Comments on: A greenhouse route to nuclear power?

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:23:06 +0000

Do you support the use of nuclear power? Here is a poll.

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:15:07 +0000

“Russell, you’re comparing apples and oranges” - no Robert, I wasn’t comparing anything to anything. I was responding to those simple survey questions Andrew quoted by pointing out that I (and I reckon at least 90% of Australians) can’t respond to such simple propositions because we don’t know what our greenhouse problem is made up of - is it mainly power stations, or cars, or industry … all the things you mention ? If it is cars for example then perhaps hybrids running on some fuel made from genetically engineered algae will be the solution, or something else, God knows.

What do you think of Mark Diesendorf’s article at Online Opinion where he writes:

“Over the past 20 years there have been several calculations of CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle. The most detailed calculation comes from Van Leeuwen and Smith (VLS) (2005).

Contrary to the claims of the nuclear industry, VLS find that the CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle are only small when high-grade uranium ore is used. But there are very limited reserves of high-grade uranium in the world and most are in Australia and Canada. As these are used up over the next several decades, low-grade uranium ore (comprising 0.01 per cent or less yellowcake) will have to be used.

This means that to obtain 1kg of yellowcake, at least 10 tonnes of ore will have to be mined and milled, using fossil fuels and emitting substantial quantities of CO2. These emissions are comparable with those from a combined cycle gas-fired power station.”

Lots of opinions about this, which is very confusing to we non-experts. So we’re cautious about nuclear energy, because, like coal, it comes with very serious problems - waste and nuclear proliferation. Better to seriously try safer options first.

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:20:21 +0000

Austin, you’re flat wrong on this. There was an analysis conducted at Sydney Uni for the Switkowski report which gave life cycle emissions akin to 10% of gas-fired turbines. Most other estimates are lower.

That’s why I was curious about his claim. My understanding is that for any given kilowatt, nuclear has a lot going for it. Indeed an ORNL study found that per kilowatt nuclear puts less radioactive material into the ecosystem than any other power source.
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 07:34:36 +0000

Austin, you’re flat wrong on this. There was an analysis conducted at Sydney Uni for the Switkowski report which gave life cycle emissions akin to 10% of gas-fired turbines. Most other estimates are lower. The report in on John Howard’s website, if people are interested.

Russell, you’re comparing apples and oranges. We will need to, ultimately, reduce emissions from stationary energy use (where nukes may come in), transport use (where hybrids and biofuels come into the picture, as do full electric vehicles), industrial processes, agriculture and land use. The scale of cuts which will ultimately be required mean we will probably end up having to tackle *all* of these.

But the simplest way to do so, and one which I presume Mr. Norton would be happy with, is to simply put a charge on carbon and let the market sort out how best to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

By: Russell

Russell — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:16:48 +0000

“it was a sensible probing ” - don’t agree, there’s not much option for “might agree as a last resort” or other uncertain feelings. The questions are posed as simple equations, nuclear or coal, but I don’t know what other options there are.
Will greenhouse reduction be better served by hybrid cars running on biofuels … or something else which is in development ?? most of us only know it’s very complex, and that we should start with what is relatively easy: registration concessions for hybrids, rebates for solar panels, investment incentives for renewable energy etc

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:46:36 +0000

Rajat - Public opinion has clearly signed on to the greenhouse is a problem analysis, so within that constraint it was a sensible probing of to what extent they accept the implications of their beliefs.

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:42:42 +0000

Hmm, is one meant to infer from the question that it goes without saying that greenhouse gases must be reduced? If so, and the question is only about the means of reduction, then I would probably answer yes on the basis that nuclear is likely to be cheaper and more reliable than wind or solar.

But who writes these questions? Clearly no one who takes a systematic approach to issues of public policy.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:30:41 +0000

What would even be more interesting is to frame the question with “greenhouse gas emissions” first and “nuclear power” last - the more positive response questions both had greenhouse gas emissions as the last, most memorable part of the question. Maybe we can get Newspoll to switch them around next time just for giggles and see what the difference is.

By: Bring Back CL's Blog

Bring Back CL's Blog — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:20:14 +0000

surely it would be far more accurate to ask to you approve a carbon tax which would make nuclear power economic or do you approve of a subsidy to make nuclear power economic otherwise the punters might think nuclear power can provide electricity at the same price as our dirty coal!

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:04:39 +0000

David - A negative answer would be taken as ruling out the nuclear option, which is more misleading than the positive response I probably would have given.

Of course no policy should be, or is, decided based on one poll, and indeed what I do in public opinion research is generally to look at lots of polls on the one topic with different questions to try to discern (so far as is possible) what the public actually believes - rather than carrying out regression analysis on a single data set, as tends to be the case among academic researchers.

You might have seen material about the weekend exercise in deliberative polling, where people are surveyed before and after being exposed to a variety of views on the subject (Muslims in Australia in this case). This is interesting, but it is a very expensive form of survey research.