This is such a dishonest piece. Chernobyl was one of the first or second generation nuclear plants, and Russian besides, and was in the process - thirty years ago - of being shut down. Since then, we have been educated, by omission, by the boring lack of news about French or Finnish nuclear-powered electricity generators over the last thirty, or forty, or fifty years.

What are we up to now - the sixth or seventh or eighth generation reactors ? Are they also boringly safe ? Seems so.

Joe

Loudmouth, did you actually read the article? It's not about building new nuclear reactors, it's about selling uranium to Ukraine, where safety standards are lower.

Some of their operational nuclear plants in Ukraine were built before the one that blew up at Chernobyl, though none of them are of the dangerous design that those of Chernobyl were.

Well first and foremost I advocate for cheap priced energy to help make our country more competitive and give consumers some reprieve from todays cost of electricity.

(The truth be told the pollies are probably glad our electricity is so expensive for us because we move over to alternative domestic energy creation on our own and the government looks good for decreasing the reliance on coal, when really WE only did it because the government screwed us and the cost of domestic electricity is so high that we as consumers had to look for alternatives.)

I'd much rather more alternative means than to go nuclear, but if this is the best way forward for our nation then I'd go along with it.
I'm sure that nuclear power plants are much safer than they were nearly 50yrs ago, when Chernobyl was being constructed.

What annoys me most of all is that Julie Bishop thinks its a good idea to give Ukraine Uranium, and advertises it like she thinks your all to stupid to know better.
- So Ukraine was taken over by a military coup and is firing ballistic missiles against E. Ukraine and Julie thinks we should send 'em some Uranium.

http://www.rt.com/news/176484-cnn-ballistic-missiles-ukraine/

Most stories can be twisted to sound good and people these days who really should know better at this point in time are too trusting and gullible to pay any attention, and too dumb to know any better.
We should change our national animals from Emu and Kangaroo to Koala and Emu.
The Koala is more representative of Aussies because its asleep 90% of the time.
The Emu is fitting as it represents something that sticks its head in the sand.

To Robert LePage
The seas surrounding Australia are terribly radioactive already, so any contribution from Fukushima would be negligible.
From memory there are:
• The primordial radioactive material such as U-238, Ra-226, Th-232, Pu-239, K-40 and their respective decay products.
• The radioactive nuclides produced from cosmic ray bombardment such as H-3 and C-14.
• As a result of atomic bomb testing Cs-137, Sr-90 and Pu-239.

I strongly advise that you avoid sea bathing, sailing and all water sports.

Robert LePage - all that stuff would be in negligable amounts only.. the Fukushima is known to have dissipated once it reached the ocean. Sure you can still detect it, but your detection equipment would have to be sophisticated..

David Sweeny,
you've written another anti-science article about as contemptible as something a climate denier would have written: it's all fear, no numbers, no science.

HOW radioactive is the Chernobyl exclusion zone? What numbers are you using? Greys, Millisieverts, what? HOW radioactive are the other top 5 most radioactive places on the planet? Is 'natural' radiation any different to Chernobyl radiation?

HOW radioactive is the Fukushima zone? How radioactive is the ocean near it? The fish? In what units?

See? You're a hack, a spin-artist playing on FUD. Run away and do some homework and tell us what the REAL numbers are. For instance, the Charles Sturt University’s “Radiation Safety Committee” says that around the world some rare places have 50 milli-Sieverts (50 mSv) a year of natural radiation, with no discernible health impacts.
http://www.csu.edu.au/acad_sec/committees/radiation/radiation_life/how_much_ionising_radiation.htm

You did know, didn't you, that about half the Fukushima zone is being resettled because it's only around 20 mSv a year? Even the hottest places are around 50mSv.

Meanwhile, at least the world's most famous climatologist Dr James Hansen is talking up the 1.8 MILLION LIVES nuclear power has SAVED by displacing that much coal!