Antinuclear

Pro-nuclear professor got his facts wrong

Lesley Kemeny’s inaccuracies – The Age, by Jim Green 17 Oct 09 Lesley Kemeny claims that 60 countries have ’embraced’ nuclear power yet a moment’s research shows that the figure is 31 (‘ Nuclear energy key to future’, The Age, Oct 14). He lauds Australia’s “superb” uranium mining industry. Yet a 2003 Senate References and Legislation Committee report found “a pattern of under-performance and non-compliance” in the industry, identified many gaps in knowledge, and concluded that changes were necessary “in order to protect the environment and its inhabitants from serious or irreversible damage”.

A shame no-one listened − the following year at the Ranger uranium mine in the NT, 150 workers were exposed to drinking water containing uranium levels 400 times greater than the Australian safety standard. Mining company ERA was fined $150,000 — a rare example of a uranium mining company being prosecuted for breaching operating conditions.

Mr Kemeny gives a figure of 5 grams of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of nuclear power, yet the Switkowski report puts the figure 12 times higher. The Switkowski report also demonstrates what a blunt instrument nuclear power is in the climate change battle − it found that building six nuclear reactors would reduce Australia’s emissions by just 4% if they displaced coal-fired plants, just 2% if they displaced gas, and nothing if they displaced renewables and energy efficiency measures.

October 19, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster | antinuclear, Australia, nuclear