There is a painfully inconvenient truth for many Australian politicians and climate change activists facing the 2007 federal election. It is that international scientific opinion and technical experience clearly indicate that the pivotal solution to both energy security and climate change is the increasing use of nuclear power technology. This view has been strongly endorsed at recent scientific conferences both by Australia's chief scientist, Jim Peacock, and the chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Ziggy Switkowski. Their informed views are supported by overseas experience.

Overseas, Members of the European Parliament have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a report stating that nuclear energy is indispensable if the European Union is to meet its basic energy needs in the medium term. It is the Parliament's first explicit endorsement of nuclear power as Europe's largest carbon-free energy source, providing one-third of its electricity. There were 509 votes for and only 153 against the resolution. The report further stated that "any renunciation of nuclear power will make it impossible to achieve the objectives set regarding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and the combating of climate change."

A further sign of the global acceptance of nuclear power technology and its crucial role in energy security and the fight against global warming is contained in a report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency on October 23, 2007. It states that by 2030 it is anticipated that 691gigawatts (electric) of nuclear power will be on line, producing about 5141 terawatt hours of electricity. This is almost twice the present output.

According to the European Commission's Transport and Energy Directorate, renewable energy use alone would struggle to help reduce carbon emissions, while carbon capture and storage would not be viable in time to help meet emission reduction targets and would be very expensive. The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme for carbon dioxide is now trading December 2008 allowances at about 22 euros per tonne. This translates into a cost burden on coal fired plant in excess of 2c/kWh.

In Australia, the Labor Party's proposal to have a mandatory renewable energy target of 20 per cent of electrical energy to be provided from wind, solar and geothermal sources by the year 2020 is far more impractical and ambitious than the targets of the European model. It could become a huge financial burden on energy users unless massively subsidised by an incumbent government.

Typically, wind power with an average capacity factor of say 25 per cent will need back-up generators prior to grid connection. The cost of energy generated will be about five times greater per MWh than from a nuclear plant. And the lifetime of a 2MW wind turbine might be 20 years while that of a 1GW nuclear power station would be about 60 years.

Without nuclear power, Australia's value-adding and manufacturing industries would quickly become non-competitive and would inevitably be driven offshore. Already, globally, minerals processing manufacturing parks are served by dedicated nuclear plants producing greenhouse-free electricity and process heat to provide lowest cost products. In Russia, the world's largest aluminium production plant is under construction in the Saratov district.

Two 950MW reactors will be providing 15 billion kWh of electrical energy a year for this 1.05million tonne aluminium smelter. Only nuclear power can provide the greenhouse-free energy for such projects at the required price of under $25 per MWh. The same applies to desalination and hydrogen production technical processes of huge importance for Australia's sustainable future.

Australia's present generating capacity of 45GWe will increase to about 100GWe by 2050. Environmental responsibility and energy security mandates that at least 25GWe of this capacity should be nuclear power. This would stabilise Australia's carbon dioxide emissions to 710 million tonnes a year. Failure to do so would see emissions climb to 890 million tonnes by 2050. And an added bonus is that the average household consuming about 9000kWh a year will not have to pay premiums in excess of $500 to subsidise the operation of privately owned "renewable" energy suppliers

Australians concerned with climate change issues in a post Kyoto environment should focus on a "clean development mechanism" involving the partnership of China and India and other developing nations. Clearly nuclear power is at the forefront of this endeavour and will play a significant role on the agenda of the December 2007 Bali conference of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As Switkowski remarked recently at a nuclear conference in Adelaide, "whilst some politicians would seek to stifle the nuclear debate, Australia must commit to the nuclear option without delay if it really wants to decarbonise the economy and yet maintain living standards".

Professor Kemeny is the Australian foundation member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy and is an internationally acknowledged consulting nuclear scientist and engineer.