Labor must wake up to our need for a nuclear industry

Labor should lift the nuclear ban as this would test the market’s interest and allow a debate about the case for and against nuclear as part of Australia’s energy mix. Picture: Lennart Preiss/Getty Images

For some time I’ve argued the Labor government needed a Plan B to secure community support for its energy transition. From my perspective, virtue signalling and targets should not be the drivers of change. What’s in the national interest should be centre stage. It starts by accepting our future prosperity will always depend on a supply of reliable and affordable baseload power in our energy mix. In the post-coal era, this can be provided only by gas or emissions-free nuclear.

The first challenge is to accept that gas is a necessary transition and firming fuel. Labor would need to resolve its conflicting positions on gas. Lifting the nuclear ban should follow. This would test the market’s interest and allow a debate about the case for and against nuclear as part of our energy mix. No rational reason has been advanced for maintaining the ban.

The only target that matters is net zero by 2050. Setting and meeting interim targets that are dissociated from reality on the ground is a futile quest. It has turned into a major political problem for the government. Promises made and later broken diminishes trust and credibility. “My word is my bond” no longer rings true. The 2030 targets won’t be met. And no amount of spin covers Labor’s broken promise of a $275 cut in power bills by 2025.

Chasing targets at any cost has led to cutting corners, disregarding community views, resorting to secret arrangements and not being transparent about the real costs of transition, now estimated into the trillions. It’s a model built on huge subsidies, yet it’s unable to guarantee power reliability. The huge costs of a duplicate transmission system covering 10,000km by 2030 will be passed on in our bills. People rightly ask who are the winners and losers in a system greased by rent seeking?

The continuing need for baseload power in the mix would lead to a staged implementation strategy. Several coal power stations could be kept operating as an interim measure. The Minns government is now negotiating to keep Eraring operating beyond 2025. Away from scrutiny, the anti-fossil fuel state of Victoria has already entered into secret agreements with Loy Yang A and Yallourn to extend their operations. The new Talla B gas peaker and Kurri Kurri gas plant, promised by the end of the year, will provide for greater flexibility.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen needs to amend his turbocharged capacity investment scheme to include gas. Investors could then bid for gas peakers in future auctions. Batteries will never be a replacement for lost generation. Don’t believe the spin. Like the much-touted Waratah Super Battery, they currently provide a limited storage capacity of up to two hours.

Nuclear is the only emissions-free baseload option long term. It’s part of the energy mix in 33 countries already and is recognised internationally as a critical de­carbonisation technology. If the ban were lifted and nuclear passed all the tests, especially safety and waste considerations, small modular reactors could be located on sites where coal stations were closing, using existing transmission. There would be time for proper community consultation.

Renewables alone can’t power our economy. We can’t afford to lose industries like aluminium and steelmaking, which need a reliable supply of baseload power 24/7.

There are thousands of “carbon jobs”, particularly in trade-exposed industries and regional communities, that are at risk. Already job losses in the nickel industry should be sounding alarm bells. The loss of jobs was never considered in Labor’s modelling, which promised an unbelievable 604,000 new green jobs by 2030.

Excluding gas and nuclear from Australia’s energy equation would do great harm. Picture: Patrick Hamilton/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Excluding gas and nuclear from the energy equation would do great harm. We’d forever be locked into overseas supply chains, predominantly from China, for our ­renewables infrastructure. In a volatile world, energy security is national security. Energy poverty should have no place in the lucky country. Our nation’s continuing prosperity depends on making sensible use of our natural resources. They’re in high demand overseas, yet demonised by the virtue signallers at home.

Regional Australia is bearing all the burden of Labor’s transition. We need to avoid the loss of productive agricultural land, the desecration of the environment and the compulsory acquisition of property. It’s appalling to think that under Labor, the only redress in Victoria will be in the Supreme Court. The building of 10,000km of duplicate new transmission lines increases our vulnerability. Huge costs would be saved in power bills once new transmission was substantially cut back, as well sparing many households the pain of forced acquisitions.

The economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating era, delivered in concert with Bill Kelty and the unions, was a model built on consensus. It required strong leadership and community acceptance that reform was in our nation’s long-term interest. The challenge of our energy future is just as momentous. Building a social licence for change was essential back then and is even more necessary today. Can we rise to that challenge?

Jennie George is a former ACTU president and federal Labor member for the seat of Throsby.