The Melbourne Newsroom

Professor Geoff Stevens talks with ABC 24 about some of the issues facing Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Prof Stevens was speaking ahead of the "Fukushima: The Facts & The Fallout" public lecture, occurring at the University of Melbourne on March 31.

More information about the lecture can be found at http://www.eng.unimelb.ed... while a full profile of Prof Stevens is available on http://www.chemeng.unimel...

North Korea’s underground nuclear tests have been condemned by world leaders, yet Associate Professor Tilman Ruff says the global community should not simply react by reprimanding the regime but ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

“There are around 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world and if less than half of one per cent of the world’s nuclear arsenal was targeted on cities it could result in a global climatic catastrophe that would imperil human civilisation,” he says.

 Professor Mike Sandiford of the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences questions whether Australia has enough uranium to supply the growing global nuclear power industry, as an alternative to fossil fuels.

BHP is set to develop Australia’s first and biggest uranium mine in more than 20 years, in Western Australia. The plans have been submitted after the Liberal West Australian Government's removal of the longstanding ban on uranium mines.