Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Carr, in his diluted effort this afternoon, has tried to point the government out as not being aware of where it is going with nuclear power. I find that ludicrous, given that there is no policy on nuclear power on the other side. Some on the other side say that we should mine uranium. Some say that we should not. Over the last two decades there has been a three-mine policy, which has effectively been a two-mine policy, and the only country it has benefited has been Canada. It did not stop the production of U308. It did not stop the production of plutonium. It stopped production only in Australia, where we lost billions of dollars because of that silly policy.

I will get on to the business of nuclear power in Australia, in the very short time that is available to me. Australia is blessed with 40 per cent or thereabouts of mineable—that is, at a profit—uranium. Australia is blessed with having not just uranium, with 40 per cent of the world’s known uranium, but also some of the oldest rock types in the world. We have in Australia what are called in geology the Archaean rock types, the penultimate ones being the protozoic rock types. We are also blessed in that the Archaean rock type that we have here is so old that it is geologically stable. As well, it is so fine and compacted that significant amounts of these areas—which compose a third of Australian rock, both subsurface and surface—do not have transportable water in them.

It is essential, if we are going to have nuclear power in Australia—and I am an advocate of nuclear power—that we have a waste repository system well and truly planned, like the Americans have at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. If you have a repository then the uranium atom can move very quickly, at about the same pace as HO moves, through rocks. That is very important. I want to come back to that in a moment. So the hydrography and the geology are very important. We know that a repository is absolutely and totally necessary.

I have been to several nuclear power stations around the world. I have not just visited them and had a look in the office; I have had a look down in the reactors in Taiwan; in Argentina, at San Carlos de Bariloche; in the United Kingdom; and in the United States. I will take one nuclear powerhouse in the United States as an example. Calvert Cliffs, in Maryland, is built on the edge of Chesapeake Bay, which is arguably one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the United States. Calvert Cliffs has 2,000 megawatts of power in it. It produces many more megawatts per year. It draws 1.2 million gallons of seawater from the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, circulates it around the nuclear reactor and returns that water to the top, where it is four degrees warmer, without any damage to the environment there whatsoever. Chesapeake Bay is near the capital of the United States of America. It is near DC, the District of Columbia. It is near a population that probably equates to the whole population of Australia—nearly 20 million people.

Calvert Cliffs has 2,000 megawatts. We are unlikely to ever build a power station in Australia with 2,000 megawatts. But that power station produces electricity into the Baltimore gas and electricity grid at a cost of about US4c a kilowatt hour. It produces electricity wholesale. If that were not happening and they were relying on coal or other fossil fuel, there would be hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO being emitted from that one power station alone. Remember that the US derives 16 per cent of its power from nuclear.

For the other side to argue that we can have wind power, solar power, hydro power, hot rock power or conjure up power from somewhere else—I do not know where—that is the pea-and-thimble trick. Of course we cannot. The wind does not blow all the time. The sun does not shine all the time. The water does not run all the time. These renewables are important in the scheme of things. It is very important to have these types of renewables, but if we want industry to continue in Australia, if we want our kids to have jobs, then nuclear power is the way to go. (Time expired)