Nuclear Coastline

A Nuclear Plant With a View of the Beach

A nuclear reactor is a fission-powered kettle that produces stream to drive a turbine that makes electricity. It is not practical to condense the steam back into water, so it is lost into the atmosphere as water vapour.

More water is used when it is swirled around the facility to cool it down. This warmed water is released before it becomes so hot that it kills fish downstream (as has happened in France). Between the boiling and the swirling, nuclear reactors use vast amounts of water. In our sunburnt country, any Australian nuclear reactor must be located within pumping distance of the ocean to ensure water security.

80 percent of all Australians live within 80 kms of the sea. It makes sense to place reactors near major cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Darwin and Brisbane. This places the power next to the consumers, reducing transmission losses and making it easier to staff the facility. On the whole, nuclear scientists don't like to live on remote coastlines away from the rest of humanity.

Placing nuclear reactors on the coastline next to populated areas introduces obvious tension with the public. Nuclear power can be an emotive issue for many people. In the Philippines, the Bataan nuclear power plant was built but never fuelled due to public reaction to the Three Mile Island accident. Later, the Chernobyl accident sealed Bataan's fate. It never produced a single Watt of energy, yet cost US$2.3 billion dollars and took thirty years to pay off. You can install a lot solar power for US$2.3 billion dollars.

A Terrorist Target

In the US, nuclear reactors are guarded against terrorism around the clock. A successful attack would cause an uncontrolled radiation leak. Like Chernobyl, a large area surrounding the damaged plant would have to be fenced off until further notice. When Chernobyl melted down, the town of Pripyat in the Ukraine was evacuated and remains a radioactive ghost town.

Storage of Waste

That old chestnut. The good news is that the latest nuclear reactors are so efficient that waste need only be stored for perhaps 300 years. This is still much longer than the useful life of a nuclear power plant, which is around fifty years.

The bad news is that spent nuclear waste is a target for terrorists wanting to build a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive wrapped in radioactive material. When it goes off, it disperses radiation around the site and into the air. Imagine the impact of a small dirty bomb going off in the middle of George Street, Sydney. Rational and Irrational fear would grip thousands of people in the area. The CBD would be emptied and shut down. Looting may complicate a difficult situation. The cleanup would take weeks. Public confidence would take longer. Nuclear waste must be guarded for at least 300 years, long after the reactor that created it has been decommissioned.

Australia's Nuclear Future

With no nuclear industry in Australia, most experts seem to think that our first reactor would take around fifteen years to commission. Nuclear reactors take so long to build that governments can change and public pressure can force decision reversals. Like an unpopular war, it is easy to imagine a scenario where a new government is installed on the back of a promise to reverse an unpopular decision about nuclear energy. Nuclear power is a multi-billion dollar gamble at the mercy of public opinion. Far less controversial is any form of alternative energy. Imagine how much solar power can be installed for $US2.3 billion dollars. Installation could start this afternoon.