Ziggy's report a postcard from the wedge

Weekend Australian
Saturday 30/12/2006 Page: 24

THERE is a lot of Mr Spock in Ziggy Switkowski's preview of Australia's nuclear future. The eminent nuclear boffin turned telecom executive has delivered a report that resonates with that certain, relentless Vulcan logic.

Zwitkowski's uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy Task Force has provided, as expected, a compelling case for the embrace of nuclear power based on the certainty of science and finance. Switkowski suggests we could be a nuclear-powered nation as early as 2016, and under one scenario we could have 25 reactors by 2050 producing one-third of Australia's power. Sexy stuff.

But Zwitkowski's report inscrutably ignores the real-world complications created by the emotional, fearful homo sapiens who hold John Howard's political future in their hands.

The debate over uranium in Australia has rarely been marked by any sort of logic or dispassionate review. The contentious radioactive yellow mineral, and all things nuclear for that matter, have been a polarising political plaything in an era marked by a steady, numbing convergence of our political dialectic. To oppose or embrace uranium mining used to tell us where people stood. It affirmed beliefs. Why else would inner urban local councils waste time and money by indulging in the unbelievable conceit of declaring, then advertising, their fiefdoms as nuclear-free zones? The Zwitkowski review, then, has to be seen as a covertly political document and one that has very little to do with the realistic pursuit of a viable nuclear power industry in Australia.

For all the careful presentation of facts and its steely, certain analysis, the report is an expression of John Howard's command of wedge politics. That is why Howard has created this cart before- the-horse debate which promotes a nuclear Australia even while we continue to constrain uranium mining. A focused assessment of our uranium future would be useless for his purposes.

Uranium is no longer the touchstone of division it once was. Although it remains a focus for a robust bloc within the green movement, it is no longer the talisman of opposition. The change in mood has encouraged a break in the Labor anti-uranium laager, with two states South Australia and Queensland pursuing an end to restrictions on new mines.

Which is sensible stuff. Australia has 38 per cent of the world's low-cost uranium reserves which is pretty remarkable when you consider that no one has seriously gone looking for it since the foolish three mines policy was embraced in the 1980s.

With demand and prices at record highs, even Labor hardheads have accepted that three-mines is intellectual flummery. If three are OK, why not 10? But Labor's nascent embrace of good sense means that Howard needs to move the goalposts. And that is what the Zwitkowski report is all about.

So where is the wedge? Well, some in the green left reckon nuclear power could provide a real and present method of dealing with global warming. Others remain unyielding in their rejection of the N option. From Howard's perspective, this is a delicious tension, and one that will dog Labor and the broader left as they consider how to deal with the PM's nuclear feint.

For his part, Ziggy Switkowski has decided that if you accept that climate change is the product of carbon emissions, then you'd better start pricing carbon inputs to reflect their effect. And if you do that, then nuclear technology is likely to provide an environmentally sustainable and cost-competitive, long-term solution to our base-load power requirements.

And you can forget the idea that either solar or wind is going to give you the answer here. Neither will be able to provide base- load power needs. Recent research in Europe suggests wind power works at no better than 23 per cent efficiency, and while the data here suggests we do it better, it remains an expensive peak-load provider. And solar? Well, it would be just mind-blowingly expensive to create base load supplies from solar. End of story.

There is no doubt that nuclear power can provide base-load power and has a much lower greenhouse signature than brown and black coal and gas. At its most bullish, the Zwitkowski report claims nuclear power could reduce national greenhouse emissions by 18 per cent by 2050.

So, if you accept greenhouse science, which Zwitkowski seems to, then Australia needs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And it needs nuclear power. But increasing the net cost of carbon-fuelled power is an essential prerequisite.

Because while nuclear power is carbon-efficient, it is also currently up to 50 per cent more costly to produce. The only way to close the gap is to ensure the costs of greenhouse gas emissions are explicitly recognised. And that means some sort of carbon tax and dramatically higher power bills. Which means the Howard Government is not going to take the great leap forward indicated by this report.