A former Australian diplomat says there is no guarantee CHINA won't use Australian uranium to make nuclear weapons.
The Chinese Premier, Wen Jia Bao, will meet with the Prime Minister, John Howard, tomorrow, when the two are expected to sign a deal worth potentially hundreds of million of dollars, to buy Australian uranium.
But a Sydney University nuclear proliferation expert, Richard Broinowski, says China has a secretive government, and can divert its own uranium to military purposes.
He says supporters of the deal who say nuclear energy will help reduce CHINA'S greenhouse gas emissions are misleading the public.
He says far from supplanting great volumes of greenhouse gases, nuclear energy accounts for only minor part of China's energy generation.
"Of the base-load of power generation in CHINA, more than two-thirds is through coal," he told SBS radio.
" A huge amount more is through hydro, which is a very good way of doing, it of course. And only about three per cent is from nuclear, and it would take a long time before China was able to make any dent on greenhouse gas emmissions from Uranium.
"So it's a complete furphy in my view to suggest that Australian uranium is going to save the world from global warming."