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The Forum > Article Comments > Enriching Australia? > Comments

Enriching Australia? : Comments

By Jim Green, published 24/8/2006

Could the nuclear debate be driven by a military agenda?

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It seems to me that the same forces that "necessitate" the garnering of Middle-Eastern oil by any means, are poised to thwart any constraints we might place on the production of enriched uranium.

Maybe it's just my age, but I feel it coming like a steamroller in low gear - inch by inch. Like that feeling you get with the sale of Telstra.

For their justification, they will use the cult of Economics, our modern day equivalent of the Easter Island statue. The rules of economics are a matter of convenience, not bounded by scientific law nor even primitive morality.

If we don't use our collective intellect on this ball of wax, we will simply go the way of other creatures that failed to make the evolutionary jump to something better.
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Thursday, 24 August 2006 10:21:23 AM
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I agree entirely Chris and I'm sure that if it were possible to ask every individual in Australia whether or not they want anything to do with the nuclear industry, from mining right through to enrichment and the most horrible prospect of storing someone elses nuclear waste, the majority would scream NO! However, over the past decade, Australians have become increasingly scared and the Howard led Government has played the fear card to perfection. Howard will have his way with his nuclear ambitions whilst Australians will back in their usual appathetic way and let him do whatever he wants. Any appearance of revolt from the masses will result in another fear campaign from the Howard fear factory. He'll say things like..."if we don't dig it up, someone else will" just the same way he used the possibility of rising interest rates and economic instability to keep the Labor Party out of office. Meanwhile, innovation goes down the toilet. There's an electric car in Melbourne that will possibly never see the light of day because Governments continue to pander to big oil (Google "Aryana IEV 800") We can well live without the dangers of nuclear energy, but the fear factor will make sure we don't get the opportunity to do so.
Posted by Wildcat, Thursday, 24 August 2006 11:49:32 AM
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Jim,

It might help your case if you did not INVENT stories. Lucas Heights is not equipped to produce HEU and never has been. There is no such thing as "The Whistle Project". You have been duped.

When Menzies commissioned the plant there may have been some wannabe nuclear phycisists (from UNSW - not AAEC) that had all sorts of hair-brained schemes but the design of the Lucas Heights High Flux Reactor is not suitable for enriching Uranium to HEU.

DU is a problem, but not because of radioactivity. Its half life is half a billion years making it very UN-Radioactive. DU is a poison. It is more toxic than mercury and for this reason it has to be kept out of the environment.

Perhaps if you read some text books instead of leftists know-nothing columnist you might add some credibility to your arguments.
Posted by Narcissist, Thursday, 24 August 2006 12:59:28 PM
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Narcissist has a great idea here, suggesting that Jim Green, and the rest of us, I guess - should read more books.
He suggests "textbooks". Well, "textbook" - this usually implies some sort of "impartial" fact-filled book prescribed for the curriculum of some course. For example, we could read some textbooks on nuclear physics, and bone up on all the technical details.
I reckon we shouldn't confine it to texbooks. We could all read some of the broader works, ones with a historical context, ones that aren't confined to the nuclear physics syllabus. Some examples - Ralph Nader's "The Menace of Atomic Energy", Robert Jungk's "Brighter Than A Thousand Suns", even the original Fox Report - the Ranger Uranium Inquiry. I wonder if Narcissist has read these?
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com
Posted by ChristinaMac, Thursday, 24 August 2006 1:49:14 PM
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Narcissist claims i 'invented' the information regarding the secret uranium enrichment program at Lucas Heights. In fact it is drawn directly from the books written by two retired Chief Research Scientists at Lucas Heights, namely Clarence Hardy and Keith Alder. It is not disputed by ANSTO ... in fact just yesterday I debated the CEO of ANSTO and twice mentioned the Whistle Project and he did not contest the information.

Narcissist says "the design of the Lucas Heights High Flux Reactor is not suitable for enriching Uranium to HEU." That's certainly true, the HIFAR reactor is just that, a reactor not a uranium enrichment plant!

For the details of the pursuit of nuclear weapons from the 1940s to the 1970s, see
http://www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/weapons.html
and chase up Jim Walsh's excellent article in the Nonproliferation Review.
And there's another excellent article in the Nonproliferation Review, by Jacques Hymans.
Posted by Jim Green, Thursday, 24 August 2006 2:01:46 PM
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Best of luck generating 50 gigawatts of continuous electricity from low carbon sources anytime soon. Far from helping nuclear proliferation Australia's participation in the nuclear fuel cycle could hinder it. Australia could sell enriched fuel rods or pellets and take them back for reprocessing or deep burial in the outback. Any customer who diverted radioactive material would be blacklisted.

Apart from helping control nuclear proliferation there are big bucks to be made. Australians might feel like nincompoops if say Argentina took 'our' nuclear waste for a generous fee. Some might also argue if global warming were slowed by nuclear electricity it might ease international tensions.
Posted by Taswegian, Thursday, 24 August 2006 2:11:09 PM
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