Bob has suggested that we start posting blogs so as to stimulate Canwin discussions on various apparently more controversial issues upon which we cannot, as yet, find consensus (the ‘b list’). Bob suggests we do this by posting suggested Federal policy points, as modelled in the points passed by majority at the last GM (the ‘a list’). Good idea. So I’d like to start with the nuclear fuel cycle. Here’s my suggested formula:

Phase out uranium mining and prohibit the establishment of the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia.

Clarification: It is a convenient myth to think one can just talk about nuclear power plants. These in fact cannot be separated from the whole nuclear fuel cycle: from uranium mining, via uranium enrichment, nuclear power plants, nuclear fuel reprocessing to nuclear waste disposal, nuclear transports between all these facilities and eventual plant de-commissioning. This whole nuclear fuel cycle creates a whole complex series of various forms of routine contamination and extreme danger. Here are just some of them.

• Uranium mining creates huge mountains of millions of tonnes of radioactive tailings which wind and water then spread into the environment for thousands of years.
• All nuclear facilities emit radioactive isotopes even under routine conditions. Routine radioactive emissions from uranium enrichment plants and fuel reprocessing plants are much higher than those from nuclear power plants.
• Even when routine emissions are considered ’small’, radioactive isotopes (e.g. cesium 137, strontium 90) must inevitably bio-accumulate up the food chains and contaminate food , breast milk etc., further adding to our toxic loads and those of our children, born and unborn, creating more terrible suffering of various kinds
• All nuclear facilities may undergo catastrophic accidents (e.g. Chelyabinsk, Sellafield, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl), releasing volumes of radioactivity into the environment that may dwarf the radioactivity released in Hiroshima
• The Russian Academy of Sciences estimated the deaths from Chernobyl at 200,000
• All of these facilities are an inherent security risk in that they provide all terrorists or wartime enemies with dream targets with which to get maximum destruction with minimum means
• The ‘peaceful’ nuclear fuel cycle is inherently linked to the spread of nuclear weapons of mass destruction and the undermining of nuclear non-proliferation
• The nuclear waste issue has not been solved, and in fact cannot be since no toxic materials can ever be artificially kept from the environment for thousands of years without the possibility of any leaking
• The whole nuclear cycle could not work without massive inputs of fossil fuel to keep it going and thus contributes to climate chaos
• The nuclear fuel cycle contradicts every single one of the five basic precepts of ecological sustainability formally accepted by all levels of Australian government in 1993 (ecological integrity, intra-generational equity, inter-generational equity, internalisation of external costs , the precautionary principle)
• It is thus purely and simply unethical from beginning to end.

Add to this list the generally accepted fact that nuclear power cannot exist without massive taxpayer subsidies and not enough can be built quickly enough to make any substantial difference to reducing greenhouse gases within the timeframne needed (the next ten years), and the whole case for nuclear power crumbles into a heap.

To support nuclear power - even as a so-called ‘last resort’ – would be to unethically add wholesale radioactive contamination to an already ecologically devastated and over-heated world. No climate change group can support it without losing all ethical credibility.

Peter

peter General