Saturday, 5 August, 2006

by Ben Doherty
The Age

IT WOULD be a "noble act" if Australia embraced nuclear power, which could be generated more safely than coal-fired electricity, one of Australia's leading scientists and climate experts claims.

Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum and author of two books on climate change, said Australia, the worst greenhouse gas polluter per capita in the world, had few immediate options for clean-energy generation.

"Climate change is so catastrophic and imminent that only nuclear power can save us," he said.

In today's Good Weekend magazine, Dr Flannery argues that burying carbon dioxide from burnt coal, a system to be trialled in Victoria this year, is a "stupid" clean-power alternative. Geothermal energy, using underground heat to generate power, could be Australia's long-term saviour.

But he says the technology to create safe, clean nuclear power is available and the Federal Government should embrace it. "If Australia were to switch from coal to nuclear power, we would make only a small reduction (about 1 per cent) in global carbon dioxide pollution. But it would be a noble act, for our carbon dioxide pollution is devastating the entire world."

He said he was confident that by using nuclear technology, Australia's electricity could be generated with less risk to health than that posed by coal.