In the past two years, environmentalists have celebrated the dramatic turnaround on nuclear energy in Germany, the decisive rejection of nuclear energy by Turkey and of a partly-built 4th nuclear power plant by Taiwan and the closing of Chernobyl's last reactor. And it's still the case that no new plants have been commissioned in the USA since the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It would be easy and comforting to believe that nukes are on their way out, and that without any effort on our part, the Australian uranium mining industry will soon wither and die for lack of markets.

But there are forces hard at work to keep the industry alive. The Australian government and its nuclear agency ANSTO are up there with other players such as the Japanese government and its cronies, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Toshiba who are pressuring our/their Asian neighbours to accept their nuclear technology. Australia's efforts include cynical greenhouse propaganda and offers of assistance to countries like Thailand to get started on the nuclear road. Meanwhile uranium from Roxby Downs, Ranger and now Beverley in South Australia, still fuels the reactors of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, USA and Canada. The show is not over by quite a long shot, as these figures will show...

In 1998, global installed nuclear capacity fell to a total of 367,602 megawatts. But during 1999 - 2000, it rose again to 371,998 MW. That's the net result of nine new nuclear power plants entering commercial operation and the closure of five old ones, plus some power uprates. So in 1990-2000 there was average growth of 0.7% per year, WAY below what the nuclear industry had confidently predicted 20 years ago, but not exactly fading away either.

1999 net nuclear power increase: 2333 megawatts
4 reactors started commercial operation in India, Slovakia, South Korea (2)
- 2 reactors closed in Kazakhstan & Sweden

2000 net nuclear power increase: 2063 megawatts
5 reactors started commercial operation in Brazil, France, India (2), and Pakistan
- 3 reactors closed in UK (2) & Russia (Chernobyl)

More under construction: 27 reactors are currently under construction including 10 started since 1998. The newer 10 are: four in China, two in Japan, two in S. Korea and two in India.

FUTURE TRENDS
It is expected that more and more nuclear power plants will be closed over the next decades, as they come to the end of their lifetimes. But with new plants being actively resisted by most local populations, the industry is extending the lifetimes of existing reactors, by 10 to 20 years, and increasing their output, by replacing old steam generators with newer, more efficient ones.

NUKES & GREENHOUSE
Several governments have announced that they will delay construction of new nuclear power plants, until it is clear that nuclear energy will be adopted as a 'clean' energy source in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto climate change protocol. In that case, the construction of nuclear power plants could win carbon trading credits, making nuclear investments up to 40% cheaper. China and Brazil have said they would not build new plants without those CO2 credits.

Despite the efforts of Australia, Canada and Japan to classify nuclear as a CDM at the 6th climate change Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the Kyoto Protocol at The Hague in Nov 2000, this ended without a final statement. The debate will be resumed at the continuation of this conference in Germany in May 2001. The future of the nuclear industry will depend for a large part on the decisions taken there. We must insist that the Australian government drop its shameful suggestion that we swap one grave environmental problem for another.

Brenda Conochie

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