The federal government has again rejected opposition demands it consider embedding nuclear power in the energy network as ageing coal-fired power stations are shut down.
In a speech on Friday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will reportedly say the government is “mesmerised” by alternative energy sources such as solar and wind and should consider building small modular nuclear reactors.
“If nuclear power is so prohibitively expensive, why are more than 50 countries investing in it, including those with smaller economies than Australia?” Mr Dutton will say, according to The Australian Financial Review.
“Conveniently, the energy minister (Chris Bowen) is reluctant to mention the costs of storage and transmission when he talks about renewables being cheaper.”
Asked if the government supported nuclear power, Labor frontbencher Jason Clare said “no”.
“They cost about $400 million bucks and take years and years to build,” he told Nine’s Today Show on Friday.
“Follow the money …. you can see what’s needed here – as all the old coal-fired power stations shut down, they need to be replaced by something and what the private sector’s doing is investing in the cleanest form of new energy and that’s renewable energy.”
Mr Dutton later told Nine reactor technology was “cost-effective”, safe and would support renewable energy and bring power prices down.
“The small modular reactor is the same technology as the government is using on the submarines,” he said.
“So we can deal with it safely and it can firm up renewables.
“It isn’t a competitor to renewables.”
Mr Dutton said there needed to be a national conversation about nuclear reactors.
“You can turn off old coal-fired power stations, put the small pod hard reactors in and it allows it (energy) to be distributed across the existing network,” he said.