I have just seen another Coalition vegetable (Ted O’Brien) on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7:30 show1. The reason O’Brien was on the show was in relation to nuclear energy, and he failed to answer any questions put to him by Sarah Ferguson; instead he simply talked over the top of her. This is a technique often used by creationists and is called the Gish Gallop. It is a rhetorical technique that involves overwhelming your opponent with as many arguments as possible, with no regard for the accuracy, validity, or relevance of those arguments. For example, a person using the Gish gallop might attempt to support their stance by bringing up, in rapid succession, a large number of vague claims, anecdotal statements, misinterpreted facts, and irrelevant comments2. This is the sort of technique O’Brien used on 7:30.
This technique of overwhelming an interlocutor with verbiage is something that has been shown to have failed by the disgusting, fortunately departed, corrupt liar Scott Morrison. It makes you wonder why O’Brien used it. I would suggest that the nuclear option can only be ‘sold’ using this technique because just as with creationism, there is no valid content in their ‘argument’. The leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton has been spruiking the nuclear energy option in opposition to renewables and all the dim O’Brien was doing was reinforcing the spruiking by Dutton. All people like O’Brien do is repeat the same lies spouted by his party; never mind the fact that it is garbage, and is solely about political expedience, with no concern for the future of the nation; this is sickening. It is the same sort of excrement that motivated the appalling Morrison to bring a lacquered piece of coal into the House of Representatives. I presume it was lacquered to prevent Matt Canavan leaping into a cosplay frenzy by smearing it on his face.
The arguments against going nuclear are numerous and have been dealt with elsewhere, but I list them here for completeness’ sake.
- Nuclear power stations are banned in every state and territory3.
- Numerous parliamentary enquiries into nuclear energy in Australia have concluded it is not applicable to Australia3.
- Nuclear power stations take too long to build and are expensive. Nuclear power stations take an average of 9.4 years to build and that is in countries which already have a nuclear energy industry; Australia doesn’t3.
- Nuclear energy is an expensive way of generating electricity; solar and wind are much cheaper3.
- Australia needs to decrease its emissions quickly (75% this decade) and replacing its ageing coal-fired power stations as quickly as possible. As shown in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan, by far the cheapest and quickest way to do this is to ramp up renewable energy paired with storage (e.g. pumped hydro and batteries)3.
- Nuclear power stations pose a significant risk should something go wrong3.
- Nuclear waste needs to be stored in perpetuity, and also poses a significant risk3.
- Uranium is a finite resource, and will eventually get more expensive to mine and therefore more expensive to generate electricity from it. As that happens, resorting to renewables will be necessary3.
In light of this, why do the Coalition want to ‘go nuclear’? There are several reasons:
- It gives the Coalition the appearance of taking climate change seriously, as beyond the mining of it and the building of the nuclear power stations, it does not emit much in the way of greenhouse gases. However, taking climate change seriously is not in their anti-science ethos, and was epitomised by Morrison’ lacquered coal stunt.
- It is a way of slowing the decline of coal, oil and gas, by allowing them to forgo the change to renewables while the nuclear power stations are built, all the while relying on electricity generated from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas).
- The inevitable decline of the fossil fuel industries, will badly impact the political donations from fossil fuel companies. This scares the hell out of the Coalition as they know that the people are starting to catch on that they are a liability to the nation.
- For the Coalition, the big problem with renewables is that the fuel they use is free. Water just falls from the sky, eventually to power hydroelectric generation, the wind blows freely all across our flattest continent powering turbines, and the sun shines much of the time in our sunniest continent powering photoelectric cells. If renewables come to rule the electricity generation system, it will impact political donations from those who want to continue to dig up even more Uranium.
The Coalition are completely unconcerned about climate change. All they care about is obtaining political power. He future of anyone except the wealthiest Australians is of no concern to them. As long as they can be in power, they can continue to shovel money to their donors, the wealthy and their corporations in return for political donations.
Sources