The Australian's Energy Nation Forum: Chris Bowen blasts Coalition's nuclear power plan as an uncosted 'scam'

The Coalition's uncosted nuclear power plan is a scam that doesn't survive contact with analysis, Chris Bowen has told The Australian's Energy Forum.

Welcome to coverage of The Australian's inaugural Energy Nation Forum, which featured Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Origin Energy chief executive Frank Calabria, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, Nationals leader David Littleproud, opposition climate change spokesman Ted O’Brien, Australian Energy Market Commission chair Anna Collyer, Shell Australia chair Cecile Wake and scientist Saul Griffith. 

Live coverage has now ended, recap the forum's key moments below:

Live Updates

7:32 pm June 19, 2024

Opposition ready to discuss safety, reliability of nuclear

Mackenzie Scott

Nationals MP and former resources minister Keith Pitt said the opposition is ready to have a discussion with Australia about the safety and reliability of nuclear despite not having the backing of the bulk of state premiers.

"If the only two selection criteria were cost and reliability, we’d build more coal-fired power stations,” Mr Pitt told Sky News.

“That’s the reality. But, if you want zero emissions and reliability and affordability, nuclear is the only game in town.

“The only difference between coal power and nuclear power is the energy that produces steam.”

“We should absolutely have a conversation with Australia about this.”

Mr Pitt also noted the vulnerabilities of renewable sources power sources of wind and solar to storms and cyclones.

7:10 pm June 19, 2024

Crisafulli's 'no risk' political strategy probed

Mackenzie Scott

Former Liberal Queensland premier Campbell Newman believes current state opposition leader David Crisafulli has misread the electorate by ruling out adopting the party’s federal nuclear plan.

Mr Newman said the state opposition is playing a “no-risk” political strategy that has inadvertently misread the mood of Queensland.

“He has just done this final straight, as he sees it, to a victory in October with this small target strategy, and he ain't taking any risks at all,” Mr Newman told Sky News.

“Crisafulli and his team were totally wrong in assessing what the community’s views were, for example, on the voice and things like treaty.

“He is also very much against the rank and file of his membership.”

Mr Newman said the state Liberal Party now lacks a reliable energy plan in the lead-up to the state election in October.

Mr Crisufulli has signed up to emissions targets and has said he won't follow through with Labor’s pumped Hydro scheme, which Mr Newman believes puts him in a tricky position if the state embraces renewables.

“If he is going to be the premier, he has to deliver a cheap, reliable electricity,” Mr Newman said.

“Here is the stark reality of where he is now: He doesn't have a reliable plan for electricity.

“(Premier) Steven Miles sort of has one, which is incredibly expensive and I wouldn't back. But, I don't think Crisafulli’s got one, because he doesn't back the storage that is required (for renewables) and is not going to back nuclear. So, how is he going to deliver?

“This is the problem when you don't have a fundamental bedrock of principle going into an election. He himself tying up into all sorts of knots that he is going to have to extricate himself from as a new premier.”

4:13 pm June 19, 2024

Coalition plan makes 'no sense' fiscally

Mackenzie Scott

Teal Independent MP Kate Chaney has joined critics of the Coalition's nuclear plan, stating the announcement will delay real climate action and jeopardise private sector investment in renewables.

The member for the Perth seat of Curtin said the plan makes “no sense” fiscally or environmentally.

“If we kick the can down the road and wait for the mythical nuclear in 2040, we are going to have to put more money into these obsolete infrastructure projects, coal power stations,” Ms Chaney said.

“We need to decarbonise as soon as possible so that we are not left behind by the rest of the world as we move to a new global economy.”

Ms Chaney said opposition leader Peter Dutton's first policy proposal this term may dampen investment in renewable energy.

“Creating this sort of policy uncertainty is terrible for business, it is terrible for the investment community,” she said

“It makes it very difficult for the business community to get on with the job ahead.”

She added that the community in Collie – an area south of Perth flagged as a site under the proposal – should not get their hopes up for job security at a nuclear site in the next 16 years.

4:11 pm June 19, 2024

Energy transition needs to be handled at 'federal level'

Mackenzie Scott

LaTrobe City Council Mayor Darren Howe says it is important the energy transition is handled correctly at a federal level.

The local council area encompasses Loy Yang in eastern Victoria, which the Coalition has flagged as a potential area for a nuclear power plant.

Mr Howe said it is still too early to tell what the local community thinks of the proposal. But he did welcome consultation from the Coalition on what the plan will mean for jobs, the environment and housing in the future.

“It’s so important for the community to go along with any plans,” Mr Howe said.

“We can then make our decision as a council.”

Mr Howe said the community is concerned about the closure of two coal-fired power stations in recent years and the potential closure of others in the future.

“We’ve got time now to really make sure we get the transition right,” he said.

“We just want to be in the mix.”

4:06 pm June 19, 2024

Queensland mayor supports nuclear plan

Mackenzie Scott

The local mayor of one of two Queensland sites earmarked as a potential nuclear site in the Coalition’s plan has welcomed the proposal, which would help ease community concerns over the roll-out of renewables.

South Burnett mayor Kathy Duff’s local government area north-west of Brisbane encompasses a proposed site at Tarong. She believes the council will be wholly backed by locals.

“There's concern across our region with the wind and the solar, and we are looking for alternatives,” Ms Duff told the ABC.

“It's certainly worth considering. We haven't discussed it as a council at this point, but we'll certainly be bringing it to the table and 100% supportive of looking at it.”

Tarong already has a coal-fired power station and Ms Duff believes nuclear power would alleviate community concerns about jobs.

“If it's done properly it can be an exciting thing for our region…job security and potential road upgrades,” she said.

4:03 pm June 19, 2024

Nuclear 'financially illogical' and about 'climate wars'

Mackenzie Scott

Finance director of think tank Climate Energy Australia Tim Buckley says nuclear is "financially illogical” and is about extending “climate wars”.

Mr Buckley told Sky News the proposed plan announced today does little to address the current climate challenges, and the infrastructure delivery plan is not commercially viable.

“We have no nuclear capacity in Australia,” he said

“We don't have the workforce, and we can’t afford the 20+ year delay (opposition leader) Peter Dutton is proposing today.”

Mr Buckley said the Coalition is “cherry-picking” figures on nuclear use in Canada, noting that the North American country hasn't commissioned a new nuclear power plant in 30 years, and the last plant came in 400 per cent over budget and years delayed.

The government-funded proposal also fails to address private investors wanting to put their money into renewals.

2:35 pm June 19, 2024

Nation needs to 'stop demonising gas'

Noah Yim

Integrated Gas Australia country chair Cecile Wake said that she sees a “shared sense of optimism” about Australia’s energy future and has called on the public to “stop demonising gas”, “at least have a conversation around nuclear”, and sustain investment in energy production.

She called for “transparent conversations around lowest cost, most reliable, least emissions energy mix”.

“The purpose for that is so that our focus shifts from ideology … and picking winners and moving to a far more pragmatic look, one that has that unifying goal of our nation thriving through it,” she said.

“And to do that we need to stop demonising gas, we need to look more broadly than simply the 82 per cent renewable penetration in electricity mix, we need to look into biofuels, we need to at least have a conversation around nuclear … it may or may not be the right energy vector.

“And let’s be realistic, the investments that we’re making are going to be multi-decade investments, and we’re going to need multiple cycles of investment. It’s not going to be just how do we attract the first wave of investors but how do we attract the second, third, fourth wave?”

2:33 pm June 19, 2024

Agriculture faces 'key role' in net zero

Noah Yim

Graincorp chief executive Robert Spurway said that agriculture would play “a huge part” of the net-zero transition in Australia and that his company was looking at investment in biofuels.

“If we move to large scale renewable fuel production in Australia, the oil seeds that we currently export are going to have to be crushed and processed in Australia,” he said.

“So the feasibility we’re looking at as the scale up … required to meet demand, which we see as inevitable.

“When we look at heavy transport and decarbonisation – it is a hard to avoid sector, particularly aviation. But when you think about heavy transport more generally … we’re increasingly of the view that advanced biofuels are renewable.”

2:21 pm June 19, 2024

'Energy security is national security'

Noah Yim

Integrated Gas Australia country chair Cecile Wake said that global energy supply chains were a key plank of national security and highlighted Australia’s role in stability in the region.

“Energy security is actually also national security,” she said.

“And if we expand that out to regional trade partners and the extent to which they will rely on Australia for their energy security – I don’t think it’s too wrong to say that energy security and supply … and the health of our LNG export industry plays a fundamental role in regional security as well.

“LNG exports represent around 20 per cent of Australia's export revenue nationally each year, and, as I said, play a fundamental role in energy security for our Asian trade partners, and in their emissions reduction trajectory.

“Without a functioning domestic market without security of supply for Australian customers, the whole Australian prosperity is at risk and we are absolutely alive to that.”

Ms Wake said that LNG exporters on the east coast of the country were already responding to changing dynamics before the government gas intervention two years ago.

She said “while we understand the government's drivers” for the gas market interventions in 2022, “I think, behaviourally and in practical terms, the LNG exporters on the east coast were already responding to divert, voluntarily, molecules from export to ensure that the domestic market is fully supplied.”

2:19 pm June 19, 2024

Lack of refineries 'a growing issue' for supply

Noah Yim

Ampol chief executive Matt Halliday, Integrated Gas Australia country chair Cecile Wake, and Graincorp chief executive Robert Spurway are now on stage discussing the global contest for energy.

Mr Halliday said reliable fuel supply was “an issue we think about every hour of every day, making sure our customers have fuel when they need it”.

He said the lack of refineries in Australia was “an issue that is growing and growing in terms of the focus it receives”.

“And when you think about the various issues of decarbonisation and fuel security, increasingly our view is that they're very intertwined … when I think about the decarbonisation of distributed fuels, is going to play a very critical role.”