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August 19, 2009
The nuclear power debate in Australia in the context of energy security and climate change has been, and is, rather facile. It is mostly framed by publicists such as Ziggy Switkowski as nuclear power is the only greenhouse option for baseload power. This is coupled to an opposition to renewable energy, such as wind and solar, which are dismissed as cottage industries. The rhetoric of these nuclear enthusiasts is that nuclear power is the real thing--a big centralized technology that is the magic bullet to reduce greenhouse pollution. A "nuclear renaissance" is coming is their message.
One such publicist/spruiker is Bob Hawke, our ex-PM. Noting that Australia will be supplying the international nuclear power industry with uranium exports for decades ahead, he says:
Australia can make a significant difference to the safety of nuclear generation by agreeing to take waste from nuclear power stations. This would be an important contribution to safety and energy security. It would also become a strong source of national income for Australia that could be dedicated to our own environmental and water requirements.The fact is that Australia has some of the geologically safest places in the world to act as a repository for nuclear waste...the financial benefits from any decision would be immense.
Making money from storing toxic material with a long afterlife is having a death wish. Hawke needs to do a bit of research on Australian public opinion to back his plugs for going nuclear and to stop the big forgetting about Maralinga.
Not to be outdone in the enthusiasm stakes, Paul Kelly targets renewable energy in the form of renewable energy targets (ie., 20 per cent of electricity by 2020) because they will lead to higher electricity prices. Yet electricity generated from coal will become more expensive with a cap and trade scheme in place, even though the Rudd Government's CPRS is dismal policy and will not shift consumer behaviour because the price of carbon is set far too low. That is renewable targets are needed! Kelly then adds:
Nuclear power is not financially viable for Australia at present...The truth is that Australia is banking on clean coal and gas, the two present baseload technologies. It is making a commitment to test whether carbon capture and storage can be proved at scale and on commercial terms. Coal and gas reflect our comparative advantage. Establishing a nuclear industry from the ground up would be an enormous and improbable task for Australia. The point, however, is that it should be assessed, now and in future, on economic grounds not on political prejudices from another era.
If nuclear power is not financially viable for Australia at present, and establishing a nuclear industry from the ground up was such an enormous and improbable task , then why bother to assess it?
Whose political prejudices are we talking about? Isn't it the nuclear industry that wants taxpayers to foot the bill for costs like reactor decommissioning, insurance and long-term waste management? Some argument is needed, if Kelly is appealing to reason in opposition to those opposed to nuclear power on the basis of mere emotion and prejudice. No such argument is given by Kelly. He's spruiking for the industry and he doesn't mention that the massive growth in photovoltaics that we have seen worldwide saw it surpass nuclear in 2006; or that renewables already provide 14 per cent of German electricity, and the percentage is growing quickly.
Paul Howes, the national secretary of the right-wing Australian Workers Union, in a speech about energy policy for Australia at the Sydney Institute entitled Energy Choices For The Future promises more in the way of an argument. He makes his pro-nuclear power industry stance clear:
The present Government prohibits on these shores a nuclear power industry. It says we do not need nuclear power as a part of the mix because we have fossil fuel and renewables to spare....A domestic nuclear industry could potentially be up and running within ten to fifteen years, but despite a rising level of community acceptance according to a number of recent surveys, with constraints to be addressed regarding safety, waste, proliferation and the risk of diversion, of this worthwhile idea, some Governments, overtly at least, are against it ... We currently have no domestic processing capacity and would therefore need to rely on the development of a domestic nuclear sector to process uranium ore that is suitable for use by reactors. Which means we should consider the establishment of nuclear processing facilities in Australia --- to add value to our export ore and oxides.
Howe states that the fifteen year time frame will ensure that nuclear energy has a role in achieving significant emissions reductions targets by Australia by 2050. This is a technology available today, which can act as insurance against the uncertainties of the technologies of tomorrow as well as a way of maintaining living standards and securing wages.
That is his position. What is Howe's argument for developing this problem creating form of energy? There is an appeal to the authority of the Lenzen review' commissioned by the Australian Uranium Association and that is it. We should just take the word of the uranium miners! Howe is their publicist--it's a jobs and money sell for mates. Nor should we be surprised, as that is what he has basically has been doing in the energy debate around the shift to a low carbon future. What he doesn't advocate for is the jobs in the emerging renewables industry.
For an argument about the possibilities of nuclear power we need to go to this post on Barry Brook's BraveNewClimate.com. There we find an argument for Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear power that addresses the problems of nuclear power.
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Are there limits to renewable energy? It has been argued by Ted Trainer that it is the intermittency of supply that is the Achilles’ Heel of renewable energy when operating at the scale of complete, society-wide energy replacement.
So we must return to a simpler society than our consumer society with its high “living standards” and economic growth.This is a society based on non-affluent but adequate living standards, high levels of self-sufficiency, in small-scale localised economies and co-operative and participatory communities.