New Nuke-talk forum canvasses inevitability of nuclear and population growth in Australia

Mon, 2011-06-13 15:51 by Sheila Newman

An article in the Australian, by Josh Jerga, June 8, 2011, in the Age argues for a nuclear Australia based on business as usual trends implying continuing with projected population growth. These avoidable trends are implicitly used to justify pushing for nuclear power. For a long time nuclear power advocates have been getting away with this sloppy stuff. We need to specifically counter it.

Japanese resident, Tony Boys, has started a forum to give people a place to evaluate and discuss the arguments for and against nuclear in Australia at
FORUM NOW CLOSED, SORRY! But you can use Tony Boys' on this site for a forum, and be read widely.
On this forum, Boys writes, "The article suggests that Australia may have its first nuclear power station in 2022. As you will see below, one of the justifications for the introduction of nuclear power in Australia (and I think it is fair to say that it will not be limited to one reactor) is that electricity consumption will increase 35% by 2030. A projection like this almost certainly includes a factor of fairly substantial population increase. How do you feel about this (both the introduction of nuclear power per se and the assumption that population will continue to increase as a justification for nuclear power)?...

"Sure, the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario wants to extrapolate out the rising straight-line or slightly curved upwards and rising population and consumption curves and draw conclusions about the future on that basis. In an economy that runs on debt there must be growth, including population growth, or it just all collapses. But what's the realistic physical basis for this 'increase 35 per cent by 2030'? I don't think there is one."

If you would like to ask questions or contribute your opinion, please register on the forum here:

If you would like to read more articles about how the Growth Lobby in Australia works with the Nuclear Lobby, have a look at , notably these articles:

"MP Kelvin Thomson has come out with sound arguments pointing to the absolute folly of continued population growth in Australia. Immediately there is an absolute tsunami of growthist propaganda coming out of every media organ. We look here at how professional lobbyist for population growth and a built environment, Bernard Salt, handles this crisis by suggesting that the foxes be given more power in the hen-run. We suggest that maybe the professionals should stay out of the 'debate' this time and leave it for the citizens. Bernard is also predictably suggesting that all this population growth means we must go nuclear. More on this and for the logistics of power supply and the costs of setting up nuclear in Australia, and, on the Press and the Growth Lobby, Bernard Salt and Murdoch press cook up recipe for invasion."

"Nuclear power is promoted by the growth lobby as an investment opportunity which will provide employment, international importance, and new industries. Rationales offered to the public are the [manufactured] imperative to provide power for projected (politically engineered) population growth and the desirability of off-setting greenhouse gas contributions from coal-fired electricity and coal exports. (Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter.) Australian planning is dominated by what the corporate sector wants. There are many indications that public sector scientists are expected to support private, corporate research and development rather than leading with public research responding to public need, which might result in moderation rather than accelerated consumption. Let's look more closely at this 'investment opportunity'."

"Rudd recently said that Australia "will continue to be a nation of immigrants into the future." This remark prompted discussion on environmental lists about the PM's brain-box or sincerity because people wonder if he seriously contemplates indefinite exponential immigration. In fact there has been a barrage of similar material on the media from various officially anointed 'authorities', coinciding with Kelvin Thomson's recent criticism of government engineered population growth. The growth lobby is also taking advantage of the situation to market nuclear power as an inevitable, with no more interest in whether we can afford it than they have shown in the other costs to the public of their high immigration fetish."

"Some people were surprised to see an article by Ziggy Switkowski in Thursday's Australian newspaper questioning population growth "Populate without perishing" and wonder if an awareness of this issue is finally beginning to permeate the mainstream [press]. Dream on..."

You will read again and again about Gen IV reactors, as if they were already up and running. They aren't. It's all hypothetical:
"Potentially thorium breeder-reactors would enable a process of converting all the 98.3 per cent of the natural uranium into radioactive substances which can maintain a sustained fission process in a chain reaction.
No-one is doing this yet. Why?"

This article links political institutions to the ATSE/Scanlon report, "The technological implications of Australia at 30 million in 2030." The report advocates both the problem - growing the population and the 'nuclear solution' for the problem.

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