1. Nuclear – update
Some outrage followed Bob Carr’s suggestion we should debate nuclear power as an energy option.
The Australian today has a piece by Amanda Hodge that includes:
“It’s an attempt to make the argument a coal versus nuclear debate to soften people’s resistance to another coal-fired power station, when the debate should be about coal versus renewable options,” one observer says. Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute agrees.
As executive director of the independent think tank, Hamilton is a keen observer of social and environmental public policy and says Carr’s record on the environment is mixed. While he has gained significant ground on the traditional “green” environmental issues, such as forests and national parks, he has had little success on the “brown” issues: industrial environmental concerns, such as air pollution and climate change.
The Australian also has an opinion piece on the virtues of nuclear energy by Leslie Kemeny with the comment that:
For many countries the reliability, safety, economy and greenhouse gas-free operation of nuclear plants has made nuclear energy inevitable. Unfortunately for Australia, which supplies 13 countries with uranium fuel, the technology has not been properly considered.
The paradox of a nation endowed with more than 40 per cent of the world’s economically recoverable uranium fuel but which strenuously resists its use in its domestic energy policies bemuses the global community. This is especially true of countries such as France and Japan, who manage to minimise their own greenhouse emissions through the use of Australian uranium.
And also an opinion piece by Bill Kininmonth that begins:
AS Australia develops policies for its diverse energy resources there is a need to ensure that the policies are based on sound economics, technologies and science.
Unfortunately, it is representation of the science of climate change where there is most uncertainty, including a fair degree of misrepresentation.
2. Pilliga-Goonoo – Update
According to Farm Online:
The NSW Government has offered timber mills in north-western NSW access to a further 15,000 hectares of high quality cypress forest.
This is a result of protests against its decision to lock up 350,000 ha of the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion.
I wrote about these forests, and environmentalism as a faith, for Online Opinion for World Environment Day. My piece included the comment:
We live in a secular society and value evidence. Yet it is the naive and romantic concept of nature that very often underpins public policy decision making on environmental issues in Australia. For example, when the NSW government announced a ban on logging in the Pilliga-Goonoo forests it described the decision as achieving “permanent conservation” of these iconic forests. In reality without active management there can be no conservation of these forests. The forests are less than 150-years-old and have grown-up with a timber industry that has tended the cypress and Eucalyptus creating tall trees and also habitat for iconic species such as koalas and barking owls.
3. Information Request
Jennifer, I need information on the transpiration rate of native grass and the depth that native grass would draw water from. Regards Gary
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.