Energy answer is blowing in the wind

Bay Post
Wednesday 24/1/2007 Page: 17
By Narelle Ryan

ALTHOUGH Prime Minister John Howard bravely announced he would have no objection to having a nuclear power station built next to his home in Sydney, he is in luck - there is not enough space next to Kirribilli House to build one of his planned 25 nuclear power stations or nuclear waste dumps.

So shires around the country will have to start lobbying the government for one - or lobbying the government not to have one in their area. Which streets in the Eurobodalla Shire would work best I wonder? My neighbours near Moruya Hospital have decided they definitely do not want a nuclear reactor anywhere near here, so you can take Moruya out of the equation!

I had coffee with Dr Helen Caldicott recently when she was enjoying a well earned rest on the South Coast from her work as president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute based in Washington, DC.

The Smithsonian Institute has named Australian-born Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th century. She has inspired many people including actress Meryl Streep, who said: "Helen Caldicott has been my inspiration to speak out".

On the cover of her latest book, Nuclear power is not the answer to global warming or anything else, actor Martin Sheen says: "In a world where dark and dangerous forces are threatening our planet, Helen Caldicott shines a powerful light".

Dr Caldicott would like each of you to think long and hard on the following:

• Australia produces 40 per cent of the world's uranium.
• When our uranium is fissioned in a nuclear power plant, radioactive toxins are produced which enter and remain in the food chain for hundreds of thousands of years.
• The nuclear industry spends millions of dollars annually in advertisements trying to establish that nuclear energy is cleaner, greener and cheaper than other forms of electricity production but, in reality, it is none of these things.
  
• Fossil fuels are needed to mine the uranium, to create the concrete and steel for the reactors, to transport the waste through many towns and cities over long periods of time and to prepare adequate waste storage facilities.
• Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to many events that could lead to meltdowns including human and mechanical errors, ageing reactors, tsunamis, earthquakes and terrorist attacks.
• Nuclear waste sites will need to be supervised and guarded for periods of time beyond our comprehension - 240,000 years.

The good news is that there is no need to build new nuclear power plants to provide for the energy needs for our future. Indeed it would be possible, using other forms of electricity generation, to close down most of the existing nuclear reactors within a decade. There is enough wind between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River alone to supply three times the amount of electricity that America needs.

Closer to home we can tap into the safe, renewable energy sources of wind power and solar power. Wind power is cheap, fast to produce and attractive to farmers and rural communities.

"There is scope for Australia to lead the world in renewable energy developments," Dr Caldicott said. "The time is urgent and the time is now as global warming is upon us. The technology is available and cheap.

"For a country awash in sunlight, it should not seem a stretch for Australians to take the initiative to develop and install a massive solar-generating electricity network that will not only supply our country with most of its electricity needs, but will create employment opportunities while providing an export market to energy-hungry countries to our immediate north such as Indonesia, India and China."

In the last paragraph of Dr Caldicott's must-read book she says: "We live in an exciting time full of promise. All we need to do is to make personal and political commitments to save the earth from the ravages of global warming."