Engineers Declare’s commitments ruled out nuclear energy. Today, its principles are now well embedded among leaders in the professions, says a well respected member of the profession, Chris Buntine. And David Hood, one of ED’s original founders, reckons it could be on the way back.
Engineers Australia took a bold and critical step when it cancelled a talk in Newcastle last week designed to advocate for nuclear energy in Australia.
Under the leadership of chief executive Romilly Madew, who comes from a strong background in the built environment as a long term leader of the Green Building Council and most recently as chief executive of Infrastructure Australia, this prestigious association drew an important line in the sand.
EA’s remit was to maintain a “non-partisan and neutral position as the trusted independent voice for the profession”, the organisation said in a media statement representing its 127 members.
The decision was made after speaker notes were reviewed and found to extend from learning objectives to “policy positioning and advocacy”. Which was clearly not on.
The cancellation predictably detonated verbal and written reprisals from engineers who supported the speech and Big Nuke’s political supporters.
The event was to have featured Rob Parker, who has a key role in what we’ve dubbed the “nuclear club” in our extended Nuclear Series. The club comprises the people behind the politics and reveals the funding links to Big Coal and gas as well.
The furore was weirdly as volatile as the energy source under debate, whose advocacy impact rose from a sad little event that failed to attract interest beyond its supporting choir to now the rousing battle cry for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to wield his political wrecking ball as a major federal election plank.
You can just hear his cries from the front of the charging brigade: they want to save the planet, but they won’t buy nuclear, which is emissions free: cake, eat, too, etcetera.
He’s promising a silver or, more accurately, yellow bullet will save us and that we should trust him because he knows what he’s doing (unilaterally, without full public discussion, green paper/white paper/parliamentary debate, etcetera as someone pointed out this week).
Trouble is that his claim on Wednesday that Big Nuke will be fully operational and government funded come 2035, even if true, will be too late for those of us who don’t have the Lib/Nat re-election as our main/most important focus. And we’ll be paying for the privilege, given he wants the government to pay for stuff. Whatever happened to the market ideology that has forever underpinned conservative thinking? Oh, that’s right, it works only when it benefits those interests. Otherwise, we get to pay to socialise the wealth of those already well endowed.
The thing is that while Dutton grows increasingly enamoured with wrecking ball politics, it looks like a large number of built environment professionals see things differently.
Engineers, for one, it seems, are not so easily swayed.
There was a time, not so long ago in 2019, when the formation of Engineers Declare, a group that proclaimed a climate emergency and the need for the profession to reject climate wrecking work, caused another huge ruckus generated by EA members who sought to protect their clients in mining and fossil fuels.
In a call to some well placed sources with their fingers on the pulse, it seems that the big engineering firms are going quiet on nuclear (we’ll do our own research soon), with most rejecting the technology as not economically or technologically feasible.
That said, we know there are supporters of Big Nuke within the profession because engineers are critical to any and all energy solutions.
But it’s clearly the political and fossil fuel interests that have the most to gain from this cynical fracture of the Australian community at its most vulnerable, suffering as most people are, under immense cost of living pressures.
Politically, it’s a different story, and Machiavelli would have a lot to say about the tactical and strategic deployment of misdirection and lies about nuclear power – as a way to delay our extraction from the fossil fuel industry. (Did M actually invent the Trump trope? We always thought it was Putin’s theatrical master/propaganda czar, Vladislav Surkov, who specialised in manipulating people).
In some very interesting discussions in the past few days, we’ve spoken to engineering sources that say none of the big consulting companies want to even discuss the issue – such is their opposition to nuclear energy.
Chris Buntine, who recently joined Atelier Ten and is one of the most well respected voices in sustainability, said on Tuesday that although Engineers Declare might no longer be around in its original form (a victim of COVID, we understand), its commitments and principles “are still very much alive and reflected by most organisations in the industry now”.
Firms are making “many of the same commitments that were in the original Declare statement – it’s become mainstream.”
Buntine said he no longer comes across much climate denialism in the profession. (Another source said they do come across but are firmly in the older generation bracket.)
We asked Buntine why he thought there was this sudden fierce uptake of interest in nuclear.
Probably a sense of panic, he said.
“I wonder whether the focus on a technological is [in] response to a degree of panic that we haven’t done enough, and there is a sense of facing a potential catastrophe in terms of climate and lack of faith in the political and policy changes that are needed. And that maybe we need technology. Unfortunately, we are in [a] technological loving society that tends to believe that advanced tech will solve those problems.”
And it’s logical that engineers – who support nuclear energy – advocate for technology fixes because that’s where they have the skills – not in policy advocacy and systems thinking.
“We’re grasping at solutions. Depending on who you talk to, we’re past the 1.5 degree warming and heading to 2.5 degrees in 40 years’ time.”
That’s getting into the scary space.
“There is real concern and a real fear and what they’re looking for is solutions.”
“At least they’re searching.”
But we have solutions
Buntine said we already have solutions that can dramatically reduce energy consumption, “for example by designing our built environment, transportation and energy systems differently and perhaps with more dispersed energy solutions.”
He mentions putting insulation in buildings – the pink batts scheme – was flawed, but in the end, it put a lot of insulation in houses, and it worked.
But progress has been slow, and now we’re facing market headwinds with investment and economic environment hurdles that slow down the rate of progress.
We need to be patient – this was always going to take a long time
“The pace of progress was always going to be slow for big undertakings. We need to be patient.
“There’s been fantastic work and commitments made and they haven’t translated to success on the ground because it takes time to build capacity in the industry and deliver real results.
“Moving through government and moving through organisations- all that takes time, but it’s all heading in the right direction.”
There’s baked in momentum
But what about the political headwinds rolling back climate science and led mainly by the coal and gas industries?
“By and large, organisations and the investment community is committed,” Buntine said.
“There is no going back, but what we don’t like is the volatility in policy and commitment and it creates uncertainty and risk. The reality is the government has the size to deliver the scale and reach we need.
What Engineers Declare said
According to Buntine, Engineers Declare made nuclear energy appear in contradiction to a number of its commitments. Here’s his assessment of where it fails:
• evaluate all new projects against the environmental necessity to mitigate climate breakdown and encourage our clients to adopt this approach
• advocate for faster change in our industry towards regenerative design practices that respect ecological limits whilst enabling socially just access to resources and services, and a higher governmental funding priority to support this. (Nuclear energy is clearly not regenerative and doesn’t stay within ecological limits)
• advocate for and undertake 21st century economic assessments that take a whole of system, whole of life approach and take into account the implications of expanding beyond ecological ceilings and failing to meet fundamental human rights and social justice obligations. (Fail: due to the hazardous waste issue and whole of life costs)
• join with other professions and work with government to develop a stronger and more comprehensive whole of government response to the climate emergency
• collaborate with policymakers and planners, contractors and clients to further these broad outcomes
• learn from and collaborate with First Nations to adopt work practices that are respectful, culturally sensitive and regenerative. (Fail: as it would harm and not heal Country)
• upgrade existing infrastructure and technology for extended use when the opportunity arises for carbon emissions reduction. (Fail: as there are many opportunities to address the energy issue through this approach that remain untapped)
• accelerate the shift to circular economy principles (for example, minimise wasteful use of resources) and low embodied carbon materials in all our work. (Fail: again on waste)
• implement climate change and biodiversity loss mitigation principles
• raise awareness of the climate and biodiversity emergencies and the urgent need for action in our organisations and networks.
• track and share stories of success as individuals and companies make climate positive choices, building pride and solidarity in the engineering sector and our role in delivering a healthy planet
• share knowledge and research to that end on an open source basis.
“Engineers Declare clearly articulated the aspiration for engineers to bring a life positive approach to engineering solutions – one that lifted the health and vitality of living systems and didn’t solve one environmental emergency by creating another. Nuclear energy brings with it significant risks to the life and health of all species. There are no single or easy solutions to the energy transition, but there is now a clear path ahead to decarbonise without nuclearising our energy system.”
According to David Hood, an original founder of Architects Declare, along with Robert Care and Lizzie Webb, Engineers Declare is about to kick off again. We’ll keep a close eye on who joins and who doesn’t.
Check out the huge support they had when they started – most of the big names were there.