The history of anti-nuclear advocacy in Australia and the importance of decoupling nuclear weapons from nuclear energy

A history of successful anti-nuclear advocacy in Australia dates back to the Cold War, from nuclear testing particularly at Maralinga in South Australia, Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, uranium mining protests at Roxby Downs and protesting over the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland.

However, a turning point occurred at the end of the Cold War in 1991, when Ronald Reagan the US President and Mikhail Gorbachev the President of USSR agreed to a significant nuclear weapons disarmament. This has been ongoing for 30 years, with each side retaining vastly reduced stockpiles of weapons, and down-blending weapons grade material to be used for nuclear reactor fuel.

A further change in our perception of nuclear energy occurred in 2006, when Al Gore published ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. He brought the issue of global warming due to the burning of fossil fuel, to the world. In doing this he uncovered a dilemma. How do we provide energy that is critical to humanity, without causing global warming?

The Labor Government believes that wind, hydroelectricity and solar energy must expand by 600% to form a mega-grid by 2050. But even with this, it can’t power big cities when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing. Batteries and other forms of storage are an order of magnitude too small. As a result, gas turbines are proposed that breach Australia’s Net-Zero emissions obligations.

Activist Patrick Moore, an ex-founder of Greenpeace, recognised in 1986 that nuclear energy is the only practical “carbon free” option to do the heavy lifting and the firming of renewables at critical periods. His position is reflective of all countries in the G20 with the exception of Australia, being the only country having a nuclear energy ban in place.