WEEKLY ROUNDUP Parliamentary Inquiry Recommends Overturning Australia's Nuclear Ban

摘要

An ad hoc parliamentary “inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia” recommended this week that the government consider lifting Australia's 21-year moratorium on the energy source for only Generation 3+ and Generation 4 reactors. The inquiry's 230-page report, titled Not Without Your Approval, comes after four months of hearings and evidence-gathering from the 10-member bipartisan Environment and Energy Committee. The committee launched the inquiry at the behest of the conservative Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Beyond lifting the moratorium, the commit- tee recommended the consideration of nuclear newbuilds, and that the govern- ment commission various government bodies - including Australia's nuclear regulator - to conduct technical assessments of such a move. Not all 10 mem- bers of the inquiry signed off on the recommendations; independent MP Zali Steggall argued in her dissent that lifting the moratorium was “pre-emptive” and should only happen after obtaining a “social license” for such a move. Three opposition Labor MPs, meanwhile, found that there is “simply no case for wast- ing time and resources on a technology that is literally the slowest, most expen- sive, most dangerous, and least flexible form of new power generation.”