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Under Investigation: Mar 9

Tonight Liz Hayes and panel discuss “Can nuclear energy ever be truly safe?”

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Tonight on Under Investigation Liz Hayes looks at nuclear energy and asks “Can nuclear energy ever be truly safe?”

March 11, 2011 – The most powerful earthquake in Japan’s history triggers a monster tsunami.

A wall of water up to 20-metres high smashes into the coastline destroying everything in its path. But it is just the beginning of the Fukushima catastrophe – the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl… and the greatest setback to the cause of nuclear energy in modern times. But is that all about to change?

Tonight – we investigate Australia’s delicate dance with nuclear energy, which many experts say is our only way of surviving past fossil-fuels into a carbon-free future. We’re already signing up to nuclear powered submarines, why not nuclear energy? Using the Fukushima nuclear disaster as our model – UI’s experts investigate the central question “Can nuclear energy ever be truly safe?” It’s one of UI’s most fiery debates ever.

Panel:
Dr Helen Caldicott: One of the world’s most famous and forceful anti-nuclear campaigners and whose organisation shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr Adrian (Adi) Paterson: Former CEO of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and a leading international proponent of nuclear energy.

Bob Carr: NSW’s longest serving premier and former Foreign Affairs Minister who turned anti-nuclear in the wake of Fukushima.

Dr Joanne Lackenby: Chief Safety Officer at Australia’s only nuclear reactor and a young woman who sees nuclear as the world’s only way out of catastrophic climate change.

Dr Mark Diesendorf: Australia’s leading environmental scientist and an expert on renewable energy.

Guests:

Professor Geraldine “Gerry” Thomas: One of the world’s leading experts on the links between radiation and cancer at Imperial College London. She says radiation is the “big scare” used by the anti-nuclear side; that the radiation from Fukushima was minimal; even Chernobyl caused very few radiation deaths – for 99% of those exposed, it was less radiation than a CT scan. She says humans have evolved in a ‘radioactive world’ – and natural background radiation is far in excess of that caused by Fukushima.

Professor Robert Parker: He says renewable energy options will cause massive environmental impacts in Australia.
Dr. Hannah Power: Associate Professor of Coastal and Marine Science at the University of Newcastle, and a world expert on tsunamis.

9pm tonight on Nine.

4 Responses

  1. This was a weak one sided ” investigation “. No mention of the other looming castrophe…..war. No debate on how long uranium reserves will last. It’s not 1000s of years…..unless someone can actually work out a viable way to extract it from the earth’s mantle or obtain it from the oceans. If the whole planet decided to go nuclear, we’re looking at 15000 plants…..now try telling your listeners that’s a ” safe” option!!.

    This episode was a joke…bought to you by Peter Costello on behalf of the LNP donors.

  2. As Chuck128 has alerted to, in an ideal world where there is no mishaps or threats of war then and only then should one consider the option of nuclear power in Australia. It’s very obvious Nuclear power plants are a strategic target when you have people /countries wanting to go to war against you. You mentioned storage of waste underground as well, what about earth quakes, that could also rupture a containment and no one would know until it’s to late seeping into our earth and water ways. “it’s a no brainer”

  3. From the same network that brings you (not me) MAFS. The first commercial nuclear power stations started operation in the 1950s. Nuclear energy now provides about 10% of the world’s electricity from about 440 power reactors. “Can nuclear energy ever be truly safe?” Well, stats seem to show it’s safer than coal mining. “Coal is responsible for over 800,000 premature deaths per year globally and many millions more serious and minor illnesses”. (Endcoal.org). Using the official internationally-recognized death statistics for Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, the combined loss of lives from the three major nuclear accidents is 32 people. And Bob Carr is, this week, an expert on…nuclear power plants.

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