Dutton and crew get close to planned nuclear power plant site, and repeat same old nonsense

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and some of the LNP’s best and brightest gathered with invited guests on Monday atop a small hill, where they had a panoramic view of one of their chosen nuclear power plant sites, and where they could repeat their energy misinformation without contest.

Dutton, energy spokesman Ted O’Brien (sans power point), climate skeptic LNP MP Keith Pitt and local member and net zero critic Colin Boyce hosted an invitation only event on the elevated property of Dale and Hazel on Mount Murchison near Biloela in Queensland, where they could see the Callide coal facility about 10 kilometres into the distance.

The focus, of course, was on the Coalition’s nuclear power plans. Callide is one of seven current and former coal generation sites that the Coalition has identified as ideal to build nuclear power plants, with no costings and in a timeframe that virtually everyone outside the conservative political bubble concedes is impossible.

Phil Coorey, the political editor for the Australian Financial Review, wrote that “Mr Dutton was not allowed access to the Callide coal-fired power station for his press conference or community consultation.” Renew Economy made a quick phone call to Callide owner CS Energy and was told that no such request had been made.

Even Dutton is aware you can’t go inside such facilities to have a picnic and a presser, particularly given that Callide is the site where a generator blew up three years ago and nearly sent the state into a system-wide blackout, only to be protected by the quick reactions of big batteries that the Coalition does not appear to accept have been invented yet.

And for that reason, Callide is a perfect illustration why “baseload” power is not “always on”. The 420 MW Callide C4 generator blew up in May, 2021, and is still not back on line.

The Callide C3 generator next door was also off line for a year and a half because it was discovered that the cooling towers also had problems. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent rebuilding a coal generator that probably won’t be in use in a decade’s time – about a decade and a half before a large scale nuclear power plant could possibly be completed at that site.

The property belonging to Dale and Hazel is also interesting because it is right next door to something that can be built pretty quickly – a neighbouring sheep grazing property that will host the 200 MW Callide solar farm and associated 200 MW and 800 MWh battery.

That is being proposed by Edify Energy and could be up and running by the time the Callide C1 and C2 units are closed in 2028. It will still be grazing sheep.

Nev Ferrier, the mayor of the Banana Shire Council, told Renew Economy that the Callide solar and battery project is just one of a number of wind, solar and storage projects planned for the region, and which has locals excited about the future post coal.

“We’ve got heaps of them,” he says. Ferrier, an independent, attended the Dutton picnic and pow-wow along with other members of the council and invited local LNP members. He wouldn’t say much about what was said, apart from: “It (nuclear) seems like a long way off. We need to know it’s safe.”

Dutton, though, used the occasion, and the ensuing doorstop with media, to trot out the very same misinformation that he has been sprouting since he confirmed that nuclear was the Coalition’s top priority – and which has been repeatedly debunked, both on these pages and in the few other media outlets that still think fact-checking is important.

According to a transcript posted on his website, Dutton said that Australia is the only one of the world’s top 20 economies not using nuclear. “Australia is the only outlier,” he said. That’s not true.

He said the “energy regulator talks about blackouts and brownouts into the future.” We presume he means the Australian Energy Market Operator, not the regulator. Again, that’s simply not true.

Dutton had some rubbery numbers too. Ontario, he says, is 60-70 per cent nuclear (try 56 per cent), wind farms only last 25 years (try at least 30 years), and he said heavy industry, like the smelters in Gladstone, can’t run on renewables, which might be news to Rio Tinto which has just signed the country’s biggest contracts to do just that (with flexible firming power).

“A modern economy can’t run on intermittent power,” Dutton said, ignoring the fact that South Australia has done just that with a world-leading share of 70 per cent wind and solar and aims to be at 100 per cent net renewables by 2027, and is attracting a lot of new heavy industry.

No one pretends wind and solar does not need storage and other backup. So does nuclear.

Dutton was asked about AEMO’s observation that nuclear cannot be built before coal fired power stations like Callide close, a view shared by the Australian Energy Regulator, and just about every generation and network company and energy expert in the country.

“It’s an outlier view,” Dutton said of the head of the organisation responsible for keeping the lights on and the industry as a whole. Clearly, he has been taking notes from O’Brien.

“So, let’s have an honest discussion,” Dutton said. Yes, do let’s! Finally, a point of agreement, but we’re not going to be holding our breath waiting for it.