S
Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud
Guest
TWO DOZEN OF NUCLEAR DESALINISATION FACILITIES SOON IN AUSTRALIA TO FACE
THE WORSENING DDD, ( DIVINE DRUDGING DROUGHT ) , AND COUNTER THE TERRIBLE
WATER SHORTAGE RESULTING !
****************************************************************************
Nuclear Approach to Water Shortage
Simon Grose describes plans to desalinate water using nuclear energy.
While the possibility of access to nuclear weapons by Iraq and North
Korea heightens the chance of warfare in the short term, longer-term
predictions are that conflict over access to water will cause wars in many
parts of the world.
So it may be an ironic surprise that there is a growing momentum to
use nuclear-powered desalination plants to reduce the chance of future water
wars. This will be a scary surprise to many in nuclear-phobic Australia, but
it will be a fear that more Australians may become willing to accept as our
population grows and demand for our limited natural fresh water inexorably
increases.
Dr Clarence Hardy, who heads the Australian Nuclear Association, is
one of the few Australians to actively advocate nuclear-powered
desalination. "You can desalinate water with solar energy but it's a very
difficult thing to do commercially. It's easy to do when you've got a lot of
waste heat from a big fossil fuel or nuclear power plant," Dr Hardy says.
"At the moment the Australian public is very anti-nuclear so I wouldn't see
it coming in the next 10 years, but beyond that there is a potential."
Whatever happens here, Australians should be aware that many other
countries are actively pursuing the nuclear desalination option right now.
Their motivation arises from simple demand and supply equations. While we
know our current drought will eventually end and flooding rains will take
their turn, water shortages are a chronic problem in many north African,
Middle East and central Asian countries.
When these nations look for solutions they discover that 97.5% of the
Earth's water resource is salty. When they look at the best way to remove
the salt they find it is a very energy-intensive exercise.
A conference held in Marrakech, Morocco, in October last year -
Nuclear Desalination: Challenges and Options - came to the conclusion that
nuclear power is the "technical and economic optimum" for desalination. A
second conference is scheduled for Saudi Arabia in 2004, and British
publisher Inderscience says it intends to launch the International Journal
of Nuclear Desalination.
The conference organisers - the World Council of Nuclear Workers, the
Association of Moroccan Nuclear Engineers, the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the World Water Council - were largely talking their own book in
reaching this conclusion. But their view is based on Russian and Japanese
experience, which is being followed by several other countries (see box).
Russia's new approach is to build floating nuclear plants that can be
used to generate power and desalinate seawater. Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia
's Minister of Nuclear Energy, gave the go-ahead in November to construct
the country's first water-borne nuclear power plant. It will service the
city of Severodvinsk on the country's Arctic coast and is estimated to cost
about $300 million to construct, about one-tenth of the cost of a
similar-sized unit on land.
Mr Rumyantsev argues that Russia's long experience in constructing
small reactors for nuclear-powered submarines and other vessels stands it in
good stead to construct safe floating nuclear facilities. "We have not
registered a single case of failure with these reactors to date," he told
the RIA Novosti news service. "With reference, for example, to the
tragically sunken nuclear submarine Kursk, I would like to stress that the
only unit that had effectively blocked itself off in the first seconds of
the disaster and remained totally safe and intact was the vessel's nuclear
reactor."
According to Russian media reports, the Severodvinsk project was
approved after a community consultation process involving about 150 local
residents. A report forwarded by Russia's Embassy in Canberra claims that
radionuclides emitted by the city's existing coal-fired plant expose
residents to 15 times the radiation that will be released by the new
floating nuclear plant.
Radiation aside, the report says that the existing plant drops about
17,000 tonnes of soot on the surrounding Arkhangelsk region each year, a
public health problem that the new plant will not contribute to. "The use of
nuclear power implies only one premature death during the entire operation
of the station (40 years) vs 280 incidents every year with the use of a
coal-powered plant," the report says.
Russia is actively marketing its floating reactor technologies to
other countries for both power generation and desalination. According to the
president of the World Council of Nuclear Workers, Andre Masseu, at the
Marrakesh conference "the Russians were there with their order book".
Dr Hardy, who has worked in the nuclear industry in Britain, the US
and Australia, where he was a division head at the Australian Nuclear
Science and Technology Organisation and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy
Commission, says countries need to adopt a mix of technologies to generate
energy and provide fresh water. "Nuclear has a role to play, as it is now in
many major countries," he says, pointing out that France now produces more
than 80% of its electricity with nuclear power.
He argues that concerns over radioactive waste - the major hurdle for
the proponents of adding nuclear-powered plants to Australia's energy mix -
are unrealistic. "It's very small volume, it can be controlled, and if you
allow people to put it deep underground and lock it away geologically it won
't come back to the surface. It could play a role in Australia, but not
until we've had a complete educational culture change, stop regarding it as
the work of the devil, and give due regard to all the problems of fossil
fuels."
By the middle of this century, when the Murray-Darling river system
has been reduced to a salty billabong that occasionally leaks into the
ocean, South Australia may have to consider the trade-offs. Perth, which is
draining its aquifers unsustainably, will also have to make difficult
decisions about its future water supplies.
In a century when greenhouse emissions will become increasingly
proscribed, and if nuclear-powered desalination becomes established as a
safe and cost-effective technology in other countries, Australians in these
and other communities will have to consider it as a way to guarantee fresh
water supplies. Especially if it is cheaper and safer than going to war.
NUCLEAR DESALINATION AROUND THE WORLD
The former Soviet Union was a pioneer of nuclear-powered
desalination. A reactor at Aktau, in what is now Kazakhstan, generated
electricity and up to 80,000 m3 of potable water per day for 27 years before
it was decommissioned. Japan runs 10 desalination facilities linked to
nuclear power stations, each producing up to 3000 m3/day of potable water.
India is currently commissioning a desalination demonstration
project coupled with two reactors at the Madras Atomic Power Station. It
will trial the two main desalination methods - distillation and pressurised
osmosis - to produce a maximum 6300 m3/day of fresh water. Pakistan is
planning a 4500 m3/day demonstration plant at a nuclear power station near
Karachi. China is assessing the feasibility of a nuclear plant that would
produce 160,000 m3/day.
Tunisia is considering the construction of a nuclear power
station that would also desalinate groundwater in the country's south-east,
Morocco has completed a pre-project study for a reactor that would produce
8000 m3/day of potable water, and Egypt has begun a feasibility study of a
cogeneration plant for electricity and desalination on the Mediterranean
coast.
South Korea has developed a small reactor design for
cogeneration of electricity and the production of 40,000 m3/day of potable
water, Indonesia is looking at the feasibility of a cogeneration unit for
Madura Island, and Argentina has developed a small nuclear reactor design
for cogeneration or desalination alone.
NORMAL, with the DDD worsening all the time !
.... and we are only a full month into Spring !
By Courtesy of :
--
Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud
Australia Mining Pioneer
Discoverer & Legal Owner of Telfer, Kintyre & Nifty Mines
The Great Sandy Desert.of Australia
Discoverer of the South Atlantic Submarine Gold Placers
( 40 Millions Tons estimate )
FOUNDER OF THE TRUE GEOLOGY
"THE GOLDEN RULE"
"Gold and Intrigue in the Desert"
"The true story of the discovery of the Telfer gold mine"
Author : Bob Sheppard, President of the Australian Prospectors' Union
Author's contact & web page : www.tnet.com.au/~warrigal/
Order from : Hesperian Press, PO Box 317 Victoria Park, 6979 W.Australia.
AUS 40.00 + post
Published in Perth 15th December 2002
* The Greatest Australian Mining Covered Up Swindle Of The 20th Century
http://membres.lycos.fr/jpturcaud/
( Scuttled on Oct 29th 2003 under the Mining Criminals' cheers, and having
reached over 92 Millions Hits )
* The True Geology
http://membres.lycos.fr/jpt
( Was also wound up on Oct 29th 2003 due to plagiarism hazards )
~~Ignorance Is The Cosmic Sin, The One Never Forgiven ! ~~
THE WORSENING DDD, ( DIVINE DRUDGING DROUGHT ) , AND COUNTER THE TERRIBLE
WATER SHORTAGE RESULTING !
****************************************************************************
Nuclear Approach to Water Shortage
Simon Grose describes plans to desalinate water using nuclear energy.
While the possibility of access to nuclear weapons by Iraq and North
Korea heightens the chance of warfare in the short term, longer-term
predictions are that conflict over access to water will cause wars in many
parts of the world.
So it may be an ironic surprise that there is a growing momentum to
use nuclear-powered desalination plants to reduce the chance of future water
wars. This will be a scary surprise to many in nuclear-phobic Australia, but
it will be a fear that more Australians may become willing to accept as our
population grows and demand for our limited natural fresh water inexorably
increases.
Dr Clarence Hardy, who heads the Australian Nuclear Association, is
one of the few Australians to actively advocate nuclear-powered
desalination. "You can desalinate water with solar energy but it's a very
difficult thing to do commercially. It's easy to do when you've got a lot of
waste heat from a big fossil fuel or nuclear power plant," Dr Hardy says.
"At the moment the Australian public is very anti-nuclear so I wouldn't see
it coming in the next 10 years, but beyond that there is a potential."
Whatever happens here, Australians should be aware that many other
countries are actively pursuing the nuclear desalination option right now.
Their motivation arises from simple demand and supply equations. While we
know our current drought will eventually end and flooding rains will take
their turn, water shortages are a chronic problem in many north African,
Middle East and central Asian countries.
When these nations look for solutions they discover that 97.5% of the
Earth's water resource is salty. When they look at the best way to remove
the salt they find it is a very energy-intensive exercise.
A conference held in Marrakech, Morocco, in October last year -
Nuclear Desalination: Challenges and Options - came to the conclusion that
nuclear power is the "technical and economic optimum" for desalination. A
second conference is scheduled for Saudi Arabia in 2004, and British
publisher Inderscience says it intends to launch the International Journal
of Nuclear Desalination.
The conference organisers - the World Council of Nuclear Workers, the
Association of Moroccan Nuclear Engineers, the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the World Water Council - were largely talking their own book in
reaching this conclusion. But their view is based on Russian and Japanese
experience, which is being followed by several other countries (see box).
Russia's new approach is to build floating nuclear plants that can be
used to generate power and desalinate seawater. Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia
's Minister of Nuclear Energy, gave the go-ahead in November to construct
the country's first water-borne nuclear power plant. It will service the
city of Severodvinsk on the country's Arctic coast and is estimated to cost
about $300 million to construct, about one-tenth of the cost of a
similar-sized unit on land.
Mr Rumyantsev argues that Russia's long experience in constructing
small reactors for nuclear-powered submarines and other vessels stands it in
good stead to construct safe floating nuclear facilities. "We have not
registered a single case of failure with these reactors to date," he told
the RIA Novosti news service. "With reference, for example, to the
tragically sunken nuclear submarine Kursk, I would like to stress that the
only unit that had effectively blocked itself off in the first seconds of
the disaster and remained totally safe and intact was the vessel's nuclear
reactor."
According to Russian media reports, the Severodvinsk project was
approved after a community consultation process involving about 150 local
residents. A report forwarded by Russia's Embassy in Canberra claims that
radionuclides emitted by the city's existing coal-fired plant expose
residents to 15 times the radiation that will be released by the new
floating nuclear plant.
Radiation aside, the report says that the existing plant drops about
17,000 tonnes of soot on the surrounding Arkhangelsk region each year, a
public health problem that the new plant will not contribute to. "The use of
nuclear power implies only one premature death during the entire operation
of the station (40 years) vs 280 incidents every year with the use of a
coal-powered plant," the report says.
Russia is actively marketing its floating reactor technologies to
other countries for both power generation and desalination. According to the
president of the World Council of Nuclear Workers, Andre Masseu, at the
Marrakesh conference "the Russians were there with their order book".
Dr Hardy, who has worked in the nuclear industry in Britain, the US
and Australia, where he was a division head at the Australian Nuclear
Science and Technology Organisation and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy
Commission, says countries need to adopt a mix of technologies to generate
energy and provide fresh water. "Nuclear has a role to play, as it is now in
many major countries," he says, pointing out that France now produces more
than 80% of its electricity with nuclear power.
He argues that concerns over radioactive waste - the major hurdle for
the proponents of adding nuclear-powered plants to Australia's energy mix -
are unrealistic. "It's very small volume, it can be controlled, and if you
allow people to put it deep underground and lock it away geologically it won
't come back to the surface. It could play a role in Australia, but not
until we've had a complete educational culture change, stop regarding it as
the work of the devil, and give due regard to all the problems of fossil
fuels."
By the middle of this century, when the Murray-Darling river system
has been reduced to a salty billabong that occasionally leaks into the
ocean, South Australia may have to consider the trade-offs. Perth, which is
draining its aquifers unsustainably, will also have to make difficult
decisions about its future water supplies.
In a century when greenhouse emissions will become increasingly
proscribed, and if nuclear-powered desalination becomes established as a
safe and cost-effective technology in other countries, Australians in these
and other communities will have to consider it as a way to guarantee fresh
water supplies. Especially if it is cheaper and safer than going to war.
NUCLEAR DESALINATION AROUND THE WORLD
The former Soviet Union was a pioneer of nuclear-powered
desalination. A reactor at Aktau, in what is now Kazakhstan, generated
electricity and up to 80,000 m3 of potable water per day for 27 years before
it was decommissioned. Japan runs 10 desalination facilities linked to
nuclear power stations, each producing up to 3000 m3/day of potable water.
India is currently commissioning a desalination demonstration
project coupled with two reactors at the Madras Atomic Power Station. It
will trial the two main desalination methods - distillation and pressurised
osmosis - to produce a maximum 6300 m3/day of fresh water. Pakistan is
planning a 4500 m3/day demonstration plant at a nuclear power station near
Karachi. China is assessing the feasibility of a nuclear plant that would
produce 160,000 m3/day.
Tunisia is considering the construction of a nuclear power
station that would also desalinate groundwater in the country's south-east,
Morocco has completed a pre-project study for a reactor that would produce
8000 m3/day of potable water, and Egypt has begun a feasibility study of a
cogeneration plant for electricity and desalination on the Mediterranean
coast.
South Korea has developed a small reactor design for
cogeneration of electricity and the production of 40,000 m3/day of potable
water, Indonesia is looking at the feasibility of a cogeneration unit for
Madura Island, and Argentina has developed a small nuclear reactor design
for cogeneration or desalination alone.
NORMAL, with the DDD worsening all the time !
.... and we are only a full month into Spring !
By Courtesy of :
--
Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud
Australia Mining Pioneer
Discoverer & Legal Owner of Telfer, Kintyre & Nifty Mines
The Great Sandy Desert.of Australia
Discoverer of the South Atlantic Submarine Gold Placers
( 40 Millions Tons estimate )
FOUNDER OF THE TRUE GEOLOGY
"THE GOLDEN RULE"
"Gold and Intrigue in the Desert"
"The true story of the discovery of the Telfer gold mine"
Author : Bob Sheppard, President of the Australian Prospectors' Union
Author's contact & web page : www.tnet.com.au/~warrigal/
Order from : Hesperian Press, PO Box 317 Victoria Park, 6979 W.Australia.
AUS 40.00 + post
Published in Perth 15th December 2002
* The Greatest Australian Mining Covered Up Swindle Of The 20th Century
http://membres.lycos.fr/jpturcaud/
( Scuttled on Oct 29th 2003 under the Mining Criminals' cheers, and having
reached over 92 Millions Hits )
* The True Geology
http://membres.lycos.fr/jpt
( Was also wound up on Oct 29th 2003 due to plagiarism hazards )
~~Ignorance Is The Cosmic Sin, The One Never Forgiven ! ~~
q3lo0pvp704ilfu891e1d4ge2p30lnb2p@4ax.com...