Re: A Nuclear future for Australia?

[Wesley Bruce]

Robin van Spaandonk wrote: Prime Minister, As well as having Uranium resources among the largest in the World, Australia has about a million square kilometers of desert admirably suited to the collection of solar energy, and pretty much useless for anything else. In fact we could more than supply the entire planet with solar based energy, giving us a new export industry greater than any we currently have. Using dirt cheap paper thin plastic cylindrical Fresnel lenses, with the actual plumbing lying on the surface, and hence requiring no supporting structure, combined with "selective surface" technology, solar could be 10-100 times cheaper than it currently is (guesstimate). That would not just make it competitive with all existing technologies, it would make it cheaper than anything else. Furthermore modular construction can be used for a solar installation, with small segments being brought "on line" as they are completed, whereas a nuclear plant doesn't start producing power until the whole thing is completed. The expertise already exists in Australian universities, particularly UNSW. To top it off, it would vastly improve Australia's "green" image in the World. R. van Spaandonk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Upper Ferntree Gully Vic. The problem that needs to be dealt with is not cheep generation of energy. We have that in spades, wave power could power the planet twice over, wind could power half the world. Roof top solar could power the average city if solar cells replaced tiles on the sunward side of the roof. We don't have a shortage of energy technologies we have a delivery problem. Wind, waves, solar, etc are not continuous but key market driving demands are continuous. So you need to get the energy to market when and where it is needed. That means energy transport and storage! Central Australia, the wild wave battered coasts of Tasmania, or the tidal power resources of the Kimberly coast are all abundant energy sources but their all in the wrong place. We need energy where we live; where our cities stand high. We need to be able to store and ship the stuff.     Superconductors where the dream answer of the 1990's but the power density has failed to emerge. Yes superconductors are loss free in theory but to commercialize a 5 thousand mile line from the outback to Asia you must have a system that is cheap relative to the power density and requires little or no refrigeration. The energy of the refrigeration becomes a significant loss if your doing large superconductor systems. Thus in reality its not loss free.     The great irony is that we have had a solution to both large scale shipping and storage of energy since the 1800's its compressed air. Modern studies have not been made but a compressed air line across Australia would be possible. Compressors are over 90% efficient. 2 meter diameter steel lined concrete Pipes can be made largely leak free. Workable pressures would be 50 atmospheres. A gale in a pile.  Pipelines under the sea are not impossible particularly if your crossing shallow seas [ The Arafura and Banda sea are not that deep. The sea bed from Bali to Malaysia is only a few tens of meters deep and in places a path only 50 meters deep can be mapped.] You must ballast the pipe properly.     Yes pneumatic systems have frictional losses but at a few percent per hundred kilometres its better than the losses in high voltage and superconductors. Its also a storage system. The air in the line goes in by day and may be drawn out at night with only a small drop in pressure. Large volumes of air can be diverted into former gas baring strata and just as the gas was retained in the past  at several atmospheres the air will be today. One power storage plant using compressed air pushed down an old gas well already exists and is commercial.     For some strange reason the world has chosen to ignore the relatively simple physics of pneumatic solutions in favour of other more exotic and expensive system that may promise solutions on some distant day. Plasma fusion, superconductors and magnetic levitation trains are all dreams that have blocked simpler solutions. The electric tracked hovercraft [also called airfilm trains] is a transport solution that would and could deliver 400 kph trains in the 1970's. It was thought that magnetic systems would be silent and hovercraft aren't, so research stopped on the latter but with refrigeration and sonic booms the 'mag levs' are just as loud as airfilm.Yet we still await more expensive magnetic levitation trains.