What Else Are You Going to Do with It?
Australia has lots of uranium, so much that we're going to start exporting it to China soon, and others, maybe, later, especially now that George Bush has welcomed Pakistan into the nuclear club (but not India, go figure), at least unofficially. However, there is no nuclear energy industry here as yet, although there are those who seek to change that. A national debate over building nuclear generators? Fine, but the answers seem pretty well established already. Although we certainly need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, since we're not signatories to Kyoto, framing the debate on environmental principles is to base it on false pretenses. Our PM, John Howard, has said he believes the decision should be economically based, but that also seems to ring hollow. While other countries have nuclear power plants, none run at full capacity, none provide a substantial measure of overall electric power, none have been constructed or now operate without considerable government subsidy, essentially forcing the population to pay two energy bills: one from their power suppier and one to the government, who just hand it over to the power supplier. In addition, there's the issue of waste, and we're not just talking about spent fuel rods - a source of material that can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium or otherwise used for destructive purposes - but also everything that goes into handling the stuff. Once your protective suit is sufficiently irradiated itself, or that pair of wire cutters, or that hammer, it's radioactive waste, and it will stay that way for decades, centuries perhaps, slowly breaking down. So it needs to be stored, and safely, not just from those who would reuse it illegitimately, but also from interacting with the environment, leeching isotopes into the water table passively, for example.

So it doesn't help move toward clean energy production, because it can't effectively replace the fossil fuels; costs far, far more; and presents a potential for harm to the environment equal to or greater than what it's supposed to replace. What's the debate?