Split on nuclear energy paves way for election showdown

A parliamentary committee has split on party lines over whether nuclear energy should be legalised in Australia, setting the scenes for it to be a major issue at the next federal election.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan is among Coalition senators pushing for nuclear power generation to be legalised. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dylan Robinson

A parliamentary committee has split on party lines over whether nuclear energy should be legalised in Australia, setting the scene for it to be a major issue at the next election.

A majority Labor committee released a report on Friday opposing a bill to legalise nuclear power, saying the technology was “unproven”, dangerous and more expensive than renewables.

The report by the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee – led by Labor senator Karen Grogan and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young – said by the time the technology was established, its “contribution to the electricity market would likely be negligible given Australia’s projected 83 per cent uptake of firmed renewables by 2030”.

“The committee notes many proponents of establishing a nuclear industry in Australia promote small modular reactors (SMRs),” the report states.

“However, SMRs remain an unproven technology and, globally, there are no commercially operational SMRs. It is clearly not possible for Australia to develop a nuclear-power sector with SMR technology which is not commercially available.”

It also states it is untenable to establish a civil nuclear industry in the “drought-prone country of Australia”.

“Nuclear power plants require significant volumes of water from uranium mining and processing through to reactor cooling. Locating nuclear power plants near seawater would likely mean the construction of nuclear reactors near densely populated areas and would create additional environmental and security risks.”

But the Coalition senators on the committee – including Nationals senator Matt Canavan and assistant energy spokeswoman Hollie Hughes – issued a dissenting report that states Australia’s commitment to acquire nuclear submarines makes legalising nuclear generation more important.

“A lack of a domestic nuclear energy industry risks the success of our nuclear submarine program. Without a nuclear energy industry, we may fail to develop the skills and support industries necessary to support our nuclear submarine endeavour,” it states.