Support for nuclear grows

Paul Howes of the Australian Workers' Union [Australia's largest blue collar union], is still promoting nuclear as a means to achieve carbon emission reductions without the expense of significant Australian job loss and industrial exportation.

Howes is joined by Commonwealth Bank chairman John Schubert, who also chairs the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Schubert agrees in the need for nuclear power.

Howes is to release a report from Per Capita consulting on the effects of the emissoins trading scheme [ETS] impacts in Australian industryt - in this case aluminium.

Howes rejects claims that displaced employees can be easily retrained in Green industries and technologies.

Instead, workers could be "left on the scrapheap of history" and enter the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

"These guys aren't going to be automatically re-employed as eco-tourism operators," Mr Howes said.

Also, in Canberra today, Professor and economist Jeffrey Sachs is promoting nuclear power as a means to help address global poverty in a carbon constrained world. Formerly anti-nuclear leanding, Sachs sees nuclear as safe and cost-effective.