Opinion
No doubt all our mothers have asked us, at some stage: If your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too? The honest answer, of course, would be: Absolutely. That’s because children, teenagers especially, are tiny-brained followers with no concept of “consequences”. Just take a look at your average “Schools Strike for [insert Current Thing]”.
But when the results of doing something is amply demonstrated by repeated example, only a fool would ignore them. Which, fools that they are, is exactly what the biologically and mentally adolescent do, when it comes to nonsense like “climate action” and socialism. No amount of crashed and broken bodies is enough to convince them that jumping off those particular cliffs won’t work this time. After all, their teachers said so.
On the other hand, the efficacy and relative safety of the nuclear industry has been so amply demonstrated that it is as foolish as jumping off a cliff to deny it. Of course, the hysterical green-left will screech, “Chernobyl! Fukushima!”, but they are indeed the exceptions which prove the rule. Even with those exceptional disasters, the death toll from nuclear energy is still one of the lowest. Because most countries have operated nuclear plants for decades without incident.
Peter Dutton’s declaration that the opposition will back nuclear energy to enable the country to meet its carbon net-zero targets has drawn a predictable response from Anthony Albanese that “nuclear power can work overseas and does work” but “doesn’t stack up for Australia”.
This is self-evident nonsense. Why won’t what works in France, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, the UK, and South Korea (just to name a few) not work in Australia? The danger of earthquake and tsunami, as in Japan? Ours is one of the most geologically stable continents on Earth, with vast inland areas hundreds of kilometres from the sea.
Because economically-developed countries don’t need it? Australia is the only top 20 economy which doesn’t use nuclear. So, what’s Labor’s excuse?
Bowen’s recent article “Proponents of nuclear power are peddling hot air” (24-25/2) reveals something equally startling: the shallow reason he opposes nuclear power: that it is “being used as a distraction and a delaying tactic” to retard take-up of renewables.
No, you idiot. It’s being used as an alternative to “renewables” which actually works, and won’t cost trillions of dollars.
But Bowen’s not exactly renowned as a mental powerhouse.
Bowen fails to appreciate the worldwide renaissance of nuclear after the setback to public opinion caused by the 2011 Fukushima tsunami event in Japan. Global concern about climate change is supporting the role emissions-free nuclear must play in assisting renewables to replace fossil fuels. Boosted by the support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and even some green parties such as Finland’s, which defines it as “sustainable energy”, new nuclear plants are being built all over the world. A good test is the rising demand for uranium (their fuel) and the price, from $US24 a pound four years ago to $US104 today.
Sweden’s climate policy action plan to reach net zero by 2045 says “expanded nuclear power is the single most important measure” to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. At the recent COP28 climate conference in Dubai, 22 countries undertook to triple their nuclear generation by 2050.
Bowen also claims that nuclear is too expensive and will take years to build. Yet, its a fraction of the cost, and no longer to build, than his demented “renewables”. Not least among the cost savings is that, unlike “renewables”, tens of thousands of new transmission lines don’t have to be bulldozed through the natural environment.
Bowen is also relying solely on the widely-ridiculed 2019-20 GenCost report from the CSIRO.
Tony Irwin, a nuclear engineer who has run a nuclear plant in Britain and is an expert on new-technology small modular reactors, says: “Every nuclear inquiry since that 2019-20 GenCost report has questioned the accuracy of GHD’s analysis of nuclear costs.”
Ian Hore-Lacy, a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, told the house environment and energy committee in 2019 that GHD’s estimates were “astronomically high and unjustifiable” […]
Another flaw in the 2019-20 GenCost report is the claim, devoid of analysis, it would take 15 years to construct an SMR in Australia. Based on overseas experience and adjusting for local conditions, Irwin calculates SMRs could be built here in 10 years, to be available in the early to mid-2030s – the same time span projected for offshore wind projects.
The Australian
In fact, that timeline for “renewables” is simply a figure the government have mandated out of thin air. Anyone who thinks a government project of that scale will be delivered on time and on budget has clearly never paid attention to a single government project.
In this case, it’s Australia — more accurately, the imbecilic children governing it — who are taking a running leap from the cliff, despite all their friends telling them not to.