Peter Dutton out in cold as his nuclear fantasy runs out of power

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Australia’s electricity system, the largest grid on Earth, is a complex web of continuous, instantaneous expert decision-making underpinned by world-class systems and long-term infrastructure planning.

While the system is complex, the objective is simple: ensure the lights go on whenever, wherever we want, and provide the lowest-cost available electricity when and where Australians need it.

Standards for reliability imposed on generators and networks by the Australian Energy Market Operator are therefore stringent, and rightly so.

If AEMO forecasts more than a 0.002 per cent gap between what people need and what’s available in the electricity system, it flags a potential future breach.

While none of these breaches have eventuated, there’s been a particular and increasingly vocal set of climate inactivists who take unseemly pleasure in the hand-wringing to accompany such warnings. Which, while predictable, is ironic when you consider what the latest data shows.

By 2035, Peter Dutton’s so-called “energy plan” to increase reliability and lower bills will result in a staggering 49 per cent gap between demand and the supply available to meet it.

He’d take to our finely tuned electricity system planning with a sledgehammer. Detailed government analysis of AEMO forecasts show the Coalition’s plan to pause new renewable investment and defund critical transmission infrastructure needed to increase network capacity now will result in massive supply shortages over the next decade.

Chris Bowen

Shortages are exacerbated by the Coalition’s lack of solutions for new generation now, as electrification of homes and industry, and broader economic growth, mean a 1½ times greater demand for electricity by 2035, and a doubling by 2050.

Including improved energy efficiency, AEMO expects the east coast will need an extra 67GW more capacity by 2035, bringing our total national electricity grid to 153.5GW capacity – nearly double what the grid is now.

Even if we accept the Coalition’s claims about nuclear energy (which are false), it concedes it’s more than a decade away. Under the Coalition’s own logic, it provides no solution and no electrons for the next three terms of parliament.

I’ve written previously in this masthead of the spectacular contortions of logic that opponents of renewables make in their quest to derail the energy transition that is already well under way. But it will take some exquisite kind of circus manoeuvre for them to explain how a gap this big is actually a plan to increase reliability.

Luckily, Dutton is in Sydney on Monday to explain how he thinks nuclear is right for Australia to keep the lights on, and our economy growing, when it won’t even provide 4 per cent of the energy Australia needs by 2050. All this fuss for just 4 per cent?

Coming almost exactly three months after the announcement of the Coalition’s nuclear sites, this speech is his chance to finally lay out detailed analysis, costs and modelling.

The delay, costs and paltry electric dividend show me the Coalition has learned little from the dysfunction of 10 years of stop-start energy policy driven by ideological culture wars instead of economics and engineering.

Under its last government 24 coal generators announced their closure dates and the Coalition didn’t think up a single effective policy to address it. Now its solution to meet demand is forcing coal plant operators to keep assets open longer – a recipe for unreliability.

There hasn’t been a day in the past 12 months without an unplanned outage. Power stations don’t get more reliable as they get older.

Even if every generator slated to close between now and 2035 (other than those mooted for a nuclear replacement) were forced to run until 2040, it still leaves Peter Dutton with an 18 per cent gap between energy available and energy needed in 2035.

That’s like risking four hours and 20 minutes every day with no guarantee that when you hit the switch the lights will turn on.

Under the Albanese government’s current plan, the gap will be met by 25GW of small-scale renewables and 60GW of large-scale renewables.

I’ve never said the shift to a clean, cheap, renewable energy system would be easy. But it is achievable, and our plan is working. Supporting new investment in generation and batteries, bringing on offshore wind projects, and underwriting crucial transmission lines through Rewiring the Nation are real policy solutions under way now.

Last month AEMO confirmed on-time delivery of federal, state and territory programs as planned and legislated will be sufficient to meet demand out to 2035, within the stringent reliability standard.

Contrast that with the Coalition’s ideological pursuit of its anti-renewable nuclear scheme that leaves almost half Australia’s energy needs unserved in the same period.

So is nuclear right for Australia, Mr Dutton? You’d have to say no.

Chris Bowen is Minister for Climate Change and Energy.