nuclear-news

Australia’s uranium industry losing confidence?

“…an extended period of uncertainty…..A mistake by one operator or explorer or project developer in our industry affects all of us.”

Fukushima puts Australia’s uranium industry on the defensive Independent Australia, 2 Sept 11, The Australian nuclear industry feels the heat after the Fukushima calamity, but spins on gamely. Noel Wauchope reports.

With plummeting uranium prices, and increasinglybad news about Fukushima radiation, Australia’s uranium industry is well and truly on the back foot. But the industry battles on with religious fervour in its belief in the future uranium boom.

The Australian Uranium Association has put out a four page *promotional brochure,  which illustrates the anxiety that underlies that belief.  Indeed the second half of the brochure is almost a plea to the industry to be extra careful, and a prediction of

“…an extended period of uncertainty…..A mistake by one operator or explorer or project developer in our industry affects all of us.”

The purpose of the brochure is to jolly up business, and anyone connected with the uranium industry, and to shore up solidarity with “our peers in the nuclear fuel cycle”.  It is a call to “reinvigorate the case for the nuclear industry”, to put “the compelling case for the nuclear industry to be re-stated” and that “Fukushima is a test for the global nuclear industry“.

The first two pages of the brochure put pro-nuclear arguments that are predictably full of self-serving half-truths and lies……

Energy security: the brochure makes a weak case for “expanding or creating nuclear industries” as a means of diversifying energy sources. This one is a puzzler from an industry that aims to export the fuel.  Surely, if a country with nuclear power is relying on importing Australia’s uranium, then it obviously does not have energy security. Then there’s the need for countries to export the nuclear wastes. Solar, wind, wave energy really do provide locally controlled energy, with no need to import fuel or to export waste, which in the case of nuclear power is  toxic for many thousands of years…..

September 2, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs