A new generation is talking nuclear power. It’s unlikely to happen

At 17, Will Shackel is too young to remember Fukushima.

When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the coast of Japan in 2011, it caused the largest civilian nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Shackel was four years old.

His parents were still in school when the Chernobyl disaster happened in Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union, in 1986.

Will Shackel is a year 12 student and founder of Nuclear for Australia.Credit: Jamila Toderas

The year 12 student from Brisbane is pro-nuclear power and believes his generation is open to it in order to tackle climate change.

“Young people are broadly supportive of science and they know that issues [like nuclear waste] have been blown out of proportion,” Shackel said, pointing to the number of times he sees people his age sharing the videos of Grace Stanke, a nuclear engineer and advocate who was Miss America in 2023.

Nuclear engineer Grace Stanke as Miss America, left, and speaking at the Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2023 in New York.Credit: Bloomberg

The past year has seen a growing national conversation about nuclear because the Coalition is touting the technology in response to the Albanese government’s plan to roll out renewables at scale.

There are some signs in polling and focus groups that the electorate is warming up to nuclear, but researchers warn this support could quickly evaporate.

In the latest Resolve Political Monitor in February, a national survey of 1603 people run exclusively for this masthead, 36 per cent of voters supported nuclear power. A further 27 per cent agreed with the statement: “I do not have a strong view, and would like to see the government investigate its use”.

Support for nuclear power has ticked up since October last year, when 33 per cent supported it.

Resolve founder Jim Reed said nuclear proponents need to convert open-mindedness into informed consent, but would face pushback.

A March 2011 file image of the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.Credit: Tokyo Electric Power Company via Kyodo News

“The inevitable NIMBY scare campaign can really only be overcome through educating the public on where nuclear fits in Australia; why it’s needed, where the reactors would be, the benefits for heavy industry and home users,” Reed said.

Pollster Kos Samaras, founder of political consultancy RedBridge, said the question of social licence would be impossible to overcome.

“If people are losing their minds about whales bumping into offshore wind turbines, they’re going to be a little bit more animated when it comes to conventional nuclear reactors being built in nearby locations, which they have to be because they need water,” Samaras said.

In the Resolve polling, men were much more enthusiastic, with 51 per cent firmly in favour of nuclear power and a further 21 per cent open to it. For women, it was 21 per cent and 32 per cent.

The highest support was among older voters. In the over-55 age group, 46 per cent supported nuclear and a further 22 per cent were open to it.

Although young people are more likely to vote for parties that oppose nuclear, such as the Australian Greens, Resolve found they were just as open to nuclear power as the generation above them.

In total, 59 per cent of people in both the 18-34 age group and the 35-54 age group were either supportive or open to the idea of nuclear power. The older cohort was more likely to firmly support it, while the younger respondents had more soft supporters.

This matches Shackel’s experience, who said: “Older generations are much more passionate in their beliefs towards nuclear power. Young people support it, but … it’s not an emotional issue for them.”

He founded Nuclear for Australia last year, with funding from businessman Dick Smith. His goal is to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear energy, which dates from 1998 when former prime minister John Howard cut a deal with the Greens.

Dr Rebecca Huntley, director of research at 89 Degrees East, said the openness of young people to nuclear power was partly generational and partly about the importance of climate change as an issue.

Social researcher Rebecca Huntley is an expert on public sentiment on nuclear issues.Credit: Nick Moir

“Generation X grew up really worried about nuclear war, and that’s just not something that the younger generation thinks or understands or worries about,” Huntley said.

“More importantly, the younger generation just wants energy and climate change sorted, so perhaps they’re prepared to go ‘OK, maybe we should consider it’.”

In 2016 Huntley ran South Australia’s series of citizen juries to decide whether the state should accept the world’s nuclear waste and store it in secure facilities in the desert. She said most of the participants were open-minded at the outset, but eventually opposed, especially after hearing testimony from Indigenous elders who remembered the Maralinga nuclear testing in the 1950s and did not want it on their land.

Huntley said participants in focus groups were bringing up nuclear more often than before the last federal election, but support usually dissolved once the discussion turned to timelines, logistics and the issue of how to store waste.

Huntley said the government could find itself in a difficult position because if it ignored the idea, discussion would continue, but if it responded, it risked fuelling the debate and delaying renewables.

The discussion about nuclear power is being led out of Canberra, not the states, where the Coalition has made its support clear.

Matt Kean, the former NSW energy minister under the previous Coalition state government, said his government “looked seriously into nuclear energy but it didn’t stack up” in terms of cost, timelines or grid security.

David Crisafulli, leader of the Liberal National Party in Queensland, has consistently said nuclear would need federal bipartisan support.

Tony Wood, the energy program director at Grattan Institute, said large-scale nuclear reactors could not be built in time to replace existing coal-fired plants as they are decommissioned, while the much-vaunted small modular reactors do not yet exist.

Wood said small modular reactors could be appropriate to fill in the gaps once renewables made up 80-90 per cent of the grid, but this was “a decision for the late 2030s”.

He said there was little investor appetite. “If you lifted the nuclear ban tomorrow, no one’s going to rush off and build a nuclear power station because it’s just too expensive,” Wood said.

Rio Tinto recently put out a tender for wind and solar to power an aluminium smelter near Newcastle, telling Renew Economy that nuclear power was too slow and expensive. Bill Gates, who has invested in nuclear power in the US, has said Australia should focus on its abundant solar and wind capacity.

Samaras said not only would the soft support evaporate, but the other dynamic is the high levels of hard opposition.

In the recent Resolve poll, 23 per cent of respondents opposed nuclear power, down from 24 per cent in October. Samaras’ polling puts it as high as 32 per cent. Either way, it’s a large constituency.

Felicity Stevens and her son James, 14, at home in Sydney.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

If nuclear power ever became more than a twinkle in Dutton’s eye, it would be strongly opposed by the likes of Felicity Stevens from Balgowlah on Sydney’s north shore, in Teal MP Zali Steggall’s electorate.

Stevens is active in the community, through groups such as Parents for Climate and the Zero Emissions Group. She said the health risks of a nuclear accident were a big concern.

“We’ve grown up seeing what’s happened in Ukraine, and we’ve seen what’s happened in Japan,” Stevens said. “Do we ever want the opportunity for that to happen in our backyard? The risk is too great.”

Stevens feared the debate would delay the rollout of renewables.

“They’re talking about something that would take 10-20 years to get up and running, and we don’t have time,” she said. “It’s just a delay tactic.”

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