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

After that long emotive speech by Senator Faulkner I want to talk about something that is not quite as emotive but has some more truthful impact. I want to talk about uranium and its position with respect to electricity generation. Australia is a nation that has an increasing population, which currently stands at a little over 20 million people, on three million square miles of the most wonderful country in the world—and it is diverse. It is expected that energy demand will increase by three per cent on a compound basis per annum up to the year 2020, and almost certainly beyond that date.

As our population increases there will be a greater strain on the availability and supply of essential services such as electricity, water and gas. These are common and essential services to which Australians can expect to have access on demand, and rightly so. In order to accommodate this increase we are going to have to look at different alternatives so that the inevitable demand that will be created can be met. The public perception of nuclear energy is one that is often misconstrued. The advantages that nuclear energy has are vast, and if we look at countries such as Sweden, France and the United States that have adopted nuclear energy as a major source of power supply—and France with 79 per cent of its total electricity is the biggest exporter of electricity in the world—then it is evident that it is a beneficial method of generating electricity that contributes little or zero to greenhouse gases.

Without question, Australia has been and currently is heavily reliant on fossil fuels such as coal, both brown and black—with brown coal being the worst offender—natural gas and oil, and they have had a major influence upon this country’s economy and our environment. Fossil fuels are used in the production of nearly 80 per cent of the world’s energy. We are the largest exporter in the world of coal, which allows domestic electricity to be produced relatively cheaply in comparison to the cost in some other nations, including Japan. At present, coal provides 84 per cent of Australia’s electricity, of which 55 per cent is produced from black coal and 29 per cent from brown coal. Hardly any other developed country has such a heavy reliance on coal for generation of electricity. We produce and export in vast quantities metallurgical and thermal coal, metallurgical being for the production—not exclusively but predominantly—of steel, and thermal coal being for the production of electricity.

One of the arguments against nuclear energy is the spent uranium fuel that is created, yet the burning of fossil fuels releases dangerous and toxic emissions—millions of tonnes per annum—into our environment which contribute to the perceived greenhouse problem. But this is often ignored or not questioned. The vast ash dumps that are left behind after the thermal action are more damaging than the small amount of nuclear waste is—and I think particularly of Aberfan in Wales in the 1960s where a coal dump crept over a school and smothered over a hundred Welsh schoolchildren. What is going to occur as the population increases and demand on power supplies increase? Is the solution simply to burn more coal and create bigger ash dumps to meet the supply? At some point in the future, fossil fuels are going to cease to exist. At some point in the future we are going to have to go to the alternative of uranium. At some point in the future fossil fuels are going to be something of the past. They are a non-renewable resource, so once they have been extracted from the earth there is no way known of regenerating these particular sources of thermal electricity.

Are we to wait until this declining resource no longer exists before implementing other alternatives? Yes, solar power is important, but the sun does not shine at night. Yes, wind power is an alternative, but it is expensive, it does not always turn the alternators and it kills tens of thousands of birds around the world annually. The use of coal and other fossil fuels to generate electricity has been the preferred method of many countries, such as Australia, for generations. Take, for example, China. They currently have nine nuclear reactors in operation. They are located where there is inordinate economic growth and, as a result, demand for electricity, and little access to economic grades of high-grade thermal coal except from, predominantly, Australia. While 80 per cent of China’s electricity is still supplied by coal, there is a more concrete trend towards increasing nuclear powered electricity. They are experiencing a large—massive—and not entirely expected increase in power demand. If the growth rate continues at the current exponential 16 per cent per annum then, notwithstanding the current massive increase, China will experience severe power shortages. With such a reliance on coal as the main power source and a dramatic increase in demand, is it any wonder that coal miners are considered to have the most dangerous job in China? In 2003 more than 6,000 miners—some figures say more than 10,000—died in accidents that occurred in Chinese coal mines. This figure is almost incomprehensible to us, yet, tragically, it is nothing out of the ordinary for the Chinese industry. The same number of lives were lost in 2004. The Chinese Mining University has calculated that in China 12 miners lose their lives per million tonnes of coal. This is all in the name of providing electricity via coal. The Chinese government is committed to using nuclear energy as a greater source of electricity generation and there are plans for a further 36 reactors to be in use by 2020.

There are currently 31 countries using nuclear power to source some of their energy, produced from a total of 440 reactors throughout the world. The United States has the largest number of nuclear reactors—almost a quarter of that number—at 103. There are approximately 30 reactors under construction throughout the world at the present time. Some of these are in the Asian region, in nations such as China, the Republic of Korea and Japan. It has been predicted by the International Atomic Energy Agency that over the next 15 years a further 60 nuclear reactors will be built. Again, many of these will be built in the Asian region as more continue to move towards nuclear power.

Australia is one of only a handful of developed nations that is not using nuclear energy as a major source of electricity. This is due to several factors, such as the large and accessible reserves of high-grade thermal coal that we have. Currently, nuclear power displaces about 2½ billion tonnes per year of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide relative to coal. Let me repeat that: currently, nuclear power displaces nearly 2½ billion tonnes per year of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide relative to coal. For every 22 tonnes of uranium used for electricity there is an emission of about one million tonnes of carbon dioxide relative to coal that is saved from entering the environment. France, one of the major users of nuclear energy—at 79 per cent—has managed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by one-third since 1980. This would not have been possible had they not been reliant significantly upon nuclear power.

The Uranium Information Centre has predicted that, within the next 15 years, current infrastructure used to generate power is going to have to be replaced. The UIC has calculated that if a gas-fired plant were used as a replacement for coal a decrease of up to 30 millions tonnes of CO emissions would be experienced. Fifty million tonnes of greenhouse gases could be saved if six nuclear reactors were used to replace the current infrastructure. It is currently estimated that CO emissions total 9.9 billion tonnes worldwide from the production of electricity, and this is estimated to increase to 16.8 billion tonnes by 2030. Considering that the worldwide consumption of electricity is expected to double over the next 25 years, it is no wonder these emissions have increased so dramatically.

One of the major arguments used against the use of nuclear energy is the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The incident saw 31 people killed and a further 10 people have passed away due to excess radioactivity that caused, predominantly, thyroid cancer since the accident. Although this was unquestionably a tragedy—any loss of life, even a single loss of life, is regrettable anywhere—the event is not a reflection upon the use of nuclear energy in general. It is the only tragic incident to have occurred in the production of nuclear power and it resulted from a poorly designed reactor and a lack of qualified and trained staff. It occurred as a result of human error. Lessons have been learnt from Chernobyl as to the design and operation of reactors, and the industry worldwide works more closely than it did before the accident. It is not a valid argument to say that nuclear energy should not be used because of Chernobyl. I would advise my colleagues and people throughout this nation not to listen to the green, goebbelsian propaganda. (Time expired)