Continue reading ‘White House soon no longer part of the problem (sort of)’
Archive for the 'Nuclear' Category
If a recent article from the BBC is anything to go by, countries that think they are reducing their carbon emissions may in fact be increasing them. It seems that under UN rules no-one owns emissions from aviation and shipping.
Furthermore, no-one counts the increase that comes from imported goods. So moving manufacturing offshore is one way of reducing your GHG emissions score. And any increase in the consumption of material goods doesn’t count when they are imported.
Continue reading ‘Carbon counting conundrums, difficult choices’
You might remember that the government recently gave Gareth Evans a new job - to lead a commission on nuclear disarmament. In that context, I happened to pick up (for the trans-Pacific plane ride) little Quarterly Essay-style book on nuclear disarmament by Hans Blix, the man who spent 2002-3 being conspicuously and inconveniently correct on the topic of Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.
In 2005-06, Blix headed a commission, supported by the Swedish Parliament, whose final report provides the most recent comprehensive summary of the issues surrounding nuclear disarmament. Given one of the commissioners was none other than Gareth himself, it would be reasonable to expect that the content reflects the general tenor of his own thinking on the topic (and, incidentally, raises the question of what else this new commission will add). It’s quite accessible and well-written, so if you’re interested in the question I’d recommend you download the report - or at least the executive summary - and have a look.
Nuclear energy is off the public agenda in Australia for now, and likely won’t reappear for a little while at least. But there are reasons to think it might come back at some time in the medium-term future. The key question as to whether we see it appear back on the public agenda is the shape of the emissions trading scheme. How steep will the cuts required be - or, alternatively, how high will the carbon price go? At $20 per tonne, nuclear probably doesn’t look all that attractive. At $50 per tonne, it starts to look much more interesting. A second question is whether the new low-emission technologies - my picks are solar thermal and geothermal, because they’re potentially reasonably cheap and supply power when it’s needed - actually start to work out in practice. The third area of uncertainty is the progress of carbon capture and storage technology. As many LP commenters have noted, progress has been far slower than its numerous proponents have expected. The final question is that of natural gas prices. Natural gas is going to be exported from the Australian east coast, so any new gas-fired electrical generation will have to pay the world market price for the stuff; and that’s pretty damn dear. At current US natural gas prices, the fuel to run a gas-fired generator will cost roughly $85 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated. If you have a look at the NEMMCO Australian electricity market data, that’s roughly double the average wholesale price of electricity in most Australian states. If natural gas stays at these prices, it’s no longer going to be a low-cost replacement for coal, and that makes nuclear look pretty appealing.
But, in any case, whether nuclear power will happen in Australia is a question that can wait for another day. Today, a round-up of some things that are happening around the world with nuclear.
Kim mentioned the PM’s new nuclear disarmament commission yesterday. I figured some context might be in order.
The guts of the announcement, which must have brought deep warmth to the cockles of Peter Garrett’s heart, was the announcement of a new commission on non-proliferation and disarmament. The Commission will examine the rules relating to nuclear proliferation and disarmament, in the leadup to the negotiated renewal of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2010. Back in 1995, at the fag end of the Keating Government, Gareth Evans organized the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The executive summary of its report can be read here. So it’s not surprising that Gareth Evans has been picked to run this new commission.
Unsurprisingly, this has brought anti-nuclear campaigners out of the woodwork, lauding this effort but suggesting that Rudd should join New Zealand in excluding ourselves from the American “nuclear umbrella”. Presumably this means shutting Pine Gap and preventing US warships from visiting our shores. The fact that this has Buckley’s chance of actually happening is indicative of the prospects for significant progress on complete nuclear disarmament any time soon. At the heart of the NPT was a deal between those within and those without the nuclear club. The non-nuclear states agreed not to get nuclear weapons. The nuclear states agreed to work towards disarmament over time. You might also add that the nuclear states implicitly agreed to not give non-nuclear states reasons to want nukes. The nuclear club, particularly, hasn’t really held up its side of the bargain.
Interest in nuclear weapons has faded a lot since the Cold War. These days, the possibility of nuclear confrontation between major powers isn’t treated terribly seriously, because the costs of such an exchange would be too horrible to contemplate. And, anyway, both the Russians and the US have been reducing their nuclear arsenals, right? Instead, concerns lay much more around nuclear terrorism, on the assumption that terrorists can’t be deterred by the threat of destruction.
However, amongst the small group of academics who are examining the issue, there’s a pair who are putting together some interesting, and rather disturbing conclusions. Keir Lieber and Daryl Press, two American academics, argue that in a military confrontation with China, the USA has the ability to destroy the Chinese long-range arsenal, if it strikes first. Therefore, if it came to it, an American president may be sorely tempted to try such a strike; as they argue in a recent presentation (follow the link for video), such a strike was precisely what the USA planned for against the Soviets during the 1950s, when the nuclear balance between the USA and the Soviet union was roughly analogous to the situation now.
It’s worth noting that other experts in the area (including the owner of the blog I’ve linked to, Jeffery Lewis) don’t accept Lieber and Press’s conclusions. For one thing, while a strike may well have a good chance of taking out all the missiles that could reach the US, that still leaves the Chinese with plenty that could reach Japan and Korea and the more than 50,000 American troops there - not to mention, of course the millions of Koreans and Japanese who might not be entirely happy with the US government pursuing a strategy that left their populations vulnerable to complete annihilation…
In any case, some thoroughly depressing reading and listening material on the leadup to Anzac Day.
In the wake of a new IAEA report on Iran, the UN Security Council has voted to impose more sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program, restricting the import of more dual-use technologies, and placing additional travel restrictions on people involved in the program.
If you want to read the IAEA report, it’s available here, though it’s pretty incomprehensible. A more accessible summary is provided by Andy Grotto at Arms Control Wonk: in essence, the Iranians have provided plausible explanations for some of the things they did during the 1990s and early 2000s, but they’ve simply denied the most, um, explosive allegations floating around.
Tim Dunlop notes that the Coalition has quietly ditched its support for nuclear power in Australia - sort of.
The new policy does not explicitly oppose nuclear-generated electricity, but goes close. The Coalition will no longer advocate nuclear power, recognising that its introduction would only be possible with bipartisan political support and widespread community support.
Tim’s a little bit disappointed they didn’t stick to their guns. Guy Beres (formerly of Polemica is quite contemptuous of the politics of the ditching:
The message from the Coalition seems to be that they are interested in investigating the possibility of nuclear energy, but no, of course they would never actually pursue the development of a nuclear power industry in this country. No, sir. They are just interested in investigating it. Unless of course, the Rudd Government decides to embrace nuclear power, in which case they would be happy to hop on board for the ride
Well, surprise surprise. After losing a court case where Greenpeace successfully argued that the government didn’t meet the requirements of its own legislation to consult on the issue, Gordon Brown’s government has conducted the mother of all consultation programs, and, to the surprise of no one, come back with the same answer it started with. Britain is going to invite power companies to build a new generation of nuclear power plants..
Their white paper, and the report from that consultation, are here; frankly, the most interesting part of the whole thing is the white paper - the public consultation documents tell you that some people support nuclear power, and others are opposed. Well, strike me down with a feather…
In any case, the key parts of the policy are as follows:
Continue reading ‘Nuclear Britain leaves the key question unanswered’
’tis the season to catch up on the reading that you don’t get the time or inclination to do during the rest of the year. I’ve certainly had a chance to plough through a few books.
Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay on Howard’s demise is out, and it’s very much in her typical style. Psychoanalytic interpretations of the electorate, and to some extent the leaders, abound. One assertion that I found considerable room to quibble with, however, is her claim that the seeds of Howard’s political demise were sown with the ascension of Rudd to the Labor leadership. While we’ll never know, I suspect Labor would have had a pretty fair shot of winning this election with Beazley - or Julia Gillard - as leader. Perhaps the scare campaign about union influence might have more effect given a Gillard leadership; perhaps the It’s Time factor wouldn’t have been as great if Beazley had still been in charge. And Brett, in an almost throwaway manner, states that Andrew Bolt has been crucial in keeping Victorian working-class votes in conservative manner. Does Bolt really have any great influence on swinging voters, or does he just preach to the converted, a shock jock of the print world? In any case, there is one particularly good reason to read this issue of QE: an extraordinarily insightful and beautifully-written piece of correspondence at the back. I agree with every word the author wrote…
Continue reading ‘Holiday reading’
Apparently, the Australian government has done a deal to sell uranium to India. Neither Labor nor the Greens and Democrats are happy about the decision, on the basis that India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and therefore we shouldn’t be selling them uranium. As Tim Dunlop puts it
I’ve got an open mind about how our nuclear industry develops (see this, for an earlier discussion) but it is just plain reckless to operate outside the non-proliferation treaty.
It sort of slipped by last week without a great deal of notice, but Alexander Downer revealed something rather interesting about Australia’s negotiations with the US about our future involvement in the nuclear industry:
“It’s a real possibility that we could build a relationship with the Americans under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) but their work on that isn’t even finished yet,” he said.
The GNEP, you ask? It’s an American-led proposal to allow the expansion of the nuclear industry, while minimising the concerns about nuclear proliferation. If a developing country wants nuclear power, the GNEP countries will sell them a reactor, provides the fuel, and takes the fuel back for reprocessing and disposal afterwards. Therefore, the developing country isn’t faced with the difficulties of safely disposing of spent fuel; equally, the spent fuel isn’t available for nuclear proliferation either.
Some people might remember the piece I did on back of the envelope calculations a little while back. The radioactive leak at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Japan gives an example of why it’s important, and, more importantly, how they can be misinterpreted.
Tim Dunlop wants to know about how they got the estimate of the amount of radioactive material released wrong by 50%. It’s a reasonable question, but in fact it doesn’t matter a jot because the quantities are infinitesimally small.
Continue reading ‘Back of the envelope radioactivity calculations’
Gordon Brown hasn’t had the most pleasant of starts to his Prime Ministership, with three failed car bombing attempts in the past couple of days (incidentally, what kind of whackers are these guys? How hard is it to set off a bomb?). But his very first task as Prime Minister is, while unlikely to be ever acted upon, is perhaps even more foreboding:
As prime minister, with ultimate responsibility for Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Mr Brown has to write a letter, in his own hand, giving instructions detailing what the UK’s response should be in the event of a pre-emptive nuclear attack.
The letter will be opened only by the commander of a British Trident submarine, who would have to assume that the prime minister was no longer in a position to take “live” command of the situation. The options are said to include the orders: “Put yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there”; “go to Australia”; “retaliate”; “or use your own judgment”.
Uranium enrichment seems to be the topic of the day today, with a collection of stories covering a rather frenzied reaction to two pieces of news dug up by a 7.30 report report. Firstly, that Australia had a “secret uranium enrichment program” in the 1970s and 1980s. Secondly, that a new company, with former researchers from that program, is in the early stages of feasibility assessment for a commercial enrichment plant in Australia.
Firstly, the “secret enrichment program” hasn’t been secret for a long time. Amongst other places, you can get an outline of the work in Rod Barton’s book The Weapons Detective, which was published a couple of years ago. Not to mention that, separately, Silex Systems invented their own enrichment system which may be the most efficient enrichment technology in the world - they recently sold the rights to General Electric and they’re currently building a test plant in the United States. More interesting, however, is the idea that somebody is actively considering building an enrichment plant in Australia. It’s impossible to judge, at this stage, the seriousness of this particular proposal, but given it’s unlikely to be the last it might be worth untangling some of the issues surrounding uranium enrichment in Australia.
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