Coalition MPs dismiss International Energy Agency advice to ditch nuclear plans

IEA chief urges Australia to prioritise ‘untapped potential in solar and wind’ as opposition pushes on with its nuclear policy

Guardian Sarah Basford Canales, Fri 10 May 2024

Coalition MPs have dismissed advice from the world’s international energy body urging Australia to ditch any nuclear plans in favour of the “untapped potential” of solar and wind power.

After the Albanese government’s announcement on Thursday that gas will remain key to the country’s energy and export sectors to “2050 and beyond”, the opposition has doubled down on its plans to unveil a nuclear energy policy before the next federal election.

While details of the plan, including the location of up to six possible sites for nuclear plants, have yet to be announced, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said the Coalition’s goal was to plan for a “gradual transition from coal to nuclear, gas and renewables built in the right place and in the right concentration”.

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, the International Energy Agency (IEA) executive director, Dr Fatih Birol, said politicians in Australia should be prioritising the country’s renewable energy sources over investing in new nuclear projects…………..

Birol told Nine newspapers nuclear was not an avenue Australia should be looking at.

Birol said he hoped discussions around nuclear “can be made more factual, less emotional and political”, stressing Australia should prioritise the “untapped potential in solar and wind”…………………………………………………….

O’Brien’s Nationals colleague, Keith Pitt, similarly dismissed Birol’s advice as coming from a “Paris-based” commentator, saying the IEA has had “more positions on energy advice to Australia than the Kama Sutra”.

It is understood the Coalition will propose locating nuclear power plants on the site of retiring coal power plants, claiming the use of existing transmission infrastructure would bring down costs.

Figures released by the federal energy department last September revealed the plan could cost as much as $387bn. The analysis showed a minimum of 71 small modular reactors – providing 300MW each – would be needed if the policy were to fully replace the 21.3GW output of Australia’s retiring coal fleet.

CSIRO’s GenCost report showed that once up and running, a theoretical small modular reactor built in 2030 – which is unlikely to exist – is estimated to cost $382 to $636 per MWh while solar and wind would cost between $91 and $130 per MWh once integration costs are included.

Outside the Coalition, political support for a domestic nuclear power industry is limited.

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has previously accused advocates for an Australian nuclear industry as “peddling hot air”, saying Labor’s plan backs the IEA chief’s comments.

The Fremantle MP, Josh Wilson, a loud nuclear critic within Labor, questioned the Coalition’s “obsession” with the “most expensive and slowest form” of energy generation.

The independent ACT senator David Pocock, a vocal advocate for renewable energy, said nuclear power “makes no sense in this country”.

The senator’s lower house independent colleagues Monique Ryan and Kate Chaney agreed but added that Labor’s future gas strategy was also the wrong path forward.

Chaney said it was a “no-brainer” that IEA would steer Australia towards its obvious solar and wind advantages, noting it was “driven by data rather than politics”.

Ryan said Australia was once again being seen as a pariah internationally on climate policy.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said the federal government should deliver “massive investment” in public solar and wind, instead of opening up more gas mines.  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/10/coalition-mps-dismiss-international-energy-agency-advice-to-ditch-nuclear-plans

May 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Bowen says Coalition’s nuclear push would put grid reliability at risk due to delays in coal plant closures

ReNeweconomy, Giles Parkinson, Apr 26, 2024

Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen has again lambasted the Coalition’s pursuit of nuclear power and its intention to stop renewables, saying it would put reliability of the grid at risk because it would delay the closure of ageing and increasingly decrepit coal fired power stations.

The federal Coalition has yet to release details of its nuclear power plan, but has made no secret of its intention to halt the rollout of large scale wind, solar and storage, and has even threatened to tear up contracts with the commonwealth should it be returned to government.

The Coalition has also made it clear that it has no intention of meeting its commitment to the Paris climate targets, where the bulk of emissions reductions need to occur in the next decade.

That can’t happen if the transition to renewable energy is stopped and coal fired power plants kept on the grid to wait for nuclear some time in the 2040s. The Coalition appears only focused on the 2050 target for “net zero”.

“They know it’s a fantasy,” Bowen said in an interview with Renew Economy’s Energy Insiders podcast of the delays in the release of the Coalition energy policy. “Of course they do. But they are thinking of ways to avoid action and nuclear is the one they’ve settled on.

“Internally, in the Liberal Party, the National Party, I’m advised it is a miss. There’s a lot of anger that they’ve been foisted with this policy. You are seeing it delayed constantly because they are trying to make it stack up, and they can’t.”

Bowen says the push for nuclear is simply an excuse to keep coal fired power station operating longer, and delay renewables.

“That’s what it’s about. But there are two problems with that,” Bowen say

“There’s emissions. But perhaps even more acutely, there’s reliability. It’s a risk to our energy system, because coal fired power is the most unreliable form the power, because of the ageing nature of our coal fired power stations.

“They’ve done good work. They’ve been engineering masterpieces. But they’re very bloody old now. And they break down a lot, sometimes spectacularly, like Callide, and other times, not as spectacular, but still unexpected, and still with a big impact.

“And if we’re relying more and more on that ageing infrastructure, it’s going to be a big risk to reliability. That’s, again, another argument at the next election. And it’s an argument we’re ready for.”

Bowen also attacked the threats by National leader David Littleproud last week to tear up wind and solar contracts that could be signed under the Commonwealth, which has just announced the biggest ever auction of renewables in the country, six gigawatts of new capacity in a process that begins next month.

“I don’t think they will, and I don’t think they can,” Bowen said.

It’s entirely irresponsible – governments, parties to government, Labor and Liberal at the federal level, have consistently said, ‘we will honour contracts’.

“There’s been contracts that the previous government entered into, which I didn’t love and wouldn’t assign if I was the minister at the time, but we honour them. I don’t know what he’s talking about there, to be honest. It’s not a sensible contribution.”

Bowen says the CIS will help re-boot Australia’s transition to green energy, and meet the federal government’s 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, which he insists remains both ambitious and achievable. “No question in my mind,” he says.

The 6 GW CIS auction will begin in May, and will include a minimum 2.2 GW that is reserved for NSW, and 300 MW for South Australia, which is already leading the country, and the world, with a 75 per cent share of wind and solar in its in the past 12 months.

Bowen says the early indications – from the initial smaller tenders in NSW and in Victoria and South Australia – are that the CIS will succeed in getting projects moving.

“The early auction results have been outstanding, just outstanding in New South Wales. And the indications are, in terms of the size of the bids we’ve had come in for South Australia and Victoria, they are very high quality, which really indicates to me the pipeline is very strong, the interest is huge.

“The CIS is what was needed to unlock that risk matrix, to really make sure that Australia’s right at the top of the list for renewable investment decisions that are being made by multinational companies.”……………………………………………………………………………………….more https://reneweconomy.com.au/bowen-says-coalitions-nuclear-push-would-put-grid-reliability-at-risk-due-to-delays-in-coal-plant-closures/

May 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Parliamentarians renew their support for the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Jemila Rushton, Acting Director, ICAN Australia

Australian parliamentarians from across party lines have renewed their support for Australia joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

In a new video, members of the Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons show that action on nuclear disarmament is beyond party politics. Their joint message demonstrates how parliamentarians from across the political spectrum are working together to see the Treaty signed and ratified.

Today, 93 countries around the world are signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – the TPNW. 

They are signed up to the legally binding commitment to comprehensively ban nuclear weapons.

Developing them, testing them, producing them, assisting with them, possessing them, threatening to use them, and using them are banned.

The TPNW is giving countries and citizens across the world hope, and a new and promising pathway towards the abolition of these weapons.

It’s about understanding that what we cannot prepare for and what we can adequately respond to, we must prevent. 

It’s about continuing Australian leadership when it comes to nuclear disarmament. 

It’s about working with our closest neighbours and collaborating with our Pacific family.

It’s about recognising and supporting victims of nuclear weapons testing. For First Nations survivors, for Australia’s nuclear veterans.

As members of the Australian Parliamentary Friends of the TPNW, we are working together to see the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty signed and ratified.

We are proud of our country’s commitment to getting rid of other inhumane weapons, like landmines, cluster munitions, biological, and chemical weapons.

We welcome Australia’s engagement with the TPNW under the Albanese Government and we pay tribute to the community activism being undertaken in support of Australia joining this treaty.

History is calling.  

May 1, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

The conservative charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy

Dutton and O’Brien are also brazenly using the AUKUS defence agreement to bolster the case for civilian nuclear power reactors. Under AUKUS, Australia will get submarines powered by small nuclear reactors. As part of the agreement, signed by the Albanese government, Australia is responsible for disposing of the nuclear waste from the subs. That means Australia will be obliged to develop a responsible nuclear waste system. The nuclear lobby hopes this will help overcome popular resistance to a civilian nuclear waste dump in Australia.

Dutton’s nuclear power plants . The conservative charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy

By Marian Wilkinson, The Monthly, May 24

Five charity group figures driving the opposition leader’s pivot to nuclear energy

When Lesley Hughes agreed to lead a nocturnal wildlife tour at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo in August last year, she didn’t quite realise what she was letting herself in for. As the distinguished professor of biology explained the perils facing the animal kingdom from climate change, a disparate group of movers and shakers nodded with polite enthusiasm – among them, National Party leader David Littleproud, Liberal Party climate and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, and Larry Anthony, the head of a lobbying firm known for pushing fossil fuel clients.

This was not the professor’s natural milieu, but, like many of the guests at the splendid harbourside function centre that wintry evening, Hughes was there to win hearts and minds in the fight to save the planet. It was the opening night of the International Climate Conference hosted by the Coalition for Conservation, an enterprising conservative charity with deep roots in the Liberal and National parties. One of its aims is to reach out to environmentalists, renewable energy experts and climate scientists to garner support for Coalition members backing the goal of getting Australia to net zero emissions.

C4C, as it’s known, had gathered an impressive line-up of speakers, including the man who led the successful 2021 United Nations Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, former United Kingdom minister Sir Alok Sharma, and His Excellency Abdulla Al Subousi, ambassador for the United Arab Emirates, whose nation was set to host the next UN climate summit in Dubai.

But as the guests tucked into the opening night dinner, one speaker sounded a jarring partisan note: C4C’s influential patron, Trevor St Baker, couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Albanese government’s renewable energy policy. St Baker’s intervention was telling. The Queensland rich-lister was close to C4C’s chairman, Larry Anthony, a former National Party president. For years, he had employed Anthony’s lobby shop, SAS Consulting, back when he was in the coal-fired power business. Now St Baker was investing in the energy transition – electric vehicle charging and battery technology – but his passion project was nuclear energy and, in particular, introducing the idea of small modular nuclear reactors to Australia.

While St Baker’s presence was a surprise to some C4C supporters that night, his ideas on nuclear energy were about to hit the zeitgeist. He and his partners in a small nuclear consultancy, SMR Nuclear Technology, were riding the new wave of global enthusiasm for nuclear energy. Influential players, from former Microsoft boss Bill Gates to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, were spruiking small and micro modular reactors as a game-changer that would help the world reach net zero emissions by 2050. In climate circles it was dubbed the “tech bro” culture, as next-generation nuclear attracted bullish headlines, and billions in private investment and government grants

The C4C climate conference was dotted with speakers enthusiastic about bringing nuclear power to Australia, few more so than the opposition’s spokesman, O’Brien. The line-up was a clear signal that the C4C charity had pivoted towards its patron’s pro-nuclear position. More importantly, it reflected the big nuclear shift by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. In a headline-making speech a few weeks earlier, Dutton had attacked what he called “renewable zealotry”, saying that if Albanese wanted to phase out coal and gas, the only feasible and proven technology to back up renewable energy was “next-generation nuclear technologies”. Specifically, Dutton pushed the idea of small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro modular reactors (MMRs).

Dutton is now releasing more details on the opposition’s “coal to nuclear” power plans, which he argues can deliver cheaper electricity and new jobs in regions where ageing coal generators will be forced to close. So far, the plans bear a striking resemblance to a policy Trevor St Baker and SMR Nuclear Technology have been advocating for several years, in evidence and submissions to federal and state parliamentary committees, in think tanks and in energy forums. These describe in voluminous detail how small modular nuclear reactors are less costly to build than the big nuclear plants, safer and more flexible, allowing them to be sited at old coal plants already connected to the electricity grid.

Just how influential St Baker and his partners have been in the opposition’s nuclear switch is unclear.  Dutton’s move to nuclear has been slammed by critics………………………………………………………

Whatever the economics of the opposition’s nuclear plan, there is no doubt about its political impact. It has reignited the partisan climate wars in Australia. Since first signalling their nuclear plans in 2022, Dutton and O’Brien have kept up a relentless attack on the Albanese government over what they call its reckless “renewables only” energy plan, blaming it for driving up household energy prices, threatening energy security, de-industrialising Australia and trampling the rights of farmers.

Professor Hughes is watching the divisive nuclear debate unfold with dismay. A director of the Climate Council, Hughes has been a lead author with the UN’s chief scientific advisory panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and now sits on the federal government’s Climate Change Authority advising on its emissions reduction targets. “In my opinion, given the lack of any economic rationale for nuclear, one can only conclude that it’s a distraction to allow the fossil fuel industry to keep operating with business as usual,” she says.

Despite Dutton and O’Brien’s bullish optimism, their nuclear pivot is a big political gamble. While a rash of polls suggests support for nuclear energy is growing in Australia, some also show most Australians still don’t want a reactor in their own region, let alone a nuclear waste dump.  Even Queensland’s Liberal National Party leader, David Crisafulli, has ruled out any plan to replace the state’s old coal-fired power stations with small nuclear reactors, saying it can’t happen without bipartisan support. The issue also threatens the fragile truce in the Liberal Party over climate change policy. The party’s most vocal renewable energy advocate, former New South Wales energy minister Matt Kean, has launched a stinging attack against the policy push. “I am not opposed to nuclear power,” he tells me. “I was state energy minister for five years. If nuclear power was a viable pathway to net zero, I would have done it. But it did not stack up – economically, environmentally or engineering-wise.”

Kean was speaking shortly after he resigned from his role as ambassador for the C4C environmental charity. In his frank resignation letter, he told C4C’s chair, Larry Anthony, that he saw the advocacy for nuclear power “as an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables”.

Kean sees Anthony and St Baker as having an outsize influence on the charity’s shift to a pro-nuclear position. St Baker is a powerful business figure in Dutton’s home state. He’s long been a political donor to the Queensland LNP and to the state’s Labor Party. His support for nuclear power is no secret.

Talacko denies either St Baker or Anthony influenced the charity’s position on nuclear energy. “Our exploration of this technology was thorough and impartial, and our support for nuclear energy is not influenced by political agendas nor tied to financial backing from the nuclear industry,” she tells me by email. But she also says she didn’t know her charity’s key patron was a director and major shareholder of SMR Nuclear Technology. “I was not aware of Trevor’s position at this organization.”

For well over a year, C4C has played a critical role in supporting and promoting the Coalition’s push on nuclear energy. In early 2023, Talacko joined Ted O’Brien on a nuclear fact-finding trip to the United States and Canada. O’Brien’s trip was funded in part by one of C4C’s donors – which one he doesn’t say. The group was briefed by corporate executives and government officials on a range of small and medium modular nuclear reactor projects. O’Brien says Talacko returned from the trip convinced “nuclear should be part of a balanced mix”. Talacko posted O’Brien’s upbeat story about their briefings on the C4C website. None of the projects O’Brien wrote about was commercially operating. Indeed one, a much-anticipated small nuclear project in Idaho run by American company NuScale, collapsed months later because of major blowouts in costs. That was despite getting almost $1 billion in US government support. NuScale’s chief executive was blunt about the project’s future prospects, telling Bloomberg, “Once you’re on a dead horse, you dismount quickly. That’s where we are here.”

Neither O’Brien nor Talacko’s enthusiasm for next-gen nuclear was dented by what happened to NuScale. Quite the reverse. Just weeks after the collapse, in November 2023, C4C funded a delegation of Coalition MPs, as well as Talacko, to attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, COP28. O’Brien had been invited to address a meeting that the World Nuclear Association, the global nuclear lobby, was hosting with C4C at the summit. The C4C delegation included Liberal senators Andrew Bragg and Dean Smith, the Nationals’ Senate leader Bridget McKenzie, deputy leader Perin Davey and shadow trade minister Kevin Hogan, and Larry Anthony.

………………………….. the COP declaration was a triumph for the nuclear lobby, and O’Brien vowed the Coalition would sign up to the nuclear partnership if it was re-elected. Talacko posted a glowing account on C4C’s website. …………………..

But turning the heady nuclear promises in Dubai into a credible climate policy at home is proving a daunting challenge for the opposition. The first hurdle it faces is the law. Federal environment and nuclear safety laws effectively ban civilian nuclear power generation in Australia. Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland also have specific laws prohibiting it.

Overturning these laws has long been on the wish list of business lobbies such as the Minerals Council of Australia, as well as the National Party and senior Liberals, but it remains politically fraught. O’Brien admits there was no chance of it happening in this parliament. 

Even Bob Pritchard thinks overturning the laws will be tough. And he worries that if Dutton goes to an election pledging to change the laws and loses, it will put the nuclear industry in Australia back years.

The opposition’s immediate problem is the lack of “social licence” for nuclear power in Australia. A majority of us are still anxious that nuclear reactors and their waste are not safe to live with. O’Brien, with help from C4C and other pro-nuclear lobby groups, is working hard to turn this around. Barely a week goes by now without an event with a panel of experts talking up nuclear energy’s role in getting to net zero emissions.

Dutton and O’Brien are also brazenly using the AUKUS defence agreement to bolster the case for civilian nuclear power reactors. Under AUKUS, Australia will get submarines powered by small nuclear reactors. As part of the agreement, signed by the Albanese government, Australia is responsible for disposing of the nuclear waste from the subs. That means Australia will be obliged to develop a responsible nuclear waste system. The nuclear lobby hopes this will help overcome popular resistance to a civilian nuclear waste dump in Australia.

It’s no coincidence Dutton recently met with executives from Rolls Royce last month to talk about nuclear power. Under AUKUS, the British company will supply the small reactors for Australia’s nuclear submarines. Rolls Royce is also trying to rapidly develop small modular reactors for civilian nuclear power with the backing of millions of dollars in UK government grants.

Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, sees AUKUS as the best leg-up for the nuclear lobby in Australia for decades.

“Despite years of lobbying from the mining sector, and from pro-nuclear advocates, there has been no success in gaining a social licence for the technology in Australia,” Sweeney tells me. “But they see AUKUS as the thin edge of the wedge – the way they will expand nuclear from a defence relationship to get domestic acceptance and integration of nuclear technology and nuclear power in Australia.”

Sweeney is convinced Dutton’s nuclear plans have little chance of success. “I think that they will have their work cut out,” he says, “but there is no question that this is a very serious, systematic and resourced attempt by the pro-nuclear voices.”  Like many activists who spent years campaigning on climate change, Sweeney believes the overriding aim of Dutton’s nuclear shift is political. “It unites techno-modernist Liberals with the renewable-recalcitrant Nationals in one policy framework. And it also continues business as usual – it’s no challenge to the fossil fuel interests to talk about nuclear.”………………………………………………………………………..

When the politicians returned to Canberra in February, the drums were once again beating in the climate wars. On the lawn in front of Parliament House, the “Rally Against Reckless Renewables” was in full swing. The National Party’s Barnaby Joyce was firing up the crowd of several hundred farmers and anti-renewable activists telling them, “You’re the army! This is the start!”

Joyce’s performance enraged Dr Matt Edwards, a prominent Australian solar scientist now working for Adani Solar, owned by the giant Indian power company. Edwards was also the vice chair of C4C, but he’d clearly had enough. He belted out a stinging op-ed for the Australian Financial Review laying into Joyce and what he called “the remnants of the Coalition now taking an uninspired punt on nuclear”. Edwards bluntly dismissed the opposition’s plan to replace ailing coal plants with nuclear, saying, “given high costs, long lead times and lack of investor appetite for nuclear, it is easy to cynically imagine that these plans might be used to justify extending the life of fossil generation while we wait for an atomic revolution that never comes”.

The fallout was immediate. C4C’s chairman and chief executive were furious. Dr Edwards resigned from the board. Just one more casualty in the latest round of the climate wars.

MARIAN WILKINSON

Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning journalist and author. Her latest book is The Carbon Club.  https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2024/may/marian-wilkinson/dutton-s-nuclear-power-plants#mtr

April 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Dutton’s nuclear policy backfires

Mike Seccombe  The Saturday Paper, 27 Apr 24

This much can be said for Colin Boyce: he is not one of the federal Coalition’s nuclear nimbys. He would, if necessary, agree to have a nuclear power station in his electorate…………………………………………………..

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement on March 12 that the Coalition would “shortly” announce about six sites across the country where nuclear reactors could be built forced the issue. Dutton’s plan would put them in places where coal-fired power stations were closing down.

The promised announcement of potential nuclear sites has been pushed progressively further into the future. Initially it was expected within a couple of weeks, then before the federal budget on May 14. Last Sunday, on the ABC’s Insiders program, Dutton would not commit to a pre-budget announcement, improbably blaming the recent stabbing incidents in Sydney for the delay.

On Tuesday this week, Nationals leader David Littleproud told Sky News the Coalition parties were “not going to be bullied into putting this at any time line, but you will see it before the election”.

Whenever the announcement does eventually come, Boyce’s central Queensland electorate, Flynn, is likely to be on the list.

Boyce’s acceptance of nuclear power in his electorate is not so much an endorsement of the policy being pushed by his leaders as an acceptance that he has no other choice.

Flynn, twice the size of Tasmania and dotted with coalmines and gas wells, produces vast amounts of energy, most of which is shipped overseas.

………………………………………………………………….. Boyce says, probably correctly, “ there will be no coal-firedpower stations in Queensland operational after 2035”.

He is not happy about that and is even less happy that the state opposition supported the government’s legislated target, for he has never accepted the need to stop burning fossil fuels.

Before his election to federal parliament, Boyce served five years in the Queensland parliament, representing the coal seat of Callide. There, he argued for the construction of more coal-fired power stations. He denied the reality of human-induced climate change.

Opposition to fossil fuels, he told state parliament on June 17, 2021, was “driven by the mind-numbing, eco-Marxist Millennials and upper middle-class ‘wokes’ who have been indoctrinated with some quasi-religious belief that coal is bad and carbon dioxide is poisoning the planet”.

……………………………………………………………………. Even within the Coalition’s ranks there are some who see the move as being at least as much an attempt to address a political problem as to address the climate crisis, although most will not say so publicly.

Bridget Archer will, however. The Tasmanian MP – one among a much-depleted cohort of moderate Liberals after the 2022 election – issued a warning to her colleagues via the pages of the Nine newspapers last month that nuclear energy should not be put forward as an alternative to wind and solar.

“There is no point even having a nuclear discussion if you don’t accept a need to decarbonise, to transition away from coal and gas,” she said. “There only is a case for nuclear if there is a fairly rapid transition to large-scale renewables, otherwise why are you doing it?”

She then answered her own question: “I think part of the reason for having the discussion is to keep people in the tent on net zero.”

Others privately assess the motivations of the federal Coalition leadership more harshly. They suggest it’s not primarily about getting nuclear up but about slowing the transition to wind and solar and thereby extending the life of fossil fuels in power generation.

Certainly, the chances of getting the federal parliament to greenlight a domestic nuclear industry are remote. For about 25 years, nuclear power has been prohibited by law in Australia, and it was the Howard Coalition government that banned it, under a 1998 deal with the Greens to get other legislation through the Senate.

Given the ever-growing proclivity of Australian electors to give their votes to progressive independent candidates and Greens, there is a good chance neither major party will win majority government at the next election. Even if the Coalition did win the House of Representatives, it almost certainly would not gain a majority in the Senate. Unless Labor recanted on its vehement opposition to nuclear power, Dutton’s plan would fall at the first hurdle.

……………………………………. the available evidence suggests even those members of the federal Coalition parties who publicly spruik the Dutton policy lack the courage of their convictions.

Last month, shortly after Dutton made his big announcement, reporters for the Nine papers contacted a dozen of them.

“Twelve opposition MPs have publicly backed lifting the moratorium on nuclear power in Australia but will not commit to hosting a nuclear power plant in their own electorate,” their story began

……………………………………………….. Two points. First, the Coalition plan no longer involves small modular nuclear reactors, but instead would rely on building traditional large plants. Second, the polling to which Littleproud referred actually showed a lot of people were woefully misinformed about the cost of nuclear power.

When asked to rank sources of energy “in terms of total cost including infrastructure and household price”, 40 per cent of respondents thought solar and wind power were the most expensive, compared with 36 per cent who thought nuclear was, and 24 who picked coal and gas. Fully one third of respondents thought nuclear was the cheapest option.

They are spectacularly wrong. According to the most recent GenCost report – the annual collaboration between the Australian science agency CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) – SMRs are by far the most expensive way of generating electricity. The “levelised cost” of power from an SMR would be $382 to $636 per megawatt hour, while solar and wind would cost between $91 and $130 per MWh.

The Dutton response was to attack the experts. He claimed GenCost underestimated the cost of renewables because it did not include expenditure on the transmission infrastructure required to integrate them into the grid.

This was untrue, as the report’s authors promptly made clear. Dutton was undeterred, however, which in turn saw the chief executive of the CSIRO, Douglas Hilton, release an open letter defending the importance of independent scientific endeavour.

Last Tuesday, the same day as Littleproud went on Sky News and maintained the falsehood that nuclear power was cheaper than wind and solar, another report was released, further confirming more wind and solar energy was simultaneously lowering both prices and emissions from the electricity sector.

The quarterly Energy Dynamics report from the energy market operator showed that in the first three months of this year, renewables provided 39 per cent of power in the east coast power grid, almost 2 per cent more than in the corresponding period last year.

……………………………..“We are increasingly seeing renewable energy records being set which is a good thing for Australian consumers as it is key in driving prices down and NEM [National Electricity Market] emissions intensity to new record lows,” AEMO’s executive general manager of reform delivery, Violette Mouchaileh, said in a media release accompanying the report…………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2024/04/27/duttons-nuclear-policy-backfires

April 28, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Nationals’ nuclear climate policy puts Australia’s Paris deal in doubt

The Age, James Massola and Mike Foley, April 25, 2024 

The Coalition cannot commit to Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction targets, with senior Nationals MPs conceding a plan to adopt nuclear power would mean a future Coalition government would not comply with the Paris Agreement.

Days after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton delayed his announcement of up to six sites for future nuclear power plants – the announcement is now expected after the budget – Nationals leader David Littleproud told this masthead the path to net zero emissions by 2050 would not be linear under a future Coalition government.

The Nationals’ stated aim of slowing down the rollout of large-scale renewable energy projects, combined with the 15-year timeline for building a nuclear plant, means the Coalition would struggle if returned to power to meet Labor’s current target of 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.

But a Coalition government would inherit Australia’s legally binding 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, which requires nations to contribute to an international effort to keep global warming under 2 degrees.

Walking away from the Paris Agreement would infuriate Liberal moderates and MPs in metropolitan seats, where climate action is more popular; embolden the teals and other independents; and risk reigniting the climate wars fought between Nationals and Liberals in the former Morrison government.

Littleproud said “there is not a linear pathway to net zero, and trying to achieve one will have a detrimental impact on the economy. We have to have a broad-based solution rather than an all renewables approach.”

He would not commit to Australia’s climate target, set by the Albanese government, to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.

“We want to wait and see what the modelling we come up with for 2030 [in the party’s new nuclear policy] says, but we won’t rush into anything …”

Experts including former chief scientist Alan Finkel and former Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Professor Andrew Dyer have said it would take a minimum of 15 years for a nuclear plant to be built in Australia

Grattan Institute deputy energy director Alison Reeve said it would be impossible for Australia to reach its 2030 Paris target if there were a slowdown in the renewables rollout – including a pause to accommodate nuclear plant…………………………………………………………..

The Grattan Institute’s Alison Reeve said Australia would not hit the 2030 target under the Coalition’s nuclear push because most of the decarbonisation needed hangs off the government’s renewable goals.

“If you don’t reach that, you just don’t meet the 2030 target,” she said.

The bulk of reductions are to come from reducing coal-fired power and achieving the target to boost renewables to 82 per cent of the grid by 2030.

Reeve said cutting emissions from the energy sector by replacing fossil fuel electricity with renewables was a fundamental underpinning of Australia’s climate policy and any slowdown in wind and solar farms would make it harder for other sectors to clean up their act……….  https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/nationals-nuclear-climate-policy-puts-australia-s-paris-deal-in-doubt-20240424-p5fm8p.html

April 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Push-polling goes nuclear

Dr Jim Green , 18th April 2024 https://theecologist.org/2024/apr/18/push-polling-goes-nuclear

Conservative political parties in Australia actually believe that nuclear power is popular – based on biased push-polling.

A Newspoll survey led to a page-one article in the Australian, the Murdoch national newspaper, under the following headline: “Powerful majority supports nuclear option for energy security”.

The Australian’s political editor Simon Benson wrote in February: “Labor is now at risk of ending up on the wrong side of history in its fanatical opposition to nuclear power.” The party “ignores this community sentiment potentially at its peril”, he added. The story was prominent across the Murdoch owned press and on Murdoch’s Sky News.

The Newspoll question was as follows: “There is a proposal to build several small modular nuclear reactors around Australia to produce zero-emissions energy on the sites of existing coal-fired power stations once they are retired. Do you approve or disapprove of this proposal?”

Push-polling

The results: 55 per cent approval, 31 per cent disapproval and 14 per cent ‘don’t know’. However the poll was a crude example of push-polling designed to generate pro-nuclear results and headlines. Its many faults were identified by polling experts Kevin Bonham and Murray Goot and by economist Professor John Quiggin.

To give just one example of the bias, replacing Australia’s 21,300 megawatts of coal-fired power generation capacity with small modular reactors (SMRs) would require a large number of reactors, not ‘several’ as Newspoll asserted. If, for example, NuScale Power’s 77-megawatt reactors were chosen, 277 reactors would be required.

In broad terms, the tricks used by pro-nuclear push-pollers involve swaying opinions with biased preliminary comments, biased questions, limited response options, and misreporting the findings. Specific tricks include the following:

* Presenting or implying a narrow or false choice – as with the implication in the Newspoll survey that Australians could choose between nuclear reactors or coal.

 * Asking respondents if nuclear power should be “considered” or if they support an “informed and balanced conversation”, and then conflating support for those bland propositions with support for nuclear power itself.

* Linking nuclear power to climate change abatement without mention of the downsides or expense of nuclear power, or alternative and arguably better ways to address climate change.

* Asking respondents if they support ‘advanced’ nuclear power or ‘the latest nuclear energy technologies’ without noting that ‘advanced’ nuclear power reactors are few in number, they aren’t really ‘advanced’ in any meaningful sense, and in some cases they are used to power fossil fuel mining or pose increased weapons proliferation risks.

* Reporting on poll results without clearly stating what the actual survey questions were.

* Avoiding the word ‘nuclear’ by referring to small modular reactors, or avoiding the word reactors by using phrases such as ‘the latest nuclear energy technologies’.

* Using the word ‘small’, as in ‘small modular reactors’: expect to see more of this, it seems to work well despite the spectacular implosion of the most advanced SMR project in the US, the NuScale project in Idaho.

* Reporting self-selecting, online polls as if the results mean anything. For example Australian academic Oscar Archer is impressed by a meaningless ABC poll, a meaningless Murdoch tabloid poll, and a meaningless Channel 7 Sunrise poll.

Australia’s conservative parties fall for push-polling

Partly because of the Murdoch media’s promotion of nuclear power and its push-polling, the federal Liberal-National Coalition opposition has “pledged” to introduce nuclear power to Australia by the mid-2030s if it wins and forms a government at the election to be held no later than May next year.

The Coalition believes that most Australians support nuclear power, that younger Australians are particularly enthusiastic, and that local communities will welcome a nuclear power reactor. The problem is that those views are underpinned by nothing other than biased push-polling. 

Unbiased polls find that support for nuclear power in Australia falls short of a majority; that Australians support renewables to a far greater extent than nuclear power and nuclear power is among the least popular energy sources; that a majority do not want nuclear reactors built near where they live; and that most Australians are concerned about nuclear accidents and nuclear waste.

Even the push-polling results should raise red flags for the Coalition. A 2019 Roy Morgan poll preceded the poll question with this highly dubious assertion: “If the worries about carbon dioxide are a real problem, many suggest that the cleanest energy source Australia can use is nuclear power.”

Even with that blatant attempt to sway respondents, only a bare 51 per cent majority expressed support for nuclear power.

Locals are ‘hostile’ 

The Coalition hasn’t even formally released its nuclear power policy yet ‒ that will happen in the coming weeks. But already the policy has been disastrous for the Coalition with near-zero support beyond the far-right of the Coalition and the far-right media, in particular the Murdoch-Sky echo chamber.

Opposition to locally-built nuclear power reactors has been clearly and consistently demonstrated in Australian opinion polls for 20 years or more. A 2019 Essential poll was typical of the others: 28 per cent of respondents “would be comfortable living close to a nuclear power plant” while 60 per cent would not.

The Coalition proposes replacing retiring coal power plants with nuclear reactors and expects an enthusiastic response from local communities. A ‘Coalition source’ told the Murdoch press that Coalition MPs “had convinced themselves that people would be queuing up” for nuclear reactors. 

But recent focus group research carried out in the Hunter Valley in NSW and the Latrobe Valley in Victoria ‒ two of the coal regions that might be targeted ‒ found that voters are “hostile” to plans for reactors in their areas. 

Local hostility is just one of the problems facing the Coalition’s nuclear policy. Coalition MPs have said on countless occasions that the development of nuclear power in Australia would require bipartisan support. But nuclear power isn’t supported by the Labor Party and it faces strong resistance even from within the Coalition.

Indeed there is bipartisan opposition to nuclear power in most of the four states with operating coal plants that are likely to be targeted in a coal-to-nuclear program ‒ Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia. Labor state governments in those four states are opposed to nuclear power in their states, and Liberal/Coalition opposition leaders are opposed to nuclear power or have failed to endorse it.

Colourful commentary

Tony Barry ‒ a former deputy state director and strategist for the Victorian Liberal Party, and now a director at the research consultancy RedBridge ‒ describes the Coalition’s decision to make nuclear power the centrepiece of its energy and climate policy as “the longest suicide note in Australian political history”.

On the strength of a detailed RedBridge analysis of Australians’ attitudes to nuclear power, Barry says that just 35 per cent of Australians support nuclear power and that only coal is less popular. If the Coalition is to have any chance of winning the next election it will not be with nuclear power, he says. 

Colourful commentary has also been offered to Murdoch journalists by Coalition MPs under cover of anonymity. One Coalition MP says the nuclear policy is “madness on steroids”, another says the Liberal and National Party rooms are “in a panic” about the nuclear policy and “they don’t know what to do”, and another says the nuclear policy is “bonkers”,

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull also describes the nuclear policy as “bonkers”. He says nuclear power’s only utility is “as another culture war issue for the right-wing angertainment ecosystem, and a means of supporting fossil fuels by delaying and distracting the rollout of renewables”, and that nuclear power “is exactly what you don’t need to firm renewables.” Turnbull describes ultra-conservative Coalition leader Peter Dutton as a “thug” who says “stupid things” about nuclear power. With friends like that…

Matt Kean, the NSW Liberal MP and former deputy premier, states: “I not only regard advocacy for nuclear power as against the public interest on environmental, engineering and economic grounds, I also see it as an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables.”

John Hewson, the former federal Liberal leader, says the Dutton opposition has become “ridiculous” with its pro-nuclear, anti-renewables stance which is economic “nonsense”, and that Dutton may be promoting nuclear “on behalf of large fossil-fuel donors knowing nuclear power will end up being too expensive and take too long to implement, thereby extending Australia’s reliance on coal and natural gas”.

Nuclear power a ‘dog whistle to climate denialists’

The cynicism reflects concerns about the Coalition’s opposition to the federal Labor government’s target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030 and the Coalition’s plans to expand gas and prolong the use of coal. The Nationals are calling for a moratorium on the rollout of large-scale renewables.

Professor John Quiggin, an economist, notes that, in practice, support for nuclear power in Australia is support for coal and he has described nuclear advocacy in Australia as a dog whistle to climate denialists.

Even in the Murdoch-Sky right-wing echo-chamber, splits are emerging. A Murdoch media editor says the Coalition’s nuclear policy is “stark raving mad” and “madness…total madness”.

Australia’s big private electricity generators ‒ AGL Energy, Alinta, EnergyAustralia and Origin Energy ‒ have dismissed nuclear energy as a viable source of power for their customers. One senior executive says that power bills would triple if the nuclear path was pursued. Industry isn’t interested, and trade unions are overwhelmingly opposed.

The Australian chief scientist opposes to the introduction of nuclear power to Australia, as do at least two former Australian chief scientists and the NSW chief scientist.

A recent survey by the Investor Group on Climate Change asked big institutional investors with $37 trillion under management which energy and climate solutions they believed had good long-term returns. Nuclear power was ranked last of the 14 options, renewable energy first.

History repeating itself

In the mid-2000s, John Howard as the Liberal prime minister promoted nuclear power and conservatives hoped the policy would create splits within the Labor Party and the environment movement.

Labor wasn’t split, nor was the environment movement, but at least 22 Coalition candidates publicly distanced themselves from the Howard government’s nuclear policy during the 2007 election campaign. Howard lost his seat, the Coalition lost the election, and the nuclear policy was ditched immediately.

We could be seeing history repeating itself with Peter Dutton’s ill-advised promotion of nuclear power.

Labor MPs can’t believe their luck. Speaking in parliament, prime minister Anthony Albanese compared Peter Dutton to a nuclear reactor: “One is risky, expensive, divisive and toxic; the other is a nuclear reactor. The bad news for the Liberal Party is that you can put both on a corflute, and we certainly intend to do so.”

This Author

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group.

April 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Modular Reactors. Peter Dutton hasn’t done his nuclear homework

by Rex Patrick | Apr 16, 2024 ,  https://michaelwest.com.au/nuclear-reactors-peter-dutton-has-not-done-his-homework/—

Has Peter Dutton’s proposed ‘rollout’ of modular nuclear reactors real policy or just politics? What research has he done to develop the policy? Not much, it seems. Rex Patrick reports.

In September 2020, the Morrison Government released a Low Emissions Technology Statement that placed Small Modular Reactors (SMR) on a list of watching brief technologies. SMR developments were to be monitored to see if they might play a part in Australia’s energy future.

Consistent with that listing, the Government directed the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to join an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Coordinated Research Project focused on the Economic Appraisal of SMRs to provide information to assist in evaluating the technology’s economic viability.ANSTO assembled a team to prepare, among other things, a case study on Australia’s potential to adopt SMR technologies in the future and analyse financing options for the technology. As part of that project, ANSTO even supported a University of Queensland PhD thesis on SMRs.

Flip flop politics

Peter Dutton, a minister in the Government that commissioned the ANSTO work, came out mid-way through 2023 with a proclamation of the Coalition’s plans for Australian to adopt SMRs as a preferred tool in our movement towards net zero carbon emissions.

In doing so Dutton opened himself up to a political battering because of the nascent state of SMR development around the world and huge questions around costs.

Undeterred, in early March Dutton doubled down on nuclear power, switching his thinking to large nuclear power plants scattered about the country. As public controversy raged about the new plans, Dutton has started reinjecting SMRs into the total mix.

There are now to be a mix of economic and taxation incentives for the local communities targeted by the Coalition to host a nuclear reactor.

Missing homework

In response to their hip flip to a larger nuclear power plant and his small flop back to SMRs, I thought MWM set out to see if Dutton has visited ANSTO or taken a brief from them in relation to his plans.

After all, there’s no shortage of precedent for parliamentary oppositions to seek factual briefings from government agencies, especially on complex and specialised subjects.In a recent nuclear estimates brief prepared for the CEO of ANSTO, the first two paragraphs stated:

“ANSTO has significant insight into what other countries and jurisdictions are doing around the world in terms of nuclear power.”

As mentioned above, ANSTO was specifically engaged by the former Coalition Government to take a look at SMRs.So, I was left gobsmacked when a Freedom of Information request I made to ANSTO to find out what Dutton’s interactions with ANSTO had been over the past five years returned nil information.

ANSTO FOI response (on original)

Dutton has not visited Australia’s only nuclear reactor and has not received a brief from our country’s expert agency on the policy area he was developing.

In some measure, it explains the flip-flopping and limited detail in many of his announcements.

For completeness, I also asked the Government’s nuclear safety regulator, ARPANSA, if Dutton had visited them or sought advice from them. FOI came up with the same answer from them. (on original) Nothing at all..

Politics, not policy

You can’t develop policy just by chin-wagging at party room meetings and with briefs from vested business interests. That’s not how it works. You have to get independent and expert advice, and in the case of nuclear matters, a vital place to get that advice in Australia is ANSTO and ARPANSA.

So, just what policy work has Dutton done? In large part, he appears completely dependent on the Google skills of his little-known Climate Change and Energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien.

With a background in marketing, O’Brien has no ministerial experience, so the practicalities of major project implementation may be quite novel for him. He did once chair a parliamentary committee inquiry into nuclear energy, but as so often is the case, the research there was largely done by the committee secretariat, with O’Brien just adding a thin layer of pro-nuclear evangelism on the top.

It’s pretty safe to say that, in the absence of comprehensive briefs from and engagement with Australia’s leading experts, Dutton is not engaging in serious policy development. Rather it’s a manoeuvre to achieve political differentiation and keep the anti-renewals, climate-change-denying core of his Coalition happy.  Dutton’s approach to policy development, in this instance, says just as much about him as it does about his nuclear plans.

“It’s all politics”

April 17, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment