Could Nuclear Power Save Us from the Climate Change Crisis?

Australians join in debate everywhere, but where is the debate about renewable energy? Instead of arguing over issues like the carbon tax, why don’t we look at finding a solution to the problem? Nuclear power generation is sustainable and will reduce our Carbon Dioxide emissions but no one understands what it is or how we can use it. Ian Newnham fills in the gaps and explains why it is a viable and sustainable option for Australia.

Over the recent past, nuclear powered energy production has prevented about 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2 being added to the atmospheric load.

Not a lot in relevant terms but a real positive in an ever-increasing energy requirement that has tipped the world into the Climate Change crises.

Tom Blees in his book “ Prescriptions for the Planet” has examined in depth three key possible solutions for the world to embrace if we collectively wish for a better and fairer planet for us and future generations.

The first is energy production. The use of Integral Fast Reactors to produce electricity. The second is the use of Plasma technology for waste removal and the third is Boron powering technology for vehicles.

Setting aside the waste and vehicle issues for another day, the energy creation is pressing. Integrated Fast Reactors are technologically with us. They need more development but the basics are in place for these units to produce about a Gigawat Year of electricity from a tonne of fuel. They make use of depleted uranium stocks currently in the world at something in the magnitude of 1.1 million tonnes and rising. These are in part the wastes from current generator plants that cause so much debate about storage and half-lives.  Well, these can be re-used in IFR’s to extract their latent energy, then they will be reduced to a fraction of their size and to a 300 year, much more manageable, life cycle. The IFR’s can also use other fuels such as thorium. By using what is currently a problem for waste removal and transferring from fossil fuel to nuclear thus saving further climate change impacts would seem to be sensible. There are stocks of fuel adequate to last a very long time using this technology.

There are two other technologies being used or developed in the world, which are of great importance. The first is the extraction of uranium from waste coal residue or fly ash. Coal contains uranium, as does just about everything, and after use in a power plant the residue ends up as a waste product. In China the technology has been developed to extract the uranium from massive waste dumps and reuse it in current nuclear generating plants. We export millions of tonnes of Coal annually all of which will eventually be available to the destination countries for uranium extraction with this process. I do not think all of the coal importing nations, have signed uranium use protocols!  Perhaps a minor oversight, but more likely a case of a blinkered view.

The second process is the development in Japan of extraction of uranium from seawater. This is a completed process but is currently not cost efficient compared to terrestrial sources. It will be as the process is refined and other costs impact some mining processes. There is currently projected about 5.5 million tonnes of known terrestrial uranium deposits around the world. Australia has about 23% of these known reserves. Compare it to the oceans where there is calculated to be approx. 4.62 billion tonnes of uranium. Allowing for energy usage four times our current global demand and by the use of IFR’s it is reasonable to forecast that we will never run out of uranium to fuel our global energy requirement. Whatever we take from the oceans and process will be replaced by the Earths geological capacity to create and leach the mineral. That makes nuclear power generation a renewable along with the sun, wind, geothermal and others and therefore fully sustainable. Where is our Australian debate on this important issue?

Do you think nuclear power generation is something we need to consider? What are you ideas about slowing climate change?