After last week’s damning ACCC report into the energy sector, Senator Cory Bernardi is calling for nuclear to be considered as a possibility in Australia’s energy mix.

Though debate has been dominated by the ideologically polarised coal and renewable camps, Bernardi says the parameters of discussion need to be broadened so that Australia can rethink nuclear energy’s  prohibited status.

“We have a blanket moratorium on nuclear energy in this country,” says Bernardi.

“It seems to be the word that can’t be spoken about in federal parliament because the left of the political spectrum have intimidated almost everyone in the parliament, plus the community has almost been brainwashed to think that nuclear is bad.”

“Yet nuclear is being used in dozens of countries around the world. There are many, many plants being generated around the world as we speak, because it offers base-load power, it’s economic and it’s emissions free.”

Reportedly, some 34 percent of the world’s total uranium is in Australia. In 2016, Australia exported $900 million in uranium to our international counterparts, though not one iota was used here.

For Bernardi, this is symptomatic of some serious hypocrisy.

“We should be having a conversation about the prospects to become an energy superpower. This means using our abundant sources of uranium to not just export, but to actually use them to generate power in this country.”

“This would give us back our competitive advantage, which is cheap and reliable energy.”

“But right now we can’t even have a conversation on it, because of this blanket prohibition.”

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