Nuclear is clean energy Illustration: Andrew Dyson At a
conference in Melbourne last October, global energy expert Sir
Chris Llewellyn Smith, the director of energy research at Oxford
University, urged Australia to embrace civilian nuclear power.
He said it was the logical pathway to clean, secure and cost-
effective energy. He also reflected on the ''hard sell'' of a
nuclear power policy in this country due to fear, pseudoscience,
political pragmatism, poor education and the dominant
hydrocarbon energy lobby. Risk-conscious Australians were urged
to remember: ''The nuclear accident in Japan has not killed
anybody. There may be one or two people who will die of cancer,
but we are talking of very small numbers, if any.'' There is a
ridiculous paradox in the energy policy of a nation which makes
symbolic gestures to the United Nations about embracing ''clean
renewable energy'' but continues to maintain its position as the
planet's premier exporter of dirty coal. Delegate nations to
last month's US Intergovernmen