Friday 8 December 2006

Nuclear wrong fork in road

Sunshine Coast Daily
Friday 8/12/2006 Page: 20

SINCE the initial flurry following the release of Ziggy Switkowski's report on nuclear power last month, the government seems to have fallen silent on the subject.

I don't think for a moment the Prime Minister's commitment to the pursuit of a nuclear future is wavering. It is much more likely that any reticence is an acknowledgment that it's going to be a tough sell in the electorate. The government quickly moved to shut down discussion about the location of nuclear reactors, claiming we should debate the wider concept before getting into the detail.

We know nuclear power plants would need to be built within 100 kilometres of major population centres and close to plentiful water supplies. Based on those criteria, sites on the coastline close to capital cities would appear to be primary targets, but at this stage we can only speculate and draw our own conclusions.

Supporters have called for a sensible, reasoned debate and the Prime Minister has said the country cannot afford to "sacrifice rational discussion on the altar of anti-nuclear theology and political opportunism".

Opponents who have scrutinised the issue beyond general impressions and memories of Chernobyl point to numerous arguments against heading down the yellow-cake road.

Al Gore and Professor Ian Lowe, for example, are both learned, intelligent men disinclined towards hysteria and deeply committed to efforts to tackle global warming yet opposed to nuclear power. During his recent visit to Australia, Mr Gore was sceptical about nuclear power making a significant contribution towards combating climate change.

Mr Gore said in addition to the problem of long-term waste storage, the danger of operator accident and the vulnerability to terrorist attack, there were still two key issues that work against it as a future option.

Firstly there's the economics. "Nuclear power plants are the costliest to build and they take the longest time and at present they come in only one size - extra large," he said.

The second was nuclear weapons proliferation. "For eight years when I was in the White House, every problem of weapons proliferation was connected to a reactor program." In a speech this year, leading environmental scientist Professor Ian Lowe set out a long list of reasons why we should look to renewable options to meet our energy needs and I will do my best to summarise some of his comments.

Firstly, nuclear power is expensive and every dollar poured into the development of a nuclear industry in Australia is a dollar that could have been invested in more economically viable alternatives.

While nuclear power proponents say it has been safely employed around the world for years, Prof Lowe points out that many of those countries are now turning their backs on nuclear energy after spending billions pursuing it. The number of reactors in Western Europe and the USA has been declining over the past 15 years while uptake of wind power and solar energy is increasing rapidly.

Prof Lowe added that climate change required an immediate response and it would be at least 15 years before the first reactor in Australia could deliver any result, while wind turbines could be delivering power within a year.

Despite arguments about nuclear power being a clean, green energy source it is not actually carbon-free. Significant amounts of fossil fuels are required to mine and process uranium ores, enrich the fuel and build nuclear power stations. In addition, high-grade uranium ores are comparatively scarce and, on the best available estimates, known reserves could only supply present demand for 40 or 50 years. Lower-grade ores are more plentiful but require much more conventional energy for extraction and processing, resulting in more greenhouse pollution.

There is the problem of storage of nuclear waste and the fact that nuclear power would potentially make the world more dangerous due to the risk of an accident and the increased risk of nuclear weapons or nuclear terrorism.

"You won't hear people worrying about terrorists getting hold of wind turbine parts, or making dirty bombs out of solar panels," Prof Lowe said.

The Prime Minister has suggested that renewable energy sources could be part of the mix but they would not meet Australia's base-load energy requirements. Prof Lowe doesn't buy it, noting that renewables already account for a quarter of the installed capacity of California, a third of Sweden's energy and three-quarters of Iceland's.

"Renewables can meet Australia's energy demands," he said. "By contrast nuclear power is expensive, slow and dangerous - and it won't stop climate change."

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