2024-09-02
Lack of public awareness of the hazards of nuclear power, and nuclear weapons for that matter, has allowed politicians to step in and exploit that vacuum
By Chris Johansen, Green Issue Co-editor
In my view, entering a debate about “whether Australia should adopt nuclear energy” would be as futile as one about “whether the Earth is flat or spherical”. To sustain a two-sided argument there would need to be factual evidence presented on both sides.
The Coalition’s argument to power Australia by nuclear energy is certainly fact free. It ignores the cost of electricity produced by nuclear energy as compared with other means of generating electricity, the time required to establish nuclear power plants, the health threats unleashed, accident possibilities, what to do with the spent fuel, and so on. The Coalition clearly rejects the conclusions of subject matter experts who actually dig out facts about these matters, such as the CSIRO’s GenCost 2023-24 report.
The Coalition likes to claim that they are better economic managers than other parties. I think that any Coalition members who actually believe this, and have at least done back of the envelope calculations about installing nuclear power, would not sincerely believe in adopting it. Actually, I doubt whether there would be many true disciples of nuclear power in the Coalition but the climate deniers and doubters among them are using it as a way of prolonging the use of fossil fuels. The short term profits provided by fossil fuels, and especially the advantages to politicians who support fossil fuel industries, override any concerns about climate change.
Although some in the Coalition claim that that nuclear reactors will be up and running in 10-15 years, the experience elsewhere indicates that it would be over 15 years, at greatly inflated cost (e.g. Hinkley Point C in UK – at least 20 years with regular cost blowouts). But a 10-15 year delay would do wonders for keeping fossil fuels burning. However, climate scientists inform us that if massive cuts to fossil fuel burning do not occur within that timeframe then the climate game is over.
But what do the public think? An Essential Research survey conducted in July 2024 found that 48% of respondents considered the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan as serious and worth considering.
A similar picture exists for AUKUS. There is rather overwhelming evidence for the stupidity and folly of it (e.g. see a previous Green Issue article). Gareth Evans, perhaps Australia’s best ever foreign minister, considers AUKUS as the worst defence and foreign policy decision our country has made. Many other senior retired politicians of both sides of politics have lambasted it, e.g. Paul Keating, Bob Carr, Malcom Turnbull, John Hewson.
However, there appears to be current apparent public acceptance of AUKUS. In a Lowy Institute poll in 2023 49% of respondents considered AUKUS made Australia more safe, 23% said it makes no difference, 12% didn’t know and 7% had never heard of AUKUS. Only 9% considered it would make Australia less safe.
Why this apparent dichotomy between this fact-based opposition to nuclear power, on land or in subs, and apparent public acceptance of it? I attribute it to the general public lack of awareness of nuclear issues over the last 33 years, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Then, much of the global public who had lived through the Cold War period (1945-91) breathed a sigh of relief that the two great nuclear powers had forsaken their doctrines of “mutually assured destruction (MAD)”. This relief was premature as through the 1990s global tensions rose again – between NATO and Russia, USA and China, the Koreas, in the Middle East, etc. Many of the antagonists were nuclear armed. Until now, when the doomsday clock is closer to midnight than ever.
Earlier generations of Australians were much more aware of nuclear hazards than the current one. Although in the aftermath of World War 2 the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was considered necessary to end the war with Japan (it wasn’t as they were about to surrender for other reasons), through the 1950s the unique horrors of nuclear weapons became more apparent. Photos of the “day after” more widely circulated and the effects of radiation exposure became increasingly known. This prompted “ban the bomb” movements, which inevitably linked with anti-war movements (e.g. Vietnam).
Thus, up until 1990, Australians were generally more aware than now of threats posed by nuclear weapons – the massive destruction potential, short- and long-term radiation effects, the nuclear winter.
Although use of nuclear reactors for electricity generation proliferated in many countries during the latter half of the twentieth century, their appeal gradually soured. While living in Germany in the early 1970s I observed protests against them, not because of radiation fears, but because the heated effluent water used for reactor cooling disrupted the ecology of the Rhine River when discharged into it. And then Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) prompted second thoughts about the safety of nuclear-powered electricity. Further concerns accumulated when the difficulty of storing radioactive waste from reactors with half-lives of thousands of years was realized. No permanent long term storage facilities exist to this day (although Finland is in the process of building one). Today, all long half-life nuclear waste is maintained in “temporary storage”, containers robust enough to last up to 40 years, and left for the next generation to work out how to handle.
After six decades of reliance on nuclear power Germany phased out of nuclear power last year. Globally, nuclear energy is likely to fade away due to the cheaper wind and solar alternatives.
These concerns have really not resonated with the Australian public as there are no nuclear reactors for power generation in Australia. This is attributable to the successful anti-nuclear movement prior to 1990, powered by opposition to uranium mining and Cold War fears. These concerns have subsequently subsided and nuclear issues relegated way down the list of issues concerning Australians.
Coalition strategists have obviously noted this knowledge vacuum and realized that things nuclear could be exploited for political advantage – the basic reason for introducing AUKUS was to get Scott Morrison re-elected (didn’t work but Labor adopted it to avoid getting wedged on defence) and for nuclear power to prolong the life of fossil fuels. That the Coalition is not really serious about nuclear power per se is the fact that they never broached the possibility during their last term in federal government.
Thus, the only antidote to having nuclear power adopted in Australia is public education. This is a particular challenge in view of the domination of conservative media in Australia but necessary if we are to avoid all of the pitfalls unleashed by other adopters of nuclear power.
Header photo: Kalinin nuclear power plant, Russia Credit: SergioBS CC 4.0
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]