Joe McConnell
The Liddell power station in Australia’s Hunter Valley burned coal for five decades before closing last year. Opposition leader Peter Dutton now wants Liddell to be reborn as something that has been banned in the country for a quarter of a century: a nuclear power station.
The site in New South Wales is one of seven operating or closed coal plants that Dutton, leader of the center-right Liberal Party, says could be converted into nuclear power plants, part of a major shiVscek in the way Australia generates its energy.
Nuclear power is what Australia needs to achieve its “three goals of cheaper, cleaner and more consistent energy”, he said earlier this year.
Dutton’s proposal has brought energy policy to the forefront ahead of next year’s election, as resource-rich Australia, a major exporter of energy in the form of coal, liquefied natural gas and uranium, grapples with how to decarbonize its economy.
Anthony Albanese’s Labor government has set its sights on renewable energy, passing legislation that aims to cut carbon emissions by 43 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050. It hopes to rapidly phase out coal, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of energy generation last year, and to supply 82 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
But the opposition Liberals and their allies, the rural-focused Nationalists, have vowed to abandon the 2030 target and scrap large-scale wind farm projects. They say nuclear power could provide energy by the middle of the next decade.
You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive chart. This is probably because you are offline or your browser has JavaScript disabled.
Rising consumer energy prices have dampened public enthusiasm for Labor’s renewable energy agenda and opened the door for Dutton to push nuclear as an alternative, said Ben Oquist, a former Green Party policy adviser and consultant at DPG Advisory Solutions.
“There is a risk that ‘boring and simple’ could beat ‘complicated and fair’ in a cost-of-living crisis,” Oquist said.
Dutton’s plan would reverse decades of Australian policy and require changes to Australian national and state laws banning nuclear power.
The ban dates back to 1998, when John Howard’s Conservative government offered it as a quid pro quo to minority parties to support the construction of a research reactor near Sydney. It remains the country’s only reactor, producing materials for medical and industrial use.
But bipartisan opposition to nuclear power is weakening. A Lowy Institute poll this year showed 61 percent of respondents supporting nuclear as part of the country’s energy mix, a marked shiVscek from a decade ago, when the same poll showed 62 percent strongly opposed.
Another factor is the Aukus security agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom, which calls for the construction of nuclear-powered submarines in Australia and will require the country to store war-grade radioactive waste. Under these circumstances, some argue there is less justification for a nuclear power ban.
Dick Smith, an aviation and electronics entrepreneur, told the Financial Times that it would be a “disaster” for the country if it did not address climate change by adopting nuclear power.
“If Bangladesh and Pakistan can afford it [it]So why can’t we do it?” Smith added, criticising Labour politicians and environmental groups for being “ideologically opposed” to nuclear power, a position he said many younger citizens did not share.
“It’s like a religion. The idea that you can run a modern industrial economy on solar and wind power alone is incredible.”
Chris Bowen, Australia’s energy minister, called the opposition proposal “a nuclear scam” – too expensive, too slow to implement and too risky.
A report released in May by the CSIRO, the government’s science agency, argued that generating nuclear power, whether by building large-scale plants or small modular reactors, would be significantly more expensive than renewables and that building a plant would take at least 15 years.
“The long development lead time means that nuclear will not be able to make a significant contribution to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050,” the report concluded.
The nuclear debate has also highlighted a looming gap in renewable energy investment in Australia. The Clean Energy Council, a trade body for the renewable energy industry, said new commitments for renewable projects fell to A$1.5 billion (US$1 billion) in 2023 from A$6.5 billion a year earlier, as investors struggled with slow planning approvals, stringent environmental impact assessments and higher labor and equipment costs.
The CEC said that last year only 2.8 gigawatts of renewable energy was fed into the grid, compared to the 6 GW annual growth needed to meet the government’s 2030 target.
Marilyne Crestias, interim chief executive of the Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents investors in renewable energy, said the conditions for putting money into projects have improved, but more needs to be done to improve trust and clarity on policies.
“We need more ambition on climate and energy, not less,” he said.
Jeff Forrest, a partner in the energy division of LEK Consulting, said the nuclear idea was “a 2040 solution to an energy problem we have today” and said there was frustration among investors and on boards that long-term investment plans could be upended by the “outside the box” debate over nuclear.
“Energy investments need clear and consistent signals. This is really important for long-term investments and nobody wants to have the rug pulled out from under them,” he said.
Locals near the Loy Yang coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley said the nuclear project would hamper the owners’ plans to transform the region into a renewable energy hub aVsceker the plant closes next decade.
Wendy Farmer, Gippsland organiser for Friends of the Earth and chair of community group Voices of the Valley, said the proposal would jeopardise A$50 billion of planned investment in renewable energy.
“Are they telling investors to walk away?” Farmer said. “To force nuclear on these communities without any consultation or discussion with the site owners is an insult and a bullying tactic.”
Tim Buckley, director of the think-tank Climate Energy Finance, said the opposition proposals would replace private capital with “communist-style politics” that would require more than A$100 billion in public funds.
“It’s not impossible, but it’s financially illogical,” said Buckley, who questioned the political motivations of the move ahead of an election. “This isn’t about nuclear versus renewables. This is about extending the climate wars.”
