It's time to make your voice heard.  With a Federal election looming, tell the Opposition that their nuclear ideology is INSANE.  Don't give them a mandate to implement it.  The spin-doctors are already out in force.  The 'alternative facts' are ludicrous.

Why a plan to build seven nuclear power stations in Australia is BAD POLICY;

• Planning for nuclear power from 2040 will not solve any short term energy shortfalls once planned coal power closures take effect
• Locks higher levels of fossil fuel usage for at least another 15 years.  This is DELIBERATE and at the forefront of the policy.
• It stymies plans for growth in sustainable energy production and storage.  Also deliberate.
• The national renewable energy usage mix is already well over 40% and growing rapidly*
• Most nominated sites do NOT have the available water to cool a nuclear reactor e.g. Latrobe Valley, Vic.
• Some reactors are planned for sites near known geo-fault lines
• Australia has already had many fights over where it stores nuclear waste.  Where will it go?  Who can guarantee waste site safety for the next 25,000 years?
• Consensus by peak bodies is that the establishment costs put forward so far are severely distorted, and have been grossly understated.
• The promise of cheaper interim energy costs to consumers is disingenuous.
• Consumers and taxpayers will foot the enormous cost of both commissioning and eventual decommissioning of nuclear reactors.  The dollar figures are staggering.  Measuring the less tangible cost of long-term nuclear safety is harder.
• "4th Generation" nuclear technology from China?  Really??  Proponents have fallen silent on the detail of where Australia will source the design and technology.
• There are better ways to decentralise and meet our energy needs.  We should be building as many sustainable independent community-based micro grids as possible.  The focus on fewer and larger power stations that rely on national transmission infrastructure is problematic, and we know from experience that it's increasingly vulnerable to weather extremes.

IMHO we have no choice.  Australia must pursue an energy future based on wind and solar for a net-zero future as fast as possible, especially if it's much more affordable and easier to achieve than nuclear.  There's no shortage of wave energy in Bass Strait either. Where is the R&D for that?  If the USA has voted to "drill baby drill", then for the future of our planet we need to defy such bad examples, and be loudly proud of it on the world stage.

Without action now, our world will just get hotter, crazier and more dangerous, and I put this nuclear obsession into the stoopid and dangerous categories, especially because the deadline to wean the world off carbon has long passed.

Has Australia become apathetic?  Get out in the streets and organise anti-nuclear protests like you did in decades past.  Keep this issue high on the agenda and visible during the election campaign.  Force the Coalition to back away from this retrograde ideology by telling them you will VOTE NO to nuclear power in Australia.  Seriously flawed policy warrants a strong reaction, and a government decision to take this path may be irrevocable.

Strap in Planet Earth, it's going to be a bumpy ride.  I've nominated some theme music too, just in case we need it; the 1982 song "The Lunatics" by Fun Boy Three.

*cleanenergycouncil.org.au