Australia minister defends approval of uranium mine

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett defended his approval of a new uranium mine, as leading climate campaigner Al Gore said nuclear power had a limited future.

Garrett, once an anti-nuclear campaigner and frontman of left-wing rock outfit Midnight Oil, on Tuesday signed off on a new uranium project at the Four Mile Mine, north of Adelaide city.

The move stands in contrast to more than two decades of nuclear condemnation by Garrett, prompting activists and opposition politicians to accuse him of selling out.

But the former rocker, who once ran for government on the radical Nuclear Disarmament party ticket and penned a host of anti-nuclear anthems for his former band, dismissed the criticism as an "old song".

"When you recognise that the party has made a decision about a policy matter over which you may have had a different opinion, you accept that party decision," Garrett told reporters.

"I came into the parliament to be a team player, I came into the parliament to make a difference ... as the best environment minister I can be, and this decision and all other decisions I am making are entirely consistent with that," he added.

Australia is the world's third largest uranium producer, with exports worth about 900 million dollars (715 million US) a year.

Nobel prize-winning climate campaigner and former US vice president Gore said he believed the future of nuclear power would be "limited", due largely to cost and safety concerns.

"I'm very doubtful that it will play more than a limited role because (of) the often-discussed problems of nuclear waste storage over very long periods of time and reactor safety," said Gore, speaking in Sydney after climate talks with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

"The problems of nuclear weapons proliferation (are also) getting to be more serious if reactors are placed all around the world and some developing countries that you would really not want to have weapons programmes (gain access)," he added.

Environmental groups and the Greens political party have condemned the new mine, Australia's fourth, saying it would destroy the environment and leave a toxic legacy.

Anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott accused Garrett of a "descent into moral turpitude", while opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull labelled him "a phoney".

Aboriginal elders said there also needed to be a proper examination of whether there were cultural issues over use of the land.

The Australian Uranium Association said nuclear power could prevent up to 15 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere locally over the next 20 years, with uranium exports over that time worth about 17 billion dollars (13.5 billion US).