‘Coal plants perfect for reactors’, says Coalition

Coalition MPs want nuclear power plants built on coal-fired power station sites, to minimise environmental impacts of massive renewable projects.

An artist's rendering shows Westinghouse's planned AP300 small modular nuclear power reactor, which the company officially unveiled in mid-2023.

Coalition MPs want nuclear power plants built on the sites of coal-fired power stations to minimise environmental impacts of massive renewable projects and transmission lines, as new ­research reveals nuclear reactor footprints could match existing coal plant infrastructure.

Queensland Liberal National Party MPs Ted O’Brien, Keith Pitt, Colin Boyce, Llew O’Brien and Phillip Thompson backed a ­Coalition nuclear approach alongside renewables, with coal and gas maintained as baseload fuels until reactors are built.

Mr Pitt, a former resources minister who commissioned Parliamentary Library research into coal-fired power stations and ­nuclear reactor costs and waste management, said AUKUS ­ensured “nuclear reactors will be used in Australia”.

“Nuclear power stations mean tiny amounts of land used, less transmission lines and reliable ­affordable electricity for Australian consumers and industry when compared with intermittent wind and solar,” Mr Pitt said.

On nuclear waste, Mr Pitt claimed US Energy Department data shows “old-tech nuclear powers 70 million homes … producing half an Olympic pool of waste every year. Compare that to the millions of tonnes of solar and wind turbine blades waste that are coming. And nuclear last decades. Wind and solar, 20 years if you’re lucky.”

The research included a list of recently built nuclear power plants, constructed for between $US2.7bn and $US12.6bn depending on unit numbers.

The 1340MW South Korean Shin Hanul 2 reactor, which connected in December and has an overall footprint of 174ha and a plant footprint of 9ha, cost $6bn for two reactors. The 1600MW Olkiluoto nuclear plant in Finland costing $12.4bn was constructed on an area of approximately 19ha.

Across nine nuclear reactor models, the volume of low and ­intermediate level radioactive waste generated annually by 1GWe power plants range from 200 to 5000 cubic metres.

Mr O’Brien, the opposition climate change and energy spokesman working with Peter Dutton on the Coalition’s election policy, said they were adopting an “all-of-the-above” approach to “practically deliver net zero by 2050”.

“Other nations think we’re nuts as we destroy our world-famous natural environment in an unprecedented radical experiment of a ‘renewables-only’ grid while ­ignoring zero-emissions nuclear energy, especially given no one has more uranium reserves than us,” the Fairfax MP said.

Mr Boyce, who has three coal-fired power stations in his seat of Flynn, said “let’s have a conservation about (nuclear) … let’s be sensible and reasonable”.

“Many countries around the world are reinvesting in nuclear power because the reality is it’s the only technology that we have currently, other than fossil fuel technology, to supply reliable power,” the central Queensland MP said.

Mr Thompson said the Nat­ional Electricity Market would be hit with blackouts if Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen scaled back or shutdown coal. “He wants to highlight what every other country is doing around renewables but they’re the same countries that also do ­nuclear power,” he said. The North Queensland MP for Herbert said Australia should look at existing coal plant infrastructure and consider making the “shift to nuclear”. “We look at it with open eyes and we do support renewables projects. But I don’t think any responsible government should be ruling out nuclear.”

Mr O’Brien, who criticised the Queensland government’s $14.2bn Borumba Dam Pumped Hydro project in his Wide Bay electorate, said “there’s a potential to use the same boilers that we’re using at the moment”.

“Experts would make the decisions on what’s the most viable. We’ve got to get our skates on and start initiating the conversation,” he said.

Mr Bowen’s spokeswoman said the government “notes the cancellation of the US NuScale nuclear project due to cost blowouts, a further significant cost blowout in the UK’s Hinkley project and a net loss of 1.7GW of nuclear capacity globally in 2023”.