Volition

Did China sign up to this?

Posted by: David Hill on February 23, 2005 09:44 AM

Apparently so. They will stop being exempted in about a decade when they become an Annex 1 country.

It's also worthwhile pointing out that while China is the second largest CO2 producer, it is way below the US and Europe per capita. For some reason people in the US blow a lot more smoke than people in China.

As usual, the Wikipedia is a good source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

Posted by: Mike on February 23, 2005 09:53 AM

Oh, PS: We're the second largest producer per capita. Go us!

Posted by: Mike on February 23, 2005 09:57 AM

Less then a fortnight ago, Mike Rann wrote a gushing article in The Australian about the ways in which he was urging the Prime Minister to do more about this, blah, blah. He offered no suggestions of how we do this without slaughtering our industrial base, of couse. Yet Mike Rann is one of the chief blockages to the world, and certainly to Australia, transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The reason why? Because South Australia is a nuclear powerhouse waiting to happen, and he's even opposed to us even accepting low-level waste. Imagine how much easier it would be to shift away from evil greenhouse-causing fossil fuels, to good, wholesome, family-values *nuclear* power if South Australia was to wake it to its destiny to become the high-level nucealr waste capital of the world, to ramp up its uranium export industry, and to . (and - as citizens of this new goliath - we'll have a million dollars each, thanks very much)

Of course, recent Xstrata developments with relation to WMC are likely to be a disaster. We'll probably lose this amazing resource to overseas ownership in less than a year, and they are likely to close Olympic Dam to consolidate their monopoly after that.

Posted by: Craig Turner on February 23, 2005 10:05 AM

That enthused yet unfinished sentence was meant to conclude "...and to export low-emissions, high quality dependable nuclear power to the region."

Posted by: Craig Turner on February 23, 2005 10:21 AM

Nuclear energy is all well and good provided there is someway to a) safely produce it and b) safely dispose of the waste.

Now, for the former, I know that pebble-bed reactors seem to be the way to go - "portable", self contained and also self regulating - they are just unable to go critical. See http://volition.vee.net/archives/000230.html for more info.

But I can't recall what they produce in terms of waste. If it's anywhere as bad as your traditional runaway-train-style reactor that produce mountains of dirty radioactive waste, then can we really afford to use them?

The other problem is that pebble-bed reactors are still considered pretty experimental, even if China is eventually going to deploy thousands of them: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html . Can you see Australia getting on board anytime in the next decade? Given that we're a nation of conservative rednecks[0], I can't.

[0] - not that I'm saying you're a redneck :)

Posted by: Mike on February 23, 2005 12:16 PM

> If it's anywhere as bad as your traditional
> runaway-train-style reactor that produce
> produce mountains of dirty radioactive waste,
> then can we really afford to use them?

How much desert do we have? It's a great abundant resource.

Posted by: David Hill on February 23, 2005 01:39 PM

Oh, and I figure it's got to be the better choice out of these:

a) to be storing waste in a secured location in a desert where no-one wants to go or live;

b) to be pumping it into the atmosphere, and demonstably negatively influencing climate change.

Sure the waste will last 20,000 years. However, will we last another 200 years if we keep on this path?

Surely within the next 1000 years our technology will have advanced so that we can easily deal with the nuclear waste (transforming it, vapourising it, safely sending it hurtling towards Alpha Centauri, ... who knows?).

Posted by: David Hill on February 23, 2005 01:54 PM

Keep in mind that we're not exactly "safely disposing of the waste" from fossil fuels already. Not doing that (if such a thing were even possible) is what got us into this situation in the first place.

Nuclear (fission) power is dirty and has all the problems you say it does, but it's still, demonstrably, an arseload less harmful to the planet's status quo than fossil fuels.

Posted by: Joel on February 23, 2005 08:29 PM

Sure, storing nuclear waste is fine. But how can you build a storage facility that will last for thousands of years? What what happens if it leaks into a water table? What if there's a spill transporting it to the storage site? Where do you store it in places like Europe where there are no remote, uninhabited regions? How do you decide which state to put it in? Who says no one is living in the desert, anyway?

I'm not against nuclear fission power per se, but problems like these must be addressed before we see Mr Fission's My First Reactor being installed at your local kindergarten.

And what about further developing other energy sources? The green power that I pay for is coming from somewhere, what's stopping more of that coming online?

Entertainingly, I've always wondered why they don't just launch nuclear waste into space and aim it at the Sun or something, apart from it being so god-dammed heavy and everything. Then it occured to me: what if the launch vehicle pulled a Challenger when carrying tons of dirty waste? Not pretty.

Posted by: Mike on February 24, 2005 09:55 AM

Sorry to contradict you Joel, but......

nuclear energy produces more greenhouse gasses per joule of energy than burning coal

due to the resources required for waste storage.

Humans don't think long term enough to be able to deal with this shit. wot about additional costs due to health problems, to deal with the health problems requires more resources and therefore ...more energy

And Craig, you are probably right about xstrata, and it is already the case with californians getting Our "million each - thanks very much" for pumping acid into Our ground at Beverly using a process that is Illegal in the USA.

I tip my hat to Vlad Putin - he cut him and his country a good deal. He held off on signing the Kyoto protocal for ages, even thought they would reap in the carbon credits, however he cut a deal to get membership into some big shot country organisation in return for signing - which is beneficial for them anyway. nice one.

The problem is, not that I know what I am talking about, that there was no incentive scheme for signing up early - such as the private health care in Australia which scares you (not me) into signing up in your 20's or else you will have to pay an arm and legg to get in later

Posted by: Noctilucent on February 24, 2005 12:03 PM

> nuclear energy produces more greenhouse gasses
> per joule of energy than burning coal
> due to the resources required for waste storage.

That's interesting. You got any references?

Posted by: David Hill on February 24, 2005 12:30 PM

There are many references, try:

"Renewable Energy Strategies for Europe, Volume II, electricity systems and primary electricity sources", RIIA and Earthscan, London, 1997, Michael Grubb and Roberto Vigotti.)

excerps at:
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/PBMRintro2.html

Posted by: on February 25, 2005 12:47 PM

My vote is with Joel for using the word 'arseload' in a sentence.

Posted by: Paul Hoadley on February 25, 2005 05:48 PM

By the way, that page does not say that nuclear energy produces more greenhouse gases than burning coal.

It says nuclear energy produces more CO2 than solar, wind, hydropower.

Posted by: David Hill on February 26, 2005 02:02 PM

I think "metric arseload" doesn't get used anywhere nearly as much as it should.

Still, is it "ass" or is it "arse" (in proper-English-speaking countries, of course)?

Posted by: Mike on February 26, 2005 07:02 PM

mike, in countrys which confess the queen as our saviour (except for canada), it is 'arse' which is most commonly used (e.g. fat arsed, falling tit over arse etc).

'ass' in such commonwealth nations should only be used to refer to hoofed creatures such as donkeys or - on rare occasions - when discussing a unit of currency used in ancient rome ('my kingdom for an ass' etc). Ass is more of a euphemistic spelling of 'arse' which just reflects the pronunciation.

However, in 'a midsummers night dream' i've often pondered that shakespeare was perhaps making a bit of a pun when the character 'bottom' turned into a donkey.

So, to conclude, you could use 'arse' and you'd not get a broken glass in your face when conversing with prince harry, or you could equally use 'ass' and you'd then be able to justify it by using the shakespeare argument (be prepared for a lengthy and tedious debate about the authenticity of shakespeare in all of this though)

Ok can i have my own blog now??? nah, just kidding, i'll just keep using yours and hope that some drop of YoungUrbanCool wears off on me.

Posted by: matrine on February 27, 2005 02:54 PM

It would, but he just ain't that young any more.

Posted by: Joel on March 1, 2005 01:45 AM

Oh, back on-topic for a sec. Well, back on one of the topics.

Regarding the spelling, both are correct. However, it depends if the load in question is metric or imperial.

Posted by: Joel on March 1, 2005 04:30 AM

Mike wrote
> Where do you store it in places like Europe
> where there are no remote, uninhabited regions?

Aah - this is the twist where we do very well for ourselves. You store it... in the Australian outback! We'll rebuild whyalla, reprocess to ore and the way through and bury it in the most geologically stable site in the world (for a handsome sum {raises pinky to lips}).

> And what about further developing other
> energy sources? The green power that I pay
> for is coming from somewhere, what's
> stopping more of that coming online?

This is important, but at the moment nothing's ready. You could set up a nuclear program in such a way as to guarantee that a percentage of income went into programs to do that. In fact, in the long term you'd be crazy not to.

> Entertainingly, I've always wondered why
> they don't just launch nuclear waste into
> space and aim it at the Sun or something

Challenger as you indicated, and there's far far too much of it.

> nuclear energy produces more greenhouse
> gasses per joule of energy than burning coal
> due to the resources required for waste storage.

I concurr with Dave, the article doesn't state that *at all*. The article seems well written. I was unhappy with one thing: it mentions that nuclear power requires carbon emissions during processing and transport is potentially misleading, because once you had it going you could transition vehicles across to run on some stored power (from a nuclear source).

As far as demand pushing out emissions due to mining of lower concentration mining, this could have an anti-effect if South Australia was committed to up its production. We have more capacity at Olympic Dam (I don't know how much) and that site has a particularly high yield of U235 (the stuff you want for fuel).

Posted by: Craig Turner on March 4, 2005 12:40 PM