Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources investigated the development of the non-fossil fuel energy industry in Australia and considered a case study into the strategic importance of Australia’s uranium reserves. Fossil fuels are running out, while electricity demand in Australia is expected to continue growing strongly, more than doubling by 2050. We need to know how we are going to produce that additional energy. Today we have recommended that the Australian government identify and fund an authoritative scientific organisation to prepare and publish objective information relating to uranium mining, the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear power.

Australia’s uranium reserves comprise an estimated 40 per cent of the world’s known estimated uranium reserves. However, any conclusions this committee has made and any conversations about developing Australia’s uranium reserves are purely hypothetical without the cooperation of the state and territory governments. The committee has recommended that the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, through the Council of Australian Governments and other means, encourage state governments to reconsider their opposition to uranium mining and abolish legislative restrictions on uranium and thorium mining and exploration where these exist.

The majority of Australia’s uranium reserves are in Western Australia—in my electorate, to be more precise. We cannot access them because the current state government has a ban in place and will not even discuss the issue. Uranium mining would bring enormous economic benefit to the people of my electorate, to Western Australia and to this nation as a whole. The demand for uranium has never been higher and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future.

There are nearly 450 nuclear plants worldwide, with many more under construction or planned. Nuclear power fuelled by uranium now accounts for 16 per cent of the world’s power generation. The Western Australian state government is holding back this country’s development of a non-fossil fuel industry because Premier Carpenter does not think this is an important issue and he will not discuss the potential for uranium, which is considerable.

We have also recommended that the Australian government develop a communications strategy on uranium mining, uranium exports and nuclear power. This is a most significant recommendation for this committee to make. There is too much misinformation and misunderstanding of this issue. I speak to people about uranium almost daily, as everyone is aware of my staunch support for this energy source, and I have found that most people who oppose uranium mining or nuclear power have a very limited, often outdated, opinion. They talk about Chernobyl. That was 20 years ago. They talk about Three Mile Island. That was 27 years ago.

Compare that to the car industry. Seatbelts were made compulsory in Australia in 1970. From 1970 until 2002 the fatality rate dropped from 30.4 to 8.8 deaths per hundred thousand of population. This reduction was achieved in spite of a huge increase in motor vehicle use. Would you say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that driving a car is as dangerous today as it was before 1970? I think not.

Australia needs to have an open, informed discussion about the future. Short of communities giving up on energy usage, we will have to consider viable alternatives to fossil fuels. When you consider that one kilo of uranium in a fast-breeder reactor is equal to 2,700 tonnes of black coal or two million cubic metres of natural gas, it would be criminal to ignore another magnificent Western Australian resource.

Proposed also in our report is the question of creating a centre of excellence for development and service to the nuclear industry. The opportunity to value-add to our uranium resource through the creation of such a centre of excellence, the production and supply of fuel rods to the world—and the opportunity to do that on a lease basis—and attending to the transportation, the recovery, the reconfiguration and the resupply would greatly enhance our opportunities and therefore add to the wealth of this country as a result of developing our uranium resource.

There are many recommendations in this report—a report of some 700 pages. I believe it is one of the most thorough reviews of the whole issue of uranium. We received some 87 submissions on a whole range of topics—from the exploration for and the use of uranium, to the disposal of waste, the education opportunities and the employment opportunities—especially employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians. It is a tome worthy of consideration. I was speaking earlier about the need for Australians to be well informed about the issue of uranium and matters nuclear. This report is a publication that will serve many Australians well, given that they are motivated to find out some of the truths that surround uranium and nuclear waste.

The brief to investigate this question was given to us by the minister back in March 2005—and here we are in December 2006. So one can see that this was no mere glance at the issue. I am very proud to have been associated with the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources. In explaining my pride, I am also very pleased to acknowledge the hard work of our secretary, Mr Russell Chafer, the inquiry secretary, Mr Jerome Brown, and the assorted staff. They did a wonderful job in assisting us in the receipt of reports, the organisation of those reports and the field trips that we made to Beverly Springs and Olympic Dam to see the non-invasive methods of uranium extraction plus the open-cut and underground mining of uranium. It was a very worthwhile project, one that gave me great personal satisfaction and increased knowledge of the topic. I wholeheartedly commend this report.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This inquiry by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources began in March 2005, some time ago. You can see by the size of the report that the information gathering took some time. Bringing such an amount of factual information and detail together was time-consuming. It is a very good report, which deals with many of the issues—and I commend the report to members of the chamber and the wider community.

The committee was tasked to inquire into and report on the development of the non-fossil fuel energy industry in Australia, with particular regard to the global demand for Australia’s uranium resources and the supply issues. It was also tasked to inquire into the whole issue of uranium mining and the implications of global greenhouse gas emission reductions from the development and export of Australian uranium resources. When we first commenced the inquiry, there was little mention in Australia of uranium mining and even less of nuclear power’s much predicted global expansion. During the period of the inquiry, however, the committee noted a shift in the debate in relation to nuclear energy which seemed to be driven by community concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

There is a growing recognition that nuclear power could make a significant contribution to the mitigation of greenhouse gases. This realisation has led to some interesting debates, particularly as the green movement has been for many years diametrically opposed to any form of uranium mining and are still opposing it despite the fact that the whole industry has changed in all sorts of ways, including the treatment of waste—plus the fact that there is much less waste through new generation generators and the new technologies which are starting to emerge.

The main civil use of uranium is for the generation of power, and the demand for mining of uranium needs to be assessed in the context of the world electricity consumption trends and nuclear power’s share of electricity production. As we have been told by many of the submissions, global primary energy demand is forecast by the International Energy Agency to expand by more than one half between 2003 and 2030—reaching 16 billion tonnes of oil equivalent by 2030. Demand is projected to grow at a rate of 1.6 per cent per year over that period.

As China and India are now currently industrialising and there are other nations that are now experiencing power shortages for a number of reasons, they may also be looking at alternative energy sources. It is worth noting that the fuels used for the generation of electricity around the world can be broken down, and I think it lets people see exactly where energy is developed throughout the world. The majority of this demand by a long way is coal. Forty per cent of the world’s energy comes from coal; 19.2 per cent from natural gas; 6.9 per cent from oil; 16.3 per cent from hydro—all energy in Tasmania basically comes from hydro, except we now have a gas turbine in the north to give us some extra strength as well; 1.2 per cent from combustible renewables such as biomass; and 0.7 per cent from geothermal, solar and wind combined. I think it is worth saying that again: 0.7 per cent from geothermal, solar and wind combined.

I support renewable energy. We should encourage it and we should do research into it, but it has a long way to go before it is going to be the answer to bulk-load power. Nuclear was the fourth largest fuel source at 15.7 per cent. Therefore, it has been on the agenda for some time and the demand for uranium for peaceful means is very strong. With the industrialisation of China and India, that demand for uranium is increasing greatly as both countries need to extend their energy needs enormously.

The big issue of waste came up in a number of submissions. The report deals with that really well, in an open and constructive way. The evidence came through that the levels of waste in the future could be much lower because of new technologies such as pebble based technology and also the burning of more and more of the fuel as it goes into a reactor, with less waste left over to be dealt with.

Of course, the states have day-to-day regulation control of uranium mining, along with health and safety, but the Australian government at a federal level is involved in environment regulation, particularly the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which comes into play for any new or expanding uranium mine. So there are good regulations in place for this industry.

Labor members had a number of concerns and they noted that, while there is conflicting evidence about the demand for new enrichment facilities, the lack of governance for enrichment facilities under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the IAEA safeguards regime should preclude the development of new enrichment facilities anywhere in the world. Under the current regime, there is nothing illegal about any country having enrichment technology, yet the acquisition of highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is one of the most technically difficult but important steps towards making a nuclear weapon. If a country with a full nuclear cycle decided to break away from its non-proliferation commitments, a nuclear weapon capacity could be within reach in a short time. This is the dilemma now confronted in Iran.

The nuclear proliferation treaty needs to be reviewed. The committee recommends that it is to be addressed in a question in chapter 7 of this report. We also noted that Australia lacks the skills base necessary to support a domestic enrichment industry, and therefore we opposed that in Australia at the moment. There is considerable evidence that Australia’s geology is highly suitable for the disposition or disposal of nuclear waste and that theoretically Australia has the technology and skills capacity to develop a nuclear waste industry. The reality is that Australia has not yet been able to leverage its capacity to manage its own low and intermediate waste at any level. This is related to the history of dishonest political campaigns and a failure of national leadership on this issue. Therefore we need to develop and improve Australia’s capacity to manage domestic low and intermediate level waste, so it would be imprudent at any stage to consider any further developments of nuclear waste industry here.

We also considered that, while nuclear power is a useful and clean energy source, the development of nuclear power in the foreseeable future is not economic and does not stack up against the current power sources available. Australia has two current options for securing reliable and competitive base load power in the long term—clean coal and nuclear energy. Australia’s low electricity prices as a result of coal-fired power generation are a key source of competitive advantage for the nation’s industries, and Australia’s priority should therefore be to clean up coal-fired power generation, increase the uptake of gas and renewable technologies for peaking niche markets and support the research and development of new and renewable technologies for future base load.

At this stage on our side of the House, we therefore oppose the development of a nuclear power industry in Australia. This report has been very thorough, with enormous amounts of evidence and a hell of a lot of work. I thank the staff—Russell Chafer, Mr Jerome Brown, Ms Peggy Danaee and Penelope Humphries—for the task that they have done in putting together the work. I commend the report to the House. (Time expired)

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to echo the comments of the member for Lyons in terms of the efforts of Russell and Jerome and the staff of this committee for the work that they have done on what is technically, I think, one of the most comprehensive reports that this parliament has produced in some time. It does go into scientific detail in a way that is necessary to educate the public on uranium mining, and also the uranium industry as a whole, from enrichment and fabrication through to use in power plants and subsequent disposal. But it does not go into the cost of these things, such as the cost of a fabrication plant or an enrichment plant. It does not go into the likelihood or feasibility of any of that happening in Australia. Similarly, it does not go into the cost-effectiveness of a power station. Hence, the recommendations are qualified in terms of the cost-effectiveness.

It is no surprise to those on the committee that I have been strongly anti-nuclear since, I think, my school days—call it the Chernobyl factor, the Three Mile Island factor or what you will. I have an inherent dislike of nuclear power stations—a nervousness. There were years of scientific evidence that said how safe Chernobyl and Three Mile Island were, and these things just keep on rolling along.

The political costs are a critical thing that needs to be built into any comparison of nuclear energy and coal. That is something we did not really investigate, but I have done a lot of investigation of the American experience. They operate a number of power stations and, clearly, as this report indicates, all the waste is kept on site. As the power stations get newer and newer, the waste can be kept on site in ‘swimming pools’. The waste gets less radioactive, but eventually—and no-one disputes this—it must go somewhere.

The US power industry has levied that industry at 1½ per cent for 30 years now. In that time, that levy has raised over $US40 billion—and $US20 billion of that has been spent on trying to find a terminal solution at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada. Nevada—surprise, surprise—has three seats in the US House of Representatives. One seat is held by the Republicans, one seat is held by the Democrats and one is a marginal seat. At the recent elections, the marginal seat was barely retained by the incumbent Republican after a very long struggle. The future of Yucca Mountain was one of the key things on which he distinguished himself from the other candidates. He had a very strong pro local position of: ‘Not in my backyard; put it in someone else’s backyard.’

I fear that the typical reaction to nuclear power stations right throughout Australia will be: ‘Not in my backyard.’ The political cost of that needs to be calculated and factored into any competitive suggestion that nuclear power in Australia could possibly become cheaper than coal in the future. As this report shows, it would require fairly substantial imposts on the coal industry to make it anywhere near as expensive as nuclear power. Those imposts come in various forms. Carbon credits are currently trading in New South Wales at $14 a cubic tonne of carbon—and you can generate those carbon credits any which way.

There is a terrific program running in New South Wales whereby they are handing out light bulbs. The more light bulbs you hand out, the greater the credits you gain. But they found that people were not actually putting the light bulbs in the sockets. So now, to get the carbon credit, you actually have to go into the homes and put the light bulbs in the sockets—and you get carbon credits based on how many light bulbs you put in the sockets. Similarly, Greening Australia is working on a program to plant a number of trees—for which you get carbon credits that can then be traded for carbon emissions.

So how expensive does carbon have to get before it is competitive with nuclear? One of the recommendations of this committee is to build cost-effectiveness into any consideration of the impact it would have. I do not have a problem with an expansion of the three mines policy. We have been mining uranium in Australia for some time, and we have benefited from that. It makes no sense to have three super mines. Why not bust it up and have, in a competitive industry, as many people mine as want to mine? I think we all agreed on that.

This was a case study out of the committee’s main study into developing Australia’s non-fossil fuel energy industry. I really look forward to our examination of the other areas, particularly hydrogen. I think that has some fantastic possibilities in the future. Some of the emissions that we are most concerned about obviously are from our mobile transport, not just our power generators, in terms of cars and car traffic. You can see that in Beijing, Singapore, Rome, London, New York. It is the emissions coming from cars that need to be severely reduced to combat global warming. So hydrogen cars offer the best response to that.

There are some horrific figures of the number of cars in the world more than doubling over the next 10 years, so the drive to find a less polluting source than fossil fuels is huge—hydrogen is one of them—as is the drive to find a reliable green source of hydrogen. I think Australia is in a prime position, with some of our north-west Australian geographic features, to be a key deliverer in that area. We can see Australia jump from being a key provider of coal to a key provider of hydrogen into the future. I do not know that we have to go down the nuclear path at all. In the interim, I am all for mining it and making the most of our uranium resources, but I in no way endorse a nuclear industry in Australia. I do not believe that it would even economically come close to stacking up with coal before hydrogen offers us some better solutions in combating greenhouse gases.

So it was a very interesting report. My colleagues on the committee were very pro uranium and the industry as a whole. I suppose I have some natural reservations. Obviously, I could be the one out in the cold, because I did a straw poll of a couple of schools I was at recently. I noticed the nuclear fuel cycle was running on the storyboards around the classroom, so clearly the children had been studying nuclear energy. I asked, ‘Who’s in favour of nuclear energy?’ thinking that it would be like when I was at school and there would be a blanket ‘No’—that 100 per cent would just go ‘No’. Fifty per cent of the children actually said yes. So it could be like the republican debate: I could be out of touch with my electorate, especially the younger people coming through who obviously did not grow up under the cloud of nuclear obliteration from the old Cold War days or grow up with real-time experiences of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island happening in their lifetime. Clearly the younger generation have a much more scientific and forensic examination of the industry and future power sources for Australia.

Besides those reservations that I have, I commend the report to the committee. It is very technically drafted. It covers a lot of the information that most people need to know. I find it very easy to read—for the nontechnophobes or the technophobes of our parliament. So I do recommend it to my colleagues, especially given the whole nuclear debate which is generating in Australia as we move to the big question of what comes after coal. In the interim I still remain wedded to coal, and I think that marriage will go on long enough to see us jump to hydrogen before we need to resort to nuclear energy in Australia.

Debate (on motion by Ms Hall) adjourned.