Coalition’s Nuclear Ambitions Fall Short, CSIRO Report Points to High Costs and Delays

The cooling towers of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Mochovce, Slovakia, on Nov. 6, 2023. Janos Kummer/Getty Images

The latest GenCost report from Australia’s peak scientific research agency, CSIRO, casts doubt on the Coalition’s nuclear energy plans. It reveals that nuclear power would be significantly more expensive than renewables, even with longer reactor lifespans.

The 2024-25 draft report finds nuclear plants could cost twice as much as solar or wind energy, despite their potential to operate for 60 years, compared to 30 years for renewables.

CSIRO Chief Energy Economist and GenCost lead author Paul Graham noted that “similar cost savings can be achieved with shorter-lived technologies, including renewables, even when accounting for the need to build them twice.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who has been under pressure for not revealing the plan’s detailed costings, is expected to announce more information on the proposal later this week.

Dutton has committed to build seven nuclear energy plants across Australia if elected to power.

High Construction, Refurbishment, Operation Costs

The draft report found that nuclear plants would cost at least $8.6 billion (US$5.5 billion) to build and take over 20 years to complete.

The construction timeline for large-scale nuclear plants has steadily increased, with global median nuclear construction times rising from six years to 8.2 years over the past five years.

As a result, the report estimates that the development of nuclear in Australia could take at least 15 years to fully establish.

While the report acknowledges nuclear reactors’ long operational lives, it argues that the financial benefits of extended lifespans are negligible.

The report highlights that refurbishing reactors to extend their 60-year lifespan could cost up to a third of initial construction costs, adding further financial strain.

Raising the capacity factor for nuclear reactors from 53–89 percent to 90 percent would also have little impact on the overall cost of nuclear power.

The Cheaper Option

The GenCost report highlights that renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, remains the most affordable new-build electricity generation option in Australia, with cost estimates ranging between $80/MWh and $122/MWh by 2030 when accounting for storage, transmission, and firming costs.

Even when considering the costs of building transmission lines and storage solutions, renewables are still projected to be significantly cheaper than nuclear power.

In contrast, the first large-scale nuclear plants in Australia would not be expected to generate electricity until at least 2040.

The cost of nuclear power at that time is estimated to range from $145/MWh to $238/MWh, with small modular reactors (SMRs) potentially costing as much as $487/MWh if they were operational by 2030—a timeline the CSIRO deems highly unlikely.

Bowen Reaffirms Renewable Focus After GenCost Report

Following the release of the GenCost report, Energy Minister Chris Bowen reiterated the government’s commitment to renewable energy.

He emphasised that the cheapest and most reliable path to Australia’s future energy needs is through renewables, backed by storage solutions such as gas and pumped hydro.

“The facts are laid out very clearly in the GenCost report ... our government respects the work of CSIRO scientists and researchers and listens to that advice,” Bowen said.

Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic also criticised the Coalition’s nuclear proposal, pointing out that it threatens jobs and household power bills.

“Peter Dutton’s nuclear fantasy not only threatens to blow out the budget, it also threatens jobs and household power bills,” he said.

The Coalition’s Stand

A day before the report was released, Dutton said in an opinion piece that Australia needs a balanced energy mix with renewables backed by stable baseload power to underpin a strong economy.

“The Coalition, like other countries, sees renewables and nuclear as companions—not competitors, as Labor does,” he wrote in the South Australian Sunday Mail.

Dutton added, “If we want heavy industry in this country and if we are to meet the growing energy demands from electrification, automation, artificial intelligence, and energy-intensive data centres, our country needs 24/7, affordable, and reliable baseload generation. That’s what nuclear will do.

“We have to think big and do what’s right for our country. The time for nuclear is now.”

Despite repeated government pressure on the cost question, Dutton argued that the Coalition’s nuclear plan would cost “a fraction” of the Albanese government’s energy transition scheme.

In September, speaking before the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA) in Sydney, Dutton stated, “I can guarantee you this: our nuclear plan will cost a fraction of the government’s reckless $1.3 trillion plan, with its 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines ripping up agricultural land and national parks.”

In May this year, Shadow Energy Minister Ted O’Brien called on the CSIRO to re-evaluate its nuclear power cost projections after the organisation forecasted high costs and lengthy build times for large-scale nuclear plants.

GenCost’s last report, released in May, also found that a nuclear plant would produce energy at twice the cost of renewables, take over 20 years to construct, and require at least $8.6 billion in investment.

Similar Claims Made by the Climate Council

Another report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) reveals its estimated cost of nuclear, claiming an average increase of $665 per year on household electricity bills.

Quoting the report, Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said, “Delaying building new energy means more dangerous climate pollution from coal and gas ... Delaying means our ageing energy system failing without investment and support.”

Greg Bourne, Climate Councillor, stated that Dutton’s nuclear plan “doesn’t pass the pub test” and would only meet a small fraction of Australia’s energy needs by 2050.

“While nuclear sits at the starting blocks for another decade or more, renewable energy is already providing 40 percent of the electricity in our main national grid and is set to reach over 96 percent by the time Dutton’s first reactors might be operational.

He added that Dutton and his colleagues will be long retired before a single nuclear plant is built.

Criticism Mounts Over GenCost Methodology

However, the accuracy of the GenCost report has been questioned by several experts in past.

After its last report in May, Scott Hargreaves, Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, stated, “The CSIRO’s latest GenCost report has again relied on the discredited levelised cost of electricity methodology to calculate energy system costs. This gives Australians and policymakers alike a false understanding of the cost of our energy future.”

Meanwhile, Bruce Mountain, Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, pointed out that comparing the average costs of wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, and coal power is complex and dependent on numerous known and unknown factors.

He stressed that identifying these variables and their interrelationships is more constructive than providing false certainty.

Mountain also warned that “Our energy market operator and chief scientific agency have got themselves into the position of providing supposedly definitive, objective answers to questions that do not lend themselves to definitive, objective answers. The trouble is, CSIRO is trying to do the impossible. We simply cannot know for sure how the economics of specific plants compare.”