The election is just weeks away and Peter Dutton has still not answered any of the key questions about how his nuclear energy pitch would work beyond naming the seven sites where the Coalition says it might eventually – mostly in the 2040s – use taxpayer funding to build power plants.
He is rarely even asked. Polling suggests he has a reasonable chance of moving into the Lodge in a few weeks.
If he’s good as his word, Dutton would attempt to put the brakes on investment in large-scale solar and windfarms and battery storage, which has just taken off and begun to approach the pace needed to get close to Labor’s goal of 82% renewable energy by 2030 and replace a fleet of coal-fired power plants nearing the end of their lives.
It would require billions of dollars of taxpayer funding to maintain the old, run-down coal plants in an effort to keep them functioning for longer. Experts say there is no guarantee it would succeed.
Dutton and his climate and energy shadow minister, Ted O’Brien, suggest this approach – limiting the amount of new capacity entering the system, reducing competition in the electricity market and relying more on ageing infrastructure – would somehow improve grid reliability and lead to cheaper bills in the short-term than otherwise would be expected. He hasn’t explained how.
Over the past year, coal-fired power on the national grid has on average cost 2 ½ times more for each megawatt hour of electricity than solar energy and 60% more than wind energy. Gas-fired power was even more expensive – about twice as much as coal.
Dutton’s claim that his plan would lead to cheaper power bills in the near future isn’t supported by the modelling that was released to back it up. But the soundbite survives.
The Coalition’s approach of burning more coal and gas for longer would also substantially increase greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity grid for at least the next two decades, just as scientists are stressing – again – the need for urgent action and investors are highlighting the potential benefits of developing green industries that may no longer see a future in the US.
Dutton appears immune to these arguments. He has opposed and said he would review, and possibly abolish, measures introduced to limit climate pollution from heavy industry and transport (which, together, are responsible for more than 50% of Australia’s emissions). Both skyrocketed in the Coalition’s near decade in power last time around.
Despite this, the Coalition claims that it is committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050. There is nothing at all to back that up, but the strategy is clear: say the line, watch it be repeated by news media, and voilà! Political problem dealt with.
Fans of meaningful political debate should hope it’s not that simple. Certainly, some within the Coalition tent see problems with their party’s position.
Take senator Matt Canavan, a former cabinet minister and leading climate-denying voice from the Coalition’s right flank. He doesn’t like renewable energy but believes his colleagues are “not serious” about nuclear energy, that it “ain’t the cheapest form of power” and that Dutton is promoting it because it “fixes a political issue for us”.
Or take Christopher Pyne, from the Liberals’ moderate wing and a senior minister under three Liberal prime ministers. Writing in Nine newspapers last month, he argued compellingly that a nuclear power plant would never be commissioned if the opposition was elected but – in what he described as “good news for Dutton” – suggested it was unlikely this reality would dawn on most people before the election.
Put another way: the Coalition could sail into power arguing for something that people within the party realise can’t and won’t be delivered.
That’s certainly the view of many in the energy sector. The chief executive of AGL, Damien Nicks, last week stressed what many say privately – that time and cost made nuclear a non-option to meet Australia’s electricity needs, and the focus must be building what the grid needs now – renewables, batteries, pumped hydro and fast-start gas “peakers” as backup on the few days a year when they are needed.
Nicks could hardly have been more dismissive of Dutton’s short-term positioning, saying: “We’re making 20-year decisions that will outlive changes in politics every three or four years.”
AGL is not without sin in the chequered history of Australian climate politics, but this sort of long-term view is the only sensible position an energy company can take.
The transition of the power grid is a challenging logistical exercise, and all sides of politics are guilty of over-simplifying what is involved – and their ability to keep power prices down. Labor has spent the past three years regretting its pre-election claim that its policies would lead to a $275 cut in household bills by 2025, something it couldn’t have guaranteed even if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hadn’t triggered a sharp rise in the price of coal and gas.
The reality is that power prices are not likely to come down whoever is in power. The goal is to limit the rise and set the country up with a reliable and clean system as rapidly as possible.
The job is made much harder without bipartisan support. What’s galling to those working in the industry is that the Coalition is proposing to upend the current path just as a version of a workable future is starting to take shape.
The east coast grid now runs on about 43% renewable energy. Despite what is claimed, this is not causing blackouts. Clean Energy Council data last week showed investors committed to about 1.6GW of new solar and wind capacity in the final quarter of 2024, roughly the scale that is needed every three months to get somewhere near Labor’s 82% target.
It was published as the parliament passed a bill that delivers tax credits to green industries – hydrogen and critical minerals – that reach production stage from 2027. Labor also accepted a Greens amendment to a separate electricity-related bill that formalised its targets for clean energy expansion – at least 23 GW of new renewable energy plants and 9 GW of storage capacity – in law.
These are substantial changes that passed with relatively little fanfare. They are evidence of what can happen through cross-parliamentary agreement.
But the Coalition continues to head in another direction, arguing – as the Nationals’ leader David Littleproud did on Monday – that you can’t run an economy the size of Australia on renewable energy. Why not, given the Australian Energy Market Operator has found otherwise? He didn’t say.
Adam Morton is Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor
