Dutton’s nuclear plans are getting under Labor’s skin

And is nuclear any more pie-in-the sky than the commercially viable production of green hydrogen, which plays a significant role in Labor’s longer-term plans?

One can only imagine the fight at ALP National Conference if that were to be overturned.

None of this, however, was the point. What mattered was why Bowen, apropos of nothing, chose to take the sledgehammer to an embryonic policy proposal that was designed principally as a peacekeeping mechanism inside the Coalition. Because it was starting to gain traction in the wider community.

It wasn’t that long ago that a politician advocating nuclear power was deemed so controversial that it guaranteed a page one news story.

Nuclear up to 50pc more expensive

Nowadays, on the non-Labor side at least, due to the forced changes to the energy mix in response to climate change, it’s about as passé as a politician admitting they once smoked pot.

Federally, John Howard was the last to seriously examine nuclear energy when he commissioned an inquiry by nuclear physicist and former telco boss Ziggy Switkowski in 2006.

“I believe very strongly that I’d be failing Australia if I didn’t factor in nuclear power as part of the solution (to global warming),” he said, adding it would take 10 to 20 years to establish a nuclear industry.

Switkowski, who looked at large scale nuclear power plants rather than the-yet-to-be developed SMRs, concluded nuclear power would be 20 per cent to 50 per cent more expensive than coal-fired electricity, meaning it would not be viable without a price on carbon and the support of government subsidies.

Howard faced fierce resistance. Labor leader Kim Beazley coined the slogan “renewables not reactors” while then-shadow environment minister Anthony Albanese mischievously produced maps of dozens of nuclear power plants festooning pristine coastal locations.

The emissions-free alternative

Internally, then-finance minister Nick Minchin thought Howard was bonkers for picking a fight he couldn’t win, especially when Australia had hundreds of years worth of brown coal to burn.

“One of Australia’s great strengths is our access to reliable, cheap sources of power from coal,” he said.

“It gives this country enormous competitive advantages. We would be crazy to wantonly or carelessly throw away that advantage.”

Much has changed since, and Labor’s embrace of Scott Morrison’s AUKUS pact removed another hurdle in that Australia will need to build a dump for high-level nuclear waste.

Dutton argues that as coal-fired power is phased out, nuclear power, which is emissions-free, can be just as reliable as gas (which isn’t emissions free) in providing baseload power and being used to firm renewable energy.

A balancing act

He argues SMRs could be located on the same site as existing coal-fired power stations and plugged into the existing transmission infrastructure, thus negating the need for the 28,000 km of poles and wires proposed to be built across the eastern states to transmit all the energy from wind and solar farms.

As we have seen this week, community opposition to such projects is springing up all over the place. Bowen travelled to Newcastle on Tuesday in a bid to placate community leaders over a 1800sq/km floating wind farm to be built 30 km offshore.

In Mount Gambier, in south-east South Australia, lobster farmers are up in arms about the impact of a similar development, while in Victoria, it was revealed Infrastructure Minster Catherine King, in her capacity as the member for Ballarat, joined the campaign of community anger that forced changes to a proposed interconnector with NSW that will transmit renewable energy.

Bowen’s message, as he told the closed meeting in Newcastle, was there had to be a balance between aesthetics and saving the planet.

“I understand people in the Hunter want to see action on climate change. They want to see local jobs created as well. These are things to be balanced.”

By contrast, Dutton is offering El Dorado with his plug and play proposal. It is more complex as presented, but politically and conceptually, it is simple and has clearly got under the government’s skin.

In doing so, Dutton points out that Labor, in citing the cheap cost of renewables, does not factor in the $1.2 trillion-to-$1.5 trillion cost of the extra transmission infrastructure, which will be passed on to consumers.

Dutton will be buoyed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s retreat overnight on clean energy timelines, amid a growing backlash over the cost of the transition.

“The risk here, for those of us who care about reaching net zero – as I do – is simple: if we continue down this path, we risk losing the consent of the British people,” Sunak said.

Climate change reminder

When Dutton took over the leadership after the election, he appointed the pro-nuclear Ted O’Brien to the energy portfolio. There were several reasons. The conservatives wanted policy differentiation with Labor whose party platform forbids nuclear power.

One can only imagine the fight at ALP National Conference if that were to be overturned.

But the nuclear embrace has also enabled Dutton to maintain the Coalition’s shaky commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, despite recent rearguard efforts by Barnaby Joyce and co to scuttle it.

As one moderate Liberal said after Bowen helped hang a lantern over its nuclear plans this week, “at least the dinner party debate now is about which party has the best plan to reach net-zero”.

It is a small sop to progressive voters, especially those in the teal seats, but an important piece of ground to hold, nonetheless.

More so as the country enters yet another atypical and severe drought, reminding all and sundry that climate change is now upon us.