Mines battle for business

THE mining industry has admitted it faces an uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of the community over nuclear energy while academics predict significant social conflict as communities protest against reactors in their area.Queensland Resources Council chief Michael Roche said despite the fight to win the public relations war, the benefit from uranium mining and nuclear power would be hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue as rich uranium deposits in northwest Queensland were developed.
He said there was a major opportunity for Queensland that would be lost to Western Australia and South Australia if the community opposed development of nuclear reactors.
Queensland has several major economic deposits of uranium but Mr Roche said there had been no real exploration since the 1950s and world demand was climbing.
The current known deposits were Valhalla, north of Mt Isa, Westmoreland, near the Northern Territory border in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Maureen, near Georgetown, and Ben Lomand, west of Townsville.
Several more have been found in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia and Australia is thought to have about 28 per cent of the known world resources.
However, Mr Roche said the world would beat a path to Queensland if the deposits were developed.
He said reactors were living off the stock from decommissioned nuclear weapons and this was coming to an end.
Academics claim the Federal Government's sudden embrace of nuclear energy has more to do with a need to replace the revenue from coal than to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"I firmly believe we are in a mineral resource rich country and economically they (the Government) don't see any other way ahead except to keep pushing ahead with coal and other minerals," Queensland University of Technology's Professor Peter Grace said.