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Australians fed up with crushing power bills are talking about a nuclear powered future, like there’s no tomorrow. Having recognised that climate alarmists will never relent in their crusade against carbon dioxide gas – being a proxy for eradicating cheap, reliable and affordable coal-fired power – anyone interested in a future where hot showers and cold beer aren’t long forgotten luxuries, is advocating for nuclear power – like their lives depended upon it.

Coal-fired power is responsible for around 85% of the electricity that shoots around its Eastern Grid (a grid that connects Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia). And, despite concerted efforts to destroy that system, coal-fired power will be powering Australians for decades to come. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s not under threat by RE rent seekers and zealots and a raft of suicidal policies, not least the Federal government’s Large-Scale RET.

Which brings us to nuclear power.

As the only stand-alone power generation source that does not generate carbon dioxide gas emissions during that process, nuclear power is the perfect foil to climate alarmists fretting about CO2 gas and the weather. We’ll leave the stoush about CO2 to others.

Australia holds the world’s largest uranium reserves and, despite its shifting policy of limiting the number of mines and states that have banned them, is the world’s third-largest uranium exporter.

That Australia does not have any nuclear power plants astonishes the French, Americans, Canadians, Japanese and Chinese; just to name a few of the 30 countries where you will find nearly 450 nuclear reactors currently operating – their combined output accounts for over 11% of global electricity production – with another 15 countries currently building 60 reactors among them.

The reason that sensible Australians are screaming out for nuclear power plants is not just the ability to utilise this country’s abundant resources, it’s also about slashing power prices, that – thanks to massively subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar – are now among the highest in the world: wind and solar capital, South Australia suffers the world’s highest.

With the closure of coal-fired power plants in South Australia and Victoria and the closure of NSW’s Liddell plant imminent, the more pressing worry is not so much exorbitant power prices but having access to reliable power, at all.

Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales is also the state with the highest proportion of manufacturing and industrial activity. However, every one of its energy hungry businesses is under threat. Its Tomago aluminium smelter is the victim of Third World power rationing, being chopped from the grid whenever demand is high and wind and solar output plummets. Think breathless afternoons when the temperature hits 42°C, with the sun dropping over the horizon.

The cult that have hijacked Australia’s electricity generation and distribution system use the euphemism “demand management”. In reality, this is all about mismanagement and an obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar.

One Nation’s Mark Latham is one of the few in NSW who has an appreciation of where Australia’s self-inflicted renewable energy calamity is headed. His solution is a pretty obvious one.

Clean nuclear energy is ‘the only logical replacement’ to coal fired power stations

Sky News

Andrew Bolt and Mark Latham

5 March 2020

NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham described nuclear energy as clean energy which “answers both sides of the energy and climate equation”.

Mr Latham is currently in the process of attempting to push a bill through the NSW parliament to end the NSW ban on nuclear power.

Mr Latham is concerned NSW’s electricity supply will “fall off the cliff” in 2035 with the closure of coal powered fire stations.

The only logical replacement to coal powered stations is nuclear, he said.

“Anyone relying on wind-mills and solar panels to power up an industrial economy and… look after 75,000 coal reliant jobs in the Hunter Valley,” are “dreaming,” he said.

If the climate change people were serious “they would embrace nuclear power because it is emission free,” Mr Latham told Sky News host Andrew Bolt

Mr Latham said it was “crazy” to not consider nuclear energy given the “improvements in safety technology”.

Sky News

Transcript

Andrew Bolt: This coronavirus is actually not the first scare that’s made people here lose their minds and panic. Before that, of course, it was global warming, still with us. The end of the world, panic. And before that was nuclear power, dangerous, dangerous. In fact, Australia’s so lost its head to that scare that we banned nuclear power in this country. We’ve not even let our Navy use nuclear. How stupid is that? Now, this anti-nuclear panic really took off after the world’s worst nuclear accident: when a badly designed reactor blew up in the Soviet Union in Chernobyl in 1986. That’s a fair while ago now and activists back then claimed hundreds of thousands of people died. Some still claim that, but that is of course completely false. The known death toll so far is well under a hundred people. Many simply killed in the initial blast and I’ve talked to the US bone marrow expert, Robert Gail, who’s treated 200 of the worst injured.

Robert Gale: We know there are about 31 deaths from the accident, not thousands.

Andrew Bolt: Now, to that 31 Gale adds the tragic deaths of up to 15 children who later died of thyroid cancer, which thankfully can now be treated relatively easily, but no leukemias and all that kind of stuff. But then nine years ago, back came another nuclear scare all beat up. Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor hit by an earthquake, then by a massive tidal wave. Yet even then, not one person has died or even got sick from what radiation did leak out. So why do we still ban nuclear power here? Well, Mark Latham has had enough of this nonsense. Latham was the former federal Labor leader and is now in the New South Wales parliament. This is One Nation’s New South Wales leader and he is trying to get a bill through parliament to end this crazy ban on nuclear power and it’s getting some very impressive support. He might even pull this off. Joining me a short while ago was Mark Latham to talk about this and our global warming panic as well.

Mark Latham, thanks so much for your time. But listen before we start, it’s been some time since I’ve caught up with you. What’s with the spot on your nose? What’s that?

Mark Latham: Oh well I’m looking at a bit more gruesome than normal Andrew, because of skin cancer. I get these basal cell carcinomas and I’ve had many cut out over the years, so this one on the nose has been burnt off. Nothing to fear. I’ll be here for many years to come.

Andrew Bolt: That’ll be good news for your friends and consternation to your enemies. Good on you.

Mark Latham: That’s right.

Andrew Bolt: Mark, what was the moment you decided this is time to scrap our ban on nuclear power?

Mark Latham: Well, if you look at the figures, particularly here in New South Wales, our electricity supply falls off the cliff in about 2035 with the closure of coal fired power stations.

So I think anyone who is relying on windmills and solar panels to power up an industrial economy, to keep jobs alive in New South Wales, to look after 75,000 coal-reliant jobs in the Hunter Valley. Well, you’re dreaming, really if you think you can do it through renewables. You need dispatchable, baseload 24×7 power. And if they’re going to close down coal, the only logical replacement there is nuclear. And, of course, you know that the climate change people aren’t serious. If they were serious, they’d embrace nuclear power because it’s emission-free. So it seems to answer both sides of the energy and climate equation. And it just seems crazy given the improvements in safety technology in nuclear. When you look at nations like France that is so reliant on it, that not only with the New South Wales Parliament have a ban on nuclear power, we’ve also got one at the Commonwealth level.

Andrew Bolt: Yeah, and I don’t think many Australian people realise that we’re actually running short of electricity. Like Victoria used to be a great supplier of electricity, now it’s a net importer after it closed, one of its biggest coal-fired power stations a couple of years ago. And now another big one, Yallourn is looking like it’s at death’s door and you’ve got the Liddell one in New South Wales. This is a critical issue. Why do you think, though, nuclear energy has been banned as the obvious solution?

Mark Latham: Well, I think people are looking at things that happened in the 1980s and not appreciating the improvement in the safety of the technology. We went to ANSTO, Lucas Heights in the Southern suburbs of Sydney and the committee heard the experts there and they say, listen to the scientists. The nuclear scientists said that the technology now has been miniaturised and it’s so safe that the safety zone is the perimeter fence of these smaller modular reactors.

So unfortunately with a technology that’s banned in Australia, we haven’t been able to catch up with the safety improvements. And also, there’s a real problem there – the rent-seekers pushing renewables don’t want competition from nuclear and they’re against it. So for those political reasons, we haven’t had the leadership. But thankfully here in New South Wales, the deputy premier leader of the national party, John Barilaro for three years, has led up this debate and if we’re to take his leadership seriously, we’ve got to lift the ban on nuclear power.

Andrew Bolt: Look, I think that his comments and particularly this week in support of your bill, because you’ve got a bill in the New South Wales going through the New South Wales Parliament was very, very interesting. And also you’ve had the support of a parliamentary committee report on your bill this week that also said: “Yes, it approves of a scrapping of the ban on nuclear power and that the committee was led by Liberal”. How much political support do you think you’ve got? I mean people talk about ending the ban on nuclear power in this country and in New South Wales, you may be able to do it.

Mark Latham: Well I haven’t run into a New South Wales coalition MP who’s against nuclear power. So that’s a good sign, whether they backed that up in their parliamentary vote of course, can be a different question. But you know, the important thing in our parliamentary committee led by Taylor Martin MLC, was that we heard compelling evidence about the de-industrialization of the New South Wales economy.

If we just rely on renewables, we heard evidence from the Australian workers union (you would think this would influence the Labor party) that already investors are turning away from Australia because we can’t guarantee the lights stay on. Last year the Australian energy market operator said that we’re in a heightened risk of blackouts, particularly in Victoria and also in New South Wales because of the running down of base load power, so these things can’t be ignored.

We are losing jobs and investment right now because companies are saying “Well how can we invest in a place like New South Wales if there’s no guarantee about 24/7 power keeping the lights on?”.

We’ve got the major Tomago aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley saying they need a coal based coal fired power into the future and if not, obviously nuclear to keep their manufacturing concern going for the benefit of our state and all the jobs that it creates. So, the damage is being caused now and I think the need for politicians to point to current and future sources of dispatchable power is absolutely paramount for the good of our economic health.

Andrew Bolt: Yeah, I think Australians have got to pay attention to this debate. They might not be interested in nuclear power, but they’ll sure be interested when the lights go off in their house and the fridges start heating up the food that they were supposed to cool, then you’ll be complaining. But Mark, you mentioned that you haven’t met a Liberal politician that’s against what you’re doing, but have you actually met the Premier Gladys Berejiklian? Because what she says may determine where the Liberals go on this and whether you’ve got the numbers.

Mark Latham: Now, I haven’t spoken to the Premier, but I’ve spoken to other senior Liberals who have been supporting on this, many of them on the public record and on the upper house committee, there were three Liberal MPs. They’re all very, very supportive. Also, a national party member wanting to lift the ban on nuclear. So it’s really a question of leadership and courage and I pay great tribute to John Barilaro and also Michael Johnson, the National party member for upper Hunter, who both said they’re happy to have a nuclear power facility in their own electorate. Both have been in marginal seats and both really with the courage and the guts to say, look, you know, this is necessary for the benefit of the state.

There might be a cheap crack, opportunistic scare campaign, but they’ve said I’ll have the facilities in their own seats and Barilaro said it before the last New South Wales election and got a 9% swing towards him. So I think the old 1980s green scare about nuclear is redundant. People know the problems with our energy grid. They know it’s emission free nuclear, it’s a climate change solution. And if Labor and the Greens were serious about the urgency of the climate emergency that they’ve defined, wouldn’t they be doing this? Wouldn’t they be supporting this? If it’s so urgent to save the planet, why wouldn’t you go nuclear?

Andrew Bolt: Well, because they’re scared of their more feral base. I don’t know what it is, they’ve got the religion, I don’t know. Mark, this is not the first example of how a pathetic scare, a complete beat up has led to bad public policy because politicians do not dare to say the facts to tell the voters the truth about a certain issue. Don’t dare show leadership. I think we’re getting exactly the same phenomenon right now with global warming policies. Correct?

Mark Latham: Well, there’s no doubt that there’s a panic in the system to adopt uncosted, unfunded, unmodeled strategies like net zero emissions by 2050 is just grossly irresponsible because you’re basically saying all the jobs are on the line. But in the case of the Labor party, also the Coalition government in New South Wales, they haven’t released the modelling results about the impact on agriculture, on exports, on mining, on manufacturing. So there is a panic. It’s almost like economic virtue signalling. That you can have these targets 30 years from now, but you don’t tell people what it actually means in substance.

Andrew Bolt: And as we see with the nuclear power ban, it takes years and years and years to even hope that what you did at that height of the panic can be undone afterwards.

Sky News