Nuclear energy argument continues to rage

Friday 30 September 2005

At a time when arguments, both rational and emotive, continue to occur about the subject of nuclear energy, a second edition of a book on the subject has hit the bookshelves.

Entitled, Nuclear Energy Fallacies, it has been written by retired physicist and astronomer, Colin Keay, who as an associate professor at The University of Newcastle, taught nuclear and reactor physics to senior classes for 24 years.

Dr Keay, says he has republished the book in answer to consistent and considerable scare-mongering about the nuclear issue. He says this is not new, that for years he has been concerned about the vast number of unsubstantiated claims and hysteria about nuclear energy that have proliferated in the media.

"In the interests of my students, I began to identify and correct the disinformation, truth-twisting, false claims and plain lies that flood the media," Dr Keay says.

"Australians have been spooked by anti-nuclear interests who have put forward a lot of nonsense that people have unfortunately tended to believe. The anti-nuclear activists have a tendency to use scare tactics rather than presenting the facts as they stand.

"There is a great fear of contamination connected with the disposal and storage of nuclear waste and people have every right to be aware of the issues concerned with that. But the fact is, the quantities that Australia generates are so small on a world scale, it hardly merits doing much with it, except to store it and wait until it decays.

"Other countries have had nuclear power for many years. For example, Finland for 30 years, and during that time, a small levy to consumers on the cost of electricity has resulted in a massive fund for financing all the necessary disposal options. In this way, it can be said that nuclear energy is the only source of energy that pays for its own disposal in full in the decommissioning of its reactors."

"The other fear is that nuclear energy could be directed towards the manufacture of weapons. In fact weapons grade plutonium is only able to be separated if fuel has only been in the reactor for a very short time, which is not all easy or usual," he says.

While Dr Keay says it is in the interests of a better future for Australia to consider nuclear energy generation instead of depleting precious stores of fossil fuels, he also advocates the advantages of dealing with the facts rather than the fallacies and to investigate the facts without distorted propaganda.

Dr Keay is available for interview.