Key to green living
Nuclear energy 'one of the keys' to cutting greenhouse emissions, says Australia...
The Australian Federal Government has been warned it must spend £2.7 billion to build working examples of alternative power generation by 2020 if it is to meet its climate Change targets.
The targets include cutting carbon emissions by five per cent and increasing the use of renewables by 20 per cent.
The warning comes from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, which also wants a new national Energy Research Council to coordinate the spending.
The report claims new low-emission technologies for electricity generation must be deployed on a massive scale to achieve Australia's greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The report's author, Dr John Burgess, says the critical thing is to set up demonstration facilities that are at full scale.
"In other words testing all the systems together, that's the situation we're currently in," he said.
The Academy's scoping study examined solar, gas, tidal wave, geothermal, carbon-capture and storage, biomass and nuclear technologies as possible alternatives to coal-fired power.
In all, it found Australia is not moving fast enough when it comes to setting up full-scale, working demonstrations that can test the viability of these technologies.
Dr Burgess Sees nuclear energy as one of the keys to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"In one sense we didn't take into account any political considerations and just dispatched them as we looked at the technologies," Dr Burgess said.
"In that regard we included nuclear but I wouldn't say we focused on nuclear, we simply included that as one of the suite of technologies which we thought ought to be in consideration down the track towards 2050."
Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson launched the Academy's report today in Melbourne.
He lent in-principle support to all of the recommendations, but one - the nuclear power option.
"The position of the Labor Government is very clear: we will not be embracing a nuclear option. But we also accept that in countries beyond Australia, nuclear power is a fact of life, and we are part of the nuclear cycle because we are a major uranium exporting nation," Mr Ferguson said.
"Our responsibility is to continue to mine it with safe hands and to guarantee its safe use and therefore we have the Prime Minister's initiative through former foreign minister Gareth Evans to actually strengthen international protocols with respect to the nuclear industry."
Mr Ferguson says the Government has contributed £199 million to large scale projects in the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program, and is a key scientific and financial contributor to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.
But he says no one technology will take precedence over another.
"Eighty-two per cent of Australia's energy comes from coal-fired power stations. It's about encouraging the renewable energy sector, at the same time we invest in carbon capture and storage," he said.
"We are not about picking winners; we are about creating a framework which facilitates technological development both in the renewable energy sector and in fossil fuel areas."
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation