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| Baker Gardens, ACT. My proposed site for Australia’s first Small Modular Nuclear Reactor. (Google Maps) |
"NIMBY OZ"
I have an idea for Canberra. Install the latest nuclear technology, a Small Modular Reactor in a central suburb. And I know exactly where: Baker Gardens, Ainslie, Canberra, ACT. There’s an unused park in the middle of the Gardens that would be the perfect size and location. (see pic above).A SMR of around 500MW capacity would generate enough power to provide for all of Canberra’s needs.
Thus, at one fell swoop, Canberra would become the Net Zero Capital of Australia. Perhaps the Net Zero capital of the world.
Imagine what a fillip this would be to our tired, our poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe a carbon-free future. Imagine a new Canberra Colussus!
“But, Peter”, I hear you object, “what about the waste?” Again, I have the answer. My friends live in the Gardens, and are a keen supporters of net zero. They have an unused garage in the backyard, which would be perfect for storing the (very few) barrels of waste that would be generated. They’d be encased in concrete and safe from vandalism or theft, so no worries there. And in addition they could receive some rental money – I’m sure we could work something out – and so it’s a win-win.
“Oh, you merry troll”, I hear you snark.
Well, yes. But also so what? I mean this: why should Canberra not be the centre of Australia’s nuclear industry? Geography-wise it’s perfect. Away from the sea, and stable geologically.
A nuclear power station, one of the new smaller versions, would show we — Australia — are serious about controlling climate change, we are up with the latest technology and we are not afraid of having it in our backyard.
And there, in the last word, we have our answer as to why it won’t happen. “Backyard”. Specifically, Not In My Back Yard. NIMBY.
NIMBYism is something we’re all prone to.
We bumped up against NIMBYism right here in Hong Kong where we now live. We had rooftop solar panels installed, part of our government’s campaign to reach “Net Zero”. Neighbours didn’t like the look and complained. They took up a petition. Only because it’s a government policy were we allowed to continue.
As individuals living in houses in cities, we really hate it when someone, even local government, wants take a block of land, near you, and build medium density affordable housing. Then the NIMBY folks object, rebrand it as “luxury housing” and set up a Change.org petition to cancel it. Always with reasons that make them feel virtuous (“the higher carbon footprint”, or whatever).
Perhaps the most striking recent case of NIMBY is the Martha's Vineyard immigrant case. Having said on all their lawnsigns “we welcome migrants and refugees”, when immigrants and refugees did lob up on their steps, they were quicker than a scalded cat to bring in the National Guard to get rid of them.
But I reckon Australia is the greatest NIMBY country in the world. Because for Australia, NIMBY is at the level of national policy.
Take the nuclear issue.
We have been fine to export uranium to other countries so they can generate nuclear energy.
But not us. We don’t want nuclear in Australia, because “Not in my backyard”.
Does it make any sense?
No it never did and does so even less now.
Not only that, it’s the grossest hypocrisy. We, Australia, think it’s fine for you, India, to destroy yourself: here, here’s the uranium. But we won’t use it, thank you very much. I’ve never understood why that hypocrisy has not been called out more. I guess because we can’t stand to face up to it. We’re too embarrassed by the blatant hypocrisy.
The facts about nuclear remain. It is clean. It is cheap. It is safe.
And yet the Australian Greens webpage there’s no mention of nuclear. At all. (It used to have a mention of nuclear, only to say it was horrid and the Greens did not support it. Now even that scathing mention is absent).
They do mention nuclear weapons that we must avoid. Ok, agreed. But why no mention of the single most concentrated source of energy on the planet? Whose energy can be released safely, cleanly and cheaply? No mention.
That makes no sense. And when something makes no sense – scientifically -- one can only conclude that it must be done because of emotion. Anti-nuke people, the anti-nuke left, anti-nuke Greens, must be so on the basis of emotion. “Look what happened at Chernobyl”. “Look at Fukushima”. It’s all the emotion of fear. The facts of these accidents – the science – demonstrate that safety of nuclear, not its dangers.
We must examine our own NIMBYism and fight it.
It’s all too easy to hate something that’s going to happen in your backyard. If there’s even a tiny chance that it might not be good for you then “better safe than sorry”. All understandable. But the problem with that is that if everyone says that then nothing gets done.
That’s the case with California. Which now has a homeless crisis that’s out of control. And which got that way through rampant NIMBYism. Everyone didn’t want it in their backyard. It wasn’t just NIMBY, it was Not in OUR Backyard.
The New York Times, no less, the paper of the intelligentsia, the paper of the progressive elites, did a hit piece on NIMBYism in California. Which is devastating. Because all these good folks wanted to solve the unaffordable housing crisis – just NOT IN MY BACKYARD – they ended up with nothing happening. With approvals processes that take years. With no affordable housing.
The nuclear thing is a bigger issue. We must fight climate change. We all agree on that.
Then we go ahead and say, not only do we not want nuclear in our own backyard, but we don’t want it anywhere. We follow the German Greens who are shutting down the nuclear stations. And we think that’s progressive. We believe that’s green. It may be Green, with a capital “G”, but it’s not green, with a small “g”. It’s not good for the environment. What’s good for the environment is lots more nuclear.
The IPCC Report says we must have up to 500% more nuclear power than we have now if we’re to make a dent in carbon emissions. That’s six times the power we have now from nuclear stations. But we’re going in the opposite direction. We are closing them down and making it hard to open new ones because of red tape.
And this is noticed nowhere. This is made an issue nowhere. This is fought against nowhere.
So, here’s my call to all Australians.
Take the climate change dangers seriously. And therefore support nuclear power.
Nuclear for the world.
Nuclear for Australia.
Peter Forsythe
Discovery Bay
Hong Kong
