There has been a lot of media lately aimed at persuading Australians that nuclear power is the “silver bullet” solution to global warming. Yet another blatant attempt to propagate myths about the safety and necessity of the nuclear industry.
The real issue is that Australia is home to 40% of the world’s uranium reserves. In 2003, there were five companies exploring for Australian uranium; now there are over 70. Bottom line, there is a lot of money to be made in the corporate sector. We are in the grip of greedy, dangerous forces who care little about Australia’s future.
Nuclear power is NOT ‘clean and green’ as the industry claims. Vast amounts of traditional fossil fuels (and water) are required to mine and refine the uranium needed to run nuclear power reactors, construct the massive concrete reactor buildings and to transport and store the toxic radioactive waste generated by the nuclear process.
The nuclear industry has had its entire history to provide permanently safe solutions to the fundamental issue of radioactive waste. To date, they have not come up with anything more sophisticated than storing it in a big, deep hole far, far away. This translates into the transferal of significant risk to our already disenfranchised indigenous communities.
This is completely inadequate and utterly reprehensible. How can we entrust our future to a gravely carcinogenic industry that places profits over inter-generational public health?
This is not to mention the threat of terrorist attacks, accidental meltdowns and the accumulation of thousands of tonnes of solid radioactive waste that concentrate in water and food supplies and are known to cause a plethora of cancers. Depleted uranium is lying around in thousands of leaking, disintegrating barrels at enrichment facilities the world over.
In addition to carbon dioxide, large amounts of the now banned Chloroflurocarbons gas (CFCs) are emitted during the enrichment of uranium. CFC gas is not only 10,000 to 20,000 times more efficient as an atmospheric heat trapper (or ‘greenhouse gas’) than carbon dioxide, but it is a classic pollutant and potent destroyer of the ozone layer. Like fossil fuels, global supplies of usable uranium are finite.
It is sobering to think if the entire world’s electricity production were replaced by nuclear energy, there would be less than 10 years worth of accessible uranium.
Following this, it will be necessary to use huge amounts of fossil fuels to mine and enrich the remaining poor grades of uranium. At best, we are talking about a 50 year band-aid solution to our pending energy crisis. Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive and notoriously unreliable. Every billion dollars spent on the supremely misguided attempt to revive the nuclear industry is a theft from the production of cheap renewable energy and innovations in coal efficiency.
Global warming and the energy crisis is an an issue from which we can run but no longer hide. The real solution to climate change lies in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Australia is endowed in natural, clean alternatives such as solar, wind and geothermal energy. The ingenuity of our scientists has vast potential to make Australia world leaders in this area. Why should we commit to an outdated, dirty and dangerous technology when we know much better?
This is an immense social and technological call-to-action. It is one we cannot afford not to heed.