Victorian premier Henry Bolte wanted the country’s first nuclear power plant built on French Island

French Island, off the Mornington Peninsula, was set to be home to Australia’s first nuclear power plant before the audacious plan unravelled.

The proposed nuclear power plant on French Island was intended to be up and running by 1980. Pictures: Trove

The race to hit net zero carbon emissions has brought a nagging question to the forefront of energy policy: will Australia eventually go nuclear?

Lingering anxiety from disasters in Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima in 2011, along with questions over the handling of nuclear waste, have held back the advent of nuclear power in Australia.

Indeed, the development of nuclear energy has been illegal since 1998.

But there is nothing new about the debate.

Victorian premier Henry Bolte, a visionary industrialist and the state’s longest serving leader, was eyeing nuclear power as early as 1967.

Premier Henry Bolte, who flirted with nuclear power for Victoria in the 1960s. Picture: HWT library

An audacious plan for development of the Western Port area would have seen it become one of the great industrial centres of the world with a new airport, thousands of workers in residence, and a brand spanking new nuclear power plant on French Island.

The plant would have been the nation’s first, intended to be online by 1980, before fate intervened.

Australia’s first nuke plant

The recent commitment by the Federal Government to purchase nuclear submarines was seen to cross a threshold.

But Australia’s flirtation with nuclear technology goes back much further.

First were the post-war allied nuclear tests that saw a dozen nuclear bombs let off in remote areas of South Australia and Western Australia.

Then was the 1958 opening of the High Flux Australian Reactor – a nuclear reactor used for scientific research at Lucas Heights in NSW.

Bolte visiting a Victorian power station in 1961. Picture: HWT library

By the 1960s, Australia was so comfortable with nuclear technology that power plants on several sites were being actively considered.

Henry Bolte, who served as Liberal premier from 1955 to 1972 was a relentless pursuer of industrial progress.

The initiatives throughout his term included the West Gate Bridge, the airport at Tullamarine and a push to build universities including Monash and La Trobe.

In the 1960s Bolte was hungry to reform the state’s energy infrastructure.

The Western Port area was earmarked as a potential location for a new industrial super hub, which Bolte envisioned as a rival to Germany’s hyper-industrial Ruhr Valley.

In the late 60s a delegation from the State Electricity Commission was assembled and sent overseas to assess the effectiveness of nuclear power plants, especially those in America.

The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor shortly after its opening in 1958, and a newspaper article about its research prospects. Picture: Trove

Bolte was excited about the prospect of Victoria building the nation’s first nuke plant, with earmarked sites including French Island, Kirk Point near Werribee, and Giffard on the Gippsland coast.

But it never happened.

An assessment of brown coal reserves in the Latrobe Valley showed the relatively cheap energy source could continue for more than 100 years.

Further assessment of the French Island site, were the SEC had purchased hundreds of acres of land, showed it might not be suitable for a power plant.

And the State Government faced stiff opposition from Western Port residents who rejected the idea of industrialisation in the area, let alone a nuclear power station.

By 1980, when the plant was first imagined to be up and running, the plan had been permanently shelved.

Newspaper articles from the 1960s about Victoria’s potential for nuclear power. Pictures: Trove

In September that year, addressing the Western Port Catchment Coordinating Group, Dr Peter James of the SEC confirmed French Island had been a potential site for a nuclear power plant, another site at Portland had also been assessed, but brown coal was now the favourable option.

He added, if nuclear power were to go ahead, a Federal Government regulator would need to be established to coordinate it.

Within two decades, however, the Federal Government had effectively banned nuclear power in Australia, with State governments also implementing prohibitive restrictions.

More proposals

Ideas for a nuclear power plant at Portland continued to kick around in the 1980s, and were revived in 2007 when businessman Ron Walker again put forward the idea, which failed to gain traction.

Businessman Ron Walker, who revived a proposal for a nuclear power station at the Victorian town of Portland in 2007. Picture: Mattinbgn

Other proposals around Australia included a plant in South Australia’s Upper Spencer Gulf, plans for which date back to 1952, and New South Wales’ Jervis Bay.

Much to the delight of activists in Western Port, the area was never developed to the extent of Bolte’s industrial vision.

More than 70 per cent of French Island is national park after an allocation in 1997, and the island has a population of fewer than 200 people.

The High Flux Australian Reactor at Lucas Heights was replaced in 2007 by the Open-pool Australian Lightwater reactor, which is the country’s only nuclear facility and is used exclusively for scientific research.

Around the world there are about 440 nuclear reactors that are used for generating 10 per cent of the world’s energy.

The oldest operating energy reactor in the world is the Beznau Nuclear Power Plant in northern Switzerland, which commenced operation in 1969 and still running after 53 years.