Saturday 28 February 2009

Lowe's appointment - a bad thing?

A friend recently forwarded a link to Andrew Bolt's blog on Prof. Ian Lowe's appointment to the ARPANSA Safety Advisory Council as the "representative of the public interest".

Very interesting. But why?

Bolt and many others [via comments] have expressed concerns from disappointment to downright conspiracy accusations. But I don't necessarily think this is a bad development; challenging, but not bad.

Nearly two years ago, I drafted a post on Prof. Lowe titled Running some numbers. In the post I allowed myself to go 'prompt technical' - grabbing [seemingly] every credible reference and number available to cast an objective light on the professor's claims. I stand by that post and - nearly two years later - Australia's reliance on renewables remains totally inadequate to address our emission reduction targets.

Moving on

As I've posted in the past; if Australia is to embrace nuclear power, it will only happen with the support of a broad political base. The most direct path to that end is through the engagement of those with opposing views. It does little good for nuclear advocates [for or against] to discuss their arguments in the echo chambers of closed communities.

So Prof. Lowe's appointment may be a challenge in the short term; but could prove to be a tremendous opportunity. It may take more work than otherwise expected to convince Prof. Lowe on any given proposal, but if you consider this effort as an investment in building Prof. Lowe's confidence, the potential dividends could be well worth the effort further down the track.

I'd like to give the guy a chance; objectively appeal to his intelligence and sense of reason, provide him the data, patiently explain the technical bases, and let him come to his own terms with what has been presented.

You can not 'spin' physics. I am not worried.

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