ACF executive director Don Henry (left) and colleagues inside the contol room of Chernobyl reactor no 3 (reactor no 4 was the one that exploded).
History’s glowing example
Date: 26-Apr-2006
Talk of increased uranium mining is neither safe nor economic, argues Ian Lowe, emeritus professor in science at Griffith University and ACF President
The twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster reminds us we will risk more nuclear contamination if we mine Queensland's uranium. It makes no sense environmentally and is very dubious economically.
Even debating the issue is diverting attention from our real energy needs. We face enormous challenges as world oil production peaks and the serious reality of climate change is hitting. Global warming limits our responses to the coming oil shortage, as well as being a major factor that will shape our future energy use generally.
We need a concerted response to global warming, both reducing our energy use by efficiency improvements and developing energy supply options that are less polluting. Alternatives like solar hot water, wind power and some forms of energy from waste make economic sense now and should be promoted vigorously.
We also need to develop alternative transport fuels, at the same time as promoting changes that will reduce demand. Phasing out the huge subsidies of road freight would be a good start. We should also put some of the billions now being wasted on road projects into public transport: upgrading and extending the rail system, better bus services, light rail for city centres and inner suburbs.
That's all right for us, but doesn't an "energy-starved world" need our uranium? No, it doesn't. That claim was false when Malcolm Fraser made it 30 years ago; it is still false today. Despite a frantic campaign by the nuclear lobby, the world has turned its back on nuclear power. It is too dangerous, too expensive, too slow to build and makes too little difference to climate change. Uranium is also a limited resource, so a concerted shift to nuclear power could only ever be a short-term measure. Mining uranium would require huge amounts of conventional energy, when we are trying to slow down climate change by reducing greenhouse pollution. It also uses - and contaminates - vast quantities of water, which climate change is making scarcer and more valuable. The Olympic Dam mine uses 60 million litres of water a day - managing the acidic and radioactive end-product is a major environmental problem.
As electricity supply in Western countries has been commercialised, business interests have turned away from nuclear power. The level of nuclear power in OECD countries peaked 20 years ago and has declined since as ageing reactors close.
Since 1993, the installation of wind power has been growing remarkably, almost 30 per cent per year. The figure for solar energy is over 20 per cent. Meanwhile, nuclear power has grown globally by 0.6 per cent. Nuclear is very expensive, even with the huge public subsidies it has received for fifty years. And Chernobyl made it impossible to believe assurances that accidents can't happen. No technology is foolproof, so people don't want a nuclear power station near them. Neither the USA nor western Europe are planning to expand nuclear energy.
So there is no obvious market for Queensland's uranium if we did dig it up. The extra sales to China, irresponsibly agreed by the Howard government, are within the production capacity of South Australia's Olympic Dam mine.
The fundamental problems with the China deal are weapons and waste. We can't guarantee our uranium won't produce nuclear weapons. Even if we trust this Chinese government and all future Chinese governments, nobody can be sure that nuclear material is secure from terrorists.
We can absolutely guarantee that our uranium will contribute to the problem of radioactive waste that has to be stored for hundreds of thousands of years. So we are making our region a dirtier and more dangerous place - for a tiny economic return. The highest estimate of the annual revenue from uranium sales to China by 2020 is a third of the present return for exporting cheese! Increasing our cheese exports 2 per cent a year would generate more money - and many more jobs in regional Australia - than the smelly uranium deal.
In any case, China is planning to get much more energy from renewables than from nuclear power: 15 per cent against 6 per cent. That is where our real economic opportunity lies. In the same week Howard agreed to sell uranium to China, Tasmanian Hydro clinched a deal to export wind turbines to that country. That single deal was worth as much as the highest estimate of uranium exports in 2020. And it is more secure as well as cleaner: no terrorist has ever used solar panels or wind turbines!
We have great new energy projects in Queensland: wind farms, solar and geothermal developments. That is the way of the future. History will show the nuclear experiment as a dangerous diversion. We should not be part of it.
This opinion piece was first published in the Courier Mail (Brisbane) on 26 April 2006
More Images:
