Isherwood: Australia must go nuclear!

Isherwood: Australia must go nuclear!

Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood today challenged the Rudd Government to develop a nuclear industry and an “isotope economy” as a science driver and job creation program geared to build us out of the current economic depression.

“We are blessed to be sitting on 40 per cent of the world’s Uranium reserves and our Thorium mineral deposits rank number one in the world. We must use this valuable resource to survive the current crisis while securing a prosperous future for generations to come,” Mr Isherwood said.

Nuclear power takes advantage of the enormous energy-flux density available from an atom. Mr Isherwood elaborated, “It would take two million grams of oil or three million grams of coal to equal the power contained in just one gram of uranium fuel. For this reason, contrary to the opponents of nuclear power claiming high costs, the opposite is true. The world now has 438 nuclear power plants in operation and 48 plants currently under construction—experience has shown the world over that they provide the cheapest power of all.

“By contrast, it would be impossible to run our economy on solar or wind power—the miserable energy-flux density would drive us to Third World poverty,” Mr Isherwood warned.

“The latest fourth generation ceramic fuels, pioneered by General Atomics are super-safe—the reactors are literally meltdown proof. They will stay intact up to 2,000°C, which is well above the highest possible temperature (1,600°C) of the reactor core, even if there is a coolant failure.

“By applying breeder technology and spent-fuel reprocessing, we need not worry about running out of power. Nor do we need fear nuclear waste—it won’t even exist with reprocessing—in fact, this so-called ‘waste’ is a high grade ore containing large amounts of useful radioisotopes and industrial precious metals such as palladium, rhodium and ruthenium, in concentrations tens to thousands of times higher than their average content in the Earth’s crust. Breeder reactors use fuel recycling to obtain 60 to 70 times the energy value from the uranium resources. Australia alone has enough nuclear ore to power the entire world for many thousands of years, by which time future generations will no doubt unlock fusion energy and who knows—the possibilities are very exciting.

“Nuclear power is ideally suited for seawater desalination and with our island continent, we could pump fresh water, creating literally new rivers to green the nation.

“The most exciting opportunity is the ‘isotope economy’ where we use science to incorporate the 3,000 odd isotopes on the Periodic Table into our economy—we can separate, exquisitely fine tune subatomic processes and generate various species of atoms as raw materials for industrial production. For example, a fusion torch will be able to process and separate any material—low-grade ores, waste, seawater, or anything else—into component atomic species, obtaining pure isotopes from an arbitrary feedstock. With this technology, future generations will see our rubbish tips as a gold mine. This will all lead to new technologies for an expansion of human activities throughout the Solar System!”

Mr Isherwood concluded, “In 1895, Lord Kelvin, the President of the Royal Society of England said ‘Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.’ Will we adopt similar sentiments to this infamous mathematician and physicist and doom our nation to economic ruin? Or will Australians rejoice in embarking on an exciting science program to power us into the future?”

For a free copy of the Nov/Dec 2006 New Citizen, “Australia Must Enter the Nuclear Age!”, including a feature on “The Isotope Economy”, click here.

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