Under the Opposition's nuclear scheme Australians will pay more to sit in the dark

Peter Dutton has today confirmed his nuclear scheme will not bring down household bills and will instead leave Australians paying billions to sit in the dark.

Despite their bold claims that the most expensive form of energy will bring down bills, the Coalition’s dodgy costings released today are silent on tackling household bills. The report simply says on page 18: “they do not, at this stage, present any results for price.”

But experts have previously found that adding nuclear to Australia’s energy mix would push up power bills by up to $1,200 a year, while it risks blackouts as households wait 20 years for reactors to come online.

Aside from failing to offer anything to households on power bills, there are three immediate fatal flaws in the Coalition’s nuclear energy costings.

One, the Coalition are irresponsibly asserting that costs will be lower because Australians will use less power. They ignore the independent advice from the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Peter Dutton’s nuclear scheme isn’t a plan to meet our growing energy needs –it’s nothing more than a recipe for bringing our economic growth to a halt.

Two, the costs don’t reflect any real world experience. The Coalition’s modelling spuriously assumes nuclear will be supplied at $30Mwh. The CSIRO, which bases their work on the international experience, says that in order to pay off its costs, it needs a price of between $145-$238Mwh.

The Coalition is ignoring the massive cost blowouts and delays seen routinely around the world during the construction of nuclear reactors, including in countries where the industry is well established.

These costings are also silent on how much taxpayers will pay for it, and exactly what services Peter Dutton would cut to fund his nuclear scheme. Given his mega costs today are equivalent to more than 10 years of the Medicare budget Australians should be worried.

Three, the Coalition just takes a guess that there is no need to build transmission to get power into homes and businesses. They invent a $52 billion difference in transmission spend, but have no plan to transport nuclear energy to wherever it’s needed.

Nothing in today’s so-called “costings” addresses the need for energy bills coming down now or the near-universal evidence that nuclear would take too long, cost too much, and slow renewable investment and generation. This is not a plan to keep the lights on.

Australia needs new, cheap power now, not expensive power in 20 years. Ageing, expensive and unreliable coal plants are closing and we have to fill the gap. Dutton’s nuclear scheme would have us short on power for two decades – a sure-fire recipe for rolling and expensive blackouts.

Labor’s plan is delivering cheaper energy right now. Since coming to Government we have brought online new electricity that is the equivalent of more than 3 entire Snowy Hydro schemes.  

Australia is on track to bring more renewable energy online this year than any other year, and bills are forecast to come down as more renewables come online over the next decade.

We are rolling out batteries that can store renewable energy around the country – providing enough power storage to cater for 90% of peak household demand to make sure night or day Australians have the power when and where they need it.