Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Civil Nuclear Transfers to India Bill 2016. Before I get into the exact detail of the bill, I think it is important to have a look at where nuclear power stands in the world today. The best place to get the details from is the most recent report from the International Energy Agency, their 2016 update, which was only released less than a week ago. It puts the total for nuclear power, in million tonnes equivalent, at 662 million tonnes equivalent of energy. That is out of a total energy consumption in the world at the moment of about 13,600 million tonnes equivalent of energy. So 6.7 per cent of the world's energy supply at the moment comes from nuclear power. In comparison, solar power, solar PV, is not one per cent; it is actually 0.1 per cent, one-tenth of one per cent, of the world's energy supplies. Wind is 0.45 per cent. So, combined, the world is currently getting 10 times more power from nuclear than it is from wind and solar combined.

It is also interesting to look at the projections of the International Energy Agency under what they call their new policies, which take in all the Paris climate change agreement pledges. In short, going out to 2040, the world is going to need a lot more energy. Between now and 2040, the world is going to need another 4,000 million tonnes equivalent of energy every single year. That is an enormous increase from where we are, at about 13,800 million tonnes at the moment. Of that 4,000 million tonnes oil equivalent that we will need, about 1,000 of the 4,000 will come from extra supply in India.

As we go forward, we have to wonder where that extra energy will come from. According to the IEA's predictions, wind and solar combined to 2040 will provide an extra 432 million tonnes of oil equivalent. But nuclear will provide an additional 519 million tonnes of oil equivalent. So out to 2040, even though the world is promising to invest trillions of dollars in solar and wind, to meet the increase in the electricity or the power that we will need, more will be supplied through nuclear than through solar and wind combined. Fossil fuels will also increase by over 2,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent. The world has a great challenge ahead of it in getting this extra energy that will be needed. Nuclear has to play a significant part, and it will supply an extra 519 million tonnes of oil equivalent.

In considering what energy mix we need going forward, it is also interesting to look at a recent report by UNICEF titled Clear the air for children: the impact of air pollution on children. The takeaway message from that report is how important it is that we provide parts of the impoverished world with low-cost energy. Where countries do not have low-cost energy, they often have to resort to burning wood, twigs, animal dung and agricultural waste to power their homes, to cook with and to heat their homes. To put the problems caused by this into context, using the World Health Organization figures UNICEF estimate that outdoor air pollution results in 4.3 million deaths annually but indoor air pollution—those who do not have access to low-cost electricity—results in 3.7 million deaths a year. Combine the deaths from both indoor and outdoor air pollution and we are talking about eight million premature deaths in a year; over a decade, we are talking about 80 million deaths from air pollution. To put that into some context, the First World War and the Second World War combined went for a decade and during that time it is estimated that around 77 million people died. But over the next decade, we are looking at more deaths from air pollution than those killed in both the First World War and the Second World War.

Yes, it is both indoor and outdoor air pollution that we should concentrate on, but it is indoor air pollution that has the greatest adverse affect on children under five. That UNICEF report estimates that in 2012, 127,000 children under the age of five died from outdoor air pollution. Even though that number of deaths of kids under five is a terrible and tragic figure, the UNICEF report estimates that 531,000 children died from indoor air pollution in one single year. This is the consequence of over one billion kids growing up in homes where they do not have access to low-cost electricity. In those IEA figures, the greatest irony is that the burning of animal dung and wood counts as renewable energy.

It is not only the extraordinary number of deaths that we should be concerned about; it is the lifelong effect of social and economic deprivation that is exacerbating poverty and inequality. It is a cycle. If children are affected by indoor air pollution at a young age, they will have low-grade illnesses, lower attendance at school, reduced overall health that puts higher health costs on the economy, lower income and decreased labour productivity. And so the cycle goes on.

Also adverse indoor air pollution disproportionately affects women and girls because traditionally they are the ones who spend more time at home and they are the ones who spend more time near a stove cooking and breathing in that particulate matter. It is that particulate matter that we should be concerned about. When we are looking at the energy mix of the world going forward we simply cannot ignore nuclear power, because we know that nuclear power gives us no particulate matter. It is the cleanest power that we have. There is no particulate matter and no CO2. That is why we need to do the things that we can to encourage countries that are going to expand their nuclear programs in a peaceful way.

With our great uranium resources we need to help those countries progress, and that is what this bill is about. It encourages the Indian economy and enables Australia to provide them with uranium. India has an enormous task ahead of it. We know that between now and 2020 India is estimating that, as well as its nuclear program, it is going to double its domestic coal production to one billion tonnes, so from less than 500 million tonnes to over one billion tonnes. To put that in some context, the increase in India's coal production over the next 45 years is greater than Australia's total coal exports. India has 22 nuclear reactors and another five reactors on the drawing board. I believe that we have an obligation to work with India to supply them with uranium in a safe and practical manner. That is what this bill does. I commend it to the House.

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