Australia’s new chief scientist open to nuclear power but warns country will ‘miss the bus’ if it waits
Australia’s new chief scientist open to nuclear power but warns country will ‘miss the bus’ if it waits
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Prof Tony Haymet says nuclear industry will need to ‘rebuild their social licence’ while noting solar and wind are ‘incredibly cheap’. Australia’s new chief scientist says he is open to the prospect of nuclear power playing a role in the country’s energy mix, but remains focused on forms of energy that were “available to help us right now”.
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On his first day in the job, Prof Tony Haymet said new energy-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence could be powered by renewables, but that he thought serious discussions about nuclear in Australia were likely to be years away. “If you go back and look at Chornobyl and Three Mile Island and so on, there wasn’t enough transparency and openness. I think the nuclear industry has accepted the fact that they have to rebuild their social licence to operate,” Haymet told a press conference when asked about small modular reactors (SMRs).
“You know, for the next chief scientist in 2030 or 2040, I think you can re-ask your question.”. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email. Haymet said Australia shouldn’t “rule out any energy source” but said new technologies, like AI datacentres, would require much more power in the short term.
“So I’m looking at the slate of energies that are going to be available to help us right now. If we wait until we perfect wave energy or nuclear fusion, or some other source of power, we’re going to miss the bus,” he said. Responding to Haymet’s comments, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said many of the world’s largest economies included nuclear in their energy mixes.
