FYI | May 01 2006
by Greg Peel (Continued from Part I)
The Howard government has refused to rule out nuclear energy for Australia, but is far from committal on such a sensitive issue for the electorate (notwithstanding the state issue). The Labor opposition spokesman on the environment, Anthony Albanese, is, on the contrary, forthright in his views (although perhaps not speaking on behalf of every Labor parliamentarian).
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, Albanese pointed out the obvious problems associated with nuclear energy, from meltdown to waste to bombs. He also highlighted that while the Chinese president was in Australia recently, he signed a $300m deal with a Tasmanian company to provide three wind farms in China. He noted China has a renewable energy target of 15% by 2020, compared to the Howard government’s 2%.
Said Albanese: "With investments in solar and wind power, clean coal and gas technology, and with the right signals in place, Australia can transform today’s energy industry into tomorrow’s energy economy without investing in nuclear power".
Indeed, Australia once led the world in solar energy research and development, centred at the University of NSW. That is until the government basically cut off the funding. In terms of wind power, we have become players on the world stage as well.
Not all of Scandinavia has joined the nuclear club. Little Denmark – another densely populated country – also felt the brunt of Chernobyl, but it has turned to wind as the solution. Presently Denmark generates 20% of its electricity from wind, with plans to move to 50%. Staunchly anti-nuclear, Denmark even forced Sweden to decommission two of its reactors that could be seen from Copenhagen’s most popular beach.
Sweden has scoffed back, noting Denmark still has to import hydro power from Scandinavia to both make up the difference and cover for non-windy days. One drawback of electricity