Nuclear power should be considered if the carbon tax does not make renewable energy competitive against coal and fossil fuels, former chief scientist Robin Batterham has said.
His comments echoed those of the chair of climate change at Adelaide University, Barry Brook, who said last week that it was ”inevitable” Australia would be forced to choose nuclear power, most likely by 2020.
”If geothermal doesn’t deliver fairly quickly, that takes that off the list,” Professor Batterham said. ”If wind doesn’t get its economics an awful lot better fairly quickly, there isn’t going to be a big increase [in wind power].”
But he said ”we are not yet anywhere near the point where we say [nuclear power] is the only one left standing … Barry’s logic I agree with but what I’m suggesting is, let’s make sure we shake a few [energy] alternatives as well as seeing nuclear coming to a house near you.”
Professor Batterham said nuclear energy should be in the carbon tax debate as it remains one of the low-emission options. ”Why would you go for a more expensive option if a less expensive option is going to do the job?”
He said a major hurdle was disposal of radioactive waste but this could be dealt with by deep burial of the waste or by using next-generation breeder reactors to recycle the waste.
”Fast breeder reactors could mop up long-term nasties in waste,” he said. ”You turn something that has a [half-life] of a few thousand years into 40 or 100, that sort of order.”
Professor Brook told The Sunday Age that even with the carbon tax, solar and wind could not be made competitive against fossil fuels or nuclear power.
”I’m not anti-wind or anti-solar and if they end up becoming more competitive, fine,” he said. ”I just don’t think we can scale them up.
”By 2020, I think the heat will have been turned up to the point where a lot of people, including politicians, will be talking seriously about deploying nuclear … Australia will go nuclear. It’s inevitable that it will.”
Professor Brook said Australia would most likely build next-generation small modular reactors, with fast-breeder reactors a longer-term option.
Fast-breeder reactors are ”the type of nuclear energy an environmentalist could support and still be seen to be an environmentalist”, he said.
But the national anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, Jim Green, said fast-breeder reactors had yet to live up to their promises. ”In theory these fourth-generation reactors look incredibly attractive … but the practice has never met the theory by a long shot,” he told The Sunday Age.
He said conventional nuclear reactors were beset by issues of waste disposal and weapons proliferation, ”very serious issues that Barry Brooks simply ignores”.
As to whether renewable energy could meet Australia’s energy needs, Dr Green said his answer was a qualified yes. ”It depends on getting geo-thermal online and solar thermal with storage online,” he said.
Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told a forum on nuclear power last month that nuclear power remains ”a live debate in Australia, despite the best efforts of the Greens and non-government organisations to demonise the discussion”.
The Coalition appears split on the issue. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said in March that ”the Coalition has no policy for promoting nuclear power”, but deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop stated at the same time that nuclear power should be considered.
