OPINION: It will continue to be a political football as long as the main players keep trying to score points.
Why are we having a debate about nuclear power? The new reactors the Coalition wants to bring to Australia have not been built yet.
While there is every chance many will be built in the United States in the next decade and that the cost of building them will fall to a point where they will become a viable option for Australia’s future energy needs, it is also possible they will not meet expectations or will not be viable.
The Peter Dutton-led Coalition’s commitment to build nuclear power plants regardless of feasibility or cost makes no sense.
Neither does the Albanese government’s position that the prohibition on nuclear energy should remain in place because it is uncommercial.
Does Australian industry need government protection from undertaking uncommercial activities?
The coming generation of nuclear power stations has the potential to provide non-intermittent clean energy at low running costs for generations, so why not let the market decide if and when it should be introduced?
Surely that is the obvious, sensible approach, yet neither party wants to adopt it – not even the ‘free enterprise’ party.
To work out why both sides are talking nonsense about nuclear energy we must understand the political baggage they bring to the debate.
On the left, the fear of nuclear energy is so baked-in they cannot even consider it. Facts have no impact on them.
They are like Pavlov’s dogs: any mention of nuclear power brings on involuntary gagging.
Anyone who is interested in how people have been conditioned to fear nuclear power, which is what underpins Labor’s policy (and the Greens’ policy), should watch the first 20 minutes of Oliver Stone’s documentary Nuclear Now.
It is a comprehensive analysis of the origins of nuclear phobia.
On the other side of politics, there is opposition to the construction of wind turbines and solar arrays from rural communities, which are the heartland of the National Party and an important constituency for the Liberal Party.
The rural opponents of renewable energy have found a common cause with the climate change sceptics and deniers in the Coalition’s parliamentary ranks.
The Coalition’s energy policy is designed to placate these people.
It is not a plan.
The key elements are: first, assume the future demand for energy will be lower than everyone else thinks it will be.
We therefore won’t need to generate as much energy so, if it is elected, the Coalition won’t be approving many more renewable energy projects.
Second, extend the life of coal-fired power stations when the rest of the world, including the owners of those power stations, want to close them.
The idea is they will keep generating costs low and thereby enable the Coalition to claim it will deliver lower electricity costs to voters.
But it assumes end-of-life coal-fired generators don’t need extensive maintenance to keep them going.
Good luck with that.
Third, build nuclear power stations to replace the coal-fired power stations at some point in the future, thereby increasing the proportion of clean energy produced under this policy.
That enables the Coalition to claim its policy will achieve a transition to clean energy – not right now, but at some point.
The problem with the third element, and the Coalition’s energy policy, is that it is based on nuclear reactors that are still in development, and which do not yet exist.
The nuclear power component of the policy is a distraction to draw attention away from the Coalition’s actual policy (more fossil fuel, fewer renewables).
Labor has happily chased after it like a dog chasing a stick, engaging in a pointless debate about the future cost of nuclear power plants that are yet to be developed.
Australia does not have many options for its future energy needs.
A common-sense approach to energy policy should therefore bring both parties to similar positions and create a clear path for energy transition, but that is clearly not going to happen.
Australia’s energy strategy will continue to be a political football because the players believe there are many points to be scored.
This is bad news for the country because our energy needs require long-term planning.
The good news is that Labor’s policy on nuclear power is currently of no consequence because there will be a different government (Labor or Coalition) by the time nuclear power becomes a viable option.
The Coalition’s energy policy is a different story.
It is seeking a mandate to halt the energy transition.
That is a strange policy for the modern era, but, as recent overseas election results have demonstrated, we are living in strange times.
• Simon Withers is a former investment banker and was mayor of the Town of Cambridge. He is a professional company director.
