Barry FitzGerald reports that the Australian uranium industry could enjoy a job and export growth boom given the right policy settings, a new study has found. The study, commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia, found that under high-growth scenarios for local uranium production and nuclear power in a carbon-constrained world, the economic benefit from the industry could increase tenfold to $9.5 billion.
The report by RMIT University economists has been released, titled Realizing Australian Uranium Potential, explores the reasons behind why Australia supplies only 10% of the global market for the nuclear fuel yet has 30% of the economic uranium resources in the wold.
The MCA executive director for uranium, Daniel Zavattiero, said under the high-growth scenarios of the report, Australian uranium could fuel as much as 5% of the electricity generation capacity of the world. The Australian uranium industry holds an enormous opportunity for jobs and export revenue growth as governments around the world continue to adopt policies to deal with climate constraints by adopting nuclear power. But the growth would only come through policy reform to make Australia a more attractive uranium investment destination, and a more competitive supplier.
While the scale of growth in demand will be determined by global nuclear power growth, Australia is in a position to control its share of global production. Australia is the third-largest supplier behind Kazakhstan and Canada. With vision, policy reform and state and federal commitments to increase competitiveness and investment attractiveness, Australia could target a share of global production closer to its resource endowment, Mr Zavattiero said.
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