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Eco-philo-pol

Beazley on Uranium

Kim Beazley, leader of the opposition, is asking his colleagues in the Labor Party to support an about-face with regards to their long-standing “no-new-mines” uranium mining policy. Essentially, Beazley is now arguing that new uranium mines should be opened so that Australia can benefit economically from responsible mining of the fissile material. Nevertheless, Beazley is at pains to differentiate his view on uranium mining from that of the Liberal Party. Like Kim Beazley, the Liberals are keen for Australia to become an “energy superpower” on the back of uranium mining, but they are also open to the idea of establishing nuclear power generators as a means to reduce carbon emissions and to diversify Australia’s energy sources. Furthermore, John Howard is now speaking of the possibility that Australia could enrich the uranium that it mines, rather than leaving the enrichment phase of the nuclear fuel cycle to the nations that already have well-established enrichment facilities such as the US, France and Japan. Mr Beazley, however, remains firmly against the development of nuclear power plants and enrichment facilities in Australia, saying that Australia’s energy future is with renewables. In effect, Kim Beazley is saying that it’s okay for Australia to dig up uranium and export it to other countries where it will be enriched and then used as fuel in nuclear power reactors, but it’s not okay for Australia to generate electricity from uranium.

This new policy stance smacks of hypocrisy, and is surely no less arbitrary than Labor’s existing “three mines” policy. I can see absolutely no sense in Kim Beazley’s position on the use of uranium within Australia. Either uranium should stay in the ground or Australia should be able to use it to generate electricity as other nations do. Furthermore, if Australia is to increase uranium mining, why ought we not add value to that uranium by enriching it ourselves, especially if we are to develop a nuclear power industry. As John Howard notes, it would be ludicrous to sell uranium to, say, the US, and then buy it back in its enriched form for use in a nuclear power generator. If Beazley’s reasons for not developing a nuclear power industry were grounded in economics – that it is probably not cost effective to build nuclear generators – or a genuine concern that leaving behind radioactive waste for future generations is morally reprehensible, then fair enough. But his objections to this point have been totally unqualified.

Obviously, it would be great if Australia could develop its renewable energy industry to the point where fossil fuels and nuclear power aren’t needed. But the reality is, at this point, and for several decades to come, coal, gas, hydro and nuclear power are and will be the only technologies capable of meeting Australia’s base load requirements. Most renewable energy sources have the severe limitation that they cannot produce electricity on demand: the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow, the waves aren’t always rolling in. For the same reasons, they cannot satisfy peak-load demand either. Things might change if some form of large-scale energy storage technology was devised, but this won’t happen soon. Even though the entire east coast of Australia (including Tasmania) is linked by an electricity grid, and it’s possible that the production peaks and troughs of renewable energy sources could be probabilistically compensated for (if the sun isn’t shining in Melbourne, the sun might be shining and the wind might be blowing along the coast of Queensland), demand would outstrip supply. This would be the case even if a huge increase in the efficiency of electronic equipment were factored into the equation.

I’m undecided on whether the nuclear power option should be pursued. But I do know that if we increase our mining of uranium, which both major parties seem to think is a good idea and which will therefore probably happen unless the Greens are miraculously handed government at the next election, then we should also consider developing our nuclear power industry if it is economically viable. Beazley’s position makes no sense at all. We ought to invest in research on renewable energy because Australia can eventually become an energy superpower by exporting renewable technologies too, but it’s fair to say renewables won’t be able to satisfy our power needs on their own for a long time to come.

Update (26/07/2006):

According to this report (pdf) from the CRC for Coal in Sustainable Development, Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) power may, in fact, be able to satisfy a large portion (if not all) of Australia’s electricity needs. One thing in its favour is that it can store energy as heat, which is much simpler and more cost-effective than using batteries. Although the report cites some sources that claim CST will be cost-competitive with coal by 2013, the lowest prices achieved by CST technologies are around US$120/MWh, which are the lowest of any solar technology. By comparison, the average price of electricity in Queensland in the 2005-2006 financial year was A$28.12/MWh.

Categories
Random observations

Strong AI by 2029

Earlier this month, Ray Kurzweil presented a paper at the Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference which proclaimed that strong AI will be possible within the next 25 years: 2029, specifically, is the year he’s suggested a machine will first pass the Turing Test. If he’s right, what a time to be alive! Even if he’s wrong by a few decades, centuries or millennia, we’ve still got a lot to look forward to in our lifetimes. Techniques pioneered by AI researchers have been finding their way into mainstream applications for years, and this trend will continue as computing power increases and researchers invent ever-smarter algorithms.

While I’m not sure strong AI will arrive quite as quickly as Kurzweil thinks it will, I’m firmly in the camp that thinks it will arrive one day. I see no reason to believe that the human brain (or any kind of “brain” for that matter) is endowed with some mystical property that provides its intelligence. Although Kurzweil’s timeframe seems a bit on the optimistic side, it will take only one or two propitious findings in the fields of computer science or neuroscience to catalyse AI research and bring the goal of strong AI much closer.

Can’t wait!

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Random observations

A drive in the countryside

It was nice to finally get a day where Karen and I could do whatever we felt like; we haven’t had one of those for a several months. We decided to just jump in the car and go for a drive. As it turned out, we headed down the Ipswich Motorway/Warrego Highway and turned onto the Brisbane Valley Highway towards Fernvale and Esk. We drove up past Fernvale and the Wivenhoe Dam, through Esk and turned off towards the Somerset Dam and Kilcoy. The countryside out there is absolutely bone dry, though it did drizzle a bit while we were driving through. We stopped at the Caboonbah Homestead: not much to see there. Cattle were grazing in the mostly dry bed of the Brisbane River. We were hoping to catch another glimpse of the Wivenhoe Dam, so we turned down the Wivenhoe-Somerset Road and headed back towards Fernvale. Remarkably, neither of us had ever been to Mount Glorious, so instead of going all the way back to Fernvale, we got onto the Northbrook Creek Road which took us up into the D’Aguilar Range. We stopped in Mount Glorious for lunch, at a little place called Coffee in the Forest. Coffee in the Forest is owned by Ken and Shirley Olley, who are better known for the production of organic honey, and there are numerous honey-based products for sale in their cafe. I can highly recommend the Ambrosia (honey mead). We bought a bottle of it after eating our meal of spring rolls, garlic rice, salad and sweet and sour sauce (the sweet component, of course, being provided by a honey base). Then we headed back to Brisbane via Samford. We stopped at the Eden Bistro in Bardon, having been recommended by Clinton, for coffee and cake. Very nice. Lovely view, too. Not yet satisfied that our day’s journey was circuitous enough, we explored various parts of Fig Tree Pocket and Chapel Hill, before finally returning home. A great day.

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Random observations

Classic look returns

I had always intended to reinstate the original “Shades of Grey” look for The Thin Line after moving it to WordPress from my DIY blogging solution. Well, yesterday I finally found a bit of time to create a WordPress theme that comes fairly close to the look I originally created. Some people don’t care for it much, but I have this thing for grey. There will still be some bugs here and there, and the sidebar doesn’t look all that crash hot. Hopefully I’ll resolve these issues in the near future.

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Random observations

I guessed right

After Zidane’s assult on Materazzi during the World Cup final, I was thinking to myself "either Materazzi insulted Zidane’s mother or he insinuated that Zidane was a terrorist because of his Algerian/Islamic background". Well it turns out that Materazzi did both of these things, although he denies it. Zidane has always had somewhat of a vindictive streak in him, but I’ve never seen him react to anything quite like that before, and never in such an important game. Slurs against his mother and his ethnicity are the surely the only things that could have provoked him to such violence.

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Random observations

Italy wins it

Australia can have the satisfaction that it was knocked out by the eventual winners of the World Cup. Italy and France played out a 1-1 draw in the final, so it was decided by penalties. Italy, for once, managed to keep their nerve during the shoot out. Trezeguet was the only player to miss his penalty, with the ball striking the underside of the crossbar and coming back into the field of play. Amazingly, Zidane had scored from a very cheeky penalty in normal time, also striking the underside of the crossbar, but the ball crossed the goal line before bouncing back into the field of play.

Italy had the better of the first half, but France completely dominated the second half and extra time with some brilliant moments provided by Malouda, Ribbery, Henry and Zidane. Italy had a goal disallowed for offside in one of their rare attacking moments of the second period. Zidane could have sealed victory in extra time with an unopposed header, but Buffon kept Italy in the game with an excellent save.

Zidane was sent off in extra time for a blatant head-butt to Materazzi’s chest. Why, oh why oh why did you have to end your career like that Zizou? Nobody wants to remember Zinedine Zidane, surely one of the greatest players ever to have graced a football field, for that one moment of sheer stupidity.