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Why nuclear power won’t stop climate change

As Australia’s leading contributor to climate change, energy is slowly becoming one of the nation’s hot topics. Although renewables, such as wind and solar are being discussed, it is nuclear power that is being flouted by the Howard government as the solution. Professor Ian Lowe, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation discusses reasons why nuclear power is not viable.

The debate about nuclear energy is welcome recognition of the urgent need to respond to climate change. But the nuclear option is not a wise response. It is too costly, too dangerous, too slow and makes too little impact on greenhouse pollution. That is why most of the developed world is rejecting the nuclear option in favour of renewable energy and improved efficiency.


Prof. Ian Lowe There is no serious doubt that climate change is real, it is happening now and its effects are accelerating. It is already causing serious economic impacts such as reduced agricultural production, increased costs of severe events like fires and storms, and the need to consider radical water supply measures such as desalination plants. So we should set a serious target for reducing our rate of releasing carbon dioxide, like the UK goal of 60% by 2050.

The economics of nuclear power just don’t stack up. The real cost of nuclear electricity is certainly more than for wind power, energy from bio-wastes and some forms of solar energy. Geothermal energy from hot dry rocks also promises to be less costly than nuclear. That is without including the huge costs of decommissioning power reactors and storing the radioactive waste.

So there is no economic case for nuclear power and investors are turning their backs on nuclear energy. The number of reactors in western Europe and the USA peaked 15 years ago and has been declining since. By contrast, the amount of wind power and solar energy is increasing at rates of 20 to 30 per cent per annum.

Nuclear power is too dangerous. There is not just the risk of accidents like Chernobyl, but also the increased risk of nuclear weapons or nuclear terrorism. It remains the case, as the Ranger Inquiry found nearly thirty years ago, that increased export of Australian uranium would contribute to proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is a major security issue in our region as well as globally.

Nuclear power also inevitably produces radioactive waste that will have to be stored safely for hundreds of thousands of years. After nearly fifty years of the nuclear power experiment, nobody has yet demonstrated a solution to this problem. In the absence of a viable solution, expanding the rate of waste production is just irresponsible.

Nuclear power is too slow to make a difference. Even if all government approvals were granted, it would still take about ten more years and several billion dollars to construct a power station and deliver the first unit of electricity. Wind turbines can be up and delivering power in six months. More efficient appliances can be reducing pollution tomorrow.

Nuclear power won’t stop climate change. There would be a massive increase in greenhouse pollution from mining, processing and reactor construction before any electricity is generated. The known resources of high-grade uranium ores only amount to a few decades use at the present rate, so an expansion of nuclear power would see those resources rapidly depleted. The poorer grades of ore that would be used subsequently require much more conventional fuel energy.

To avoid dangerous further changes to our climate, we need to act now. We should make a commitment to the sensible alternatives that produce sustainable cost-effective reductions in greenhouse pollution: wind power, solar water heating, energy efficiency, gas and energy from organic matter.

Source: Reproduced with permission from the Australia Conservation Foundation http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=545