Coalition claims of a nuclear power renaissance in UK further expose its shameless policy con

In the one-page nuclear policy pamphlet the LNP released in June, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton states that “of the world’s 20 largest economies, Australia is the only one not using nuclear energy, or moving towards using it.”

Even this claim lacks credibility and relies on half-truths – so no wonder Dutton and his nuclear-spuiking sidekick Ted O’Brien are failing to get buy-in on their delusion from those in their own party, let alone most experts.

The UK – the 6th largest economy in the world by GDP in 2023, and one which has an established nuclear power industry – is a case in point for both the problems with technology and its decline in some major economies. 

Since 2000, nuclear power generation in the UK has more than halved from 85 terawatt hours (TWh) to a multidecade low of 41 TWh in 2023.

In the same period nuclear’s share of total UK electricity generation has dropped from 23% to a record low of 14%. Energy analyst company Aurora Energy forecasts UK nuclear generation could fall to a three-decade low of just 8 TWh by 2029.

This ongoing, inexorable decline has occurred even as coal’s share of electricity supply has plummeted from 32% in 2000 to just 1% in 2023.

Meanwhile, wind power doubled to 82 TWh from 2016 to 2023, and is exactly twice the amount of energy produced by nuclear. UK solar has grown sixfold in the last decade to 14 TWh, and is likely to double nuclear’s contribution by 2029.

While O’Brien has claimed there is nuclear renaissance in the UK, the reality is the UK’s end-of-life nuclear fleet is rapidly approaching its use-by date. 

France’s EDF owns the only five remaining nuclear power plants (with a total of 9 units) still operating in the UK, all due to be shuttered by 2028: Sizewell B (to retire in 2025); Hartlepool 1&2 (retirement in March 2026); Heysham I 1&2 (March 2026); Heysham 2 1&2 (2028); and Torness 1&2 (2028).

EDF has flagged it would consider extending the life of some of these plants, but no decision has been made. 

EDF has now reported a €12.9 billion writedown on its under-construction Hinkley Point C nuclear plant – an eye-watering mega-project debacle comparable to the LNP’s Snowy 2.0 and Kurri Kurri gas plants in Australia – and pivoted into developing wind, solar and hydro-electricity plants.

With a 2029-2031 commissioning date, Hinkley is running around 15 years late from its original targeted completion date of 2017.

It has a rapidly rising estimated construction cost of £41.6-47.9 billion, or A$80-93 billion, making the CSIRO GenCost estimates of nuclear in Australia look conservative. EDF’s Hinkley Point C equity partner, China’s CGN, stopped supporting the cost overruns in 2023.

The UK consumer can now look forward to being gouged when this white-elephant is actually commissioned next decade. The UK government-underwritten power purchase agreement (PPA) was set at £92.5/MWh (in 2012 prices), escalating with inflation through to commissioning and thereafter over the 35 year plant life.

In 2022 the price of power from Hinkley ballooned to £116/MWh, twice the cost of energy supplied by new wind farms at £54-59/MWh.

The proposal for a Sizewell C nuclear plant is long delayed and is still to gain financial backing, despite €5.5bn of proposed new UK government subsidies on top of the existing €2.5bn taxpayer support. 

On top of these issues are massive nuclear decommissioning costs worn by taxpayers. The UK government estimated in 2022 it will cost UK taxpayers £132bn to decommission civil nuclear sites, with the work taking 120 years.

These cost estimates have doubled in the past decade, and could easily double again by the time they are imposed on the people. Add to this the fact the UK has no facility for permanently and safely storing the waste from past, present or future nuclear power stations. 

Far from depending on nuclear, UK electricity consumers rely on its world leading wind industry and international grid connectivity to keep power prices down and to keep their lights on.

Dutton and O’Brien tout Rolls Royce as a preferred supplier of still mythical small modular reactors (SMR). What the LNP doesn’t mention is that Rolls Royce doesn’t actually build SMRs for electricity markets, nor does it even have a single approval or final investment decision, despite milking significant government funding over many years. 

A flurry of press releases and yet more UK government subsidies doesn’t alter the fact that there isn’t even an SMR factory under construction or approved. 

The LNP’s claim that Rolls Royce will have an SMR operational by 2030 anywhere is also far-fetched, and arguably a physical impossibility. Since it is now reported that Rolls Royce’s SMR subsidiary is running out of cash, and Rolls Royce considering divesting, SMRs are looking more and more like vapourware.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against nuclear on cost, timeframe and technical grounds, the LNP, Australia’s party of small government and free markets proposes to nationalise onto taxpayers the cost of building 7 nuclear reactors – which we estimate at over $100bn – as well as decades of massive construction risks and delays, and higher power bills in the short, medium and longer term. 

A cursory look at the international experience is enough to expose the LNP’s shameless con, designed only to disrupt and delay our accelerating transition to abundant, reliable, low-cost firmed renewables. 

Tim Buckley is director of independent think tank Climate Energy Finance. John Hewson, is former leader of the LNP and Honorary Professorial Fellow at ANU.