Australia: Review of ISA’s nuclear energy balance report

Australia’s review of the nuclear industry has been published in draft form for feedback. The report takes its energy balance and GHG emissions data from a report it commissioned from ISA at University of Sydney. This article looks at the ISA report.
Background

In June 2006 the Australian Federal Government commissioned a report “Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy – Opportunities for Australia ?”. Dr Ziggy Switkowski was chosen to head the Prime Ministerial Taskforce conducting the review. He has a doctorate in nuclear physics, but is better known as the former chairman of Telstra, Australia’s former-monopoly telephone company.

Switkowski was appointed to the board of ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) in January 2006, so his appointment to this taskforce was seen by some as compromising the report’s independence. In response, Switkowski then resigned from his ANSTO board position. Obviously this strategy can have had no bearing on his pro-nuclear bias. This is a report written by the nuclear industry trying to justify its very existence. If they fail to make a solid case for nuclear energy now, they will soon be out of a job.

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