Labor spin wearing thin on anti-nuclear stubbornness

Graham Lloyd reveals the lack of justification for pulling out of the Generation IV International Forum (“Nation’s technological edge about to become much duller”, 23-24/11). It shows, once again, Energy Minister Bowen making decisions against Australia’s long-term interests. We will lose the opportunity to co-operate on research and development of next-generation nuclear energy systems. Only a minister unaware of Australia’s early involvement with the Forum, and the exciting new technological developments, could justify this decision.

For example, the US regulator has recently approved for construction two small-scale molten salt reactors. Bowen’s implausible justification that solar worked better in Australia because London only had 1633 hours of sunshine in an average year, whereas Melbourne had 2362 hours, was embarrassing. You can only imagine how this went over with our allies and the international COP audience at Baku. Labor’s resort to spin is wearing thin, as is maintaining a prohibition on nuclear energy.

The Chernobyl disaster rightly led to a worldwide movement of concern. But in the four decades since, technology has developed, even while some minds have remained closed.

Jennie George, Mollymook, NSW

Graham Lloyd shrewdly sets out how ideology has created weakness in our national decision-making. Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen have turned their backs on the opportunity to work and learn about nuclear technology as part of a group of nations, ultimately to build Australia’s strength and resilience through the use of nuclear energy.

How can our politicians be so pig-headed in this vital resource, especially when their preferred technologies are so obviously failing our needs, ruining our economy and damaging our environment?

Robin Southey, Port Fairy, Vic

Thank you, Chris Uhlmann, for shedding such clear light on the energy debate (“Coal comfort for the energy illiterate”, 23-24/11). It’s particularly timely, as we see protesters bobbing around Newcastle harbour in their little canoes and surfboards demanding climate action. I hope they read Uhlmann’s column. But they most likely won’t. Uhlmann ask: “What on Earth are we going to do?” The answer is obvious. It is to do something and to use our wealth to adapt to a changing climate. We have adapted for millennia to climate change and we will to continue to in the future.

John Bradford, Mermaid Beach, Qld

Chris Uhlmann rightly highlights the significant role fossil fuels play in daily life. Over the past century, the global population has quadrupled to 8 billion, while poverty levels have decreased from 50 per cent to below 20 per cent. The issue is not fossil fuels themselves but the sheer volume being burned. Activists advocating for an immediate halt to fossil fuel extraction risk plunging vast numbers of the world’s population into poverty. The focus should not be on stopping mining entirely but on minimising emissions through improved efficiency, carbon capture and storage technologies, and the development of viable replacements. Shutting down fossil fuels before alternatives are in place would be immoral.

Don McMillan, Paddington, Qld

In his latest opinion piece, Chris Uhlmann cuts through the lofty verbiage of our energy debate to tell us what probably most of us already suspect: that under Labor the nation is on a needless course to energy poverty and declining living standards. As he reminds us, “the wealth of nations is directly linked to their access to coal, oil and gas” – commodities Australia is generously endowed with – and that is unlikely to change, even as we continue to deface vast areas of our rural landscape with wind turbines and solar panels.

European countries have already been forced into humiliating retreats from their forays into renewable energy transition and, as Uhlmann argues, it won’t matter a jot to the global warming process if Australia weans itself off coal and gas. Fossil fuels received further endorsement from mining mega-magnate Gina Rinehart in a speech in Moomba to mark National Mining Day, in which she again raised the issue of the unreliability of wind and solar power generation: “By all means put these on your own properties, if you wish, but stop forcing this on us taxpayers.”

Peter Austin, Mt Victoria, NSW