Bowen makes ‘hypocritical’ nuclear claims as Dutton accuses scientists of bias

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has rubbished the Coalition’s advisers on nuclear power despite his own department paying $1.2 million to a consulting firm for analysis, as Peter Dutton accused the CSIRO of bias in its findings that nuclear is the most expensive energy source.

Bowen last week attacked consulting firm Frontier Economics, which had published a report that claimed the true cost of Labor’s energy plans was five times more expensive than claimed. This masthead revealed last week that Frontier would produce the Coalition’s nuclear costings and claim that the opposition plan would cost less to build than Labor’s.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused the CSIRO of “bagging” his party’s nuclear energy plan on Monday.Credit: Justin McManus

Bowen claimed the Coalition’s estimates, to be released this week, had been “cooked up for [the opposition] by Danny Price”, a “Liberal consultant” he tied to Tony Abbott’s failed climate policies.

But tender documents show Bowen’s department has engaged the same firm on two contracts since October last year. One, worth $700,000, related to “better understanding current and future electricity demand”, while the other, worth $513,000, was to review the Integrated System Plan, a key planning document by the energy grid operator.

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said Bowen’s “hypocrisy is staggering”, and his attempt to “play the man and not the ball” had failed.

In response, Bowen said Frontier’s work was “technical modelling based on evidence and free from political pressure”.

Coalition frontbencher Ted O’Brien.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“The opposition have secretly asked [Frontier chief] Danny Price to do them a favour, abandon facts and evidence and cook up spurious numbers. They should open the books and have transparent costings,” Bowen said, castigating O’Brien for his party’s questioning of the CSIRO.

Australia’s climate wars reignited on Monday after the CSIRO again found that nuclear was at least 50 per cent more expensive than renewables.

The findings are contained in the latest GenCost report, an independent assessment of the price of various forms of energy generation, including coal, nuclear and renewables.

The CSIRO’s report did not consider the opposition’s policies, but it did address O’Brien’s claims that the previous report in May had unfairly favoured wind and solar energy.

O’Brien said CSIRO must recognise that a nuclear plant would be in near-constant use and have a lifespan of up to 80 years.

But even after it accommodated these requests, CSIRO still found the cost of nuclear energy was significantly higher than renewables.

“It just looks to me like there’s a heavy hand of Chris Bowen in all this,” Dutton said on Monday morning.

“They [CSIRO] haven’t even seen our plan yet, and yet they’re out bagging it.”

Bowen demanded the opposition leader apologise to the CSIRO for his “deeply offensive” accusation that the independent agency would bend to political influence.

“It makes my blood boil when he [Dutton] attacks the integrity and independence of the CSIRO, which deserve better from the alternative prime minister of Australia,” Bowen said.

“To suggest that the CSIRO would let a government of any persuasion interfere with their work is deeply, deeply offensive. He should apologise.”

Dutton has pledged to implement a “coal-to-nuclear transition” if elected, overturn state and federal bans on nuclear energy and build seven plants.

The seven nuclear plants would supply only a small portion of the nation’s energy needs. The opposition has not revealed its policy on renewables and other energy.

Dutton has promised to release the opposition’s nuclear costings this week, and will claim the plan would be cheaper than the government’s ambitious renewable rollout, which aims to boost the share of renewables to 82 per cent of the grid by 2030.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce told Channel Seven’s Sunrise program that GenCost had sought to model the cost of government policies.

“I could stay here all morning going through the CSIRO report, basically going through the issues in regards [to] their sunk costs, where they’ve actually taken into account costs, the type of nuclear plant they’re talking about, how they’re talking about actually trying to achieve the Labor Party’s goals,” Joyce said.

GenCost uses a “levelised cost” of energy calculation to work out the price of different technologies. This represents the price needed for an electricity generation plant to earn back the cost of its construction and running costs over its lifespan.

It found a grid with 90 per cent renewables would produce electricity for between $106 and $150 a megawatt hour, in today’s dollars, including $40 billion in expenditure on the rollout, with new transmission lines as well as batteries and gas plants to back up wind and solar farms.

A traditional large-scale nuclear plant, with the generous assumption that it was operational 90 per cent of the time, would generate electricity at $155 a megawatt hour. This cost would increase significantly if the plant was used less.

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