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Cont: Australian Politics II

Agreed. We still need a nuclear facility or two in Australia, but not for power or weapons. Nuclear energy is used all the time for medicine and science.

In reality, nuclear reactors for power are quite inefficient. They are just tea-kettles, a substitute for burning something, to make steam. The process of heating water to make steam to spin a turbine to drive a generator to make electrical power is not efficient at all. So many losses of energy along the way.
The difference is that the source of energy for nuclear lasts for a very, very, very long time, which makes it more efficient in the end than the traditional method of setting stuff on fire.
 
I’m sure you know this, but nuclear power does not add to the amount of H2O in the world.
The reactor itself, no. The heat exchange circulates water for steam power. Some is lost in the process. As steam.

I agree that nuclear is far less impactful than burning hydrocarbons. But it's time is decades past for Australia now. We missed that bus by lots
 
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The reactor itself, no. The heat exchange circulates water for steam power. Some is lost in the process. As steam.

I agree that nuclear is far less impactful than burning hydrocarbons. But it's time is decades past for Australia now. We missed that bus by lots
Not correct, sorry. Water as ice, liquid or steam is a constant. The only addition is through volcanic activity, where the addition is too small to be calculated. Water constantly changes phase, but that’s it.
 
Not correct, sorry. Water as ice, liquid or steam is a constant. The only addition is through volcanic activity, where the addition is too small to be calculated. Water constantly changes phase, but that’s it.
Sorry, but nuclear plants produce steam as a by-product of heat exchange. That water comes from cooling ponds. Most of the exchange water is recirculated but not all. Nuclear plants need a water inflow to top up the ponds.

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Sure. But the process still produces steam as a byproduct. Hot, wet steam.
It's the excess heat that is generated that is the problem. The rate of fission in a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods that absorb neutrons (needed for fission). The faster the rate of fission, the more heat that is generated and this heat has to go somewhere.
 
It's the excess heat that is generated that is the problem. The rate of fission in a nuclear reactor is controlled by rods that absorb neutrons (needed for fission). The faster the rate of fission, the more heat that is generated and this heat has to go somewhere.

Yeah, there's a reason why nuclear plants are located on large bodies of water, and why they won't put their intakes downstream of their outlets.

There has been a bit of discussion recently about global warming making nuclear power stations unprofitable, because the intake water temperatures are too high now.
See here
Or here
Or here
 
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Yeah, there's a reason why nuclear plants are located on large bodies of water, and why they won't put their intakes downstream of their outlets.

There has been a bit of discussion recently about global warming making nuclear power stations unprofitable, because the intake water temperatures are too high now.
See here
Or here
Or here
Sounds like a clear contributor to global warming to me. It may not be as bad as coal but it is essentially the same principle; we "burn" uranium and use a fraction of the heat produced to generate electricity.
 
Oh please learn some physics guys. Water vapour doesn’t cause global warming, it is a consequence of it. Carbon dioxide and methane are the villains, and nuclear power will reduce emissions, there is absolutely no doubt about it.

The problem with building nuclear plants now is it is 30 years too late. We have to move to renewables and batteries now if we have any hope of meeting targets. Dutton plans to keep coal and gas power plants until his nuclear stations are built. We cannot afford this.
 
Unless you can show that concentrating U-235 doesn't result in extra heat being generated, this sounds more like advice you should be giving to yourself.
That wasn’t the claim. It was that the water vapour emitted by nuclear power stations contribute to global warming. Not true.
 
To be clear, water vapour is a greenhouse gas, just not a very potent one. It is, however, extremely abundant in the atmosphere and acts as a feedback mechanism rather than a direct driver of climate change. More water vapour, more effect from the other more potent greenhouse gases.

That's how I understand it works anyway. Not an expert don't @ me.
 
That wasn’t the claim. It was that the water vapour emitted by nuclear power stations contribute to global warming. Not true.
No, that wasn't the claim at all. Just that nuclear plants are not fully self contained.

The amount of steam out of a nuclear plant is way less than out of a coal fired plant. Apart from steam to drive turbines, water is also used to continuously move pulverised coal into the furnaces, and comes off as steam there too. It is usually recaptured and recycled, but not 100%.
 
To be clear, water vapour is a greenhouse gas, just not a very potent one.
Only to the effect that they are part of the greenhouse effect which allows life to exist on earth at all. When one refers to greenhouse gasses in this age, it concerns the gasses that are accelerating warming. And water does not cause warming.

And, despite comments to the contrary, H2O is as close to a constant as exists on earth. Nuclear power plants neither create nor destroy water.
 
To be clear, water vapour is a greenhouse gas, just not a very potent one. It is, however, extremely abundant in the atmosphere and acts as a feedback mechanism rather than a direct driver of climate change. More water vapour, more effect from the other more potent greenhouse gases.

That's how I understand it works anyway. Not an expert don't @ me.
Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas. Modelling clouds correctly is one of the problems the model creators have to work with.
Water vapor is Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas. It's responsible for about half of Earth's greenhouse effect — the process that occurs when gases in Earth's atmosphere trap the Sun's heat. Greenhouse gases keep our planet livable.

We don't make much of it directly. CO2 is a problem because once we put it up there it's not going to go bury itself back in the ground in a solid state for a long time.
 
Only to the effect that they are part of the greenhouse effect which allows life to exist on earth at all. When one refers to greenhouse gasses in this age, it concerns the gasses that are accelerating warming. And water does not cause warming.

And, despite comments to the contrary, H2O is as close to a constant as exists on earth. Nuclear power plants neither create nor destroy water.
Not sure where you get the impression anyone said otherwise. :unsure: They convert some of the available liquid terrestrial water to steam, water vapour, in the atmosphere. This isn't controversial.
 
Well, they can ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊-well start up here in the Blue Mountains, one of Australia's premier tourist destinations! We've still got 1950's telephone copper wire pairs to our houses and buildings, coming from nice new fibre NBN boxes just outside in the street. So it's still 1990's dial-up speeds for us.

Get a move-on, Albo!
 
We've just had fibre to the property upgrade. The old FTTN was having intermittent problems.
Almost invariably, it was not the fibre that was the problem. It was "the last mile" from the node to your house that was at fault. Because it was made from metal-based technology that was susceptible to all the weather and water problems that have plagued telephony since its invention.
 
Almost invariably, it was not the fibre that was the problem. It was "the last mile" from the node to your house that was at fault. Because it was made from metal-based technology that was susceptible to all the weather and water problems that have plagued telephony since its invention.
LOL- and many of those 'last mile' connections dated from those times...
 
Fibre to the property needs to be done. Either that or a decent 5G network everywhere and get rid of the NBN. I suggest the latter may be a good idea. It will give the speeds we need so why invest in anything else? Only give FTTP to businesses that need it.
 
Fibre to the property needs to be done. Either that or a decent 5G network everywhere and get rid of the NBN. I suggest the latter may be a good idea. It will give the speeds we need so why invest in anything else? Only give FTTP to businesses that need it.
5G???
PMSL- our rural town just had over HALF the rural residents lost all internet access- because they turned off the 3G tower- and 4G (despite claims to the contrary from Hel$ra) does NOT have the same coverage... (the maps show my place has 'strong' signal- in reality, its literally a 5 minute drive to a point where I can now get a signal...)

Oh- we already got '5G rural'- which doesn't even make it to the 'welcome' sign on the outskirts of town before it stops working...

(We do all have UHF cb's here lol- even with 80 channels you can't find an empty channel during the day...)

I got Starlink now- and a cheap Aldi plan on Vodaphone (lol- the nearest place it works on a vodaphone network is several hours drive away)- BUT it does allow 'wifi calling'- coupled to the Starlink at least gives me a functional phone at home...

Hel$ra and NBM- totally ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ useless....
 
5G???
PMSL- our rural town just had over HALF the rural residents lost all internet access- because they turned off the 3G tower- and 4G (despite claims to the contrary from Hel$ra) does NOT have the same coverage... (the maps show my place has 'strong' signal- in reality, its literally a 5 minute drive to a point where I can now get a signal...)

Oh- we already got '5G rural'- which doesn't even make it to the 'welcome' sign on the outskirts of town before it stops working...

(We do all have UHF cb's here lol- even with 80 channels you can't find an empty channel during the day...)

I got Starlink now- and a cheap Aldi plan on Vodaphone (lol- the nearest place it works on a vodaphone network is several hours drive away)- BUT it does allow 'wifi calling'- coupled to the Starlink at least gives me a functional phone at home...

Hel$ra and NBM- totally ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ useless....
That is why I said a decent 5G network, not what you described.
 
That is why I said a decent 5G network, not what you described.
I can remember the Opposition telling the public when the NBN was announced that it was already obsolete because 5G would replace it. 5G hasn't and it can't. If you want to experience why, go into Melbourne any night and see how responsive 5G is.
 
IMHO, 5G is great for when people don't have an option. Unfortunately, NBN providers have been offering 5G to people who would be better off with land based NBN because it's easier to install. Just send out the modem, job done.
 
Fibre to the property needs to be done. Either that or a decent 5G network everywhere and get rid of the NBN. I suggest the latter may be a good idea. It will give the speeds we need so why invest in anything else? Only give FTTP to businesses that need it.
Nope.

Mobile coverage is a major problem in a lot of the Blue Mountains. For a start, if you go over the edge of the escarpment, mobile coverage cuts out - total black spots all along. And that was with 3G/4G. 5G barely makes it to us from the local towers, and cuts out if you walk behind a decent sized tree. All that means locals too far from a tower or in a small valley all have zero mobile coverage. Non-locals who go bushwalking unwisely and fall off rocks or break their legs while abseiling, etc. (and they do, with monotonous regularity) can't call for help. We have been begging for clifftop repeaters for years...nothing from either political party.

Just use the existing copper wires? Sure...no. Run over poles and underground through iron-rich sandstone, they get flooded and are prone to deterioration over time. Bad quality copper voice lines were not good for ADSL 20 years ago, let alone streaming now. We also get lightning storms, which take out our ancient exchanges and induce spikes through the aerial cables and wet, ferrous ground that blow up connected modems, routers, etc. Everyone here has about half a dozen old modems that have been zapped this way. With long copper cables to the furthest houses, signal quality is noticeably poorer for them. Also, some dwellings are kilometers from the nearest phone pole in mobile black spots (truly off-grid), and it is prohibitively expensive for them to have one crappy copper line run to their house (Telstra will do it, but it runs to tens of thousands of dollars).

So the solution for here is fibre-optic. It is cheaper than copper, very high performance, is immune to water and lightning spikes, and can be run dozens of kilometers with no signal loss. It can be literally buried in a dirt trench if needs be. All it takes is THE POLITICIANS GETTING OFF THEIR ARSE AND MAKING NBN INSTALL IT! Which they have promised for a decade now. It was going along OK, until it all came to a grinding halt when Malcolm Turnbull decided that it would be cheaper to integrate with the existing copper lines than take fibre to the premises. That was a decade ago... So we wait.
 
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