Op Ed: Opposition's plan for nuclear - published in the AFR

Culture war driving Coalition's plan to stop renewables rollout

What drives the Liberal Party’s push toward nuclear energy is not a concern that Australia’s renewable energy transformation is happening too slowly. The opposite is true. The Liberal and National Parties are concerned that our energy policies are too effective for their comfort, given their ideological opposition to renewables. 

Renewable energy generation in the national grid is up 25% since we came to office, with 8.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy added to our grid. The first auction of the Capacity Investment Scheme which will support 6 gigawatts of new power has received more than 40 gigawatts of project registrations, showing there is a strong pipeline of renewables ready to go with the right policy settings. 

Already Tasmania is powered by reliable renewables. South Australians are at times powered by rooftop solar alone. Our National Electricity Market is reaching over 40% renewable generation. 

In difficult international circumstances, all this is working to stabilise and ultimately bring down prices. The Australian Energy Market Operator, who run our electricity grid, have said that “we are increasingly seeing renewable energy records being set which is a good thing for Australian consumers as it is key in driving prices down”.  

When Labor came into office, wholesale prices were $375 a megawatt/hour. Over the first quarter of this year, they were $76 a megawatt/hour.

Australians know that renewables drive down prices. We have the highest uptake of rooftop solar in the world for a reason, and that shows no signs of stopping. We saw over 330,000 rooftop solar installations last year alone. 

Lower wholesale prices are now flowing through to retail prices. The release of the Default Market Offer in May showed the retail energy bill benchmark stabilising and trending downwards after the biggest global energy crisis in 50 years. The Offer shows price reductions in most jurisdictions – with nearly 9% reduction for some small businesses and up to 5.9% reduction for some households.

We know that many people are under pressure, which is why from 1 July, our Government will provide a $300 energy bill rebate to every household. That’s a plan that will help people just 10 days from now, not two decades from now.

And yet the Coalition are clear in their aims. The alternative Deputy Prime Minister boasts that they will impose a cap on renewable energy investment and engineer a pause in renewables. His promise to rip up offshore wind contracts is an attack on international investment and the local communities that will rely on this energy to power industry and keep jobs.

It's hard to think of a bigger potential act of economic self-harm. 

Stopping the rollout of renewables will have one impact: it will keep coal-fired power in our grid for longer. Much longer. Of course this is bad news for emissions. But it's bad news for reliability as we can’t be relying on ageing coal-fired power stations and kid ourselves that they will become more reliable as they age. It’s bad news for your wallet because coal-fired power is more expensive than renewables. 

And then, even by their highly optimistic timeframes, when the first nuclear power plant, with a yet to be known number of reactors onsite, comes online Australians can expect to be paying twice – once for the build and then for the higher bills of having the most expensive form of energy. In their rush to stop renewables they’ve abandoned cheaper power bills for Australians.

The only possible explanation for this economic irrationality is a culture war on and ideological prejudice against renewable energy. 

In this, Peter Dutton and David Littleproud are extraordinarily isolated. Every state government is opposed to nuclear power. Investors aren’t interested in nuclear power. And despite the rhetoric and mistruths constantly peddled by the Opposition, the rest of the world isn't interested in nuclear power. 

The fact is, the world adds as much renewable energy every few weeks as nuclear capacity will add all year. Next year, just taking offshore wind alone, the world will add two times more offshore wind capacity than it will nuclear power. The figures for onshore wind and solar dwarf this equation. 

This is not because the world is morally opposed to nuclear power. Neither is my opposition to nuclear power driven by an ideological or moral concern. It is simply because it doesn't stack up. Not for Australia. Not when our solar and wind are there for the taking.  

The Albanese Government is backing Australia to be a renewable energy superpower. The Dutton Opposition wants to halt the investment opportunities that are being taken up every day in Australia. This is not a debate we sought. But having brought this debate on Mr Dutton will be accountable for the massive economic cost of his folly. 

Published in the Australian Financial Review