The Coalition is hoodwinking Australia about nuclear energy

It’s now more expensive than renewables, Australia has a decades-long ban on it, and its key international example touted by the Coalition was scrapped, but that hasn’t stopped growing cries from conservatives about nuclear power entering the energy mix on the nation’s path to net zero by 2050.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is reportedly preparing to make nuclear a key part of his energy policy for the next federal election, telling the Institute of Public Affairs: “The only feasible and proven technology, which can firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean, cost effective and consistent power is next generation nuclear technologies.”

Dutton has tasked the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien with an internal investigation into a domestic nuclear energy industry in Australia. An enthused O’Brien has since returned from a tour of the US and Canada’s nuclear reactors last year, including the site of the BWRX-300 build in Ontario and Pittsburgh’s Generation IV nuclear battery, called the eVinci.

O’Brien is interested in small nuclear reactors, or SMRs — structures that would be manufactured in a factory, shipped out and assembled on-site in a dreamlike bid to drive down the cost and time delays of larger reactors.

“Environmental advocates, industry, private equity, centre-left and centre-right think-tanks, members of Congress — all told us that near 100% renewables was neither practical nor affordable, and that we needed nuclear in our energy mix,” O’Brien wrote in The Australian last year.

Several conservative figures have called for nuclear power to enter the energy conversation, including former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, Nationals senator Matt Canavan, Nationals leader David Littleproud, and Liberal Democratic MP David Limbrick. Meanwhile, Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has flat-out called the idea “dumb”.

In November, however, conservative SMR dreams were dashed here and abroad when a US developer binned a project widely touted as kicking off the new nuclear era. NuScale Power said it had failed to attract enough utility customers for the controversial power source to proceed — but it had also nearly doubled in cost (from US$8 billion to US$14 billion), suffered a five-year time delay, and revealed its power generation capacity had been slashed by a third.

Even so, Australian National University Honorary Associate Professor​​​ Tony Irwin told Crikey there was “still time” for nuclear to contribute to Australia’s pursuit of net zero, requiring “politicians with a long-term vision” to recognise what some COP28 nations called “the key role of nuclear energy in limiting temperature rise”.

Griffith University Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society Ian Lowe called bullshit.

“Nobody who can read joined-up writing and do take-away sums thinks nuclear power has any role in slowing Australia’s release of greenhouse gases,” the environmental scientist told Crikey.

A CSIRO report released last month found likewise, concluding nuclear power did not offer an “economically competitive solution”, and that SMRs would be “too late to make a significant contribution to achieving net zero emissions” because of both legal and commercial viability hurdles.

Lowe also noted the 2006 Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review (UMPNER) report had found nuclear energy would need very generous public subsidies to compete with renewables, which have backslid in price enormously in the 18 years since the review’s release.

The UMPNER was chaired by then head of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANTSO) Dr Ziggy Switkowski — a spokesperson for the government organisation told Crikey it’s following the nuclear debate though officially “agnostic” on nuclear energy.

Lowe also noted that the Coalition’s bleating about the nation rescinding the nuclear ban and embracing the controversial power source from the opposition has interesting timing considering the nine years it spent in government.

“Of course, they did nothing to promote that technology in their decade in office and are now predictably evasive about where a nuclear power station would be located and how it would be funded,” Lowe said.

Labor MP Josh Wilson went harder, telling Crikey that Dutton’s growing support for nuclear energy in the face of cheaper and cleaner renewables showed the opposition leader is unfit to lead the country.

“By giving in to the climate deniers and nuclear cheerleaders in his own show, Dutton shows his preparedness to consign the Australian community to an expensive, disaster-prone, and dangerous future for the sake of protecting his own position,” Wilson said.