Coalition pushes cuts to renewable projects in bid to win regional voters over on nuclear
The Coalition will attempt to sell its nuclear energy message to voters in the regions by highlighting how much land will be freed up from building less transmission lines, solar panels and wind farms.
NSW
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The Coalition will seek to win over regional Australians by highlighting how much land will be freed up from building less transmission lines, solar panels and wind farms, if voters green- light its nuclear energy plan.
It’s understood up to 12,000sq km of greenfield land would be left untouched under the Coalition’s nuclear pathway, which has less reliance on solar and wind farms, compared to Labor’s more renewables-heavy energy plan.
The figure covers the National Electricity Market – which doesn’t include the Northern Territory and Western Australia – and means, under the Coalition, that land equivalent to about five times the size of the ACT wouldn’t have renewables infrastructure built on it.
The figure is based off the existing land use of real-world examples and is applied to the more than 50GW of renewable energy projects that will be avoided due to the inclusion of nuclear energy as part of the Coalition’s plan.
“Labor’s energy obsession comes with hidden environmental costs: thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines cutting through communities and natural habitats,” Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said.
“The Coalition’s plan includes an expanded role for renewables in our future energy mix, but we will be avoiding the crazy rollout of so many industrial-scale projects across regional Australia envisaged by Labor.”
It’s not clear yet what transmission infrastructure would be dumped under the Coalition’s nuclear plan, which was seized upon by Energy Minister Chris Bowen in a fiery response following the opposition’s nuclear costings announcement Friday.
“If they are to be taken seriously they need to outline exactly what transmission lines they will cancel,” Mr Bowen said.
The Coalition has already announced it’ll commit to junking some proposed offshore wind farms, including ones off the Hunter, Illawarra and West Australian coasts, if it wins next year’s election.
In his first public comments on the $331bn plan to build seven nuclear power plants across Australia, Opposition leader Peter Dutton made a direct appeal to businesses and families.
“Our country is at a crossroads and, if you look at every other comparable economy around the world, of course they have adopted or signed up to the use of nuclear energy,” Mr Dutton said.
Nationals leader David Littleproud also signalled the impact of new transmission and renewables projects would be pursued in the battle for the bush.
“That’s why we should have a mix that (ensures) regional Australia isn’t littered with transmission lines, solar panels and wind turbines,” he said.
Mr Bowen said there were “fatal” errors in the proposal, including that it was underpinned by modelling that Australia would have a lower energy demand in the future, compared to what Labor has prepared for, claiming the Coalition had “cooked the books” by doing so”.
“It runs the risk of leaving Australians short of the energy they need,” he said.
“This is the first time we have heard from the Liberal Party, they’re actually planning to produce less electricity.”
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