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:
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
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Australia
"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
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics, Australia
Comments
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.
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.