Uranium mining - little profit, less safety

Nuclear power stations are currently banned in Australia, but, as the Howard Government gets to work on a post-Kyoto energy policy, key ministers have called for a new debate. NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr agrees, and some environmentalists are prepared to re-think. However, Dave Sweeney won’t be changing his position title any time in the future.

“Reports regarding environmentalists embracing nuclear power are seriously inflated. The reality is that there’s unwavering environmental opposition to nuclear power, and that includes environmental organisations primarily concerned with climate change.

“Nuclear power is a high cost and high risk option. It is not greenhouse neutral: a recently released independent scientific report shows that while nuclear power stations themselves do not emit CO2, the nuclear fuel cycle is a complex process with some steps that are very large energy users.

“It creates long lived wastes that are difficult to isolate and manage for the time periods needed, and it’s directly linked to the increased threat of nuclear weapons proliferation and security concerns.”

On the last point, the Australian press has been mute. But with Australia exporting 15-20 per cent of the world’s uranium market share, can we be sure that Australian uranium is used exclusively in nuclear power reactors?

“Australian uranium is sold under two conditions: there must be a bilateral agreement between Australia and the purchasing country, and that country has to be a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“That’s a great sound bite. But the recent NPT review conference at the UN highlighted the differences of signatories’ interpretations, and the limitations of any of the international agencies charged with enforcing it. The regulation of the uranium trade is failing.

“That means there’s no way to guarantee that Australian uranium doesn’t have a future life in a weapons program somewhere else. The distinction between the military and civil applications of nuclear technology is more psychological than real: if you have the technology for a reactor, you have the technology for rudimentary weapons manufacturing.

“You only have to look at India - which Australia has indicated it is willing to deal with - Pakistan, South Africa, Iran, Israel and North Korea, some of which are known nuclear weapons states, others are suspected. All of them gained their nuclear weapons proficiency through civil nuclear programs, while they pledged, there will never be anything naughty about this.

“We can’t have any confidence that Australian uranium won’t end up in a weapons program.”