Antinuclear

Animal Justice Party – pro nuclear advocate in sheeps’ clothing?

Well, I gave this party my preferences at the most recent election.  But not any more. Rumour has it that there’s a strong pro nuclear presence in the Animal Justice Party.

This rumour is now confirmed by Michael Dello, Animal Justice Party candidate for Heffron, New South Wales.

I n response to a request about this, Michael Dello writes:

• Nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy per unit energy produced, safer than even wind and solar (in terms of lives lost per unit energy). Some highly publicised events make this seem untrue, but the st statistics support this. I admit that this isn’t simple, as nuclear causes more property damage per unit energy, but it seems far from clear that nuclear is more dangerous than wind and solar.
• Nuclear has saved  millions of lives to date by pushing out coal. Granted, renewables have done this too to an extent.
• The production of renewable energy and batteries  also has waste, in particular the process of mining nickel and lead which are used for batteries produce far more toxic waste (e.g. sulfur dioxide) per unit energy produced than nuclear.
• I don’t believe we can achieve the emissions reduction targets we need with renewable energy alone. I believe that nuclear power and a reform of our agriculture system (animal agriculture being the leading cause of climate change yet the most ignored in Australia by far) are important and neglected parts of this process.
• I don’t believe it is possible with current or even near future technology to have sufficient battery storage with renewables alone.
• Nuclear has a significantly smaller land use requirement than renewable energy. The environmental cost of clearing land to make room for renewable energy is non-trivial (less of an issue in SA than the east coast).

March 16, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics