Nuclear power best alternative, says academic

“Earth is flat, says scientist”.
Nuclear energy is
1) CO2-intensive, due to the mining and refining, and the construction and deconstruction of nuclear reactors;
2) non-renewable: good-grade uranium deposits are getting scarcer and uranium prices have already gone up. With heavy demand from China and India, peak uranium is not many decades away; indeed, it might not be long before Australia cannot even afford to buy its own uranium.
3) costly, and has never been able to compete competetively on equal market terms with other energy sources but has always relied on substantial subsidies. Both wind and solar are now cheaper than nuclear energy. Very few (if any) insurance companies are now willing to back the construction and running of nuclear plants now. The Australian government, for decades reluctant to invest in infrastructure, does not have the budget to build a conventional reactor.
4) bad investment: constructing a reactor is not only expensive but it does not yield any return for at least 15-20 years, as opposed to wind and solar arrays that are quick and cheap to construct and can produce energy as soon as the first array unit has been installed and connected. Wind energy has been cheap for some years now, and solar prices have recently become competitve, to the point that in Denmark, despite the nothern latitude, solar PV panels are now popular, with return-on-investment horizons of 10 years. In sunny Australia, the horizon is far shorter.
5) messy: uranium mining is hard on the environment; plant construction is CO2-intensive; and the dirty old reactors are either riskily used beyond their use-by-date or ignored, no-one being eager to foot the massive de-construction and clean-up bills. Politically, there is even more mess, associated with finding possible reactor sites, waste disposal sites and logistics, public disapproval, budgetary problems and risks, and more.
6) reactionary: as the title and bias of the article indicates, much of the support for nuclear power, particularly in Australia, is based on a curious but enduring love for the idea of nuclear energy, and equally, a curious and out-dated knee-jerk reaction against renewable energy. These are not sound and rational ways in which to choose Australia’s energy future.

Australia has abundent sun and wind, and existing sugar-cane and plantation forests can be used for small-furnace wood-chip burning. These energy sources are cheap to install; they form high-yield, low-risk, and quick-return energy investments. There is no reason to lazily speculate about doubtful and undesirable uranium futures while these immediate energy sources can be built right now.

Good points, both the one about biogas (as opposed to natural gas) and about decentralisation, both of which I could and perhaps should have mentioned in my list above (several other things are missing from that list too).