That's a big difference. In Australia, the recent Newspoll, which mentioned nuclear power in the context of greenhouse gases, still showed a significant difference between the genders, as does this Morgan poll. Interestingly, both of these polls show that the strongest opposition by far is from women aged 35 to 49. What do these women have against nuclear power? Are they better informed than men, or just more easily scared? Is being a mother something to do with this?When the Guardian last asked voters their opinion on the issue, in late 2005, 45% backed nuclear energy and 48% opposed it. The poll also shows that 62% of men think more nuclear power stations should be built against 27% of women.
As for nuclear power for Australia, one point I have been meaning to make is that the lack of water for convention coal power stations in South East Queensland is currently a serious issue. In discussions of nuclear power here, there has been frequent mention of a need for access to water, with the main suggestion being that they would need to be beside the sea.
However, it would seem to me that pebble bed reactors, which are occasionally mentioned as a potential new generation design for Australia, are unlikely to be very thristy. They are proposed to use helium turbine systems, not steam. They are also intended to run at high temperatures, which has the benefit of making them good for hydrogen production. (A detailed explanation of pebble bed is given in this paper.) I could be wrong, but this sounds to me like they won't need anywhere near as much water for cooling as steam based turbine systems. Some engineer type reader might care to confirm or correct this for me.
If pebble bed designs are not very thirsty, I would have thought that this feature would make them very attractive to our drought prone land. It would also mean that they can simply be located on current inland power station sites, regardless of current or projected future dam levels. This would surely help defuse the "not in my backyard" scare campaign that Labor has already started.
Are women subconsciously concerned about reproduction, that is, birth defects, regardless of whether they do or don't intend to breed? Regardless of how safe or unsafe the technolgy?
ReplyDeleteIt's got me beat. No logical reason for such a dramatic difference between the genders.
The plants would need huge amounts of water, and we can't assume that if we built any they would use the pebble bed designs. Using a design that saved on water requirements would be far too sensible. (I'm still fuming that the Vic Gov't saved a lousy $300 K for water tanks at the new billion dollar Spencer Street station. Now it will cost them multiples of that to retro-fit, if they ever get around to it.)
Between them, 3 power stations in Victoria use 95 billion litres (?) of water a year. (But, hey, I only water my little pot plants every few weeks, I'm doing my bit as a consumer!)
The question isn't really that nuclear power uses a lot of water, it should be whether or not a nuclear power plant uses more water than currently used in generating equivalent amounts of power.
The totality of the environmental costs & benefits need to be considered. Everything is a trade off. I often read about "the water" and other negatives, but no one ever outlines the comparative data - current resource usage needed to generate power versus resource usage needed to generate nuclear power.
Oh..I did that post late last night and now think I saw a breakdown in the polls which is not there. It is only by inference that I can say it appears that women aged 35-49 are most against nuclear; the breakdown is only between genders, and then between ages, but not shown for both gender and age.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, like you Caz I still find it puzzling why this strong gender difference exists.
As for nuclear pebble bed, I have been pushing them because of their passive safety design, mainly. (They can't melt down.) But then the question of their use of water came to mind, and (if my hunch is correct) this would seem to me to be another big reason to try them in Australia.
They are, however, new and not thoroughly tested, it seems. South Africa will have its test one running within a few years. But if Australia is going to go nuclear, I reckon it should do it with an innovative design, especially if it has safety benefits.
Totally agree with you Steve, but my cynicism says that we would play it "safe" (ha, ha) by using older technology.
ReplyDeleteWe are so good at being at the forefront on some things (our scientists), but such nervous nellies on things that we can implement right here and now.
If another country has built it and it’s all good, that would be enough for me, but the argument will be that it’s not sufficiently “tried and tested”. Bah!
We’ll see. The technology has evolved significantly; perhaps we will play it smart on this one, but we first have to make that first smart decision. It will be years before we’ll even see a no / go decision, especially if ALP get in. They won’t act.