Put nuclear in the energy mix, Coalition MPs tell Malcolm Turnbull

One in 10 Turnbull government MPs say nuclear power should be on the table as federal and state governments grapple with Australia's future energy needs.

Coalition MPs say nuclear power should
 be on the table as Australia grapples
with its energy future. 

The 11 Coalition MPs - Andrew Broad, James Paterson, Tony Pasin, Tim Wilson, Chris Back, Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, Andrew Hastie, Warren Entsch, Bridget McKenzie and Rowan Ramsey - are from both the Liberal and National parties and come from the moderate and conservative wings of the government.

The MPs, from all across the country, publicly confirmed their support for nuclear power to Fairfax Media on Wednesday, arguing Australia has the world's largest deposits of uranium, is geologically stable, and that nuclear power is a reliable source of base-load power that offers low emissions too.

Read the piece by James Massola and Adam Gartrell in today’s Melbourne Age - “Put nuclear in the energy mix, Coalition MPs tell Malcolm Turnbull.”

(Using throw-away lines designed to make the speaker sound as if he or she knows what they are talking about are references to things such as nuclear power or carbon capture and storage, which illustrate that they are as confused or ignorant as most of us about how we should sustain a reasonable life. 

Nuclear power will be massively expensive; so controversial that making it a reality will be hugely time consuming and beyond that it could 10 or 15 years to simply physically build anything useful; it is about the corporatization of our energy supplies contrary to wind and solar which can be democratised; and, importantly, considered objectively in a “cradle to grave” scenario, nuclear energy is still a significant contributor to carbon dioxide emissions.

Also, carbon capture and storage has only been demonstrated to work on relatively tiny projects and so there is no certainty it can be scaled up to work at the massive dimensions needed to make it globally significant.

The acronym “CCS” glibly rolls of the tongue of many as if it is just waiting a decision to deploy it - its not, it’s not it’s not ready with many questioning whether or not it will actually work and what its real value is - Robert McLean).