Nuclear power option stands up for recognition

A message out there to generation Xer’s and Baby Boomers who may harbour anti-nuclear sentiments from the time when Joh was premier, the Springboks were banned and Nike was a novelty shoe brand. Nuclear energy is again part of the conversation. It comes from one of the country’s most prominent energy policy experts, Adjunct Professor Stephen Wilson. As a mechanical engineer and economist Professor Wilson has spent 30 years across 30 countries working on all forms of energy along the value chain. Adjunct Professor Stephen Wilson He’s keynote speaker at Traeger MLA Robbie Katter’s Mount Isa Nuclear Power Forum on 4 October. While uranium exploration is legal in Queensland, mining uranium is not. The younger generation’s attitudes have changed said Professor Wilson. “So I first picked that up in a student debate that I was asked to be part of at UQ in 2017, and I suddenly realized, ‘oh, all these students are pro-nuclear’. What happened? “And I think what happened is they were told to be very worried about climate change, and the students that can do the numbers have realized what I've just been telling you, that nuclear actually makes sense. “And at a minimum, you've got to consider it as part of the solution. My generation, the generation slightly older than me, the baby boomers and the Gen Xs are behind the curb and are sort of struggling to catch up with the changing attitudes, to be honest. “That means most of the political class and people who occupy executive positions in boardrooms around the country and in senior academic positions are sort of behind the curve on what the young generation, much older generation and the sort of general everyday community members are actually thinking. Professor Wilson has taken aim at what he calls a ‘Cold War Mentality’. “We just need to have a calm, mature, relaxed, grownup conversation about all this stuff and just, all of us, need to understand what each other is thinking and if we do that, we might be a little bit pleasantly surprised. “When I was a teenager in the latter stages of the Cold War, I'd been sort of taught to think in a very anti-nuclear way, and I'd been made afraid of anything that had the word ‘nuclear’ in it. “It took me about 35 years to gradually and finally completely change all my thinking. So I'm probably the slowest guy in the room. It took me 35 years to change my view.”

Nuclear power option stands up for recognition

Industry Queensland

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