Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I will continue with the speech.

With waste, how much, how long a life and what level of radioactivity would be acceptable? These are all questions that are worth asking, and they are questions that Labor rejects outright in its simple-minded world view that the ‘N-word’ is bad and never to be discussed in polite company. The fact is that the inquiry that the Prime Minister has called for will allow an evaluation of those issues and others.

Labor does not want to know the truth, which I guess is why it so strongly pushes social engineering in the guise of outcomes based education. Curriculum councils appear to think that science is something that should be taught in a social context, rather like one would analyse history. Labor clearly thinks that ‘right think’ is the way to go with this, and to hell with the facts. Imagine if we were considering the internal combustion engine 100 years ago. No doubt Labor’s position would be that we could drill three oil wells and export oil but none of those terrible, newfangled cars for us: ‘The horse and buggy will do us, thank you. They can use cars and oil overseas, but we cannot use it here.’ To take the analogy further: penny-farthing bicycles would be analogous to alternative energy. Labor would say, ‘Penny-farthings and horse and buggy would be acceptable, but no cars for us, thank you.’

Let us consider the three aspects that are relevant to this important energy source: safety, economics and waste. Regarding safety, as I mentioned in my speech last year, nuclear power is demonstrably the safest form of power generation. At present, only about 56 deaths can be attributed to Chernobyl. This is not the result of some study by some group with a vested interest. This is the result of a comprehensive study conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organisation. Consider the thousands of annual coalmining deaths and the probable millions who have died as a result of respiratory ailments due to coal-fired power. Consider the fatalities resulting from gas or hydroelectricity production, and it becomes clear that nuclear energy is very safe, even when you look at the history and take into account a substandard Soviet RBMK reactor.

However, for Australia, I believe that we should be using generation IV reactors, which are inherently safe. These reactors cannot melt down—due to the physics of the design of the reactor, not due to fail-safes appended to provide safety. As I said, with this generation of reactor, meltdown of the reactor core is impossible. This is not just theory; this was actually trialled with a pebble bed nuclear reactor. The coolant flow was stopped for a period of days, and all that happened was that the reactor temperature increased to about 1,200 to 1,400 degrees and stabilised there until the coolant flowed again. The reason that this is possible is that the energy density or energy per unit volume in these reactors is low, so they can never go supercritical.

There are added benefits of generation IV reactors. They do not require much water, so it is not necessary to site them near large sources of water. Effectively, they could be put anywhere in Australia. In reality, they would need to be close enough to their markets that transmission losses are not overly large. Most generation IV reactors also do not require enriched uranium, so the reserves of uranium would last about 50 times as long as it is assumed they will last for conventional reactors. It is significant that generation IV reactors, which will be modular in design, will allow small reactors to power smaller population centres and will allow multiple modules to be joined together at the site of larger power demand. So, while the antinuclear warriors believe that there would be only 20 years worth of high-grade uranium left if all the world’s electricity were generated using nuclear power, the reality is that current reserves, with generation IV technology, would last around 1,000 years, assuming no new reserves were found—clearly a ridiculous assumption. Nuclear power using generation IV reactors is extremely safe, and Labor should embrace the technology.

The economic side is put by some as a criticism. In fact, when you look at what is being considered, the economic argument is not a strong one. What this parliament needs to consider is whether to legislate to allow nuclear power generation. Economics should be left to the utilities which choose whether to use it or not. Interestingly, the fact that many in the antinuclear movement push this line so strongly indicates that they are concerned that the economics of nuclear energy do stack up.

Consider why this is so. Let us assume for a moment that their argument is correct—that the economics do not stack up; that nuclear electricity is too expensive. Why are they so concerned about legislation that would allow nuclear power generation? After all, using this scenario, no utility would build a nuclear power station. So whether enabling legislation was in place allowing nuclear power generation would be moot. Having said that, studies that I have seen, including an independent study recently commissioned by ANSTO, indicate that the economics do stack up—even for the current generation of reactors. Economies of scale with generation IV reactors will bring the price right down.

Then there is the issue of nuclear waste. This is a subject that is extremely sensitive to many people. There has been considerable misinformation put out on this issue. There has been a lot of talk of needing to have the waste stored under armed guard for a period of 250,000 years. This is unmitigated rubbish. This comes about due to negative elements stating that plutonium 239 has a half-life of 25,000 years and that you need 10 half-lives to be safe. This can be seen for the errant nonsense that it is by considering the following. Assume you have one atom of plutonium 239 in 10 tonnes of concrete. Does this 10-tonne block of concrete need to be stored for 250,000 years? Of course not.

The simple fact is that it is the radioactivity level of the entire high-grade waste element that needs to be considered. In that case, the radioactivity declines to a point where, in a little over 1,000 years, the radioactivity level of the fuel rods is about the same as the ore from whence it came. Alternatively, you could simply dilute the fuel rods by a factor of 1,000-10,000 to one and put it in the hole that it was dug from. This is largely the same ‘method’ that is used by coal-fired power stations with the multiple tonnes of uranium, thorium, cadmium, arsenic and lead that are put into the environment every year. With this 10 half-lives argument, consider naturally-occurring uranium. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. We had better put all the sites of uranium ore under guard for 45 billion years! This is clearly nonsense.

We have an ideal material in Australia to store radioactive waste: synroc. Synroc was developed as a result of the discovery of a natural nuclear reactor in West Africa in 1972. The way the uranium was distributed in the rock and the fact that there was water flowing, moderating neutrons, meant that a chain reaction occurred about 1.7 billion years ago. The interesting thing is that the high-grade waste was naturally stably stored in this rock for that time period. The late Professor Ted Ringwood of the ANU examined the rock structure and came up with a synthetic equivalent—‘synroc’, for synthetic rock—which will store high-grade radioactive waste for geological time periods. Not only that but also, if immersed in water, the leaching of radioactive material is one-tenth that of granite. Safe storage of nuclear waste is not a technical problem; the problem is one of political will.

As I said earlier, generation IV reactors in the majority of cases have the ability to use unenriched uranium. The waste from these reactors has far less volume than that from conventional reactors and the waste is short lived. It is safe to handle in 200 to 300 years. Furthermore, the depleted fuel rods from conventional reactors can be used as fuel for these generation IV reactors, meaning that these reactors can clean up the majority of the waste that is currently stored at various sites around the world.

In addition, generation IV reactors will provide a very useful stepping stone to thorium reactors, which will have very short-lived waste. The thorium cycle is proliferation proof; thorium is a lighter element than uranium. Australia, in addition to having the largest uranium reserves in the world, also has the largest thorium reserves in the world, and there is about double the amount of thorium compared to uranium.

Labor have been playing a scare tactic on the siting of nuclear reactors based on the left-wing Australia Institute study of proposed nuclear power plant sites. They believe that this will get them traction. I am going to completely disabuse them of that notion. On Thursday last week I was quoted in the West Australian as saying that I supported a nuclear power station in Tangney. This was repeated later in the West Australian on two occasions and in the Australian. The quote was taken out of context, but I did not worry about correcting it as I felt it might be interesting to see how the community really felt about nuclear energy.

Tangney is a small electorate and there is simply no space anywhere for a nuclear reactor. Given this, if Labor were correct with their fear tactic on this argument, you would think that my office would have been flooded with negative phone calls and emails and that my staff would have been totally snowed under by a mountain of comment. So how many negative communications did I get? I got two negative phone calls, one negative email and one protester outside my electorate office wearing an antiradiation suit. I would like to thank that protester for helping to raise the profile of both my electorate office and me. I telephoned the two people who had called the office and discussed the issue with them, and they are now both comfortable with the idea, having heard the facts on the issue.

Far from Labor’s scare tactic working and despite the Leader of the Opposition having the ludicrous idea that this is an idea that is going to wedge the government, the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to be a statesman and to consider our energy future with an open mind and not, as in the title of a recent movie, with eyes wide shut. If the Leader of the Opposition is unable to show leadership on this issue, then I call on Labor members who have shown leadership on the issue, such as the members for Batman and Hunter, among many others I have spoken to, to lead the way on the issue. This issue is far too important to attempt blatant politicking in the guise of defining responsible policy.

Let us look at the Labor Party’s position on the issue. It is clear that what we have is a cobbled together excuse for a policy in order to attempt to placate both sides of the party. I am tempted to say that the Leader of the Opposition is once again trying to walk both sides of the street, but I will refrain from doing so. On the cobbled together attempt at a conciliated position, we have a sop to the member for Batman on uranium enrichment to enable him to win with his union while, at the same time, trying to placate the member for Grayndler by insisting that we would have no nuclear reactors.

It has been said before, but it is worth repeating, that when the Leader of the Opposition said there will be no nuclear power in Australia under a Beazley government what he really said is that there will be no Beazley government. He has drawn a line in the sand and he is on the wrong side. My advice for the Leader of the Opposition is this: you do not lead from the rear. Be a statesman—the statesman you so desperately want to be. Lead from the front and have a careful examination of all the facts. Do not put politics before probity. Scaremongering on nuclear energy will not deliver you government; the public are better informed than most of your colleagues.

Debate (on motion by Mrs Gash) adjourned.

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