The fact that multinational miner Rio Tinto is lobbying the federal government (as reported in the Australia, on July 27th, 2009) is striking and curious for a number of reasons.
Firstly, as Australia’s number one uranium miner, it should be no surprise that Rio are looking to develop market share in the nuclear energy production in this country. It makes sense to them – given Rio are clearly not concerned about solving the climate crisis – that all they care about is making a profit and protecting their bottom line.
However, the literature that describes all the problems of nuclear energy is vast. We only need to look at the current problems in Finland and the construction of the Olkiluoto 3 reactor. This white elephant – allegedly “cutting edge technology” – is spectacularly over budget and years behind schedule. It will cost tens of billions of tax payers Euros, and at least a decade to construct. This is all in addition to the fact that there is still no answer to the enormous problem of nuclear waste, in the world, anywhere.
Nuclear is too little, too late, too expensive and too dangerous.
Secondly, Rio did say something surprisingly sensible for a coal miner – that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will require massive further investment and that carbon is only theoretically able to be stored underground where there are appropriate geological conditions. They didn’t mention that, like nuclear, CCS will take far too long to establish in Australia to have any impact on the climate emergency.
Australia needs to start reducing emissions now – with the proven and available technologies – wind, solar, geothermal and energy efficiency.
The federal government has got nearly all of the climate equation wrong. They are backing an unproven and risky technology (CCS), and putting their eggs in the carbon trading basket – a strategy that is only going to please the big polluters, not those of us who want our country to take the climate problem seriously.
The government did get one thing right in this year’s budget though – the investment of $1.4 billion dollars for concentrated solar thermal power, with a target of 1000mw of electricity production in the next four years. It’s equivalent to a large coal fired power station. This is surely the way to go, and the start of the clean, green strategy that environmentalists and scientists have been calling for. It shows how renewables are cost-efficient, timely and the way of the future.
We need an energy revolution in Australia – not false solutions that prop up 19th and 20th century modes of energy production (coal and nuclear). These modes are clearly outdated, damaging, massively problematic and on their way out.
Both are most inconveniently at the centre of Rio’s business model.
