Nuclear misinformation in Australia is Hail Mary policy by the Opposition
The Fifth Estate, DARRIN DURANT, Dr Darrin Durant is Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Melbourne.17 JUNE 2024
Having promised a nuclear power policy for several years, the Australian Liberal-National Party finally announced one: no reactors before 2040 and approving new gas and coal projects instead. At the same time, it is abandoning the emissions reduction target for 2030 (a 43 per cent cut compared with 2005 levels) and refusing to commit to details about nuclear projects until after the May 2025 election.
This is a Nuclear Hail Mary Policy: reduce emissions aspirations and hope a final play two decades from now will work out.
Most commentary has focused on what this nuclear Hail Mary implies for Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. Some suggest the LNP plans to “rip up” the agreement. Others that the LNP plans to “breach the text and spirit” of the agreement.
Closest to the mark, I suggest, is that LNP is internally fractured and confused about both what its nuclear and emissions policy should be and how it should conduct itself regarding international agreements.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s climate backtracking on Saturday, 8 May 2024, pushed from the news cycle a clear marker of the LNP’s policy vacuum on nuclear power, climate emissions and international. On 7 June, the LNP engaged in disinformation about regional cooperation on decarbonization.
The occasion for the LNP’s disinformation campaign was the signing by the Albanese Labor government of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Clean Economy Agreement. The IPEF was signed by Australia and 13 other nations on 6 June 2024.
Ted O’Brien MP (Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy in the LNP) claimed the ALP signing of the IPEF “exposes rank hypocrisy”, demonstrates a “lack of integrity”, and amounts to “treating Australians like mugs”.
None of the claims by O’Brien and the LNP are true. It is the LNP nuclear disinformation campaign that displays hypocrisy and duplicity and treats Australians like mugs.
The IPEF Clean Economy Agreement
The IPEF agreement aims to build regional economic cooperation across four pillars: trade, supply chains, clean energy, and tax. Australia joined IPEF on 23 May 2022, after the 21 May 2022 election in which Labor swept the LNP from power. Since then, eight rounds of negotiations between the member nations have taken place…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Australian nuclear misinformation goes walkabout
Thus far, Coalition claims about nuclear prospects have been domestic doomsday claims about Australia’s fate if it does not “go nuclear”.
Yet the Coalition’s claims routinely hinge on misinformation: inflating estimations of transmission projects, over-playing the risk of load shedding, over-estimating G20 reliance on nuclear, exaggerating renewables-related land use, and inventing risks from windfarms (on and offshore).
While the international nuclear renaissance has been a farcical (short) history of massive cost and construction blowouts, the Coalition has sidelined those facts at home, leading to claims that Coalition nuclear plans are a delay tactic to perpetuate coal and gas………..
The IPEF stipulates that the Parties should:
“promote transparent licensing, siting, and permitting for clean energy and related generation, transmission, distribution, and storage projects in the electricity sector” (Sect 4, Point 2b)
Furthermore, for those parties supportive of nuclear, they should:
“ensure that sound policy and regulatory frameworks in nuclear safety and waste management are in place when considering the adoption of nuclear energy technologies” (Sect. 4, Point 7a).
The LNP has spent years spruiking nuclear power, yet the Australian public remains in the dark about those two important clauses in the IPEF agreement.
The LNP cannot be ‘transparent’ if it has provided no detail to the Australian public about licensing, siting and permitting. The LNP claims to be considering nuclear, yet where are any serious policy proposals regarding the regulatory frameworks for nuclear safety and nuclear waste?
Instead, the LNP treats citizens as incapable of spotting fabrications and omissions.
For instance, the O’Brien’s/LNP press release tells citizens they will find the IPEF “supporting small modular reactors (SMRs) in the Indo Pacific”. This is a fabrication: the negotiated text of the agreement never mentions SMRs. Similarly, the Coalition omits that the IPEF agreement strongly supports windfarms and energy efficiency, two key elements of the ALP’s Rewiring the Nation plan………….
Treating citizens like mugs
……………………………To be a mug is to be easily deceived. The LNP must assume citizens are mugs if it thinks Australian voters cannot spot the LNP’s misrepresentation of the IPEF agreement. No, Labor is not in contradiction for opposing domestic nuclear and signing the IPEF, because the IPEF favours clean energy in general and advocates for member nations to pursue their own pathway (which may or may not include nuclear power)
Yet even if tempted by the Coalition logic, just remember, the Coalition opposes most of what is supported in the IPEF agreement. The Coalition is not talking straight about either energy policy or international agreements, and voters should keep this in mind as the Coalition obfuscates important international agreements like the Paris Agreement. https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/nuclear-misinformation-in-australia-is-hail-mary-policy-by-the-opposition
Superficial coverage of Dutton’s nuclear policy does Australia a disservice
By Ernst Willheim, Jun 17, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/superficial-coverage-of-duttons-nuclear-policy-does-australia-a-disservice/
Noel Turnbull correctly writes that media coverage of the federal opposition’s nuclear power proposal is superficial. There is a very wide range of as yet unanswered issues.
First, who will build and operate the proposed nuclear power stations.
Many years ago, when the Commonwealth proposed establishment of a nuclear power station, it settled on Jervis Bay because the ‘territories’ power in the Commonwealth Constitution gave the Commonwealth plenary power. The proposal was well advanced, and a large concrete platform was built, before the proposal was eventually abandoned because it proved to be uneconomic.
The opposition apparently contemplates location of nuclear power stations on the sites of disused coal fired power stations. Does the opposition believe the Commonwealth has constitutional power to establish and operate nuclear power stations in the States?
The States would of course have the constitutional power to establish nuclear power stations. Remember State electricity authorities used to be publicly owned before they were privatised. But has any of the States indicated any enthusiasm for establishing and operating nuclear power stations?
If the opposition doesn’t envisage either Commonwealth or State government involvement, do they envisage private enterprise.
There are many capable private operators around the world but I haven’t seen any evidence of private corporations clamouring for the right to build nuclear power stations in Australia. Could it be that the private sector understands that privately owned nuclear power stations in Australia would not be competitive, that is, they would not return a profit.
There remain a range of wider regulatory issues, who would be responsible for planning, oversight and safety. How would liability and insurance be handled. Would the opposition envisage that Australia should become a party to the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage. What about safeguards. Would the opposition accept oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency?
It is not clear that the opposition has addressed any of these issues.
Key question Peter Dutton refuses to answer about his nuclear power plan
- Peter Dutton refused to answer question
- He was probed about nuclear power policy
By NCA NEWSWIRE and ELEANOR CAMPBELL FOR NCA NEWSWIRE, 16 June 2024 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13534571/Key-question-Peter-Dutton-refuses-answer-nuclear-power-plan.html
Peter Dutton has again refused to reveal key details on the Coalition’s nuclear power policy, declaring he would consider announcing his alternative 2035 emissions reduction goal if the government released modelling on interim climate targets.
In a fiery interview on Sunday with Sky’s Sunday Agenda host Andrew Clennell, the federal Opposition Leader became defensive after being pressed to reveal the locations and costings of his six proposed nuclear power plants.
Mr Dutton said he would reveal the opposition’s energy plan within ‘weeks’ in March but again declined to spell out the full details of his vision for Australia’s energy transition.
‘What we’ve said, the sites that we’re looking at are only those sites where there’s an end-of-life coal-fired power stations,’ he told Sky on Sunday.
‘One of the main reasons is that people in those communities know that they’re going when coal goes and we have the ability to sustain heavy industry, we have the ability to keep the lights on.’
A recent report from peak scientific body CSIRO suggested that building a large-scale nuclear power plant in Australia would cost at least $8.5bn and take at least 15 years to deliver.
The Coalition has refused to confirm reports of the locations of up to seven proposed power sites, which according to speculation, include sites in two Liberal-held seats and four or five Nationals-held seats.
Potential sites include the Latrobe Valley and Anglesea in Victoria, the Hunter Valley in NSW, Collie in WA, Port Augusta in South Australia, and potentially a plant in the southwest Queensland electorate of Maranoa, held by Nationals leader David Littleproud.
When pressed on the locations of the sites, Mr Dutton responded: ‘We’ve said that we’re looking at between six and seven sites, and we’ll make an announcement at the time of our choosing, not of Labor’s choosing.’
When asked if a power plant would be placed on each of the unspecified sites, Mr Dutton did not answer directly, saying only that he would consider output and environmental impact.
The Opposition Leader was then asked if the plants would be government subsidised, and responded by saying all power sources, other than coal, receives funding.
‘We’ll make an announcement in due course, but I just make the point that wind and solar don’t work without government subsidy,’ he said.
Mr Dutton also came under scrutiny this week after revealing he would oppose a legislated 2030 carbon emissions target at the next election.
Asked directly if he would consider a 2035 interim reduction target, which would be legally required under the 2015 Paris agreement, the Liberal leader said he would ‘take advice’ from the treasury before changing climate legislation, citing concerns about the nation’s economic situation
‘I think we have a look at all of that information and if there were settings we need to change … it doesn’t mean exiting Paris or walking away from our clear commitment to be net zero by 2050,’ he said.
Mr Dutton was asked for a second time if he would set a 2035 target, but again spoke at length about cost of living pressures facing the country.
Trade Minister Don Farrell said Mr Dutton’s comments were ‘outrageous’ and argued watered down climate commitments would damage Australia’s standing with its international allies.
‘It’s beyond the pale to be perfectly honest,’ Mr Farrell said on Sunday.
‘We went to the last election committing to a 2030 target and despite what Mr Dutton might say, we’re on track to meet that target.’
Farmers who graze sheep under solar panels say it improves productivity. So why don’t we do it more?
Guardian, by Aston Brown, 14 June 24
Allowing livestock to graze under renewable developments gives farmers a separate income stream, but solar developers have been slow to catch on.As a flock of about 2,000 sheep graze between rows of solar panels, grazier Tony Inder wonders what all the fuss is about. “I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “But as far as sheep grazing goes, solar is really good.”
Inder is talking about concerns over the encroachment of prime agricultural land by ever-expanding solar and windfarms, a well-trodden talking point for the loudest opponents to Australia’s energy transition.
But on Inder’s New South Wales property, a solar farm has increased wool production. It is a symbiotic relationship that the director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference, Karin Stark, wants to see replicated across as many solar farms as possible as Australia’s energy grid transitions away from fossil fuels.
“It’s all about farm diversification,” Stark says. “At the moment a lot of us farmers are reliant on when it’s going to rain, having solar and wind provides this secondary income.”
In exchange, the panels provide shelter for the sheep, encourage healthier pasture growth under the shade of the panels and create “drip lines” from condensation rolling off the face of the panels.
“We had strips of green grass right through the drought,” Dubbo sheep grazier Tom Warren says. Warren has seen a 15% rise in wool production due to a solar farm installed on his property more than seven years ago.
Despite these success stories, a 2023 Agrivoltaic Resource Centre report authored by Stark found that solar grazing is under utilised in Australia because developers, despite saying they intend to host livestock, make few planning adjustments to ensure that happens……………………………………………………………………………….
According to an analysis by the Clean Energy Council, less than 0.027% of land used for agriculture production would be needed to power the east coast states with solar projects – far less than the one-third of all prime agricultural land that the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs has claimed will be “taken over” by renewables. That argument, which has been heavily refuted by experts, has been taken up by the National party, whose leader, David Littleproud, said regional Australia had reached saturation point with renewable energy developments.
Queensland grazier and the chair of the Future Farmers Network, Caitlin McConnel, has sold electricity to the grid from a dozen custom-built solar arrays on her farm’s cattle pastures for more than a decade.
“Trial and error” and years of modifications have made them structurally sound around cattle and financially viable in the long-term, she says.
“As far as I know, we are the only farm to do solar with cattle,” McConnel says. “It’s good land, so why would we just lock it up just for solar panels?” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/13/farmers-who-graze-sheep-under-solar-panels-say-it-improves-productivity-so-why-dont-we-do-it-more
Why bet on a loser? Australia’s dangerous gamble on the USA
June 15, 2024, by: The AIM Network, By Michael Williss, https://theaimn.com/why-bet-on-a-loser-australias-dangerous-gamble-on-the-us/
A fresh warning that the US will lose a war with China has just been made by a US data analytics and military software company with US Department of Defense contracts.
It seems no-one is prepared to back the US to win a war with China, so why is Australia going all-out to align itself with provocative moves and hostility from the US directed at China?
Govini released its latest study of US capacity to fight China in June. Its annual reports measure the performance of the US federal government, looking at 12 top critical national security technologies through the lens of acquisition, procurement, supply chain, foreign influence and adversarial capital and science and technology.
It concluded that it is nearly impossible for the US to win a war against the PLA if a conflict were to break out between the two global superpowers.
The report also found that China has more patents than the US in 13 of 15 critical technology areas, further demonstrating how the US is falling behind in AI development.
“This year’s report also highlighted another reason a US conflict with China could be unwinnable: the very real possibility of parts scarcity.”
It identified serious risks within seven major DoD programs, including the cornerstone of AUKUS, namely the Virginia-class submarines. Not that this will worry the cargo-culters in Canberra who keep throwing billions at the fraught arrangement.
Another factor was China’s lead in the global supply chains.
-ADVERTISEMENT-
Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty said:
”China still has a dangerously high presence in US government supply chains. The Departments of the Navy and Army showed a decreasing reliance on Chinese suppliers over the past year, however, the Department of the Air Force showed a 68.8 percent increase in the usage of Chinese suppliers.”
Govini’s report adds to a number of similar scenarios in recent years, starting with the headlined warning by The Times on May 16, 2020 “US ‘would lose any war’ fought in the Pacific with China.”
In the New Atlanticist, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kerg, an active-duty US Marine Corps operational planner, critiqued biases in modern US war games, in which military planners command opposing armed forces in simulated warfare. He writes that instead of a short, sharp war over Taiwan with a win for the US, as predicted by war games, the greater likelihood is one of a years-long war with China with uncertain outcomes. One of those, too terrible to contemplate, must be the likelihood of Chinese retaliation against Australia for joining the US, for being fully interoperable with its military, and the consequent rubbleisation of Australian cities and attacks on US military bases here.
Retired US Army Colonel Dr John Mauk agrees that any conflict over Taiwan will almost certainly be a prolonged war, and he says that it would be one that favours China. He writes:
“U.S. military forces are too small, their supply lines are too vulnerable, and America’s defense industrial capacity is far too eroded to keep up with the materiel demands of a high-intensity conflict. Another critical factor undermining U.S. capacity to sustain a war is that Americans lack the resilience to fight a sustained, brutal conflict.”
By contrast, China is well-postured to sustain a protracted high intensity war of attrition.
He says that the current political divide in the US impedes its ability to respond to national security crises, and that:
“Americans in general are unprepared for, unwilling, or incapable to perform military service. Short of reinstituting a draft, U.S. military services cannot attract or retain enough manpower quickly enough to sustain a fight with China.”
Former US assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, A. Wess Mitchell, believes that “United States is a heartbeat away from a world war that it could lose.” He writes that:
“… today’s U.S. military is not designed to fight wars against two major rivals simultaneously. In the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, the United States would be hard-pressed to rebuff the attack while keeping up the flow of support to Ukraine and Israel.”
Comparing US and Chinese naval growths, Mitchell says that the US is no longer able to “outproduce its opponents”. With US debt already in excess of 100% of GDP, he says that the debt loads incurred through war with China would risk catastrophic consequences for the U.S. economy and financial system.
He raises the possibility of a Chinese fire-sale of US debt:
“China is a major holder of U.S. debt, and a sustained sell-off by Beijing could drive up yields in U.S. bonds and place further strains on the economy.”
Hillary Clinton raised this quandary facing the US with then PM Kevin Rudd in 2010 when she asked him “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” It is a question that the US has yet to find an answer to.
And questions there are. Harlan Ullman, a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council, opens a January 2024 article with the observation that:
“Since World War II ended, America has lost every war it started. Yes, America has lost every war it started – Vietnam, Afghanistan and the second Iraq War.”
He sounds a warning:
“… given likely weapons expenditure rates should a war with China erupt, the U.S. has the capacity for about a month before, as in Ukraine, it runs out of inventory,” before asking his questions: “War with China would be a strategic catastrophe. The U.S. has not explained how such a war could be fought and won. The economic consequences would be disastrous. And how would such a war end? Can anyone answer these questions?”
China is quite adept at utilising sentiments such as these. Major Franz J. Gayl, a retired Marine Corps infantry officer has regularly written for Chinese online news outlet Global Times. Last year, a number of his contributed articles to GT were published as a book, “The United States Will Lose the Coming War with China” which is available on Amazon.
Australia’s Liberal-Labor pro-US coalition has placed a $368 billion bet on the ability of the US to prevent the expansion of Chinese influence in the South Pacific or its recovery of the island province of Taiwan.
It is an expensive way to be taught the African proverb that when the elephants dance, it is the grass that suffers.
Nationals seats to go nuclear
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/pm/nationals-seats-to-go-nuclear/103970680, 13 June 24
As debate over energy policy intensifies again, the Nationals leader David Littleproud has confirmed that nuclear reactors would be built in Nationals electorates under the Coalition’s plan.
The Coalition is yet to reveal exactly where it would construct nuclear reactors, only saying it would be limited to areas with existing coal fire power stations.
The nuclear option has already sparked some debate the coal heartlands of New South Wales and Victoria.
ABC boss Kim Williams launches stunning attack on Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plan – just days after Laura Tingle said Australia is ‘a racist country’
Daily Mail, By PADRAIG COLLINS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA, 13 June 24
ABC’s chairman Kim Williams has launched a blistering attack on Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plan, just days after 7.30 correspondent Laura Tingle was ‘counselled’ for her comments about the Coalition.
Speaking on a panel at Sydney‘s Vivid Festival on Wednesday night, Mr Williams said Mr Dutton’s nuclear policy was ‘absent any of the normal fabric of policy formulation’.
In comments reported by news website Crikey, the national broadcaster’s boss said the Coalition had announced the policy ‘as a sound bite, with no detail as to emissions targets’.
Mr Williams, who is not a journalist and therefore not subject to the ABC’s editorial guidelines, said he was ‘not being political’ and not ‘in any way … speaking for the ABC’.
‘I’m speaking as an Australian citizen, and I’m entitled, like any Australian citizen, to have a view as to the necessity of good public policy in our nation.’
…………………………………………………………………….Just hours before Mr Williams comments, Nationals leader David Littleproud said if the Coalition wins the next election and goes ahead with its nuclear plans, power plants will be in National Party seats.
Mr Littleproud said Australians would ‘know very soon the specific sites’ being proposed.
‘We’ve been very clear that they will be limited to where existing coal power stations are, so we don’t need the extra 28,000 of transmission lines to plug the renewables.
‘We’re clear, there are 12 to 14 existing coal-fired power stations across the country so we can limit to that,’ he told ABC breakfast.
But Mr Williams said the Coalition was not doing near enough to explain what its nuclear plans are.
He said in the past, governments published green papers, which were designed to generate discussion from all interested parties on major issues.
‘And then they published a white paper, which is an announcement of intended government direction from which debate would follow in the Parliament, and then legislation would appear,’ he said.
‘That was the traditional process for public policy formulation, particularly on critical matters such as energy policy. I think it’s a pretty good system.’
Mr Williams has stood by his comments, telling Crikey that he ‘was trying to be as careful as I can be but still answer the question’.
‘It wasn’t said in a sort of vigorous “I’m taking on the opposition here”, it was said as a commentary about public policy and public policy formulation and public policy process.’
An ABC spokesman told Daily Mail Australia: ‘The ABC Chair Kim Williams is not an ABC employee and is not directly involved in creating and publishing journalism.
‘Mr Williams declared he was making his observations as a private citizen.’
Mr Dutton has also been contacted for comment. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13524723/ABC-boss-kim-williams-peter-dutton-nuclear-power-plan-laura-tingle.html—
Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?
By Noel Turnbull Jun 13, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/who-prepared-duttons-report-on-nuclear-power/
The Canberra Press Gallery is not a homogenous group although its members do seem to suffer from a fair amount of groupthink; preference for gotchas and speculation about what might happen next in politics; and heavy dependence on leaks and drops for copy.
One part of it – the Murdoch part – subsumes this into propaganda and sneering opinion pieces.
All this makes intelligent analysis of policy difficult – as illustrated by the recent coverage of the Dutton Opposition commitment to nuclear power – which is mainly superficial and focussed on the politics of it all. The Albanese Government has not been helpful by saying that they will campaign every day until the election on nuclear policy – a vow unlikely to be kept given the short attention span of the media and party staffers.
Yet just as the best staffers plan answers (usually zingers rather than substance) to media questions about policies and recent political developments it is useful to consider the sort of questions the media might ask – if someone is smart enough to brief them first – after Dutton announces his plans.
The first ones are pretty obvious. Why is the report you commissioned more credible than the CSIRO report’s conclusion that nuclear is more expensive than renewables? Who prepared your report and what are their credentials on nuclear power? Do they have any conflicts of interests?
Then they can get more detailed.
What are the current time frames around the world for building nuclear reactors? Are you aware that the average is about 14 years? How can you be certain, given Australia’s record of infrastructure cost overruns, that they will be built by the announced date and on budget when even at the earliest it would be the late 20240s before one is operational?
Who will you get to build it and what is their track record? Have you analysed the construction record of nuclear power stations around the world and the cost overruns they have experienced?
Where will Australia get the staff and nuclear fuel required to build and commission the plants?
Are you aware that there is currently a worldwide shortage of people who can operate and maintain the existing plants operating around the world? How will you recruit sufficient skilled and experienced staff to operate them given this global shortage?
You have continued to refer to small modular reactors – Can you refer us to one which is in operation or planned?
Are you aware that SMRs and proposed micro sized reactors are so inefficient that they would need HALEU (high-assay low enriched uranium) fuel to power the new stations?
As this would require that, unlike traditional nuclear power stations which require only 3% to 5% enrichment, these new stations would require enrichment of 19.75%, would this mean that a single reactor might contain enough HALUE to make a nuclear weapon?
You have said you will build them on the sites of former coal powered stations? What will be the cost of demolishing the stations and remediating any environmental problems on the sites? How many such sites exist and how many others will become available in time for nuclear construction to meet your timetables?
As you have dumped current emissions targets what will the climate impacts if there are delays in bringing the nuclear power stations online?
What is the impact on meeting carbon targets if support for renewables is diluted in the time lag required for nuclear power?
How do you plan to override States which have legalised nuclear bans?
What are your plans for disposal of nuclear waste?
Now staffers are more likely to be spending their time on factional manoeuvring; writing zingers; thinking about how they can get pre-selection or which lobbying firm might offer them a well-paid gig than other matters.
But Opposition staffers might find it useful to start coming up with convincing answers to questions such as this. And Government staffers should be thinking of how they can be used to demolish Dutton’s case.
Dutton’s nuclear plan wouldn’t even meet net zero by 2050 target, report finds
“The proposal by the federal Coalition would not significantly reduce emissions until the late 2040s, by which time catastrophic impacts would be almost certain.”
Giles Parkinson, Jun 11, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-nuclear-plan-wouldnt-even-meet-net-zero-by-2050-target-report-finds/
The federal Coalition’s nuclear energy proposal would not just result in the tearing up of Australia’s commitment to the Paris climate treaty, it wouldn’t even be able to deliver net zero emissions on Australia’s main electricity grid by 2050, according to a new report.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s admission on the weekend that the Coalition’s energy plan – to stop the roll out of renewables, keep coal fired power stations online, and build more gas while waiting for nuclear – would render Australia’s interim emissions target for 2030 impossible to meet.
Dutton suggested that the Coalition would be willing to tear up that agreement, but would still seek to honour the later 2050 net zero target once nuclear power generators could be rolled out in the country in the 2040s.
A report prepared by Solutions for Climate Australia, led by Barry Traill, says Dutton’s proposal would result in some 2.3 billion tonnes of additional carbon emissions over the Australian Energy Market Operator’s step change scenario.
That is bad enough, because it would mean Australia walking away from its international commitments – the Paris treaty that Australia signed up to requires no backtracking because of the urgency of emissions reduction – and becoming a pariah once again on the international stage.
Worse than that, SCA says that even rolling out nuclear as early as 2040/41 – which it does not believe is feasible, but is using that date for the sake of modelling – and rolling it out as quickly as France (also questionable), would still leave Australia well short of reaching net zero by 2050.
The Coalition energy plan remains vague, but to fill the gap created by the lack of renewables and the shutting down of ageing coal fired power stations would require a 10-fold increase in gas generation, which with its newly understood methane leaks and ambitions is barely cleaner than coal.
“The calculations in this paper use a series of assumptions based on what the federal Coalition has said their nuclear reactors plan would achieve,” the report says.
“Many of these assumptions are not considered feasible by energy experts: it is near impossible that nuclear reactors could come online in 2040, nor that Australia could build nuclear reactors at one of the fastest rates in
history.
“The build rate used in this analysis generously matches the relatively fast rate achieved by France from 1978, which had a population of 53 million, and had already been building nuclear power reactors for 23 years.
“It is extremely unlikely that Australia could match this build rate, but this has been used as a proxy for the purposes of the analysis. Even with this scenario’s very ambitious build rate of nuclear reactors, the National Electricity Market would
not reach net zero by 2050.”
“Drastically reducing carbon emissions this decade is essential to avoiding more extreme fires, heatwaves, floods and droughts as the impacts of climate intensify.
“The proposal by the federal Coalition would not significantly reduce emissions until the late 2040s, by which time catastrophic impacts would be almost certain.
“The proposal would break Australia’s existing international commitments to both the current 2030 target and its obligations under the Paris Agreements.
“Any proposal to introduce nuclear reactors to Australia is therefore not a climate policy, but rather a policy to increase emissions, acting to distract from urgent climate action over the coming decades.”
The network of conservative think-tanks out to kill the switch to renewables
Michael Mazengarb, Feb 28, 2024 https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-network-of-conservative-think-tanks-out-to-kill-the-switch-to-renewables/
Australia’s renewable energy and emissions reduction plans are being targeted by coordinated campaigns from conservative “think tanks”, as the Coalition embraces nuclear and its MPs rail against all forms of large scale renewables and transmission lines being built as part of the clean energy transition.
Having successfully defeated the Voice to Parliament referendum by feeding the distribution of disinformation, conservative groups like the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), the Liberal-party aligned Menzies Research Group and the ‘campaign group’ Advance Australia are all ramping up their pro-nuclear, anti-renewables campaigns.
Anyone familiar with Australian climate and clean energy policy over the last couple of decades will be familiar with the Institute of Public Affairs. The well-funded think tank – thanks to generous donors that include mining billionaire Gina Rinehart – has long railed against any efforts to tackle climate change, calling for the abolition of the carbon price and virtually any policy that supports renewable energy.
The IPA has published a flurry of reports that have sought to stoke fears renewables causing the loss agricultural land in Victoria, and high costs of renewables in Western Australia – two claims that rely on gross exaggeration.
Like the IPA, the Centre for Independent Studies has strong links with the Coalition parties – promoting the works of Coalition MPs, and several of the group’s ‘alumni’ going on to serve as Liberal Party MPs or candidates.
The group recently launched a new campaign to promote nuclear energy and to actively attack the efforts of energy market regulators and institutions, including the Australian Energy Market Operator and the CSIRO, to plan the transition to renewables.
The Menzies Research Centre has the clearest, explicit, ties to conservative politics – having been named for former prime minister Robert Menzies – and pumps out opinion pieces critical of renewables and advocating for fossil fuels that are often published by News Corp outlets.
For example, a recently authored piece by Menzies Research Centre’s senior fellow, Nick Cater, blamed renewables for the Victorian blackout (which was caused by storms and an outage at the Loy Yang A coal power station).
All of these campaigns are having an impact, being embraced and fuelled by the Federal Coalition, with opposition leader Peter Dutton set to reignite the ‘climate wars’ by pushing for an Australian nuclear power industry – despite the astronomical costs, and the huge wait times for the industry.
Coalition MPs dominated the speakers list of a recent anti-renewable energy rally, that descended on Canberra earlier this month.
The group that is likely to be running the pro-nuclear ground campaign ahead of the next election, Advance Australia, previously led substantial efforts to oppose the recent First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum. The group is already running campaigns that denigrate renewable energy technologies, campaign against net zero targets, question climate change and promote nuclear energy.
While attempting to portray itself as a ‘grassroots’ roots movement, a conservative counter to GetUp! that claims to be taking on ‘woke elites’ – Advance Australia has amassed significant funds from some of Australia’s wealthiest individuals.
Donors to Advance Australia include former Vales Point power station owner Trevor St Baker, Bakers Delight founder Roger Gillespie, owner of Kennards Self Storage Sam Kennard, the former Blackmores CEO Marcus Blackmore, former fund manager Simon Fenwick, and former Shark Tank investor Steve Baxter.
Recent political donation disclosures show Advance Australia receiving a massive, $1.025 million donation from Perth-based car salesman Brian Anderson, and $1.1 million over the last three years from Fenwick.
Sam Kennard – who is worth an estimated $2.6 billion and who also sits on the board of the Centre for Independent Studies – regularly attacks renewables and promotes climate change denial on social media, and donated $165,000 to Advance over the last three years.
The depth of the interconnections between these think tanks is difficult to assess, but there is growing evidence that points to a coordinated international campaign to undermine renewables and promote the interests of fossil fuels and the pro-nuclear lobby.
The efforts of researchers like University of Technology Sydney professor Jeremy Walker have drawn links between the campaigns of Australia’s conservative lobby groups and other members of a global ‘Atlas Network’ of conservative think tanks. The US-based Atlas Network disperses grant funding and runs training on campaigning and fundraising for its international network, including to Australian think tanks.
Australian members of the Altas Network include the IPA, the CIP, and the Australian Institute for Progress – which has also adopted anti-renewable energy and anti-electric vehicle positions.
A recently published submission by Walker draws the parallels between these ‘think tanks’ and the anti-wind farm campaigns that have targeted the Illawarra Renewable Energy Zone, and culminated in a bizarre anti-renewables rally outside Parliament House in Canberra – and similar campaigns that opposed wind farm developments in the United States.
Anti-off-shore wind farm campaigns in the states of New Jersey and Rhode Island have used similar, disproven, claims about impacts on whale populations. These campaigns, as reported by the New York Times, were being funded and coordinated on the other side of the United States, by fossil-fuel industry linked the Texas Public Policy Foundation – itself a member of the Atlas Network.
International members of the Atlas Network include high-profile propagators of climate denial and pro-fossil fuel propaganda, including the US-based Heartland Institute, and the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation – which now features former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott on its board of trustees.
The complexity and opaqueness of the network is noteworthy, and has made the drawing of distinct relationships between groups and individuals difficult to track and analyse. But the shear number of linkages is clear, as are the relationships between the groups and Australia’s conservative political parties.
Several current and former members of the Australian-based think tanks have done stints with the Atlas Network and its members, with some members openly acknowledging the coordination between groups on training and funding.
This includes ex-IPA executive Alan Moran – who formally spearheaded the IPA’s climate denial efforts, former Abbott-government adviser and climate sceptic Maurice Newman – who have both held roles across several members of the Atlas Network
What is clear is that efforts to undermine the phase-out of fossil fuels remain strong, remain well funded and efforts are being coordinated globally.
The Voice to Parliament referendum was a stark example of how misinformation and disinformation can be deployed to influence the public and public policy, and Australia’s renewables sector will need to be ready to counteract these efforts when facing a similar campaign in the lead up to the next federal election.
Dutton to ditch Paris Agreement: analysis reveals nuclear impact on emissions
SMH By Mike Foley. June 9, 2024
The opposition’s nuclear energy plans would force Australia to fall massively short of the nation’s emissions target and generate more than 2 billion tonnes of extra greenhouse gas by 2050, breaking Australia’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. New analysis revealed the emissions blowout following Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s declaration he would ditch Australia’s legally binding climate target to cut emissions 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.Dutton told The Australian on Saturday that the government’s renewable goal was unattainable and “there’s no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”, and pledged only to meet a goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
Solutions for Climate Australia calculated the extra emissions that would be generated by coal and gas plants while waiting for the first nuclear plants to be built, which CSIRO reported last month could not be achieved until 2040 at the earliest.
Dutton has said the Coalition would boost the role of gas power to fill gaps in the energy grid until his reactors are built, and would ensure coal plants are not shut before their energy supply is replaced.
This increased reliance on fossil fuels would generate 2.3 billion tonnes more greenhouse emissions compared to the Albanese government’s climate policy. That’s more than five years’ worth of Australia’s annual emissions, which were 433 million tonnes in 2023.
Dutton’s declaration will reignite the climate wars and ensure the next federal election, due by May, is a referendum on climate policy after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week vowed his government will campaign on this issue every day.
The opposition’s plan would break from the terms of the Paris Agreement, which demands its members increase their emissions goal every five years, with the Albanese government committed to set a 2035 target by February.
It is also at odds with findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the United Nations’ expert science body – that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out to meet the Paris Agreement, which the Abbott government signed Australia up to in 2015.
The Paris Agreement commits nations to contributing to action that limits global warming to under 2 degrees – and as close to 1.5 degrees as possible – to avoid the worst damage.
Climate scientists say reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is not enough to achieve this goal, and countries must start reducing emissions rapidly now to have any hope of limiting warming to below 2 degrees, rather than waiting until later decades to deliver deep reductions in greenhouse gases.
Currently, 194 nations are signatories to this deal, including all developed nations and Australia’s major trade and security partners – the US, UK, Japan, Korea, China and India.
Dutton’s rejection of Australia’s 2030 goal will place Australia outside the bounds of the Paris Agreement.
“They’re walking away from the Paris Agreement … saying that Australia will join Libya, Yemen and Iran outside the Paris Accord,” said Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
The Investor Group on Climate Change, representing institutional investors with total funds under management of more than $30 trillion, said Dutton’s policy threatened to derail the clean energy transition.
“Back-flipping on these commitments and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement would corrode investor confidence at a time when Australia is competing for funding for new technologies and clean industries, local jobs and training opportunities,” said the group’s policy director Erwin Jackson………………………………..
“Our analysis shows the federal Coalition’s plan for nuclear reactors would see Australia throw its commitment to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees out the window,” said Solutions for Climate Australia campaigner Elly Baxter……………………………..
The modelling assumes, based on comments from senior figures including Nationals Leader David Littleproud, that a Coalition government would halt construction of large-scale wind and solar farms and continue to roll out rooftop solar panels for homes.
When asked if the opposition still wanted to pause the rollout of renewables, O’Brien said details of the policy would be released in due course. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-to-ditch-paris-agreement-analysis-reveals-nuclear-impact-on-emissions-20240604-p5jj8s.html
Peter Dutton proposes decades of delay on climate: Federal Liberals still with no climate plan
June 8, 2024: The AIM Network, https://theaimn.com/peter-dutton-proposes-decades-of-delay-on-climate-federal-liberals-still-with-no-climate-plan/
National climate group Solutions for Climate Australia expressed extreme disappointment and concern at the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton proposing further decades of delay in tackling climate change, despite increasing climate disasters.
This follows a statement by Peter Dutton today, in an interview with The Australian, that the Federal Liberal Party wants to reject current targets and plans to reduce Australia’s climate pollution this decade.
“It is a tragedy that the Federal Liberal Party has no plan to stop the increasing climate disasters which are directly killing Australians, and damaging communities, agriculture and businesses across the country, and globally,” said Dr Barry Traill, Director of Solutions for Climate Australia.
“We need decisive action on climate pollution this decade to protect farmers, our food supply, businesses and trade. From uninsurable houses, to declining crop yields, to direct threats to life and property, we are all now being hurt by climate disasters.
“Australians voted decisively for action on climate in the 2022 election. Mr Dutton’s weak, do-nothing approach on climate is out of step with the electorate. The community showed it expects all political parties to adopt strong, science-based targets to reduce pollution.”
“The federal Coalition has not heeded the message of the nation on climate. They must do better.”
Dutton’s nuclear policy a disaster for Australia
Climate Council Media Release, 8 June 24 https://theaimn.com/duttons-nuclear-policy-a-disaster-for-australia/
Responding to reports today that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would rip up Australia’s 2030 climate targets if elected, Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said:
“Dutton’s climate policy is a disaster, and the consequence for Australians would be more extreme heat, fires and floods. Instead of ripping up Australia’s 2030 climate targets, Peter Dutton must listen to the communities already ravaged by worsening climate disasters.
“There are 195 countries signed up to the Paris Agreement. Opting out would make Australia a global laughing stock.
“The Liberals haven’t learned the lesson Australians gave them at the last election: this is more of the same from the party who already gave us a decade of denial and delay on climate.”
Head of Policy and Advocacy Dr Jennifer Rayner said: “Peter Dutton is now promising Australians more climate pollution and a more dangerous future for our kids.
“This is the make-or-break decade to slash climate pollution by accelerating Australia’s move to clean energy. This is what it takes to keep our kids safe from escalating climate change and set Australia up for our next era of prosperity.
“Australia is already making great progress, with 40 percent of the power in our main national grid coming from clean energy, and one in three households having solar on their roof. Doing a massive u-turn on this momentum makes no sense when we can accelerate it instead.”
Opposition’s nuclear-energy policy would increase defence risk.
7 Jun 2024, Chris Douglas https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australian-oppositions-nuclear-energy-policy-would-increase-defence-risk/
The Australian Liberal-National opposition’s proposal to build nuclear power stations on the sites of old coal-fired plants is misguided. The policy would perpetuate Australia’s concentration of electricity generation and worsen our vulnerability to air and missile attack.
Renewable-energy installations, by contrast, are numerous, dispersed and therefore much less profitable for an enemy to destroy. They’re also far easier and quicker to fix. And energy storage capacity, another source of resilience, necessarily grows as they’re built.
The current concentration of large slabs of generation capacity in coal-fired stations is already a vulnerability. They’re attractive targets. A single attack by a few strike missiles might knock out a plant and its large chunk of power supply.
Chinese bombers, submarines and carrier-launched aircraft could attack them using guided bunker-busting bombs, regular air-to-ground missiles or hypersonic ones with tungsten penetrators. Russia is indeed targeting power stations in its war against Ukraine, typically hitting them with missiles and drones.
If a big power station’s energy comes from nuclear reactors instead of boilers burning fossil fuel, a strike could cause an environmentally devastating release of radioactive material. If we had nuclear power stations, they would in fact be things that an enemy could use against us.
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster resulted in radioactive contamination of about 150,000 square kilometres reaching as far as 500km from the plant. It released more radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. In 2007 the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies reported: ‘a nuclear power plant contains more than 1000 times the radiation that is released in an atomic bomb blast’. The Chernobyl experience suggests that destruction of a large nuclear station on the site of the Eraring coal-fired plant in New South Wales might render the port of Newcastle inoperative and perhaps force the evacuation of 800,000 people in the city and Central Coast.
Most of Australia’s coal-fired power stations are in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Replacing at least some with nuclear plants, as the opposition suggests, would therefore expose much of the population to frightening wartime risk. Attacks could result in long-term crippling of the economy by rendering cities uninhabitable. They would raise the cost to Australia for continuing any war.
Fixing a coal-fired power station that had suffered war damage would be hard enough and would take many months, at least. Fixing a nuclear one would be a lot harder and take much longer. For all that time, the economy would be deprived of the plant’s generating capacity.
Wide distribution of electricity generation to hundreds of wind and solar farms avoids such risks. Collateral damage from strikes on them would be small, not least because they are usually in remote places.
Because renewable generation capacity is economically divided among many installations each with modest capacity, they raise an enemy’s cost of knocking down supply. Eraring’s capacity is 2880 megawatts, concentrated in a 400-metre-long line of four generating units, each of which might be disabled by a single hit.
The Macintyre wind farm in Queensland, to be completed this year, will have 180 wind turbines, a site area of 36,000 hectares and a rated capacity of 1026 megawatts. Average output of a typical Australian windfarm, allowing for variation in wind strength, is only about 35 percent of rated capacity. But destroying such an installation would require a great many munitions.
Similarly, the solar farm at Coleambally, NSW, has more than 565,000 solar panels spread over 513 hectares and a rated capacity of 150 megawatts. At the time of completion, its output was expected to average 45 megawatts.
Moreover, generating farms are complemented by homes and businesses that are partly or entirely independent of grid supply thanks to their own solar generation and battery storage.
In World War II, Japan had a dispersed electricity-generating system, which was one reason why the United States did not try to knock out supply. The system consisted of too many targets and would have been too hard to debilitate.
Repairability enhances the inherent robustness of renewable generation. Critical parts that are not made domestically would need to be stockpiled, something that Japan did in preparation for World War II. The federal government’s Future Made in Australia strategy will help. If Australia builds wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and distribution gear, it will have plenty of skills and fabrication machinery for fixing them. Recovery times would be far shorter than for a damaged or destroyed nuclear plant.
The opposition’s nuclear power proposal would lead us into far greater vulnerability in a war with a major adversary. It’s much better to stay on our current course. Every time a new piece of the renewable energy system is switched on, we become a little less vulnerable.
AUTHOR. Chris Douglas served with the Australian Army in infantry and intelligence and later with the Australian Federal Police.
Resources Minister Madeleine King challenges Peter Dutton to name Western Australia nuclear power station sites
Joe Spagnolo, The West Australian, Sat, 8 June 2024
WA Federal Labor Minister Madeleine King has challenged Peter Dutton to come clean on where nuclear power stations would be located in WA — as the Federal Liberal leader spruiks nuclear energy for Australia.
Addressing the media in Kwinana on Saturday morning, the Resources Minister said WA communities like Collie, Kwinana and Fremantle could all be targets for a nuclear power station under a Dutton-led Federal Government…………………. (Subscribers only) https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/resources-minister-madeleine-king-challenges-peter-dutton-to-name-wa-nuclear-power-station-sites-c-14953838
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 