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Mr Ferguson yesterday challenged the green lobby to embrace a "rational, science-based pathway" to energy generation, saying its blanket rejection of traditional energy sources is politically motivated.
The comments drew a sharp response from Greens leader Bob Brown, who labelled Mr Ferguson "a lackey of the mining industry" who was unwilling to embrace the future.
They also came as the Labor Party prepared to dump a 2007 national conference resolution requiring the Rudd government to renounce its legislative right to impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory.
A platform to be considered by next week's national conference excludes the 2007 resolution demanding the repeal of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005.
Mining giant Rio Tinto this week appealed to the government to reverse its ban on nuclear energy in Australia.
In a submission to a government review of energy policy, Rio Tinto said the government must consider nuclear power if it were serious about meeting self-imposed targets on the reduction of carbon emissions. Mr Ferguson and Wayne Swan rejected the idea.
After Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday the government wanted to invest in renewable energy development, Mr Ferguson writes in The Australian today that the green lobby has to accept that the technology does not exist for clean renewable energy generation supplying baseload power.
"Technologies capable of producing clean, affordable, reliable baseload power from the sun, the wind, the ocean -- or from low-emissions coal -- may still be several years away," Mr Ferguson writes.
"Over the next few decades, uranium and LNG are set to play a significant role in the global response to climate change. Put simply, blanket opposition to these industries is a political stance, not a practical one."
Mr Ferguson expresses frustration that people claiming to be "true environmentalists" are criticising the government for promoting uranium exports and the development of LNG fields off the northwestern coast of Western Australia.
He writes that with 1.6 billion people mired in poverty and lacking access to electricity, critics need to explain how they will meet burgeoning energy needs if they are unwilling to use gas and uranium as transition fuels while research continues into clean renewables.
"I am yet to meet anyone who opposes the use of cheap, reliable renewable energy," Mr Ferguson writes. "However, the factors limiting the uptake of renewables remain technical, not political.
"We must have a rational, science-based pathway to overcome those hurdles. Faith alone will not get us there."
While again insisting Australia has access to so many energy sources that it does not need to use nuclear power, Mr Ferguson writes that other nations are not so fortunate.
Australia has an obligation to export its uranium to help them develop and reduce their carbon emissions, he writes.
Senator Brown said now was the time to begin a transition to a low-emissions future, not to dwell in the past dominated by polluting industry.
"Martin Ferguson is a total, 100per cent, lackey of the mining industry," Senator Brown said.
"Renewable energy including baseload solar, but in particular energy efficiency, is not only ready to take down off the shelf but it's cheaper and will create more jobs than coal or nuclear."
Earlier, Senator Wong said the government opposed nuclear energy and would continue to invest in renewable energy sources as well as clean coal technology.
It would "make the investments we need into the renewable energy sector to grow that sector, to improve our technology, our innovation in those sectors, rather than focusing on nuclear power", she said. In Perth, opposition resources spokesman Ian Macfarlane said the government must promote debate on nuclear energy.
It also emerged yesterday that the draft platform to be considered by next week's Labor Party conference excluded any reference to a 2007 party resolution to repeal the Howard government's Radioactive Waste Management Act, which allowed the government to establish a waste dump in the Northern Territory to take low-grade medical radioactive waste as well as intermediate-grade waste from the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, which is now stored in France and Britain.
A spokesman for Mr Ferguson said the minister was awaiting reports on the appropriateness of a series of possible dump sites in the Northern Territory.
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