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   Ben Heard

   Director, ThinkClimate Consulting (logged in via email @thinkclimateconsulting.com.au)

   That is a really, really bad article. I would have failed any of my post-grad students for taking such an uncritical view of risk, and for writing with such outright bias. That it comes from someone from my old university who does the actual marking astonishes me.

   I repeatedly point out in presentations that a "fact" without context provides no knowledge, only a distortion of truth. This talk of a "mountain of radioactive waste" at the mine... does anyone care to point out that it is less radioactive…

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   That is a really, really bad article. I would have failed any of my post-grad students for taking such an uncritical view of risk, and for writing with such outright bias. That it comes from someone from my old university who does the actual marking astonishes me.

   I repeatedly point out in presentations that a "fact" without context provides no knowledge, only a distortion of truth. This talk of a "mountain of radioactive waste" at the mine... does anyone care to point out that it is less radioactive than the ore, because the uranium has been removed? That the ore itself was harmless from a radioactivity point of view, and even the processed uranium oxide can be held in your hand (wearing a glove is a good idea)? That the mining process does nothing to "activate" radiation in the tailings, this is simply crushed up and processed rock? The tailings is a mining issue, not a radioactivity issue.

   This type of context is needed for just about every paragraph of this piece, not to mention some discussion of the counter risks and harm of climate change, particulate and heavy metal pollution from energy, and lack of energy security for many of the world's poorest, all of which nuclear provides an excellent solution to. Then, for some uncritical icing, we get the chestnut that we would do more good for the world by focussing on renewable energy. This, frankly, is like trying to put out a bonfire by deploying more pipettes.

   For anyone out there getting the suspicion that we may need to move beyond knee-jerk negativity to the nuclear industry if humanity is to make it through this century in tact, come and join us at Decarbonise SA. It is an independent site for moving forward on this issue.

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   Peter Lang

   Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)

   This is another anti-nuclear rant by an academic. When will Australia get over its nuclear-phobia?

   Uranium is the fuel for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is least cost, low emisisons, electricity generation technology. It is about the safest and most environmentally benign of all electricity generation technologies. It really is time thae Australian academics gost their facts right and stopped repeating the nonsense from the so called environmental NGO's and anti-nuke activists. Here http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/11/cutting-oz-carbon-abatement-costs-np/ is an article published yesterday which concludes:

   "For an additional cost of between zero and $82 billion to add 25 GW of nuclear generators into the Treasury core policy, Australia could save up to $185 billion in overseas abatement cost by 2050 and reduce our emissions from electricity generation by 95 per cent below 2000 level by 2050."

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   John Bennetts

   Engineer (logged in via email @bigpond.net.au)

   What twaddle!

   The Conversation does itself no good by publishing nonsense in any form, especially scaremongering rants.

   If I missed anything of value after the half-way mark, that is because I simply could not take any more.

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   Luke Weston

   Physicist / electronic engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   Contrary to the usual tendentious nonsense from anti-nuclear activists, Olympic Dam is not really a uranium mine. Olympic Dam is a copper mine. Following the expansion, the total copper production at Olympic Dam will be 730,000 tonnes per year, up from about 220,000 tonnes per year at the present. (Copper smelting is, incidentally, what requires most of the energy input to the Olympic Dam site, nothing to do with uranium.) After the ore is mined and milled, the copper minerals are separated and processed…

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   Contrary to the usual tendentious nonsense from anti-nuclear activists, Olympic Dam is not really a uranium mine. Olympic Dam is a copper mine. Following the expansion, the total copper production at Olympic Dam will be 730,000 tonnes per year, up from about 220,000 tonnes per year at the present. (Copper smelting is, incidentally, what requires most of the energy input to the Olympic Dam site, nothing to do with uranium.) After the ore is mined and milled, the copper minerals are separated and processed and we're left with powdered mineral waste - the so-called tailings which seem to be a cause for great concern amongst environmentalists.

   At Olympic Dam, however, those tailings contain a small amount of gold and uranium, and further processing of the ore (which you've already mined and milled anyway) to separate the gold and uranium into saleable products is economically attractive. (If those same relatively low concentrations of U and Au were present in an orebody that was not already being mined for the copper anyway, mining such a deposit would not be economically attractive.)

   The gold and uranium are essentially "free" byproducts recovered from what would otherwise be tailings from the copper mine, with no additional mining - no additional hole in the ground - required to extract those resources. In this sense, it would appear that polymetallic Cu/Au/U extraction operations at Olympic Dam are actually a very environmentally friendly way to mine those metals, as opposed to the alternative of having additional, separate mines at other sites mining gold and uranium deposits. Getting the most value that you can practically get out of one single hole in the ground is an environmentally efficient, conscious approach to mining.

   As Mudd points out, the Olympic Dam orebody contains rare earths, which are essential for wind turbines, LEDs, electric vehicles, fuel cells and the like, and for which demand is growing rapidly. I'm sure BHP Billiton is well aware of the chemistry of the Olympic Dam orebody, and as the price of rare earths continues to rise over the coming years, I'm sure they will pursue rare-earth extraction at the point when it becomes economically viable. As with gold and uranium, extracting these different elements from the polymetallic orebody is an environmentally friendly alternative to having multiple additional mines. (Incidentally, all other rare-earth mining prospects in Australia also seem to attract criticism from the predictable band of anti-nuclear "environmentalists", who complain that horrible, radioactive, scary uranium and thorium will also be extracted from these polymetallic ores where it is present along with the lanthanide metals.)

   What exactly does Mudd propose we should do with the uranium at Olympic Dam, if the status quo is not the way to go? If we are to mine the copper and gold (and perhaps rare earths too), then of course the ore that is mined contains the uranium as well. Should we simply cease the extraction of uranium from that ore? But that would simply leave all that uranium in the tailings - significantly increasing the amount of radioactivity present in that tailings waste, whilst of course it would not at all decrease the volume of that tailings waste or change its characteristics in any other way. Given the concern expressed by Mudd and other anti-nuclear activists about those scary radioactive tailings, leaving the uranium in the tailings does not seem to make sense at all.

   Mudd calls the mine tailings "billions of tonnes of radioactive waste", calling to mind nonsense fictional mental images of billions of rusty 44-gallon drums full of luminous green goo, but in fact those tailings really are just natural rock that comes out of the ground. The tailings contain natural uranium and the natural daughter-product radionuclides in the uranium series, all naturally created and naturally present in the ground. Mining the ore and extracting the uranium does not create, or add, or change the radioactivity of this natural material in any way - except for removing the uranium from it.

   Removing the uranium (well, essentially all of it, not 100% of it) from the tailings removes most of the uranium daughter-product radionuclides (Ra, Rn, Po etc.) that will form in the tailings over the long term, into the future, and will therefore remove most of the radiation dose that workers or the public may be exposed to from exposure to said tailings (a long time in the future). Leaving the uranium in the tailings, as well as the uranium daughter radionuclides that the uranium will become over long timescales, will substantially increase the radioactivity and potential radiation dose from those tailings.

5. Permalink

   

   Mark Duffett

   (logged in via Facebook)

   "With great power comes great responsibility" indeed, what a tangled web is being woven here.

   The sheer untrammelled tendentiousness of this piece is revealed by its consideration of "what is Australia’s role in fuelling nuclear disaster...in a post-Fukushima world" (note radiation casualties from Fukushima = 0) as "a hard question that needs to be asked". When apparently, calculating the damage from all the fossil fuel combustion that could be avoided if Olympic Dam's uranium were used to generate…

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   "With great power comes great responsibility" indeed, what a tangled web is being woven here.

   The sheer untrammelled tendentiousness of this piece is revealed by its consideration of "what is Australia’s role in fuelling nuclear disaster...in a post-Fukushima world" (note radiation casualties from Fukushima = 0) as "a hard question that needs to be asked". When apparently, calculating the damage from all the fossil fuel combustion that could be avoided if Olympic Dam's uranium were used to generate low-CO2 electricity isn't a question worth worrying about.

   Here's some hard questions that need to be asked of the author: If he's so concerned about "massive energy consumption", what is the EROEI that would result if Olympic Dam were permitted to use its own uranium to power all its systems? If he's so concerned about "huge" waste rock dumps, what would be the footprint of a 'baseload' solar thermal plant capable of doing the same job?

   Anyone interested in a constructive discussion of the implication of the Olympic Dam expansion should head over here (http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/28/open-thread-18/#comment-138117 and subsequent comments), rather than uncritically swallowing these muddied waters. There you'll learn (amongst many other things) that a rare earths processing plant is being planned for Whyalla. Apparently it will take ore from the NT initially, but perhaps Dr Mudd could deploy his expertise to tell us about the metallurgical issues with extracting rare earths from Olympic Dam ore, rather than snidely and glibly presuming to tell BHPB how to run its own core business?

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      Mark Duffett

      (logged in via Facebook)

      Sorry, I missed the bit in the middle about Australian uranium preventing 257 Mt of CO2 emissions. But this offsetting of over a third of Australia's coal exports is hardly to be sneezed at, given that even this significant amount has been achieved with uranium amounting to only 2.6% of the dollar value of the coal. And this is BEFORE the expansion!

      Moreover, taking average prices from 2000/01-2010 is quite misleading with respect to uranium, so much so as to look suspiciously like cherry-picking. 2001 just happened to be when U prices reached their all-time nadir. Since then they've sustained increases of well over FORTY-fold, even with the post-Fukushima slump taken into account (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_market).

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         Mark Duffett

         (logged in via Facebook)

         ...and Australian production has risen accordingly over the 2001-2010 period, albeit not 40-fold.

6. Permalink

   

   Luke Weston

   Physicist / electronic engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   If you live in a part of the world where uranium (and uranium daughters) are naturally geologically abundant, then you're exposed to natural background ionising radiation dose from that natural geology - from uranium, radium and the other uranium daughters in the soil, in dust, from gamma radiation directly from the ground, from radon in the air, and from uranium and uranium daughters in water. All these background dose pathways are completely natural - they're a fact of life. If you're afraid of…

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   If you live in a part of the world where uranium (and uranium daughters) are naturally geologically abundant, then you're exposed to natural background ionising radiation dose from that natural geology - from uranium, radium and the other uranium daughters in the soil, in dust, from gamma radiation directly from the ground, from radon in the air, and from uranium and uranium daughters in water. All these background dose pathways are completely natural - they're a fact of life. If you're afraid of that, move to a location where the natural geology contains minimal uranium or thorium. Does the mining by humans of these natural rocks that contain uranium and its daughter products actually cause any real change to the background ionising radiation dose rate that people receive from that natural radioactivity, compared to the radiation doses received anyway when that radioactivity just sits in the ground naturally (and is subject to natural erosion, natural geological and hydrogeological transport) and does not get mined? Good question… perhaps Dr. Mudd could point us to some research or evidence on this subject.

   It is a well-worn and predictable rhetoric sound-bite from the likes of Mudd, Ludlam, Diesendorf and Lowe that Australia's uranium exports, in terms of revenue dollars, are less than Australia's exports of cheese or lamb. But these people should know better than to simply think about everything in terms of the economist's bottom line when it comes to science-based ecology and environmental best practice.

   In the 2010 calendar year, Australia exported 301 million tonnes of coal, which corresponds to about 7.2 * 10^18 J of thermal energy content. The 7555 tonnes of natural uranium oxide exported in 2009-2010 contains a thermal energy content (ignoring the thermodynamic losses in a heat-engine power station, and assuming inefficient, once-through use of low-enriched uranium in LWRs) of about 3.4 * 10^18 J.

   Australia's three modest uranium mines provide a total energy output which is about 50% of all of Australia's coal exports (a bit more than 50% of Australia's total coal output including domestically-consumed coal). And yet this clean energy resource is supplied from three mines which have a total environmental footprint on the landscape which is far, far smaller than 50% of the environmental footprint of Australia's numerous coal-mining holes in the ground. 15,000 tonnes of uranium oxide would give you the same energy output (in LWRs) as all that coal, and 15,000 tonnes of mineral production is a hell of a lot less environmentally intensive than 301 million tonnes.

   Clearly Australia's uranium exports are not essential for Australia's economy. But such an enormous resource of clean energy, with such a high energy density, which is abundant in the earth and is available at such a low cost is obviously incredibly valuable and important for the global environment.

   Following the expansion of mining operations at Olympic Dam, the mine will produce about 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide per year, which will generate (in relatively inefficient once-through use in LWRs) about 800 TWh of electricity. Over the coming years, Australia's clean energy exports (in the form of uranium) are likely to provide enough clean coal-replacement capacity to catch up with, and offset, the greenhouse gas emissions from all of Australia's coal exports.

   When natural uranium is used very efficiently, in the Integral Fast Reactor for example, one tonne of natural uranium oxide (U3O8) will yield about 8 * 10^16 J of thermal energy in the reactor. Therefore, if the 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide from the Olympic Dam expansion was to be used in this way, the amount of energy produced would be about 1.5 * 10^21 J (thermal) - an amount of clean energy nearly 10 times greater than the energy content (about 1.7 * 10^20 J) of all the coal production on Earth. That's basically all the energy for all the world. And for all the people that don't yet have access to electricity. From just one mine!

   Given that Australian-Obligated Nuclear Material is carefully safeguarded and watched and is not allowed to be diverted into nuclear weapons (and in fact most of this material, such as depleted uranium, highly radioactive used fuel which contains some reactor-grade plutonium in it, and reprocessed reactor-grade plutonium, is not physically useful as the fuel for nuclear weapons), would Mudd care to explain to us exactly how Australia's uranium exports are "potentially increasing nuclear weapons risks"?

   Depleted uranium, used LWR fuel and recycled reactor-grade plutonium are not a "burden" - they are enormous resources of fuels for clean energy which can be used throughout the world to provide energy, replacing the need to mine a hell of a lot of coal - and indeed, replacing the need to mine lots of new uranium which might otherwise be used.

   Mudd lists "massive energy consumption" amongst the mine's other supposedly negative effects. In fact, Olympic Dam has an enormous "energy gain" - the mine's clean energy production (in the form of uranium) is far, far in excess of the mine's total energy inputs. The highly efficient use of uranium, for example in the Integral Fast Reactor, as opposed to enrichment and inefficient once-through use of low-enriched uranium in light-water reactors, will increase that "energy gain" enormously.

   Australia is, and will certainly continue to be, a major exporter of uranium, for civilian nuclear energy use under strict safeguards, to the world. This uranium has a very valuable role in providing clean, safe, abundant energy to replace coal and fossil fuel use throughout the world - today and into the future.

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   Marc Hendrickx

   (Geologist)

   What a biased, unbalanced, over the top alarmist take on uranium mining and nuclear energy!

8. Permalink

   

   Hamish Jackson

   (Physician)

   Thanks Gavin for highlighting the apparently drastic short-comings of BHP's environmental assessment in planning for above ground residue dumping at Olympic Dam (and the other environmental issues raised). If correct, the case you present is an interesting contrast to Dean Dalla Valle's (BHP) comments in the Australian 11/October:

   "The (approval) announcement is the culmination of one of the most comprehensive and rigorous environmental assessment processes undertaken in Australia ...."

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   Marc Hendrickx

   (Geologist)

   Gavin states:
   "The evidence is abundantly clear: at Radium Hill in South Australia, less than ten years after covers were placed over its tailings, those covers were eroding and exposing tailings to wind dispersion."

   In email correspondence he now indicates the event occurred "a decade ago". Photos provided by Gavin show the erosion to be a minor scour. Gavin does not indicate above that the erosion was quickly repaired, or that the Radium Hill site is currently subject to an active management…

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   Gavin states:
   "The evidence is abundantly clear: at Radium Hill in South Australia, less than ten years after covers were placed over its tailings, those covers were eroding and exposing tailings to wind dispersion."

   In email correspondence he now indicates the event occurred "a decade ago". Photos provided by Gavin show the erosion to be a minor scour. Gavin does not indicate above that the erosion was quickly repaired, or that the Radium Hill site is currently subject to an active management program by PIRSA.

   See http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/88974/M4074240_Radium_Hill_Information_Sheet.pdf.

   A 10 year old photo of minor scouring at a very remote small mine site currently under active management hardly the basis for a scare campaign.

   Erosion at Radium Hill was described by B. G. Lottermoser and P. M. Ashley, 2006
   Physical dispersion of radioactive mine waste at the rehabilitated Radium Hill uranium mine site, South Australia. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (2006) 53, (485 – 499).

   In regard to radiation they state: "The mean exposure rate calculated from 38 individual geophysical traverses from the mine and processing site amounts to 0.67 mSv/h. Australian Radiation Protection Standards (ARPANSA 1995) limit the exposure to ionising radiation, and the dose limit for the public has been set at 1 mSv/year. Also, radiation levels from most sample media are not significant, bearing in mind the remote location and good ventilation. Thus, visitors to the Radium Hill site will not be exposed to excessive radiation levels. However, exposure of mill tailings by future erosion could become a more substantial issue as tailings generally have the highest radiation dose. The current covered tailings storage facilities do not have long-term geomorphic stability and are already subject to rill erosion, and in the future might be subject again to significant wind erosion. A long-term management strategy must require capping of waste dumps and reconfiguration of the main tailings dam to a stable landform."

   I previously posted my correspondence with Gavin and PIRSA to this post but this was removed by The Conversation Editors. Anyone interested in this can email me for a copy.

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    Oliver Roberts

    PhD (logged in via email @gmail.com)

    The author clearly has a jaundiced view of the benefits of mining in Australia, and of uranium mining in particular. In our energy-hungry (and increasingly carbon-constrained) world, he should temper his unfounded alarmist comments, particularly as the extensive EIS consultation and approvals processes are now completed. Technical experts should contribute to the debate before the political decision. As an academic, he has a privileged position which allows him to investigate specific problems and…

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    The author clearly has a jaundiced view of the benefits of mining in Australia, and of uranium mining in particular. In our energy-hungry (and increasingly carbon-constrained) world, he should temper his unfounded alarmist comments, particularly as the extensive EIS consultation and approvals processes are now completed. Technical experts should contribute to the debate before the political decision. As an academic, he has a privileged position which allows him to investigate specific problems and, if they are significant, find solutions. He disparages the proposed Olympic Dam mine closure plans, but the comparison with Ranger is disingenuous, because of extreme climatic differences. A better comparison would be the WA goldfields, where the environmental and groundwater issues of open-pit mining have been managed for so long.

    Permanent storage of high-level radioactive waste is the most pressing issue for research attention within the nuclear fuel cycle, and Australia's geology and sparse population make it an appropriate country for such a facility. Responsible stewardship of our uranium, behooves our researchers to address this problem.

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       Ben Heard

       Director, ThinkClimate Consulting (logged in via email @thinkclimateconsulting.com.au)

       Oliver, on the point of long-term storage, the appropriate place for Governments to strategically invest is on hastening the commercialisation of Generation IV nuclear power technology, such as the Integral Fast Reactor, which reprocesses and consumes 99% of high level nuclear waste as fuel (including all isotopes of both uranium, plutonium and other actinides) , as well as depleted uranium (which, though it sounds nasty, is a very, very low risk substance which is why it has so many uses). It is not the case that there is no solution to this problem. The technology is proven, demonstrated, and operated successfully in the US for 30 years to the 1990's before closure for political reasons. I recommend you check out the Science Council for Global Initiatives, who are leading the effort to accelerate the restart of this technology. The board includes Dr Charles Till, the guy who basically invented it.

11. Permalink

    

    Margaret Beavis

    Tutor melbourne University, GP (logged in via email @bigpond.net.au)

    More than sixty years after the first reactor was built, we still don't have a long term waste storage anywhere in the world. Transporting the waste is unacceptable.

    Exposure to radiation has a linear effect on cancer risk- natural or not you will have an increased rate of malignancies in areas where there is increased radiation. Just ask the 120,000 people of Chernobyl, who still cannot live where they owned houses 30 years ago due to the health hazard. Similarly there are 80,000 people displaced…

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    More than sixty years after the first reactor was built, we still don't have a long term waste storage anywhere in the world. Transporting the waste is unacceptable.

    Exposure to radiation has a linear effect on cancer risk- natural or not you will have an increased rate of malignancies in areas where there is increased radiation. Just ask the 120,000 people of Chernobyl, who still cannot live where they owned houses 30 years ago due to the health hazard. Similarly there are 80,000 people displaced at Fukushima. The nuclear industry does not ever mention their fate.

    The Olympic Dam expansion is relying on exemptions(an Indenture Act) from the South Australian government to exclude it from SA laws- exemption from environment protection laws, aboriginal heritage laws and even most tellingly freedom of information laws. This is clearly in the interests of the mining company, and clearly not in the interest of South Australians (nor Australians either). An open radioactive tailings dump is indeed world's worst practice.

    Nuclear power is far from cheap. Companies rely on huge goverment subsides. Pre Fukushima President Obama was offering over US$80 billion in loan guarantees to try and kick start the dying nuclear industry in the US. Germany is phasing out nuclear power, as is Switzerland.

    Nuclear power is dirty, and inevitably part of the nuclear fuel chain. India built its nuclear weapons in the early 70's and started the arms race with Pakistan by breaching "binding" agreements with the Canadians who supplied them with a reactor solely for power generation . If attacked, every nuclear reactor is potentially a dirty bomb- with far worse impacts than the twin towers of New York.

    Nuclear is dirty, expensive and dangerous. We need to focus on efficiency and the renewable energy sources.

    Pushing nuclear energy may be in the mining companies' interest, but it is clearly not in the national interest. We do not need a more polluted, less safe world.

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       Ben Heard

       Director, ThinkClimate Consulting (logged in via email @thinkclimateconsulting.com.au)

       Hi Margaret,

       You sound a lot like I did a few years ago. I've been there.

       I'm not going to go you point by point, but I have done so in a presentation I deliver explaining why and how I changed my mind. You won't struggle to find it with a visit to Decarbonise SA.

       I will just address the cost argument, however. Baseload energy investments are so large that there is, inevitably, going to be a degree of public sector support, regardless of the technology. Otherwise the private sector simply does…

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       Hi Margaret,

       You sound a lot like I did a few years ago. I've been there.

       I'm not going to go you point by point, but I have done so in a presentation I deliver explaining why and how I changed my mind. You won't struggle to find it with a visit to Decarbonise SA.

       I will just address the cost argument, however. Baseload energy investments are so large that there is, inevitably, going to be a degree of public sector support, regardless of the technology. Otherwise the private sector simply does not accept the risk of anything that costs in the billions but does not begin to show return until construction begins several years later. That is one reason why all that is being built in Australia right now is wind and small peaking gas plants; they are modular, and relatively quick to get up and running. But neither can do the heavy lifting of our power supply.

       Nuclear is expensive to build, everyone knows that. Once built it is highly reliable and very cheap to run, so it gives electricity at a very good price which is after all what we want.

       Loan guarantees are an incredibly low-impact form of subsidies, basically reducing the cost of borrowing on something very expensive. That compares with renewables in Australia where we lose money hand over fist in direct cash subsidy to 1/3 of the capital cost (Solar Flagships), guaranteed purchase rates of expensive electricity (RECs) and exorbitant rewards for home solar (feed in tarrif and REC), even though these technologies have no chance of delivering on the big problem.

       So please, drop that cost argument, it is false. Unless you are particularly affectionate to coal and gas, and the climate change and other horrible pollution that goes with it, nuclear is by far the best value zero carbon energy available.

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       Mark Duffett

       (logged in via Facebook)

       "Exposure to radiation has a linear effect on cancer risk..."

       That is a highly contentious assertion. http://www.radiationandreason.com/

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       Tom Keen

       BSc (logged in via email @gmail.com)

       If exposure to radiation has a linear effect on health, why is this not shown in epidemiological studies in different regions with greatly varying natural background radiation? And why do The French Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine in France reject the linear no-threshold model?

       Try reading: Hooker, A.M., Bhat, M., Day, T.K., Lane, J.M., Swinburne, S., Morley, A.A., & Sykes, P.J., 2004. The linear no-threshold model does not hold for low-dose ionizing radiation. Radiation…

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       If exposure to radiation has a linear effect on health, why is this not shown in epidemiological studies in different regions with greatly varying natural background radiation? And why do The French Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine in France reject the linear no-threshold model?

       Try reading: Hooker, A.M., Bhat, M., Day, T.K., Lane, J.M., Swinburne, S., Morley, A.A., & Sykes, P.J., 2004. The linear no-threshold model does not hold for low-dose ionizing radiation. Radiation Research, 162(4), 447-452.

       Also, I quote The World Health Organization's 2005 report on Chernobyl:

       "Alongside radiation-induced deaths and diseases, the report labels the mental health impact of Chernobyl as “the largest public health problem created by the accident” and partially attributes this damaging psychological impact to a lack of accurate information."

       and

       "By and large, however, we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, within a few exceptional, restricted areas."

       From: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index.html

       I find it worrying that a GP would so uncritically make such statements about radiation, particularly given the psychological consequences these statements can have.

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       Tom Keen

       BSc (logged in via email @gmail.com)

       Sorry but this is a terrible, uninformed article - one of the worst I've read on this normally solid news site.

       What's this business about rare earths? If it was profitable, they'd be doing it - it's BHP Billiton, remember! And if they were mining for rare earths at Olympic Dam, they'd still have all those "radioactive" tailings to deal with - it's all the same rock. So what's your point?

       Only one passing mention of the desalination plant? This is by far the most ecologically harmful part of the…

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       Sorry but this is a terrible, uninformed article - one of the worst I've read on this normally solid news site.

       What's this business about rare earths? If it was profitable, they'd be doing it - it's BHP Billiton, remember! And if they were mining for rare earths at Olympic Dam, they'd still have all those "radioactive" tailings to deal with - it's all the same rock. So what's your point?

       Only one passing mention of the desalination plant? This is by far the most ecologically harmful part of the expansion.

       If you're concerned about mining, go to maps.google.com, and search "Muswellbrook NSW 2333" and then "Olympic Dam SA 5725" in another window. Scroll back to the 10 km scale bar on both maps. Compare the coal mines of the Hunter Valley to Olympic Dam.

       Oh, and renewables require far, far more materials and mining than nuclear power plants do: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/18/tcase4/

       I wonder where all the steel, concrete and rare earths that the renewable industries buy comes from? Surely not the mines of BHP Billiton?!

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    Margaret Beavis

    Tutor melbourne University, GP (logged in via email @bigpond.net.au)

    It is clear radiation has a linear effect on cancer risk.

    Have a look at "The 15-Country Collaborative Study of Cancer Risk among Radiation Workers in the Nuclear Industry: estimates of radiation-related cancer risks." Cardis ,E. et al. 2007 Radiation Research

    Part of the abstract..
    A 15-Country collaborative cohort study was conducted to provide direct estimates of cancer risk following protracted low doses of ionizing radiation. Analyses included 407,391 nuclear industry workers monitored individually for external radiation and 5.2 million person-years of follow-up. A significant association was seen between radiation dose and all-cause mortality [excess relative risk (ERR) 0.42 per Sv, 90% CI 0.07, 0.79; 18,993 deaths]. This was mainly attributable to a dose-related increase in all cancer mortality (ERR/Sv 0.97, 90% CI 0.28, 1.77; 5233 deaths).

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       Luke Weston

       Physicist / electronic engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)

       If every single cumulative nanosievert of ionising radiation dose really was responsible for adverse health effects and increased morbidity and mortality, then we would be able to see that increased morbidity and mortality - through careful, well-controlled, quantitative scientific epidemiology - in every single medical radiologist and nuclear medicine technologist, every experimental physicist and every biomedical researcher who uses radionuclides. We would see it in nuclear energy workers who work…

       show full comment

       If every single cumulative nanosievert of ionising radiation dose really was responsible for adverse health effects and increased morbidity and mortality, then we would be able to see that increased morbidity and mortality - through careful, well-controlled, quantitative scientific epidemiology - in every single medical radiologist and nuclear medicine technologist, every experimental physicist and every biomedical researcher who uses radionuclides. We would see it in nuclear energy workers who work around ionising radiation.

       We would see the radiation-related morbidity and mortality from Chernobyl fulfuling the linear-non-threshold based predictions of the anti-nuclear activists, instead of the real-world epidemiological outcomes which turned out, to the surprise of many scientists, to be nowhere as bad as some predicted.

       We would see it epidemiologically in every person who lives in Ramsar, or Kerala, or Denver or Cornwall, compared to populations living in other places that do not have those unusually high natural background ionising radiation doses.

       And of course we would see increased radiation-related morbidity and mortality in all commercial airline pilots and crews, who have the greatest occupational ionising radiation dose of any people working in any occupation.

       But we do not see any of these things, the predictions of what we would empirically see.
       That's how we do science. You make the hypothesis, you determine what the consequences will be that you will be able to see empirically, and then you go and look at the empirical data.

       It doesn't matter who made the hypothesis, or what her name is, or how smart they are or how highly regarded they are - if it doesn't agree with experiment then it's wrong.

       The hypothesis that every single cumulative nanosievert of ionising radiation dose is responsible for adverse health effects and increased morbidity and mortality has been a hypothesis for the last 50 years, and it has remained a hypothesis without any real body of empirical evidence coming along to support it.

       The entire science of radiotherapy is based on known radiobiological behavior - namely that fractionated doses do not have a linearly cumulative response and that there dose thresholds below which tissue does not experience any real morbidity in practice.

    2. Permalink

       

       Mark Duffett

       (logged in via Facebook)

       Quoting Jaworowski on Cardis et al (2007): "This conclusion was based on an ad hoc accepted assumption of a confounding healthy worker effect for the studied cohort. However, the existence of this effect was not supported by their data or by any other factual evidence. This effect could be correctly assumed only if the cancer marker diagnostics (ACS. 2009) and genetic tests were used in pre-employment screening and selection of these workers. But these procedures were not applied in the Cardis…

       show full comment

       Quoting Jaworowski on Cardis et al (2007): "This conclusion was based on an ad hoc accepted assumption of a confounding healthy worker effect for the studied cohort. However, the existence of this effect was not supported by their data or by any other factual evidence. This effect could be correctly assumed only if the cancer marker diagnostics (ACS. 2009) and genetic tests were used in pre-employment screening and selection of these workers. But these procedures were not applied in the Cardis and others cohort, and even now they are not recommended by ICRP, directives of European Union, or IAEA International Basic Safety Standards. Thus this assumption is invalid and explains nothing. On the other hand, the statistical reanalysis of Cardis and others data clearly documents that their assumption of a healthy worker effect was incorrect, and their data indicated that low doses of ionizing radiation induced a hormetic effect in the exposed nuclear workers (Fornalski KW and Dobrzynski L. 2010. Healthy worker effect and nuclear industry workers. Dose-Response 8: 125-147)."

       Some parts of the Earth’s surface have high natural radiation background, but no harmful health effects have ever been detected in these areas. See also 'Cancer incidence and mortality after low-dosage radiation exposure: Epidemiological aspects'
       by Mekhova et al in Biophysics (4/2011).

       As I said, this is a highly contentious area to say the least.

13. Permalink

    

    Shirley Birney

    retiree (logged in via email @tpg.com.au)

    I’ve been inadvertently re-directed to this thread by Luke Weston’s post which he has duplicated on no fewer than 7 websites:

    “In response to Gavin Mudd’s ridiculous article about the Olympic Dam expansion over on The Conversation, I wrote a lengthy comment in response. It’s posted over there but I will also copy it here for interested readers,” x7.

    Having contributed to (and observed the denial, disinformation, obfuscations and polemics over at “Safe, zero-carbon and proven: is fourth-generation…

    show full comment

    I’ve been inadvertently re-directed to this thread by Luke Weston’s post which he has duplicated on no fewer than 7 websites:

    “In response to Gavin Mudd’s ridiculous article about the Olympic Dam expansion over on The Conversation, I wrote a lengthy comment in response. It’s posted over there but I will also copy it here for interested readers,” x7.

    Having contributed to (and observed the denial, disinformation, obfuscations and polemics over at “Safe, zero-carbon and proven: is fourth-generation nuclear the energy solution,” I daresay that Luke’s ridicule of the author’s information simply compounds the pro-nuclear club’s ever increasing lack of credibility leading ever closer to self-destruction.

    1) Approaches to decommissioning and rehabilitation (of the Olympic Dam project) being considered include the implementation of long-term closure measures, necessitating sufficient expenditure to relinquish the lease and leave the community no on-going liability (a “sustainable” solution that does not bequeath a problem to future generations), or to allow for indefinite on-going maintenance. The difficulty with the latter is how to ensure that any future maintenance organisation, and its funding, could endure for as long as maintenance is reasonably required.(Source: ARPANSA)

    2) The proposed OD expansion will include construction of a RSF to hold approximately 11.8 billion tonnes of rock that has no economic mineralization. The RSF will wrap around the south, east and north sides of the proposed pit and on completion will be almost 14 kilometres in total length and will average 4 kilometres in width. The average height will be approximately 125 metres. (Source: BHP Billiton)

    3) Reports of TENORM radionuclide concentrations obtained from wastes at different mine sites can vary greatly, depending on the geographic location, the type of waste sampled, how deep the sampled material was in the waste pile, how long the material had been exposed on the surface, impacts of weather, and many other variables.

    In one study, radionuclide concentrations in overburden and waste rock were reported from 58 samples collected from 17 uranium mines across the U.S. Data indicate that 69 percent of the samples were elevated in radium-226 concentrations (defined as concentrations greater than or equal to 5pCi/g (0.185 Bq/g), and over 50 percent had concentrations above 20 pCi/g (0.74 Bq/g) and up to 53 pCi/g (1.96 Bq/g) in the near-surface overburden.

    Field measurements indicate that average radon flux rates vary from about 2B60 pCi/m2s (0.07B2.22 Bq/m2s) for overburden materials to as high as a few hundred pCi/m2s (> 7.4 Bq/m2s) for low-grade ore materials. (Source: US EPA)

    4) There is something unpleasant (if not chilling) about nuclear apologists’ trivialisation and denial of the health impacts of artificial radionuclides on the human species when the US Department of Energy has recently advised that from the inception of the Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Programme in 2001 through to August 2011, the Department has paid $7.8 billion to 86,000 nuclear workers afflicted with serious radiation illnesses.