Nuclear power push for desalination plant The Nation The Australian

AUSTRALIA should tackle a shortage of power and water by embracing nuclear power plants that also desalinate water.
As John Howard prepares to announce an inquiry into nuclear energy, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer argued yesterday for building desalination facilities alongside nuclear power plants.
The call came as academic and former Labor prime ministerial adviser Ross Garnaut suggested China's demand for energy meant all greenhouse gas emission-friendly technologies, including nuclear, would have to be supported.
"Developments using coal are going to be very important in the Chinese future. The main constraint on that will be what I would see as the inevitable, eventual place of China in effective global greenhouse regimes. The alternative to that - greenhouse anarchy on a global scale - doesn't bear thinking about," Professor Garnaut said.
Mr Downer, warning that the threat of climate change would force Australia to consider new technologies, has predicted that one desalination plant powered by nuclear energy could deliver half of South Australia's water requirements and replace three-quarters of the water currently delivered by the Murray River.
"Such a project would have two enormous environmental advantages, large-scale electricity supply with no CO2 emissions, and keeping much-needed water in the Murray," he said yesterday.
"I believe this is an idea we cannot afford to dismiss, and certainly not on ideological grounds. It deserves serious study."
The NSW Government still keeps plans for a desalination plant on the books for Sydney although it was scrapped after a range of protests.
Then NSW premier Bob Carr also raised the need to consider nuclear energy as a means to supply clear electricity until renewable energy sources improved.
Western Australia has announced plans for a desalination plant but is implacably opposed to nuclear power as well as uranium mining.
In his speech to the Energy Supply Association of Australia, Mr Downer predicted the post-Kyoto reality was that the world needed to look to new technology to tackle climate change and allow China and India to pursue continued economic growth.
Dismissing "the conventional view" that nuclear power was too expensive, Mr Downer said Australia should examine the potential for complementary processes such as desalination.
"This could make nuclear very attractive in areas facing both power and water shortages," he said. "For example, it may be possible to build a nuclear plant in South Australia, supplying 1000 megawatts an hour of electricity and 75 gigalitres a year of water, at a cost in the order of 2.5 to three billion dollars.