Uranium-rich Central Australia may benefit from an apparent public change of heart about the use of nuclear energy.
New polling has shown that more Australians support lifting the ban on the use of nuclear power than oppose it, according to Tania Constable (pictured), the CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA).
She says in a media release that polling by JWS Research for the MCA found four in 10 Australians support lifting the ban on nuclear power in Australia and 39% support the use of nuclear power in Australia.
The research was conducted in early to mid-October 2019 with focus groups in Sydney and Melbourne and a quantitative poll of 1500 Australians.
Support for nuclear power grew to 55% when those polled were asked whether they would accept lifting the ban on the use of nuclear power in Australia if they knew that a majority of Australians supported it.
Opposition to both the use of nuclear power in Australia and lifting the ban was 33%, according to the release.
A further 29% of people were either neutral or unsure about the use of nuclear power in Australia, with 26% either neutral or unsure on lifting the ban.
The polling found more than half those surveyed – 54% – are unaware nuclear power is banned in Australia.
“This shows Australians need to know more about nuclear energy and how it would help reduce power bills and Australia’s emissions,” says Ms Constable.
“The MCA has extensively advocated for the use of safe, reliable, zero-emissions nuclear power in recent years to support a mature and informed discussion.
“Climate change is real and as global energy demand increases, so does the need to diversify our power supplies and reduce emissions through technology.
“Nuclear energy is safe, reliable and affordable. It provides around 10% of the world’s electricity with zero emissions.
“The power provided by nuclear energy is low cost and can meet the needs of industrial and household consumers 24/7.
“Yet Australia, with the world’s largest deposits of uranium, continues to prohibit the use of nuclear power. Any government serious about addressing climate change must consider nuclear in its energy mix.”
How can nuclear power be safe? Japan’s 2011 tsunami and sea surges proved that theory wrong.
Then you got the waste that comes from the used nuclear materials.
How can it be safely stored for 100 years if no one wants it buried in their backyard or regional areas?
There’s then the secure transportation required. You can’t have some one intercept it with a car crash or bad road conditions.
Tania was a Howard servant (Principal Adviser Resources and Energy Policy) during UMPNER (the uranium mining, processing and nuclear energy review).
Howard’s handpicked nuke freaks, led by Ziggy Switkowski, reluctantly concluded we’d missed the boat decades ago.
Nowadays, nuclear is less popular, less affordable and still too slow to deploy. The only nations building new reactors are dictatorships.
Tania knows full well this won’t go anywhere.
Okay “Yawn” and “Concerned” – if not nuclear, then what?
The energy input / pollutant output for wind / solar (which cannot provide baseload, and which must be linked to at a minimum a gas-powered grid to work) is significant.
As in the environmental cost vastly outweighs the costs of a low-emission coal plants, and that’s without including disposal. (And the battery technology needed for renewables to work is nowhere in sight.)
Modern nuclear is safe and efficient.
Chernobyl was largely caused by an incompetent engineer who owed his position to political connections, if you think modern reactors are similar you are incorrect.
I wouldn’t, for example fly long haul or at altitude in a de Havilland Comet – for obvious reasons.
As for Japan, the problem was the location of the plant next to the sea for easier access to water for cooling.
The protective walls were 13m high. The tsunami waves hit at 14m. Yet no-one has died of nuclear contamination.
Our aversion to nuclear is a 70s/80s era cult.
A mix of nutbaggery on the left, and collusion on the right. The sooner we grow up about using nuclear, the better.
Forget uranium. Think thorium / molten salt.
The USA has been developing theirs since the 1960s but under the counter and India is almost ready to go (2025) possibly using nuclear waste from other countries and our salt.
Where were we again while all this was happening?
And thorium comes from monazite of which we are in the position of having plenty and currently a waste product of rare earth mining not far from here.