Earth Equity News

Australia's PM Rejects Clamor for Nuclear Energy. AFP, June 27, 2008. "Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday [in response to calls for nuclear power from labor leaders] that the country did not need to adopt nuclear energy to address climate change. The centre-left leader's stance reverses the policy of his conservative predecessor John Howard, who announced plans to embrace the next generation of power plans before he was voted out of office last November. Rudd said his government would pursue other options to combat climate change... 'We believe that we have a huge range of energy options available to Australia beyond nuclear with which and through which we can respond to the climate change challenge,' he told ABC Radio. Australia currently has only one nuclear reactor, which is used to produce isotopes for medical research. But it has plentiful uranium deposits and exports about 600 million dollars (570 million US) of the radioactive element a year."