Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has unveiled a plan to build large-scale nuclear reactors at five possible sites across – winning the endorsement of pro-nuclear advocate Dick Smith.
Ted O’Brien, the Coalition’s energy spokesman, made waves on Monday morning by flagging having large-scale reactors, and not just small modular ones, as part of ‘s nuclear mix.
The Coalition shadow cabinet is reportedly considering a series of sites where nuclear power plants could be based in , with former or retiring coal-fired power stations favoured.
Those locations already have existing transmission lines, which would save taxpayers money on having to build new transmission towers.
They include large coal-fired power plants in the NSW Hunter Valley, like Eraring due to close in 2025 and Liddell, which shut in 2023.
The Yallourn power station in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley, due to close in 2028, is another possibility along with the Loy Yang-B plant near Traralgon, slated for closure in the early 2030s.
The Callide B power station in central Queensland is due to close in 2028.
That plan – first revealed by Sky News – won the endorsement of entrepreneur Dick Smith who has, for the past three decades, championed the cause of bringing nuclear energy to .
Mr Smith told Daily Mail he welcomed the Liberal Party’s embrace of modern nuclear technology – regardless of the scale – because renewable energy was too unreliable.
‘They’re on the right track,’ he said on Tuesday.
‘We have got to stop using fossil fuels and there’s no way that a whole country can run on wind and solar – it’s never been done; not even a city has been able to be run continuously.’
Dick Smith has weighed in as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton flags a nuclear power policy involving large-scale reactors
Mr Smith, who turns 80 in less than a fortnight, has been an advocate for small modular reactors, which don’t yet exist anywhere in the world on a large scale as an answer for zero emissions energy.
Corporations including the likes of Rolls Royce have been developing SMR technology, which would see small nuclear power plants the size of shipping containers built in factories and transported to a particular site to distribute up to 300 megawatts of power.
His favoured model for is the Barakah nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates that has been operational since 2020, with Korean technology.
This is a large-scale reactor that was built within just six years and Mr Smith has suggested doing this at retired coal-fired power plants.
‘It’s highly proven that the South Koreans are very skilled at building nuclear reactors,’ Mr Smith said.
‘My suggestion, we should just simply replace our coal power stations – get the South Koreans to build what they have done in the UAE.’
Mr Smith also suggested storing nuclear waste at Olympic Dam in South , which is also the site of a uranium mine and question Labor’s assertion nuclear energy would be expensive.
‘It doesn’t seem to be logical because in Europe the cheapest power available is in France and France is 70 per cent nuclear,’ he said.
Retired wine maker Brian McGuigan, 82, who for decades grew grapes in the NSW Hunter Valley at Dalwood near Branxton, welcomed the idea of nuclear power stations in his area as coal was replaced.
‘It would get rid of all those bloody holes in the ground and eradicate the use of coal,’ he told Daily Mail .
‘An accident is a real worry but I would have thought that, hopefully, these days they are pretty secure.’
Mr Smith, who turns 80 in less than a fortnight, has been an advocate for small modular reactors, which don’t yet exist anywhere in the world. The likes of Rolls Royce have been developing SMR technology
Mr Dutton said nuclear power had the potential to reduce electricity prices and achieve zero carbon emissions.
‘You can replace the coal-fired generators with the smaller modular reactors or the bigger modular reactors,’ he said.
‘The latest technology, it’s zero emissions, it’s lower cost and it means you can distribute the energy with the existing grid network.
‘It means you have reliability to firm up renewables in the system.’
Nationals backbencher David Gillespie, the chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of Nuclear Industries, favours small modular reactors that can plug into the electricity grid as coal-fired power stations are retired.
But the member for Lyne, on the NSW mid-north coast, said disused coal-fired power stations would make sense for larger nuclear reactors.
‘That’s what I think most people are looking at: old, coal-fired is the logical place,’ Dr Gillespie told Daily Mail .
‘It’s brownfield site, it’s got a water supply, it’s got the electrical wires, deep transmission, it can receive that amount of electricity and distribute it.
‘You don’t need to build new transmission and distribution, you just use what we’ve got already.’
But Dr Gillespie said AGL’s plan to build a 500MW, two-hour duration battery at the Liddell power station site could threaten the possibility of a nuclear reactor at Muswellbrook.
‘AGL has got other plans, for some reason, I would have thought if they were into clean energy, AGL would have been agitating the government to remove the prohibition,’ he said.
‘Instead of wasting their money building a big battery, building a reactor that they could have an even cleaner electricity grid: much cheaper and much more reliable and available virtually 100 per cent of the time.’
banned nuclear power in 1998 after Liberal prime minister John Howard agreed to a Greens amendment to get support for a new research reactor for nuclear medicine at Lucas Heights in Sydney’s south – something Dr Gillespie regrets.
‘It was in retrospect a mistake,’ he said.
‘At the moment, the roadblock for us is that when we talk to the Koreans or the Japanese or the Americans or the Brits, they’re all keen to help us but they say, “Hang on, you’re not allowed to do it”.’
Energy spokesman Mr O’Brien told the ABC’s PM program on Monday afternoon the Coalition was agnostic on nuclear technology.
‘Keep in mind our energy policy won’t be pinning itself on any one technology,’ he said.
‘Unlike the Labor Party, we are taking an all of the above approach where all technologies should be duly considered and on the table.’
He also flagged his support for larger reactors.
‘Any coal-to-nuclear strategy should consider different types of new and emerging nuclear technologies, from advanced micro reactors to small modular reactors and next-generation large reactors,’ he told The n.
The Coalition shadow cabinet is reportedly considering a series of sites where nuclear power plants could be based in , with retiring or existing coal-fired power stations favoured (pictured is a meme targeting Sunshine Coast-based Liberal frontbencher Ted O’Brien)
But Mr O’Brien failed to challenge the ABC’s assertion that solar and wind power are proven technologies despite renewable energy only delivering 32 per cent of ‘s energy needs in 2022 because of variable weather, transmission and energy storage challenges.
‘Again, learning from other countries, nuclear is an important part of the mix,’ he said.
Both sides of politics are in favour of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but the Coalition is skeptical about relying entirely on renewable energy as coal and natural gas as phased out.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said nuclear energy was an expensive option.
‘His proposal will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, take decades to build, it’s more expensive, takes longer, and it’s the divisive option,’ he told Sky News on Tuesday.
‘So if he wants to build large-scale nuclear reactors around our country, he should tell us where they’re going to go if he was in government.
His favoured model for is the Barakah small modular reaction in the United Arab Emirates that has been operational since 2020, with Korean technology
‘Most ns recognise that our future is renewable, and that’s where our efforts and our attention must lie.’
Fossil fuels including coal, gas and oil provided 68 per cent of ‘s energy in 2022 with renewables making up 32 per cent of total electricity generation, data from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water showed.
‘s nuclear medical isotopes, used for chemotherapy cancer treatments, are manufactured at Lucas Heights, with the spent rods also stored there after being reprocessed in France.
‘It’s reprocessed in France and it’s shipped all the way back to the Sydney suburb of Lucas Heights where lots of people live,’ Mr Smith said.