Climate Change and Nuclear Power in Australia - a speech by Dr Ziggy Switkowski

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a luncheon arranged by The Australian German Association where Dr Ziggy Switkowski was key speaker.

Ziggy has previously been CEO of Telstra before the Sol era and is now chairman of ANSTO.

The subject was climate change and the future of nuclear power in Australia. What follows is a summary of his speech.

Since the turn of the century, much like Information and Communications Technology, the interest and investment in Nuclear power has been rapidly increasing.

It is interesting to note that after Chernobyl, almost 20 years passed around the world before nuclear power was once again endorsed by major world economies. Now with Australia as the 15th largest economy in the world, there are no larger economies (with eception of Italy) that are not deriving part of their energy from nuclear and Italy is preparing to start. So with the global focus on climate change, you can be sure that Kevin Rudd is being asked on his international travels that as Australia currently has 40% of the uranium resources, why are we not utilising nuclear power?

Ziggy started with a case study of Italy. Italy have been holding off from nuclear and to date have been importing their power from France. Italians pay 30% more fore their power than other EU countries. They have made the decision to commence building nuclear power stations. Interestingly in 2007 84% of Italians opposed nuclear, in 2008 54% approved of nuclear power.

Since Chernobyl in 1986, it has been interesting to note that the countries most affected by the fallout in Russia, Ukraine and Finland have been most significantly increasing their dependance on nuclear power. The UK who are very focussed on climate change are increasing their usage of nuclear power to 30% by the 2030's. USA are acknowleding it will be very difficult to reach climate change goals without increasing nuclear power.

Australia's global demand for power increases the same as globally at about 1-2% a year. 80% of that is base load, that needs to be maintained 24/7 365 days a year that can only be maintained by production from coal, gas, hydro or nuclear. Renewable power cannot be guaranteed 24/7, except perhaps geothermal that is limited by location.

If for example we start moving toward electric cars, the base load requirement will increase faster.

Australia's energy and climate change policy relies on:

• Expected conservation of energy, which is not happening with our increased use of technology globally as economies become more advanced
• Accelerated deployment of wind and solar as substitute for coal and gas
• Clean coal technologies (if they work)
• With no need for nuclear

Ziggy suggests that this is improbable.

Australia's enquiry into nuclear has suggested it will take 15 years to produce a nuclear power plant. This is pretty conservative given Italy plan 10 years and Egypt plan 8 years.

Ziggy suggests that Australia should plan to have its first nuclear power plant by 2020 and 50 reactors by 2050. These would then produce 90% of Australia's power and our climate change problems will be solved completely with our current 600 million tonnes of carbon produced per year reduced to 200 million tonnes by 2050 as per our climate change goals.

Smaller nuclear reactors like those used in nuclear subs which are the size of a shipping container could be used to power small towns and mining communities.

When it comes down to what are the concerns for nuclear it comes back to; what are we going to do with the waste? and where should the reactors go?

Ziggy provides an example. NSW is 800,000 square kilometres, about the same size as Germany who have found room for many nuclear reactors. Japan has 127 million people, is about the size of Victoria and has 55 reactors. Ziggy believes the reactors will be best placed where existing coal power stations are located.

With waste, nuclear reactors are designed to store the waste they produce for their lifetime - which is 50 years. From there waste can be transferred to a central location that is geographically stable, not too close to water or population centres, which Ziggy suggests we have quite a few relevant locations in Australia.

Ziggy suggests that the first 1 or 2 reactors will always be the most difficult to get approval for, but then if you take France as an example, once the population sees the benefits of the reactors, communities start bidding for the next reactor. France has moved to 80% of power generated by nuclear over the last 50 years.

The nuclear industry is also the only industry which self funds decommission of their power stations and storage of waste. Also half of the $4billion required to create a nuclear reactor is spent on safety. Even though a nuclear power station is 4 times the cost of a coal power station, Ziggy argues that into the future as a cost is applied to the production of carbon, nuclear will become the cheapest production option.

Regarding safety, staff are on a 6 week roster and just like commercial pilots, staff go for 1 week simulation training every 6 weeks.

Also as R&D recommences this decade after memories of Chernobyl fade the 4th generation of nuclear power plants will be expected by the 2030's where the amount of waste created will be significantly reduced as a higher proportion of fuel is re-used and spent.

So if Australia is to go down the nuclear route, there will need to be a few things happen. Firstly, it will need both government sides to agree, as the time to get a reactor up an running will go through 3-4 political cycles. Tertiary training will also need to be established and sites will need agreement on.

One thing is for sure, as we continue to use more energy on all the technology we have in our offices and homes, the demand for energy will increase significantly over next 40 years. If the factors we are betting on (including clean coal), do not satisfy our need to reduce carbon emissions, the need for nuclear energy is highly likely and Ziggy presents a strong argument for why, based on what is happening internationally.

The next AGA luncheon will have Qantas's chairman in November and in December Brambles CEO will be key speaker. To find out more information and book a seat, contact:

Mathias Kopp

Vice President

Crescendo Partners

Level 41, Citigroup Building

2 Park Street

Sydney NSW 2000

Australia

Mob: +61 417 692 858

Office: +61 2 9334 7657

Fax: +61 2 9475 4348