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The nuclear debate is back. Just as we thought the world was moving to embrace renewables, the nuclear alternative has re-emerged on the agenda.
Former treasurer Peter Costello has recently come out urging Australia to embrace nuclear energy in the battle against climate change.
"When Australia's environmental movement allows itself to admit this is an option we will know that they are really serious about reducing greenhouse emissions," Costello writes. "It can be done on today's technology. France is doing it, and Japan and Britain and the US. Our activists will not find it easy to change a lifetime of loathing for nuclear energy."
Then Business Spectator comes out quoting an Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics (ABARE) report saying Australia’s uranium sales would put it at the forefront of the battle against greenhouse gases, providing nearly 13 per cent of the global market for uranium and amounting to a global abatement contribution from the worldwide industry of more than three billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.
Still, there are problems with this stance. For a start, nuclear fuel is radioactive and toxic.
Secondly, no-one yet knows how to store it safely. ANU professor Geoff Davies writes in the Canberra Times that it is completely unnecessary (the best way to reduce greenhouse gases is more efficient energy usage), dangerous and expensive.
It is also dangerous and insufficient because it only generates electricity which accounts for one third of our energy usage.
So what’s your take? Is nuclear the answer to beating climate change? Or are there better solutions?
Comments
Nuclear power is a medium term answer, but it is horribly expensive
What is the world coming to, is it falling apart or not? Would somebody please make up their mind? I mean we just love a good disaster don’t we. We do everything possible to destroy our planet and then say whoops what we gonna do now…
I have to say this article was interesting though http://ketiva.com/Environment/so_what_is_the_climate_like_in_copenhagen.html
Even if you can argue away the waste issue; building a nuclear power plant is totally insane. its a fact that no one would want to live near it, and most importantly it would take 15-20 years to happen. How is that actually going to help? We actually need action now, not in another generation's time. Second of all, the nuclear power industry is also incredibly water intensive. does any city in Australia actually have enough water they can spare to run one?
As you say, it's radioactive and toxic; and noone has worked out quite what to do with the waste (Obama just cancelled the plan the US has worked on for the last 20 years).
In addition:
**Children living near nuclear power stations are more at risk of leukaemia, a recent long-term German government study shows.
**It needs huge amounts of water.
**Time magazine (December 08) says it's so ridiculously expensive it's now beyond consideration.
**And it provides materials and technology for nuclear weapons, and terrorists. Look how we're fretting about Iran getting the bomb - and who might get the keys to Pakistan's.
Surely that;s enough good reasons to put our money into genuine renewables?
Understand Economic inadequacies and ... nuclear is nonsense.
Earth bound nuclear reserves have a life of decades at current rates of useage; not a sustainable option and a wasste of endeavour for the short term when sustainable options abound.
We must have real economic reform, economics that reflects the decrease in natural reserves that is currently seen as 'resources boom'.
For an activity to be sustainable the time to Produce the natural resources must be less than of equal the time the activity Uses the resources. This is a fundamental physical premise; i.e. the Produce Use Sustainability Index (PUSI). If our activities cannot comply we must address the causes such as overpopulation.
Economics has been described and the dismal science and the dismal art; it is in fact a fatally flawed premises on which to base measurement of progress; a death sentence for the human species. Economics defines natural resources as of zero cost and thus they are outside its vision; we destroy until they become inaccessible, costing only the manpower involved in their destruction. This definition is contrary to Economics own laws of supply and demand in a free market. (To further disguise our folly modern Economics bundles non-renewable resources as commodities!?)
Further we base our economics on a free market that again is a fatally flawed concept because it only serves those represented and future generations are not represented; there shall be nothing left for them. Future generations must be represented.
Nuclear power as an "answer" to global warming is a backward step. It is outmoded technology from an industry that cannot deal with it's readioactive waste. Niether is it as clean as the industry would like to suggest .... at every stage in the nuclear chain, apart from the boiling-water-in-the-reactor bit, it produces greenhouse emissions.
The economics don't stack up either ..... nuclear energy costs 14cents per kilowatt hour compared with 7 cents per kilowatt for wind generated energy (and that's not counting dispoal of nuclear waste, nor decommissioning the huge plants when they wear out). In 2006, it cost 2 - 4 billion dollars (US) to build a 1,500 megawatt nuclear plant: now that figure has climbed past $7billion (US) - what investors are going to be stupid enough to place their getting scarcer capital in such dodgy technology, when on the other hand, they could part of an exciting energy revolution with renewables!
Then there's the water usage ....especially in this dry (and getting dryer) continent, we would be mad to embrace any further involvement with the water guzzling nuclear industry.
Jo Vallentine
Perth
Obama to lessen the nuclear threat
Peter Costello wrongly attributes a call for nuclear reactors to President Barack Obama (‘Perhaps Obama can convince the holdouts’, SMH 4 March). In fact in his Inauguration Address President Obama said: “With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet.†The Obama Administration has recently sent two powerful messages to the US nuclear industry and neither has been good news for the atomic true believers. He has acted quickly to withdraw continued funding for the contentious proposed Mt Yucca nuclear waste plan - after some 20 years and US$9 billion dollars spent on Mt Yucca the US has had to go back to the drawing board and nuclear waste management is still unresolved in the home of nuclear energy. And despite heavy industry lobbying, a proposed $US50 billion subsidy to build new nuclear reactors has been dropped from the US economic stimulus package.
Peter Costello should also heed the warning of former Vice President Al Gore who said in 2006: “In the eight years I served in the White house, every weapons proliferation issue we faced was linked with a civilian reactor program.†Nuclear insecurity risks and unresolved nuclear waste management should disqualify nuclear from any claims that it can address climate change. In any case nuclear is too slow, too expensive and too ineffective to earn a place in any climate team. Australia has the capacity and the resources to lead the world in sustainable solutions – we do not need to split either atoms or communities to secure our energy future.
David Noonan
Nuclear Free Campaigner
Australian Conservation Foundation
but in the context of global warming - probably the best option. proven technology, australia has significant uranium deposits, much lower co2 impact compared to coal, and can provide base load power which renewables (until a technological breakthrough is a) achieved and b) able to be economically produced) cannot.
everyone would prefer that solar, wind, wave, geothermal could provide the energy requirements, but currently just a dream for us to work toward...
You're repeating the Base Load Fallacy. Renewables are practical, quick to implement, and can carry our energy needs when combined with increase energy efficiency. Nuclear is too slow and too expensive to be of any use in the current climate crisis.