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description= Guest Post by Ben Heard. Ben is Director of Adelaide-based advisory firm ThinkClimate Consulting, a Masters graduate of Monash University in Corporate;

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these systems work to immediately stop the nuclear reaction in case of an emergency the rps terminates the nuclear reaction stopping the production of heat so that other systems can remove decay heat from the reactor s core not all heat removal systems exist in all nuclear reactors every nuclear reactor has some combination of systems to remove decay heat from the core in evaluating whether black swan theory contributes to the anti nuclear sentiment one must consider whether such events were isolated outliers or part of a larger trend in nuclear energy read more share this filed under nuclear policy 30 comments the folly of making perfection the enemy of excellence posted on 28 january 2012 by barry brook ben heard of decarbonisesa asked if i d like to reproduce his recent post to give it exposure to the bnc audience given that i m still in spain and will be for a while i m happy to oblige i think it s an excellent piece as i ve come to expect from ben and i hope you find it interesting and useful the folly of making perfection the enemy of excellence a visit to beverley uranium mine by ben heard today i visited the beverley uranium mine in northern south australia operated by heathgate resources heathgate have been a client of mine through thinkclimate consulting for the last two years for the delivery of mandatory greenhouse gas reporting under nger view to the foot of the gammon ranges on approach to beverley it was clear skies on the flight in showing an amazing landscape at the foot of the gammon ranges on the border of the arkaroola pastoral lease from the air the low vegetation takes on a wonderful patterned effect it is a stunning view with visible water courses snaking across the land it is easy from that height to envisage that it was once covered in ocean in both the landscape of eroded mountains and the creatures that inhabit it tell tale signs of truly ancient history abound as you approach the site in from the air the various locations that make up the beverley operation begin to appear each is truly unremarkable in size no bigger than a block you might find in an industrial suburb of adelaide even taken together it is a small imprint on the land the main facility of beverley foreground and accomodation background image is from australian geographic and provided by heathgate from ground level you could be forgiven for thinking the landscape of the plains is a barren desert nothing could be further from the truth on a simple site visit i saw wedge tailed eagles nesting and flying a beautiful small lizard whose name escapes me and a truly wonderful example of a bearded dragon basking on the road this critter was too bold for his own good and was impervious to our best efforts to shoo him away he simply was not afraid a true highlight of the day was the head of health safety and environment picking this feisty fella up on a shovel and carrying him into the scrub hopefully to safety the regular wildlife surveys reveal a multitude of birds insects and reptiles from tiny banded snakes to big lace monitors and woma pythons after enough rain the local water course previously dry as a bone abounds in a fish called the spangled grunter as a word lover i am so so glad to know of the existence of something called a spangled grunter read more share this filed under nuclear policy 28 comments saludos desde mataelpino posted on 26 january 2012 by barry brook i haven t published an energy or climate related article on bnc for almost a week for a good reason damien fordham barry brook and miguel araújo enjoy the cool spanish mountain air yes i am enjoying myself but working too we me and some colleagues from university of adelaide corey bradshaw damien fordham and salvador herrando perez are visiting a research collaborator in spain miguel araújo our workshop is being held at the el bosque hotel in mataelpino a village located 1 000 m up in the madrid sierra we re investigating the shifts in the geographic ranges of over 200 bird species in the u k in relation to climate and land use change as well as developing a multi species population viability analysis metapopulation model on the predator prey habitat interactions of the critically endangered iberian lynx rabbits disease and climate change although it s the height of winter here the region is currently experiencing a drought and so conditions are very mild for this time of year as such the weather is incredibly beautiful with bright blue skies and crisp dry air yesterday we went for a hike at about 2 100 m elevation in the parque natural de peñalara there was some snow about but not a lot this is the area where some of the scenes of one of my favourite movies was filmed it s just like being in cimmeria barry brook at peñalara natural park spain i ll be back in adelaide in the middle of next week with some new bnc posts on sustainable energy and climate meanwhile feel free to use the comments list of this post as an especially open open thread one not necessarily limited to climate or energy topics as for me i ll sign off with some more photos taken by corey read more share this filed under open thread uncategorized 9 comments burning energy questions eroei desert solar oil replacements realistic renewables and tropical islands posted on 19 january 2012 by barry brook late last year tom blees i and a few other people from the international award committee of the global energy prize answered reader s energy questions on the guardian s facebook page the questions and answers were reproduced on bnc here now we re at it again this time for the website eco business com tagline asia pacific s sustainable business community my section is hosted here part i and tom s here part iii part ii which i don t reprint answered by iceland s thorsteinn sigfusson covered the relationship between large hydro and climate change and why solar conversion isn t used more extensively i ve reproduced my and tom s answers below barry brook s q a sunil sood what are the real energy payback periods for solar pv and wind energy systems taking in to account the energy consumed during manufacture of components balance of systems transportation installation servicing and variations in availability of energy and usage patterns actual life expectancy not theoretical are we consuming more of dirty coal to produce these so called clean energies calculating true energy paybacks are tough every energy system has initial investments of energy in the construction of the plant it then must produce energy for a number of years until it reaches the end of its effective lifetime along the way additional energy costs are incurred in the operation and maintenance of the facility including any self use of energy the energy payback period is the time it takes a facility to pay back or produce an amount of energy equivalent to that invested in its start up a full accounting of energy payback includes not only the materials and energy that are input into the extraction mining and manufacturing processes but also some pro rata calculation for inputs into the factory that constructed the power generation facility some estimate for human worker inputs etc as you can imagine it can be difficult to fully integrate all possible inputs however there are reasonable ballpark estimates for a range of technologies including wind solar pv solar thermal and nuclear material inputs tells one part of the story and some attempts are a standardized comparison are given here and here for a few technologies wind solar thermal gen iii nuclear as a short cut for estimate of total energy returned on energy invested eroei we can use studies that have looked at the life cycle emissions of alternative technologies and then calibrate these against the emissions intensity of the background economy used to produce the technology this gives us an approximate eroei based on a range of studies the estimates range from 180 to 11 for gen iii nuclear 30 for wind 11 for solar thermal and 6 for solar pv that is your pv panels would repay their inputs 6 times over during their lifespan and if they lasted on your roof for 25 years then the payback time is about 4 years if a nuclear plant had a eroei of 50 and operated for 40 years its energy payback time would be 10 months read more share this filed under emissions nuclear renewables 27 comments could nuclear fission energy etc solve the greenhouse problem the affirmative case posted on 14 january 2012 by barry brook i have published a new paper in the peer reviewed journal energy policy with the title could nuclear fission energy etc solve the greenhouse problem the affirmative case currently online first doi 10 1016 j enpol 2011 11 041 it will appear in the print version with volume page details later this year if you would like a pdf copy of the article email me and i ll be happy to send it to you my paper was written as a response to ted trainer s mostly excellent 2010 article can renewables etc solve the greenhouse problem the negative case hence my particular choice of title i explain the purpose of my piece in the introduction in this context of needing to replace fossil fuels with some alternative s trainer 2010 examined critically the adequacy of renewable sources in achieving this energy transition he concluded that general climate change and energy problems cannot be solved without large scale reductions in rates of economic production and consumption however trainer s 2010 sub analysis of nuclear energy s technical potential involved only a cursory dismissal on the grounds of uranium supply and life cycle emissions in this paper i argue that on technical and economic grounds nuclear fission could play a major role in combination with likely significant expansion in renewables in future stationary and transportation energy supply thereby solving the greenhouse gas mitigation problem thus my aim was to critique the only substantive weakness i could identify in trainer s analysis the short sub section on nuclear energy the abstract provides the core thrust of my argument for effective climate change mitigation the global use of fossil fuels for electricity generation transportation and other industrial uses will need to be substantially curtailed this century in a recent viewpoint in energy policy trainer 2010 argued that non carbon energy sources will be insufficient to meet this goal due to cost variability energy storage requirements and other technical limitations however his dismissal of nuclear fission energy was cursory and inadequate here i argue that fossil fuel replacement this century could on technical grounds be achieved via a mix of fission renewables and fossil fuels with carbon sequestration with a high degree of electrification and nuclear supplying over half of final energy i show that the principal limitations on nuclear fission are not technical economic or fuel related but are instead linked to complex issues of societal acceptance fiscal and political inertia and inadequate critical evaluation of the real world constraints facing low carbon alternatives below i ll fill in a few details but i d of course encourage you to read the actual paper contact details above for the pdf read more share this filed under hot news nuclear policy 54 comments the nuclear fission flyer posted on 8 january 2012 by barry brook below is the foreword i wrote on invitation of chuck till and yoon chang for the book plentiful energy i included a shorter version in my review of the book on amazon in this short essay i draw an analogy between the ifr and the wright brothers 1903 flyer the idea is that successful technology especially a revolutionary design is built on the back of many learning by doing failures yet once the initial problems have been solved the remaining pathway for the technology s development is one of incremental but often rapid evolutionary improvements i suspect that with just a few more years of serious investment in rd d the lftr flyer could also launch the molten salt thorium reactor concept is extremely appealing and the ornl prototype which ran in the mid to late 1960s showed real promise in my view the th232 u233 fuel cycle would make an excellent complement to the u238 pu239 fuel cycle offered by the ifr and both reactor types hold the promise of safe and inexhaustible energy foreword to plentiful energy the book that tells the story of the integral fast reactor on a breezy december day in 1903 at kitty hawk n c a great leap forward in the history of technology was achieved the wright brothers had at last overcome the troubling problems of inherent instability and wing warping to achieve the first powered and controlled heavier than air flight in human history the flyer was not complicated by today s standards little more than a flimsy glider yet its success proved to be a landmark achievement that led to the exponential surge of innovation development and deployment in military and commercial aviation over the 20 th century and beyond nonetheless the flyer did not suddenly and miraculously assemble from the theoretical or speculative genius of orville and wilbur wright quite the contrary it was built on the back of many decades of physical engineering and even biological science hard won experience with balloons gliders and models plenty of real world trial and error and a lot of blind alleys bear in mind that every single serious attempt at powered flight prior to 1903 had failed getting it right was tough yet just over a decade after the triumphant 1903 demonstration fighter aces were circling high above the battlefields of europe in superbly maneuverable aerial machines and in another decade passengers from many nations were making long haul international journeys in days rather than months what has this got to do with the topic of advanced nuclear power systems i hear you say plenty the subtitle of till and chang s book plentiful energy is the complex history of a simple reactor technology with emphasis on its scientific bases for non specialists the key here is that akin to powered flight the technology for fully and safely recycling nuclear fuel turns out to be rather simple and elegant in hindsight but it was hard to establish this fact hence the complex history like with aviation there have been many prototype fast reactors of various flavors and all have had problems read more share this filed under ifr fad nuclear 25 comments plentiful energy the book that tells the story of the integral fast reactor posted on 5 january 2012 by barry brook yesterday the hard copy of the book plentiful energy the story of the integral fast reactor createspace dec 2011 404 pages arrived in the post it is wonderful to see it in print and now available for all to enjoy and absorb i was honoured to play a small part in its realisation the subtitle of the book is the complex history of a simple reactor technology with emphasis on its scientific basis for non specialists writt...