Caleb Bond: So we can subsidise renewables but we can’t even talk about nuclear energy?

It’s OK – you can say the word “nuclear”. It won’t cause you to have a child with three hands or make your dog glow, writes Caleb Bond.

Peter Dutton has, in a couple of weeks, already shown more gumption than his predecessor did through the whole election campaign.

Yes, it’s easy to throw ideas around when you’re on the opposition benches and don’t actually have to do anything.

But bravo for putting nuclear energy on the table.

It’s OK – you can say “nuclear”. It won’t automatically cause you to have a child with three hands or make your dog glow green.

I have, for years, advocated to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear energy so we can at least have the discussion.

As it stands, there is no encouragement for the private sector to conduct any research into the financial viability of nuclear power.

They are not going to invest money in an energy source they are banned from using.

It feels like Groundhog Day – like I’m bashing my head against a brick wall by bringing this up. But with energy security now a real issue and gas in short supply, there is no better time to seriously think about nuclear power.

05Opposition leader Peter Dutton and leader of the National party leader David Littleproud. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

The opposition to nuclear energy espoused by the green left defies all logic and it has to be called out. Every time I mention it I receive the most warped correspondence about Chernobyl and Fukushima and suggesting nuclear waste should be buried among the ficus trees in my garden.

Their purely ideological support for renewable energy has poisoned their ability to consider that nuclear power is, in fact, emission-free.

Australia has about a third of the world’s uranium deposits. We have no problem shipping it overseas to be used for power. Of the 20-highest energy-consuming countries in the world, all use or plan to use nuclear power – except Australia.

We have this vast resource at our disposal and yet refuse to use it, let alone investigate whether it would be worth using.

Australia banned nuclear energy in 1998. It had already been banned in Victoria and that was extended nationwide when the federal government centralised such laws. A YouGov poll last year found more than half of South Australians were open to a nuclear reactor being built in the state.

An April poll by the Institute of Public Affairs similarly found 53 per cent of Australians supported the proposition of nuclear power.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has simply dismissed the idea out of hand on the basis that the economics “don’t stack up”.

Steam rises from cooling towers of the Grohnde Nuclear Power Plant in Germany. Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

But he cannot make that statement in good conscience given no one is allowed to pursue nuclear energy under current laws. On current numbers, the government will contribute at least $22bn to the renewable energy sector by 2030.

So we can subsidise renewables but we can’t even talk about nuclear energy because it is supposedly unviable?

The proposition is simple. If nuclear energy is not economically viable in this country, then lifting the ban will be of little consequence.

Why, if antinuclear activists are so sure it is unviable, will they not accede to removing the ban and letting the market decide? If they’re so sure of their mathematics then they’d have nothing to worry about.

And why, in that discussion of economics, is there never any suggestion of subsidies like those that have been pumped into – by similar standards – “unviable” renewable energy for years?

Without a full and frank assessment of our energy options, we are dudding ourselves. But that doesn’t seem to worry the greenies.