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Australia Nuclear Update

By Eric McErlain
Australian Prime Minister John Howard gave the strongest signal yet that his nation intends to develop a peaceful nuclear power program in an interview with national broadcaster Channel 9:
"In an age where we're worried about global warming we should be looking seriously at nuclear power as an option, because it's clean and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases and I can't understand why the extreme Greenies oppose it," he said.
Howard's comments came against the backdrop of the 15th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference, being held this week in Sydney. For more coverage on Howard's comments, visit the following links:

PM gives strong backing to nuclear power, The Age
Reactors could be up and running by 2015, The Australian
Nuclear Australia 'a decade away', news.com.au

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Comments

Matthew66 said…
In Australia, electrical power generation is largely the responsibility of state governments. All the state governments in Australia are formed by the Australian Labor Party which remains intractably opposed to nuclear power. Further, as the Chief Executive of Silex stated in his evidence to the Prime Minister's inquiry on the nuclear industry, no company is going to make multi-billion dollar investments in nuclear infrastructure in Australia unless there is bipartisan support. The risk that a later Labor government would shut down a project is currently too great for any private investors.
October 16, 2006 at 11:44 AM
Anonymous said…
Matthew is right.

The Prime Minister's push on nuclear is kind of strange. In much of Australia, our power stations are pretty much built on top of coalfields. Consequently, in Australia, coal is cheaper than nuclear, at least until the kinks in the new reactor designs on the drawing board are ironed out in the first few builds. The only way this is likely to change is with the introduction of a carbon charge, or if the government provides big subsidies to nuclear power operators.

However, the government is implacably opposed to carbon charging, and there has been no mention of any plans to subsidise nuclear construction.

Furthermore, there is a federal election due somewhere between now and November 2007, and the government is facing a very tough re-election fight. Given that substantial majorities of Australians remain opposed to nuclear power, I can't see the government spending political capital to push this. I would like things to be different, but it's important to look at things as they are rather than as we would like them to be.

The Australian public hasn't yet realised that if it wants cuts in carbon emissions, that nuclear may be the only thing that can provide baseload electricity at a similar price to what they now pay. Until that realization hits, to approximately render a favourite Australianism, those advocating nuclear energy in Australia are pushing sewerage uphill.
October 16, 2006 at 7:46 PM
Anonymous said…
Pretty simple really. Howard is trying to legitimise nuclear power by calling it a solution to climate change. He will use this as a cover to increase uranium mining in Australia.

His goal is to make Australia an "energy superpower", by increasing exports of Uranium to the US, China and whoever else will take it.

Read more about it here.
October 16, 2006 at 11:56 PM
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