A teenage boy has called out former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk after she rejected nuclear power plants as an option for Australia’s future energy mix.
On ABC’s Q+A, Ms Palaszczuk argued against nuclear energy during a debate about Peter Dutton’s proposal to construct seven nuclear reactors if he wins the next election.
‘Nuclear is not the option,’ Ms Palaszczuk argued on Monday night.
‘It is not the answer because it is simply too expensive, and we do not have 20 years to wait to build a nuclear power station.
‘And where are you going to put it? You can’t put a nuclear reactor on the coast of Queensland, we get cyclones.’
Instead, she advocated for speeding up Australia’s ‘decarbonisation process’ by expanding the use of solar panels and batteries.
‘I’ve just come back from a trade mission to China and to Japan. These factories in China are mass-producing batteries like you’ve never seen before.
‘We need to be partnering and putting them in place here.’
But Will Shackel, a young pro-nuclear campaigner, quickly responded on social media, arguing that nuclear plants are designed to withstand extreme conditions, including cyclones.
‘Nuclear plants are built for much worse,’ he wrote on social media.
‘What would a cyclone actually do? Nuclear plants are literally built to withstand aircraft impacts. We need less fear and more facts.’
He cited data which claimed that in nearly 20,000 years of combined nuclear plant operations, only three major accidents have occurred.
He claimed they were Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chornobyl, ‘with only Chernobyl resulting in deaths from radiation due to management issues and outdated technology’.
The Albanese government’s energy minister, Chris Bowen, has dismissed the idea of nuclear power as a ‘fantasy wrapped in a delusion, accompanied by a pipe dream’.
Instead, the government will focus on renewable energy projects such as wind, solar, battery and hydro in a bid to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Entrepreneur Dick Smith warned that Labor politicians will eventually be forced to support nuclear energy, as he believes their green energy plan is destined to fail.
‘They will be convinced because there is simply no alternative,’ Mr Smith said.
‘We will have blackouts – you can’t run a country on intermittent solar and wind; it is impossible.
‘I understand every state has a ban on nuclear power, as well we have a federal ban on nuclear power, so those bans will have to be lifted.
‘We’re one of the largest sellers of uranium in the world, but we have legislation stating you can’t even consider it, and that is completely ridiculous.’
He also claimed the costs were not prohibitive.
‘I’m a believer in climate change, and I’m concerned for my grandkids.
‘I believe the only answer for the world to tackle climate is by going nuclear, by embracing it.
‘The government claims that it’s too expensive, but I said countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan have embraced nuclear, and they’re poor countries, so it’s not logical that Bangladesh can afford nuclear and Australia can’t.
When it came to storing nuclear waste, Mr Smith suggested the Olympic Dam in South Australia, which is also a known deposit for uranium.
‘I’ve been down in the mine at Olympic Dam – there’s huge, great cavities where we took uranium out, that’s where we should store the waste,’ he said.
The Barakah nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates was connected to the electricity grid in 2020 – just eight years after construction started.
The UAE established nuclear technology with South Korean technology, and didn’t previously have a nuclear industry – refuting Ms Palaszczuk’s claim about nuclear power taking at least two decades to establish.