Interview with Oliver Peterson, 6PR Perth Live

OLIVER PETERSON (HOST): Josh Wilson is the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Good afternoon.

JOSH WILSON: G’day Ollie, good to see you.

PETERSON: What do you think of the opposition's plans to go nuclear?

WILSON: Well, I think it's bizarre. In a way, I guess what they've come up with tells a story. It took them six months, and they decided to release it on Friday the 13th in the shadow of Christmas. It's a pretty unattractive proposition and, essentially it continues their approach, which is really to try and perpetrate a bit of a fraud on the Australian people.

They didn't have a national energy policy in government. They don't have one now. And they think that taking us down the path of an old technology, which is the most expensive form of energy generation, is somehow an answer to the serious challenges that we have now, and on top of that, in addition to taking the whole Australian community for mugs, they must have a pretty dim view of Western Australians, because the proposition for us is a small modular reactor, a kind of nuclear technology that doesn't even exist.

PETERSON: So, their argument is that your renewable plan versus their nuclear plan is actually more expensive to the tunes of more than $100 billion. I thought, like you thought, that the nuclear technology was the most expensive in terms of infrastructure. They argue yours will only service the market for a third of the day and you'll have to build even more storage facilities, infrastructure to be able to build up that capacity to run the air conditioners and turn the lights on at night.

WILSON: Yeah, I mean, it's like a cheap card trick, Ollie, and they achieve that sort of fantasy, or that illusion, by doing two things. First of all, wildly optimistic about the costs of nuclear. It is the most expensive form of new energy generation, and all evidence around the world is that it takes a long, long, long time. It costs a lot of money, money that doesn't involve private investment at all. I mean, that's one thing people should hold on to. Their proposition is entirely government funded, which means all of it comes out of the pockets of Australian taxpayers, adding on average, $1,200 to household bills, and taking $600 billion out of the Commonwealth budget, which that 600 billion then can't be used for pensions, health, schools, the social safety net and so on. So that's the first part of the trick is to be wildly and unrealistically optimistic about nuclear, which is phenomenally expensive.

And then the second part is that their whole model presumes that we'll actually use 30% less power in 2050. And so really, if you want to kind of boil it down, what they're saying is we reckon we can build you a house cheaper than you might otherwise get, but that requires the bricks to be completely free, and don't worry, we're not putting a roof on. That's essentially what they're trying to con Australians with, in addition to what I said before, which is for South Australia and WA, those two states, we're supposed to get a kind of technology that doesn't actually exist.

And, really, this is a serious issue. The energy transformation is a serious matter globally, with lots of opportunities for us here in Australia, because we've got the best renewable energy resources in the world, but it needs to be taken seriously. And I do think it's a shame that, after not managing a national energy policy themselves in Government, their only proposition now is this nuclear con.

PETERSON: Well, the AEMO and obviously CSIRO believe that their plan is going to be more expensive. And I did ask Ted O'Brien that a little bit earlier. But ultimately here, Josh, there's going to be lots of numbers going back and forward from you and the government and them in the opposition. In the end, it's probably going to confuse most Australians. Will it shift the needle, though? Is this just going to be what the battleground is now, up until the federal election, renewables versus nuclear and energy policy debates? And is there some thought, do you think, by the opposition here, that they can prosecute this up against somebody like your Environment Minister, your Climate Change Minister, in both Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen?

WILSON: Well, I guess that's an interesting question, Ollie, and we will find out. But I put a fair bit of faith in the kind of common sense of Australians, and Australians have seen the reality of renewable energy, because more than a third of Australians have gone and put solar PV on their roofs, in Western Australia it's two in five. So, 40% of households and those costs have come down. The cost of solar PV has come down 85% in the last 10 years. Last year, the cost of long duration battery storage, which is part of the next step, getting more storage into the system, they came down by 20%. So Western Australians, and Australians as a whole, know that renewable energy is real. It's here. It's getting cheaper all the time. It lowers the costs to households, and it is part of a cleaner and greener future that lets us turn that incredible comparative advantage in renewable energy resources into new industries like green steel and low carbon liquid fuels, the kinds of things that the world is crying out for.

As against that you've got this proposition that after never, ever having nuclear in this country, and when you look at it globally as a technology that's in decline – like it peaked as a proportion of global energy in 1996, the number of reactors peaked in 2002 – it's basically on the slide everywhere. But hey presto, Peter Dutton’s suggestion is that we take this enormous gamble, this enormous risk, and we go with this old, expensive, inflexible, uninsurable, uninvestable, and in some ways dangerous and risky to human health and the environment. We go down that path instead, and put basically all of Australia's taxpayers’ dollars on this one bet. And I just can't believe that, on balance, the Australian community, and particularly the West Australian community, would want to be part of a gamble that is as dangerous and risky as that.

PETERSON: Yeah, I put it to Ted O'Brien when we spoke a little bit earlier, Josh, that does it help perhaps the coalition, when they're prosecuting the argument that the likes of Meta and Microsoft have started to invest themselves in nuclear energy, particularly with young voters?

WILSON: Well, again, I put a lot of faith in the common sense of young voters. I think they'll have a look at those things themselves. There might be technology companies that, in a country like the United States, that are prepared to set themselves up near to an existing nuclear facility, because they see that as being important for their own purposes. In Australia, and in Western Australia, we have no nuclear industry. We've got no history in it. We've got no need to go down that path.

The other kind of contrast I would put out there for your listeners to consider is that the plan that Peter Dutton and Ted O’Brien have dropped today suggests that in 2050, 38% of our electricity would be generated by nuclear. Thirty-eight per-cent. The most expensive form of generation would be nearly 40% of our energy mix. In the United States, they project that they will drop down from where they currently are, at about 18% – it's actually at a 25 year low in the United States at the moment – they'll drop down from 18% to 12%. They're going away from nuclear as a component of their energy mix because it's so phenomenally expensive. Last year in the US, they added 39 gigawatts of new renewables, and zero, zero gigawatts of new nuclear, because that's the reality of this technology. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton says we should go from zero to 38%. It's just unfathomable as a kind of economic proposition. It really is economic madness.

PETERSON: It will be an interesting lead up to the next federal election. I know that. We'll talk between now and then. I appreciate your time. Have a good weekend.

WILSON: Ollie, thanks Ollie, thanks for having me.