While the Coalition’s attempt to win the nation over on the promise of nuclear power was unsuccessful, it nonetheless has drawn attention to the fact that ordinary Australians are not as opposed to nuclear power as perhaps they ought to be.
Nuclear does have advantages in relation to reduced atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions, and health impacts from air pollution compared to fossil fuel power stations. Certainly consumer cost cannot be the motivating factor as nuclear is 1.5 to 2.5 times more expensive than that of firmed renewables.
Chief among the attractions to nuclear power is the need for energy security and we can be certain that the Coalition party rooms were not moved by the IPCC finding that it is ‘unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land’.
Almost all of us quietly rely on Australia’s energy security and don’t have to worry about rolling brown-outs. We like our comfort and don’t want to lose it.
‘What bloody good are renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining?’ you might well ask. And here is the clincher, like so many other areas of life, it lies in diversity; diversity of location and type.
Technical barriers to Australia achieving secure, reliable power from a very high proportion of renewable electricity simply do not exist as has consistently been found by CSIRO and AEMO. Granted the final few percentage points of energy security are hard to achieve and nuclear is not the only option in that context; we can foresee using pumped hydro, thermal storage, battery storage or even gas peakers.
There was a time when nuclear may have been the answer to the need to urgently decarbonise the sector in Australia but that was 20 years ago. If a nuclear facility were approved today it is widely accepted that planning and construction takes 15 years in full democracies, and requires hard-to-develop skills and experience that we just don’t have in Australia.
We haven’t even begun to talk about the hazards of nuclear waste but suffice to say there are several destinations that no tourist will be visiting any time soon.
It is hard to imagine why we would choose, as a nation, to entertain the prospect of investing in an energy source that is more expensive and more risk-laden, confers no special benefit that cannot be achieved through other means.
The cheerful smiling sun face of ‘Nuclear Power? No Thanks’ has lost none of its power.
Ewan Willis, guest editorial
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