Exhibit one: Julia Gillard advocating a change of Labor policy which would allow uranium sales to India. I’m not a Labor Party member, and it’s always puzzled me how certain issues must seemingly receive the imprimatur of the national conference, but not others. Presumably, if Julia Gillard feels comfortable to advocate for it in public, the fix is in – or, at least, the fix will now be arranged.

It seems that, again, the substantive irrelevance of this policy needs to be pointed out. When Australia had the procedural to actually restrict India’s access to imported uranium back in 2009, we squibbed it. India already – with our concurrence – buys uranium from other suppliers on the international market. Whether India buys it from us is 99% symbolism.

The trade-offs of that symbolism are quite complex – the integrity of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty vs. the realpolitik of a rising India. Underlying all of this is the American desire (India’s ability to import uranium came largely through a bilateral deal with the USA) to tighten security alliances in what looks not altogether like a containment strategy against China. The unwisdom of this strategy, and what Australia is doing, and should do about it, will hopefully be the topic of future posts.

Within the Labor Party, of course, positions on uranium sales to India seem largely split along the lines of broader opinions on uranium mining and nuclear power more generally.

For mine at least, the foreign policy direction that Julia Gillard seems to be happy to lead Australia in is far more of a concern than a long-foreshadowed fait accompli surrounding whether India gets its yellowcake from us or the Canadians or Khazaks.

Lots to digest if you’re interested in the issues; for instance, for what it’s worth I think the article by Edward Lyman overstates the importance of pre-engineering to cope with “blackout” for extended periods, and spends too little time talking about the inadequate emergency response.

Another point of interest is the discussion of the radiological and psychological effects of the accident.

Note: I’d request discussion on this thread to be restricted to the issues raised in the articles themselves, not a general open thread on Fukushima or nuclear power.

I think that nuclear power is a sufficiently sustainable source of power to provide all of the growth in our energy demands that are going to come in the next million years or so. (Emphasis added)

Yes, I checked the audio to make sure the ABC transcribers got it right and that’s exactly what he said. That was Barry Brook talking on Counterpoint last week.

In a recent post Steve Kirsch describes Brook’s conversion to nuclear:

Prominent Australian climate scientist Barry Brook admitted that he spent months educating himself on fourth generation nuclear before he came to the same conclusion Hansen did. In fact, before Brook heard about fourth generation nuclear, he thought the global warming problem was intractable because his own calculations confirmed the observations of many others (including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, MIT President Susan Hockfield and US Senator Lamar Alexander) regarding the necessity of nuclear power due to the problems with renewables being able to scale to meet our energy needs. (Emphasis added)

The so-called fourth generation nuclear is the Integrated Fast Reactor (IFR) which Kirsch tells us was invented in 1974 and worked on thereafter, but was cancelled in the early Clinton years by people who used to work in the oil and natural gas industry. Brook has now written copiously on the merits nuclear energy. In a recent article in the Oz which addresses the myths surrounding the nuclear power industry Brook says:

Worldwide, nuclear power is undergoing a renaissance. There are 45 so-called generation III reactors under construction, including 12 in China, and another 388 are planned or proposed.

The IFR plants will burn all of the uranium 235, plus the uranium 238, known as depleted uranium, yielding potentially 100 to 300 times the energy we currently get, with the waste residue returning to background levels of radiation within 300 years. Brook says the new reactors would have to violate the laws of physics to melt down or explode.

One issue not addressed by Brook and Kirsch as far as I know (I haven’t read all their stuff) is the safety of mining uranium. For 4G nuclear power, however, it shouldn’t be necessary for a few centuries.

According to Kirsch at current rates of power usage we could get 700 years out of the existing nuclear waste.

When I looked at Germany’s nuclear dilemma I said:

…if we want our grandchildren to live in a half decent world, I think we need to de-carbonise electricity grids by about 2030 and then go negative on emissions growth from 2030 to 2050, that is, reduce atmospheric CO2 from 450 ppm plus, or whatever it is then, and head for 280.

Brook suggests that to electrify everything, including our transport system, we’ll have to treble our stationary power production. I’d like to see the advanced economies phase out coal-fired power by 2020, with the developing countries doing likewise in the following decade. In Brokk’s vision in a portfolio of energy sources nuclear may well turn out to be the staple.

Brook says:

In terms of costs and build times, standardised, modular, passive-safety designs, which can be factory built and shipped to site, are game changers for the industry.

Brook sees this happening right now in India and China. So Brook thinks we could have nuclear in Australia within 10 years with more that half of that time being taken in getting our heads into gear and making the plans.

It’s worth emphasising that this industrialiastion of the production of nuclear power plants has advantages for safety which are built in to the specification. Previously, says Brook, each nuclear power station was a one-off project with a unique design.

In our case the Rudd Government is only aspiring to a 20% Renewable Energy Target (note the “mandatory” has been dropped) by 2020 and has proposed a CPRS that is an ETS on training wheels for some years. It’s hard to see us making a significant dent on emissions with energy savings, roof-top installations, a rising population and an increased demnd for stationary power if Brook is right. Unless the Queensland graziers give over half their properties to growing trees (not a joke, post forthcoming).

Meanwhile Hansen points out that Waxman-Markey, which he calls a “monstrous 1400-page absurdity … hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests” builds in approval of new coal-fired power plants. He pointed out to the Germans that if they went ahead with new coal-fired power stations they’d have to persuade the Russians to leave some of their oil in the ground.

Not to mention the Canadians and their tar sands and someone said the other day that the Victorian Government had approved a project to turn brown coal into oil. Just 60,000 barrels for now but potentially more oil than all the Middle East!

Victoria is sitting on 25% of the world’s brown coal reserves. This glossy informs (warns) us what they intend to do with it. That includes liquefaction and gasification as well as drying it out to compete directly with blck coal exports.

I don’t know about you, but somtimes life get’s tee-jus, don’t it?

Meanwhile in Britain where the Government has given the green light to nukes we have an activist Government driving hard on renewables especially wind power. I suspect that when they want to go beyond 50% renewables nukes will come back to a more central focus.

So what should we do? I don’t know, but in Australia we have unrivalled potential for solar, geothermal and probably (I don’t know much about it) wave power, the last two of which could supply our base-load requirement. The viability of large-scale geothermal should be settled in a half a decade or so. If we did large-scale conversions from coal to methane we could buy time.

But for the rest of the world with 388 nuclear plants planned or proposed (and I assume these are all 3G) the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. As a major supplier of ore we need to think well as to how we mine the stuff.

An article from February in Der Spiegel includes this image showing where nukes are and where they will be:

It is now presumed out of date, but the action appears to be in China, India, the rest of Asia, Russia, the USA and to a lesser extent Latin America and Eastern Europe. Western Europe may well be turning which leaves Africa.

Necessary or not, there is little doubt that nukes will be part of our future and that may not be as bad as many now perceive.

Olkiuoto-3 is just about the perfect example for anybody trying to argue against new nuclear plants on financial grounds. But here’s where it gets really weird. You’d reckon after all that, no Finnish company in their right mind would be considering building a plant. You’d be wrong. There are three Finnish companies still planning additional plants: TVO wants to build a fourth unit at Olkiuoto, and two other companies are putting in build applications, though it’s notable that at least one has proposed to build anything but the EPR design under interminable construction at Olkiuoto. And there’s more. Sweden’s government has just reversed a long-standing ban on new nuclear construction there. From the article, it seems the key reason the shift has occurred is a policy change from a “centrist” party in the center-right coaliation:

Center Party leader Maud Olofsson, who is also minister for energy and enterprise, told reporters she could “live with the fact that nuclear power would remain part of the energy system.”"The row over energy policy during all these years has been paralyzing for those who want to invest, for employment and for the political debate,” Olofsson said. Olofsson said that while her party remained skeptical about nuclear power, “we need a compromise” and the deal also set up “ambitious climate goals.”

As well as the climate change issue, there’s also undoubtedly concern about the security of gas supplies from Russia, but it’s hard to know just how big a factor this is in the decision. Nevertheless, it’s interesting that despite what can only be described as a discouraging start, Europe’s chilly northern states seem set to keep their lights on with nuclear energy.

WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

Instead, the US stepped up attempts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program by tampering with the goods it procured from foreign suppliers, and kept the Israelis informed on their efforts.

Iran’s nuclear program is going to be an issue again this year, or, if not, 2010 at the latest. Despite the US efforts, Iran has already produced enough low-enriched uranium to (with further processing), arguably, make one bomb. If they keep operating their centrifuges, and expand their enrichment plant, they will be in a position to turn their stockpile into an arsenal at short notice.

There’s obviously plenty of room to debate what should be done about these continuing developments; frankly, the best option might be “nothing”. But it’s important to keep an eye on the facts of the situation. And, on the basis of the fairly conservative IAEA’s reporting, Iran is going to have a for-real capability to make nuclear weapons pretty soon. And, given its past history, it’s unlikely that Israel will be blithely accepting of that idea, even if they were warned off this time around.