The Prime Minister says it’s time for Australia to develop nuclear power. What are the options? Is nuclear the way to go? What is the science behind the debate?
Some of our current energy options were presented at a breakfast forum following the Prime Minister's Science Prize on Tuesday 17 October. The forum was organised by the Australian Institute of Physics and was sponsored by CSIRO Industrial Physics. It was hosted by Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre.
The speakers addressed the following four questions about coal, solar, fission and fusion:
- 1) How is energy obtained from this method?
- 2) How much energy can we get from this method?
- 3) What is the usage of this energy method in Australia?
- 4) What is the potential future for this technology?
Speakers and topics were:
- • Energy versus power - David Jamieson, University of Melbourne and President of the Australian Institute of Physics
- • Coal – Mark O’Neill, Executive Director, Australian Coal Association
- • Solar – Andrew Blakers, ANU and recent joint winner of the Alan Walsh medal
- • Fission – Kath Smith, Materials Characterisation Group, ANSTO
- • Fusion – John Howard, Plasma Research Laboratory, ANU – John was one of the organisers of last week’s fusion conference.
Niall Byrne from Science in Public chaired the discussion. Talking points and speaker's bios can be downloaded below.
For more information contact Sarah Brooker at sarah@scienceinpublic.com.
