Time for a properly costed plan on the nuclear option

Given the state of Australia’s electricity system, the big complaint that can be made is that not enough planning was done to ensure that as coal-fired generators were retired they would be covered by a working alternative. Few credible experts now expect the Albanese government has any prospect of meeting its legislated target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. That mirrors what is happening in other parts of the world, where the results often have been less than expected despite the very large investments being made in wind farms and other technologies. Subsidies are bigger and reliability is less than promised. Nuclear energy is becoming a more important part of the discussion.

This is why Peter Dutton’s embrace of a nuclear option for consideration is worthwhile. Using existing grid infrastructure by swapping out coal-fired plants for nuclear ones makes sense, on paper at least. There are many issues that must be addressed but the challenge for the Opposition Leader is to present a properly ordered and costed plan to achieve what is now bipartisan climate policy of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Despite the hand-wringing about the time it would take to go nuclear, this is still achievable.

For evidence, Mr Dutton has cited the Canadian province of Ontario, which gets 60 per cent of its energy needs from nuclear at half the energy cost to households. Another example is the United Arab Emirates. In December 2009, the UAE accepted a $US20bn bid from a South Korean consortium to build four commercial nuclear power reactors. Unit 1 of the country’s first nuclear power plant was connected to the grid in August 2020, followed by unit 2 in September 2021 and unit 3 in October 2022. Unit 4 achieved first criticality last month. When the contracts were signed, support for construction of nuclear plants in the UAE had risen to 79 per cent, up 11 per cent from 2013.

As in the UAE, public support for considering nuclear power in Australia is rising as the cost and implications of meeting the decarbonisation challenge become more real. A nuclear plan will not please everyone. A way must be found to accommodate nuclear in the grid that allows it to run 24/7 to maximise its financial performance given the high upfront capital costs.

It should be of little surprise that the renewable energy industry does not welcome a competitor that could deliver emissions-free power with the reliability of fossil fuels. This reluctance must partly explain the sophisticated campaign being waged against nuclear energy on the basis of perceived cost. It also may explain objections mounted by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, who accuse the Coalition of playing culture war politics when it is Labor that seems determined to pick winners. Likewise with Anthony Albanese, who says no one is telling him they want to build a nuclear plant in Australia. This is hardly surprising given the ban on even considering the issue.

Mr Dutton is right to develop a net-zero plan that includes nuclear so it can be put to the test. This is particularly so given the large number of young people who say they are open to the idea. It may be one way that conservative forces can win back support that drifted to the teals at the 2022 election. Given our wealth of gas reserves and the potential for carbon capture and storage, there is no guarantee that existing nuclear technologies will be the answer. But it is a technology that is proven and can deliver the heat and other energy services that industry requires. Refusing to lift the ban or even consider the issue while its own plans face high costs and heavy weather makes the federal government look out of touch with what is happening in the modern energy world.