Contest of ideas on nuclear power is timely and needed

Even before the start of summer, NSW faced heightened blackout warnings when energy demand soared across the last week of November, which was unseasonally hot. In a political culture limited for too long by parties presenting “small targets” to voters (ignoring how much has gone wrong and the need for reform), Peter Dutton deserves credit for risking a large policy target at the coming election – a costed plan to include nuclear power in Australia’s energy mix.

Overturning the nation’s and the states’ longstanding compacts over a civil nuclear industry would be a long and difficult process. Even Queensland’s newly elected Liberal National Party government is not on board, for example.

But the Opposition Leader has taken an important and brave step, setting out the economics of the issue in a context relevant to concerns about living costs, especially power bills. Rather than an ideological war between left and right, Mr Dutton is making it an economic contest based on modelling by Frontier Economics, the firm also used during the past year by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s department.

Frontier’s modelling shows that the Coalition’s plan, incorporating nuclear and renewables, would cost $331bn across 25 years, 44 per cent less than Labor’s renewables approach.

Under Mr Dutton’s plan, the first nuclear plant would be operational by 2036, replacing ­a retiring coal-fired plant. It is likely to be slated for the NSW grid, which only two weeks ago was plunged into emergency conditions because of a temporary shortfall of supply.

The Coalition’s modelling assumptions, Simon Benson reports, are based on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s own assumptions for the renewable energy transition. It recently revised down its estimates of the cost of Labor’s plan from $624bn to $595bn. But that still equates to a substantial difference, with the Coalition’s plan costing $264bn less.

“We want a proven technology and the ability to use the latest-generation zero-emissions technology, and we can do that on the timelines set by the experts,” Mr Dutton said. The plan would make electricity reliable, consistent and cheaper while helping the nation decarbonise, as it had to as a trading economy.

Aside from arguing that 19 of the top 20 economies in the world have nuclear power or are in the process of developing the technology, Mr Dutton is appealing to bipartisan common sense, rejecting criticisms that the policy was dangerous. Anthony Albanese, he said, had signed off on nuclear-powered submarines being allowed into ports under the AUKUS agreement.

On the other hand, as Mr Bowen argued on Friday, CSIRO modelling had found that the cost of nuclear would be significantly greater than renewables. He claimed Mr Dutton’s policy had three “fatal” errors – costings, the volume of power it was prudent to plan for in 2050, and the quantity of transmission lines needed. Those points and Mr Dutton’s counterarguments, and his criticism of Labor’s plans, need to be debated thoroughly between now and the election.

Australians following the news about rising debt levels, interest repayments on government loans and credit ratings know it is not feasible, as energy costs continue to rise, for taxpayers to fund hundreds of dollars in rebates for households and small business indefinitely.

Even with federal and state handouts, more than 130,000 households are on hardship payment plans, up from 95,634 last year, with hundreds more families seeking help each week. In an energy-rich nation it is pitiful. Neither will the public tolerate blackouts at peak times.