If you do an advanced search of this forum against my name and the heading "nuclear", you will see more than 30 posts of mine over the past couple of years. I have been an advocate of nuclear power in Australia ever since I realised it could provide safe, cheap, long term, low carbon electricity for us.
Here is an example of one of my posts from earlier this year. It comes from a time when Kevin Rudd held the reins but chose not to turn the wagon towards a double dissolution on climate change.
"Smart energy efficiency is on its way and not just with compact fluorescent lighting. Standby power currently consumes more power than many appliances. Better design reduces standby current and a little exercise at the power point can eliminate it altogether. Some heavy industries are unlikely to reduce electricity demand. Aluminium smelting is the classic case in point. The cost of aluminium metal is almost completely the cost of the electricity used to produce it. Even refined copper has electricity as a substantial input. An expanded Olympic Dam mine is projected to increase South Australian baseload electricity demand from the current 1650MW to 2300MW. A proportion of this power will be used to refine copper but whatever BHP use it for the power will need to come from somewhere.
"Most state politicians in South Australia support Olympic Dam expansion. The Greens are against it but the two major parties are in favour. South Australia currently imports power so it is reasonable to expect the state will need new generating capacity.
"Nuclear Power would be ideal. Twin nuclear power plants sited in seismically stable ground, 50km NNW of Whyalla could satisfy much of this demand. Fast tracked while maintaining rigorous safety, the first one could be operational within 5 years and the second could come online eighteen months later. The changed paradigm of generation 3+ nuclear plants allows for rapid but still ultrasafe construction.
"Currently, most of the power generated in SA comes from two power stations at Port Augusta, Black coal is railed 280km from Leigh Creek to power these stations. Currently the stations produce 5.4million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. There is no carbon capture or sequestration in sight for these monsters and realistically, the only zero emission source that could replace them is nuclear.
