The government has formally reopened the highly contentious debate on nuclear power by referring the issue to a parliamentary committee, with it to report by the end of the year.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has asked the House of Representatives standing committee on the environment and energy to inquire into the nuclear fuel cycle - the first inquiry into the use of nuclear power in more than a decade.
It will consider the economic, environmental and safety questions involved in nuclear power.
Announcing a parliamentary inquiry into what would be necessary to develop a nuclear energy industry, Taylor suggested people should no longer be thinking of the large-scale plants that had dominated the global industry since the 1950s. The future of nuclear, if it had one, was small.
“The technology that’s emerging is not gigawatt power, it is actually small modular reactors,” Taylor told the ABC.
He said there were no plans to drop Australia’s moratorium on nuclear energy, but there were different points of view on the subject and the cost of small modular reactors was changing quickly. “Finding affordable, sustainable, reliable, baseload power for the decades ahead is an important role of government and of parliament and that’s why I have asked for this inquiry,” he said.
Australia Spectrum examines the implications of Angus Taylor’s announcement to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the nuclear power.
The full story is available on the podcast above.
