Nuclear the perfect backup power for renewables

Tony Grey’s article “Takeaway reactors could help power nation” (30/9) makes sense and is recommended reading for our politicians and opinion makers. Sadly, in Australia the image of a nuclear power reactor is a ticking time bomb spewing radiation continuously and capable of an explosion at any moment. The average citizen of this country is more afraid of nuclear radiation than COVID-19.

Australia had nuclear-related research and university courses for more than 70 years, but that knowledge has never percolated into the general population, the result being that public opinion is firmly against nuclear power.

As long as this mindset prevails, we will never have nuclear-powered electricity. This is unfortunate, as this form of power would usefully backup renewable sources instead of ongoing reliance on fossil fuel sources.

Bill Mathew, Parkville, Vic

While I fully endorse Tony Grey’s statement that Small Modular Reactors “would be ideal for us” I see no evidence of a “growing consensus” that we will eventually ditch coal.

China, India and other neighbours are building hundreds of coal-fired plants to operate for decades to come and until the dreaded virus arrived world coal consumption was more than seven billion tonnes a year. The argument that we should shoot ourselves in the foot and abandon our cheapest and most reliable power source is irrational, ideologically-driven nonsense that proves yet again the mob is often wrong.

If a power source is to be replaced by SMRs then let it be the failed wind and solar farms, not an unequivocal success like coal.

Doug Hurst, Chapman, ACT

Well said, Tony Grey, but the critics of your excellent article will no doubt respond with, “Nuclear waste remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years”, without suggesting how anyone could be exposed to a significant dose of radiation from it. If I still lived in England, I would welcome a properly designed nuclear waste repository in my backyard, with natural circulation of water through pipework to radiators that would heat my home in winter.

Don Higson, Fellow of the Australasian Radiation Protection Society, Paddington, NSW

How sad to read in Tony Grey’s excellent article the line that “Australia sits paralysed with no baseload options for the future”. Meanwhile, the well-advanced, safe and pollution-free technology of nuclear power is not even able to be properly debated. Please give us a politician committed to the well-being of the climate and our need for a reliable energy source who will stand up and push for such a debate.

Bill Service, Benowa, Qld

Paying the price

Spot on, Janet Albrechtsen (“Why hold only business to deadly double standard?” 30/9). Not only is the taxpayer slugged when politicians are found guilty of malfeasance when they use public money to pay fines, but I can almost guarantee that Victorians are now being penalised doubly by paying for a battalion of barristers and lawyers who are being briefed on how to find excuses to reject prosecuting the bureaucrats and politicians involved. This is like asking a family member to turn on their own — it just ain’t going to happen.

Glenys Clift, Toowoomba, Qld

The Augean stables were cleaned by Hercules in a day by diverting two rivers. Hopefully, people with authority and resolve, together with Australians becoming less complacent and requesting factual explanations, will achieve transparency and answers in the Victorian bureaucracy COVID-19 crisis. There can then be progression to the law courts, where appropriate determination will be undertaken, as has been the case with individual and industrial fatalities in the past.

Enrico Mocellin, Highton, Vic