Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

  • Home
  • 1.This month
  • Disclaimer
  • Kimba waste dump Submissions

The unlikely and unwise process towards Australia getting nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons? Australia has no way to build them, even if we wanted to  Heiko Timmers
https://theconversation.com/nuclear-weapons-australia-has-no-way-to-build-them-even-if-we-wanted-to-120075   Associate Professor of Physics, UNSWJuly 10, 2019  In his latest book, strategist and defence analyst Hugh White has gone nuclear, triggering a debate about whether Australia should develop and maintain its own nuclear arsenal.But developing and sustaining modern nuclear weapons requires a certain combination of technologies and industries that Australia simply does not have. In fact, it may be safely estimated on the basis of approval and construction times for nuclear power reactors in other western countries that it would take some 20 years to establish such capabilities in the present legal and economic environment.

Opting for nuclear weapons also fails to consider the global implications of Australia abandoning its almost 50-year stance against nuclear proliferation.

The first step: nuclear power generation

White argues quite rightly that China may eventually overtake the US in terms of its industrial production and military reach. Speculating that this could entail a strategic withdrawal of the US from the western Pacific, he suggests Australia might find itself without the American defence umbrella to deter Chinese influence, or worse.

But Australia would struggle to replace its long and successful alliance with the US with a limited nuclear deterrence capability. Even ignoring the issues generally involved in adopting new defence capabilities – evident in the many problems hindering Australia’s efforts to replace its ageing submarine fleet – the idea is fanciful given our current stance on nuclear energy.

Nuclear power reactors, uranium enrichment plants, missile technology and high-tech electronics manufacturing would all be essential to support truly independent efforts to develop a compact nuclear weapon that could be delivered by missile from a submarine and kept in a permanent state of readiness.

Neither power reactors nor enrichment facilities exist in Australia today, despite some pioneering research in both areas in the past.

Australia’s missile development and high-tech electronics sectors, meanwhile, are in catch-up mode or in their infancy due to years of economic reliance on mining, tourism and services. Advancing and establishing nuclear industries for the sole purpose of developing a nuclear weapons program would neither be practically nor economically viable.

Political will for nuclear energy?

The only way such industries could be developed realistically would be if Australia added nuclear power to its suite of power generation technologies.

Of course, Australia has large uranium deposits and a well-established uranium mining and export industry. And there appears to be increasing public support for nuclear power. A recent survey found that 44% of Australians support nuclear power plants, up four points since the question was last asked in 2015. Other polls indicate support might even be higher.

A well-developed nuclear power industry would eventually give Australia almost all the necessary technologies, personnel and materials to make and maintain a nuclear weapon. This includes, in particular, the ability to enrich uranium and breed plutonium.

But herein lies the problem. Even if the public did eventually support a nuclear energy program, it remains unclear whether the necessary political will would be there.

Legally, the Howard government banned domestic nuclear power plantsin the late 1990s – an act that would now need to be overturned by parliament.

In 2006, the federal government commissioned an inquiry led by Ziggy Switkowski into the future feasibility of nuclear power generation in Australia. The final report found that nuclear energy would be 20-50% more expensive than coal without carbon pricing. It also said a nuclear power industry would take between 10 and 15 years to establish.

Recently, Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the Morrison government was open to reversing the country’s nuclear energy ban, but only if there was a “clear business case” to do so. With the current widespread availability of cheaper, renewable energies in Australia, this makes the economics of nuclear power generation less convincing.

Lastly, in order to ensure true self-reliance, a delivery option for a nuclear weapon would have to be developed without purchasing technologies from other countries, such as the US. This would be incredibly costly and difficult to do.

When it comes to this sort of missile technology and high-tech electronics manufacturing, Australia is currently not leading in research and development.

Australia’s long-time stance against nuclear weapons

Even though Australia is not in a position to contemplate nuclear weapons due to its technological and industrial limitations, there are moral arguments against pursuing such a goal that should be considered carefully.

The country has been at the forefront of the international non-proliferation movement, ratifying both the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1998.

A 2018 poll also showed that 78.9% of Australians supported joining the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, while only 7.7% were opposed.

Australians should remind themselves that these treaties have greatly contributed to peace and security in the world. Abandoning such longstanding principles of its foreign policy, which are aimed at creating a better, more peaceful world, would be an implosion of Australian character of massive proportions.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

July 11, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

« Previous | Next »

1.This month

  • Pages

    • 1.This month
    • Disclaimer
    • Kimba waste dump Submissions
      • NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION
      • Submissions on Radioactive Waste Code 2018
      • SUBMISSIONS TO SENATE INQUIRY 18
    • – Alternative media
    • – marketing nuclear power
    • business and costs
    • – Spinbuster 2011
    • Nuclear and Uranium Spinbuster – theme for June 2013
    • economics
    • health
    • radiation – ionising
    • safety
    • Aborigines
    • Audiovisual
    • Autralia’s Anti Nuclear Movement – Successes
    • climate change – global warming
    • energy
    • environment
    • Fukushima Facts
    • future Australia
    • HEALTH and ENVIRONMENT – post Fukushma
    • media Australia
    • Peace movement
    • politics
    • religion – Australia
    • religion and ethics
    • Religion and Ethics
    • secrets and lies
    • spinbuster
    • Spinbuster
    • wastes
    • ethics and nuclear power – Australia
    • nuclear medicine
    • politics – election 2010
    • secrecy – Australia
    • SUBMISSIONS to 2019 INQUIRIES
    • weapons and war
  • Follow Antinuclear on WordPress.com
  • Follow Antinuclear on WordPress.com
  • Blogroll

    • Anti-Nuclear and Clean Energy Campaign
    • Beyond Nuclear
    • Exposing the truth about thorium nuclear propaganda
    • NUCLEAR INFORMATION
    • nuclear news Australia
    • nuclear-news
  • Categories

    • 1
    • ACTION
    • Audiovisual
    • AUSTRALIA – NATIONAL
      • ACT
      • INTERNATIONAL
      • New South Wales
      • Northern Territory
      • Queensland
      • South Australia
        • NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016
          • Nuclear Citizens Jury
          • Submissions to Royal Commission S.A.
            • significant submissions to 6 May
      • Tasmania
      • Victoria
      • Western Australia
    • Christina reviews
    • Christina themes
    • General News
    • Olympic Dam
    • Opposition to nuclear
    • reference
    • religion and ethics
    • Resources
    • TOPICS
      • aboriginal issues
      • art and culture
      • business
        • employment
        • marketing for nuclear
      • civil liberties
      • climate change – global warming
      • culture
      • energy
        • efficiency
        • solar
        • storage
        • wind
      • environment
      • health
      • history
      • legal
      • media
      • opposition to nuclear
      • people
      • personal stories
      • politics
        • election 2013
        • election 2016
        • election 2019
        • Submissions Federal 19
      • politics international
      • religion and ethics
      • safety
        • – incidents
      • secrets and lies
      • spinbuster
        • Education
      • technology
        • rare earths
        • thorium
      • uranium
      • wastes
        • Federal nuclear waste dump
      • weapons and war
    • water
    • Wikileaks
    • women

Site info

Antinuclear
Blog at WordPress.com.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Antinuclear
    • Join 2,006 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Antinuclear
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: