For decades domestic nuclear energy has been banned in Australia under federal legislation despite this most ancient of lands having one third of the world's economically recoverable uranium.

It is mined and exported for use around the world, but uranium as an energy option has been on the back shelf while coal and other fossil fuels have provided relatively cheap and plentiful power.

But climate change and the real risks to the coal industry posed by changing global politics, including commitments made by Australia under the Paris Agreement, mean uranium is suddenly in the news again.

But there are questions about who is driving the conversation, and why.

A parliamentary inquiry called by Energy Minister Angus Taylor was told "new-look" smaller nuclear reactors could provide zero emission baseload power as Australia's fleet of coal-fired power stations retire.

The Minerals Council of Australia said the federal government had to have a fresh look at legislation banning domestic nuclear energy because changing times demanded it, and technology addressed some of the issues of the past.

Business leader and nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski told the inquiry in August that Australia would never see large nuclear power plants, but smaller reactors in regional towns and mining sites offered opportunities for "clean, safe baseload power".

But not in the near future, because it would probably be more than a decade before it was known whether the newer, smaller reactors were suited to Australia.

In the meantime Shortland MP Pat Conroy, among many others, has slammed the idea, saying proposed Hunter nuclear sites have ranged from Glenbawn Dam to Liddell power station, and from Cessnock to Lake Macquarie.

He has called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to "end the nuclear fantasy", not least because "even outside the real risk of catastrophe, we know power from a nuclear power station would be around three times as expensive as renewable energy and storage".

But maybe there is a point to at least reconsidering the legislation that bans nuclear power, if only to settle the argument. Right now the ban is the focus, when what we need is consideration of the actual facts.

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