Nuclear Power in Australia - An Economic Impossibility

There are some people, Barry Grook for example, who, even after that slight problem they had in Japan that showed that non-Soviet countries weren't quite as good at nuclear safety as we hoped, still say that Australia should build nuclear reactors. I was going to write that Barry still THINKS Australia should build nuclear reactors, but to tell the truth, I have no idea what Barry's thinking.

This is not going to happen. Nuclear reactors are not going to be built in Australia. Uh-uh. No way. And the reason is quite simple. Money. Nuclear power plants are an economic impossibility in Australia. Commercial nuclear power has always been a no go here. We were going to build a nuclear power plant in the early seventies, but that was before we found out how much it would cost and then it was like, "Hell no!" And the economics of it have only gotten worse since then.

There are actually several reasons why nuclear power isn't economic here, but I'll just give one simple clear reason. Last year Germany installed point of use solar power for an average cost of $2.60 Australian a watt. There is no reason why Australia can't install solar for that price. After all, both Australia and Germany are high wage countries. But the really big difference is that Australia is more or less twice as sunny as Germany. This means that at $2.60 a watt, solar power will become the cheapest source of electricity for many consumers. In fact, most consumers. Already Australia's solar capacity is expanding rapidly and as there is plenty of room for the cost of solar to drop even futher, installation costs will continue to decline.

Just how much solar capacity we will have with an installed cost of $2.60 a watt, or the $1 a watt I am sure we will get to before too long, I don't know. But on sunny days of low demand solar power will push the price of electricity down towards zero. Also, as a price taker with zero fuel costs, solar power, like wind, reduces the wholesale price of electricity. Both of these effects are disastrous for the economics of nuclear plants which need both high wholesale prices and to operate at close to full capacity to hope to make money. Nuclear power could not compete when Australia was mostly coal and gas powered and it certainly will not be able to compete now that the price of solar has dropped so low. And if nuclear has to also pay the market price for insurance, well, what can I say? Pushing nuclear power in Australia is flogging dead parrot. It's a deceased source of energy. It's shuffled of its Tesla coil. It's run down the leaded curtain and joined the bleeding choir of invisible gamma rays! It is an ex power source!

HA HA!

I had one of my cars stolen today, but the joke's on them. You see, I'd forgotten to pay the car registration so now the thieves are driving illegally. Suckers!

By All That is Unholy, This Flake of Dead Avian Skin is Mine!

When I Make a Decision I Stick to It!

I don't have a high definition TV. A few years ago I decided to get one when they were as cheap as traditional cathode ray TVs. Unfortunately I forgot to specify that I meant as cheap as cathode ray TVs were at that point in time. Since then cathode ray TVs have plunged in price and now that people give then away for free it looks like I won't be able to get a high definition TV until so much time passes that cathode ray TVs become valuable antiques. All I can say is, it pays to be specific when making a purchase decision.

Really, When You Think About It, It's Just Inactivated Charcoal

I was going through some stuff in my old backpack today when I accidently swallowed a diamond. I think this may be a sign that I am spending too much time playing computer RPGs.

They Took Gender Roles Pretty Seriously Back in the 60s

Dude... I could really go for a space pizza delivered by a green woman dressed in a strip of rayon right now.

I'm Embarrassed By How Much Effort They Have to Put in to Get so Little Milk in Return

Being Gassed Can Be a Real Bitch

They Can Be Vicious If You Get Between Them and a Pony

I Think I've Moved The Overton Window On This Topic

Justice Is Blind Dunk On My Confiscated Alcohol - Or Would Be If I Hadn't Watered It Down

The law is a strange thing. It's perfectly legal for me to celebrate world pornography day by selling adult rated movies, but if at the same time I sell adulterated alcoholic beverages I go to jail. Weird.

The Vulcan Body Meld

I Don't Feel Your Pain, I Comprehend It.

My physiology assignment has quite literally taught me the meaning of pain.

You Say Power Pellets, I Say Crystal Meth

For Some Reason I Keep Getting Chest Colds

I Like My Vaders How I Like My Coffee

This Soap Wasn't Worth the Effort of Bending Over to Pick It Up

I washed with special deodourant soap today and now I smell like toxic chemicals. The logical conclusion is that once all odours have been removed, the natural smell of my body is toxic chemicals.

Te Sunt Faciens Nefas...

Combined Religous Services Never Go Well

Annoying Neighbour

Sometimes Astronomical Bodies Like to Check Out Bodies

I'm Not a Fatuous Dick. I Am THE Fatuous Dick.

The internet is an amazing thing. I previously described myself as being a fatuous dick and now, according to the stats page, my blog has become a Mecca for people searching for "really fat dicks".

I wish the internet would get its act together and just decide once and for all whether I am a fat dick, or that I am not a fat dick and so require endless emails offering to sell me dick growth pills that will presumably make me a fat dick. Quite frankly, being assumed to be both at the same time is just confusing.

Flaming Days, Covering the Earth in Glowing Haze, Trying to Breathe When the Air is Heat...

Mission Accomplished

I've just realised that all the pictures I'm posting on this blog really need to be broken up with some text.

On The Bright Side, Conciousness Isn't Required For the Marriage Conversion Process to Take Place

First Attempted in Jerusalem 2000 Years Ago

Birds and Bees and Tauntauns and Whomp Rats

I Guess We Shouldn't Have Spent So Long Rubbing Ourselves Against These Horses

Sunny Days, Sweeping the Clouds Away, On My Way to Where the Air is Sweet...

Ronald: Why didn't you put this up a little earlier during Easter?

Brak: Because Jesus has has nothing to do with bunnies and chocolate eggs!

It's For Tank Girl

I Was the Bunny

I once had a job as a chocolate rabbit, but I quit because it left me feeling hollow inside.

Itchy and Scratchy

My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma and Then Threw It in the Boot and Invited You to a Barbeque.

It has recently been brought to my attention that Australian males download a large amount of pornography from the internet. As I am apparently male, I have decided to do my bit to address the resulting karmic imbalance and so have downloaded 200 gigabytes of clothes.

They're Not Much Bigger Than Two Metres

You Can Still See the Sockets in the Ceilings of Older Buildings

Straight From the Horse's Mouth

Stop Punking Me!

Without Hallucinovision, most people who watch the movie Dirty Harry completely miss this conversation between the villain's forehead and Harry's right pinky.

I Don't Feel Bad About the Small Size of My Kidney at All

Looking at my blog posts over the past couple of days I see that I have been very pedantic, even for me. I think it must have been caused by the shock of having the existence of a Hummer bigger than mine rubbed in my face. And that's a very hard thing to have rubbed in your face indeed. But I think I'm over it now. I mean, just because someone has a Hummer bigger than mine that has absolutely no bearing on how I feel about myself or my level of self respect. I am quite over my childish sense of competition based on size. I'm making a fresh start on this issue starting now. I shall eat my breakfast and begin a new day without any size related anxiety.

It shall be a huge breakfast of brogdingnagian proportions.

I Sense a Pathological Level of Hostility Directed Towards the Person Who Is Strangling You.....

On the Bright Side I May Develop Super Powers

In the textbook Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology by Frederic H. Martini (now there's a man I'd like to drink) sixth edition, the first sentence on page 584 is, "An ordinary lightbulb or the sun emits photons of all wavelengths." This is not true. The sun is an enormous roiling fusion reaction in the sky and not even it emits photons of all wavelengths. An ordinary lightbulb certainly doesn't, or at least I hope it doesn't. The only light bulb that should be pumping out gamma rays is one on which Doctor Who has reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to use things that emit high frequency photons as a light source without a decent plantary atmosphere between you and it on account of how ionizing radiation can kill you. And so ordinary light bulbs don't. That and the fact that a light bulb that puts out energy in wavelengths we can't see wouldn't be very efficient. That's why we got rid of ordinary incandescent bulbs in Australia. They put out too much energy in wavelengths we can't see, but that was short wave stuff, not cancer rays.

But at least this textbook isn't censored. One can freely look at people's guts without clothes getting in the way.

Engineers Made Some Tough Choices On Our Behalf Back In The 50s

Why Is Google Training Me To Dislike Them?

It's April the first so Google changed the "I feel lucky" button to "I'm steering lucky". All well and good except that the button no longer works. Now when I type in "wikipedia conjuctiva" and click nothing happens and and the small fragment of control I thought I had evaporates in a scorching hot howling whirlwind of despair.

Now I realise that most people will not react quite as badly to this as I did, but really, am I ever going to buy any Google product knowing that they might pull this kind of stuff on me in the future? That is, change its functionality for a cheap advertising gimmick. Well, I'm less likely to now. They may have caused themselves millions of dollars of damage to their brand today. They've certainly managed to associate the phrase "I'm steering lucky" with low grade frustration. All over, kind of dumb.

UPDATE: After midnight the "I'm steering lucky" thing went away and the button started working normally again. However, now it is back again, along with its annoying lack of function. What's the bet that someone at Google noticed my online whinge and put it back for the whole of Australia? Making us suffer through disabling the "I'm lucky button" was bad, but punishing a whole continent because of what one idiot wrote online - well, that's pretty funny actually.

Bible Belt Logic