The Nuclear Dabate

what is your stance on the dump in the Territory?

Well unless you can think of a safer place than in the middle of nowhere with no one and nothing around for hundreds of k's.

have u got an essay due soon on this topic or something?

i think it's in the middle of nowhere, bar it being land 'belonging' to the natives....cities will never expand towards that area...might as well charge other nations to dump it here..

no essay due soon

but i just wanted to know wether people agreed or disagred with it

i for one think it will bring buckets full of money and a hundred or so jobs and who can argue with that

Its better than just adding to the radioactive dump they have inside the hospital which is just down the road from me. I say build the damn thing quick and get the waste out of my backyard and into the desert.

NT already produces Uranium why not go to the next step? Then just maybe in many years time we can get nuclear power :D woot.

Serious build a power plant in the middle of the derert and you could power the entire NT from it. We already produce heaps of uranium so supply is no problem.

CHEAP POWER FOR ALL!!! :D

This is just my opinion. Im already well aware of the risks, pros and cons of nuclear power.

build it in bagot. increase the land value!

Debate.

As for nuclear power, it was considered, however there are too few people in the NT to justify a nuclear plant. Current total capacity is about 250 megawatts. Small nuclear plants start at 500 megawatts.

[FONT='Century Gothic']To produce 1000MWe at a coal power plant, you would need the input of about three million tons of coal per year, which in turn would cause a devastating statical output of about seven million tons of gases into the atmosphere and 150,000 to 200,000 tons of solids. The gases released are mainly carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, while the solids released mainly consist of flying ash and sulphur. On the other hand to produce 1000MWe at a nuclear power plant, you would need the input of around 25 ton of uranium, with a comparatively small output of 5-15 ton of enriched uranium which can be solidified for safely and disposal.[/FONT]
[FONT='Century Gothic'][/FONT]
[FONT='Century Gothic']**From my mid year 5000 work essay[/FONT]
[FONT='Century Gothic'][/FONT]
[FONT='Century Gothic']I have a feeling i got the stats from
[/FONT]
[FONT='Century Gothic'][FONT='Century Gothic']Robert C. Morris[/FONT][FONT='Century Gothic'], The Environmental Case for Nuclear Power: Economic, Medical, and Political Considerations, Continuum International Publishing Group (May 1, 2000)[/FONT]
[/FONT]

Quote from El Presidente:
Debate.

As for nuclear power, it was considered, however there are too few people in the NT to justify a nuclear plant. Current total capacity is about 250 megawatts. Small nuclear plants start at 500 megawatts.

So connect to the national grid and sell off the excess power?
Besides, economic theory states that when supply exceeds demand prices must fall to reach equilibrium. So building a nuclear power plant would theoretically lower our prices and reduce our greenhouse emissions. I'd say that sounds pretty good...

Yes, but why would the now-privatised power sector (unless your power's still govt funded up there) want to invest that kind of capita if they already know they'll have excess power, and that they'll have to sell the excess cheap?

no, they just build large batteries :P

I'd rather see it 'stored' safely and monitored, than not at all.
Out of sight, is not always out of mind.

Agreed Lenko.

I mean, Aussies developed the best method for storing nuclear waste... Plus, the Aboriginal Land Council's president (now this surprised me) said that he wants one, as long as they have a say in where its placed.

Thank christ for that! People are actually starting to wake up and realise that it'll make money, produce jobs and use land that either:

a) Already has high concentrations of Uranium/Radioactive Elements. (Nature has been dealing with Radioactivity for a lot longer than we have... dontcha think it can handle itself?)

or

b) Is nothingness. There are so many places in the Territory where there is just nothingness. No sacred sites, no townships, extremely sparse plant and animal life... why not use it.

And the great thing is, we could charge just about anything we wanted to store other nations' waste.

Doy, afaik our Power is Govt. backed.

As for the power up here:
We have an Ice Plant (which can increase power by up to 4MW per Turbine) as well as an Aero-Derivitive which can increase its power output by nigh on 15MW by using the SPRINT (don't ask me what this means, I wasn't paying that much attention) system with the Ice. So, as El Pres said, our peak is around 250MW but we also have 24MW in Katherine, an Aero-Derivitive in Berrimah that's good for another 20MW as well as an independent providor who can also serve out another 24MW.

The senior engineer at the Channel Island plant said that in the Dry they usually run 2 out of the 7 turbines and the steam turbine. Usually in the dry they turn on another 3 - 4.

Heh, with all the negative press about this subject I'm surprised everyone who has commented here is for it Oo

The only reason the Aboriginal council wants it now is because they have realised they can cash in big time with royalties because it wil be built on dat sacred land yakno? ****ing freeloaders.

althow i dont like the idea of dumping uranium in the NT australia will have to start dumping there own share of there uranium instead of sending it to another country and hoping they dont store it in some old grannys back yard.

but the proposed sites sound like there ok but if theres a undrground water supply even 1 k close the site and some sort of acident happends well you geuss what will happen to any town or household that uses that water

im not sure that there is any water supply neer the sites that were proposed so ive listed them here

Fishers Ridge, a defence site 42km south-east of Katherine.
Harts Range, a defence site 165km north-east of Alice Springs.
Mount Everard a defence site 27km north-west of Alice Spring

althow a final decision is expected to be made by the end of 2006, and the preferred site to be operational by 2011 i can geuss that the australian govenment is allmost dead set on dumping it in a part of australia where any spillage will only affect 12 people instead of 50000 people aka NT.

1- I support it for the possibilty of more jobs like a power plant.

2- i dont support it safety wise, just look the hell out for what your doing guys, properly store those barrels , report leaks whatever.

Quote:
build it in bagot. increase the land value!

You win the thread.

Leaks shouldn't be an issue, as far as i know it was going to be a solid waste dump.

Quote from Nickaroo:

properly store those barrels , report leaks whatever.

So no cramming them into an old tree, creating fruit bats with radioactive powers such as "laser" beams from their eyes. Pffft I was hoping to see that on the front page of the NT "News".

Quote from leonami:
So connect to the national grid and sell off the excess power?
Besides, economic theory states that when supply exceeds demand prices must fall to reach equilibrium. So building a nuclear power plant would theoretically lower our prices and reduce our greenhouse emissions. I'd say that sounds pretty good...

No, prices fall to clearing point as a consequence of the self interest of all parties. It's not in the interest of anyone to build an unprofitable nuclear power plant, so no such thing will get built.

Quote from Minorci:
The only reason the Aboriginal council wants it now is because they have realised they can cash in big time with royalties because it wil be built on dat sacred land yakno? ****ing freeloaders.

Insofar as it's their land, I'd prefer it to be used to turn a dollar than not.

Its not about super enriched uranium anyway. Its about storing low level radioactive waste from the radiology departments of all the cancer treatment labs we have in Australia. Medical science will benefit greatly. We can stop paying other countries to deal with our radioactive waste.

it's also about storing nuclear waste from foreign nations...ie china...no?

The plan is that they are only going to store low level and medium level waste. They are not accepting waste from other countrys as it is illeagal at the moment.

Quote from Minorci:
The only reason the Aboriginal council wants it now is because they have realised they can cash in big time with royalties because it wil be built on dat sacred land yakno? ****ing freeloaders.

I know. Its GREAT!

I don't care if it is freeloading, it will probably provide jobs to aboriginal people (Ranger Uranium Mine does this) and while they will be getting a portion of the profits... so what? As El Pres said, it still nets the rest of the Territory profit.

Safety issue...? Bleh, Knee Jerk Reaction anyone?

Agreed Wortel, we use it for the benefit of society so we should take responsibility for storing it.

Its gotta go somewhere, why not in one of the most deserted and unused places there are?

Yeh its pretty good. we mine it, sell it and then store it.

i dont know much about the dumping of waste, but ive seen the hippies in the shopping mall putting out recycled tins to collect money to stop it? (they should just lie down in the radioactive pit for all i care) but as i understand it, does it mean that there will be more jobs? what about a neuclear powerplant, is that actully happening in NT? does that mean cheap electricity?

Quote from shifty:
what about a neuclear powerplant, is that actully happening in NT? does that mean cheap electricity?

Short answer: No.

Long answer:

1. The current NT Government is against it.

2. It would be against Federal law.

3. It would be too expensive as even the smallest nuclear power plant would be far too large for the NT's needs.

Quote from Seqo:
I know. Its GREAT!

I don't care if it is freeloading, it will probably provide jobs to aboriginal people (Ranger Uranium Mine does this) and while they will be getting a portion of the profits... so what? As El Pres said, it still nets the rest of the Territory profit.

rofl employ all the aboriginals in a nuclear power plant. I don't know about you but I would want to be as far away from the nuclear plant as possible.

Isn't it amazing how ignorance breeds fear.

why cant other states get it? Y us?

Because the majority of other states don't have the large expanse of open nothingness that we do. Why us? Because we can...

Victoria certainly doesn't have the space, Regional NSW doesn't due to farming etc, Queensland doesn't until you start moving far west towards the NT border, SA probably could... but once again, close the the NT border and WA could as well. Who cares who could do it, if given the opportunity we should take it...

Just look at the physical dimensions of the NT, then look at the overall population - what, about 200,000ish? Roughly the entire population of a town like Townsville, etc...

Goodness - it's not like it's going to be in a population centre, like in the middle of Casuarina carpark!

So why not in the NT?

Quote from Seqo:
Because the majority of other states don't have the large expanse of open nothingness that we do. Why us? Because we can...

Victoria certainly doesn't have the space, Regional NSW doesn't due to farming etc, Queensland doesn't until you start moving far west towards the NT border, SA probably could... but once again, close the the NT border and WA could as well. Who cares who could do it, if given the opportunity we should take it...

It's got nothing to do with geography. Northwest South Australia (Woomera, for example) is the most ideal place in Australia, indeed the world, for such a site.

However South Australia is a state. Commonwealth power does not extend to forcing nuclear waste sites on States by law, so when the South Australian parliament passed a law to ban a site in South Australia, the Commonwealth was out of luck.

However the Northern Territory is not a state. It is a Commonwealth Territory, and the Commonwealth Parliament has absolute dominion over it. So they are driven to place the site in the NT, because nobody else wants it and the NT can't stop it from happening.

Bet the hippies are going to vote for statehood now... :p