PatternPrecognition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/23/thorium-nuclear-uranium

Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor; unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 – 'so these are really U-233 reactors,' says Karamoskos.

This isotope is more hazardous than the U-235 used in conventional reactors, he adds, because it produces U-232 as a side effect (half life: 160,000 years), on top of familiar fission by-products such as technetium-99 (half life: up to 300,000 years) and iodine-129 (half life: 15.7 million years).Add in actinides such as protactinium-231 (half life: 33,000 years) and it soon becomes apparent that thorium's superficial cleanliness will still depend on digging some pretty deep holes to bury the highly radioactive waste.

The article does state that by volume there will be less waste, but in the event that we get double or triple the thorium reactors then what we have traditional uranium reactors the waste is not negligible.

how will the Greens work with an Abbot-lead government in the Senate if he is elected in September?

Hopefully not budge on the Carbon Pricing legislation!

Nuclear power is too expensive (compared to coal) and according to the Switkowlski report (for Howard in 2006) would require a carbon price of around $40-$50 a tonne before private investors start to be interested.

Factor in NIMBYism (for the estimated 25 sites that would be required to produce 40% of our 2050 power needs) and how hard political oppositions are playing at the moment, and I just can't see a domestic Nuclear industry taking off here in Australia any time soon. (Essentially there would need to be a next gen breakthrough before it'll become reality here).

I'd be interested to hear a response to this one, as I fall into a similar category. I can certainly understand why the Greens don't want to be 'tarred' with the Labor brush, and obviously as a standalone party they need to set their own policy directions... but there are times (and it could well be just the way it's being reported) that they are giving a free kick to the conservatives with some poorly worded commentary.

What about info that we give away freely such as what we post on social media, or of more of a concern (as in a lot of instances it's given without understanding the ramifications) what we give to companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft.