Pseudo-science and lost opportunities.(Science)(Nuclear energy)

There is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order. The lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the law in their favour, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.

--Machiavelli

OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO, Australia was set to become the first nation south of the equator to build and operate a nuclear power plant for electricity generation. Sadly, this project and many other planned ventures connected with the technology and commercialisation of the global nuclear fuel cycle industry have not eventuated.

In September 2004, Australia hosted the World Energy Congress. At the heart of this Congress was a session entitled "Nuclear Energy--Inevitable or Irrelevant?" For at least thirty of the participating countries the reliability, safety, economy and greenhouse-gas-free operation of some 437 nuclear plants has made nuclear energy "inevitable". Unfortunately, for Australia, which supplied thirteen of these countries with uranium fuel, the technology has, so far, been "irrelevant".

The paradox of a nation endowed with over 40 per cent of the world's economically recoverable uranium fuel and yet strenuously resisting its use in its domestic energy policies bemuses the global community. This is especially true of countries like France and Japan, who manage to minimise their own greenhouse gas emissions through the use of Australian uranium.

The year 2005 may mark a new defining moment in Australian attitudes towards nuclear energy and cause the Commonwealth government and the Council of Australian Governments to take notice. A global resurgence in nuclear power station construction is driving uranium prices to all-time peaks. Australian uranium producers are the focus of the international market.

In February 2005, at its annual general meeting, the chairman of BHP-Billiton, a major global producer of hydrocarbon fuel, confirmed that his company was now interested in nuclear fuel. Within one month this interest was converted into a potential $9 billion takeover bid for the world's largest uranium resource, Western Mining Corporation's Olympic Dam project in South Australia.