Thread by @GrayConnolly

Australia came so close to a large nuclear industry with the Jervis Bay nuclear power station in the 1960s. You can see the proposed site & footings for it at Murrays Beach, even today. It was cancelled by Whitlam Govts in preference for coal power (!)

abc.net.au/news/2019-08-1…

We are still without a good history of the proposed Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Station. The Gorton Govt pursued it in part as a manner of making Australia a 'threshold' nuclear weapons state (which we likely are) but a proper site survey for the power station was done at Jervis Bay

Australia's concerns re UK and US reliability in view of a potential conflict with Indonesia over Konfrontasi was why we bought the (nuclear capable) F111 strike bomber while still only on a drawing board. Ironically the F111 flew over Timor in 1999(!)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_D…

So much of the delay in Australia having zero emissions nuclear power (which ironically France runs on) is because of boomer nuclear paranoia - boomers who will, like the rest of us, happily get scans and radiation therapy …

Australia has ~30% of the world’s uranium reserves and hopefully the strategic necessity of the nuclear submarine project will lead the way to us having the substantial domestic nuclear power industry that we should always have had & which McMahon & Whitlam foolishly denied us.

If anything like 57% of Australians (per a pollster) already support Australia acquiring Nuclear submarines, then it is not hard (at all) to make the case for Nuclear energy in a massive island continent that has ~30% of the world's uranium resources.
roymorgan.com/findings/8797-…

"Public attitudes towards nuclear energy have also become markedly more positive since March, with support for considering Australian nuclear energy going from just over half in March – 55 per cent – to 70 per cent after the announcement."

theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence…