Antinuclear

Uranium miners – the phoniest of corporations

During the next decade the world must reduce emissions as fast as possible, in order to avoid climate change “tipping points”. Australia is the world’s worst per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases. Our coal-fired power stations emit almost 50 percent of our emissions, so it is crucial that we minimise their emissions as fast as possible.

Of all the energy sources, renewables produce the least emissions, but the Rudd government consistently promotes “clean coal”, at the expense of renewables.

Nevertheless, it still wants to retain the “green” vote, and last week, in an unguarded moment, Energy Minister Martin Ferguson implicitly acknowledged the feasibility of renewables as base load energy sources, when he claimed that the government’s “solar flagships” program would enable renewables to provide 20 percent of our energy needs by 2020.

So why doesn’t the government phase out its support for mineral-based energy and support development of renewables, perhaps with the temporary use of natural gas as a back-up energy source, so that our energy needs are met and our emissions are minimised as fast as possible?

The answer lies in the government’s overriding political commitment to the minerals corporations, expressed vividly last week when Ferguson spoke with breathless enthusiasm about Australia’s mineral reserves as “160 years of natural gas and coal-seam methane, 150 years of uranium, more than 100 years of black coal, and more than 500 years of brown coal resources”!………………………

The mining corporations’ competing claims to be Australia’s environmental saviours are phoney and disturbing. But the uranium industry’s promotion of nuclear power for Australia is particularly dangerous.

CPA – The Guardian – #1433

October 28, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics, uranium | antinuclear, Australia, BHP, BHP Billiton, nuclear, radioactive, uranium