Right: the Olympic Dam uranium mine, near Roxby Downs in northern South Australia, is the world's largest. Proponents of the nuclear industry point to this abundance of fuel as a huge point in favour of nuclear generation of power.
Arguments in favour of Australia developing a nuclear power industry
1. Australia has plentiful supplies of uranium
Supporters of Australia using nuclear reactors to supply all or much of the country's energy needs often point to Australia's abundant supplies of uranium which could be used to fuel these power plants.
Josh Frydenberg, the federal member for Kooyong, Victoria, has stated, 'As a leading source of uranium, Australia has a competitive advantage...Australia is home to 38 per cent of the world's known recoverable reserves of uranium, and we export uranium to more than 10 countries.'
Australia's total uranium production in the calendar year 2004 was 10,591 te U3O8 made up of 5,137 te from Ranger, 4,370 te from Olympic Dam and 1,084 te from Beverley, the in-situ uranium mine in SA. This total represented about 20% of the world's production from uranium mines in that year.
The largest single uranium deposit in the world is at Olympic Dam, now owned by BHP-Billiton after the recent $9.2B takeover of Western Mining Resources. Before the takeover, the previous owner had indicated that the mine would be expanded to double the production of copper, uranium and gold, and it is likely that this project will proceed under the new owners.
2. Australian nuclear reactors can be built in geologically stable areas
Though Australia is not uniformly geologically stable, by international standards there are areas in the Australian continent that would provide relatively safe locations for the placement of nuclear reactors and nuclear waste storage facilities.
Radioactive waste is stored in underground repositories in geologically stable locations that are remote from the population. Much of the Australian continent satisfies these criteria. Repositories occupy the space of less than half a swimming pool. By contrast, there are millions of tonnes of heavy metal waste produced by fossil fuels, which last forever.
To the extent that past earthquake activity provides a guide to future tectonic activity, Australia appears to provide a relatively stable environment for long-term waste facilities, though there are certainly areas of the world that are apparently more stable.
However, earthquake risk is just one of the 'geologic' factors relevant to evaluating long-term integrity of waste storage facilities, and other factors such as the groundwater conditions, need to be evaluated in any comprehensive assessment of risk.
Supporters of the use of nuclear reactors to meet Australia's power needs argue that all relevant safety considerations would be taken into account before the decision were taken to place a plant or a storage facility in a particular area.
With regard to nuclear disasters that have occurred in some other parts of the world, especially the recent disaster in Japan, Australia's relative geological stability has been seen as an advantage. ;Dr Ziggy Switkowski, a nuclear physicist, has said, 'We are not geologically active, we aren't in the path of typhoons and hurricanes and tsunamis.'
3. Nuclear energy is largely non-carbon-producing
Nuclear power would enable Australia to supply much of its energy needs via a power source that does not produce significant carbon dioxide and so does not contribute to global warming.
Professor Ross Garnaut's final report - released at the end of September 2008 - concedes that nuclear power could supply more than one-quarter of Australia's electricity needs by 2020 if a proposed policy based on 'clean coal' and 'renewables' fails.
Recent data from the US Department of Energy highlights the huge advantages of uranium. The carbon production from coal-fired plants in the US was cited as 0.86 tonnes for one megawatt-hour of electricity production. The figure for gas-fired plants was 0.36 tonnes while that for nuclear plants was 0.005 tonnes.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change has said, 'I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing [carbon dioxide] emissions that did not include nuclear energy.'
In 31 countries, 441 nuclear reactors supply energy without causing air pollution and with minimal carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions.
Professor Barry Brook, director of climate science at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute, has stated, 'Nuclear energy produces no carbon dioxide emissions when operating. Indeed, if all the world's nuclear power stations were replaced by brown-coal power, an additional 3.5 billion tonnes of CO2 would enter the atmosphere each year.'
New carbon emission targets require the federal government to spend six billion dollars on new technology that uses alternative power sources by 2020. Dr John Burgess, author of the 2009 Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering's report on alternative energy in Australia, believes that the key to cutting the carbon emissions in time is nuclear energy.
4. Nuclear technology is a readily accessible means of supplying energy
The technology needed to supply energy via nuclear reactors is well-developed and readily available. ;This means that in a relatively short time Australia could be in a position where nuclear energy supplied a substantial component of our power needs.
Josh Frydenberg, the federal member for Kooyong, Victoria, has stated, 'Developments in reactor technology are...occurring so fast that the construction phase is likely to shrink from 60 to 30 months in coming years...
[Further]Australian companies like Worley Parsons are involved in the construction of new reactors as in Egypt, where they are gaining an international reputation for their project management expertise.'
Ziggy Switkowski, the immediate past president of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, believes Australia can have its first reactor operating by 2020 and 50 in place by 2050, providing 90 per cent of the nation's energy needs.
It has further been argued that nuclear power represents a far cheaper and more reliable source of non-carbon-producing power than either solar or wind power.
Professor Barry Brook, director of climate science at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute, has stated, 'Nuclear energy also has the great advantages of cheap, abundant fuel and incredibly reliable operation. It is not dependent on the fickleness of natural energy flows (such as wind and solar) and so does not require expensive energy storage.'
5. ;Nuclear reactors are a relatively safe means of power production
Today's reactors are also significantly safer than their predecessors. The explosions at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were decades ago and since then there have been thousands of reactor hours without incident.
Prior to Fukushima, the situation to date is that in over 14,000 reactor-years of civil operation there have been only two accidents to commercial nuclear power plants which were not substantially contained within the design and structure of the reactor. ;To this experience one could add another 13,000 reactor-years of naval operation, which in the West has had an excellent safety record. ;
Only the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 resulted in radiation doses to the public greater than those resulting from exposure to natural sources. ;Other incidents (and two "accidents") have been largely or completely confined to the plant. ;The Chernobyl tragedy made it clear why such Soviet-era reactors have never been licensed in other parts of the world. ;Apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident. ;
Ziggy Switkowski, the immediate past president of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has claimed that criticisms of the safety of nuclear power in response to the Fukushima nuclear incident are an over-reaction which ignores the atypical nature of this disaster and how much safer nuclear power is in comparison to other forms of power generation. ;Mr Switkowski has stated, 'In Australia, opponents of nuclear power already point to the situation in Japan as evidence of the dangers of nuclear reactors. They conveniently sidestep the loss of life and damage caused by exploding oil tanks, burst gas mains, electrical fires: hazards that come with living in a tectonically active region.'
6. ;Nuclear waste problems are being overcome
The nuclear industry takes responsibility for the management of its radioactive waste products. ;Three general principles are employed in the management of radioactive wastes: concentrate-and-contain; dilute-and-disperse; and delay-and-decay.
The first two are also used in the management of non-radioactive wastes. The waste is concentrated and then isolated, or it is diluted to acceptable levels and then discharged to the environment. Delay-and-decay however is unique to radioactive waste management; it means that the waste is stored and its radioactivity is allowed to decrease naturally through decay of the radioisotopes in it. ;High level radio-active waste management involves delay-and-decay techniques.
High-level waste may be the used fuel itself, or the principal waste separated from reprocessing this. While only 3% of the volume of all radwaste, it holds 95% of the radioactivity. It contains the highly-radioactive fission products and some heavy elements with long-lived radioactivity. It generates a considerable amount of heat and requires cooling, as well as special shielding during handling and transport. If the used fuel is reprocessed, the separated waste is vitrified by incorporating it into borosilicate (Pyrex) glass which is sealed inside stainless steel canisters for eventual disposal deep underground.
In addition to safe storage, huge strides are being made to reduce dramatically the amount of nuclear waste. Professor Barry Brook, director of climate science at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute, has stated, 'A type of nuclear technology now being commercialised in India, Russia and China, called "fast reactors", can be used to repeatedly recycle its fuel and consume old nuclear waste. Because of the incredible efficiency of this next-generation technology, we have already mined enough uranium to power the global economy for more than 500 years.'
Fourth generation reactors will burn most of the fuel, with the surviving waste having a half-life a fraction of that produced by today's reactors.
Ziggy Switkowski, the immediate past president of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has also indicated his belief that Japanese and other nuclear technicians will see the Fukushima incident as a challenge to prompt the creation of even more stable and robust reactors. ;Mr Switkowski has stated, 'We will learn from the tragic Japanese experience how to build more robust reactors, how to ensure multiple layers of protection work properly, how to better contain radioactive gases.'