Ross -- you are such a cynical Gitt

Howard sees the light, and it's a nuclear one - Business - Business - smh.com.au


HEAVEN be praised. John Howard, the great climate change procrastinator, has experienced a road-from-the-White-House conversion. In a blinding revelation, he now realises we must embrace our inevitable nuclear future.
Mr Howard has suddenly discovered that climate change is much worse than we thought - very worrying, in fact - and nuclear power is the obvious answer.
And this from the man who, while never actually coming out of the closet to reveal himself as a climate-change denier, refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, saw no need for serious measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and was perfectly happy with his ineffective Australian Greenhouse Office and its you've-got-to-be-joking voluntary targets.
So, starting tomorrow, we need to have a full debate about the merits of switching to nuclear power and find out if it's economically feasible.
Trouble is, in a country where coal is so readily available, we already know it isn't. Take the latest report, prepared by a British scientist for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
As Peter Martin summarises its findings on the New Matilda website, the report finds that a privately owned nuclear power plant could make money only if the government contributed 14 per cent of the cost of building it and then paid 21 per cent of the electricity bills for the first 12 years.
Apparently, the knowledge that nuclear power could only be introduced with heavy public subsidies hasn't deterred Mr Howard from spruiking it. So here we have the self-proclaimed father of economic rationalism, happily flirting with the notion of picking winners in a big way.
Mr Howard's economic rationalism extends only as far as refusing to contemplate any kind of leg-up for renewable energy (always excepting ethanol, of course).
So what gives? One minute climate change is a beat-up and in no way urgent, the next we're really worried about it. One minute we're not wasting the taxpayers' hard-earned on renewable energy, the next we're happy to contemplate establishing an industry that could only survive in a government-provided iron lung.
The conventional wisdom is that Mr Howard's only interest in the nuclear debate is to use it as a diversion and a way to drive a wedge through the ranks of the Labor Party.
I'm sure those benefits wouldn't have escaped his attention. But, when you think about it, there is a logical connection between these two apparently contradictory positions: both fit the interests of the mining industry.

Who would hate to see us ratify Kyoto or introduce a carbon tax or give renewable energy an advantage over coal-fired electricity? The miners.
Who would love to see a softening of the restrictions on, and general public disapprobation of, uranium and nuclear power - so much so they'd be prepared to use climate change as their cover? The miners.
Of course, a local nuclear power industry would take years to get going and even then wouldn't take much uranium. So establishing a local nuclear industry isn't likely to be a serious objective.
What's more likely is that all the earnest chat about what a problem the world has with climate change and what a perfect solution nuclear is will be used to soften the public up for what Mr Howard and the miners really want: greatly increased uranium production to supply dubious customers such as China and India, and introduction of waste-stream processing back in Oz.
If you need to get up to speed on the re-emergence of the Indian economy, the easy way to do it is to listen to Mark Thirlwell of the Lowy Institute over lunch at a meeting of the Australian Business Economists at the Swissotel on Wednesday, June 14. Cost: $100 (members, $80). Phone 9299 2610.
Ross Gittins is the Herald's Economics Editor.