On 03/05/2008, at 11:24 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > I realize that the newly discovered, offline, Australian reserve is > in a > national park.
Yes, and in indigenous land. But it's not that that I mean. National Parks aren't inherently more sensitive, they're just areas reserved for non-development and wilderness. What I'm talking about is the distances - the NT reserves are several hundred km from Darwin across some of the most unpleasant and difficult terrain. Jungle, biting insects, dry half the year and flooded the other half (there are rivers in the area that change depth by more than 30 metres through the year), and crocodiles. The ore either needs to be refined in situ, which leads to energy generation and chemical waste locally, or refined somewhere else which means trucking the ore out, which means a lot of diesel in trucks or diesel in locomotives if they put a railway in. But I talk your point about other reserves being discovered or becoming viable as the price of U increases, or as the carbon taxes or carbon offsets or carbon licensing schemes increase the coal/oil burning costs closing the gap to nuclear. I'm not against nuclear power in principle, ftr. Certainly Australia has enough U to be totally self-sufficient (instead, we're selling it to China - there are only a couple of very small scale research reactors in Oz for creating medical radioactives) Charlie. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
