Energy & Nuclear

Once upon a time I often repeated the slogan ‘think globally, act locally’. It is perhaps this concept that Bob Hawke was promoting when he suggested last night that Australia become a dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste.

According to ABC Online he said,

“Australia has the geologically safest places in the world for the storage of waste.”

“What Australia should do, in my judgement, as an act of economic sanity and environmental responsibility, say we will take the world’s nuclear waste.”

I reckon it is a good idea – but would like to see a feasibility study. Now which environment group will be the first to condemn it?

The Prime Minister has just announced:

Today I am pleased to release the report of the Biofuels Taskforce. I commissioned the Taskforce in May of this year to examine the latest evidence on the impacts and benefits of ethanol and other biofuels.

The Taskforce found that:

1. there are potentially significantly greater health benefits from ethanol use than previously thought; and

2. greenhouse and regional benefits are similar to previous research undertaken; but that

3. the biofuels industry faces considerable market barriers including low consumer confidence and high commercial risk; and

4. on current settings the Government’s biofuel production target of 350 megalitres (ML) by 2010 will not be met.

I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to achieving our target of at least 350 ML biofuel production by 2010.

In a world of high oil and petrol prices, it is important that unnecessary barriers preventing the development of an alternative fuels market in Australia are removed to allow consumers to make decisions based on sound economic, environmental and social signals. In a climate where petrol prices are likely to remain high it is important to encourage greater use of biofuels.

Today I announce a package of measures to help address market barriers and restore consumer confidence in the biofuels industry.

The Australian Government will work with oil companies, petrol retailers, consumer groups, the biofuels industry and car manufacturers to ensure achievement of the target by 2010. In particular, the Government will work with the major oil companies to develop Industry Action Plans to underpin the achievement of the 350 ML biofuel target.

The Deputy Prime Minister and I will meet oil companies next week to commence the development of Industry Action Plans. This meeting will also provide an opportunity to discuss the outlook for petrol prices.

The Government will closely monitor progress against the Industry Action Plans to ensure all actions are delivered on time.

Consumer confidence in the biofuels industry was damaged in 2002. The Taskforce report finds that the low level of consumer confidence is not justified by the facts. The Government considers that every effort should be made to restore consumer confidence in the biofuels market. The Government will:

1. demonstrate its confidence in ethanol blended fuel by encouraging users of Commonwealth vehicles to purchase E10 where possible;

2. undertake vehicle testing of vehicles in the Australian market to validate their operation with E5 and E10 ethanol blends and work with the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries to ensure that consumers receive accurate and up-to-date information;

3. increase fuel quality compliance inspections to ensure ethanol blends meet fuel quality standards;

4. simplify the E10 label, which inadvertently acts as a warning to consumers against using ethanol;

5. subject to the results of vehicle testing, allow E5 blends to be sold without a label, as in Europe, giving fuel companies greater commercial flexibility to increase supply; and

6. work with Australian fuels and transport industries to establish standard forms of biodiesel to provide certainty to the market.

7. work with the States and Territories to adopt fuel volatility standards (an existing market barrier) that are transparent, nationally consistent and take full account of the latest information on the impacts of ethanol blends on air quality.

The Biofuels Taskforce found that there are potentially significant air quality and health benefits from ethanol use. To further assess and promote the benefits of biofuels the government will:

1. commission a study on the health impact of ethanol to validate overseas research under Australian conditions; and

2. promote biodiesel’s beneficial environmental properties such as its biodegradability through a B5 biodiesel trial in Kakadu National Park.

The package I announce today is in addition to the Australian Government

I missed the following in The Australian this morning,

CANADIAN miner Maple Minerals is to take control of one of Queensland’s richest uranium deposits in a gamble that the Beattie Government will bow to pressure to reverse Labor’s ban on new mines.

Maple acquired Ben Lomond mine, near Charters Towers, from French multinational Cogema earlier this year for a bargain $1 million, before Canberra’s decision last month to take over the Northern Territory’s administration of uranium mining.

The company is waiting for Queensland Natural Resources and Mining Minister Henry Palaszczuk to give final approval for the deal and is expecting an answer in coming weeks.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced a ‘National Fuel Ethanol’ program with plans to mandate ethanol blend E10 for vehicles and in this way reduce dependence on imported oil saving an estimated $1.8 billion. The ethanol will be made from sugarcane, corn, grain, sorghum, wheat and other agricultural crops, according to today’s Farm Online.

‘Fuel-injected feed fear’ was the headline on the front page of The Land newspaper on 25th August. Following the headline was a story suggesting beef lotfeeders, dairy, pig and poultry producers are expecting feed grain prices to increase as a consequence of Australia’s “fast expanding ethanol fuel lobby”. The article continued … A report by Canberra-based Centre for International Economics (CIE) puts present ethanol production (in Australia) at 130 to 140 million litres and lists 14 proposed ethanol plants, more than 80 of which would use grain as the base ingredient.

Is ethanol a “fuel of the future” as suggested by Arroyo. How will feedlots compete?

Every so often I am asked to be a part of Friday morning’s panel of guests at the local ABC radio station. Guests nominate their ‘big issue’ for the week and discussion follows.

I am on tomorrow (it will probably be today by the time I post this) and I have been surfing the net and reading the papers thinking about what I might nominate as the ‘big issue’ in the morning.

The event that seems to have passed pretty well under-discussed is the announcement in Moscow on Tuesday to build a $16 billion nuclear fusion reactor in the south of France.

The advantage of nuclear fusion over the current uranium-dependent nuclear fission plants is that there is no radioactive waste. Both fission and fusion are greenhouse neutral.

I gather that the nuclear fusion rector has been on the drawing board since the early 1980s and since December 2003 negotiations had been deadlocked over where to build it with the Japanese (one of six countries involved in the project others are Russia, South Korea, US, China and European Union) insisting that the reactor be
based in Japan.

Anyway on Tuesday it was finally agreed that the site would be Cararache, near Aix-en-Provence in the South of France. Cararache apparently already has 18 nuclear installations and is already a centre for research on magnetic fusion.

I understand that nuclear fusion involves the forcing together of atomic nuclei, typically hydrogen atoms, under high temperature and pressure potentially through the creation of magnetic cages with strong magnetic fields which prevent the particles from escaping. It is claimed the technology can potentially deliver abundant cheap energy whose main by-product is water.

The sun is powered by nuclear fusion. While the concept is not new, this appears to be the first big investment in developing the technology for commercialization. With all the discussion about greenhouse and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emission, the price of oil, fear that oil will run out, and the opposition to power stations based on traditional nuclear fission technology, it seems surprising that this announcement has generated so little public discussion.