Top agency casts doubt on nuclear reactors flagged by Dutton

A fully formed market for small-scale nuclear reactors is unlikely to develop in Australia for more than 20 years because the cost and operational performance of the technology are yet to be proven, according to the country’s leading engineering academy.

There are currently no designs for small modular reactors – known as SMRs – that have been licensed, constructed or are operating in Australia or other OECD countries.

The Coalition wants small modular reactors such as this design by Westinghouse proposed for the United Kingdom.Credit: AP

Announcing his energy plan in June, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said a future Coalition government would rely on a diverse energy mix including nuclear facilities – to be located at the sites of seven current and closing coal plants – gas, coal and renewables.

Two of the sites – Northern Power Station in South Australia and Muja Power Station in Western Australia – would be SMR-only facilities, and could start producing electricity by 2035, Dutton said, while a modern, larger plant could be producing nuclear-powered electricity by 2037.

But the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has a far dimmer view of SMRs’ capacity to form part of Australia’s energy mix in the short or medium term.

In a report released overnight, the academy said it was unlikely commercial releases could begin before the late 2030s to mid-2040s, and even this would depend on regulatory approvals, investment and resource allocation.

A mature market was unlikely until the latter part of the 2040s, it said.

“Small modular reactors are not yet commercially available and there is no clear timeline as to when that will be,” the academy’s president, Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, said.

“They’re being looked at as part of our future energy needs and come the 2040s they can, no doubt, provide a potential part of the future constellation of technologies we’re going to require.

“But today, with the problem we have – to decarbonise our economy as quickly as possible – they are not a viable part of that solution.”

The opposition’s nuclear policy envisions a mix of SMRs and traditional large-scale reactors. They would be hosted at Lithgow and the Hunter Valley in NSW, Loy Yang in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Collie in WA and Port Augusta in SA.

“The Coalition’s policy of renewables, of gas and of nuclear is absolutely essential to keeping the lights on, to having cheaper power and to making sure that we can reduce our emissions,” Dutton said on Monday.

Dutton has said he will release a business plan for the proposal in future but concedes it will have large upfront costs.

“There is a big upfront capital cost but you can amortise that cost over 80 years [and] it makes it a cheaper source of energy,” he said.

According to the engineering academy, the true cost may not be known until the market matures.

This would require the technology to transition from full-scale prototypes to commercial SMRs with manufacturing facilities and robust supply chains, transparent operating costs, operational safety and proven environmental performance, and the development of a skilled domestic workforce capable of operating the new technologies.

Given these challenges, the academy found, the cost of building a prototype SMR would be “speculative” and unclear until the market reached maturity.

Power giant AGL in March ruled out participating in the Coalition’s push to build nuclear plants at the sites of retiring generators and warned the debate risked derailing critical investment in the energy transition.

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