Nuclear power: Cure or curse?

PRO-NUCLEAR
·    Oil crunch 'looming'
·    Other options 'not enough'
·    Nuclear power 'is clean'
·    Technology to store nuclear waste 'safe'
AGAINST NUCLEAR
·    Nuclear waste problem 'still unresolved'
·    Nuclear plants 'a possible target for terrorist'
·    Nuclear power 'won't be available in time'
·    Leaks and spills 'already happening'

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the five years between 1999 and 2004 the total consumption of electricity in Australia increased by 19 per cent.

That is an increase of 11per cent per person. During the same period the Australian population grew by 6 per cent and our gross domestic product rose by nearly 18 per cent.

A recent government white paper addressed the need for a national framework for energy efficiency. It concluded that Australians should seriously consider using nuclear power to generate energy.

The question is: Should Australia embrace nuclear energy?

PRO-NUCLEAR POWER

Associate Professor Martin Sevior, from the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, is in favour of nuclear power.

Oil crunch 'looming'

In an interview from Melbourne University's Upclose podcast, Mr Sevior said the first and more immediate problem is that Australia, like the rest of the world, is coming up against an oil crunch.

"The rate at which oil can be produced and extracted from the ground is likely to reach some maximum to peak, some time within the next ten years," Mr Sevior said.

"When that happens and as that happens the price of petrol will substantially increase and we've seen that this year. In the process we'll need to find some other form of energy to drive our personal transport”.

Other options 'not enough'

Associate Professor Sevior says the problem with other options, especially within an Australian context is that they can't scale to the demand for energy that we’ve placed upon ourselves and upon our resources.

"Wind power can perhaps provide up to 10 or 15 per cent of our total electricity consumption. Solar power maybe in 20 years time could do something similar".

"But for the sort of large scale electricity production that we are likely to need over the next 5, 10, 20 years, nuclear seems to be the best option, the most mature option," he said.

Nuclear power 'is clean'

The whole problem of greenhouse gases is enormous. The challenge is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent, by 2050.

"To do that we'll have to introduce a whole range of new technologies and a new way of doing business, and using nuclear power is one way to address that. It won't be the only means".

"But for the amount of electricity that is produced greenhouse gas emissions resulting from nuclear power will be one per cent that of, say, coal. So that's a huge contribution to greenhouse gas reduction," Mr Sevior said.

Technology to store nuclear waste 'safe'

Mr Sevior also played down the risks associated to nuclear waste.

"Our society produces large amounts of waste of all different types.

Actually, the handling of nuclear waste has been generally far better than many other kinds of wastes that we’ve produced in our industrial society.

"It can be and has been isolated from the environment and to date, except for Chernobyl, there have been no large scale contaminations of the general public. I don't think Chernobyl will ever happen again.

"It was a terrible design with terrible safety procedures, and the world has learnt the lessons from Chernobyl.

Australia 'needs to have nuclear power option'

Professor Peter Johnston, Nuclear Physicist, Head of Physics, RMIT says Australia does not necessarily need a nuclear power programme right now but it should have the capability to choose this option in future if necessary.

“Unless we have the capacity to use nuclear power then we may be at a disadvantage. Other countries may be in a position to produce energy by nuclear power much more quickly and cheaply than us. We need the skills and expertise in nuclear science to ensure that we can also do it.

AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER

David Noonan, Nuclear free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation is against nuclear power.

Nuclear waste problem 'still unresolved'

"All the concerns with nuclear power plants and nuclear waste are all unresolved as they have been in the past", he told SBS.

"No country has a disposal site for high level nuclear waste. Countries that claim to be making some progress -- whether that's Sweden or others in northern Europe -- are totally unrepresentative of the nuclear industry.

"They may hold 3-4 per cent of nuclear material, nuclear reactors and nuclear output, but with this public relations claim that nuclear has a role in the future, they are looking to expand nuclear into the developing world, and they will expose those communities to the high level nuclear risks that the west has been unable to resolve," Mr Noonan said.

"It's over 50 years into the nuclear experiment and none has demonstrated the long term isolation of this nuclear waste, no one has been able to deliver a community consensus on whetter that may be done.

Nuclear plants 'a possible target for terrorist'

Mr Noonan says the inherent risks of weapons, proliferation and terrorism are all increasing in the world now.

"Many more countries have now the potential to produce nuclear weapons. The west is not keeping these materials under control.

"Nuclear power plants are all pre-positioned terror targets. They are all in the firing line for groups that want to damage society and that would be unfortunately one of the most successful means by a potential terrorist attack on these locations".

Nuclear power 'won't be available in time'

Mr Noonan also says the capital costs of nuclear energy are rapidly increasing.

"Nuclear is one of the least effective ways to try to abate greenhouse gas emissions and the very long lead times and high capital costs mean that is one of the less available means in term of any short turn-around.

"The scientists tell us that we need to make deep cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and nuclear power plants typically have a ten year or longer lead time, particularly for countries that are not already involved in the nuclear industry, so there is no way that nuclear power can make a contribution within the next ten years".

Leaks and spills

"There is typically leakage in the nuclear industry. Extensive leakage back at the uranium sites for example: radioactive mine-tailing also needs to be isolated for a period greater than 10,000 years.

"The nuclear industry is characterised by secrecy, leaks and spills, and there is no way to make it a more accountable or transparent industry," Mr Noonan said.

Risks of Australia becoming an international dumping site

Mr Noonan says there is link between Australia's long involvement in uranium sales and the treat of Australia being used as an international storage and dumping site.

"An international nuclear consortium called Pangea proposed to have an international nuclear waste, storage and disposal facility in Western Australia back in the late 1990.

"The response of the WA community was that their parliament addressed that proposal and made it illegal. International nuclear dumping is simply against the law in WA.

"Dump proposals are part of an expansion plan, rather that part of a responsible waste management plan long term.

Australia's ethical challenge

Mr Noonan says Australia does have an increasing responsibility for nuclear risks around the planet. 

"We are essentially being used as a uranium quarry to fuel those risks and we should be getting out of this industry.

"The moral obligation is to pull back and not increase nuclear risks that other communities have to face and not burden future Australian generations with radioactive mine-tailing waste," he said.

"Australia has failed in terms of safeguards. We have failed in the standards; we have failed in any accountability over that practice.

"The Australian government is for example allowing that export of uranium to China, and China is clearly not transparent, or an accountable and democratic state," the ACF's Mr Noonan said. 

Renewables 'is the way to go'

Dr Joel Fleming is an environmental scientist and Managing Director of the company Climate Friendly.

He says asking whether Australia should go nuclear is the wrong question.

According to him, the question we need to ask is - What is the best strategy to reduce greenhouse emissions by 80% and avoid dangerous climate change?

"Renewable and efficiency technologies are available now. With these, there are companies in Australia right now who have reduced their emissions by 60-100%. So why take the safety risk with nuclear when there are clean energy options available?

"In the long term, with nuclear we would end up using low grade uranium with roughly the same greenhouse emissions as gas fired-power stations," he said.

'Using thorium the solution'

Dr Reza Hashemi-Nezhad, School of Physics, University of Sydney is a nuclear physicist and Australia's only expert in the field of Accelerator Driven Nuclear Reactors which uses thorium as fuel.

He has been working in this field for 10 years in international collaborations, with some of his research funding from Germany.

He says many of the concerns that people have expressed about nuclear energy would be solved by using thorium instead of uranium to generate energy.

"This would involve a new type of reactor called an Accelerator Driven System. Apart from the fact that Australia has the world's biggest reserves of thorium, the ADS using thorium does not produce plutonium and can incinerate its own nuclear waste as well as plutonium and other very long lived radioactive waste (such as that produced by the experimental reactor at Lucas Heights).

"The nuclear waste produced requires only 500 years of storage time as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years for conventional nuclear reactor waste. In these reactors a meltdown like the Chernobyl disaster is virtually impossible," Dr Reza Hashemi-Nezhad said.