Australian nuclear debate – Nov 21

A new report “Uranium mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy — Opportunities for Australia?” commissioned by the Australian government was released yesterday. Links to the full reports below, press coverage follows.

Nuclear power a practical option for Australia
Dr Ziggy Switkowski, ABC (Aus)
The review was established to examine uranium mining, value-added processing and the contribution of nuclear energy in Australia in the longer term. It is intended to provide a factual base and an analytical framework to encourage informed community discussion. The draft report provides an opportunity for the public to comment on the task force’s findings.

The task force examined the capacity for Australia to increase uranium mining and exports. As a holder of substantial reserves (38 per cent of known low cost global reserves) and producer of uranium (23 per cent of global production), Australia is well positioned to meet growing market demand. Value adding to Australia’s resources is possible and could be worth $1.8 billion annually. However, this is not without its challenges.

Australia’s demand for electricity will more than double before 2050. More than two-thirds of existing electricity generation will need to be substantially upgraded or replaced and new capacity added. This additional capacity will need to use near-zero greenhouse gas emitting technology if Australia is just to keep greenhouse gas emissions at today’s levels.

On average, nuclear power would be 20–50 per cent more expensive than coal in Australia but can become competitive with fossil fuel-based generation in Australia with the introduction of low to moderate pricing of carbon dioxide emissions.

Nuclear power has a low emissions signature. Although the priority for Australia should continue to be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas, the task force sees nuclear power as a practical option for Australia.

The handling and storage of radioactive waste was an issue often raised in submissions. The safe disposal of low and intermediate-level waste is practised today at many sites around the world. Australia has suitable locations for deep underground repositories for the safe storage of high level waste and spent nuclear fuel.

Many Australians associate nuclear power with the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The task force visited these sites and found that while the health and safety legacy from Chernobyl is real, the nuclear industry is far safer than other energy-related industries. However, no industry is risk-free.

Nuclear weapons proliferation is another issue of concern to the public. Increased Australian involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle would not change the risks. It is clandestine activity that is likely to lead to the production of nuclear weapons, not civil nuclear activities.

Nuclear power today is a mature, safe, and relatively clean means of generating baseload electricity. Nuclear power is an option that Australia should seriously consider if it is to meet its growing energy demand and reduce its greenhouse gas signature.
(21 Nov 2006)

Nuclear option no solution to climate change
Dave Sweeney, ABC (Aus)
Dr Ziggy Switkowski’s report on uranium mining, processing and nuclear energy will not provide much ammunition for those promoting nuclear power as the silver bullet solution for climate change.

Given the composition of the review team and the limited terms of reference it is no surprise the report has come down in broad support of an expanded nuclear industry in Australia.

However even in this context Dr Switkowski, who is on leave from the board of the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation for the duration of the review, has concluded nuclear power would only be economically viable “in a system where the costs of greenhouse gas emissions are explicitly recognised” but even then “nuclear reactors may require some form of government support”.

He finds the first nuclear plants would have an even “higher cost” and “may need additional measures to kick-start the industry”. So the message is clear: nuclear power in Australia would require the public purse to be left open for a very long time to come.

This assessment fits neatly with international experience which shows nuclear power is only possible with massive, ongoing subsidies.

In the US alone more than $115 billion in subsidies has been used to prop up this underperforming sector – hardly clean, green and cheap power.

A carbon tax or emissions trading system would increase the price of fossil fuel electricity, but it will not address the full costs of nuclear power. These include huge construction and insurance costs, de-commissioning and perpetual nuclear waste management liabilities and the reality that all nuclear facilities are potential terrorist targets.

Even if the report’s most ambitious reactor construction targets were realised – with 25 Australian communities living in the shadow of a new nuclear reactor – our greenhouse emissions would be reduced by less than 20 per cent – not even a third of the reduction needed by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.

The review also comprehensively fails to address the twin and unique problems of nuclear power: radioactive waste and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. No other power source has the potential to either illuminate or contaminate an entire city. On the other hand no despot has ever held the world to ransom with a solar panel.

And after 50 years of commercial nuclear power not one nation on Earth has a final disposal site for high level radioactive waste. These are real and unresolved issues that the report falls well short on.

Australia is well past the crossroads and is now at the energy future T junction.

We have the potential to be a world leader in renewable energy generation and manufacture – a clean energy future that powers not only our appliances but also employment growth – especially in regional Australia.

The Australian Ministerial Council on Energy says energy efficiency measures have the potential to reduce energy consumption in Australia’s manufacturing, commercial and residential sectors – where we live and work – by around 30 per cent within five years. And by 2020 around 25 per cent of Australian energy could be provided by safe and renewable sources – a far better 2020 vision than what is on offer in this Review.

Dr Switkowski’s proposed path would lead our country down an increasingly costly and insecure route that is directly linked to the production of high level radioactive waste and the threat of nuclear weapons and terrorism. The nuclear road is high cost and high risk and is not in the interest of Australia’s people or environment.
(21 Nov 2006)
Related:

• It’s a big risk starting what you can’t stop
• Nuclear opponents criticise report
• Ian Macfarlane on nuclear energy
• Australia to debate prospect of nuclear power
• Mining industry welcomes nuclear energy review

Australia as global nuclear waste dump?

Aus Environment Minister mulls accepting foreign nuclear waste
Simon Lauder, The World Today
ELEANOR HALL: As it considers the Switkowski report, the Federal Government is already well aware of the political difficulties of dealing with nuclear waste.

Its attempts to build a nuclear waste repository have run into problems both in South Australia and in the Northern Territory.

But next week the Government is putting to Parliament a bill that would boost the powers of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, to give it the authority to deal with nuclear waste.

Simon Lauder asked the Federal Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, about the ANSTO Amendment Bill this morning, and found him reluctant to rule out the possibility of Australia also taking in nuclear waste from other countries in future.
(21 Nov 2006)
Awful to listen to this report as the Environment Minister keeps repeating his PR advisor’s key phrases that “the Greens should park their 1960s ideological baggage at the door, and get into the real world, a world that’s challenged by climate change.”

Sharing the vision for a nuclear future
Jon Stanford, The Age
THOSE who choose to regard the Prime Minister’s recent trip to Washington as a lap of honour are wide of the mark. The significance of what was discussed in North America has yet to be widely recognised, but it was probably of greater moment to the future of Australia than the outcome of any of his previous visits.

The issue in question, of course, is nuclear power.

…The next logical link in the chain, however, is probably the most difficult politically. Once the spent fuel rods are returned, they have to be disposed of.

This implies, in the context of a vastly expanded nuclear industry, that Australia could become the repository of about half the world’s high-level nuclear waste. While this may cause angst, it should be noted that the safe storage of waste is essentially an international problem and that the geology of parts of central Australia make it one of the safest sites for storing waste in the world.

The nuclear waste storage industry is at present worth about $US12 billion ($A15.8 billion) a year globally. With expansion, this could grow to over $US150 billion. Once again, there is a clear economic opportunity for Australia, coupled with the assumption of a global environmental responsibility.
(26 May 2006)

Hawke backs Aust as nuclear waste repository
ABC (Aus)
Former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke says Australia should become a dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste.
(27 Sept 2005)

Dumping of Nuclear Waste in Australia
Robyn Williams, Radio National
The British government would like to bury nuclear waste in the desert of Western Australia and South Australia.
(25 Jul 1999)
Thanks to brent_ns on EnergyResources for compiling the dump headlines.