Labor criticises Coalition’s nuclear waste handling cost ‘hole’

The Albanese Government claims the Coalition’s nuclear power plan has blown out its costings by $14 billion. Vote in our polls, have your say.

EXCLUSIVE

The Coalition’s failure to account for the handling of radioactive waste produced under its nuclear power plan has blown a $14 billion “hole” in its costings Labor has claimed, as both sides clash over energy modelling.

Transporting the waste produced by the seven nuclear power stations the opposition has pledged to build by 2050 the same way Australia currently does at its only research reactor would cost an average of $345 million a year - or $13.8bn over 40 years of operation, which is the average age of reactors in the US.

The Coalition has disputed the government’s figures, which were based on assumptions each power station would only have one reactor, the amount of waste produced would be equivalent to the US average of 21.5 metric tonnes a year and that the radioactive material and spent fuel would only be handled once a decade.

A general view of the Callide Power Station on January 19, 2025 in Biloela, Australia. As Australia approaches the 2025 federal elections, the debate over nuclear power is intensifying, particularly with the Liberal-National Coalition's proposal to establish nuclear energy facilities across the country. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

The $331bn figure in the independent costings of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal produced by Frontier Economics does not factor in waste management.

After spending the first three days of the election campaign focused on energy, and in particular his plan to lower gas prices, Peter Dutton faced questions about his centrepiece nuclear policy during a visit to the marginal Labor seat of Paterson in the Hunter region of NSW where the Coalition plans to put one of the seven reactors.

Asked about the radioactive waste on Monday, Mr Dutton said it would be disposed of safely, noting Australia already currently dealt with such material produced by the Lucas Heights medical and research nuclear facility in Sydney.

“It’s the case now that we dispose of nuclear waste from Lucas Heights,” he said. “So that’s all dealt with safely.”

An aerial view of the site of a proposed nuclear power plant in Port Augusta, Australia. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

That waste is shipped overseas for long term storage, a process that last occurred in 2018 when about a decade’s worth weighing about 24 tonnes was transported to France, at a total handling cost of about $46m.

Labor Senator Tim Ayres said it was clear the Coalition’s “expensive” nuclear reactor scheme had “holes in it”.

“Now we know he clearly has no understanding or plan on how to handle waste and hasn’t factored it into his bogus ‘costings’,” he said.

Mr Dutton has defended the modelling behind his nuclear plan, which Labor also criticised for assuming electricity consumption would be about 40 per cent lower than the energy operator AEMO has forecast.

Mr Dutton has defended the modelling behind his nuclear plan. Picture Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

He said the difference in electricity use assumptions was because Labor’s renewable plan required they “overbuild” the grid.

“(Nuclear) is a much more efficient way of running the electricity system,” he said.

Coalition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said Labor’s analysis of the cost of handling nuclear waste was “flawed,” adding it was produced to distract from the government’s own energy “failures”.

He said Labor’s backflip on its renewable energy plan modelling would go down in history as the “most incredible” since federation.

“They refuse to tell Australians the true cost of their own energy plan once the band-aid rebates expire.”

Originally published as Labor criticises Coalition’s nuclear waste handling cost ‘hole’