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Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

parliament.nz

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Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#81

Post by Taniwha »

incompatible wrote: post #47
Taniwha wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NZ anti-nuclear movement was mostly (but not completely) seen as a success against the US forcing their nuclear armed warships upon us (sailing into our harbours) during the cold war, and as a result making us a potential target. In the end one of the right wing party's lawmakers voted with the left wing party, enough to pass a law, the right wing party used this as an excuse to dissolve parliament and call a nat…

I think your history is a bit off. NZ was declared nuclear-free by David Lange's government. Describing that government as "left wing" is misleading, since the nuclear-free zone was perhaps one of the few things the traditional "left" supported. His government is mostly remembered for the introduction of "Rogernomics", i.e., the introduction of neoliberalism to NZ.

No it's right on, Lange's govt was forced into "Rogernomics" noeliberalism because the previous right wing ("Muldoon") government had secretly borrowed lots of money overseas to prop up a wages and price freeze, and the country was unable to pay that money back when the rest of the world started to devalue our dollar (it went from US$1.25 to US$.50 almost overnight, and stayed that way for 20 years).

Muldoon as PM used the loss of the nuclear ships vote as an excuse to call an election, but was caught out when the chairman of the Reserve Bank came out publicly and explained what was happening to the economy, by then of course it was all too late. Nevertheless we were proud of our Nuclear Free state, even more so when the French terrorists sunk the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour (remember that the previous Labour govt had sailed NZ navy frigates into the French nuclear testing zone to protest atmospheric testing, this wasn't a new thing for Labour)

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#82

Post by incompatible »

Taniwha wrote: post #81
incompatible wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your history is a bit off. NZ was declared nuclear-free by David Lange's government. Describing that government as "left wing" is misleading, since the nuclear-free zone was perhaps one of the few things the traditional "left" supported. His government is mostly remembered for the introduction of "Rogernomics", i.e., the introduction of neoliberalism to NZ.

No it's right on, Lange's govt was forced into "Rogernomics" noeliberalism because the previous right wing ("Muldoon") government had secretly borrowed lots of money overseas to prop up a wages and price freeze, and the country was unable to pay that money back when the rest of the world started to devalue our dollar (it went from US$1.25 to US$.50 almost overnight, and stayed that way for 20 years). Muldoon as PM us…

Alright, Marilyn Waring defected over a nuclear ships bill, but I don't think it passed under that government since Muldoon called an election instead. Muldoon ran the county practically as his personal socialist republic, Think Big, massive borrowing in foreign currencies, restrictions on foreign currency conversion, banking, wage and prices freezes, subsidies to farmers, generous welfare benefits, you name it. Lange's government was forced to float the dollar as their first act, since propping it up was no longer feasible. Their deregulation and privatisation had the (in hindsight) predictable effect of blowing up a bubble of leveraged property speculation, which came to a sudden end in the 1987 sharemarket crash. Good times!

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#83

Post by Taniwha »

incompatible wrote: post #82
Taniwha wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's right on, Lange's govt was forced into "Rogernomics" noeliberalism because the previous right wing ("Muldoon") government had secretly borrowed lots of money overseas to prop up a wages and price freeze, and the country was unable to pay that money back when the rest of the world started to devalue our dollar (it went from US$1.25 to US$.50 almost overnight, and stayed that way for 20 years). Muldoon as PM us…

Alright, Marilyn Waring defected over a nuclear ships bill, but I don't think it passed under that government since Muldoon called an election instead. Muldoon ran the county practically as his personal socialist republic, Think Big, massive borrowing in foreign currencies, restrictions on foreign currency conversion, banking, wage and prices freezes, subsidies to farmers, generous welfare benefits, you name it. Lang…

Yes we agree - the Nuclear free moment led to an election, the actual law was finally passed by the new govt.

I headed off on my OE the day after Marilyn Waring crossed the floor, by the time I arrived in the US and had opened a bank account my (still in NZ) savings were worth less than half ... not a fan of the National Party 's economic savvy

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#84

Post by phs318u »

arcticbull wrote: post #73
tekstar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the time at the moment to source both points I want to make, but I read them both recently while reading about nuclear power. 1 - to your point about nuclear being the most environmentally friendly, I don't see how this is true compared to wind and solar. Nuclear power produces nuclear waste. Nuclear power requires significant amounts of fresh water. 2 - one of the primary reasons to not build a nuclear…

> To your point about nuclear being the most environmentally friendly, I don't see how this is true compared to wind and solar. Pollution comes from e-waste as panels are replaced, mining/tailings and less-than-environmentally-friendly materials used to make PV panels. Most commercial PV panels are Cadmium Telluride. Cadmium is of course highly toxic and carcinogenic, and as panels get better, they're swapped out and…

How do you safely and securely get the spent fuel to Yucca? Leaving aside accidents it seems securing the entire road or rail route would be a logistical nightmare. It would be quite a tempting target for bad actors. And a the kind of target against whom assymetric effort would yield “effective” results (for the bad actor)

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#85

Post by yongjik »

phs318u wrote: post #84
arcticbull wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To your point about nuclear being the most environmentally friendly, I don't see how this is true compared to wind and solar. Pollution comes from e-waste as panels are replaced, mining/tailings and less-than-environmentally-friendly materials used to make PV panels. Most commercial PV panels are Cadmium Telluride. Cadmium is of course highly toxic and carcinogenic, and as panels get better, they're swapped out and…

How do you safely and securely get the spent fuel to Yucca? Leaving aside accidents it seems securing the entire road or rail route would be a logistical nightmare. It would be quite a tempting target for bad actors. And a the kind of target against whom assymetric effort would yield “effective” results (for the bad actor)

Attacking any bridge or tunnel will easily create more casualties, with the added benefit(?) that they are essentially sitting ducks, unlike nuclear waste (which will move only once every few years or so, following some confidential route).

If you're aiming for maximum environmental damage, just attack an oil pipe or oil tanker at port.

I just don't see the terrorism angle for nuclear waste. There are far more juicier targets.

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#86

Post by arcticbull »

yongjik wrote: post #85
phs318u wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you safely and securely get the spent fuel to Yucca? Leaving aside accidents it seems securing the entire road or rail route would be a logistical nightmare. It would be quite a tempting target for bad actors. And a the kind of target against whom assymetric effort would yield “effective” results (for the bad actor)

Attacking any bridge or tunnel will easily create more casualties, with the added benefit(?) that they are essentially sitting ducks, unlike nuclear waste (which will move only once every few years or so, following some confidential route). If you're aiming for maximum environmental damage, just attack an oil pipe or oil tanker at port. I just don't see the terrorism angle for nuclear waste. There are far more juicie…

And far less protected ones. There's an entire department of the government dedicated to trucking this waste around, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#87

Post by akvadrako »

theRandomMoron wrote: post #55
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #9

> Ardern went on to say she absolutely believed climate change was the "biggest challenge of our time" and the "nuclear moment" for this generation. I find it ironic the prime minister is using “nuclear” as a pejorative when it was the left’s irrational opposition to nuclear power that resulted in much of the world's electricity being produced by fossil fuels. If we had embraced nuclear power 2 decades ago, we would…

Nuclear Power yields some of the lowest power generation per investment of any generation type. It has basically never returned profit, costs money for thousands of years to deal with spent fuel. Not to mention the immense impact of reactor containment failure. Any argument for using Nuclear to reduce CO2 emissions is redundant when the economics, safety and alternatives (wind/solar) are taken into consideration.

France is a good examples of how nuclear power is more affordable than renewables.

Storage of waste is almost a non issue because they is just so little of it - the fuel itself is incredibly dense, so it’s really only the old concrete that takes space, and it isn’t very dangerous.

Re: Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill

#88

Post by EGreg »

yarg wrote: post #68
EGreg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that stuxnet proved that we can quickly go from “look at all this desalinated water and zero carbon footprint!” to “crap, we just built tons of honeypots for state level hackers to hold our entire population hostage to the threat of nuclear meltdown triggered by sabotaged software”

That's not actually what a honeypot ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing) ) is.

That's in computing. And it's close enough. We would probably HAVE honeypots to deter exactly this.
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