Nuclear energy a pipe dream


PLACING himself at the mercy of a bunch of high school students on radio, Kim Beazley received a shrewd inquiry from young Joseph.
"How do you justify your recent suggestion to allow more uranium mines in Australia, consequently supplying other countries with nuclear power?'' Excellent question, especially when you consider the Labor leader's declaration supporting uranium enrichment and nuclear power would be "the policy of an idiot.'' By this logic, Beazley is happy to sell uranium and its nuclear potential to eager idiots overseas. These idiots, incidentally, include Britain, Japan, France, India, the United States and 26 other countries using nuclear power. Replying to Joseph, the Opposition Leader conveniently skipped over this conundrum, preferring to bang on about how the nuclear debate had shifted. He's right, it has. John Howard is keen to champion a burgeoning nuclear industry in Australia, including the possibility of uranium enrichment and domestic nuclear power.
If the Prime Minister's is a grand scale vision, Beazley's preferred debate is more confined. The Labor leader is dead against enrichment and power, but will press the ALP to ditch its restrictive three mines policy at national conference next April. While these are important discussions, the outcomes of both debates are set in stone. Beazley will overcome critics to shift party policy.
And for all the PM's grand intentions, the Nick Minchin view of Australia's nuclear future will ultimately prevail. First Beazley, who can't possibly lose Labor's election year debate. Getting rolled on uranium would cripple the leadership of a bloke desperate to convince voters he has the ticker and authority to be Prime Minister. While senior Labor figures such as Anthony Albanese and Peter Garrett will argue passionately to retain the three mines policy, Beazley must prevail.
The wheels are already in motion for this to occur. The ensuing debate will be civil and polite. The divisive mining argument will be accompanied by popular motions banning nuclear power and pushing for a stricter international non-proliferation regime. Beazley will emerge unscathed. Meanwhile, Minchin's pragmatic views borne of hard experience offer the best indicator to Australia's nuclear future. When Howard was overseas loudly declaring the nuclear debate open for all-comers, the Finance Minister was giving an interview to The Sunday Telegraph.
Minchin thought it a "waste of time and hot air'' debating nuclear power because it wouldn't be viable in Australia "for at least 100 years.'' Which might be an exaggeration, but it might not. There's no sign nuclear energy will be close to economic in Australia in the medium term.
"We have some abundant coal and gas reserves and you'd have to tax them out of existence to make nuclear power viable,'' is Minchin's argument. Howard is convinced nuclear power is cleaner and greener than the alternatives.
"But like all forms of power generation, it's governed by the laws of arithmetic and economics,'' the PM said. Except where the N-word is involved, there are also the laws of hysteria and politics. And Minchin knows these are nigh impossible to bend or break. For years Minchin tried to convince the States to set up a national nuclear waste dump servicing the nation. He volunteered his own State, South Australia, and argued soundly and sensibly that low level waste generated by hospitals and research laboratories should be safely stored in a secure location. It proved a waste of time. Even if you manage to locate the dump in a remote area, the radio active material must find its way there. What if trucks carrying nuclear waste crashed near a school? Or a hospital? Or a playground? Minchin heard these and numerous other horror scenarios and watched as every State government bought a fight on the dump site. Eventually he gave up. Remember, this was a debate about low level, low volume waste. Consider uranium enrichment and nuclear power would generate substantially more waste and you begin to appreciate Minchin's 100 year scenario. Nuclear energy may, indeed, be clean and dream but in Australia it's also a pipe dream.