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The Forum > Article Comments > Uranium sales to China just too risky > Comments

Uranium sales to China just too risky : Comments

By Jim Green, published 28/2/2006

Chinese scientist quoted in the 'New York Times' - 'We don't have a very good plan for dealing with spent fuel ...'

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The price of Uranium has quadrupled in the last decade and will only go up as we run out of oil and gas.

Leaving it in the ground for a few more decades makes economic sense and leaves something for our grandchidren to sell.
Posted by gusi, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 5:33:51 AM
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Ev, whatever the arguments for the economic benefits of nuclear power, surely it is up to the individual countries to determine?

>>The main question is not whether we should sell it to China, but whether or not to use or encourage uranium for power generation or weapons manufacture at all<<

You go on to provide some data on comparative energy costs - one analysis among many, I should point out - and use that as a reason to protect China from making a big mistake by buying uranium from us.

How patronizing.

I made no judgement in my post about the desirability of nuclear fuel. What I pointed out is the hypocritical use of one particular form of trade to highlight human rights abuse, when we are quite happy to turn a blind eye when they buy our iron ore, or coal, or whatever.

But you add gratuitous advice to the hypocrisy. Who are we to lecture another sovereign nation on what might or might not be good for them?
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 8:46:01 AM
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According to uranium Information Centre briefing paper, updated in February 2005, there are 440 commercial power reactors operating in 32 counties and 284 research reactors in 56 counties.

Dr. Green is a severe critic of all aspects of the nuclear power industry as well as many applications of nuclear material in industry, medicine, research and so on.

In the paper under discussion he singles out sale of Australian uranium to China. Is this an unlikely major mind change on his part? Is the export uranium to all other foreign and/or domestic users now to be encouraged? Or is the Chinese trade being used as a possible anti-nuclear “stalking horse.”

The reality is that, the community level for radio-phobia is dropping. Thus, I can safely prognosticate, that even more counties including Australia will be adopt nuclear power in the future.

I agree with Pericles, the uranium trade with China is little different from trading in any other commodity.

In a post by EV reference is made to the views of Professor Ian Lowe. Given that Professor Lowe is from the “Australian Conservation Foundation” and Dr. Green is a spokesman for the “Friends of the Earth,” neither can be considered as unbiased commentators.
Posted by anti-green, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 11:23:09 AM
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Is this story about security? The gist seems to be that exporting uranium to China could result in the production of weapons-grade plutonium by China and that could produce a security threat for other nations in the future. But China seems to already have adequate supplies of plutonium and nuclear weapons and already is a considerable potential security threat. It has made no threatening posture to other nations except towards Taiwan, which is probably legitimately seen as Chinese territory that will one day be reunited with mainland China. China has been threatening Taiwan for decades and has been nuclear armed most of that time. It would not seem that exporting Australian uranium to China increases security risks. The US and its allies such as Australia might have to bite the bullet one day and assist in the peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan.

The posts of Pericles and others are all about Chinese self-determination. I don't think that is relevant to the story at all. World security is not a matter for China's self-determination.

The last possible is the 'pig-iron to Japan' argument used in the 1930s. Possibly some ammunition made in Japan from Australian iron was used against Australian troops. How much did that matter?
Posted by PK, Wednesday, 1 March 2006 11:46:35 AM
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Here is a photo essay put together by an 'unbiased commentator' from Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, 20 years after the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. (This year is the 20th anniversary of the disaster).

'radio phobia' indeed..

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter2.html

Here is another quote from the same speech by Professor Ian Lowe I quoted earlier:

'Nuclear power also inevitably produces radioactive waste that will have to be stored safely for hundreds of thousands of years. After nearly fifty years of the nuclear power experiment, nobody has yet demonstrated a solution to this problem.

The Swedes, who have probably the best system in the world for waste storage, calculate that the entire exercise to deal with the waste, the temporary storage and the deep rock laboratory, for all the fuel used by their existing reactors will cost around $12 billion.

In the absence of a proven viable solution, expanding the rate of waste production is just irresponsible. This is not just a huge technical challenge to develop systems that will isolate high-level waste for over 200,000 years. It is also a huge challenge to our social institutions. We are talking about a time scale around a hundred times longer than any human societies have endured, of the same order of magnitude as our entire existence as a species.'

ref: (http://www.acfonline.org.au/news.asp?news_id=582 paragraphs 32-34)
Posted by Ev, Thursday, 2 March 2006 1:52:56 AM
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China is planning to build 30 reactors, which if they each generate 1000 MW will require 6,000 tonnes of uranium per annum. Primary world uranium production is only 39,000 tonnes, the demand of 68,000 tonnes being made up from secondary sources of ex-weapons material, re-worked mine tailings and inventories, which are only expected to last for ten years or so.

Australia supplies Western nuclear power economies with 9,000 tonnes of uranium per annum and could only supply China's needs at the expense of its current partners. The Chinese have failed to negotiate long-term contracts to supply their nuclear programme with uranium and have even offered to prospect and open their own mine in Australia.

The current world interest in an untenable expansion of nuclear power is a sign of desperation as energy-hungry economies face their nemesis. The price of uranium will rise, but so will the imported oil needed to mine ever decreasing ore grades. A reality check is timely.
Posted by John Busby, Friday, 3 March 2006 8:00:50 PM
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