Proposed nuclear power sites in Australia
Current mood: angry

also portland which is on the coast approximately 90mins from the SA border.

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Political Suicide
Current mood: amused
Category: News and Politics

Howard's nuclear vision unveiled

By staff writers

April 28, 2007 04:20pm

Article from:

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Is he serious?
Current mood: busy
Category: News and Politics

Nuclear power only an option: Turnbull

May 02, 2007 09:53pm

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Expensive, Ineffective and Unnecessary.

This one's from a while back, but all the points that are highlighted remain completely valid.

The nuclear power option - expensive, ineffective and unnecessary

By Stuart White for The Sydney Morning Herald

When climate change becomes a hot topic, as it has lately, the argument emerges from the nuclear industry and other sources that nuclear power can save the day. In 1988 the threat of global warming was gaining traction, due in part to public response to an exceptionally hot summer in north-eastern America. To me, there were two events that marked that period. One was the Greenhouse '88 conference held simultaneously in different locations across Australia, organised by the then Commission for the Future and state agencies. The other event was a speaking tour by a US scholar, Dr Bill Keepin, organised by an environmental non-government organisation to respond to the question "Can nuclear power save us from climate change?"

So it is with a sense of deja vu that I observe the comments by the NSW Premier, Bob Carr, and the Prime Minister, John Howard, among others, suggesting nuclear power should be considered as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear power is not the way to achieve the significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will be required to pass on a stable climate to future generations - it's not effective, it's not cheap and it's not necessary.

First, nuclear power is not, as suggested, such a great performer in terms of greenhouse gas reduction. This is mainly because of the significant energy requirements for mining, milling and, particularly, enrichment of the uranium for the fuel rods. These energy inputs are highly dependent on the concentration, or grade, of the original ore. Even with high-grade ores, it takes seven to 10 years to "pay back" the energy used in the construction and fuelling of a typical reactor; with the lower-grade ores that would need to be accessed if nuclear power was expanded, the net emissions would be greater than for a gas power station.

Second, if there was such a large-scale deployment of nuclear power, the only means by which it could become sustainable in the long term is through the use of breeder reactors, which create their own fuel in the form of plutonium. These reactors have never shown their ability to generate sufficient new fuel. Even if breeders could operate as intended, this would mean that plutonium, a highly hazardous radioactive material, would be transported in increasing quantities around the globe. The potential diversion of even a small fraction of this material would significantly increase the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Third, nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite massive historical government support for the industry globally. The same level of support has not been available for energy efficiency and renewable energy. In countries such as the US and Britain, where it has had recent relative exposure to competition, the nuclear power industry has been in the economic doldrums for the past 20 years.

The cheapest greenhouse gas reduction options include improved energy efficiency, combined cycle gas turbine electricity generation and renewable energy sources including wind energy and solar thermal energy. Australia and NSW already suffer the economic distortion associated with over-investment in energy supply systems and under-investment in lower-cost efficiency improvements. This imbalance is due in part to inadequate regulation.

Nuclear power, with its attendant waste disposal, decommissioning and proliferation risks, can be described as a "problem-multiplying" solution. Energy efficiency, renewables and co-generation reduce green- house gas emissions, provide greater employment and cost less. In this sense they represent "solution-multiplying" solutions.

So, let's debate the issue, for sure. But, as Gavin Gilchrist noted in these pages, let's not debate in terms of coal versus nuclear; that's not the choice we face. We face diverging energy paths. One path takes us to a future which continues business-as-usual, uncritical investment in new supply with a runaway cycle of investment in new fossil-fuelled power stations. The other path incorporates a diverse portfolio of improved efficiency of energy use, and diverse sources of electricity and other energy needs, with an increased focus on renewable energy. This path can provide the kind of greenhouse gas reductions that are needed at lowest cost. In short, it offers a sustainable energy future.

And how should this be debated? On government committees? Industry proponents and non-government organisations arm wrestling, generating more heat than light? Or can we try something different? We could enhance the Greenhouse '88 events, taking into account the recent experience with large-scale processes for public involvement in decision making. This issue is too important to be left to the usual suspects.

One option would be a national conversation on climate change with regional forums designed to engage communities to determine, with advice from all the players, how to respond to this global challenge. One outcome would be an empowered public, deciding its own energy future.

Professor Stuart White is the director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney.

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The Water Crisis
Current mood: frustrated

This page has gotten a lot of criticism from outside forces (including Captain Planet, bizarrely enough) who do not have the facts about the impact installing nuclear power plants in this country.

It has been estimated that just one nuclear power plant in this country will use up to 15-20 gigalitres of water per year. 20 gigalitres is the equivalent of 9,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. So, since the Government is proposing 25 nuclear power plants across the country, this will use around the equivalent of 225,000 Olympic swimming pools of water.

So can we afford this huge cost on our water resources, which are at the current time, desperate, and do not appear to be improving with the advent of another dry April?

The answer is no.

Victoria's water reserves are at 29% capacity for the entire state. They have not previously reached such an alarming low.

Don Henry, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, points out that CSIRO modelling predicts that global warming will cut future rainfall in southern Australia by up to 20 per cent.

This means less water available to the public, to industries and to irrigators across Australia.

Recently John Howard has devised a scheme to take controlling interest of the Murray-Darling water system out of the hands of the state governments of Victoria and NSW, and control it instead at a state level. He has also suggested that water management be handled at a Federal level.

Maybe we should ask ourselves why.

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Opinion: Jill Singer

Ideas: Great or Buried

Jill Singer (Herald Sun, March 5th, 2007)

You have to feel sorry for former minister Ian Campbell. Not a head has rolled over Iraq, children overboard, the AWB scandal etc, yet just because his parliamentary "mates" have gone berko over Brian Burke, he's forced to quit.

Let's get bad political behaviour into some perspective.

Treasurer Peter Costello reckons Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's 2005 meetings with Brian Burke are worse than PM John Howard's "great idea" response to his mate Ron Walker's private plans to set up a nuclear energy company.

Why? Let's run the "who gains?" test over these exchanges and examine what was at stake.

Costello says the disgraced former WA premier is a convicted fraud who never does something for nothing.

An interesting description, and probably true.

We don't know for sure what Burke might have wanted from Rudd or vice versa.

Costello and Howard declare Rudd looked to shore up support in the West for a leadership bid and thought the well-connected Burke could help.

While foolish, this is pretty small beer. It is not corrupt.

What's more, it pales in comparison with Howard and Costello's own leadership dispute about whether they'd struck a deal together.

When the PM denied he'd agreed to hand power to Costello, the Treasurer pointedly remarked that his parents raised him to tell the truth.

With regard to the PM's private dealings with Ron Walker, we know precisely what these men want from each other.

As with Costello's reflection of Burke's modus operandi, the pair was not about doing something for nothing.

Walker knows nuclear energy can't proceed without a change in the law. He also knows his PM mate can change that.

All Walker had to do was ring the PM, tell him of his plans to set up a nuclear energy company and hear the magic words "great idea, Ron".

Within days of Walker setting up his nuclear energy company the PM announced an inquiry into nuclear power.

And what do you know, but its findings echo the "great idea", proposing we could have 25 nuclear reactors by 2050.

In considering the morality of the PM's dealings with nuclear energy lobbyists, we must also take into account his reaction, or lack of it, to another key report funded by government.

In October (a month before the Switkowski nuclear report was out) the Co-operative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development completed a report on concentrated solar thermal technology.

The centre was set up and supported by federal government funds.

The CRC, with the CSIRO and University of Newcastle, reported that Australia's baseload electricity could be provided from concentrating solar thermal energy.

Australia's power demand could be met with a total of 35 x 35sq km in high irradiance, low cloud-cover locations.

While technology also exists to store concentrated solar thermal energy, the report found by linking such solar technology to existing fossil fuel plants, the need for storage would be reduced or abolished.

Such plants operate successfully in California, where the state's energy commission reports significant economic and environmental benefits.

The plants are hybrids, producing 70 per cent of their electricity from solar and 30 per cent from fossil fuels.

These findings are crucial to the debate about Australia's future energy needs and response to climate change. Why are they ignored?

CRC report author Lewis Wibberley never got to hear the magic words "great idea".

His report has been buried deeper than toxic waste.

So, despite evidence proving otherwise, the Federal Government insists nuclear energy is the only viable option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

That's how Liberal senator Nick Minchin explained his suppression of the CRC report.

This is the real scandal we should be focusing on.

The Howard Government plans to foist nuclear power on us, no matter what.

It might not suit the best interests of Australians, but it suits its business mates.

There is no moral equivalence between the Howard Government's dodginess over nuclear power and Rudd's silly dealings with Brian Burke.

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Howard's nuclear push

PM John Howard's nuclear push causes alarm

(Wikinews, May 22, 2006)

Prime Minister John Howard has announced he wants a "full-scale nuclear debate", and three of his senior federal government frontbenchers - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Resources Minister, Ian Macfarlane, and Environment Minister Ian Campbell - have all suggested Australia, which has around 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves, should consider enriching uranium - a step in processing that would allow it to be used as reactor fuel as well as for nuclear weapons.

However there is strong opposition for nuclear power in the Australian community. The Australian Greens have rejected the Prime Minister's assumption that nuclear power might be 'desirable' for Australia. The Greens say they challenge Mr Howard to show "true leadership on climate change and nuclear non-proliferation."

Greens climate change and energy spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said Mr Howard was "playing politics" by floating the idea and testing public opinion before developing a government position.

"Instead of pandering to US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair - the two most unpopular leaders in the world today - Prime Minister Howard should demonstrate real leadership and put some authenticity into the government's response to climate change and terrorism," Senator Milne said. "Nuclear power and nuclear proliferation are a threat to both."

Senator Milne challenged advocates of nuclear power to explain what they will to do about nuclear waste, how large a public subsidy they are prepared to pay to prop up nuclear power, and why the Sustainable Development Commission was wrong when it recommended last month against expanding nuclear power in Britain.

"Australians have already had to subsidise uranium mining companies to clean up after mines have closed, while last week's Budget papers revealed that ANSTO can't estimate the cost of decommissioning the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor," Senator Milne said. "When will advocates of nuclear power admit that it is too slow, too expensive and too dangerous to be a solution to climate change? Nor is there any safe way to dispose of the waste. It is not even safe to transport, a concern supported by the head of the International Energy Agency..." said Senator Milne in a media release.

"Instead of turning to nuclear power, Australia should ratify the Kyoto Protocol, invest in renewable energy, adopt a national energy efficiency target and improve public transport.

"Several studies examining options to achieve deep cuts in Australian greenhouse emissions all show this goal can be achieved, cost effectively, without resorting to nuclear power," said Senator Milne in a media release.

Greens leader Bob Brown says the Prime Minister is sending a message of approval for Indonesia to become a nuclear power. "Australia and our region are essentially nuclear-free. Mr Howard is abandoning that security to grab uranium profits and facilitate an Australian role in nuclear enrichment," Senator Brown said. "This robs Australia of its moral strength to argue against Indonesia resurrecting the Soeharto plan for 12 nuclear reactors and to advance its interest in Russian-built floating nuclear power stations."

"This will make our region much less secure for the next generation of Australians," Senator Brown said. "John Howard has talked up regional terrorism. Now he is promoting nuclear power proliferation in our neighbourhood. At best his logic is faulty, at worst he is taking Australia into a future unnecessarily menaced by the nuclear threat," Senator Brown said.

Labor MP Kelvin Thomson says John Howard's push towards nuclear power generation could heighten the risk of a terrorist attack. "The problem with nuclear power is that more of it that is around, the easier it is for terrorists to get access to it and I'm not satisfied that in this day and age we can be absolutely certain that terrorists can't access it," Mr Thomson said.

Mr Thompson said the Government should be focussing its interest on "much safer and environmentally-friendly" abundant renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. Mr Thomson said Australia was a potential world-leader in solar power. "Surely you exhaust all the other alternatives first before you say let's go down the nuclear road," he said.

"The problem with nuclear power is that more of it that is around, the easier it is for terrorists to get access to it," he said. "I'm not satisfied that in this day and age you can be absolutely certain that terrorists can't access it."

Union leader Bill Shorten, a federal Labor candidate at the next election, believes the issue is unpopular with the electorate. A survey in 2005 found 47 percent of Australians supported nuclear power and 40 percent opposed it.

Professor Frank Muller from the University of New South Wales, said the framework to manage nuclear power needs to be put in place first. He says it could take decades before a nuclear power plant could operate. "So it actually takes even longer to provide a greenhouse benefit than it does to build a power plant," he said. Professor Muller says nuclear power stations are expensive to build, and safety is a major issue.

Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said: "John Howard's nuclear fantasy is Australia's nightmare," Mr Albanese told reporters. "Intractable problems with nuclear energy when it comes to economic costs, safety, disposal of waste and contribution to nuclear proliferation remain up to some 50 years."

Mr Albanese said that if Mr Howard was serious about nuclear power he should say where a nuclear power plant would be built, and where the waste it produced would be stored. "If he's so confident that nuclear energy is safe... I'm sure he'll have coalition MPs volunteering to have a nuclear reactor in their electorate and to store their waste in the electorate," he said.

Mr Albanese said the current Labor policy remained opposed to nuclear energy in Australia.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/PM_John_Howard's_nuclear_push_causes_alarm

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John Howard and Ron Walker: Business Buddies
Category: News and Politics

PM on defensive over nuclear claim

Stephanie Peatling (Sydney Morning Herald, February 28th, 2007)

SUPPORT from the public and both main political parties was essential before Australia adopted nuclear power generation, the Federal Government said yesterday.

The statement came as the Prime Minister came under attack in Parliament after reports that a group of businessmen planned to build a nuclear plant in Victoria or South Australia.

John Howard, and the Minister for Industry, Ian Macfarlane, were subjected to sustained attacks from the Opposition, which alleged they had been consulted on a proposal to build nuclear power plants by three of the country's most powerful businessmen - the former mining bosses Hugh Morgan and Robert Champion de Crespigny, and Ron Walker, the chairman of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald.

The three registered Australian Nuclear Energy Pty Ltd on June 1 last year, the day after Mr Howard announced he would hold an inquiry into nuclear power.

Reports in News Ltd newspapers yesterday said Australian Nuclear Energy was considering building nuclear power plants in Victoria or South Australia.

Mr Howard told Parliament that Mr Walker, a former lord mayor of Melbourne and federal treasurer of the Liberal Party, had called him to tell him the company was being established but denied there had been any conspiracy. "My views in relation to nuclear power were well known before June 1," he said.

"They have been well known for some time. I am not the least bit embarrassed about the fact that I have revealed to the world that Ron Walker had a conversation with me about this. Any suggestion of impropriety in that is ludicrous."

Mr Macfarlane said he had not had meetings with any representatives of the company but that "it would be very odd for the minister for resources not to talk to three prominent people in the investment and resource industry".

He had not seen any proposals for the construction of nuclear power plants from the company. "Any proponent of a nuclear power station in Australia would need bipartisan support from both sides of this House before they would invest their money in a power station."

The Federal Government has not yet responded to the report delivered by its taskforce on nuclear energy, which found that a network of 25 nuclear power plants could supply a third of the nation's power by 2050.

It warned that a nuclear industry would be cost-effective only if a price was put on carbon dioxide emissions, forcing up the cost of electricity produced from coal.

Australian Nuclear Energy issued a statement saying it was a "private company established to examine potential commercial responses to future energy needs" and denied it had proposed to build nuclear power plants.

The Premier of Victoria, Steve Bracks, said he would hold a plebiscite if the Federal Government tried to override state laws and build a plant in Victoria.

"There's no safe way of storing radioactive waste, No. 1," he said. "No. 2, the general safety of the plan is questionable, and No. 3, the economics are just not there."

The South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, said no reactor would be contemplated while he was premier.

Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, said he was surprised the plans to build a plant were so advanced. "Australians are very clear that they don't want nuclear energy and nuclear power in this country."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-on-defensive-over-nuclear-power-claim/2007/02/27/1172338624578.html

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Leading environmentalist speaks out
Category: News and Politics

PM's Nuclear Push Outrageous: Suzuki

Paul Maley (The Canberra Times, 18th October 2006)

One of the world's most prominent environmentalists has rubbished suggestions by the Prime Minister that the environmental movement must rethink its opposition to nuclear power, saying nuclear energy was costly, unreliable and vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Dr David Suzuki, who is in Australia on an autobiographical tour, was scathing of the environmental record of the Howard Government, criticising it for its failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol and ignoring the potential of alternate energy sources such as wind and solar.

"This is a man who for four terms has denied the reality of climate change when people in his country, leading scientists, have been telling him urgent action is needed," Dr Suzuki said. "So now suddenly he has discovered climate change is something to do something about and he's telling [the environmental community] 'you've got to get on board with nuclear energy?' I think this is absolutely outrageous."

Dr Suzuki was at the Australian National University last night where he delivered a lecture on his own experiences as an environmentalist.

Speaking to The Canberra Times beforehand, he described the Prime Minister's endorsement of nuclear fuel as "the biggest crock of baloney I've heard". "How can you talk about a serious alternative form if you can't even answer questions about cost, reliability, protection from terrorism and nuclear waste? I mean it's crazy. Especially when there are so many other opportunities."

Dr Suzuki said Australia should be making use of its climate to become a leading exporter in solar technology.

"You've got something most countries would kill for called sunlight. Every bit of water in this country should be heated by the sun. The roof of every house in this country should be solar collectors and water collectors and right away you're dealing in a serious way with two big issues, water shortages and energy."

Dr Suzuki said a clear link existed between industrial activity and the current drought, which some have labelled the worst in the nation's history. "I think the scientists are very reluctant to say this is the result of global warming. It seems to me rather obvious the climate is changing, that's indisputable. We've added more carbon, that's indisputable. What do we think's going to happen? Weather patterns are going to change."

Dr Suzuki agreed with Mr Howard's comments earlier this week that nuclear energy emitted fewer CO2s than fossil fuels, but he denied it was a clean form of energy.

"It's not free, you still have to dig the stuff up out of the ground, you have to process it, you have to manufacture the plants."

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=517647&category=General&m=10&y=2006

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