From Hilltops Council – John Piper

Food for thought. I was reading an article while I was on holidays about the dumping of used solar panels in landfill in California.

Concerns were raised about the toxic metals in solar panels such as lead, selenium and cadmium which can leak into the groundwater.

Only 10% of the used solar panels are recycled because the process is time consuming and expensive.

In Australia, the aluminium is sometimes recycled but much of the remainder of the panels end up in landfill as well.

When we’re looking for good alternatives to our energy needs we need to examine all possible alternatives and the whole process involved.

Food for thought – is it time we revisited the possibility of nuclear energy here in Australia?

The energy needs of our world far outstrip what renewable energy sources can provide at this point in time and will only continue to grow.

In the 1970’s, footings were sunk for a nuclear power plant here in Australia but this project was then abandoned.

Opposition usually comes from citing the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear catastrophes.

Chernobyl was a unique error resulting from design and procedural neglect. The disaster at Fukushima was the result of a tsunami causing power failure at the plant.

But when considering nuclear power generation in Australia, we are geologically stable, and have rich uranium deposits to draw from.

Nuclear power plants, although expensive to establish, provide the cheapest, most reliable, least carbon producing and the safest to humans per unit of energy produced of any other form of electricity generation.

Let’s have some serious conversation about nuclear powered electricity generation as a realistic alternative for our future energy needs.

Councillor John Piper