greetings all , i hope you are well.

Just yesterday i was watching the news and a very interesting headline came up.
John Howard(Australias Prime Minister) sais that he want to enter what he calls "The Nuclear Age" I would just like to know your thoughts on this?
As you know Australia and America are very close and i was thinking if its possible that John Howard would use this "Age" to build weapons of mass destruction.

He sais that his aim is to build five or six Nuclear facilities on Australias east coast, now what i am wondering is we didnt need any of them before so why start now??
We do have one Nuclear reactor in Australia that is located in Lucas Heights NSW but i dont know why he would want to build five or six actuall plants??
Do any of you ATS members have any idea??

Omega

Easy for power generation, our power needs don't just remain stagnant you know. It has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons. This has been talked about on and off for decades. Nuclear power staions would provide much more power than our existing coal fired power stations and would be cheaper in teh long run.
To build nuclear weapons invloves more than just power stations, you need teh whole cycle from, reprocessing plants to fabrication plants.

BTW, why would we want nuclear weapons ?

[edit on 8-6-2006 by rogue1]

Pff.. everyone knows :
1. To give your country massive expenses
2. To make you a target in the event of a nuclear war
3. To annoy Iran even more
4: Put you in a stalemate with every other nuclear weaponed country

Wait.. is there actually a reasonable answer for having such a stupid weapon? Shame we can't just erase all warhead altogether.

Agreed Knights.

Rogue we have one of the largest uranium rescourses on the planet and who sais we wont build fabrication plants???
We are so far up the United States presidents behind that it wouldnt surprise me at all if howard followed in his footsteps.

I still fail to see your point ? You think Howard wants nuclear weapons to suck up to Bush

As i said before this is just a thought,

I know for a fact that the US and AU are becoming very close.
There have been many rumours going around that AU could very well be a terrorrist target.
My original q was could they be related???

Yes and what use would a nuclear weapon be against a terrorist strike?

And, America and Austrailia have always been fairly close haven't they? I mean Austrailia aided America in Vietnam (I guess it was for a mutual benefit mind).

yeh thats true allthough.
Lately our PM has been going over there alot and what i find odd is that he came back and was immediatley on the lets build reactors bandwagon.
it just seems odd to me,
they are allied countries and remember what happend with baghdad??
the US Bombed the hell out of them so if were allied and we have nukes wouldnt we join them??

I dont know just a thought

[edit on 8/6/2006 by Omega85]

The main push towards nuclear is purely money driven. Australia has the largest reserves of uranium in the world. Given the fact that a contract has been signed with China to sell uranium that, will raise yellowcake production 100% in the next 5-10 years to meet their demand. Stop and think about that for a second, the current amount we produce per year, that's how much china wants to buy. But maybe they won't buy it, because some bright spark floated the idea of LEASING the uranium. Who owns the liability in that case? And then their was former P.M Bob Hawke's bright idea of using the outback as a massive nuclear waste dump. WTF

We also are the worst per capita carbon polluters in the world. So a real arguement can be made for an alternative to our current, coal fired situation. There's never been a big push to move away from coal, as most of the S.E. of Oz is sitting on the stuff.

Now the arguement can be made that current methods of nuclear power generation are very safe and they probably are. That's not the problem. Waste is the problem. On the one hand we have the issues of contamination and pollution from mining sites and on the other we have a rapidly rising amount of waste(spent fuel) to be dealt with. A lot of the mines are in places that experience intense wet seasons, making containment of tailings dams and even underground storage extremely difficult. For a vivid example, just google Rum Jungle. It was the first uranium mine in Australia, and the most contaminated. the area was rehabilitated in the 80's. They made it into a lake and people started swimming there. Combined with that and the bad dream scenario of leased yellowcake and an outback waste dump the size of England, it just doesn't seem as clean as green.

then there's the infrastructure to consider. We currently have one RESEARCH nuclear reactor. Six plants, what would that cost, Billions? Tens of Billions? To fill a demand that isn't really there? Who does that help? And who owns the uranium now?

Also, where do projects like the hot rocks project in S.A. or the solar/thermal tower planned near mildura get a look in. Why can't they build massive solar arrays in the outback? What about urban wind turbines, using something like the turby ? Why does it have to be a centralised monolithic project. Electricity requirement is universal and de-centralised, why can't production be more like that? In case you didn't guess, I think nuclear power is a stupid idea for Australia, made by stupid rich men in the hope of slopping up the gravy coming and going. NO NUKES, MAN!

LOL, these projects you talk about are very area specific. how many solar cells do you thinkit would take to power Sydney ? Come on lets be realistic.

Looks to me like it's time to invade Australia. We just can't have every fanatic and warlord running around with nuclear weapons. It represents a very real threat to our national security, and I think we ought to send a couple hundred thousand soldiers over there tout suite.

I take it you didn't google rum jungle.

How much uranium will it take to power Sydney? Is Sydney even experiencing power shortages? Being specific? you prefer being vague and terse? Get real and look past the hype, you gonna be any better off for all of it? Wealthier?Healthier?? They all cost money to do, potentialy billionswouldn't you prefer to pay twenty dollars a month for electricity? People are doing it now, it's not impossible, it's just discouraged Is nuclear actually going to provide cheaper electricity in our lifetimes, given the start up, infrastructure and waste management costs invovlved?
Really, is it?


[edit on 8-6-2006 by fingapointa]

I wouldn't take much uranium and yes Sydney needs to expand it's power infrastructure over the next few decades. None of teh alternatives you presented are even close to being realistic. Enlighten me, show me someone which is actually possible.

The link I gave to the turby is a good starting point for an alternative urban electical generation solution. turby.nl.... Why can't they be on crappy factory roofes and tilt slab concrete dog boxes.Solar sliver cells. Your right they're not complete solutions, they're decentralised solutions. Remember, I said the main problem was the waste. Enlighten me, what would you do with that. Googled rum jungle yet?

Greetings.
I read somewhere that howard has been dumping waste in the desert for years.
anyone else heared about this?

Australia dosn't need Nukes, and although we have the Uranium for it, I don't see it happening, regardless if we have the capability or not.

Anyway, I hope we go ahead with this. I hate the digging of Coal for our power stations, and I hate polution regardless whether Global warming is true.

I think Nuclear will be great for Australia. It may also help our economy because we have lots of Uranium here, if we mine it, enrich it, we could sell it.

Nuclear energy is alot cleaner then coal .Maybe the enviroment will like it untll something goes wrong & pollutes everything aroud the area

i'd rather pedal a bike-generator made of bamboo & coconuts than support nuclear power. i don't care how you try to spin it, nuclear power is one of the stupidest energy ideas we've ever implemented. anything that creates radio-active waste with a half-life of over 20,000 years is um... (insert your favourite synonym for insane). 20,000 years. Say it out loud, and think about the timespan of documented human history, then quadruple that. if you really want nuclear power, go live on the freakin moon & leave the rest of us in peace.

Intresting, I though Austrailla already had Nuclear Capibility and Nuclear Power.

According to Volume 6 of International Air Power Review, published back in 2002, Austrailla order a Nuclear Capable version of the F-111 Aardvark from the US back in 1964, and recieved the first aircraft in '68.

Why did they need a Nuclear capable strike in 1968, if they are just now getting thoes weapons?

Or are you talking about civilan poerplants?

Tim

Australia could have nuclear weapons in a matter of hours, they could buy them from the U.S., I doubt they'd be refused.

But more likely, the U.S. will assist any nuclear weapons program that Australia wants so they are self-sufficient in the weapons.

I think the NPT is officially dead.