The Federal Government has announced Australia will formally open negotiations on a nuclear cooperation agreement with China. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the agreement will establish safeguards to ensure Australian uranium supplied to China is used "exclusively for peaceful purposes".
Mr Downer says Australian and Chinese officials have already held exploratory talks on the issue. He says China's rapidly growing demand for energy will see a four-fold increase in nuclear energy production by 2020. "Diversifying from fossil fuels will result in lower greenhouse gas and particulate emissions," Mr Downer said in a statement.
But Greens Senator Kerry Nettle has condemned the Government's decision to begin talks. Senator Nettle says the international community still has not been able to develop satisfactory ways to dispose of nuclear waste and Australia should export uranium at all. "The Australian Government is not looking at the concerns in Australia and elsewhere that we need to remove ourselves from this destructive industry," she said.
"It doesn't provide any answers to greenhouse gas emissions, it simply creates another problem."
| That's pretty darned dumb. Generate electricity with a nuclear generating plant and you don't burn the requisite amount of coal or oil. I don't know what's difficult about understanding that, but then I'm not a Green. |
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