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  • From: jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] nuclear
  • Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:14:30 +1100

On Tuesday 30 January 2007 2:28 pm, Scott Hitchins wrote:
] This sounds like useful info for debating the issue. Is there
] a reliable source we could quote?

No .. there isn't.

There is much debate about the quantity of Uranium isotopes
in no small part because much of it has yet to be found*. Some
people cite 50 years worth of a certain grade of ore, other people
cite 200 years of useful ore, but ultimately it's pretty irrelevant
as well as being a pointless part of any argument.

Far more compelling is the problem that from whoa to go, from
commissioning, through ore acquisition through to disposal of
wastes and de-commissioning of the structure .. you're looking
at about 75% of the CO2 emissions of a coal-powered plant of
similar output.

A segue - China is bringing a new coal-powered plant online every
7 - 14 days (depending who you talk to) and this rate of growth is
anticipated to last 4-7 years (ditto). This stuff dwarfs trivial
issues of whether we're using coal or uranium - even if China, f.e.,
were to ditch the coal plans and adopt uranium we're still looking
at an untenable release of CO2 over the next 20-50 years. This in
spite of the Three Gorges dam - ostensibly sufficient to provide power
to about 250 million people (ten times the population of my
country - Australia - from just one hydro scheme). The construction
of that dam involved the relocation of 20 million people - many of
whom are going to be even more annoyed when the water stops flowing
into it in a few years.

Jedd.


* There's a story, which may be apocryphal, about a time that I was
visiting Jenolan Caves near Sydney many years ago, and after our
guide told the story of how one of these caves was only quite
recently, and entirely accidentally discovered, someone in the tour
group asked him how many more undiscovered caves were in the
region. He stared at them for a moment and then said "Seven".




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