Nuclear energy

Rapid Roundup                                                                                        Updated Monday May 29 2006
Should Australia Embrace Nuclear Energy?

Experts from around Australia respond to the current debate on whether Australia should embrace nuclear energy. See also Nuclear Debate (31 March 06)

For further information or to speak with one of these scientists, contact the AusSMC on (08) 8207 7415.

Dr Hugh Saddler is Managing Director of Energy Strategies Pty Ltd, a consultancy company he established in 1982, specialising in the fields of energy, environment and technology economics and policy. He is the author of a book on Australian energy policy and over 70 scientific papers and articles on energy technology and environmental policy.

"Industrial history shows that the first example of any complex new technology almost invariably turns out to be much more costly than its proponents initially expected. This is true even when well-established technologies are introduced into new environments, for example light water reactors to Australia. The risks of large cost over-runs and unforeseen complications are much higher for projects involving commercially unproven technologies, for example pebble-bed nuclear reactors."

Professor Aidan Byrne, Head, Department of Physics, Australian National University, holds a joint appointment with the Department of Nuclear Physics and Engineering at the ANU. He has spent over two years working in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and has been undertaking research in nuclear structure physics for over 25 years.

“I believe that nuclear power could well be part of our energy mix in future, along with wind, solar and other renewables. All sources of energy have their advantages and disadvantages and each has to be considered on its merits. Australia’s particular circumstances with an abundance of sunlight, space, coal and nuclear resources, will decide on this mix. Other countries are not so fortunate. So the decisions that other countries make to go nuclear may not need to be replicated in Australia. Speculating on sites for nuclear power plants at this early stage is premature and counter-productive.”

Professor Ian Lowe, is an Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, where he was previously head of the School of Science,  His doctoral studies in the UK were funded by the UK Atomic Energy Authority and he is a member of the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council established under the ARPANS Act.  He has worked on energy policy issues for more than 30 years and is also President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

“Climate change is a very serious problem and deserves a conserted response. Nuclear power is certainly not a cost-effective answer to climate change; various forms of renewable energy supply are more attractive without having the environmental, social and political disadvantages of nuclear power. Energy efficiency is a more cost effective way of reducing carbon dioxide emission than any supply alternative, and should be persued vigorously.

"The nuclear power option makes so little sense for Australia that I suspect “the debate” is really aimed at softening up the electorate to accept increased exports of uranium.

"It remains true, as the Ranger inquiry found 30 years ago, that exporting uranium adds to the problems of proliferation of fissile material and production of radioactive waste. There is no convincing technical or political solution to either of those problems, so exporting uranium inevitably makes the world a dirtier and more dangerous place.”

Professor Peter Johnston, Nuclear Physicist, Head of Physics, RMIT. He is a member of the Nuclear Safety Committee and the Radiation Health Safety Advisory Council established under the ARPANS Act. He has more than 20 years experience in radiation protection and is scientific adviser to Maralinga Tjarutja who are traditional owners of the former nuclear test site at Maralinga, South Australia.

“I think we should be interested in nuclear energy options. We don’t necessarily need a nuclear power programme right now but we certainly should have the capability to choose this option in future if and when we want to. Our existing fossil fuel sources may last a long time but we might decide that we need to use coal for things such as liquid fuels instead of burning it for base load energy, especially if oil becomes very expensive in future.

“Unless we have the capacity to use nuclear power then we may be at a disadvantage. Other countries may be in a position to produce energy by nuclear power much more quickly and cheaply than us. We need the skills and expertise in nuclear science to ensure that we can also do it.

“In terms of safety, there is excellent guidance from the International Atomic Energy Agency on how to create nuclear energy safely.”

Professor Hugh Possingham is a mathematical ecologist, Federation Fellow and the Director of the Ecology Centre at the University of Queensland.

"This debate is not about renewables versus nuclear, it is about how quickly we can wean ourselves off energy generation that releases greenhouse gases. The increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels has already begun to contribute to the loss of biodiversity through its impact on the climate. It has been estimated that we could lose 10-30% of all species around the globe as a result of climate change. This places climate change amongst the top three threats to biodiversity along with land clearing and invasive species."

Dr Joel Fleming is an environmental scientist and Managing Director of the company Climate Friendly. He has expertise in greenhouse science, clean energy, sustainability, computer modelling and scientific software.

"Whether Australia should go nuclear is the wrong question. The question we need to ask is - What is the best strategy to reduce greenhouse emissions by 80% and avoid dangerous climate change?

"Renewable and efficiency technologies are available now. With these, there are companies in Australia right now who have reduced their emissions by 60-100%. So why take the safety risk with nuclear when there are clean energy options available? In the long term, with nuclear we would end up using low grade uranium with roughly the same greenhouse emissions as gas fired-power stations."

Frank Muller is an Adjunct Professor at the UNSW Institute for Environmental Studies. He is a policy expert with specific interests in greenhouse and sustainable development policy. He previously headed greenhouse policy in the NSW Cabinet Office and spent the 1990s in Washington advising governments and the United Nations on climate change.

“This is not really about whether Australia should meet its energy needs through nuclear power. It’s a much bigger debate about whether the world should make a major shift to nuclear power and whether Australia should become a big supplier of nuclear fuel cycle services and a nuclear waste dump for other countries.

“The reason we are having this debate now is because it meets the political needs of politicians in Washington and Canberra on the defensive over oil prices, climate change and other issues, not because there has been any real commercial progress in overcoming the proliferation, economic and environmental risks of nuclear energy.

“If we are serious about tackling climate change now there are many other energy options that we should be debating – options that are cheaper, safer and can be deployed much more quickly.

“Nuclear power requires not only big subsidies, but also big government to deal with its risks – and it is a great irony that is should be embraced by conservative politicians.”

Dr Reza Hashemi-Nezhad, School of Physics, University of Sydney is a nuclear physicist and Australia's only expert in the field of Accelerator Driven Nuclear Reactors which uses thorium as fuel. He has been working in this field for 10 years in international collaborations, with some of his research funding from Germany.

"Many of the concerns that people have expressed about nuclear energy would be solved by using thorium instead of uranium to generate energy. This would involve a new type of reactor called an Accelerator Driven System. Apart from the fact that Australia has the world's biggest reserves of thorium, the ADS using thorium does not produce plutonium and can incinerate its own nuclear waste as well as plutonium and other very long lived radioactive waste (such as that produced by the experimental reactor at Lucas Heights).

The nuclear waste produced requires only 500 years of storage time as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years for conventional nuclear reactor waste. In these reactors a meltdown like the Chernobyl disaster is virtually impossible."

Professor John Price is an engineer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Monash University who has worked on the design of coal and nuclear power plants and alternative energy.

"The reality is that Australia must add 9-10 Gigawatts of electricity capacity over the next 10 years to keep pace with demand. Currently there appears to be no option but to use black and brown coal and gas to generate this extra electricity. Thus the debate should be around whether or not we're happy to commit to so much more carbon dioxide production.

"The nuclear power option would be nice to have. The past 50 years of experience has shown that the safety of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle is very attractive and modern plants will be even better."