Nuclear energy will power the future

THE SMALL NUMBER OF Australians vehemently opposed to uranium mining and nuclear power are obviously not avid readers nor weight-lifters.If they were they would have seen the International Energy Agency's enormous 687-page, two-kilogram report on theworld's energy outlookreleased last month. It should be compulsory reading forthosewho think Australia's uranium industry and nuclear power has a bleak future.The IEA lays out three scenarios for the growth in emissions-free nuclear power across the globe over the next quarter of a century and all are stellar for nuclear energy.The first scenario which has current energy and climate change policies continuing into the future shows a 51 per cent increase for nuclear power generation from 2011 to 2035.The second scenario which takes into account potential new policies to mitigate climate change has nuclear power increasing by 66 per cent.And in the final scenario which assumes the world takes radical action on climate change nuclear power generation increases by 126 per cent.In any of the three scenarios, nuclear power is only going one way and that's up, which is terrific news for Australia.This country is home to more uranium that any other. About 31 per cent of the world's known reserves are found here.We have a massive natural advantage in resource endowment and, despite the over blown rhetoric of the industry's ideological opponents, an enviable health and safety track record.More than 10,000 containers of uranium concentrate have been exported from Australia over more than 30 years without incident.We are geographically located near the fast growing energy markets in Asia where most of the 60 nuclear power plants currently under construction are located.These fast developing economies will soon join nations like France, Canada, the United States and others where nuclear power has been providing cheap energy to homes and businesses for decades. There are 430 nuclear reactors operating in these countries right now.Strange bedfellowsIt's becoming so mainstream that nuclear energy is now drawing support from a wide-array of traditionally unhappy bedfellows.The Australian Worker's Union is now in the same camp as conservative Republicans in the United States in their support for nuclear energy. Even the sector's former bitter enemies, like environmentalist Ben Heard from theThinkclimategroup in Adelaide, haveactively embracednuclear power.These developments leave the remaining anti-nuclear campaigners completely out of step with the mainstream.There is no doubt current market conditions pose short term challenges for uranium miners, developers and explorers. These conditions have more to do with the state of the global economy than other factors. These economic problems will pass.As the IEA growth forecasts and the growing consensus on nuclear energy shows, the industry's opponents are being over-run by the inexorable economics of the world's energy needs.The simple fact is the world is going to need all sources of power to meet the world's growing electricity demands. We are going to need nuclear, coal, gas and renewables in the years ahead.The world is already at 7 billion people and on track for 9 billion by 2050. Well over 1 billion people today have little or no access to affordable electricity. As Bill Gates says "if you could pick just one thingto reduce poverty by far you would pick energy".And Australia has the chance to be front and centre of meeting that challenge.It is not hard to work out why the future of nuclear energy and uranium mining is assured it is affordable zero emissions base load energy that is readily available to help drive growth and economic prosperity around the world.Daniel Zavattiero is executive director of Uranium for the Minerals Council of Australia.