A very timely wake-up article - and congratulations to Online opinion for having the guts to publish it.
Of course the uranium industry isn't going to explore without the expectation of later proceeding to mine for uranium. The areas where uranium is likely to be found cover a huge and much populated area of New South Wales.
It's amazing that the NSW government has the folly of making this possible - in the light of the uranium market's continuing decline, and the public's concern about the dangers of the nuclear industry. Australian uranium mining company Paladin lost $39 billion in the 9 months to March this year. BHP Billiton is doubtful about its proposed new "biggest uranium mine in the world" at Olympic Dam. There are more revelations each week of the dim future for the nuclear industry - (e.g. USA's decision to halt licensing and relicensing of nuclear reactors).
One can only wonder if the NSW government is stupid, or ignorant, or both - about the renewable energy revolution that is now happening. Or are they just bent on pleasing their cashed up mates in fossil fuel and nuclear lobbies?

The usual anti-nuke tripe; go 3rd generation and Thorium.

And good on O'Farrell; I knew he was a good'un when he was elected and told that grub, Kerry O'Brien, to take a hike when O'Brien wanted him to genuflect before the mighty ABC after just being winning the election.

Nuke South Wales?

Sure, why not? Aside from the fact that we don't have any nukes. Other than that it I can't see any holes in the plan - who is going to miss the Welsh? While we're at it we can Nuke Belgium.

Cheers,

Tony

Why the opposition to nuclear? Surely nuclear would provide everything most people want, e.g.:

- energy security
- reliable energy supply
- by far the least cost way to reduce CO2 emissions
- avoid about 900 fatalities per year

What more could we ask for?

Here is a very simple calculation of the number of fatalities that would be avoided by replacing coal with nuclear power in NSW (using USA figures for fatalities from coal and global average figures for nuclear power: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html ).

NSW generates about 60 TWh of electricity from coal each year
USA rate of fatalities from coal fired electricity generation (mostly from air pollution) = 15 fatalities/TWh
= 900 fatalities from coal fired electricity generation in NSW each year

If nuclear replaced coal:
Fatalities per year from nuclear electricity generation = 0.09 fatalities/TWh
= 5 fatalities from nuclear electricity generation in NSW each year
Therefore, fatalities avoided by substituting nuclear for coal generation = 900 - 5 = 895 fatalities avoided per year.

Who wants to argue against that?

Nuclear could be the least cost way to generate electricity and least cost way to reduce global emissions, here’s why and how to get there (globally):

- allowing low-cost, small, modular, factory-built and refuelled nuclear power plants to be certified and built (commercially and competitively throughout the world) would allow the cost of nuclear power to reduce massively

- nuclear substituting for coal would save more than one million lives per year globally by 2050 (its already avoiding around 160,000 fatalities per year)

- nuclear allows fuel transportation (and the energy used in doing so) to be reduce by around a factor of 20,000 with current technology and up to a factor of 2 million in future technology (that's 20,000 to 2 million times less coal ships passing through the Great Barrier Reef)

- nuclear allows countries to have energy security - because they can store virtually unlimited quantities of fuel for future energy supply in a small area.

- cheap nuclear power could allow the developing world to replace coal, wood and dung for heating and cooking more quickly, facilitate improving economies, better health and education systems, better infrastructure and better well-being for all peoples on the planet (its interesting to observe who opposes all these benefits to human well-being).

- cheap nuclear power would more quickly displace gas for heating (in residential commercial and some industrial applications) and oil for land transport – thus reducing emissions from not just electricity but also from gas for heating and oil for land transport.

- nuclear is by far the least cost way to reduce emissions as clearly shown here http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/17/learning-from-the-octopus/#comment-230021 (but the content has been studiously avoided by the anti-nukes.

One must wonder, what is the real reason for the opposition to nuclear power

It seems the majority of climate warmists advocate carbon pricing as the preferred policy to mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, there is an alternative policy which is given little attention by warmists but would seem to be a far superior policy option.

How much better is the 'Low-cost backstop' policy than the "Optimal carbon price policy'?

According to Nordhaus (2008) “A Question of Balance” http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf the ‘cost competitive alternative to carbon pricing’(called 'Low-cost backstop') policy is far better than the ‘Optimal carbon price’ policy. In fact, it is better by 3 times, 5 times, 5 times and 49 times for Benefits, Abatement cost, Net Benefit, and Implied Carbon Tax rate. It is also better for CO2 emissions rate, CO2 concentration reached and temperature increase. Details summarised below. Table numbers refer to Nordhaus (2008). (Costs are in 2005 US $ trillion)

Benefits (reduced damages), ($ trillion) (ref. Table 5-3)
Optimal carbon price policy = 5.23
Low-cost backstop policy = 17.63
ratio = 3

Abatement cost, ($ trillion) (ref. Table 5-3)
Optimal carbon price policy = 2.16
Low-cost backstop policy = 0.44
ratio = 5

Net Benefit, ($ trillion) (ref. Table 5-3)
Optimal carbon price policy = 3.37
Low-cost backstop policy = 17.19
ratio = 5

Implied carbon tax, ($/ton C) (ref. Table 5-1)
Optimal carbon price policy = 202.4
Low-cost backstop policy = 4.1
ratio = 49

CO2 emissions in 2100, (Gt C/a) (ref. Table 5-6)
Optimal carbon price policy = 11
Low-cost backstop policy = 0

CO2 concentration in 2100, (ppm) (ref. Table 5-7)
Optimal carbon price policy = 586
Low-cost backstop policy = 340

Global temperature change in 2100, (°C from 1900) (ref. Table 5-1)
Optimal carbon price policy = 2.61
Low-cost backstop policy = 0.9