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Defend the ban on nuclear power

We need your help to defend the ban on nuclear power

We need your help to defend the ban on nuclear power.

Since 1999 domestic nuclear power has been prohibited by Australian law. This ban has served us well and helped avoid the high cost, high risk nuclear sector. But right now, these sensible protections are under threat from a concerted push by Coalition politicians.

A group of Nationals and Liberals – including climate deniers and skeptics – are now championing nuclear power as a climate response. 

In reality, promoting nuclear delays effective climate action. The challenges and opportunities around building a non-fossil energy future are pressing and real. We cannot afford to waste more time on culture wars and false solutions. Please add your voice to defend the nuclear ban.

A new Senate Inquiry looking at this push by Matt Canavan and others to get rid of the nuclear protections is taking comment until December 12.

We can’t let them get a foot in the door or it will become more than a distraction – it will become a diversion of resources, funding and focus.

Download our submission guide here to help write your own submission. Check out the committee inquiry page here.

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To help defend the ban on nuclear power and keep Australia nuclear free here are some key points and helpful links highlighting why nuclear is no solution to the climate crisis.

  • Nuclear is the most expensive energy option
  • Nuclear is slow. It can take decades to build and would require a decade or more to develop the legislative framework
  • Nuclear is dangerous. Either through human error, disaster, or as a military target the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear disaster would permanently pollute.
  • Nuclear is unwanted. There is long standing popular opposition to nuclear power in Australia because of the issues above as well as the unsolved problem of nuclear waste and the link to nuclear weapons.
  • Alternatives like renewables, storage and energy efficiency are faster, cheaper, more deployable and enjoy much more public support

Q&A mythbusting with Dr Jim Green

More about Australia’s environmental laws and the nuclear ban

ACFs new Status update on Small Modular Reactors “Wrong Direction”

One reply on “Defend the ban on nuclear power”

The revival of the push to establish nuclear power in Australia is deeply disturbing, especially as climate change accelerates. Those few politicians advocating nuclear power are way out of step with the Australian view on the reality of climate change and urgency of powering our needs via cleaner less expensive renewable energy technologies and other means as increased energy efficiencies and conservation. Those nuclear power advocates are also challenging Australian law under the EPBC Act 1999 which prohibits nuclear power in Australia. They want to amend the Act to allow nuclear power here which I find unacceptable in the extreme. The outcome of the last federal election demonstrated the urgency recognised in Australia’s voting population that we must accelerate the shift from fossil fuel dependency and towards cleaner greener energy generation. The science-backed IPCC’s 6th Report was extraordinarily clear on this point. The transition is existentially important. The charge that a particular group of Liberal and National party Senators have been trying to lead is dangerously untimely, worrying and I’m afraid ignorant. Nuclear power is no answer to our climate change challenge. It is too expensive, too slow to build and a necessary regulatory regime over it would be a decade or more away. It is a dangerous technology in its various forms from its cradle to grave, from mining uranium to any satisfactory means of managing its radioactive wastes. Controlling nuclear reactors safely requires perfect oversight by perfectly efficient tireless error-free humans. There are plenty of incidents and accidents that demonstrate we don’t meet these conditions and the results are tragic and will persist for many thousands of years . Nuclear power has a long history linking it to nuclear weapons. It has no social licence to commence here. Humanity has no time to waste on time-consuming, dangerous, unwanted nuclear power when we have the urgent problem of avoiding the climate tipping point that will lead to extinction of life on Earth as we know it. I strongly maintain that nuclear power remain prohibited under Australian law as per the 1999 Act.

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