OPPOSITION Leader Kim Beazley has committed Australia to become the Albania of the Pacific.
It's as if he and his party are oblivious to the changing world around them -- like the frenzy of China's response to globalisation. It should not however condemn future generations of Australians to lives of new-era socialist poverty.
Forcing us back into the unionised labor force may make sense to a party which is the tool of the union bosses, but it would be the death knell for individualism and the entrepreneurial drive the nation will desperately need if it is not to become totally reliant on its role as the world's largest source of raw materials.
In rejecting out of hand the development of new uranium mines beyond the three already operating, Labor has joined the ranks of the darkest Greens who reject any co-operation with the Government's inquiry into nuclear energy.
Yet this is what ALP environmental spokesman Anthony Albanese has pledged to do, phase out uranium mining when the current contracts expire, and the Labor state premiers, Morris Iemma, Steve Bracks and Alan Carpenter, among them, have all vowed to block any nuclear power generation in their states.
1 comment:
The abject ignorance of their positions is startling and must make their counterparts in Europe roll about laughing.
The nation's peak conservation groups have already vowed to have nothing to do with the nuclear inquiry, and the ALP has joined them in making the ridiculous claim that it has been stacked with supporters of the nuclear industry.
The reality is that the enviro-nazis actually don't want anyone on the investigating committee who knows anything about nuclear power generation. They are opposed to factual argument because they, like Albanese, find it more convenient to deal in the fear half-truths can generate.
Chernobyl is continually cited as if it was the model for the world's nuclear plants when in reality it was typical of the busted-arse technology that strangled the old Soviet Union. Its meltdown was caused as much by human failure as mechanical breakdown, with untrained workers failing to respond to the emergency they faced.
Chernobyl is now a tourist site like much of the old USSR.
Labor's IR policies would ensure that any Australian industry that survives its strategy is equally frozen.
On the ABC's Insider program on Sunday, Albanese talked about nuclear safety as if every one of the 440 nuclear reactors currently operating around the world was a ticking bomb. He even had concerns over Lucas Heights.
If he knows something that the workers there don't, he should outline his concerns to the staff there -- or apologise, and shut up.
When Insider host Barrie Cassidy quoted Science Minister Julie Bishop, saying "Coal-fired power stations produce 320,000 tonnes of toxic waste; nuclear 20 tonnes" he tried to dismiss the figure by saying it referred to the waste "when they're in production, but in getting the uranium, getting the nuclear power stations up they're incredibly greenhouse gas intensive".
But he didn't produce a comparison with the start-up of coal-powered generators or coal production. Why not?
To make it easy for Albanese in future, this is the standard breakdown of nuclear power costs: capital and financing, 58per cent; operators and maintenance, 25per cent; fuel, 13per cent; decommissioning, 2per cent; spent fuel management, 2per cent. Nothing secret about them, nothing frightening, either.
Indeed, a cost comparison done in the UK shows nuclear power to cost 40-45per cent that of coal or wind when carbon emission and waste and decommissioning costs are accounted for, according to a Royal Academy of Engineering report.
Further, the University of Michigan has conducted a study of the life cycle damage cost of various technologies in cents/kilowatt hour (c/kWh).
Wind power came in at 0.005-0.008 (c/kWh), nuclear 0.04 (c/kWh), hydro 0.073 (c/kWh), solar 0.231-0.376 (c/kWh), natural gas 1.04 (c/kWh), and coal 1.59-6.02 (c/kWh).
And, for the Beazleys and Albaneses and others determined not to let the facts get in the way of the neanderthal approaches to energy generation, let them remember that solar only works when the sun shines, hydro only works when there is rain to fill the dams, and wind only works when the wind is blowing.
Further, some sort of fuel-powered generator must be switched on and running at all times when wind, solar, tidal and other alternate sources are used, so that base load power can be switched on when the wind stops, the sun sets, or the seas are calm.
There is an oil shortage, largely because of China's enormous thirst. For 20 years it was the largest oil exporter in east Asia, now it is the second largest importer in the world.
Of course, Australia has coal reserves, but that energy comes at a huge proven environmental cost, a cost far greater than that of nuclear energy.
There is also the ethical cost to be considered, but the ALP is apparently quite relaxed about Australian coal contributing to greenhouse gases so long as it can maintain its precious claim to moral superiority by banning mining of the environmentally cleaner nuclear fuel.
The ALP wants to be considered Australia's alternative government, and Beazley styles himself as the alternative prime minister, but in refusing to address facts about global energy he and his party have abrogated all claims to leadership.
akermanp@dailytelegraph.com.au
Post a Comment