Reporter: Peter Overton
Producer: Hamish Thomson, Julia Timms
If you've filled your petrol tank recently and if you've given this planet of ours a moment's thought, you'll know we're in real strife. This week, even those notorious gas-guzzlers, the Americans, began taking stock, with President Bush promoting alternative fuel sources.
Coincidentally, this week was also the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. And we saw in Richard Carleton's graphic story a couple of weeks ago the havoc that caused.
But despite the perceived dangers, nuclear power's making a worldwide comeback. And like it or not, we're going to have to make a profound decision. Should Australia go nuclear?
Transcript
PETER OVERTON: High above France's majestic Loire Valley, I'm drifting over some of the most breathtaking countryside in all of Europe. What a beautiful place, it is just beautiful.
FRENCHMAN: Yes, I think so, we appreciate it.
PETER OVERTON: This is an ancient region, renowned for its magnificent chateaux its elegant wines and its fertile soils. But, off in the distance, plumes of steam reveal a forbidding presence — a nuclear power station amidst the valley's ancient vineyards. Not that the locals seem at all worried. Does it concern you that the nuclear power plant is on your doorstep?
FRENCHMAN: No, we have no fear about it. We think that it's a good thing.
PETER OVERTON: You feel safe?
FRENCHMAN: We feel safe, no doubt about it. We feel safe.
PETER OVERTON: For the past 30 years, as much of the world turned its back on nuclear power, France embraced it. Chinon is one of 56 reactors now dotted around the country.
BRUNO COMBI: Today France has 80 percent of its electricity which is made with nuclear energy. It is safe, it is clean, it is cheap.
PETER OVERTON: Bruno Combi is a nuclear scientist and perhaps surprisingly, he's also one of France's most outspoken environmentalists.
BRUNO COMBI: French people are very proud of having nuclear energy, because it provides independence. But the important point is not only of being independent, it's that today we are harming the planet. Global warming is increasing the temperature, and the alternative if we don't go nuclear is that we go to coal, oil and gas, and unfortunately this doesn't work out at all.
PETER OVERTON: It's with some trepidation that I've come to this nuclear plant. You can't help but think back to the horrors of America's Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Having cleared countless security checkpoints, the next step is preparing to enter the sterile inner confines of the power station. I've finally made it to the centre of this power plant, the nuclear reactor. This one has an extraordinary capacity. It generates enough electricity to power 3 million French homes. Now I know it looks a forbidding place, but I'm assured it's perfectly safe.
BRUNO COMBI: If I had to choose for myself to build a house near a coal plant or a nuclear power plant, there is absolutely no hesitation — I want the nuclear power plant. It's safe, it's clean, it's protected, and it doesn't reject anything into the atmosphere.
PETER OVERTON: Back in Australia though, 'nuclear' is still very much a dirty word. The irony is we have the planet's biggest reserves of uranium, hundreds of millions of tonnes of the stuff at mines like Ranger here in the Northern Territory. And while we are happy to sell it to other countries, China being our latest customer, the idea of using it to power our own reactors is still too hot to handle.
PETER GARRETT: Nuclear is a dirty word because the stuff ends up in nuclear weapons, because the waste is highly toxic, highly carcinogenic, lasts for incredibly long periods of time.
PETER OVERTON: Environmental campaigner turned Labor politician Peter Garrett is adamant we should never go nuclear. So you could say to me now that there will never be a time when nuclear would be a viable alternative?
PETER GARRETT: Well, why would Australians support an industry that produces radioactive waste, toxic waste? Why would you support an industry which leaves you with the long-term problem of having to take care of that waste, of guarding against terrorism, and floods, or possible earthquakes down the track. What I'm saying is it's not the right path for Australia to take.
PETER OVERTON: Full stop.
PETER GARRETT: Absolutely.
PATRICK MOORE: There is too much misinformation in this debate and discussion. We really need to get down to facts and to science, and the fact is there are 440 nuclear reactors operating safely and at a reasonable cost producing electricity that does not have any greenhouse gas emissions or air pollution associated with it.
PETER OVERTON: Patrick Moore was once on Peter Garrett's side. But then he did the unthinkable — he turned pro-nuclear. What's so dramatic about Moore's about-face is that back in the early '70s he helped found Greenpeace, and for many years this former scientist was a driving force in the anti-nuclear movement. You've been called a traitor, a heretic, a turncoat.
PATRICK MOORE: Well, names are not an argument.
PETER OVERTON: Are you a traitor? Have you sold out?
PATRICK MOORE: No, I've changed my mind on the subject of nuclear energy. The way they make it out you'd think I've come out in favour of slaughtering whales and resuming hydrogen bomb tests or something.
PETER OVERTON: Why did you change your mind on nuclear?
PATRICK MOORE: First, because it is very clear to me that it is generally a safe technology. There have not been a lot of accidents with nuclear energy, and, secondly, I found out that, you know, there was this big myth that it was really expensive to build nuclear plants and produce nuclear energy — not true.
PETER OVERTON: Opposition to nuclear energy goes back a long way. From the very beginning it's had a serious image problem. But it was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, so vividly recounted by my colleague Richard Carlton two weeks ago, that really gave nuclear power a bad name. These days it's the fear of radioactive waste getting into the hands of terrorists and rogue states that's driving much of the opposition.
PETER GARRETT: Continuing to expand the industry means that we'll continue to expand the amount of plutonium and reprocessed material that's accessible to terrorists. This is one of the most profound challenges that we face.
PETER OVERTON: Isn't it understandable that the public does have a fear of nuclear energy?
PATRICK MOORE: You don't ban the beneficial uses of a technology just because that same technology can be used for evil purposes. What are car bombs made out of? Diesel oil, fertiliser and automobiles. Are we going to ban those? So if we banned everything that you could harm people with, we would never have harnessed fire. Civilisation would not be possible.
PETER OVERTON: You are building the biggest nuclear power station in the world.
PERTII SIMOLA: Yes, biggest single power station in the world.
PETER OVERTON: While nuclear power remains off limits in Australia, elsewhere it's making a big comeback. Here in Finland, the country worst hit by fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, they are building the world's largest reactor, and as the plant's boss, Pertii Simola, proudly tells me, it's built to withstand anything, even a terrorist attack. So a jumbo jet could fly into this?
PERTII SIMOLA: Could fly, yes.
PETER OVERTON: And nothing would happen?
PERTII SIMOLA: Exactly.
PETER OVERTON: What about the threat of a Chernobyl-type melt down?
PERTII SIMOLA: No, this reactor type is totally different from what was at Chernobyl, technology.
PETER OVERTON: You can assure me it's 100 percent safe?
PERTII SIMOLA: Exactly.
PETER OVERTON: What's driving nuclear power's remarkable comeback is the dire threat of global warming. And nothing pollutes our skies more than coal-fired power stations, like this one in the NSW Hunter Valley. More than three-quarters of all the greenhouse gases produced in Australia come from just 24 of these power stations. It's such a frightening statistic you wonder how much longer this can continue.
PATRICK MOORE: Coal-fired power plant is not only spewing out all the greenhouse gases, but it's also spewing out sulphur dioxides and nitrous oxides, mercury and other pollutants, and you never see big demonstrations against coal-fired power plants. What is wrong with the environmental movement?
PETER GARRETT: Of course coal is dirty, of course coal needs to clean up, of course we need to reduce our reliance on coal. I wouldn't argue anything the opposite of that, but what I would say is what we need to do, is we need to apply our ingenuity, our capital, our political will, and all the technologies that are available to us that are not poisonous — gas, wind, thermal.
PETER OVERTON: But is wind and solar going to be enough to provide the base powerload to meet our requirements?
PETER GARRETT: It would be a profound mistake for this country to think that it can solve one problem by simply creating another one.
PETER OVERTON: There's no question nuclear power does produce clean electricity. Intense heat from the radioactive fuel creates steam that drives these giant turbines, but it's the nuclear waste that's the big problem. This looks like an Olympic diving pool. Some of the waste is recycled, but for the past 40 years most has simply been piling up in cooling ponds, like this one at a Finnish reactor. So what does the water do, how does it work?
SCIENTIST: The water cools the fuel up and it also works as radiation shield.
PETER OVERTON: Would it be safe though if I fell in, in all seriousness?
SCIENTIST: You would be quite safe, yeah. You should just take a shower afterwards and you would be quite okay.
PETER OVERTON: So this is where the waste begins its journey?
SCIENTIST: Yes.
PETER OVERTON: As the stockpile of nuclear waste grows, the Finns believe they now have the solution. This tunnel leads to an enormous nuclear waste dump being carved into the 2-billion-year-old bedrock. Timo, I feel like I'm travelling deep into the centre of the earth.
SCIENTIST: Yes, indeed, we are going rather deep.
PETER OVERTON: When it's finished thousands of copper canisters full of high-level waste will be buried half a kilometre below the surface, and, hopefully they'll be completely safe. The waste will take up to 100,000 years before it is deemed safe. How can you assure me that the canister will last that long?
SCIENTIST: Copper won't corrode. And it will last for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years.
PETER OVERTON: So what you are saying — you can guarantee its safety for 100,000 years?
SCIENTIST: We are very confident on this.
PETER GARRETT: The vanity and the hubris and the ego-centredness of saying, 'We know what's going to be going on here in 500 years, or 1000 years time,' I mean, Peter, we are talking about long-lived wastes which run from, sort of, 1300 through to 5000, 10,000 years and onwards.
PETER OVERTON: While Australia continues to mine uranium, it's this fear about radioactive waste that has all but ruled out nuclear power here. The recent outcry over a proposed nuclear waste dump in SA proof of just how strong these fears remain.
PATRICK MOORE: The environmentalists of today are perpetuating the scare campaign about nuclear energy, when Australia is quite capable of controlling the fuel and the waste from its own nuclear energy industry, as does Canada, as does Japan, as do many other countries in the world.
PETER OVERTON: There's no doubting it, nuclear energy is a controversial topic, but as the debate hots up, so too is the planet, and as we confront the spectre of catastrophic global warming, few question there has to be a better, cleaner way to meet the world's growing demand for electricity.
PETER GARRETT: We are at the crossroads. We can use our imagination, our political will, our concern about what happens to future Australians to develop and to build a renewable, self-sufficient energy policy, or we take an expensive, polluting and, long-term, very, very dangerous technology which we leave generations and generations the legacy to have to deal with.
PATRICK MOORE: If Australia wants to reduce fossil fuel consumption and reduce its horrendous greenhouse gas emissions, it has to move to nuclear energy to do so. There's simply no other alternatives.
