Wooley: Albo bets that nuclear energy is a voter timebomb

It’s a winner for Labor, if Dutton is silly enough to name the sites he thinks nuclear power plants should be located. But he’ll have to soon, if he’s serious about going nuclear, warns Charles Wooley

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seems to have learnt a lot from dividing the nation and losing the last referendum.

This week he said the next federal election will be “a referendum on nuclear power versus renewable energy”.

But this time he wants to be on the winning side by arguing the ‘No’ case.

Now ‘referendum’ is a word, given the enormous botch he made last time, you might have expected Albo never to pronounce again. But Peter Dutton’s undefined nuclear power policy is looking so much like Albo’s election night thought-bubble for an Indigenous Voice to parliament that Labor is seriously tempted to make nuclear power the major election issue, maybe sooner than later.

There’s just a chance that the next federal election might take place before Christmas, although the government can tough it out until September 2025.

If they dare.

Mark Knight’s cartoon on the call for nuclear power in Australia, first published in the Herald Sun on December 5, 2023.

So far, the opposition leader has only used the broadest brush strokes. “Zero-emissions nuclear energy as part of a balanced mix of technologies gets prices down around the world while reducing emissions at pace.”

He may be over optimistic about the cost of nuclear power but certainly not wrong about the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Proponents have long argued that nuclear is really the only consistently reliable and clean sustainable energy source. And again, it is not wrong to argue that it can provide large amounts of continuous energy without polluting the atmosphere or emitting emissions that cause global warming.

There are some thoughts among the Labor priests who open up the gizzards of chickens for a glimpse of the future, that the Ides of March, most-touted for an early election in the new year, does not look fortuitous.

One of them told me this week, “We see no clear air that far ahead. The interest rate burden is unlikely to be eased and we’ve been in power long enough for people to think it’s our fault.”

One of Victoria’s coal-fired power station, which are scheduled to be shutdown in the next few years, might make a good location for one of Australia’s first nuclear power stations. Picture: Jason Edwards

My informant was delighted that Dutton is going nuclear. “We stepped on a very smelly dog turd when we went for the Voice referendum,” he said.

“We got whacked by 60 per cent of the electorate.

“It wasn’t racism. It was politics. We just couldn’t sell the proposition.

“And now it looks like Dutton has stood on an even smellier dog turd. But this time one which glows in the dark.”

The PM delightedly noted last week that 670 days had passed since Mr Dutton first flagged the nuclear option and there were still no particulars, “no costings, no location, no detail whatsoever”.

Albo had clearly learnt from his past failures and is now demanding detail. In particular to know which communities and federal electorates will be expected to host nuclear power plants.

Labor has even half-joked about providing free iodine tablets for people who live near the reactors.

It’s a winner for Labor if Dutton is silly enough to name the sites soon. But at some time, he will have to if he is serious about going nuclear. Otherwise, it is hard to see without a change of Liberal leadership how such awkward truths could be avoided. We have a fair idea where they will go anyway because Dutton has told us that using the sites of the old coal-fired power stations will mean we can use existing transmission lines.

Which would be a good point were the nuclear debate to be rational and scientifically well informed.

But it won’t be.

It is a little puzzling that the Liberals not long-ago sacked Malcolm Turnbull because he believed global warming and climate change were a major threat to the planet.

Now they believe that threat is so serious they are prepared to scare the pants off the electorate with nuclear power.

Sir Humphrey Appleby would describe that course of action as “very courageous”.

A recent opinion poll on nuclear power has suggested that Dutton’s nuclear bid isn’t as unpopular in early polling as was the Voice proposal.

February’s Resolve Political Monitor survey found 36 per cent of those polled supported nuclear power in Australia with 27 per cent open to persuasion. While 23 per cent opposed it, 15 per cent were undecided.

Pollsters also report that focus groups frequently mention the Simpsons television program and Homer Simpson’s job as a safety inspector at the Springfield nuclear power plant.

They do know it’s a cartoon?

Meanwhile we have a good idea exactly where our first nuclear power stations would go. Prime candidates would be those regions where coal-fired stations are scheduled for closure. The nuclear facility would be conveniently plugged into the existing transmission system.

Here are the likely spots. The Latrobe Valley, in Victoria, and the Hunter Valley, in NSW. In Queensland at Gladstone and in the South Burnett region. And two more in the southwest of Western Australia.

So far you will notice Tasmania misses out again.

The siting of the proposed Marinus Link electricity and telecommunications interconnector might make Burnie a logical site for a Tasmanian nuclear facility, according to Charles Wooley. Picture: Chris Kidd

The North-West Coast surely deserves consideration from Peter Dutton. Maybe some Tasmanian federal Liberals could support their state and ask for a fair slice of the yellow cake.

Marinus Link’s proposed 1500MW capacity will be three times the capacity of the existing Bass Link interconnector. 1500MW is enough to power 1.5 million homes.

Marinus would make Burnie a logical site for a Tasmanian nuclear facility.

But George Town too could be in contention.

A nuclear power station there could supply Bass Link’s modest power requirements and more importantly provide additional power to run the envisioned giant hydrogen plant at Bell Bay.

As an afterthought, Burnie and George Town also fulfil the unspoken requirement of nuclear power facilities everywhere.

They are well away from major population centres; just in the extremely unlikely event of something going wrong.

Charles Wooley is Tasmanian-based journalist