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Australia Gives Nuclear Energy A Second Look

From this morning's edition of the Melbourne Age:

Ian Hore-Lacey has a bold prediction: within the next 20 years, Australia will build its first nuclear power generator, and we will do it for environmental reasons. Even a few years ago, nuclear spruikers such as Hore-Lacey would have been laughed out of town for making such an extraordinary forecast . . .

Right now, it's hard to imagine Hore-Lacey's confident prediction of a nuclear plant being built in Australia by 2025 coming true. But after decades of being shunned as environmental villains, the nuclear industry here and overseas clearly senses its time may have come.

"I think that people are opening their minds and starting to say: 'Look, 30 countries are using nuclear power, they can't all be idiots'," says Hore-Lacey.


Australia, according to the article, has the third largest global reserve of Uranium, as well as the highest per capita production of greenhouse gases in the world -- 27 tons per person per year.

UPDATE: Here's on Aussie who's happy about the situation.

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