Plant,

Essentially what you are saying is that we should abide by the latest scare campaign. Similar ones are against GM food and CSG gas.

A read of
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/energy-rethink_nuclear-power-s-economic-meltdown-30-years-after-chernobyl/42109822
will give an idea why the nuke-heads are so urgently seeking that Australia go nuclear before it's too late.

A glance at the map of Europe and Britain at http://www.mapsofworld.com/europe/power-stations.html
will show what Australia would be like if the nuke-heads got their way. Each dot on the map shows a potential hotbed of contamination and source of profits for uninsured providers and careers for nuclear engineers.

Dark suggestions are often made that people who reject the AGW scam are funded by the fossil fuel industry. One wonders who funds the push for countries like Australia to take a punt on nuclear power.

"Scare campaigns" against genetically mangled foods and against CSG?

A bit like the "scare campaigns" against tobacco and asbestos.

I guess "scare campaigns" would cover demands that shoppers should have the right to labels that show what they buy contains and where it came from, and farmers' and other residents' demand for a say in what is mined under their land.

The term "scare campaign" is intended to imply (without the guts to spell it out) that people who insist on these rights are somehow cowardly.

Hi Shadow and EJ

Because of the understandable connection with nuclear bombs, nuclear accidents, and the Nuclear Energy industry's reliance on compulsory funding by taxpayers nuclear energy is unviable in Australia. It will continue to draw huge opposition decades before nuclear energy is produced.

There's is no quick easy type of energy reactor particularly if a new reactor type needs to be developed in Australia - again with compulsory taxpayer money.

As a litmus test of nuclear energy's chances we'll see if any of the current low level and especially intermediate (or higher?) level nuclear waste proposals go anywhere.

If the price of hydrocarbons returns to high levels for a decade or so many swinging voter/citizens and Prime Ministers might begin to look at the comparative cost of nuclear more favourably.

Regards

Pete