The Climate Challenge
Climate change poses a serious risk to prosperity and to the wellbeing of humanity and the life with which we share this planet.
The scientific consensus is that human activity is driving the rapid change in our climate, primarily via the release of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. Despite global efforts, CO2 emissions are increasing.
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Energy production contributes to land clearing, and is the greatest cause of greenhouse gas emissions — globally and in Australia. And yet nuclear energy, which emits little carbon and requires little land, is banned in Australia.
The Role of Energy
Energy is essential to human prosperity. The story of the past century has been of people rising out of poverty by gaining access to more energy.
This increase in energy access is a major factor why, despite investment in clean energy, fossil fuels account for over 80% of all energy used.
The challenge is to continue to increase access to energy to lift people out of poverty, while phasing out fossil fuels.
The scale of this challenge is truly staggering. Overcoming it will need us to use all solutions available to us.
One of those solutions is nuclear energy.
Rethink Nuclear
Australia is a wealthy, advanced nation that has benefited immensely from fossil fuels. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the world to be leaders in the clean energy transition.
While Australia is investing in solutions such as wind and solar, one solution is banned by law: nuclear energy.
The ban on nuclear energy and nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure is not in the Australian public's best interest. It is an unnecessary barrier to the deployment of a proven source of clean, safe and reliable energy technology. In the context of the worsening global climate emergency, such a barrier is morally and politically unjustifiable.
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Clean energy
The EU parliament in 2022 voted to include nuclear in its sustainability finance taxonomy following advice from the European Commission's official science advisory, the Joint Research Centre, which found that nuclear energy met the EU requirement to ‘do no significant harm’.
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“The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies already included in the Taxonomy as activities supporting climate change mitigation."
- Joint Research Centre
A report produced for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) found that nuclear energy has the lowest lifecycle environmental impact. Note that this is for the full lifecycle and fuel cycle, not just plant construction and operation. Read more.
Construction
“Nuclear takes too long to build” is one of the most common arguments against nuclear power. But does it really?
Key points:
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The global average construction time is 6 to 8 years to build a nuclear reactor.
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Reactors can be built very quickly: some have been built in just 3 to 5 years.
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Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) testified to the Senate in 2023 that Australia could potentially have it's first reactor operational by 2035.
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Speed of deployment is dependent on a countries willingness to facilitate the deployment. This is the same as other large scale energy infrastructure such as grid-scale solar or wind farms.
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There are multiple reactor designs commercially available with different supply chains, industry experience and thus possible build times.
Find out more about here.
What about the waste?!
Let's not waste nuclear waste!
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Currently used nuclear fuel is safely stored and managed. But it still contains enormous amounts of energy. It can be recycled, in advanced reactors known as a fast breeder reactors, and used to provide a future of abundant clean energy
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In 2022, WePlaneteer Dr Jo Lackenby gave an excellent TED Talk about why we shouldn't waste the potential of 'nuclear waste' to provide our clean energy future.