ABSTRACT
The politics and economics of reducing carbon emissions is driving what is often referred to as a ‘nuclear power renaissance’, as the lives of aging reactors are extended and new reactors planned, especially in India and China (Behr 2010; Brook 2010a; WNA 2011). With around forty per cent of the world’s current uranium reserves recoverable at reasonable cost, Australia should, within a decade or so, climb back up the world’s uranium production rankings (currently it is the third ranked supplier behind Kazakhstan and Canada). Reducing carbon emissions, combined with declining oil production, prompts occasional bursts of enthusiasm from political leaders keen to compare the energy production potential of these resources with the oil fields of Saudi Arabia (Emmerson 2009). When one considers the energy producing potential bundled in a drum of uranium oxide, such analogies are not as foolhardy as one might suspect. 1 Moreover, nuclear power presents a strong case as the key low emission source for electricity generation through to mid-century. Renewable energy sources are often touted as likely to replace fossil fuels (Jacobson and Delucchi 2009; Wright and Hearps 2010). However, projected electricity demand, in particular in industrializing nations, suggests that renewable energy will fall well short of filling the gap, let alone replacing coal as the main source for electricity generation. Industrializing nations will drive the inexorable demand for electricity, predicted by the International Energy Agency to be in the order of 2.5% per annum to 2030 (IEA 2009, 4). This demand for increased capacity challenges the advocates of various renewable energy technologies to present a credible case, something energy analysts mindful of political reality doubt is possible. In this regard a realistic assessment is presented by Robert Bryce when he argues that the first half of the twenty-first century will see a transition away from dependency on oil and coal. But rather than renewable energy filling the void, it will be various types of gas and, significantly for the uranium industry, nuclear energy (Bryce 2010). 2 Australia is well placed to supply ample liquefied natural gas. But given a political culture of scepticism toward nuclear power, and ambivalence toward uranium mining, it is not clear whether Australia will develop fully its uranium resources while the opportunity best presents itself. 3
