BACKGROUND INFORMATION

PEOPLE FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE AUSTRALIA was formed in response to disturbing news that the Howard Government had developed an unbounded enthusiasm for Australia to become a major player in the nuclear power and nuclear waste arena on a global scale.

Australia already sits on 40% of the world’s richest uranium and new uranium mines are about to be opened up left right and centre throughout Australia, with active support from the ALP.

The Liberal party voted in June to support the storage of foreign nuclear waste in Australia. This fits perfectly with two recent developments:

Kellog, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Cheney’s former company helped to construct the railway line between Adelaide and Darwin, and Serco Asia Pacific, a large British nuclear waste company now manages this railway line.
The Northern Territory intervention enacted by the coalition has virtually nothing to do with child sexual abuse, but everything to do with uranium and nuclear waste. This new law enables mining companies to move unimpeded into Aboriginal tribal land to dig up the uranium, and some of this land is seen by the coalition to be a perfect site for the storage of radioactive waste.

The Howard government in September 2007 signed onto the US sponsored Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a plan which entails enriching uranium, exporting the fuel rods for reactors in overseas countries, then re-importing the high level very toxic radioactive waste, where it is either be stored for the next 500,000 years, or it will be reprocessed. This filthy process involves chopping up the fuel rods, dissolving them in concentrated nitric acid, removing the plutonium and recycling it in Generation IV "fast reactors".

These new reactors - still in development - will use 5 to 15 tons of plutonium fuel and they will be cooled by liquid sodium, which is highly flammable and explosive. Just 5 kilograms of plutonium is critical mass so a crack in a coolant pipe could cause loss of coolant inducing not only a meltdown, but a massive nuclear explosion, the likes of which has never been seen before. This massive accident would scatter tons of plutonium to the four winds. One millionth of a gram of plutonium if inhaled will induce lung cancer.

The federal election in 2007 was a nuclear election. Thankfully, the threat of Australia establishing a nuclear power industry was removed along with the Howard government. While Kevin Rudd has vowed not to build nuclear reactors, he and the Australian Labor Party support an expansion of uranium mining and export. Uranium mining poses many serious medical hazards, and shipping our uranium for use in overseas reactors is contributing to the unsolved problem of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing at nuclear power plants across the world.

PNFA hopes to work with the new Rudd government to achieve a future for Australia that is free of uranium mining and export.

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Claims & Truth

Claim	Truth
We need nuclear power to combat climate change	It is clear that PM Howard’s push for nuclear power generation (NPG) has nothing to do with climate change. Is Howard’s nuclear power initiative a front that will necessitate an Australian high-level nuclear waste dump, a dump where American nuclear waste can be stored?
Nuclear power generation (NPG) will reduce our CO2 emissions over the short period that we have to drastically reduce them, namely up to 2030	It will not. The first batch of nuclear reactors will not be completed until at least 2020. And in its first 10 years of operation, say from 2020 to 2030, NPG will emit as much CO2 as coal- fired power generation.
With the introduction of carbon emissions trading NPG will be cost competitive with coal power generation	Untrue. Two studies show that nuclear power presently costs four times more to generate than coal power and it will do so into the distant future because NPG is a heavy emitter of CO2.
Consumers will pay no more for nuclear-derived electricity than they will for coal-generated electricity	True, our electricity bills will be no more. However, a significant percentage of our income tax will be taken away from spending on health, education etc and go to the nuclear industry to subsidize its costs and give it the massive profits it has always enjoyed.
A nuclear reactor in its day to day operations discharges no radioactive material.	Wrong. A nuclear reactor discharges one million gallons of radioactive water every minute and continuously vents radioactive gases into the air increasing the chances of developing cancer in the adjacent population.
The risk of a meltdown due to mechanical/human error or terrorist attack is so incredibly low it is not credible	Hardly! The Union of Concerned Scientists considers that it is not a matter of if a meltdown will occur in one or more of the US 103 reactors, but when!
The medical consequences of a meltdown are over dramatized. After all, only 50 people died at Chernobyl (According to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in 2005)	5,000 to 10,000 cleanup operators died prematurely, in Belarus over 8000 people developed thyroid cancer and 40% of the European land mass remains radioactive.
Nuclear waste can be safely stored in underground repositories for the 10,000 years it remains radioactive	It remains radioactive for 500,000 years! It is impossible to prevent water seeping through the rock walls of an underground tunnel for 50 years, let alone 500,000. Once in the tunnel it corrodes the metal casks holding the waste causing radioactivity to leak into the invading water, then into ground water and then into creeks and rivers.
We have a moral obligation to take back and store the nuclear waste produced from the uranium we export to other countries	We should stop exporting uranium so that no more nuclear waste is generated from our uranium.
Nuclear power must be in ‘the mix’ of future electricity providers because renewable energy providers like solar, wind etc cannot do it on their own	Untrue. A mixture of ‘renewables’ - solar, wind, geothermal, cogeneration, biomass and hydropower can supply our future power needs with nary a nuclear power or coal power plant in sight!

Download this table as a PDF document.

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Video

David Suzuki: Patron of PNFA

NPRI's Helen Caldicott links nuclear power to global warming

Helen Caldicott: The New Nuclear Danger

Helen Caldicott: If You Love This Planet

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Fact Sheets

PFNA Fact Sheets are presented in print-friendly PDF format. Left click to open the files or right click to save it. You will need Adobe® Reader® to open the PDF files - if you don't already have this free program, you can download it here.

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Research

Nuclear Power ... is it really a greenhouse solution?
Byron-based publisher Alok O'Brien writes: "Researching this matter for a month, the conclusions I reached were astounding. For example, a gas fired electricity plant produces three times as much net energy as a nuclear plant with same emissions, and if 1,500 nuclear plants were produced in the next 30 years (one a week for 30 years) they would produce enough energy for roughly only 5% of our needs, and there would be enough uranium for just 12 years!" ... read more

Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy
This landmark study was produced as a joint project of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. A full pre-publication PDF copy was made available on the web on 27 September 2007 ... read executive summary | read whole document | read press release

Does nuclear energy produce no CO2?
Proponents of nuclear power always say that one of the big benefits of nuclear power is that it produces no Carbon dioxide (CO2). This is completely untrue, as a moment's consideration will demonstrate ... read more

Nuclear Power is Not the Answer
Trained as a physician, and - after four decades of antinuclear activism - thoroughly versed in the science of nuclear energy, Dr Helen Caldicott, the bestselling author of Nuclear Madness and Missile Envy, here turns her attention from nuclear bombs to nuclear lightbulbs. As she makes meticulously clear in this damning book, the world cannot withstand either ... publication details

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Articles

Don't mention the 'N' word
Katharine Murphy, The Age, September 27 2007
A couple of weeks ago, a senior Australian official you've probably never heard of strapped himself into the comfortable end of an aeroplane bound for Vienna. After the long journey, he went along to an important meeting, and acting with the authority of the Commonwealth, signed a document that commits Australia to being a full partner in a global energy grouping you will know about only if you follow national political events with abnormal interest ... read more

The Dangers of Stumbling Down the Nuclear Path
Helen Caldicott, Canberra Times, July 2 2007
Australia is in grave danger. Not only has the Labor Party joined the coalition’s open-slather uranium mine policy, but the Prime Minister is mooting domestic uranium enrichment, construction of 25 nuclear reactors on the East Coast, storage of foreign radioactive waste in Australia and reprocessing spent radioactive nuclear fuel in a "closed nuclear fuel cycle" ... read more

NT takeover is nuke dump ploy: Caldicott
The Age, July 2 2007
Anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott says the federal government's intervention in the Northern Territory is a ploy to allow the dumping of nuclear waste in the outback ... read more

Nuclear Power and Uranium Mining
Helen Caldicott, Adelaide Advertiser, June 29 2007
Contrary to industry propaganda nuclear power contributes substantially to global warming. Fossil fuels used to mine and enrich uranium, construct and decommission the reactor, transport and store the intensely radioactive waste for eons of time produce global warming gases ... read more

Nuclear Politics: Howard’s Nuclear Legacy
Julie Macken, New Matilda, May 30 2007
Whether John Howard wins the next Federal election or not, there is little doubt he’ll leave the political stage within the next two years. This raises the question of his legacy. How Howard will be remembered is a question that is being answered — at least, in part — by a number of books now appearing on bookshelves across Australia ... read more

Nuclear Politics: Our Very Own Nuclear Arms Race
Julie Macken, New Matilda, May 23 2007
Critics have long accused Prime Minister John Howard of having no imagination. While they search for signs of the ‘vision thing’ found so abundantly in Keating’s Prime Ministership, Howard appears to be preoccupied with the pedestrian and pragmatic tasks of re-election ... read more

Nuclear CO2 Warming Costs
Helen Caldicott, UPI Outside View, May 21 2007
The fact is, it takes energy to make energy -- even nuclear energy. And the true "energetic costs" of making nuclear energy -- the amounts of traditionally generated fuel it takes to create "new" nuclear energy -- have not been tallied up until very recently ... read more

Is BMD Futile?
Helen Caldicott, UPI Outside View, May 18 2007
The first military use of outer space was the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The second was defensive systems designed to stop them. Missile defense against ICBMs has never worked. Despite five decades of failure, the idea has continued to haunt military planners since the Cold War began ... read more

The Greatest Australian Hero
Saab Lofton, COA News, May 9 2007
Dr. Helen Caldicott and Superman have a couple of things in common--both of them were born in 1938 and they're both die hard anti-nuke activists (see the movie Superman IV: The Quest for Peace if you don't believe me). They obviously differ in gender and hometowns - the extraterrestrial "man of steel" was raised on a Kansas farm whereas Dr. Caldicott came from Melbourne, Australia (hence the title of this piece) ... read more

Chernobyl Birds' Defects Link Radiation, Not Stress, to Human Ailments
Kate Ravilious, National Geographic News, April 18 2007
Twenty years after the infamous catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a new study shows that barn swallows living in the 19-mile (30-kilometer) "exclusion zone" around the disaster site suffer from many more birth defects and abnormalities than would ordinarily be expected ... read more

Nuclear Debate: Part Four: Australia and the World
Julie Macken, New Matilda, November 29 2006
When John Howard re-ignited debate about a nuclear future for Australia last July, it was as if the past 30 years hadn’t happened. No Chernobyl or Three Mile Island, no terrorists, no intractable problems related to waste or the proliferation of nuclear weapons ... read more

Nuclear Debate: Part Three: The Switkowski Report
Julie Macken, New Matilda, November 22 2006
The Switkowski review of uranium mining and nuclear power has made an enormous and useful contribution to the debate John Howard has decided we had to have. After a five-month investigation, Switkowski’s review found on the positive side that: nuclear power is a ‘practical option’ for Australia ... read more

Nuclear Debate: Part Two: The Problems
Julie Macken, New Matilda, November 15 2006
Two weeks ago John Howard realised that global warming was a big problem — for his re-election prospects and his legacy. This insight did not come with the release of the Stern Review, or through the mounting scientific evidence demonstrating global warming. It came through the results of internal Liberal Party polling ... read more

Nuclear Debate: Part One: The Plan
Julie Macken, New Matilda, November 8 2006
In September 2005, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, used his Condor Laucke lecture to declare that the death toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 was just 50 people. Four months later, George W Bush, used his State of the Union address to launch his Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Three months after this, on 15 May 2006, Prime Minister John Howard announced from Washington that it was time for Australians to debate the role of nuclear fuel here ... read more

Fuel plan beset by fossilised thinking
Helen Caldicott, The Australian, July 24 2006
AUSTRALIA is perfectly placed to be the real energy superpower: the instigator and global leader in renewable electricity production. A country bathed in sun and ferociously windy in many locations, Australia could, with political will and vision, usher in a safe, carbon-free and nuclear-free future. Instead, ... read more

We should not be exporting uranium because you are exporting cancer
Erin O'Dwyer, Sydney Morning Herald, July 6 2006
Not recognised among Australia's 100 most influential people, anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott still stands tall on the world stage, Erin O'Dwyer writes. "We've gone backwards decades under Bush and Howard" ... read more

Campaigner attacks nuclear inquiry's credibility
Kerry O'Brien interviews Helen Caldicott, 7.30 Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV, July 3 2006
Helen Caldicott, can I begin with, I suppose, the most obvious question. You had an enormous following in the early 80s. The impetus of your campaign tended to peter out as the threat of nuclear holocaust dissipated. You retired to your coastal garden and to spend more time with family. Why the comeback? ... read more

Nuclear Power's Sick Legacy
Helen Caldicott, The Age, April 17 2006
The noted American writer Mary McCarthy once famously observed of the equally noted but politically discredited playwright Lillian Hellman: "every word she utters is a lie, including 'and' and 'but' ". As we have seen over the past 10 years, the same can be said of the Howard Government from the children-overboard scandal to "there will never be a GST" to "yes, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq". Now - joined by misguided and misinformed members of the ALP and a few scientists who should know better - the Government is embarked on another mendacious, ill-advised, and downright dangerous enterprise: transforming Australia into a nuclear-powered, uranium-exporting nation, deploying as a rhetorical fig leaf the spurious message that nuclear power is emissions-free, green, and safe and will save Australia - and indeed the world - from the effects of global warming. Let's pull away that tattered fig leaf and look at the facts ... read more

Once a Sunset Industry, the Uranium Lobby Paints a Green Dawn
Helen Caldicott, Sydney Morning Herald, August 11 2005
Global warming has been a great gift to a nuclear industry that was on its knees. Its reputation was so dismal that Wall Street investors gave it a wide berth, its only salvation the public teat ... read more

Don't Play Power Games with Our Lives
Helen Caldicott, The Age, June 29 2005
Two thousand years ago Hippocrates laid down a dictum: "primum non nocere" - or "first, do no harm" - meaning it is a physician's moral duty to induce no harm or injury to a patient during treatment ... read more

A Star War that Fails the Test
Helen Caldicott & Craig Eisendrath, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15 2005
On May 18, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that the Air Force is seeking President Bush's approval for a national-security directive that would bring the country closer to deploying offensive and defensive weapons in outer space ... read more

Outside View: Huge Costs of Nuclear Power
Helen Caldicott, The Houston Chronicle, May 25 2005
There is a huge propaganda push by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear power as a panacea for the reduction of global-warming gases ... read more

No Weapons in Space
Helen Caldicott & Craig Eisendrath, The Baltimore Sun, May 19 2005
The Bush administration is clearly moving toward putting weapons in outer space. It has spent about $500 million a year in research on those potential weapons in the past few years ... read more

Nuclear Proliferation
Helen Caldicott & Scott Harris, Znet, April 14 2005
The Bush administration has taken a hard line against nations they say are engaged in the development of nuclear weapons ... read more

Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution
Helen Caldicott, The Australian, April 13 2005
There is a huge propaganda push by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear power as a panacea for the reduction of global-warming gases ... read more

NPRI President Urges Depleted Uranium Clean-Up in Iraq, USA
Lisa Richwine, Reuters, June 25 2004
The U.S. military should clean up depleted uranium ammunition scattered across Iraq to prevent future health problems such as cancer and birth defects ... read more

McNamara: Nuclear War Still Possible; NY No. 1 Target, USA
Jon E. Dougherty, Newsmax.com, June 3 2004
The threat of devastating nuclear attack by Russia against the United States has not diminished, warns former Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara ... read more

Still on Catastrophe's Edge
Robert McNamara and Helen Caldicott, Los Angeles Times, April 26 2004
As we continue to grapple with the United States' vulnerability to terrorist attack, we fail to recognize the most serious danger, one that is overlooked by politicians and emergency management agencies alike ... read more

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