Your article sounds very plausible - the non-proliferation agreement merely being a"figleaf" etc.
On the question of terrorism, you acknowledge the risk of terrorists getting hold of nuclear material, but you gloss over it.
You completely ignore the long term problem of where the nuclear wastes will be stored.
It's probably inevitable that international nuclear wastes will come back to Australia, as we increase our involvement in this dirty expensive industry. Even if there existed a solution to waste storage, what about the transport question?
By Australia going into increased sale of uranium, and then into nuclear power, how do we deal with the ?ships, ?planes, ?trucks carrying the wastes around to this wonderful storage?
Nobody else wants the wastes. Nobody seems to be able to estimate the true costs of all the security required to handle this problem.
NOT IMPRESSED! Christina www.antinuclearaustralia.com

The nuclear debate needs to be had particularly so that broader spectrum of people can engage in it and make up there own minds about the propaganda peddled by both the proponents and the opponents.

But it is stupid to have the debate in isolation from the other available sources of power - solar, wind and wave - if people are really concerned about the issue it would be silly to replace the orthodoxy of a commitemnt to fossil fuels for the folly of thinking nuclear power is the answer. At best it might be part of the answer.

THe lead time in this country to see a functioning nuclear energy industry is decades - and I havent seen the numbers on how much carbon pollution would result from developing the infrastructure. THe move may be totally counter productive even before we consider what we do with the waste.

But the lead time to boost a commitment to solar or wind power for it to have real impact on our dependance on fossil fuels is bugger all in comparison. And the fact that oil is running out should provide more impetus to promoting alternative energy than does the fact that it is a pollutant. The same can be said for coal but I guess the reserves of that are higher.

And if people are really truly scared of terrorists and subsribe to the theories that arab oil underwrites a lot of their shennanigans a rapid reduction in our dependance on thier oil is a splendid solution to that sideshow issue. Buy less of their oil and weakne their bargaining position on any number of fronts

We may find nuclear energy is a redundant techology if we focus on a broader range of options -

The idea that nuclear power is greenhouse-friendly is one of those lies that Goebells suggested be repeated until taken as true. The excavation, crushing, extraction, transport, purification and processing of uranium is anything but greenhouse friendly, and the co-ingredients required by reactors also have significant energy (& therefore greenhouse) costs. Nuke proliferation and the 50-years-unsolved (unsolvable?) waste issue are problems we might conceivably evade for our lifetimes at least, but greenhouse is already kicking the door down.

I'm sure that the corporate media blitz in Aus. (as usual trailing the US & UK by 1-2 years) will gloss over these and every other inconvenient fact, and plenty of salaried whores will continue to mumble along in tune.. all the more reason our children will hunt us in packs. Caring for aged baby boomers will consist of a mercifully swift execution.

http://energybulletin.net/15345.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nuclear-no-cure-for-climate-change-scientists-warn/2006/05/01/1146335671432.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1753952,00.html

In the decade or so between decision to build a nuclear plant and turning on the switch a number of things will become clearer. Climate miseries will most likely worsen with coal as the major culprit. World oil production will go into decline from its current plateau. Electrification of transport (rail, plugin cars, hydrogen) will need several times more energy than solar panels, wind farms and biofuels can provide. During that decade I expect nuclear critics to remain curiously silent about yellowcake exports, perhaps because it creates jobs. There could be even more jobs (and big bucks) burying returned radioactive waste in remote, stable rock formations. Bring it on I say.

For far too long the media has been dominated by the propaganda and misinformation propagated by the anti-nuclear lobby.

It has been clear that nuclear power is economical and low cost. A view supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering, World Nuclear Association. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology too considers nuclear to have a future. While in to-days Australian there is a note that an ANSTO report is also favourable. Further, the next (fourth) generation nuclear plant will be smaller, cheaper, built on a modular basis, even safer, and will be able to work in tandem with either desalination or hydrogen plant.

As for nuclear waste, there are many sound engineering means of managing waste. Two questions for the Greens:

1. In the last 60 years please indicate who has suffered a radiological injury from the handling or transport of high level waste from the civil industry?
2. How do you think we should manage highly toxic waste that is non bio-degradable, and not subject to radioactive decay i.e. has an infinite half life.

Finally, it is extremely unlikely that an Australian nuclear power industry will be a boost to international terrorism. Likewise an Australian industry will not facilitate the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a rogue state. The sooner we have a fully fledged home-grown nuclear industry the better.

Ya' see Laim thats my point - we need a debate -

what we dont need is proslytising from die hard anti nucleids - or glow in the dark uranium junkies.

Your post is an example of the former and it serves to alienate a large number of people from the discussion. The result of which is usually a decision informed by corruption, bias, ignorance or misplaced zealotry or all of the above.We are at risk of a very one dimensional debate on this issue - it is not an either or proposition