Community consultation kicks off for submarine yard, but don’t mention nuclear
“South Australians should understand that AUKUS involves not only plans for the construction and sustainment of nuclear submarines at Osborne, but also for eventual decommissioning, storage and dismantling of those submarines on the banks of the Port Adelaide River, and indefinite storage of high-level nuclear waste, most likely in SA.”
The Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) will today start information sessions for community members about its planned nuclear submarine construction yard project, but any concerns about nuclear issues are out of scope.
The first of four information sessions for community members interested in the Australia Submarine Agency’s (ASA) planned nuclear submarine construction yard at Osborne begin today.
The first – at the State Library on North Terrace – comes during a period of public consultation through which the ASA is receiving feedback from community members on its draft ‘Strategic Impact Assessment Report’ for the yard.
Until 17 March members of the public can submit comments about the 203-page draft, which considers the plan’s potential impact on the environment but notably rules nuclear issues as “outside the scope” of the plan for a shipyard to build nuclear submarines.
It follows an agreement struck in November 2023 between the ASA and the Environment and Water Minister – Tanya Plibersek – which specifically precluded all nuclear issues from the scope of the environmental assessment process.
“The operation, sustainment and decommissioning of the submarines built at the Osborne SCY is considered out of scope of the Strategic Assessment and will be managed via separate environmental assessment processes and approvals as necessary,” the agreement reads.
“The manufacture, delivery and subsequent operation of the reactor power module is considered outside of the scope of the Strategic Assessment, however the assembly into the submarine is included.”
What is included is the processing of steel, outfitting of submarine sections, manufacture of pipe and electrical components, the use of supporting facilities (guard houses, car parks, warehousing, office accommodation, etc.) and more.
The resulting draft environmental impact report, plus 754 pages of appendices, asserts that the impacts of the construction yard are “likely to be acceptable”.
It also confirms on page 156 that “no nuclear actions” are included in the scope of the draft and that “other activities are considered outside the scope of the strategic assessment and will be managed via separate assessment processes and approvals as necessary”.
Former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick – who plans on running for a South Australian seat at the next Federal Election as a member of Jacqui Lambie’s political party – said the consultation process was designed to “minimise public engagement”.
“This is a ‘strategic assessment’ of a nuclear facility in which everything nuclear is excluded. More attention is paid to the environmental impacts of car parks than nuclear reactors,” he told InDaily.
“South Australians should understand that AUKUS involves not only plans for the construction and sustainment of nuclear submarines at Osborne, but also for eventual decommissioning, storage and dismantling of those submarines on the banks of the Port Adelaide River, and indefinite storage of high-level nuclear waste, most likely in SA.”
He added that the fact that Port Adelaide is yet to be visited by a nuclear-powered vessel because it has never been approved as a suitable location for such visits made the situation “an extraordinary state of affairs”.
“Whatever one thinks about AUKUS, it’s clear the environmental assessment has been rigged from the beginning.
“It’s been rigged by ASA with the connivance of Minister Plibersek to produce a predetermined outcome, opening the way for further stages of the project to be ticked off by Defence bureaucrats as they wish.
Those decisions will have consequences for South Australia that will last decades, hundreds and indeed thousands of years.”
Peter Dutton’s nuclear accounting trick #1: Assume you can halve the cost of nuclear power
they claim they will be ordering nuclear plants several years in the future after the nuclear industry has had the chance to improve on what have been some shocking project cost blow outs.
the nuclear industry in the western world has tended to experience escalating, not declining costs over time.
would have to commence the nuclear procurement process immediately.
Tristan Edis, Feb 19, 2025, https://reneweconomy.com.au/peter-duttons-nuclear-accounting-trick-1-assume-you-can-halve-the-cost-of-nuclear-power/
This is part 2 of a five part series of articles examining the four accounting tricks that the Liberal-National Party employed in the costing of its energy plan to slow the roll-out of renewables and rely instead on nuclear power. The first article, which provides the overarching context is published here.
These four accounting tricks act to mislead voters that the Liberal-National Party could lower energy bills through a shift to nuclear when in reality it is likely to increase power bills.
This article focuses on accounting trick one of four: Assume a cost for nuclear reactors which is around half what nuclear reactors have actually cost to build across Europe and North America.
The most important point you need to understand is that the unit cost of energy the Liberal-National Party claims its future nuclear-underpinned power system will deliver – about $80 per megawatt-hour – is unrealistically low.
More realistic cost assumptions for nuclear would inflate the modelled cost of their system per MWh to $141.50 per MWh which is two-thirds higher than what they’ve estimated for the Labor Party scenario.
The Liberal-National Party’s costing has assumed that a nuclear reactor built today in Australia would cost $10,000 per kilowatt of capacity and that cost would decline by 1% per annum. The costing also assumes the first reactors would commence operation in 2036 followed by a rapid scale-up from 2039.
This is far below the real-world construction cost experience of nuclear reactors across Europe and North America in the past 20 years. This experience is detailed in a report I co-authored with energy analyst Johanna Bowyer from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis – Nuclear in Australia would increase household power bills.
The table below [on original] lists the costs per kilowatt of plants which have proceeded to construction or managed to get to the point of a contracted price. Importantly you need to consider both the actual price paid to construction contractors (known as the ‘overnight cost’ – the cost if the project could literally be built within a night), but also a range of costs incurred by the owner in building the plant such as financing, known as the ‘all-in costs’.
These owner-incurred costs are very large, mainly because construction takes a long time and leads to significant bank debt interest bill accumulating over this period. The Liberal-National’s costing report does not explain what construction period it assumes for nuclear plants, which is a major black hole in their costing.
For a nuclear reactor with an all in cost of almost $29,000 per kilowatt to recover a commercial financing cost of 6% it would need to capture an electricity price close to $260 per MWh, and that’s if it could operate close to its full capacity without ramping down around solar generation.
If we multiply that out by the amount of electricity nuclear is expected to generate under the Liberal-National Party scenario, that gives us an annualised cost just for the nuclear component of their power system of $27 billion in 2051. We then need to add on top of that the costs to provide the remaining 60% or so of electricity not provided by nuclear.
Unfortunately, the inadequate transparency of the consultant’s report makes it difficult to disentangle these costs. Using the limited data the consultant has provided these non-nuclear costs appear to roughly lie somewhere around $8 to $10 billion.
So, if we use more realistic nuclear costs and then take the mid point for the non-nuclear costs of $9 billion, we end up with a total annualised cost of $36 billion for the complete system in 2051.
This is $7.5 billion higher than what the consultant estimates for the Labor scenario in 2051. It gives us an averaged cost per MWh of around $141.50, which is around two-thirds higher cost per MWh than the Labor scenario.
The Coalition likes to claim that the costs from these real-world nuclear power plant projects are somehow not relevant. This is because they claim they will be ordering nuclear plants several years in the future after the nuclear industry has had the chance to improve on what have been some shocking project cost blow outs.
There are just two fundamental problems with this.
The first is that the nuclear industry in the western world has tended to experience escalating, not declining costs over time. UK’s next planned nuclear project Sizewell C will represent the fifth and sixth European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) design built by French corporate entities.
The latest cost reported by the UK’s Financial Times suggests it will cost around two and half times what the Coalition costing assumes at $24,540 per kW. That’s substantially more expensive than the first EPR they built in Finland – Olkiluoto 3.
The second problem is that for the Coalition to have any chance of meeting its time frame for the roll-out of nuclear it would have to commence the nuclear procurement process immediately. It won’t be able to wait for the nuclear industry to achieve what would amount to some incredible cost breakthroughs.
To explain why it is helpful to look at the Czech Republic experience, where they just very recently completed a nuclear tender process. The tender commenced in 2022 (preparation leading into the tender such as permitting and environmental impact assessments for the reactor site began several years before that but let’s leave that to one side).
Two years later they had selected the winner, being Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power. Yet Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power won’t be able to actually commence the real construction work until 2029. That’s because nuclear power plants are very complex, from both a physical and commercial perspective, and require considerable preparatory work. From there, they don’t expect the nuclear power plant to be fully operational until 2038. Note that this is for a site where preexisting nuclear power plants are already in place with all the associated supporting infrastructure that entails.
So, realistically, if the Coalition wanted to achieve the timelines outlined in its modelling, it really needed to commence the nuclear procurement tender process back several years ago when it was previously in government. It has no time available to wait around for the nuclear industry to come up with the cost breakthroughs its costing relies upon.
Tristan Edis is director of analysis and advisory at Green Energy Markets. Green Energy Markets provides analysis and advice to assist clients make better informed investment, trading and policy decisions in energy and carbon abatement markets.
Peter Dutton sidesteps questions on state-funded nuclear disaster insurance plan
Albanese government also asked if it has considered nuclear insurance pool in context of Aukus nuclear-powered submarines.
Dan Jervis-Bardy Guardian 18 Feb 25
Peter Dutton has sidestepped questions about the potential need for a government-backed insurance pool for nuclear disasters after the industry’s peak body exposed a possible missing piece in his flagship energy plan.
The Insurance Council of Australia on Monday suggested the commonwealth may need to underwrite a scheme to cover communities against nuclear accidents.
“Around the world, nuclear has a special [insurance] cover that is usually done by governments,” the council’s chief executive, Andrew Hall, told ABC RN Breakfast.
“So it’s a conversation: if Australia turns to a net zero nuclear future, then we’re going to need to have a conversation with the government about a pool that would cover communities in the extremely unlikely event something would happen.”
Hall indicated such a scheme would be needed even if the Coalition’s nuclear plans never eventuated, to cover residents living near naval bases for the Aukus nuclear-powered submarines.
Neither the US nor UK has ever experienced a nuclear reactor accident on their submarines.
The insurance question has been largely overlooked in the debate about Dutton’s proposal to build nuclear reactors at seven sites. Attention has focused instead on the cost and timeline for starting an Australian nuclear power industry from scratch.
Countries with established nuclear industries have longstanding insurance schemes to cover personal injury and damage caused by nuclear disaster.
In the US, operators of nuclear power plants pay an annual premium for US$500m (about A$786m) in private insurance for liability coverage for each reactor.
Asked on Monday if the Coalition had modelled the cost of a nuclear insurance scheme, Dutton did not respond to the question, instead reiterating the threat of market intervention if insurers did not lower premiums.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, struggled to answer similar questions when pressed repeatedly on ABC radio earlier in the day.
Insurance is not mentioned in either the Coalition’s six-page nuclear blueprint or in the Frontier Economics costings underpinning the proposal.
The Australia Institute thinktank in 2019 described nuclear power as “uninsurable”, warning that if operators were forced to cover the cost of accidents then the reactors would be “completely uncompetitive”.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, an Insurance Council of Australia spokesperson said it was common for insurance policies to exclude loss or damage caused by nuclear power.
“However, insurers in Europe, the US, and other countries where nuclear power generation is common have insurance mechanisms in place to cover liability concerns,” the spokesperson said.
“These include liability insurance pools, international agreements and conventions, and government programs to establish coverage and frameworks for nuclear liability insurance.”
Guardian Australia asked the defence minister, Richard Marles, if the government had considered a nuclear insurance pool in the context of Aukus.
In a statement, an Australian Submarine Agency spokesperson did not comment on the idea of an insurance pool……………………………………………….. more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/17/nuclear-disaster-insurance-pool-funding-peter-dutton-questioned-coalition-costing?fbclid=IwY2xjawIh-1VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVTDHY1ZfGqoH8vCwqMsqPd2DFwsmd0_nUu-wn14Gnes6DAWgXMuUXO-ow_aem_JRtSrA2wjsbbfPQiwb-vqg
1 This month
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