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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gem Nation. Well.

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Speaker 2: As we head into winter, energy prices are soaring, having

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Speaker 2: huge impacts on the Australian people. Despite the government announcing

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Speaker 2: power payment relief in the budget, the Coalition is saying

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Speaker 2: it won't be enough to deal with further hikes. You know,

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Speaker 2: I was tard in my local bottle shop guy yesterday

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Speaker 2: and his power bill this time last year was one

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars already at this time now it's one

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Speaker 2: hundred and forty thousand dollars. So it's forty thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: more already. Wow, may Well, nuclear power has been thrown

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Speaker 2: into the conversation. The Coalition says we need to consider

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Speaker 2: it as a safe, reliable and cost effective solution. The

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Speaker 2: government is remaining anti nuclear, but what does nuclear power

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Speaker 2: mean for us if that option is on the table.

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Speaker 2: Dr Ady Patterson is widely recognized as an international leader

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Speaker 2: of nuclear science and technology and joins US now eighty Hello.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, it's great to talk to you.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's great to talk to you. Look, we've grown

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Speaker 2: up in an era where we've had for Kashima, we've

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Speaker 2: had Chernobyl. I remember all the concerts are rock concerts,

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Speaker 2: there no nukes. It seems it seems terrifying that new

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Speaker 2: clear powers back on the table, but maybe it is

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Speaker 2: time to discuss it.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think we quite late to that party. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are forty countries in the world which are busy

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Speaker 1: adopting nuclear power at the moment, and there's about thirty

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Speaker 1: eight countries that have got it. And so if we

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Speaker 1: have to join the back of that queue, we might

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Speaker 1: have to wait quite a while, and that'll be really

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Speaker 1: really bad for what we do to the environment.

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Speaker 2: So on the pros and con side. On the pros,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't burn fossil fuels. On the cons, how do

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Speaker 2: you deal with the waste and the danger which is

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Speaker 2: so terrifying.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So basically, if if you for your whole life,

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Speaker 1: with your whole family, used only nuclear power inclining to

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Speaker 1: drive a new electric vehicle and so on, you'd be

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Speaker 1: responsible for about a fist full of nuclear waste. If

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Speaker 1: you were to do that with coal, you'd be responsible

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Speaker 1: for about three kilograms of coal ash every day of

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Speaker 1: your life.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: So which you going to choose the highly concentrated, easy

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Speaker 1: to manage. It's being managed all over the world, I

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Speaker 1: mean in fact in Finland they've opened their first Waiste

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Speaker 1: repository in Finland today their electricity quick looks here forty

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Speaker 1: six grams of carbon intensity in their electricity. If I can't,

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Speaker 1: he's a quick look at New South Wales six hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty one gram. So for every killer what hour

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Speaker 1: of electricity that we are burning in New South Wales

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Speaker 1: today and using is electricity, we're producing more than half

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Speaker 1: a kilogram of coal and that lot that'll be waste.

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Speaker 1: Now that's really really high. South Australia, which is our

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Speaker 1: renewables capital at the moment, is doing four hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty seven grams. Not very good. You know, we're making

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Speaker 1: these massive investments in new grids, very very expensive, very

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Speaker 1: very difficult for rural communities are going to have poles

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Speaker 1: and wires going through their backyard. And we could with

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Speaker 1: the money that we're spending on the grid, we could

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Speaker 1: begin to really reduce our carbon footprint change the world.

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Speaker 1: South Australia at the moment half a kilogram of essentially

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Speaker 1: waste produced from coal for every killer white hour that

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Speaker 1: they're using.

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Speaker 2: What would a fistful of nuclear waste do if it

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Speaker 2: was say it just fell off the back of a truck.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So basically, even if it fell off the

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Speaker 1: back of the truck, nothing would happen because it's always

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Speaker 1: contained in multiple layers of support. In fact, you could

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Speaker 1: go out onto the internet and looking at a high

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Speaker 1: speed train crashing into a container of nuclear waste and

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Speaker 1: the train losers. Right, So this is this is really

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Speaker 1: easy to contain. The volumes are very small to compare

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Speaker 1: to what we used to and so I always say

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Speaker 1: to people that the problem of nuclear waste has been solved,

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Speaker 1: and it's been solved for many years. However, the meme,

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Speaker 1: the kind of the Simpsons mean, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: scary stuff seems to live in our minds even if

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Speaker 1: we didn't experience it. I mean, I've spoken to people

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Speaker 1: who were born after Chernobyl and they really really worried

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Speaker 1: about it. But actually, you know, the people in the

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Speaker 1: area of Chernobyl, many people have been living there post

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Speaker 1: that accident and sign And the same is true for Fukushima.

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Speaker 1: It was a really big mistake by the people were

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Speaker 1: who placed that plant too close to where they could

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Speaker 1: be a big title wave. But Fukushima was a title wave,

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Speaker 1: and you know, nobody in the plant died, but all

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Speaker 1: we've forgotten, you know, the eighteen thousand people who died

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Speaker 1: from the title wave. We talk about fu Kashima all

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Speaker 1: the time, so it's sort of it's a lock in effect.

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Speaker 1: But the great benefit of nuclear is that it's really

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Speaker 1: really low carbon and it's always on. You're not depending

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Speaker 1: on whether dependent sources. I mean, most people don't know

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Speaker 1: that there's been a wind fail in Europe this year.

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Speaker 1: Europe this year has got fifteen percent less wind than

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Speaker 1: last year, just year to year. Wind is unreliable from

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Speaker 1: the morning to the afternoon. Windows are unreliable, the sun

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Speaker 1: goes down at night, and so we should be looking

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Speaker 1: for a future where energy is one of the things

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Speaker 1: that goes back into the wall and is one of

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Speaker 1: the smallest amounts on your bill at the end of

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Speaker 1: the month. But we're actually going to live in a

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Speaker 1: world where Australia is trying to do something that no

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Speaker 1: other country has tried to do. Germany has tried to

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Speaker 1: do it, they have failed. Currently France is selling electricity

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Speaker 1: to Germany. I can see the arrow going across the border.

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Speaker 1: You know, Germany, which is the poster child of renewables

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Speaker 1: in the world, is producing half a kilogram of carbon intensity,

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Speaker 1: whereas France is thirty two grands. You know, tiny.

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Speaker 2: I guess until we get batteries that can store that

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Speaker 2: staff you're going to make the battery. But can we

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Speaker 2: guarantee that.

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Speaker 1: I must talk to you about batteries. In my background,

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Speaker 1: I sold patents to Tashiba pilthium batteries back in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: Batteries are buckets of electrons. You have to produce the

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Speaker 1: electrons somewhere. Batteries are really heavy, they really really resource intensive,

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Speaker 1: and they will not store enough electrons to save us

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Speaker 1: from this. Batteries are not cheap. They are literally very

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Speaker 1: expensive buckets. So we're doing two things as expensive. We're

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Speaker 1: going to try to bet on batteries, and we're betting

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Speaker 1: on a longer Cynegritte right across the rural and regional

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Speaker 1: parts of Australia where people currently go for tourism and

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Speaker 1: where they'll now go to watch the poles and the wires.

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Speaker 1: All of that expenditure could actually be directed at, first

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Speaker 1: of all, not being one of the very few countries

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Speaker 1: in the world that has banned nuclear Get into the

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Speaker 1: room with the grown ups and begin to talk about

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Speaker 1: an intelligent energy strategy where all of the options are

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Speaker 1: on your table. You know, Obama said when he was

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Speaker 1: asked this question. I was in the room in Washington

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Speaker 1: at the time, and they said to President Obama, what

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Speaker 1: would you choose and you'd get DA DA data all

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Speaker 1: the way down to this. His answer was all of

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Speaker 1: the above, the wisest energy statement ever made. If we

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Speaker 1: don't have all the options, we don't have all of

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Speaker 1: the possibilities of the best future for Australia. We've got

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Speaker 1: a crazy ban which is imposed at a moment of

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Speaker 1: fear across the country. If we were a grown up democracy,

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Speaker 1: we would say you don't ban things that are part

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Speaker 1: of the future of now. Gain to be nearly one

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Speaker 1: hundred countries which will have nuclear in twenty years time.

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Speaker 1: If we're still talking about the ban and building bigger

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Speaker 1: grids or thinking that battery is going to solve the problem,

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Speaker 1: we're not talking to the scientists and engineers who really

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Speaker 1: understand this. You know, I'm so passionate about the idea,

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Speaker 1: not that we force nuclear on people, but that we

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Speaker 1: have an option to choose. If we choose, once the

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Speaker 1: ban is lifted, not to have that will be the

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Speaker 1: future that we decide to have for ourselves. But we

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Speaker 1: can't even decide that future. We meant to be one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest democracies in the world, and yet the

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Speaker 1: democratic right to choose the lowest carbon, safest form of

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Speaker 1: electricity in the world, where everybody else is building it.

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Speaker 1: We denied that, and we denied it with spin. We're

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Speaker 1: not denied it with reality. We will never be one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent renewables country. The laws of physics and the

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Speaker 1: laws of engineering do not submit that. That's what being sold.

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Speaker 2: Well fascinating and I'd love to talk to you all

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Speaker 2: day about this run out of time so we can

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Speaker 2: guarantee it. It can be saved if we don't have

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Speaker 2: to bury it in the middle of the country or anything.

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Speaker 1: It's a tiny hole in the ground and something in

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Speaker 1: the back corner of a small farm in South Australia.

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Speaker 1: It's not you know the Simpsons. It is actually the

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Speaker 1: sanity of the future that we're looking for. Thank you

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Speaker 1: for that eighty Thank you for joining us, Doctor Adie Patterson,

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Speaker 1: Nat