cba fukushima doesn't stop nuclear renaissance, page-2

Fukushima a smokescreen: Borshoff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 22 July 2011
Tania Winter

PALADIN Energy managing director John Borshoff has warned of a looming shortfall in global uranium supplies which he says will put more pressure on yellowcake producers already contending with lower prices.

�The real paradox is that Fukushima has caused more of a supply problem than a demand one,� he told delegates at the Australian Uranium Conference in Fremantle.

�For me it is not demand that is the question, but supply I believe that has fundamental problems to deliver under the uranium prices that are envisaged.

�Fukushima, as bad as it may seem, is for me nothing more than a smokescreen obscuring the positive, underlying fundamentals of the industry which is still there previous to the earthquake because there is no solution but to proceed with nuclear in the fuel mix for generating electricity.

�But on the positive, it will make the industry even safer.�

In driving home his message on the importance of nuclear in the world�s energy mix when it comes to its ability to deliver baseload power, Borshoff also took a swipe at federal shadow energy and resources minister Ian Macfarlane and the Greens.

�Unlike one of our politicians who said, while straddling that proverbial barbed wire fence trying not to scratch his balls, that Fukushima will cast a long and dark shadow across the nuclear industry for a long time, I fully concur with those positive conclusions, but Fukushima or no Fukushima, it is the underlying reasoning and motivation making the need for more and more energy usage an imperative that gives nuclear not only its assured position in the fuel mix, but an advantage,� Borshoff said.

�Nuclear is not here because people love it, it is here because there is no option and that is why the Fukushimas, as difficult as they are, don�t matter in the long run in terms of nuclear generation.

�I am not trying to diminish the responsibility of improving safety, but there is an underlying force that needs to be satiated � electricity.�

Another driver was population, he said, with projections numbers globally would nearly double to 9 billion by 2050.

�This would mean that coal consumption would need to increase by a factor of two or three by mid century just to keep its end of the bargain, and yet nobody wants coal,� he said.

�Nuclear has an important part in the overall fuel mix partnership needed to supply the baseload power and the stupid Greens in Australia think they can run the country on 100 per cent renewables by 2040.

�Add to this the climate change measures that are being imposed globally, potentially putting a severe handicap on coal and eventually gas [other sources of baseload power] and the fact that renewable, in terms of baseload power is a nonsense, then the world should start thinking thank goodness we have nuclear around.�