Abstract
Australia possesses nearly a quarter of the world's known recoverable uranium. With the price of uranium at a 15-year high, it's no wonderthe national government eagerly wants to ramp up production.
Few topics are as contentious in Australia as uranium. The United States and Britain used Australian uranium to develop their nuclear weapons in the 1940s, but it wasn't until the mid-1970s, following a large public inquiry into a local mining project, that uranium mining attracted widespread opposition because of its association with nuclear weapons.
This protest led to a standing government policy that limited the number of operational uranium mines in the country for the past 30 years. Breaking with that policy, Prime Minister John Howard announced earlier this year that Australia would consider expanding its uranium production and “adding value” to its exports through uranium enrichment. The announcements sparked outcries, as opponents pointed to the environmental degradation, health effects, hazardous waste, and, of course, the nuclear weapons that can result from uranium mining and enrichment.
The potential economic benefits–earlier this year the government signed a framework agreement with China that would allow the export of uranium to the Asian behemoth–and the argument that nuclear power offers a “clean” alternative to carbon dioxide emitting power plants has made for some surprising political alliances.
But what will the Australian public ultimately think? Gavin Mudd, an anti-nuclear activist and environmental engineer at Monash University in Melbourne, who studies the effects of uranium mining, thinks the government could face a long fight. He argues: “As much as they are trying to push the economics and the climate change moral arguments, we are seeing a resurgence in the anti-nuclear movement.”
JONAS SIEGEL
A “GEOLOGIC FREAK”
Though Australia has a number of uranium deposits, the largest deposit by far is
located at the Olympic Dam site in South Australia. Labeled a
“geologic freak” by some observers,
GLOBAL DEMAND
The economic argument for increasing uranium production depends on increasing
demand.
The latest uranium “Red Book,” put out by the Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that known resources can satisfy this expected demand, as long as production increases. One of the countries with the greatest potential to contribute to the supply, according to the report-Australia.
Supplementary Material
Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy: Opportunities for Australia?