Behind every dramatic interpretation of a nuclear disaster or depiction of incompetence in nuclear energy and uranium mining is a litany of real-life incidents that has created a lasting global movement against nuclear energy. More than 200 nuclear accidents and events have been reported around the world, and with nuclear power plants vulnerable to threats exacerbated by climate change, similar incidents are a very real possibility. Climate shutdowns have been reported in France, Germany, California and Texas, prompting now-retired nuclear engineer David Lochbaum to say, “Global warming must be resolved for nuclear plants to survive.”
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Ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more than 300 organizations from 40 countries signed a joint declaration against nuclear energy. These included 49 separate bodies in Australia, including trade unions, religious groups, environmental and conservation organizations, Indigenous groups and health sector organizations representing millions of Australians.
It has been consistently shown that nuclear power is deeply unpopular, ruinously expensive, and too slow to implement to provide a serious solution to energy and decarbonization needs.
Once the legislation has been passed, facilities have been built and the workforce has been trained, it will be 30 to 40 years along with the window of opportunity to prevent irreversible climate damage. Professor John Quiggin, an Australian economics fellow at the University of Queensland, has said that the idea of producing nuclear power in Australia by 2040 is absurd.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said in a 2019 Senate inquiry into nuclear energy that “Australia could not take less than 15 years from the time the decision is made to move forward. direction, it is unlikely to take longer. “
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Even if it were possible to implement nuclear energy more quickly, the costs involved in delivering energy to Australian homes and businesses would be totally impractical, given the alternatives. In 2016, the Royal Australian Commission on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle found that “it would not be commercially viable to develop a nuclear power plant in South Australia beyond 2030”. In 2019, the Senate investigation acknowledged that “Over the past decade, estimates of low-cost solar energy costs at the utility level have fallen by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increase by 23% “.
Just this week, new Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen told the media that nuclear power is “the most expensive form of energy,” especially given the current cost-of-living crisis.
In addition, every review of nuclear over the past two decades has acknowledged that there is no bipartisan support for nuclear power and strong public opposition. Dr. Ziggy Switkowski made this clear in his comments on the 2019 Senate inquiry, saying that “there is no social license at this time.”