Labor fudges ‘facts’ as it powers up nuclear scare campaign

France’s Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor which was given the go-ahead to begin generating electricity on May 7. Picture: AFP

George Orwell could have been speaking about Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen when he explained the meaning of doublespeak as “holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.

At the COP28 climate change conference last year, Bowen was insisting that fossil fuels such as gas “have no ongoing role to play in our energy systems”, but back in Australia he has been spruiking that “gas will play an important role”.

As a member of the National Security Committee, Bowen is backing Australian submariners sleeping with nuclear reactors under water, but at the same time he is claiming the same technology on land is “risky”.

Bowen is demanding the costings and economic modelling behind the Coalition’s yet-to-be-released energy policy, while he keeps the economics of his own policies secret including the Capacity Investment Scheme.

Bowen is calling for the Coalition to announce locations for potential zero-emissions nuclear power plants, but he refuses to declare where Labor plans to build up to 28,000km of new transmission lines, along with 22,000 new solar panels a day and 40 wind turbines every month through to 2030.

Bowen dismisses small modular reactors due to one project in the United States running into financial difficulty, but fails to apply the same logic to hydro after Snowy 2.0 doubled in price, or to offshore wind, which industry estimates will cost up to five times the present wholesale price of electricity.

Writing on the use of doublespeak, American scholar Edward Herman defined it as “the ability to choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program”.

Bowen again comes to mind. Take the claims the minister was peddling just this week on nuclear energy.

Firstly, Bowen is arguing the world doesn’t want zero-emissions nuclear energy by claiming Germany and Italy don’t use the clean energy source.

However, reports indicate these European powers have imported 16.52TWh of electricity from nuclear-dominated France so far this year, which is close to the amount of electricity generated by all of NSW’s coal plants combined. Secondly, Bowen is claiming nuclear energy is effectively dead in the United States, despite US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm opening two new nuclear power plants this week and calling for a tripling of nuclear capacity.

Thirdly, Bowen is arguing nuclear doesn’t stack up, asserting nuclear power plants operate only half the time and for only 30 years, despite nuclear plants being always on 24/7, and with an asset life up to 80 years.

As for suggestions of a 100 per cent cost premium for first-of-a-kind reactors. This is not true, as only next-of-a-kind reactors would ever be considered for Australia.

If there were a time for honesty in debate about energy policy, it is now.

Australia once paid among the lowest electricity prices of all advanced nations – now we pay among the highest.

Every week since Labor came to office, more than 500 families have plunged into hardship arrangements with their energy retailer.

The market regulator recently confirmed next year’s electricity prices, leaving families paying up to $1000 more than Labor had promised.

The market operator is warning of blackouts as early as this summer.

Australia is running out of energy as Labor’s renewables plan stalls, it continues to suffocate gas and it is forcing 90 per cent of Australia’s always-on 24/7 baseload power out of the system over the next 10 years, without replacement.

All this, and Australia’s emissions are also rising for the first time in years.

No other nation is attempting to run an electricity system almost entirely on weather-dependent wind and solar technology.

While there is an important role for renewables, it’s only as part of a balanced energy mix alongside gas and zero-emissions nuclear energy as coal exits the system.

This is the international experience.

Take Ontario, where nuclear constitutes up to 60 per cent of its energy mix. Ontario’s residents pay about 14c/kWh compared to up to 56c/kWh in Australia, and their electricity grid is 10 times cleaner.

Ontario is also investing in four GE-Hitachi SMRs because it knows zero-emissions nuclear energy is providing cheap, clean and consistent 24/7 power.

But, instead of learning these international lessons, Bowen has been practising the dark arts of politics in preparation for an old-fashioned Labor scare campaign.

The Prime Minister is getting in on the act too, releasing a tweet on Tuesday about cities and towns “under threat” due to nuclear energy forming part of Coalition policy – an extraordinary attack given he is yet to reveal which local community will host a permanent nuclear waste repository for AUKUS.

As everyday Australians become poorer and energy prices skyrocket, as household budgets squeeze and businesses close, the government of the day is focused on a scare campaign based on doublespeak and deception.

Ted O’Brien is the opposition spokesman on climate change and energy.