Opposition Confirms It Will Develop 6 Nuclear Power Sites

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton is seen during a Q&A at the Australian Financial Review Business Summit, in Sydney, Australia on March 12, 2024. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi)

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has confirmed the Coalition’s energy policy—expected to be released ahead of the federal budget in May—will probably include six nuclear plant sites.

While he has yet to name the exact locations, Tasmania has been ruled out as a potential host state. It’s considered likely that the reactors would be built on the sites of old coal stations to take advantage of existing transmission infrastructure.

This means the Labor-held seat of Hunter, the independent seat of Calare, and Coalition-held Flynn, Maranoa, O’Connor, and Gippsland may be all on the shortlist for nuclear power stations.

At the Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney on March 12, Mr. Dutton said the Coalition would encourage nearby communities to accept the plants by offering them subsidised energy—a model he said was used in the United States. He told the audience that it would also provide an incentive for the industry to establish jobs.

“Nuclear is the only proven technology which emits zero emission and firms up renewables,” he said.

The opposition’s position comes as modelling on Australia’s net zero transition estimates the country will need to invest hundreds of billions, and even trillions, to fully reduce emissions.

The tremendous cost stems from the widescale investment in wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and pumped hydro (where available), but also into transmission infrastructure, as well as electrification of public transport networks and private vehicles (buying EVs instead of regular cars).

Nuclear Detractors Also Point to Cost

Energy experts say it’s difficult to estimate the cost of transitioning to nuclear, given the technology is not currently commercially available.

But during the speech, Mr. Dutton dismissed what he described as “straw man arguments” against nuclear, including cost.

“Australia’s energy mix is about 21 percent gas, 47 per cent coal, and 32 percent renewables. Ontario province in Canada is about 5 percent gas, 35 percent renewables, and 60 percent nuclear. South Korea is about 30 percent gas, 30 percent coal, and 30 percent nuclear, with the balance mainly hydro … Australians pay almost double what Ontario and South Korean residents pay,” he said.

The turbine hall of the nuclear power plant Olkiluoto 3 'OL3' under construction in Eurajoki, south-western Finland, on March 23, 2011. (Lehtikuva, Antti Aimo-Koivisto/AP Photo)

He said reactors produce a “small amount of waste” and said the government had already signed up to deal with nuclear waste via the AUKUS agreement.

The Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA) found there were 2,061 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste in 2021, compared to 1,771 cubic metres in 2018. It projects 4,377 cubic metres in the next 50 years, compared to 3,734 cubic metres projected in 2018.

Intermediate-level waste is produced in nuclear medicine—for example, imaging, scanning and radiotherapy.

Currently, the waste is stored in more than 100 places, but most of it is held at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) facilities in Lucas Heights, Sydney.

Australia Lacks the ‘Know-How’: WA Premier

Another potential site for a reactor is Collie, in the southwest of Western Australia—but that would be met with fierce opposition from the state Labor government.

WA Premier Roger Cook said last week that, “You simply cannot plonk these things into a landscape and plug it into the grid. These simplistic sort of ideas are ridiculous.

“Australia has no experience in nuclear power generation so we don’t have the workforce, we don’t have the know-how to be able to bring them in.

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook speaks to media during a press conference at Dumas House in Perth, Australia on May 31, 2023. (Matt Jelonek/Getty Images)

“What we need to do is accept that climate change is a reality and move to exploit the abundance of wind and solar that we have at our disposal. There’s no quick fix here, you’ve got [to] actually do the hard work.”

Not All Liberal MPs Agree

Within the Coalition, opinion appears to be divided, with MPs whose electorates could be sites for new reactors among those expressing reservations.

Nationals Gippsland MP Darren Chester said his community would need to receive “direct economic benefits” if it were to host power plants.

Liberal MP for Sturt, James Stevens, said “Embracing nuclear generation for civilian electricity purposes is not something to be done on a whim” and that people would rightly want to know “how we will deal with some challenges, such as the custody of waste, the location of these generation plants.”

Meanwhile, Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey, whose South Australian electorate of Grey was proposed by the Morrison government to host a waste dump at Kimba, said it was “never envisaged, planned or promised to hold high-level waste.”

Jason Falinski, the former member for Mackellar and the New South Wales Liberal party president, has said that nuclear energy was “not something that we are necessarily advocating for” but that it should be “part of the mix, part of the options available for Australian policymakers.”

A Fantasy, Says Labor Government

The current government has dismissed nuclear as an unsuitable technology for Australia, saying it costs too much and will take too long to roll out.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seen during a press conference after attending a tour of the Murrumba Downs Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Murrumba Downs, north of Brisbane, on Jan. 31, 2024. (AAP Image/Darren England)

At the Labor campaign launch in Launceston yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “For decades, Tasmania has shown Australia that renewable energy is the answer.

“Not some far-off dream—a concrete, reliable, and affordable reality. And our government is investing in new jobs and new projects, like green hydrogen in Bell Bay and community batteries in Howrah and Shorewell Park.”

Mr. Albanese said the Liberals’ “nuclear fantasy” was “an excuse for doing nothing” and an “alibi for inaction.”

The Labor government is pushing to reduce Australia’s emissions by 43 percent by 2030, and have 82 percent of the national energy grid powered by renewables by that same timeframe.

No Electricity Until the 2040s: Expert

The doubts expressed by politicians are echoed by a senior research associate at UNSW in the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, Dylan McConnell, who said the likelihood of Australia adopting the technology was “very low.”

“If they started building a major nuclear plant now at, say, where the Eraring coal power station is, the like-for-like power station would cost between $70 and $80 billion,” he said.

“On current prices, the cost of nuclear energy is three to four times the cost of renewable energy, so why would anyone pay this premium? [And] while the cost of renewable energy keeps coming down, the cost of nuclear energy keeps going up. So what’s it going to be like in 2040?”

The time lag is also a concern of National Party Senate Leader Bridget McKenzie, who has pointed out that the United Arab Emirates announced a plan to build four nuclear reactors in 2008. Construction started in 2012. The last reactor is about to be connected to the grid, 16 years after the project was announced.