Deep Yellow CEO John Borshoff says like Canada and UAE, Australia can build nuclear sector

Key business leaders said nuclear energy should be in the nation’s electricity mix but business leaders remain cautious over its high costs.

Industry also backed a nuclear-energy debate at a time when rising power bills are hurting businesses.

Australia’s resources sector said nuclear energy should be in the nation’s electricity mix but business leaders remain cautious over its high costs as households and industry continue to struggle with elevated power bills.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announced on Wednesday plans to build seven nuclear reactors across Australia with the goal of two to be in action by 2037.

Former BHP chairman Don Argus said that Australia should not just be looking at nuclear but needed to explore all options that were on table if the goal was to have clean electricity and whether renewables were still the best bang for buck.

“The subsidies that we’ve given out so far on just wind and solar are mind boggling,” he said.

“The cost and the costs of transitioning from an established electricity system is huge and those ‘big bang’ approaches have never worked. It is time that people paused and demanded that we do some comparative analysis to understand what these costs are.”

The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned of immediate gas supply risks across south-eastern Australia this winter with not enough supply to meet demand following a cold spell.

Industry also backed the debate at a time when rising power bills were hurting businesses.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief of policy and advocacy David Alexander said that a full range of power options needed to be considered to ensure that the grid was future-proofed in the coming decades.

“Maximising energy options minimises the risk of being caught out down the track with higher cost electricity,” Mr Alexander said.

“We cannot know the future competitiveness of individual energy sources over future decades, but the way to ensure that we don’t get caught short down the track is to allow the full range of energy sources.”

Uranium industry veteran and Deep Yellow chief executive John Borshoff told The Australian that Australia was not reinventing the wheel with nuclear power and labelled opponents of it such as the Albanese government as living on another planet.

“It is a legitimate industry and only in Australia is talked about as something out of science fiction,” he said.

“Nuclear will be a much needed inclusion into the energy mix for this country, but Labor is being the kid in the playground who doesn’t want to play marbles. If they believe their rhetoric so much then let the debate happen.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers told The Australian’s Energy Nation Forum on Wednesday that the plan for nuclear energy was the “dumbest policy” put forward by a major party and was the “worst combination of economic and ideological stupidity” as he doubled down that renewables was the path to a strong economy.

But Mr Borshoff, who founded ASX-listed uranium miner Paladin Energy, said European countries and Canada who were further ahead on net zero than Australia and were coming to the conclusion that a grid powered entirely by renewables was not the right pathway.

He pointed to Sweden which recently shifted its goal to one of fossil-fuel free as it announced plans to build 10 reactors including small modular ones by 2045.

Deep Yellow managing director John Borshoff says nuclear is a real industry. Picture: supplied

“Germany is in big trouble and it has 30 per cent of the grid powered by renewables. It chose not to go down the nuclear path and now 20 per cent of its power comes from French nuclear reactors. We haven’t got France next door to support us,” he said.

Mr Borshoff said Canada was running rings around Australia with their nuclear technology and had enjoyed economic benefits from increased industrialisation and participation in the global market.

“The benefit for Canada in terms of industrialisation and supporting nuclear sciences which is developing the sector. Meanwhile we’re using other people’s technologies in terms of panels and wind machines,” he said.

Mr Dutton’s policy is uncosted and he will also have to face opposition from those within his own party and state governments, some of which have bans on nuclear power.

Business leaders were concerned about the cost of funding renewable projects and the benefits that taxpayers have had from it, which analysis by the Centre for Independent Studies totalled as $29bn in the past decade.

Federal leader of the LNP Peter Dutton says nuclear reactors like this concept can be in operation by 2037.

There has been opposition about how the cost of nuclear stacks up to renewables and whether it was possible to have an industry and reactors up and running by Mr Dutton’s 2037 initial timeframe.

Mr Borshoff said several countries had been able to do it with South Korea opening plants on time and on budget, while the UAE launched its industry in 2009, started construction on five reactors in 2012, and had four currently running.

“Nuclear plants are built to last for 80 years while renewable projects have a lifespan of 20 to 30 years if you’re lucky,” he said.

“Going all in on renewables is hopeless. It’s a good cornerstone technology that supplements real technologies that can deliver huge amounts of power, be it heat or electricity, which is needed in a modern, industrial economy.”

Mr Borshoff blasted Labor for attempting to suggest nuclear power plants would lead to deformed koalas, saying opponents were ignorant about one of the safest forms of energy that would be governed to a high standard.

“What happened in Chernobyl was a huge mistake and error, but despite what these people say there are no three-headed bears roaming around or other strange science fiction-type animals that people would have you believe,” he said.