Melbourne, March 14: Australians will eventually warm to nuclear power, a prominent local physicist says.
Ziggy Switkowski, chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) until a few months ago, anticipated Australians would be apprehensive about adopting nuclear power following the unfolding crisis in Japan.
Nuclear reactors there have been badly damaged by an earthquake that rocked the country on Friday.
Dr Switkowski said despite the incident, he believed Australians would use the clean energy source eventually.
“I remain convinced that in our future we will see nuclear power. We do need clean energy, we are an energy hungry nation,” he told ABC Television on today.
Dr Switkowski said what had happened in Japan was extremely unlikely to ever occur in Australia.
“We are not geologically active, we aren’t in the path of typhoons and hurricanes and tsunamis,” he said.
But environmentalists are arguing that the Japanese experience proves nuclear power will never be safe.
“Japan’s nuclear plants were built with the latest technology, specifically to withstand natural disasters, yet we still face potential meltdown,” Greenpeace’s Steve Campbell said.
——–Agencies