Antinuclear

Pro nuke hype hotting up inAustralia

Fairfax newspapers come out today with headlines about Australians wanting nuclear power. In fact, Australian were asked if they thought the Federal Government should “consider” nuclear power.  Not quite the same thing as wanting it.

In the hyping-up articles, not a mention was made of the serious problems that would affect Australia.

1. What about WATER? – In the driest inhabited continent, nuclear, with its excessive water demands, is hardly a good idea.. The siting of of plants would need to be along the East coast, – with the hot water discharged, heat-polluting the coastline.

2. Not a mention of where to put the nuclear wastes.

3. Not a mention of issues of nuclear targets for terrorism, and of weapons proliferation issues.

4. And of course, the financial aspects – the inability to get insurance, meaning that the nuclear industry wouild have to be tax-payer funded, including the never-mentioned costs of waste disposal, and the eventual destruction and clean-up of the reactors.

Finally – all built on the lie that nuclear power is a solution to global warming. The greenhouse emissions at both the “front-end” and the “back-end” of the nuclear industry are ignored.

The 20 year time-lag before nuclear power would operate, and it provides only a small part of energy needs, – only electricity –  – all means that nuclear is no solution at all to global warming. And – it’s no real competitor to energy efficiency and 21st century renewable technologies.

October 13, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Christina reviews, energy, spinbuster, uranium | antinuclear, Australia, climate change, energy, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive, uranium