As Ben Heard explains on DecarboniseSA, the Premier of the state of South Australia has announced a Royal Commission into an expanded future role in nuclear energy. We, who are deeply concerned about making real progress towards eliminating Australia’s dependence on fossil fuels, should celebrate this advance. It is a triumph for common sense and evidence-based policy. We can make a difference, given sufficient time and effort.
Further information in The Advertiser newspaper. The terms of reference, commissioner etc. are yet to be released. As Tom Koutsantonis (State Treasurer and Energy Minister) said in a tweet:
Bold policy announced by @JayWeatherill establishing a Royal Commission into the #Nuclearfuelcycle. Now a mature debate can occur. #Adelaide
As expected, the news of even an investigation was immediately condemned by the SA Greens Party, and disappointingly, also by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. The whole point of Royal Commissions is the rigorous uncovering of facts, based on solid research and deep consultation with experts, government and public representatives. What, I must wonder, are they afraid of? Sad.
But, as this announcement today proved, they are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Those who can’t take the hard decisions in solving climate change, those who prefer ideology to evidence, should step aside.
Well, it’s come at last — I’m currently in the throes of my move (southwards retreat!) to Tasmania. Such is the upheaval involved in a large inter-state move (from the mainland to an island, no less!) that I will be unlikely to be in a position to post any new material on the BNC blog for a few weeks. But be assured, once I’m settled in my new deep-austral abode, I should once again be able to give due attention to this domain!
In the meantime, a few interesting things to read, in case you’ve not already caught these:
Thompson Reuters (who produce the Institute for Scientific Information journal impact factors) have released the first update of Highly Cited Researchers in the sciences and social sciences since 2004.
I’m happy to report that I (Barry Brook) made the new (2014) list, which is easily searchable by name, institution or other keyword (it’s flexible) — so find your favourite scientist! (perhaps…)
I note that Australia is well represented in the Environment/Ecology field of research in particular.
The background and methodology of “Highly Cited” is explained here. In brief, it’s derived from Essential Science Indicators data, and is based on the number of top 1% cited papers (in the peer-reviewed literature), by field and year, that a scientist has accumulated over a 10-year period (as indexed in the Web of Science).
You can see my ResearchID profile here and my ORCID here, which shows all my publications. I also have a Google Scholar profile, which is based on a different method (not as rigorous as ISI, as it is prone to picking up various web-based [non-peer-reviewed] citations).
Today this modest climate + energy blog passed 4 million page views.
My thanks to all the regular guest posters and commenters on BNC for building up and critiquing the archives of content — 550 posts and rising.
This blog has been dedicated to the enormous challenge of replacing fossil fuels by mid century. That goal continues. Whatever our core future energy generation sources turn out to be – nuclear or renewables – if we can solve the ‘sustainable energy problem’, the possibilities for humanity are many and exciting.
So let’s keep thinking, and debating, and advocating, for good policy and smart use of technology. The biosphere depends on us getting this right. As does the prosperity of our own species. Onward!
Scott Ludlam is a Western Australian Senator with a last minute reprieve after losing his seat at the last Federal election. Ludlam will get a second change when WA has a fresh Senate election next month after the now infamous electoral office bungle which saw some 1,400 ballot papers lost. This makes him a very lucky boy.
A few days ago Ludlam rose to an empty parliamentary chamber in the nation’s capital and delivered a speech that has gone as close to viral as serious politics ever goes. When I say “empty”, I’m just rounding down from the one person present. But when I say “viral”, I don’t need to round up because his you tube clip is at 461,698 views and rising … with thumbs up dominating the thumbs down.
It’s a great speech and I share Ludlam’s contempt for our compassionless Government. But one small section sticks out as being just plain ill-informed. Unfortunately many Greens take their beliefs as a package deal and don’t respond well to criticism of particular components, but that’s the thing about the real world, it’s full of exceptions to rules and cases where general principles need to be put aside in favour of actually thinking through the problem. Energy production is one such area and Scott would do well to follow is own advice and dump his anti-nuclear slogans. They don’t work as policy.
Consider the way Ludlam lumps gas fracking in with the nuclear electricity industry without understanding that the two are inversely related, meaning that the reason we have fracking is because nuclear power got blocked by the anti-nuclear movement. If the nuclear roll out of the 1970s had continued, there’d be little or no gas fracking today.
It’s not complicated, you just need a little history.
Gas fracking and the whole grab back of unconventional oil technologies (shale oil, tar sands, coal-to-oil conversion, etc) have exploded during the past couple of decades on the back of the US struggle for energy independence. Natural gas production in the US fell during the decade from 1973 to 1983 and then it began to rise. Thirty years on, and it’s at an all time peak. Consider the dates. That decade of gas decline was when the US was building it nuclear fleet. And the minute that fleet roll out got scuppered by the anti-nuclear movement … gas production was back in business. Prior to the nuclear roll out of the 70s, the US burned bucket loads of oil for electricity. The nuclear roll out stopped that and it never restarted because oil got priced out of that market. But when the nuclear builds were stymied, and conventional oil supplies became more expensive to find, then unconventional oils got their chance. Australia mirrors these events except that we never had nuclear.
By rejecting both gas and nuclear as a package, Ludlam is throwing the baby out with the fracking bath water.
And what does he want in it’s place?
Quote … “infinite flows of renewable energy”,.
This from someone who claims to value “education, innovation and equality” in addition to biodiversity and (presumably) minimising the destruction to the natural environment.
South Australia announces Royal Commission into Nuclear Energy
