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Was surprised when I went to Melbourne and found there was no train/tram running up there

There's the bus too which stops at Mascot station. I go down to the airport train station, buy a multi, come back up, next bus is nearly there. Take the short trip to Mascot and the next train. That same bus, the 400 I think, also goes in the other direction and stops at Burwood and Rockdale stations I'm pretty sure. I also walked through the park to Wolli Creek but I wouldn't at night.

Yeah, the 400 (which also happens to be the most patronised bus route in Sydney!) goes from Bondi Junction - Burwood via Eastgardens, Rockdale, Mascot, both Domestic & International Airport, Hurstville, Campsie and onto Burwood.

I think it's also the 2nd longest Sydney Buses bus route behind the L90 which goes from Railway Square to Palm Beach.

Do want.

THE main infrastructure we should be building is NUCLEAR power stations......

that is all

no way i am riding in that train if frank farina is the driver!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\:d/ \:d/ \:d/ \:d/ \:d/

Australia is the perfect country to take advantage of nuclear power.

We've got something like two thirds of the world's uranium, endless inert desert to safely store waste, no need to build plants on faultlines where tsunamis can hit them and much, much more professional labour practices than the Soviet Union did back in the day, while meanwhile we're burning the dirtiest coal possible.

The only argument against nuclear power is an emotional one, and a poor one at that. Unfortunately the majority of voters see the scary trefoil symbol and some of the accidents in the past (ignoring that they'd never happen here) and would never go for it.

Perhaps attitudes may change once the generations that grew up waiting for annihilation in a nuclear war to happen die off and make way for the generations facing annihilation due to climate change.

Sure, we could build the world's largest solar array in the desert, or we could wait for the Chinese to develop Thorium reactors, but really we have to get off the coal addiction asap and work from there.

Yes, but we have too many lefties in this country who are scared of nuclear power etc etc etc.

Yes, I feel nuclear power gets an unnecessary bad rap due to misguided fears.

There is no other reliable, efficient energy source that produces no carbon emissions.

It's not just the left.

probably the greens more than anyone

Plenty of lefties who are for Nuclear power. We can't just solely rely on renewables and Nuclear is a far better option than Coal.

Julie Bishop reopens nuclear debate as route to cut carbon dioxide emissions

Date November 29, 2014 - 11:15PM

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says nuclear energy remains an option for Australia, describing it as an "obvious direction" as it considers how to cut carbon dioxide emissions after 2020.

Ms Bishop called for a an open discussion about the feasibility of nuclear power, given Australia's abundance of uranium, but accused Labor of resorting to a scare campaign when the issue was raised during the Howard government years.


It's a big call for our leaders to engage in this debate, but a good one because it will take some time for communities and industries to get comfortable again with the current and future generations of nuclear technology

"It's an obvious conclusion that if you want to bring down your greenhouse gas emissions dramatically you have to embrace a form of low or zero-emissions energy and that's nuclear, the only known 24/7 baseload power supply with zero emissions," she told Fairfax Media when asked about Australia's options for reaching future carbon-reduction targets.

Ms Bishop flies to Lima, Peru, in just over a week to attend the annual United Nations climate conference, where Australia will face pressure to announce its climate targets for beyond 2020 and it's understood the Prime Minster has personally requested Trade Minister Andrew Robb chaperone Ms Bishop so he can factor in the economic impacts of any new targets Australia considers. Mr Robb, with three major trade deals under his belt, was due to be in South America at the time. Mr Robb was instrumental in influencing the coalition partyroom against former Leader Malcolm Turnbull and his support for Labor's emissions trading scheme.

But new pressure has mounted on Australia in the wake of a recent agreement between the US and China, designed to build momentum for an international treaty due to be struck in Paris in December 2015.

The Liberal deputy leader said without a zero emissions baseload power source, Australia's reduction effort would rely on the 2020 renewable energy target – which the Government is attempting to cut – research and making the energy supply smarter and more efficient.

"I always thought that we needed to have a sensible debate about all potential energy sources and, given that Australia has the largest source of uranium, it's obvious that we should at least debate it," she said.

The Liberal Party and its base strongly supports considering nuclear power, but the Coalition has avoided reviving the debate until now. Ms Bishop lamented the result of a 2006 review, commissioned when she was science minister.

"The debate didn't go anywhere. It descended into name calling about which electorates I intended to place a nuclear reactor in, and would I rule out Cottesloe Beach – that kind of puerile debate. So it didn't ever get off the ground," she said.

The review, headed by businessman and nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski, found nuclear power was "a practical option for part of Australia's electricity production" and, if supported, could see plants built within 10 to 15 years.

Dr Switkowski praised Ms Bishop's comments and said "nuclear power simply has to be in the mix in Australia's energy future" given its negligible carbon footprint and Australia's geological stability.

"It's a big call for our leaders to engage in this debate, but a good one because it will take some time for communities and industries to get comfortable again with the current and future generations of nuclear technology," he said.

Dr Switkowski said community sentiment towards nuclear power had been warming in Australia until the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

But he said advances in small modular reactors could make nuclear commercially viable for Australia as early as next decade because they addressed the main concerns people typically held about reactors – waste, their proximity to population centres and the risk of a catastrophic accident.

"The small modular reactors will provide a real opportunity to consider nuclear power again because they are a tenth of the size of a nuclear or coal-fired powered station," he said.

But he agreed that if there were improvements in wind and solar technology over the next two decades to make them more reliable around the clock, renewable energy sources could be more viable than nuclear. "It's a bit of a race, given the time that's been lost due to Fukushima," he said.

The government is likely to increase its uranium trade to China and India, and has in the past sold the resource to Russia.

Mr Bishop said: "Other countries are embracing nuclear power as part of their energy mix in order to meet the kind of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that is being considered.

"France is considered as one of the greenest countries on earth [and] has a significant proportion of its energy from nuclear energy."

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julie-bishop-reopens-nuclear-debate-as-route-to-cut-carbon-dioxide-emissions-20141129-11w17k.html

Put one of these out in the middle of the desert ffs. It's not going to go all tits up in the middle of nowhere with competent safety regulations.

Edited by melbourne_terrace: 1/12/2014 07:59:39 AM

Not against nuclear power (in fact I used be very interested in them) but I'd like to see evidence that they're necessary and the most cost effective way to reduce emissions. Even in the article:

We already have a Nuclear reactor in the suburbs of sydney for medical research since 1956

Running one to produce medical radiation isotopes isn't exactly the same as running a number of them to replace coal fired plants but the safety side of things is something that can be addressed.

Not sure how you can put one in the middle of the desert, the plants require water to run:-k and that's ignoring the extra costs to transmit that power back to the population centres (which I think would necessary for some solar power plants anyway)

Does anyone know what is likely to happen with Labor running the show now re: the second container port for Melbourne? Personally I'm glad the Port of Hastings development doesn't look likely to go ahead like the Libs had planned but the last I heard Labor's plan had some issues.

Also hoping the Andrews will backflip and go ahead with East-West Link [-o<

Well we had to learn something from Chernobyl about safety right?

As for Fukishima well our seismic activity would be less than 1% of theirs at a guess.

As for the desert, bingo. You'd want it near the port of Melbourne/Sydney or somewhere where theres a fuck load of roads designed for heavy industry as it is.

I recently used the drillers who've done the drilling for the Port of Melbourne. They came from that job to mine up in Brisbane.

Hazarding a guess here they probably wouldn't spend over $1mil on drilling for nothing.

No chance of the East-Wesk link, especially after releasing the business case today...

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/east-west-link-business-case-revealed-56-years-to-pay-off-20141215-127dyq.html



The Liberal government's attempt to push this through and hide the business case was an absolute shambles. Everyone knew the plan and the justifications were a dud.

Yeah I expected the East-West numbers to be pretty grim but had it been built it would've made life more convenient for me and personally I'd rather a project that does that than a project that turns a profit.



I think their plan was to privatise the Port of Melbourne and then at some stage develop a second port out near Werribee/the western side of Port Phillip Bay

Another report saying Macedonia and Greece will also be connected to the Chinese built high speed network, helping Pireaus become China's gateway to European trade.

How good is it that the hole that half of this forum's folks emigrated from for a better life will soon have better infrastructure than us? :lol:

I'm not sure I'd want to ride on a hastily built chinese train.

They're the best kind, this century.

I've thought for a while that we should use the stack effect in sky scrapers to generate power or at least build power stations based on it

Internet in Singapore:



-PB