The Coalition says nuclear energy will be needed to stop blackouts and reduce electricity bills as it unveiled a new energy plan that’s much less reliant on renewables.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven publicly-owned nuclear power plants in Australia, with predictions the first will come online from the mid-to-late 2030s – a timeline the CSIRO has rubbished.
He argued his $331billion plan will be 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s program to almost replace coal and gas power with solar and wind energy within 15 years.
‘This is a plan which will underpin the economic success of our country for the next century,’ he told reporters on Friday.
‘We can deliver a plan which is going to keep the lights on and we have a plan and a vision for our country which will help grow businesses, not close them down as is currently happening under this government.’
Labor’s plan is for renewable energy to comprise 82 per cent of Australia’s energy generation by 2030, rising to 98 per cent by 2040 based on solar and wind.
Both sides of politics support a net zero by 2050 goal, but the Coalition sees nuclear, gas and renewable energy meeting Australia’s electricity needs to achieve that target.
‘We just can’t pretend that we can have part-time power running a full-time economy,’ Mr Dutton said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven publicly-owned nuclear power plants across the country
‘Australians are smarter than what the prime minister credits and Australians are well read, they understand what is happening internationally.
‘As coal retires from the system it should be replaced with zero emissions nuclear energy because nuclear is also an always on 24/7 source of energy and it’s going to be critical so that we get prices down and keep the lights on as we reach net zero.’
Mr Dutton was confident Labor would support the Coalition’s policies should Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lose next year’s election, arguing it was hypocritical for the ALP to support nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS deal but be opposed to domestic nuclear power.
‘We have the situation here where I think it will be post-Anthony Albanese’s leadership – which I don’t think is too far away – in that scenario I think there can be bipartisan position in relation to the vision we put to the Australian people today,’ he said.
The Coalition’s plan was modelled by Frontier Economics, which costed Labor’s energy transition at $594billion, versus $331billion for the Coalition’s nuclear plan – marking a difference of $263billion.
‘We’ve got a well thought-out plan here – we have the independent costings that provide that validation,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘This means reduced power bills for households, lower operating costs for small businesses, and a stronger, more resilient economy.’
The report argued Labor’s renewables-only plan would ‘cost at least five times more than what Labor has told the Australian people’.
‘This is likely an underestimate with the costs of transmission projects already blowing out by billions,’ it said.
The Coalition’s proposal favours nuclear reactors across the nation
‘This would carpet the country with unnecessary solar and wind projects across pristine landscapes and agricultural land and lead to a massive overbuild of our electricity grid.
‘While the rollout of Labor’s plan is still in its early days, its high cost is already being paid for by households and businesses. Australians now pay among the highest electricity prices in the world.’
Frontier Economics argued the Coalition’s plan was cheaper because it would spare Australia the installation of 50,000 megawatts – or 50billion watts – of ‘industrial scale renewable projects and thousands of transmission lines to connect these to the grid’.
Labor’s Rewiring The Nation plan involves spending $20billion on new transmission lines alone.
But Energy Minister Chris Bowen has rubbished the Frontier Economics costings number, saying the government’s renewable energy plan would cost $122billion and not almost $600billion, citing a forecast made by the Australian Energy Market Operator.
‘They’re making it up as they go along,’ Mr Bowen told ABC TV.
‘I’m not sure how they’ll get the nuclear power into the grid, maybe by carrier pigeon if they’re going to assert if somehow you’ll need less transmission.
‘They have had to make some very heroic assumptions here and they have had to really stretch the truth to try to get some very dodgy figures.’
He argued keeping coal-fired power plants open beyond their lifespan was a threat to energy reliability, with outages and breakdowns happening on a daily basis.
‘It’s a recipe for blackouts to keep ageing coal-fired power stations in the grid for longer,’ he said.
The Coalition’s energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said Labor’s renewables rollout was based on ‘fantasy’.
‘Our priority is to bring power prices down. That is why we can’t shut down coal power plants prematurely,’ he said.
‘Labor is basing their entire rollout on a fantasy.’
Nationals leader David Littleproud said no major advanced economy had embraced a renewables-only policy.
‘Understand the burden that you are asking us to bear. There is another way to achieve it,’ he said.
The Coalition faces opposition from states, which had legislated bans on nuclear energy, with its plan to turn coal-fired power stations into nuclear reactors in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
The CSIRO on Monday released a GenCost report suggesting establishing a nuclear energy industry in Australia would take at least 15 years – even though the United Arab Emirates did it in 2020 after eight years of work.
It predicted that by 2030, larger-scale nuclear power could be generated at a cost of $150 to $245 a megawatt hour, compared with $121 to $164 for solar, and $67 to $137 for solar and wind.
Nuclear power from small modular reactors, or SMRs, would cost $285 to $487 an hour, the report claimed.
