Behind the Coalition's nuclear gamble
Coalition MPs believe Peter Dutton's push for nuclear power is less about ideology and more about pragmatism and internal party dynamics.
Public debate on nuclear energy has been frozen for more than a decade. Former prime minister John Howard introduced a moratorium on small modular reactors and large nuclear reactors in 1998, and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster quashed a short-lived consideration by the Gillard government to overturn the ban.
But it’s been revived under Coalition leader Peter Dutton and his shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien, who have thrown their support behind nuclear power and are expected to release more details on how it would operate just before the Budget in May.
But Dutton and O’Brien face a number of obstacles, not least a huge scare campaign by the government at the election. They have also failed to produce enough credible local experts who believe the economics stack up given the small window to build nuclear plants before the nation’s coal-fired power stations go offline.
Nuclear power, which emits no greenhouse gases during production, has been used across Europe and North America for decades, largely without incident. But getting Australia’s own industry up and running is expected to take two decades at least. The United Arab Emirates took 15 years to construct its first nuclear reactor using pre-existing technology.
