Word: coaling
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...Environment. Nuclear power's image makeover began when James Lovelock-the British scientist whose "Gaia" theory likens the Earth to a living organism-declared nuclear power "the only green solution" to the world's energy needs. The coal-fired power plants that generate 80% of Australia's electricity produce huge quantities of carbon dioxide, which bears much of the blame for global warming. Nuclear plants produce almost no CO2. According to the csiro, replacing three of Australia's 24 coal plants with nuclear ones would cut carbon emissions from power generation by almost...
...technologies will soon make it possible to burn coal-of which Australia has a 300-year supply-with a minimal release of carbon dioxide. Victoria, Queensland and the federal government have pledged almost $A1 billion to develop these technologies, which could make coal-fired plants as greenhouse-friendly as nuclear ones...
...should be the focus of energy planning. Nuclear advocates point out that reactors are compact and don't require damming rivers or defacing rural landscapes. For the same output, they say, a solar panel array or wind farm would need 200-500 times as much land as an average coal or nuclear plant. Also, because wind-farm and solar outputs fluctuate, they must be backed up by coal, hydro or nuclear power...
...Waste disposal. Nuclear plants produce radioactive waste, which must be carefully shielded and stored. According to Melbourne University's Sevior, "the amount of waste that comes out of a typical [nuclear] plant is around 30 tonnes a year. The amount of waste that comes out of a coal-fired power plant is around 1,000 tonnes a day." Used fuel rods can be reprocessed into new fuel, reducing the volume of waste that needs to be stored by over 90%; turning the waste into synthetic rock reduces this even further. If it's not reprocessed, this high-level waste stays...
...sides differ on how to compare the costs of nuclear and other power. Nuclear plants are hugely expensive to build: an average-sized plant costs about $A2.5 billion. But they need very little fuel-uranium yields up to 1 million times as much energy as the same quantity of coal. The ansto study found that, taking waste management costs into account, nuclear power from an advanced plant "is cheaper than generating it from coal or a [clean coal] station...