Another minister rolls over in the build to April 29...
--------------------------------------------------- Sell our uranium to China
PAUL STARICK, CHIEF REPORTER
March 17, 2007 01:15am Article from: The Advertiser
ENERGY Minister Patrick Conlon has broken Labor Left ranks and advocated the export of uranium to China for nuclear power, saying "wishful thinking will not save the world". In a column for The Advertiser, the state's most senior Labor Left MP argues nuclear power is the only way to curb China's massive carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations.
The contribution to global warming of these emissions, he says, represents a "massive and immediate" danger that is "already affecting the world".
Mr Conlon says Australia must not place restrictions on the mining of uranium.
His stance is a departure from his faction's expected opposition to overturning Labor's "no new mines" uranium policy at the party's national conference next month.
Mr Conlon says China's surging demand for electricity cannot be stopped and renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, will not meet this growth.
"Wishful thinking will not save the world," he says.
"The only low-emission technology capable of meeting growth and replacing existing coal assets is nuclear. I wish this were not the case."
However, Mr Conlon emphasises that he opposes nuclear power in Australia, saying it is not commercially viable and there is not a "pressing need for a nuclear solution".
"There is no hypocrisy in this," he says.
"We in South Australia can help respond to one of the biggest causes of carbon dioxide emissions in the world - the generation of electricity in China." This would be done, he argues, by "increasing the proportion of electricity generated by nuclear power in China".
"My wife and I have a two-year-old daughter and another one due in April," Mr Conlon says.
"We want them to see a world as good as the one we've seen. We want them to read about polar bears in nature books, not in history books. I have no doubt that global warming is the greatest danger to their future. We must fight it with the options we have, not those we wish we had."
South Australia has the world's largest reserves of low-cost uranium. A $5 billion expansion is planned of the world's largest uranium mine, at Olympic Dam, in SA's Far North.
Mr Conlon's call to scrap Labor's policy of restricting uranium mining echoed that of federal Labor's deputy leader, Julia Gillard, who last month said further mining would create jobs.
South Australian Left factional leader Mark Butler, the Labor candidate for Port Adelaide at this year's federal election, last year declared "the major factor in favour of expanding uranium mining" was its use as cleaner energy than coal in developing nations. The SA Left is holding a forum on uranium today.
Renowned scientist James Lovelock, a keynote speaker at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas in July, has advocated the use of nuclear power to curb global warming and dismissed renewable energy as "gesture stuff".
But Labor Left MPs and unions are expected to vote against changing Labor's uranium mining policy at the national conference, spearheaded by federal frontbenchers Anthony Albanese and Peter Garrett.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer in January announced the ratification of Australia-China nuclear safeguards agreements, unlocking the legal framework for Australian uranium exports to China.
In his Advertiser column, Mr Conlon points out China installs 765MW of coal-based generation capacity every 15 days - the equivalent of SA's entire coal-based capacity.
The IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 found that 64.5 per cent of China's carbon dioxide emissions came from electricity generation, compared to 37.4 per cent of Australia's. Most of China's electricity is generated by dirty brown coal.
China's electricity generation is responsible for 3541 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, while Australia's figure is 195 million tonnes.
"These numbers may bore readers. They shouldn't - they should frighten them," Mr Conlon says.
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