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Australia Nuclear Update

By Eric McErlain
The head of the opposition Labor party says Australia doesn't need nuclear energy:
Mr [Kim] Beazley today ruled out the need to go nuclear.

"Australia does not need nuclear power and I would not advocate it in government," he said in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra.

He said Australia's neighbours would view such a move with suspicion, which could ultimately be dangerous for the country.

"We have alternatives, it's very expensive, and quite frankly when any nations ... look at the possibility of developing nuclear power, they raise immediately a suspicion in the minds of their neighbours that they intend to utilise it for non-civil purposes, they intend to utilise it for military purposes," Mr Beazley said.
Of course, with some of the largest proven reserves of Uranium in the world, Australia is in the nuclear energy business by default.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes please continue destroying our common climate with you coal power stations dear Australians.

Or do the responsible thing: go nuclear.


An interesting thing is that that guy probably has the miners labor union behind him. In Australia, coal mining is very big...
February 1, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Matthew66 said…
As an expat Australian, I can confirm that the coal mining union (the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union) is a key constituent of the Australian Labor Party. I really don't see that nuclear power would hurt that union though. Even if Australia replaced all its coal and gas fired power stations with nuclear reactors, they would still be digging up every scrap of coal for sale overseas. Those workers that mine uranium, build and operate nuclear power stations, and fabricate and reprocess fuel would also belong to the CFMEU so it would be win win for the CFMEU.

The ALP has a long history of animosity towards the nuclear power industry.
February 2, 2006 at 12:26 PM
Anonymous said…
Crikey! I'm Steve Erwin, and this is a fuel pellet! Look at the size of it! This little bugger's a BEAUT!
February 5, 2006 at 1:11 AM
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