International Expert Workshop

Uranium: Energy, Security, Environment

Art Gallery of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide

7-8 June 2007

This one-and-a-half day event brings together a number of specialists on the political and strategic aspects of both the nuclear fuel cycle and climate change to engage in some non-reductionist ‘new thinking’. Since the Australian nuclear debates are now taking on global significance, these specialists are drawn from overseas as well as local policy communities, industry and research institutions with particular attention given to those countries that are commercially linked into Australia’s present and prospective involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle.

This workshop is designed to encourage discussion between participants and presenters. To facilitate this, the number of participants will be limited.

Contact: Mary Lyons

mary.lyons@flinders.edu.au

Ph: +61 (08) 8201 5115

Fax: +61 (08) 8201 7986

Background

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Debate

The closely timed release of the Switkowski and Prosser reports, plus the lightning-quick moves by state governments to distance themselves from deeper involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle, confirm (if there was ever any doubt) that the politics of the nuclear fuel cycle has been reinstated as a priority issue on the agenda of domestic politics. It is now quintessentially part of a global debate.

At the same time, the new politics of the nuclear fuel cycle ought to be much more than a simple repetition of past debates or a restatement of past positions.

Three contextual changes should shape ‘new thinking’ about this old issue.

1. Greater attention needs to be given to issues of climate change arising from anthropogenically produced carbon dioxide – a massive chink that opens a door to (amongst other things) nuclear sources of baseload electrical power.
2. At the same time, there is also widespread agreement that the nuclear non-proliferation regime – the set of institutions, practices and norms that attempts to draw the line between the military and civil uses of nuclear technology – has become highly fragile as the result of a series of potentially terminal conflicts of interest amongst regime members and developments outside the ‘regime’.
3. There is a third and qualitatively new dimension to debates arising out of the Australian government’s contemplation of forward integration through the nuclear fuel cycle.

Australia and the Global Debate

If an Australian government were to stand behind a uranium enrichment industry, or to authorise the building of anything like the twenty-five reactors recommended in the Switkowski report, then these qualitative expansions would in themselves be developments of global significance so far as nuclear markets and the nuclear non-proliferation regime are both concerned.

There is much that should be new and strangely complex about the emerging Australian nuclear debate. And yet there will be strong tendencies for the debate to unfold in ways that are time-honoured and familiar. Indeed, in the face of the three changed contexts outlined above, one can already see a tendency towards ‘analytic fundamentalism’ taking shape – the tendency, that is, to prioritise one dimension of the complex nuclear agenda to the exclusion of all others.

Top

The Speakers

7 June 07 - Day One

Opening 8:30am

Dr Ziggy Switkowski, Chair of the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review (UMPNER) taskforce,

From Nuclear Review to Public Policy

Mr Mark Hibbs, Editor, Nucleonics Week,

The Nuclear Renaissance on the Global and Local Scale

Dr Trevor Findlay, Director, Centre for Treaty Compliance, Carleton University,

Implications of the Nuclear Revival for Global Nuclear Governance

Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences, Griffith University,

Why Nuclear Energy is Not a Wise Response to Climate Change

Dr Stephen Wood, Political and International Studies, Flinders University,

            New European Thinking on Nuclear Power

Dr Ben McNeil, School of Mathematics, University of New South Wales,

The Economics of Nuclear Power: Australian Hopes, Global Realities

Dr. Ashutosh Misra, Research Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi,

India's Quest for Alternative Energy: The Case of Renewables

Associate Professor Richard Leaver, Political and International Studies, Flinders University,

Bigger Than Texas: The Management of Uranium Reserves for Socially Useful Ends

Professor Xu Yi-Chong, Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University,

China, India and Nuclear Power

Dr Tatsujiro Suzuki, Socio-economic Research Centre, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Japan,

            Japan’s Nuclear Energy Policy: Issues and International Implications

Professor To-Hai Liou, Dept of Diplomacy, National Chengchi University,

Enriched Uranium and Japan’s Security: Implications for Asia Pacific Security

8 June 07 - Day Two

Dr Ron Huisken, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University,

            Restoring Coherence to Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Professor Richard Tanter, Senior Research Associate, Nautilus Institute, San Francisco and RMIT,

Indonesia and Australia: The Return of an Old Nuclear Dyad?

Dr Sandy Gordon, Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong,

The Implications of the Sale of Australian Uranium to India

Dr Chris Hubbard, International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University,

Australia, Uranium Exports and Counter-Proliferation: The Policy Co-ordination Challenge

Professor Murray Goot, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University,

The Australian Public and Nuclear Issues: Have Opinions Shifted?

Associate Professor Richard Leaver, Political and International Studies, Flinders University,

            Institutional Features of the Old Uranium and the New Nuclear Debates

Top

Accommodation

Many hotels are located on North Terrace and within easy walking distance of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Rundle Street and the East End are also nearby with many cafes and restaurants. Some suggestions for accommodation are below:

Mansions Apartments, on the corner of Pulteney Street and North Terrace      http://www.questmansions.com.au/

Hotel Richmond, Rundle Mall

     http://www.hotelrichmond.com.au/

Pacific International Suites, Hindmarsh Square      http://www.pacificinthotels.com/adelaide/hindmarsh.aspx

Majestic Rooftop, Frome Street

     http://www.check-in.com.au/Adelaide/Majestic_Roof_Garden_Hotel.htm

Stamford Plaza Adelaide, North Terrace, across King William Street      http://www.stamford.com.au/spa/

Sebel Playford, North Terrace, across King William Street      http://www.mirvachotels.com.au/hotel_detail.asp?hotel=34

Top