched in recent years by refurbishment programs to 50+ years and we have many stations at that stage and approaching it, and as it can take 10-15 years to develop a new power station, Australia will face power shortages starting in about 10-15 years time - could be back to lanterns and wood fuel cooking for many!

So whilst some of the above may help you to understand our situation here, it is beside the point I was initially addressing and that is we as will other developed countries will always have a need for base load power and the means of doing that are coal, oil, gas fired steam boilers to drive turbines or to raise the steam through nuclear fission.

And so we have a government minister saying it is quite OK for other countries to have nuclear power stations because they do not have coal and yet we are also shipping huge quantities of coal overseas, coal being the greatest carbon using and CO2 producing system there is and we and other countries use it because it is the cheapest energy generating system.
Now I know Germany has many coal power stations because a lot of the Australian coal mining equipment is of German design, your coal fields being so much deeper than ours, but there are many nuclear power stations in Europe, the UK and the USA, and OK, no one wants another Chernobyl, but that again is another story about an old design and poor operation - and designs and operations have come a long way since.

An interesting case study for you would be to country by country in Europe list their normal base load generating capacity and see what % is by coal, oil, gas, nuclear and wind/solar.

Europe has also no doubt been stabilising their power needed for populations may be more static there and in all the shops just like hear, what do you see very much of? Made in .....(China, India etc.) and it would be even more interesting to see what power generation growth has been in those countries and by what means!!!!, with what pollution controls!!!!!

I saw an article recently and the truth is debatable, but it was saying that there is evidence of the Artic Polar Cap melting and there was also evidence of a lot of carbon fallout coming actoss from China - it's quite possible!!!!

And so another issue for you to take on board if you like - are the developed countries governments through the World Trade Organisation and reduction of tariffs not only causing more and more work to go to countries where workers might be lucky to earn $1/day, but in doing so we are allowing the global work to be done in countries that are the heaviest polluters and emitters of CO2 into the atmosphere and reducing work in our own countries where more may be done to combat pollution and CO2 emissions!!!!!

So personally, I do not see that the Minister nor our government and other governments are too smart at all, but I remain open to considering other views for power generation, pollution, global warming etc. is still very much an open book to me.

Cheers

Your statements were very interesting. There are a few things I would like to check up before answering. Untill soon.
Cheers Nina

Nina,
Just browsing briefly I've found a couple of sites that may interest you in understanding more of power generation;
VENCorp - Fact Sheet 2

And you can see there that generated power transmission losses can be minimised by transmitting at extremely high voltages and so power stations step their generating voltage up through transformers.
I've learnt something myself too for that would be the approach with any major generating plant, and "IF" it is possible to develop major solar plants, then same deal, burt it is even with the latest technology, still a gigantic IF.

There's been two approaches in the technology routes that I am aware of, one being based on the Solar Reflector system and I do have memory of a prototype system somewhere that was going to use Solar heat concentration into some form of heating, possibly potential as a pre-heater but hardly I'd imagine being able to heat water for steam raising and superheated steam by Solar alone in quantity required for running generating turbines.

The other approach is that of what is called Photovoltaic where the suns rays create an electric current that is fed into battery storage systems for household power as is being encouraged by some state governments by subsidies and also in having provision for excess generation to be fed back into the local low voltage grid [and getting paid for it] and then that by itself does create something of a contentious isuue - it has been suggested that one state government is about to offer people in that position four times the actual cost rate for the excess power - another encouragement! but how fair for all other home renters for instance? who will essentially pay more for their power to allow that!

I think there is more potential in the Wind Turbine area - Wind Power Generation Technology Scan
but again whilst they should ideally be close to point of generation use so as not to have to create voltage step up equipment to minimise transmission losses, though in theory you could create more and more of them [ there already being many in both Europe and Australia and other countries] it is not as though you could ever have a system totally reliant on the power generated and then have none or very little at times of very low winds.

So if you wish to take up science or engineering as a career to save the planent, there is still much to be done.

I am not an engineer for renewable energy and I haven’t used my English for many, many years, to explain scientific problems. However I shall try and explain my opinion to this matter. First of all I believe that the matter should not be solved with atomic energy. Everywhere in the world the scientists are trying to find new methods.
We cannot concentrate on one particular source of gaining energy. You are right the different kind of climates and structure of the country force us to find solutions.
The energy mix is the way to solve this problem for the time being.
You cannot expect to produce enough energy with one certain type.
Right now we have:
Wave energy (Greenland) the coasts from N.S.W, Vic. And Southaustralia could produce annual wave energy of above 60.0 kw/m
Solar: Germany is producing the new generation of very thin plates which can easily be used everywhere. Here in Bavaria many houses use this method
Geological: the usage of this type depends on the construction of the earth. To win energy from the earth there must always be the possibility for new heat to stream back. If there are a lot of gaps, there is no chance for that method. Many houses here use that method for over 20 years now.
Wind
Water
Coal: We have 10 of these power stations. This is a political problem. If they are suddenly turned off, there will be a lot of unemployment. The government aims to cut them of slowly
Gas from biological source and so on .
Nano technology.
The main problem by using all of these energies is the storage of the electricity .There is a special research institute here in Germany which is finding new materials to store the electricity more effective and cheaper. One of those is called Fraunhofer Gesellschaft.
We also have autarkic towns and villages, who are completely independent from the official power grids. They even send the electricity that they don’t need, to the official power grids, in order to get it back, when the production isn’t so effective.
In Austria they have 7 Levels of power grids. Level 5 and seven are for wind and solar energy.
To cut it short there are many ways and there is a long way to go but if you don’t start to go, you will miss the train. Atomic energy appears to be a solution for many but not for the future.
Yes you are right the pollution from the production in China is great but it is now excuse for us not to do anything
I just read you answer and I will send you some links to look up next time. Have you read that Greenland intends to supply eEuropian countries with electricity from wave energy
cheers

Yes Nina,
You're quite right that there can be benefits in new techology and the adaption of it in various ways, and I am not saying that should not be done but the limitations and costs, economic, environment, industrial and what is best for in an overall sense need to be examined as your government has already identified in regard to unemployment.

I have read briefly of some wave power trial plants in Scotland actually but had not heard of a major commercial plant being proposed for or installed in Greenland, a most challenging project I expect and not just for the generation in a harsh climate and then transmission to the European mainland but also for effect on marine life - I googled and found the following lengthy paper I'll have a look at some time - its for the NW Pacific but same principles would apply to some extent.
http://spo.nwr.noaa.gov/tm/Wave%20En...0for%20web.pdf and also found a few other references that could be of interest, ie.
Energy resources - Annual Report 2004 - GEUS
US Eastern Seaboard the spillway for a "slow wave" of melting Greenland glaciar water | MetaFilter

For a non engineer Nina you do have a good interest and understanding of alternatives and if you have an article about the Greenland power proposal, please post it for I am interested.

I have also heard of towns being develped to stand alone from the normal grid or lets say have some capacity to be self sufficient at times and yes solar systems technology keeps getting improved and it may be either Germany or Austria I have seen mentioned in regard to farmers develping huge solar farms in conjunction with their farming practices but that kind of approach is also usually heavily subsidised by the government and again the total picture needs to be taken into account, ie., if farm production falls off, where does food ultimately come from.

You may say that countries doing less about clean power is not an excuse for other countries to do nothing and I am not saying that it is just by itself but as your government has realised that heavy industry and services rely on much more power than homes or even shopping centres and that there could be a dramatic effect on employment to curtail "dirty" power, governments also need to recognise that employment in their countries will also rely very much on industries remaining competitive and already for a few decades employment and industries in a number of countries have suffered greatly because of the cheap labour and absence of employment conditions in countries of Asia and elsewhere.

But that is a whole separate subject.

Cheers, and hope you have good warming power or gas/oil for winter!

Dear Wanderer,
I use solar and Pellets and have a insulated house, with double bricks and windows with triple glasses. So it's OK
I shall send you about Greenland. I am still searching. It was a documentation on radio and I am looking for it again
cheers
I couldn’t found the broadcast station anymore. But I’ll repeat as good as I remember:
O-TonKuupik Kleist said that he is longing for the complete independence from Denmark. The announcer described the minerals and natural resources of Greenland. They mentioned the sea waves projects of Danish firms like Poseidon Project which would like to install Wave energy power stations all over Europe and said that Greenland shall use the melding water of the glacier to produce the energy they needed. And that in future, if they use wave energy too, he can see them producing enough energy to sell electricity to the other countries around them.
I believe that they only need so much energy for mining the zinc. That would mean destroying a lot of nature. The Northwest Passage is about 6000 km away from America, and Greenland is not worried at all about the glacier melting because the ships can pass more easily.
I saw the sites about the danger of producing this type of energy and I’ll try to read more about it because it interests me.
Did you know that the German-Australian Chamber for Industry and Commerce have developed Wind and Solar projects in Australia.
By the way pellets are very small pieces of waste wood. They use it here for central heating systems. Everything works with computer and automatically.
The farmers don’t plant anything for biogas they use liquid waste and the dung from the animals. They wanted to make petrol from plants but they realised that the people would most probably starve sooner or later because they would plant any more food. This project has been stopped
Cheers

Hi Nina,
When you mentioned pellets I was thinking that they may have been mini coal briquettes - coal that has had moisture removed and dried into solid little fuel chunks, very rich in energy but doing the same with timber that would otherwise be just left to rot or be buried in land fill is to me good recycling also even if there is some emission - it'll never be entirely eliminated and some is needed for plants to get their carbon from for growth.

Just read you edit and yes, there are more and more wind turbines being installed in Australia - a bit of an ugly sight at first but something that one can get used to and accept as a a good energy generator, and yes too, Australia often has international techology and import/export partnerships, germany included.

I was looking up a site and some good energy things are always happening and suppose because each one is only small it is easy not to notice but as you say by continually looking at options, good things can happen like - perspective 1 - Lady Elliot Great Barrier Reef Island - reef walking with nemo and so one beaurtiful location moves towards a better system and I've read of similar type Solar plants in outback locations where the power grid is a long way away, and so yes, to provide power in semi remote and more remote locations is a good idea and the Lady Elliot Island one inparticular is going to be a good test for maintenance issues as salt air let alone water is very corrosive - bridges like Sydney Harbour or the San Francisco Golden Gate have large teams of painters forever continually painting and repainting to guard against corrosion.

The Danish Poseidon Wave Energy Project Mendo Coast Current is a good site for [the possibilities at this stage] wave power and if it can be harnessed reliably it will like wind power be another alternative but I say reliably, for if you live near the coast or visit at times you might notice that corrosion is a huge problem and so this type of equipment will need to have a lot of research into use of corrosion resistant products.
Not only that, but the generating units will have to be able to withstand storm forces as will the electricity conductors [cables from the generators dropped to seabed I imagine to be run along the sea bed and in trenches into shore grid connecting equipment] but the potential is worth testing; the Scottish test installation I had seen had everything but a water channel built on the shoreline, thus avoiding more of the storm forces issue - Islay Weblog - Wave Power on Islay and now also on Lewis - Islay Blog, so something quite different to the Poseidon proposals and as you can see there has been research over a considerable duration and unfortunately as with all these things it can be current day economics of alternatives rather than a view of the future that drives them - another intersting site: Wave Power - Energy from ocean surface waves showing lots of ideas - I can imagine all our own environmentaliats and beachgoers will be outraged to think of beaches being home to generating plants! - the beach as you may have found being part of the Australian way of life, perhaps more so than with many other countries.

Ironically, whereas it can be considered in some repects for areas like Europe with a far greater population density to have more issues of pollution etc. than somewhere like Australia with mainly huge open spaces, Europe also lends itself more to making use of alternative power sources, as though transmission from sources like wind turbines is an issue anywhere, there is likely to be far less in transmission distances in Europe than Australia.

I somehow think the Greenland guy is having more a political talk more of ambition for Greenland as transmission energy losses between Greenland and Europe would be enormous, and ironically somewhat interesting that they are not concerned with the Greenland Ice Shelf melt whereas just about everybody else would be, but if it is cyclicable, perhaps it is something that not only needs to be addressed but potentially with sea rises in the Alantic and along European coastlines to be many times more than elsewhere, it is quite possibly the most crucial issue needing attention with climate change - my own feeling is that whilst governments are rightfully addressing pollution/carbon emissions etc., they are a bit blind to accepting the possibility of climate change being unstoppable in its cyclic nature, and it is proven by scientists through ice core sampling that there have been cycles of different frequencies over thousands if not millions of years.

In more modern history, a few hundred years!, it is known that the NW passage was navigated by Roald Amundsen back in early 1900s, though it took him two years with slower going in those days no doubt and getting iced in during winter, and again some interesting sites about: Will the Opening of the Northwest Passage Transform Global Shipping Anytime Soon?: Scientific American for one and again there are some politics being played out between the USA and Canada who claim territorial rights and also with Greenland on an island ownership dispute!!!

The more interesting revelation to me is that in the late 1890s through into early 1900s Australia was then also in grip of a severe drought and one severe enough to have dried up the River Murray - with the Darling, our longest river system and life blood to much irrigated farming land.
The two to me seem to be no co-incidence and whilst our governement is talking of all sorts of iniatives to save the Murray, they cannot make it rain!!

The blindness I spoke of above is reflected in the government buying up vast tracts of former outback type farm or cattle station land that has some natural water storage lagoons that have been enhanced for greater storage in times of flood, and yet there is a massive project for Australia that many governments have spoken of from time to time and yet still ignor it for it seems no government has the nous or will to commit to something so great.

I am talking of creating storage dams, canals, tunnels and pumping systems
[ great for wind/solar power too possibly] to harvest some of all the tropical water that floods the Gulf of Carpentaria to get it flowing south to where the Murray river is drying up - as I said, a massive project but doable.

Anyway, I've digressed some, but also just wanted to say the reference I made to farmers and solar was not that food supply was being jeopardised and I think the one featured still had the farmer having cows and may have even been done in conjunction with a vineyard that was still productive.

And another site you might find interesting for converting CO2 to algae to fuel is referred to University research here:
Device Uses Solar Energy To Convert Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel and if that can become a reality, perhaps a great recycling effort - only problem is the energy to be used in driving something like that - having huge glass houses and passing massive quantities of air through to absorb the CO2, and then it would all have to be monitored to ensure we do not starve natural growth of their CO2.

The net sure allows a lot of information to be accessed!

Ciao

Hi, I found our discussion interesting and inspiring. It is surely endless, but I can only swim on the surface. I shall keep up informing myself.
I have another question which I shall ask in the section travels. I want to know all about the Northern Territory in the month August. Weather and so on. I would be glad and happy to get the same efficient answer. I’m planning a holiday at that time.
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