Indians need our uranium: Flannery

Australian
Thursday 5/2/2009 Page: 7

SCIENTIST Tim Flannery has accused Australia of taking an immoral position by exporting polluting coal to India but refusing to sell it uranium to help it establish a cleaner power-generation industry. On a tour of India promoting renewable energy alternatives to business leaders and government, the author of The Weather Makers said India's plan to build a new generation of coalfired power stations in the next five years would be a catastrophe for the country because it would lessen its energy security.

"They're backing themselves into a situation where they will have a lot of what is now cheap energy but which will inevitably become more expensive because there will be a cost on carbon," Dr Flannery told The Australian in New Delhi.

"These plants have a 50-year lifespan and no one can imagine that in 2040 we won't be paying an impost on carbon pollution," he said. "But there seems to be very little awareness of that in government." India's current five-year plan calls for the creation of an additional 90 MWs of new-capacity power, most of which is expected to be generated by coal.

Australia exports about 10,000 tonnes of uranium a year a $900 million injection into the domestic economy which equates to about 400 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year that are not generated. But the Rudd Government has ruled out exporting Australian uranium to India, the world's second most populous nation, because it is not a signatory to the UN nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

That is despite the fact that Australia supported the special exemption granted to India last September by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which ended the 34-year embargo on nuclear trade with India and paved the way for it to sign a nuclear cooperation and supply agreement with the US.

"Australia's moral position of selling them coal, which is a bloody poison, but not selling uranium doesn't make any sense," Dr Flannery said. "The choice in India at the moment to meet its immediate needs is between coal and uranium, and there's no doubt coal is a much more damaging prospect for India than uranium." The Rudd Government could make it easier for India to make the right choice with a different policy, he said.

Dr Flannery also joined the chorus of world leaders preaching a new morality to the rich, calling on India's business and government leaders to set a modest, environmentally friendly example for the hundreds of millions of Indians aspiring to Western lifestyles. The NSG waiver is regarded as the single biggest step to containing greenhouse gas emissions, given India is expected to soon become the world's third largest emitter after China and the US as its economic growth continues to elevate millions of Indians into the middle classes.

Since the waiver, India has signed intergovernmental civil nuclear co-operation agreements with France, Russia, the US and Kazakhstan. The South Asian giant, which has 15 operating nuclear energy plants and seven under construction, was expected last night to sign an agreement with French nuclear company Areva to build up to six new nuclear reactors in coming years. An estimated 400 million Indians still have no access to electricity supplies.