A February 26 page-one article in The Australian newspaper ran under the headline ‘Powerful majority supports nuclear option for energy security’.
“Labor is now at risk of ending up on the wrong side of history in its fanatical opposition to nuclear power,” political editor Simon Benson wrote, adding that Labor “ignores this community sentiment potentially at its peril”.
The Murdoch papers ran hard with the story, as did Sky News. The Murdoch-Sky media frenzy was based on the results of a Newspoll survey which found 55 percent support for replacing coal-fired power plants with (non-existent) small modular nuclear reactors.
But the 55 percent majority was slim, not ‘powerful’, and the Newspoll survey was a crude example of push-polling as discussed by polling experts Kevin Bonham and Murray Goot and economist Prof. John Quiggin.
To note just one example of the bias, if NuScale Power’s 77-megawatt reactors were chosen to replace coal plants, 277 nuclear reactors would be required, not ‘several’ as the Newspoll survey question stated. And if we use NuScale’s latest construction cost estimate, the cost would be A$656 billion.
Tony Barry, a former deputy state director and strategist for the Victorian Liberal Party, describes the Coalition’s decision to make nuclear power the centrepiece of its energy and climate policy as “the longest suicide note in Australian political history”.
Barry is now a director at the research consultancy RedBridge. On the strength of a detailed RedBridge analysis of Australians’ attitudes to nuclear power, he says that just 35 percent of Australians support nuclear power and that only coal is less popular. If the Coalition is to have any chance of winning the next election it will not be with nuclear power, he states.
Peter Dutton’s positioning of the Coalition is all wrong, Barry says, and the party continues to play to “internal audiences” — in particular the right-wing echo-chamber typified by Murdoch’s ‘Sky after dark’.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears unconcerned by Murdoch push-polling purporting to show majority support for nuclear power. Speaking in parliament, he compared Peter Dutton to a nuclear reactor: “One is risky, expensive, divisive and toxic; the other is a nuclear reactor. The bad news for the Liberal Party is that you can put both on a corflute, and we certainly intend to do so.”
‘Stark raving mad’
The Murdoch-Coalition echo-chamber is drinking its own bathwater by taking pro-nuclear push-polling seriously.
The pro-nuclear bias of the Murdoch media is plain for all to see, and has been confirmed by a recent academic analysis. A note of dissent recently came from James Campbell, a political editor for Murdoch newspapers and websites across Australia. He says the Coalition’s nuclear policy is “stark raving mad” and he quotes an unnamed Coalition MP saying the policy is “madness on steroids”.
Campbell writes:
“You’d have thought that a mob that so easily unpicked the lead of the Yes case at the Voice referendum would understand that support for anything radical in Australia shrinks the moment it hits any sort of concerted opposition.
“And support for this is weak to start with – 35 per cent in favour versus 32 per cent opposed according to a recent RedBridge poll. …
“If we accept the next election is going to be all about the current cost-of-living crisis then nuclear power isn’t going to be much of a help to the Coalition, given it is at least 10 to 15 years away.
“Worse, not only will nuclear energy not be much help as a cost-of-living policy, its salience will make sure that no one gets to hear about whatever policies the Coalition does offer. …
“Then there’s the unity problem. Do you really think Liberal candidates in “tealy” places are going to face the front on this? …
“And that’s even before you get to the state Liberal leaders! How many of them do you reckon are going to be lining up to sing this policy’s praises? …
“Madness. It’s total madness.”
Unbiased nuclear polls
Unbiased polls find that support for nuclear power in Australia falls short of a majority; that Australians support renewables to a far greater extent than nuclear power; that a majority do not want nuclear reactors built near where they live; and that most Australians are concerned about nuclear accidents and nuclear waste.
Here are the results from some polls in Australia over the past five years, with a decent sample size and questions that weren’t designed to push respondents in one direction or another:
* 2024 Resolve Political Monitor survey commissioned by the Nine newspapers: 36 percent support nuclear power, 23 percent opposed, 15 percent undecided, 27 percent “do not have a strong view, and would like to see the government investigate its use”.
* 2023 Freshwater Strategy Poll: 35 percent support nuclear power, 35 percent opposed, 18 percent neutral, 12 percent unsure. Thirty-seven percent agree that ‘Australia does not need to generate any energy from nuclear power’, 36 percent disagree, 27 percent neutral. Forty-four percent agree that Australia should remove the legal ban on nuclear power development, 29 percent disagree, 25 percent neutral.
* 2023 Essential poll: 50 percent support Australia developing nuclear power plants for the generation of electricity, 33 percent opposed, 18 percent unsure.
* 2023 Savanta study commissioned by the pro-nuclear Radiant Energy Group: 40 percent strongly support or tend to support using nuclear energy to generate electricity in Australia, 36 percent strongly oppose or tend to oppose, 17 percent neutral, 7 percent don’t know. The study found that those who are most climate-concerned are least likely to support the use of nuclear power. (Perhaps they are better educated on the issues and the options.)
* 2019 Essential poll: 44 percent support nuclear power, 40 percent opposed.
* 2019 Roy Morgan Poll: 45 percent support nuclear power, 40 percent opposed.
The Coalition (and other supporters) can take comfort that support for nuclear power exceeds opposition in most of those polls. But support doesn’t reach a majority in any of them.
Dr. Rebecca Huntley, director of research at 89 Degrees East, told the Nine newspapers that participants in focus groups were bringing up nuclear power more often than before the last federal election, but support usually dissolved once the discussion turned to timelines, logistics and the issue of how to store nuclear waste.
RedBridge pollster Kos Samaras told the Nine newspapers that the question of social licence would be impossible to overcome because soft support for nuclear power would evaporate and bump up against hard opposition which he puts as high as 32 percent.
Murray Goot says that “majority support” was being conflated with “strong support” in the Murdoch newspapers, adding: “A metre wide doesn’t necessarily mean a metre thick.” Moreover, he notes that the February Newspoll survey only achieved majority support by manipulating both the question and the response options.
A gender divide is clearly evident: the Savanta study found that men are more supportive of nuclear power than women in all 20 countries surveyed, including Australia.
Sticker shock
Some polls indicate that Australians need educating on this issue. A 2019 Essential poll found that 51 percent of respondents believed that nuclear power would help lower power prices, while 26 percent disagreed. The 2023 Savanta study found that 35 percent of respondents in Australia think that nuclear power would make their energy bills cheaper while 28 percent think it would make them more expensive.
In a 2023 Essential poll, 38 percent of respondents ranked renewables as the “most expensive” option, 34 percent ranked nuclear the most expensive option, and 28 percent ranked fossil fuels the most expensive option. But Essential also found that 60 percent of respondents agreed with the proposition that ‘Australia needs to rapidly develop renewables because it will provide a cheaper and stable energy source, and create jobs’, while only 17 percent disagreed.
Simon Benson wrote in the Australian that “any Coalition energy policy must be framed in a cost-of-living context that can demonstrate how nuclear power will deliver cheaper and more reliable power into the future.”
But nuclear power would increase both power bills and taxes and the only way that the Coalition can get around that problem is by lying and continuing to attack CSIRO’s detailed costings. The latest CSIRO GenCost report gives these 2030 cost estimates: small modular reactors A$212-353 per megawatt-hour, 90% wind and solar with integration costs (energy storage and transmission) A$69-101 per megawatt-hour.
Nuclear power could also involve the curtailment of rooftop solar to allow reactors to run smoothly and profitably. Put that in the electoral pipe and smoke it.
Teal independents
Chris Kenny, the Australian’s associate editor, says “the nuclear argument could play well in the teal seats where there is an eagerness for climate change and a high degree of economic realism.”
Good luck with that, Chris.
Zali Steggall participated in a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into nuclear power and concluded that it “is unlikely that new nuclear will be able to compete with renewables … especially given the rate of price deflation of renewables.”
Allegra Spender says that nuclear power “is too slow, too expensive and the UK Hinkley experience shows the costs are too uncertain for it to be relevant to our current energy plans.”
The latest Hinkley Point cost estimate is A$89 billion for the two reactors under construction or A$44.5 billion per reactor. That’s more than 10 times higher than initial estimates. On a site where reactors have operated since the 1960s, in a country with vastly more nuclear expertise and experience than Australia. The UK National Audit Office estimates that taxpayer subsidies for the Hinkley Point project could amount to £30 billion (A$58 billion).
In 2006, then UK industry secretary Alistair Darling said that the private sector would have to “initiate, fund, construct and operate” nuclear power plants. Since then, several proposed nuclear plants have been abandoned and the only project to reach construction is being propped up by an estimated A$58 billion from taxpayers. You wouldn’t wish nuclear power on your worst enemy but the Dutton Coalition wishes it on Australian taxpayers.
Opposition to locally-built nuclear reactors
Opposition to locally-built nuclear power reactors has been clear and consistent for 20 years or more. Here are some recent poll results:
* 2023 AFR / Freshwater Strategy Poll: Around one-quarter of voters would tolerate a nuclear plant being built within 50 km of their home, while a majority (53 percent) would oppose it.
* 2022 Pure Profile poll: “Around 50 percent” of respondents in Australia, the US and Canada would feel “uncomfortable” if a new nuclear power station were built in their city. For the Australian respondents, 27 percent would feel “extremely uncomfortable”, 7 percent would feel “extremely at ease”.
* 2019 Essential poll: 28 percent “would be comfortable living close to a nuclear power plant”, 60 percent would not.
* 2019 Roy Morgan poll: 19 percent would agree to a nuclear power plant being built in their area, 58 percent would be opposed and a further 23 percent would be “anxious” (so 81 percent would be opposed or anxious).
Kos Samaras from RedBridge offered this qualitative analysis: “If people are losing their minds about whales bumping into offshore wind turbines, they’re going to be a little bit more animated when it comes to conventional nuclear reactors being built in nearby locations, which they have to be because they need water.”
Nuclear lobbyists would need to convince residents living in the vicinity of proposed nuclear reactors to accept the “non-negligible” risk of a “catastrophic failing within a nuclear system”, to use the words of Dr. Ziggy Switkowski.
The difficulty or impossibility of insuring against losses from a nuclear accident would also animate local residents, just as it did when the Howard government was progressing plans for a new nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights, south of Sydney.
Nuclear waste and accidents are major concerns
The September 2023 Freshwater Strategy Poll found that a majority of respondents (55 percent) agreed with the proposition ‘I am concerned that nuclear plants are unsafe and people will be harmed’ while 27 percent disagreed and 17 percent were neutral.
The 2023 Savanta poll found that 77 percent of respondents were concerned about nuclear waste management compared to 18 percent not concerned; and 77 percent were concerned about “health & safety (i.e. nuclear meltdowns, impact on people living nearby)” compared to 21 percent not concerned.
A November 2012 Essential poll found that 63 percent of respondents agreed that nuclear power isn’t worth it because of the need to manage radioactive waste, and 62 percent agreed that nuclear power is too risky because of the potential for serious accidents.
Younger voters
The Murdoch-Coalition echo-chamber was especially excited about younger poll respondents in the February Newspoll survey (65 percent support, 32 percent opposition). But the poll was biased and as Goot notes, other polls reach different conclusions:
“But eighteen- to thirty-four-year-olds as the age group most favourably disposed to nuclear power is not what Essential shows, not what Savanta shows, and not what RedBridge shows. “In October’s Essential poll, no more than 46 per cent of respondents aged eighteen to thirty-four supported “nuclear power plants” — the same proportion as those aged thirty-six to fifty-four but a smaller proportion than those aged fifty-five-plus (56 per cent); the proportion of “strong” supporters was actually lower among those aged eighteen to thirty-four than in either of the other age-groups.
“In the Savanta survey, those aged eighteen to thirty-four were the least likely to favour nuclear energy; only about 36 per cent were in favour, strongly or otherwise, not much more than half the number that Newspoll reported.
“And according to a report of the polling conducted in February by RedBridge, sourced to Tony Barry, a partner and former deputy state director of the Victorian Liberal Party, “[w]here there is support” for nuclear power “it is among only those who already vote Liberal or who are older than 65”.”
Renewables are far more popular than nuclear
Opinion polls clearly show that renewables are far more popular than nuclear power:
* December 2023 AFR / Freshwater Strategy Poll: 81 percent support for solar energy, onshore wind 57 percent, offshore wind 57 percent, gas 53 percent, hydrogen 48 percent, nuclear 35 percent, coal 33 percent.
* September 2023 AFR / Freshwater Strategy Poll: Solar energy is the most popular energy source (84 percent support, 6 percent opposed), onshore and offshore wind are next (61 and 58 percent support, 12 percent opposed), while nuclear (35 percent support, 35 percent opposed) and coal (33 percent support, 35 percent opposed) are the least popular. Among Coalition voters, there is more support for renewables (35 percent) than nuclear (32 percent) as the ‘best option for energy generation in Australia’. For Labor voters, 62 percent think renewables are the best option, 17 percent nuclear. For Greens voters, 78 percent renewables, 6 percent nuclear.
* 2023 Savanta poll: 56 percent of Australian respondents think the energy transition should focus on renewables (41 percent large-scale solar farms, 15 percent onshore wind farms), 23 percent think it should focus on nuclear power.
* 2023 Australia Institute survey: 27 percent included nuclear power in their top three preferences, behind solar 68 percent, wind 51 percent, hydro 39 percent and power storage 28 percent.
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group.
