Good Article on Nuclear Power and Middle Eastern Oil

[FrostyBoy]

This is from a New Zealand Newspaper:

[FrostyBoy]

And the other page..

[The Mad Viking]

Not a bad article, but as often is the case, a little too much "the sky is falling!".

The image of people freezing in the dark is useful for terrorizing the comfortable, but it is not realistic.

As fossil fuel reserves continue to decline, costs will rise. Conservation and alternative energy will occur when the marketplace dictate.

Efforts to keep fossil fuel costs artificially low, like, IMO, gasoline prices in North America, are counterproductive to easing the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels.

So is stealing oil from the Iraqis.

But, it is good for business in the short term.

[Chemical Ollie]

A few weeks ago, Swedish politicians took the decision to phase out the national dependence on oil in the next ten-year period.

A problem with that is that there was a referendum 1980, where the winning decision was to phase out nuclear power until 2010. Two perfectly functional nuclear reactors has recently been shut down. But it's not likely that the referendum result will be fulfilled, and now they want to trim our 10 still operational reactors to increase output.

I haven't bothered to read in detail how they will implement the decision to phase out the oil, but I would believe there will be tax subsidaries for installations of heat pumps and wood-pellet furnaces, low tax on fuel ethanol compared to gasoline, and so on.

[RGBVideo]

Ollie: I'm surprised that you (or anyone in Sweden for that matter) took their words seriously. Empty rhetoric.

As for the article, it looks like it's as in-depth as you can except from the Southern Island of NZ -- BS hippie paranoia, he's been watching too many spy thrillers. Moving from oil to uranium isn't going to change any "great games", imagined or real -- the three largest holders of cheaply minable uranium ore are, IIRC, Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan.

[Seeker]

"A few weeks ago, Swedish politicians took the decision to phase out the national dependence on oil in the next ten-year period.

A problem with that is that there was a referendum 1980, where the winning decision was to phase out nuclear power until 2010. "

typical Scanda-hoovian boobery.

It's oil/coal or nuclear. For a large modern state there is no realistic third way. And with pebble-bed reactors, CANDU, etc modern nuke power looks pretty good to me.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by VJ
Ollie: I'm surprised that you (or anyone in Sweden for that matter) took their words seriously. Empty rhetoric.

As for the article, it looks like it's as in-depth as you can except from the Southern Island of NZ -- BS hippie paranoia, he's been watching too many spy thrillers. Moving from oil to uranium isn't going to change any "great games", imagined or real -- the three largest holders of cheaply minable uranium ore are, IIRC, Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan.

Ok..

The thing with our country is that we are a nuclear-free zone. (Which is ironic since Rutherford, who helped the progress of nuclear research, was a New Zealander). The government wants to build a Nuclear Plant, but much of the population (uneducated population) don't want a Nuclear Plant built in New Zealand. They want us to stay clean and green. NZ runs on mostly hydro power and some some natural gas. But over the past 5-10 years, NZ has experienced a LOT of serious power-shortages thoughout the land, and is having to consider building another hydrodam, but environmentalists are saying that the new proposed hydrodam will actually be just as devastating to the surrounding land as building a coal plant. So that's why the government is looking to abandoning the Nuclear-Free "image" that we have.

[Kuciwalker]

The thing with our country is that we are a nuclear-free zone.

Doesn't that increase your mayor rating or something?

[FrostyBoy]

btw, just curious, how much uranium is there on Earth? (accessible Uranium)

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

The thing with our country is that we are a nuclear-free zone.

Doesn't that increase your mayor rating or something?

It used to, now it deceases it

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sn00py
btw, just curious, how much uranium is there on Earth? (accessible Uranium)

A lot and you can use far more then just uranium to create nuclear power. What's more the "spent" fuel rods still have about 90% of their usable energy left so you can keep recycling them over and over and over again. Right now it is just cheaper to get new uramium then to recycle but the smart thing would be to keep recycling or even to require recycling take place.

[FrostyBoy]

Oh ok.

And I think its 99%. (Last I heard anyway).

Why can't we get the rest of the energy out? Is that why Nuclear Fission is at the end of the Tech Tree in Civ?

[Flip McWho]

Snoopy -

So that's why the government is looking to abandoning the Nuclear-Free "image" that we have.

Ha, you wish. It's one of the things that Labour campaigned against national with. National wanted it gone pretty damn quick, and Labour pulled out the whole it's our heritage thing and helped get some brownie points for the election from it. I very much doubt we'll see nuclear down here anytime soon. Too many of this country is deeply ingrained with the whole nuclear free thing. We need to wait for that generation to die.

I would like to be proven wrong though. Nuclear energy is definitely a way this country should be moving. The government should come forward and say they're building a nuclear power plant and empahsis the word power and stay vehementaly against nuclear weaponary. Thats a nice safe governmental position to have/

[Seeker]

"stay vehementaly against nuclear weaponary"

Isn't that kind of a given? Why would New Zealand need nuclear weapons?

Tongan invasion? Maori insurrection? The potential threat from drunk scientists coming in from the Antarctic Research Station?

Australia??

[Flip McWho]

Oh for sure. We have absolutely no need for them, I'm meaning on the international scene.