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She’s beauty and she’s grace, she’s… touring Australia to promote nuclear energy.

As opposition leader Peter Dutton argues for building nuclear reactors to solve the country’s energy supply crisis and as the government embraces the AUKUS military alliance, former Miss America and nuclear engineer, 22-year-old Grace Stanke, has partnered with a pro-nuclear lobby group to try to garner support from women for nuclear power.

From January 29 - February 6, Stanke will embark on a speaking tour on the benefits of nuclear. She told the Herald Sun: “If you care about reliable energy and keeping the lights on, and you care about climate change and having emissions-free energy, let’s sit down and talk about how nuclear and renewables can work together to create a strong, resilient and clean energy grid.”

, which calls itself a “grassroots movement” is bankrolled by entrepreneur and adventurer Dick Smith. Along with his pro-nuclear stance, Smith also argues that population growth is responsible for the environmental crisis and slashing immigration and lowering population is the answer.

NfA is chaired by the former CEO of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which operates Australia's OPAL nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney's southern outskirts. Its Expert Working Group is, unsurprisingly, full of nuclear industry figures, including energy consultants and nuclear scientists.

Stanke uses her Instagram presence to try to dispel fears about nuclear power.

Regarding the risk of radiation, she posted a video of herself looking carefree with the caption overlaid, “Coming home after working as a nuclear engineer knowing that eating a banana provides the same amount of radiation as living next to a nuclear power plant for a year”.

With a photo of herself with slicked back hair and a white tank top, she posted: “I like my aesthetic like I like my energy: clean.”

Accompanying a photo of a nuclear cooling tower, she wrote: “Crazy how most cooling towers are NOT at a nuclear power plant, yet it’s become the icon of the industry. Cooling towers cool down water that is then able to be reused within the power plant. The “smoke” coming out of the top, it’s just water vapor. Nuclear power plants aren’t scary, trust me :)”

Arguments that nuclear power is a clean and safe energy solution ignore the risks and costs involved.

For one, nuclear power requires a high volume of water to cool reactors. On our heating planet, clean water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource.

Branding nuclear energy as “clean” drastically underplays the risk of nuclear accidents and the ongoing issue of waste, which lasts for millions of years. Power plants and waste storage can be susceptible to natural disasters such as bushfires, earthquakes and cyclones. Handing down high volumes of nuclear waste to future generations to deal with is reckless.

Another concern about civilian nuclear reactors is their potential to produce weapons-grade plutonium for the production of nuclear weapons.

Even if we accept the arguments around nuclear being a safe energy alternative, we are already well into a climate emergency, and nuclear reactors cannot be built quickly enough, or last long enough, to reduce emissions enough to slow the rise of the Earth’s temperature.

Stanke’s tour coincides with Australia’s federal election run-up. Dutton proposes, if the Liberals come to power, to build across the country. Dutton’s plan has been labelled a “nuclear nightmare” and a “cynical ploy to keep burning coal and gas” by Friends of the Earth Australia.

CSIRO’s GenCost report estimates that the first nuclear plant would cost up to , and that it wouldn’t be ready for use until 2040. Nuclear reactors also last around 60 years, and require billions of dollars worth of refurbishment after 40 years. These costs would come out in already cash-strapped electricity users’ monthly bills, and government spending on nuclear would divert from much-needed investment in public services. 

These seven plants would not meaningfully aid a green transition. The estimated energy produced would amount to of the energy currently created by coal.

It’s also an incredibly short-term solution for the costs and dangers. If the world switched 70% of its energy supply to nuclear, there only exists enough high grade uranium to last six years.

Stanke’s flawed arguments, which reflect those of the nuclear industry more broadly, also fail to mention the social and economic impacts of expanding nuclear power. Mining for uranium, in Australia and North America, involves extracting from . To disregard Indigenous rights and disrespect First People’s wish to nurture their historic land is continuous with the ecocidal and racist attitudes of colonialism.

So why is the Australian pro-nuclear lobby spearheading a PR campaign with a former beauty queen in STEM?

Since the 1960s, using female models at car shows and attaching female sexuality to a product has been a tried and tested method for commercial success. Today, however, part of Stanke’s charm is in communicating with and convincing other women that nuclear power is, like, totally great. If women can get others on board, these industry leaders hope, Australia will lift the ban on nuclear power, and private operators stand to make millions. 

How can anyone, even fervent capitalists, be so committed to expanding nuclear power when there is so much evidence against it? As Simon Butler, former 91������̳ editor, previously suggested, “nuclear power appeals because it aligns with fixed notions of progress and modernity, in which technological know-how is meant to lead to human mastery over nature.”

This outlook, Butler claims, “tends to treat nature as an enemy to conquer rather than a complex living system to defend and nurture.”

Beauty queens and nuclear power are naturally compatible in this regard.

The Miss America pageant lays out that women who want to succeed (under capitalism) should be attractive, be fit (be thin), give to the community (in a capitalist way), be nice, be likeable and work hard. Its prize money is given in the form of college scholarships.

“Women can do anything” is what the Miss America Foundation tells us. But really, they’re reflecting back to us what is demanded in capitalism, which is that women have to do everything. The ruthlessness required to achieve perfection as a capitalist woman is akin to the ruthlessness required to prioritise profit over the planet.

We don’t have time to mess around with nuclear energy. Our planet needs to be protected, and people need public services that allow them to live with dignity. We need government to take seriously a swift transition to renewables.