Nucleat Power in Australia

Australia should adopt nuclear power as its main source of power

Currently, an increasing number of countries have developed nuclear power and adopted nuclear power as their main source of power. However, not all countries support the development of nuclear power. A great deal of residents concerns which have swept across much of the developed world was caused by the growing nuclear industry overseas (Falk ,Green & Mudd 2006).In Australia, nuclear power is not used due to the worries about safety and pollution, but some experts point out that the perception about nuclear power should change, because it is possible that the use of electricity in Australia will double during the period from 2040 to 2050 relative to what it is today (Switkowski 2007).Opinions on whether Australia should adopt nuclear power as main source of power are divided. The controversy has become more heated following the growing concerns that traditional energy is running out. A majority of individuals tend to insist that Australia should not develop nuclear power. However, this essay will discuss that Australia should adopt nuclear power for several reasons: the raw materials of nuclear power, uranium, is abundant in Australia, and to a large extent, nuclear power is more environmentally-friendly and it can bring a lot of economic benefits for Australia, furthermore, the safety concerns are being addressed more effectively over time.

Firstly, traditional sources will run out during a relatively short period while the raw materials of nuclear power, uranium, is abundant in Australia. The traditional resource that Australia often use mainly consists of coal, natural gas, oil and hydro, compared with nuclear power, most of them are nonrenewable resources .For example, 'Australian rate of growth of natural gas production was 3% per year over the last five years. While our current rate of gas usage is such that we have 67 years supply, if this growth rate increases as expected as we ramp up LNG exports, current Australian reserves will be exhausted much sooner than this' (Sevior 2006 p.864). Consequently, these kinds of resources will not meet the demand of development due to the gradually serious shortage of traditional resource. In addition, the raw materials of nuclear power, uranium, is abundant and reliable. For instance, uranium is a type of common resource, and the even crustal abundance of it is about 2.7 ppm, which about the same as tin and zinc. There is an estimated 40 trillion tonnes of uranium in the Earth’s crust (Sevior 2006).And a survey suggested that actually, the Olympic Dam is the largest known uranium resource in the world (UraniumSA 2005). As a result, the raw materials of nuclear power will be sufficient to support the advancement in the foreseeable future.

Secondly, nuclear power is more environmentally-friendly than other kinds of traditional energy. Less greenhouse gas will be emitted when nuclear power plants are developed so that it can release global warming. According to World Nuclear Association(2010), 'Over one-third of human-induced greenhouse gases come from the burning of fossil fuel to generate electricity. Nuclear power plants do not emit these gases'. Therefore, it is suggested that compared with fossil fuels, Nuclear power nearly decreases all the possibilities of problems due to the reduction of CO2 (Bobric, et al 2010).In addition, nuclear power will hardly produce air pollution .It has been claimed by Javidkia , Hashemi-Tilehnoee and Zabihi (2010) that the energy which generated by new nuclear power plants are the most clean and environmentally-friendly source of energy among the existing power resources. In other words, nuclear power is a kind of clean energy which does not have emissions , pollution and little waste when it is planned, developed, operated and managed in a reasonable way(Balat 2007). As a conclusion, nuclear power should be the alternative of traditional resource and built as the most efficient way to gain sustainable development.

Finally, nuclear power will bring a great deal of economic benefits for Australia. Even though the capital cost of nuclear power plants is relatively high, the operating cost of managing the plants and generating energy is extremely low. According to the World Nuclear Association (2011), ' the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant '. As a result, nuclear power plants are often called "cash machine" due to the low operating cost and high efficiency (World Nuclear Association 2011).In addition, establishing new nuclear power plants means that more employment opportunities will be created and offered. It is claimed that almost 500 employees and extra jobs are needed from the local community and area respectively when a new nuclear power plant is built (CASEnergy Coalition 2009).Consequently, developing new nuclear plants can relieve the employment problems and competitive stress as well.

It has been suggested that despite the arguments outlined in the previous paragraphs, Australia should not adopt nuclear power as its main source of power because establishing a nuclear power industry is an extremely 'complex and dangerous technology '(Eureka Street 2007).Actually, Australia does not have a good record in the safety management of other technologies (Eureka Street 2007).However, even though nuclear power cannot guarantee perfectly safe and technology needs to be improved, there is no doubt that with the help and assistance from other professional institutes, nuclear power will hardly cause serious safety problems ,According to Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization(1987), 'strong international cooperation with overseas counterparts and nuclear-focused multinational organizations' helps improve Australia’s nuclear research, which could result in improve research outcomes and sharing more effective knowledge. Therefore, safety will not be a big problem and nuclear power will be much safer than people imagined. In addition, nuclear radiation and disposal of nuclear waste ,which people are worried about most ,will not cause significant effects on people and environment. It has been claimed that nuclear power plants have the highest level of security among the power sources which have been inspected and have the least fatal accidents (Javidkia, Hashemi-Tilehnoee & Zabihi 2010).Furthermore, Nuclear specialists have comprehensive experience in terms of handling of radioactive material and 'have designed safe, secure and reliable means of its transportation, storage and disposal' (American Nuclear Society).Consequently, waste from nuclear power has little detrimental influence on individuals or on the environment because of effective shielding and storage (World Nuclear Association n.d).

To sum up, Australia should adopt nuclear power as main source of power. This is because the raw materials of nuclear power is sufficient in Australia, nuclear power is also more environmentally-friendly and a lot of economic benefits will be brought for Australia with the usage of nuclear energy. What is more, nuclear power is much safer than people imagine. It can be seen from the arguments above that if nuclear power is allowed to develop in Australia, the country can benefit in many aspects such as technology and the economy without worrying about shortage of energy. Therefore, nuclear power will be an overwhelming trend in the future.