Divide and squander: Dutton wants seven nuclear power plants, the first by 2035

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has finally revealed the federal Coalition’s nuclear plan, or at least bits of it.

The headline is that seven plants are proposed at current and former coal fired power stations, with the first to be built within a decade, despite the lack of any support from state governments, the site’s owners or the energy industry in general, and its huge costs.

The plan was outlined by Dutton and other senior members of the Coalition at a press conference in Sydney on Wednesday morning, and the pitch opened with an outright lie: Dutton’s claim that the Australian Energy Market Operator says renewables will lead to “a greater likelihood of blackouts and brownouts.”

In fact, AEMO has made it very, very clear that the opposite it true, and that the biggest and most costly danger to Australia’s energy security is keeping coal-fired power stations online, which is the Coalition’s stated intention.

But the Coalition nuclear strategy is not based on facts. It’s a populist appear to votes and the media release and presser were accordingly strong on rhetoric – and scare campaigns about the lights going out – and short on detail.

The sites targeted are Loy Yang in Victoria, Liddell and Mt Piper in the NSW Hunter Valley, Callide and Tarong in Queensland, Port Augusta in South Australia and Collie in Western Australia.

Dutton says the Coalition is looking at a mixture of small modular reactors – in South Australia and Western Australia – or larger plants such as the APR1400 or the AP1000 – the model whose cost overruns sent Westinghouse to bankruptcy in the US in 2017 – in the other states.

Dutton says the SMRs could be producing electricity by 2035 – even though no commercial SMR yet exists anywhere in the world, or even has planning approval, or even a licence.

The Coalition’s timeline assumes getting a project up and running within a decade of winning power in the next federal election, despite the absence of a regulatory regime, the lack of industry expertise, and federal and state bans in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

None of those states support nuclear power, not even Queensland LNP leader and likely next premier David Crisafulli.

The Coalition says the plants will be Commonwealth owned and taxpayer funded, which makes nonsense of Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor’s claim that no subsidies are needed. Detailed analysis from Australia’s CSIRO, Lazard and BloombergNEF all point to the technology being the most expensive in the world.

Instead, the Coalition proposes – as predicted by Renew Economy on several occasions – to direct the taxpayer funds for the entire entire venture through the federal government’s ownership of Snowy Hydro, which already has one disastrous vanity project on its hands in the form of Snowy 2.0.

Dutton then moved quickly on to the next lie, that Labor is promising 28,000 km of new transmission lines by 2030. It isn’t, AEMO’s Integrated System Plan foresees around 5,000kms by 2030, a third of which has already been built.

Lie number three, published in the Coalition media release, is that “of the world’s 20 largest economies, Australia is the only one not using nuclear energy, or moving towards using it.”

Again, not true. Germany has dumped it, so too has Italy. Others are talking about it but not moving very fast. France is significantly reducing its share of nuclear and other countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland have discussed phasing out nuclear power due to high cost and waste issues, according to Dr Asma Aziz, from Edith Cowan University.

Lie number 4: That wind turbines have a life span of 19 years. One of the country’s oldest wind farms has just announced it will now close in 2033, 30 years after it was built. New wind farms have a life span of at least 35 years.

Dutton’s contention that his nuclear plans require no new transmission is also contentious. The 1.4 gigawatt units cited in the media release are double the size of any other unit ever built in Australia’s main grid and will require a significant upgrade of transmission and back-up capacity in case of a trip or outage.

Other investors, including the site owners, have plans for that transmission. In Collie, for instance, two of the country’s biggest batteries are already under construction, and more are planned. There likely won’t be room for either a big nuclear power station at the site, or the transmission capacity to transport it to where the power is needed.

However, Dutton’s position is not an appeal to the energy industry, but an attempt to divide the electorate – with the promise of “24/7” clean power, lower bills, no blackouts – designed as a populist appeal, however unrealistic and fantastic the claims might be.

Industry believes – as iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest pointed out on Tuesday – that the nuclear plan will simply squander Australia’s wind and solar advantage, and threaten its exports.

“The Coalition’s nuclear policy is a recipe for delay and skyrocketing energy bills,” the Clean Energy Councils Kane Thornton said on Wednesday.

“Australia has no nuclear power industry, so building new reactors would take at least 20 years and cost six times more. This is a policy that would deliver nothing for at least 20 years, result in much higher power prices and risk the lights going out as coal power stations continue to close.”

The Smart Energy Council agreed: “The Federal Opposition’s nuclear strategy is in reality a plan to keep burning coal – this is a hugely expensive CoalKeeper policy,” said SEC chief executive John Grimes.

“Nuclear energy will not arrive in Australia until 2040 at the latest, so this is all about extending the life of highly polluting coal-fired power stations at taxpayer expense.

“Everyone knows nuclear equals higher power bills and higher carbon pollution by extending the life of coal-fired power stations. This so-called energy policy is for the fossil fuel lobby, not for Australians, or the planet.”

Federal energy minister noted that the Coalition plan had no costing, no gigawatts and no detail. “It’s a joke, but a serious joke because it threatens Australia’s renewable transition,” Bowen said.

Note: Story updated to correct venue of press conference to Sydney instead of Canberra.