NUCLEAR POWER AND THE FUTURE
‘With all the debate on uranium, nuclear power and the
threat of nuclear weapons and waste storage, could there be an answer that
appeases all sides of the argument?
Our supposed chosen representatives should be doing more
homework themselves rather than relying as usual on their highly paid
experts. As many options are being
overlooked and open and educated debate seems to be off the agenda’, said Mark
Aldridge Independent Candidate for the Legislative Council ‘I do not put myself forward as an expert by
any means, but my research leads me to believe there are answers to appease all
sides of the argument’ he said.
‘Firstly we could create huge employment and income in this
country by processing all our minerals on shore, particularly uranium and there
are many modern safe designs. One in
particular is pebble bed fuel for high temp gas cooled nuclear designs. This fuel is safe to handle once processed
and is used in the latest designs of nuclear power generation.
When sold overseas this fuel would promote the use of these
safer designed plants at the same time being useless to those with nuclear
weapon ambitions. This will appease the
green arguments at the same time fulfilling federal labors ambitions of
expanded mining and job creation.
By utilizing these
same designs for our power generation if in fact nuclear power is to be
adopted, we could utilize this safer technology and in fact supply all our fuel
requirements. If this situation were to
be embraced we could locate these plants inland as they do not rely on vast
amounts of our precious water to effect their cooling. A rather big plus, add this to their ability
to double as water desalination plants, our long-term future would be more than
secure.
‘The technology and industries required to effect this
situation could also embrace spent fuel recycling which has had proven success
overseas in regards to the same fuel being proposed here. This could address waste storage issues,
another global problem that could also be addressed by this technology as that
HTPBR (high temp pebble bed reactors) could also be utilized to overcome many
other important issues facing Australians future including the production of
hydrogen based synthetic fuels. Further research into the modern recycling of
spent fuel and isotope separation, in particular the latest breakthroughs in
laser and plasma based methods (ALVIS and SILEX). These offer a range of industrial applications for future
advanced technology industries included precious metals like palladium, rhodium
and ruthenium.
There are many other advanced ideas to supply our future
needs and Australians should lead the way rather than adopt old age technology,
so let the debate begin, green clean and profitable might just be the future of
nuclear power, rather than what the decades of fear and smear campaign have led
us to believe.
Mark M Aldridge
Independent Candidate for the Legislative Council 2009