The Labor government is holding firmly to its anti nuclear platform for now but the rumblings of dissent from within the party are growing.
Anti-nuclear campaigners continue to maintain that nuclear power is expensive, risky and legitimises the proliferation of nuclear weapons in secretive states after a renewed push from figures in the Labor Party for a debate on nuclear power at next year’s national party conference.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has gone on the record recently saying he supports the investigation of nuclear power as a way of solving a potential energy crisis and as a way of combatting emissions that result from other forms of power.
WA Senator Mark Bishop has also advocated a discussion at next year’s conference, writing recently that nuclear power plants are “safe, becoming cheaper, cost effective and competitive as part of the power supply mix.”
Labor backbencher Chris Hayes, meanwhile, recently stated that the federal government “should not be blinkered” when it comes to nuclear energy, NSW Senator Steve Hutchins said there was a to discuss “all forms of alternative energy”, while Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes said last year that it was time to “rethink” the moratorium on nuclear power.
Julia Gillard has previously stated that she does not support a change to the party’s line on nuclear power, but would welcome a debate on the issue at the national conference. She has previously said that nuclear power “doesn’t stack up as an economically efficient source of power”.
Recent polls suggest there is some support for nuclear power — a Nielsen poll held during the ETS debate last year revealed that 50% of people polled were in favour of considering it — but the ‘not in my backyard’ sentiment remains strong. According to a Newspoll survey conducted in 2007, 66% of people were strongly against a nuclear power station being built in their area with just 25% in favour while there is currently a backlash against a potential national nuclear waste dump in Muckaty Station, Northern Territory.
Dave Sweeney, a nuclear free campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, says that nuclear power is “high cost and high risk” and that there are better cheaper and ways of producing energy.
According to the 2009 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, nuclear power plants currently being built in Europe have been plagued by cost blow-outs and construction delays. It is estimated that the cost of a plant being built in Flamanville, France has increased from 3.3 billion euros to 4 billion euros.
“For a start, nuclear power is expensive. The time delays are very long, not to mention the construction costs and all of that,” Sweeney told Crikey. “Nuclear power reinforces the false dichotomy that our future is reliant on coal and nuclear power, it dismisses and downplays the future of renewables and it legitimises Australia’s role as an increasingly significant uranium provider.”
Recently, the federal government inked a deal which would allow Australian uranium to be enriched in Russia. Dave Sweeney, nuclear free campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, says that decision showed all the signs of a government who has “seen the dollar signs and has deliberately turned its back on the danger signs”.
“Putin’s Russia is a closed state. There have not been international and independent nuclear inspection in Russia since 2002 and it has the largest nuclear weapons cache in the world,” Sweeney said. “For us to be fuelling that is extremely irresponsible.”
In April this year, Ziggy Switkowski, chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, recommended Australia build 50 nuclear power reactors by 2050. That number is double what he suggested to the Howard government in a report in 2006.
According to the Switkowski report, 25 reactors could deliver one third of Australia’s electricity needs, which, if it replaces coal power, would reduce Australia’s total emissions by around 17%. That is simply not enough to justify a push for nuclear power, according to Jim Green, coordinator of the Choose Nuclear Free project.
“It’s simple maths really, even if we build 12 nuclear power reactors — two outside each of the six state capital cities — that would reduce Australia’s emissions by less than 8%,” he said. “It leaves a huge amount of heavy lifting in other sectors.”
Dave Sweeney agrees and says that, instead of “running from one environmental problem by embracing another”, the federal government should look to invest in renewable energy.
“We’re at a point now where we can look to become a world leader in renewable technology or we can continue with a rip and ship policy that focuses on the extraction of resources,” he said.
With the greatest of respect to Tom and to all who he cites – apart from Dr Switkowski – the nuclear power debate is about powering the future. It has little to do with the real or imagined past and absolutely nothing to do with NIMBYism.
What Australia needs is safe, reliable power to replace and augment its existing carbon intensive generators. Nothing more or less.
This cannot be provided by wishful thinking, ZCA2020 plans prepared on the basis of meeting only a fraction of the demand, or by chanting that sitting in the dark, shivering, in winter 2011 will be good for the character.
I suspect that politicians’ m inds will become remarkably focussed as soon as the power shortages start, perhaps even next July. Imagine having to find out what Australian power supplies were like in 1950, with scheduled blackouts suburb by suburb because the power simply could not be generated to keep the lights on and the kitchens cooking.
Politicians are particularly good at learning from their electorates once their stuffups have been exposed. If it takes blackouts to achieve this, then so be it. All the other considerations will appear as nothing.
The naysayers are getting desperate if they claim the Flamanville plant costing $3.4/W is “expensive”. They don’t tell us that solar costs much more for the same capacity, a shorter working life and cannot produce baseload at all.
We hear that nukes are “risky”, but we don’t hear what the risk is. Neither do we hear of the 29 people killed in a NZ coal mine last month, or the 75 people killed in the Russian renewables plant last year.
Rogue states nowadays (since Pakistan) go for direct enrichment without reactors, so proliferation has become irrelevant.
Sweeney condemns coal and nuclear but fails to condemn gas. Whereas minority renewable supplies might offset the escalating costs for gas fuel, they cannot compete with the cheaper coal and nuclear fuel. When put to the test of a cold, still night, renewables means gas. Yet other gas-exporting nations are installing nuclear so that they can make a nett profit by exporting the gas.
Little bit of fantasy going on there guys, of course a combination of renewables can provide base load, and many other countries that are not dominated by resource billionaires are doing just that. In the case of Australian, and especially Queensland Labor, we are looking at the unholy alliance between the ALP controlling AWU faction and the resource industries, especially uranium. Have a look after the “after politics” jobs of many of the AWU and Labor Unity ex state cabinet ministers and you will see some most uncomfortable alliances. The Queensland AWU and its satellites Have completely betrayed any commitmernt to the policies and objectives of their own party and have allied themselves to the anti worker uranium, coal and gas industries to the detriment of us all including their own union members.
It seems few are aware Labor’s positions on nuclear have varied considerably over the decades. Unerstand this, and there shouln’t be surprised ‘shock/horror’ reactions if there are still further variations in the future.
@Michael Crook:
Fantasy? Come on, justify your faith in the statement “…of course a combination of renewables can provide base load, and many other countries that are not dominated by reource billionaires are doing just that.” This is mistaken or worse, on at least three levels.
Firstly, just what renewable power source(s) do you have in mind for Australia in your Utopian view of the future base load, steady, dependable, reliable, affordable electricity supply? Can’t be solar PV – it turns off when a cloud crosses the sky or the sun sets. Can’t be geothermal – all trials in Australia have come to nought, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of public and private money being channelled into test projects. Can’t be solar thermal – no trials world wide have yet demonstrated capacity to store heat for long enough to get through one night, let alone a wet or overcast week. Can’t be wind – it turns out that when the wind isn’t blowing in South Australia, there is a very good chance that it is weak or absent in Vic, NSW and so forth, so backup is impossible without carbon generation, eg coal or gas, both of which are not renewable and are thus disqualified from a place in your lineup.
Right – no renewable power source(s) can do the job now or any time soon. Time to face this fact.
Two – What countries can you list that “are doing just that”, ie using renewables to provide base load. Zero Zip Nada. That was a fib. It’s a pity that the world’s future hangs on a thread and even the well-meaning relie on a tissue of lies for their proposed solutions. More than a pity. Come on, folks, it is the end of the world as we know it which is being considered here, not a choice of washing powder. This is serious.
Three. “…Countries not dominated by resource billionaires…”. I wish that such actually existed. So far as I can tell, pending revelations from WikiLeaks on the subject, every resource rich nation in the world is under controlled either overtly or subtly by multinational resource corporations and the billionaires who own and operate them.
The solution to the world’s climate and energy problems will not be found by politicians and resource barons workshopping their points of view and coming up with a compromise. Climate does not negotiate nor compromise… it just is what it is . Disagree if you like, but the decision is not open to compromise or negotiation. Either work with nature or put up with the consequences.
Clearly, a lot of pain will have to be felt before the majority of the world’s humans actually decarbonise. Unfortunately, the futures of each individual of the of the hundreds of thousands of non-human species on our planet will be a function of the real actions taken to decarbonise human lifestyles. They are not able to vote, to argue or to compromise… their lives and deaths may hang in the balance, but who will consider them, and what value will be placed on a healthy earth?
No, Michael Crook, the fantasisers are those who believe in renewable energy fairies and the price of this folly will be paid by every single organism and ecosystem on the planet, including humans not yet born. Your position is that of one who would risk everything in order to avoid doing the necessary.