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

Big ideas require bravery. I am calling on my colleagues across the chamber to demonstrate that bravery with respect to nuclear energy. Australia needs a bipartisan and objective approach to the question of nuclear energy. Should it be in our energy mix? If not, why not? I have long been of the opinion that, under any cost-benefits or impacts analysis test, nuclear is a winner. It is safe, clean and economic. However, the debate surrounding nuclear technology and power generation is anything but clean, often overflowing with fear and hyperbole.

Nuclear presents a new and exciting frontier for Australia. In nuclear there is hope, reward and opportunity: hope for good, sustainable, high-paying jobs, exciting new technologies and clean, cheap, sustainable energy. Nuclear fission using thorium is easily within our reach, and, compared with conventional nuclear energy, the risks are even lower. In Australia, we have the world's largest known reserves of thorium.

Opponents of nuclear power often jump on tragedies such as Chernobyl or Fukushima to terrify and to terminate debate. An important side effect of the Japanese government's decision to give in to fear and to not be ruled by reason was a 40 per cent jump in electricity prices. On top of that, Japan's CO2 emissions went from 1.33 to 1.5 billion metric tonnes in subsequent years.

With the announcement of a royal commission in South Australia, now is the time to address this at a federal level. Storing nuclear waste is something that former Prime Minister Bob Hawke has been a champion of and that I too believe in. President Obama describes the questions over the need for nuclear as a 'stale debate'. At a 2010 meeting in Lanham, Maryland, when he announced an $8 billion loan to build the first new reactor in the United States in 30 years, Obama argued:

On an issue that affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can't keep on being mired in the same old stale debates between the left and the right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs.

The cleanest and safest energy, statistically, is nuclear energy. The danger of nuclear power is conjectural and the pollution potential, compared with the known pollution potential of burning coal and oil, is minute. Australia needs to play to our strengths. We need to exploit the resources we have in the ground and the bounty in our heads. Allowing a nuclear industry to take hold is in line with the 'fair go, have a go' attitude our country was built on.

Educating more nuclear scientists is good for the nuclear industry, the future graduates and the university sector. Imagine how exciting it would be to unleash this unrealised potential—education, training, jobs. The future is clear: it is nuclear—zero carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and mercury emissions et cetera. Nuclear is the pollution solution. I have led the debate, with a speech to parliament in March 2005. McNair Ingenuity research between 1979 and 2009 shows support for nuclear power growing from 34 to 49 per cent in favour of the construction of nuclear power stations, with around 10 per cent undecided.

On renewables, the reality is that at present they do not stack up. RET schemes should be dropped, and all methods of generating power should be subject to the level playing field of competition. The subsidy for wind is more than 100 per cent. CSIRO estimate the levelised cost of wind power to be $168 per megawatt hour. Coal is about $80 a megawatt hour. These figures are generous in terms of the load factor, and they do not expect wind to be any more competitive by 2030.

According to CSIRO, nuclear is the cheapest method of generating electricity now, and this will still be the case in 2030. Wind power is simply a feel-good option for electricity. It is inefficient and costly. What parliament needs to consider is whether to legislate to allow nuclear power generation to compete. Economics should be left to power utilities to choose whether to use it or not, not government. It is imperative that Labor put aside petty ideology in the national interest.