FORMER foreign minister Alexander Downer has reignited the uranium debate, saying it would be economically beneficial for Australia to store nuclear waste from other countries.

Mr Downer's comments contradict those he made in 2007 when he said Australia would not accept waste.

Speaking to The Australian before addressing University College London students in Adelaide about the nuclear industry, Mr Downer said it made sense to store waste from other countries because central Australia was geologically stable.

"Australia has the geology best-suited in the world, other than Russia, for the storage of nuclear waste," Mr Downer said. "It would have enormous economic benefits."

Mr Downer said areas such as Maralinga, where the British government conducted nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s, were ideal. "Would you rather store it in a geologically stable central Australia, or geologically unstable Japan?" he said.

Under the Howard government, Australia considered joining the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

The GNEP held discussions on whether Australia could reprocess or store nuclear waste from other countries, but found there was no economic justification to introduce reprocessing technology.

Mr Downer said at the time that if Australia became involved in the GNEP, the nation's co-operation would not extend to accepting nuclear waste.

The Rudd government ruled out accepting nuclear waste from other countries in 2008.

Mr Downer has long been a supporter of nuclear energy, and said yesterday if the federal government were to introduce a carbon tax, nuclear power would become cheaper than green technologies. He said a city such as Whyalla, 300km northwest of Adelaide, would be ideal for a nuclear power station, provided its residents were compensated.

"You could attach it to a desalination plant, so you could solve the problem of Olympic Dam and Roxby Downs," he said. "The Upper Spencer Gulf cities, instead of using Murray River water, they could use desalinated water. And we would have a nuclear power station that would create power for the eastern states' grid."