The Coalition’s nuclear power folly

Contrast the nuclear scheme and AEMO plan capacities: Gigawatts

The Coalition’s nuclear scheme would be an expensive and destructive folly for Australia. (In December 2025, the Coalition announced a larger nuclear scene than I assume here, but most of my arguments still hold.) Their scheme would be:

massive at more than twice the size of the enormous Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Britain with its years of delay and huge cost blowouts,
too spread out, building at seven sites spread across Australia compared to the single site at Hinkley Point,
too likely to suffer massive delays and cost blowouts
too likely to end in bankruptcies: all three contractors for the four most recent large nuclear generators in the west have gone bankrupt or been nationalised,
too inflexible: baseload nuclear generators must run continuously and would too often force renewable generation to slow. If a nuclear generator were running in South Australia now, it would displace lower-cost renewables, like rooftop solar, 34% of the time – and this potential displacement is increasing as the State gains renewable capacity,
a minor part of grid generation, too small to meet increasing demands as we electrify homes, transport and industry. It would supply only 3% of demand in 2037, rising to only 13% in 2050, and
start too late to replace our retiring coal generators.

The Coalition does not explain how it would supply:

demand over the next few years as coal generators retire, and
87% of demand in 2050.

** The nuclear generators cannot start soon enough to replace retiring coal generators.

The graph shows (1) a nuclear development scenario (red) on top of (2) the Australian Energy Management Operator’s “Step Change Planning Scenario” with its capacities for coal (black), gas (blue) and renewables (yellow).

It shows the start-up of the first nuclear generator: 1.1 gigawatts in 2037 (red). The nuclear generation cannot assist supply before this, between now and 2036, a period in which:

the coal capacity (black) steadily declines from 21 gigawatts in 2024, to 18 gigawatts in 2026, 2 gigawatts in 2036, and beyond this to zero in 2038, and
electricity demand rises as we electrify homes, transport, and industry.

Considering just the coal decline, in 2036, we would have a shortfall of 21 less 2 equals 19 gigawatts, which is nearly the whole of our current coal capacity.

The Coalition must detail how it plans to meet this enormous short-term shortfall in electricity generation, a shortfall that starts mounting from 2026.

** The nuclear generation will only supply a small part of the demand in any year.

Despite being a massive project, the nuclear scheme generation with all seven reactors would only, for example, satisfy 13% of the 2050 demand.

The Coalition must detail its plans to meet 87% of this 2050 demand.

** Gas and coal

The Coalition has said it will (1) keep our old and unreliable coal generators running and (2) rely on gas generation, but they have not provided any details or costs for this. It looks like their nuclear scheme is also a coal and gas scheme. Certainly, until the first nuclear plant starts up in 10 or 15 years, it is only a gas and coal scheme.

The costs of increasing gas generation would be considerable. The cost of extending coal generations too. Governments are already concerned about blackouts and paying significant amounts to keep coal generators running as insurance, even though renewable energy capacity is increasing and should meet demand. For example, the NSW government will pay the 2.88 GW Eraring coal plant up to $225 million annually to extend generation until August 2027. This suggests it will cost enormous sums to keep Eraring or other coal plants running beyond their planned retirement to meet demand until the seventh nuclear generator of 1.5 gigawatts starts in 2050 or later. It is also risky to extend the life of these old generators as they become more likely to fail. AEMO says the biggest risk to electricity supply is the unexpected failure of one of our large and increasingly unreliable coal generators.

** Nuclear will increase the cost of living

The nuclear scheme abandons AEMO’s comprehensive plans, will increase the cost of living, and will make Australian industry less competitive by:

holding back the cheapest electricity from solar, wind, and batteries, supported by flexible gas generation (blue on the graph),
building the most expensive and risky generation, nuclear, with the first reactor starting generation in ten years, but more likely in 15 years,
heavily subsidising coal plants to extend their generating, and
expanding the second most expensive generation, gas, with urgency to cover coal closures.

More than just abandoning AEMO’s plans, the Coalition is undermining these plans by (1) talking about cancelling renewable energy contracts, (2) planning market intervention via this government-run nuclear scheme, and (3) frightening investors. The Coalition could slow the needed rapid expansion of capacity and cause electricity shortages and price hikes.

We should trust the guidance of reputable Australian organisations like AEMO and the CSIRO, which can offer fact-based financial analysis.

** We need a Coalition energy policy

The Coalition has given only a vague description of its nuclear scheme, which might supply 13% of demand in 2050, and they have offered almost nothing about the remaining 87% required for a complete energy policy. Alarmingly, when asked for details and costs, the Coalition only says it will release more before the election.

The Coalition must drop its narrow focus on nuclear and present an energy policy: a comprehensive, fully costed plan for meeting demand. This would enable people to evaluate alternative, workable plans, comparing like with like.

We need to know the total costs of a complete plan before making the massively expensive and risky move to develop nuclear generation.

I have covered most of my key points in the above summary; the following text provides supporting details and elaboration.

The rest of this page contains:

AEMO has a depth of experience

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO):

manages Australian electricity and gas markets, e.g., every five minutes, AEMO decides which electricity generators will supply the market based on the generator’s bids to sell electricity,
produces an “Integrated System Plan” every two years, to guide the infrastructure development of our east coast National Electricity Market (NEM), and
each year, together with the CSIRO, produces a “GenCost Report”, which estimates the costs of building new electricity generators and storage.

This ongoing hourly market management, long-term planning, and costing give AEMO a depth and breadth of experience in these matters.

The annual GENCOST 2023-24 report found that:

nuclear produces the most expensive electricity, and
renewables generate the cheapest electricity even when you consider the costs of the electricity storage and transmission needed to firm renewable generation.

In the “2024 Integrated System Plan“ AEMO sees the “step change scenario” as the most likely of their planning scenarios, with renewable energy, energy storage and gas backup being the most affordable and reliable way to supply demand.

The Coalition’s nuclear scheme

The Coalition describes its nuclear scheme in a two-page media release, suggesting:

Seven locations for nuclear generators, each with a retired or retiring coal generator:
- Liddell, NSW,
- Mount Piper, NSW,
- Loy Yang, VIC,
- Tarong, QLD,
- Callide, QLD,
- Northern, SA, and
- Muja, WA,
The first nuclear reactor will start generation:
- in 2035, if it is a small modular reactor (SMR), or
- in 2037, if it is a large reactor, e.g., an AP1000 or APR1400,
The government will pay the total cost of building, running and maintaining the reactors,
The nuclear plants will generate for 80 years, and
The scheme “will deliver a net-zero electricity grid by 2050”.

Subsequently, it said it will:

consider breaking contracts to stop wind and solar farm development,
make gas generation a big part of their scheme, and
extend the life of coal generators.

The Coalition:

has not presented a comprehensive plan for supplying electricity, and
has not provided any costing.

Note that the Coalition’s media release says, “90% of baseload electricity, predominantly coal-fired power stations, is coming to the end of life over the next decade.” This is close to the coal closures I present in my graphs, which come from the “step change scenario” of the AEMO “2024 Integrated System Plan”:

90% of coal capacity (19 GW) closing by 2035, and
100% (21 GW) closing by 2038,

A rapid nuclear rollout scenario

Guided by the minimal information in the Coalition media release, Wilkenfeld and Hamilton constructed a scenario for a rapid nuclear build, which they describe as “unrealistically rapid.”

Startup	Type	Gigawatts (GW)
2037	AP1000	1.117 GW
2040	Small Modular Reactor	0.300
2042	AP1000	1.117
2044	Small Modular Reactor	0.300
2046	APR1400	1.485
2048	APR1400	1.485
2050	APR1400	1.485
Total		7.200

The first reactor in this scenario is the AP1000 reactor, starting in 2037. It’s one of the possibilities in the Coalition media release. The Coalition also says a small modular reactor could start earlier, in 2035, but as SMRs are both problematic and not commercially available, the moderately sized AP1000 is more likely.

The scenario starts the last reactor in 2050 because the media release says, “Our plan will deliver a net-zero electricity grid by 2050,” which implies that the whole project would be complete by then.

Nuclear scheme compared to AEMO’s plan

Again consider this graph which contrasts the capacities in gigawatts of:

the Coalition’s nuclear scheme capacity (red), with the capacity increasing from 2037 and reaching 7.2 gigawatts in 2050. The graph shows this capacity added on top of
the step change scenario (black, blue, and yellow) that the Australian Energy Management Operator (AEMO) sees as the most likely scenario. It’s a simplified version of AEMO’s graph in the 2040 Integrated System Plan: page 11.

The AEMO scenario has:

coal capacity (in black) with the past retirements from tax years 2010 to 2024, the next expected retirement in 2026, and the last in 2037,
renewable capacity (in yellow) continuing its rapid growth. This includes wind, solar, energy storage and hydroelectric capacities, and
gas capacity (in blue).

(I measured the AEMO graphs with a ruler to get data for my graphs.)

Nuclear too late to replace coal retirements

The grid urgently needs extra capacity now due to coal retirements (black), with the next retirement in 2026 and the last in 2037. The Coalition’s media release presents nuclear as the answer – but also reveals that nuclear will be too late to cover the expected closure of coal plants, stating:

“90 per cent of baseload electricity [19 GW], predominantly coal-fired power stations, is coming to the end of life over the next decade [before 2035]. Nuclear energy for Australia is an idea whose time has come. … Nuclear plants … can effectively replace retired or retiring coal plants. … [The first reactors] will start producing electricity by 2035, with small modular reactors [0.3 GW], or 2037, if modern larger plants [1.1 GW] are found to be the best option.”

The graph shows that nuclear will start too late to replace generation as coal retires:

the last coal retirement is in 2037 (black): the AEMO scenario aligns with the Coalition media release on this retirement, and
the Coalition’s earliest start for a “larger” nuclear generator is in 2037 (red).

AEMO and the CSIRO report that the first nuclear generation would be no sooner than 2040 (GenCost Report 2023-24, p 35,36). So, it is probable that all coal plants will have retired by the time nuclear starts.

To meet demand as coal shuts and demand climbs, the Coalition must have plans for more than just the nuclear project.

Nuclear only replaces 34% of closed coal by 2050

Although the nuclear project would be massive, the nuclear scheme does not even nearly replace lost coal capacity. By 2050:

all 21 GW of our current coal capacity (black) would have retired, and
we may have 7.2 GW of nuclear capacity (red).

The lost capacity of 21 GW is almost three times the gained nuclear capacity of 7.2 GW.

To replace this enormous lost capacity, the Coalition must have plans for more than just the nuclear project.

Nuclear would only supply 13% of 2050 demand.

Electricity demand with coal generation from the AEMO step change scenario and a nuclear supply scenrio

Now consider electricity supply and demand in gigawatt-hours per year, this graph shows:

the electricity demand (blue) rises as we electrify homes, transport, and industry. AEMO forecasts 200,000 GWh/year in 2024, rising to 410,000 GWh/year in 2050 (2024 Integrated System Plan, AEMO, p 25),
The coal generation (black) is based on the coal capacities from the AEMO Step Change Scenario, assuming that, on average, the plant is running at maximum capacity for 60% of the time, and
The nuclear generation is based on the nuclear capacity scenario and assumes that, on average, the plant is running at maximum capacity for 85% of the time.)

Even with all seven reactors running in 2050, nuclear would supply only 13% of the demand in 2050.

First, estimate the electricity generated by the seven nuclear reactors in 2050.
Assume each reactor runs hard for an average of 85% of the time. This allows for maintenance, re-fuelling and refurbishing. It is a high “load factor”; 70% is a more realistic figure.
There are 365 days a year and 24 hours a day,
So, the nuclear generating time = 85% of 365 x 24 = 7,446 hours per year.
.
Assume there are few construction delays and that all seven reactors will be running by 2050, with a total nuclear capacity of 7.2 GW.
So, nuclear generation by 2050 = 7.2 x 7446 = 53,611 gigawatt-hours per year.
.
AEMO forecast for 2050 demand is 410,000 GWh/year
So, the nuclear generation is 53,611 / 410,000 = 13% of demand in 2050

Nuclear does not become the solution for our energy needs. Nuclear would not even be a major part of the grid generation as nuclear supplies (1) no electricity until 2037 and then (2) only between 3% and 13% in the years to 2050.

So, the Coalition has provided:

vague details about nuclear generators, which might meet 13% of the energy demand by 2050, and
no details about supplying the remaining 87% of 2050 demand, only saying things like (1) gas will be a big part of the plan, and (2) we shouldn’t close coal plants too early.

To meet this 87% of the 2050 demand, the Coalition must have plans for more than just the nuclear project.

Frightening renewables investors

While the Coalition talks about a balanced mix including renewable energy, their plan for renewable energy seems to be to minimise it, and they may be succeeding in this minimisation even from opposition by:

threatening to cancel renewables contracts,
encouraging protests against wind farms and transmission lines,
advocating for massive government intervention in the market to build these nuclear generators,
creating uncertainty by promoting vague and radical schemes, and
frightening renewable energy investors.

The Coalition could be frightening all energy investors via their scheme to change the direction of energy policy radically. That’s a problem because government investment in nuclear energy can only be a small part of an energy policy, and we will need private investment to meet 87% of the demand in 2050.

By frightening renewables investors, the Coalition is undermining the AEMO plan without offering a workable alternative. This puts us at risk of electricity shortages and steep price hikes.

They also jeopardise Australia’s chance to become a global renewable energy leader.

Extending coal generation.

The Coalition is considering extending the life of coal generation. However, all our coal generators, bar one, have announced a retirement date before 2050, and AEMO expects the earlier retirements shown on the capacity graph.

Our governments are already paying subsidies to keep some coal generators running, and these extensions will become more expensive as the plants get older. Here are two examples.

In 2024, The NSW government agreed to pay the Eraring coal plant (2.88 GW) up to $225 million annually to generate for an extra two years. Eraring now expects to close in August 2027.

(NSW to extend the life of the Eraring Coal Plant: Power Technology: 23 May 2024)

(Eraring extension: NSW Government)

Keeping Queensland’s Callide B coal plant (0.7 GW) open beyond its use-by date of 2028 could cost Queensland taxpayers up to $420 million annually, drive up electricity prices, and endanger grid reliability.

(Queensland opposition’s goalkeeper plan could cost taxpayers AU$ 420 million a year: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)

Our coal generators are old and no longer provide reliable baseload power. In November 2024, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued alerts due to extended outages at nearly half of the coal-fired power units in New South Wales, which left NSW and Queensland vulnerable.

(Extended outages of baseload power: Renew Economy: 26 Nov 2024)

Extending substantial coal generation would be expensive, risky, and prolong coal emissions.

New gas too late for early coal retirements

The Coalition says gas will play a big role, so they will consider new gas generators. They will need to be built fast.

The nearly complete Hunter Power Plant / Kurri Kurri gas peaking generator indicates the cost of building gas generation and the time needed:

In 2020, the Morrison government announced it would build a gas generator at Kurri Kurri.
The 0.750 GW peaking plant may start late in 2024 and burn diesel fuel because its gas pipeline is still not ready.
From 2020, that’s over 4 years to have it running on gas.
The expected cost for the plant, 21-kilometre gas pipeline, gas storage, and diesel storage will be about AU$1 billion.
The plant may only generate for an average of 1 hour a month.

The Coalition has discussed cancelling renewables contracts and might want new gas plants to meet the increasing demand and coal retirements. However, if the 2.88 GW Eraring plant closes in 2027, you might need four gas plants of 0.750 GW to replace the Eraring capacity – and those new gas plants might take 4 years to build, starting after 2029. New gas plants may not be ready in time to meet coal retirements.

(Kurri Kurri Power Plant: Climate Energy Finance: 10/5/2024)

Coalition should give details & costs

The Coalition media release also says,

“The Government … won’t release modelling and won’t tell us how much higher power prices will go up.”

The Coalition demands the release of information and should also offer information. They must have more plans than just the nuclear project, yet when people ask for details and costs, they only say they will release more before the election.

We need a complete energy plan describing how they plan to:

meet demand in the coming decade as coal retires,
meet our increasing demand, and
achieve their claim of a “net-zero grid by 2050”.

They need to identify the cost and timing of:

the nuclear development,
running the nuclear generators,
purchasing the prime sites that they have chosen for the reactors,
training a full range of nuclear specialists,
new gas generators and pipelines,
increased gas purchases,
increasing gas availability,
extending coal generation, and
offsetting increased coal and gas emissions to achieve a net zero grid.

The GenCost report shows that they are picking the expensive options, so a realistic cost of a comprehensive plan, including nuclear, will be eye-watering.

Technical note: The Perth grid

The nuclear scheme covers a wider geographic area than the AEMO scenario. Specifically, (1) the nuclear scheme would build reactors in the east coast grid and a 0.3 GW small modular reactor in the Perth grid, while (2) the AEMO scenario only plans for the east coast grid. However, the comparison remains valid since the total nuclear capacity is 7.2 GW, and a change of 0.3 GW is only a 4% variation—a small change.

All recent nuclear builds led to bankruptcy.

All four of the most recent major nuclear generation projects in the Western world led to bankruptcies.

Project	Company	Status	Delay Years
Olkiluoto 3: Finland	Areva	Started 2023	14
Flamanville 3: USA	EDF	Started 2024	12
Hinkley Point C: UK	EDF	The first reactor due in 2031	?
Vogtle: France	Westinghouse	Started April 2024	7

The recent projects display:

cost overruns, all around 300%,
delays ranging from 7 years to 14 years, and
final costs between 31 and 132 billion Australian dollars,

These projects are financially dangerous for the builders and the governments. (1) Westinghouse went bankrupt, (2) EDF nearly went bankrupt, and the French nationalised it, and (3) AREVA became insolvent and restructured.

These bankruptcies and nationalisations starkly present the financial dangers of these nuclear projects and suggest why nuclear power is declining in the Western world.

(Is nuclear the answer to Australia’s climate Crisis? The Conversation: 3 Nov 2023)

The UK Hinkley Point C project

Looking more closely at the troubled UK Hinkley Point C project (HPC) shows that it is small compared to the Coalition’s nuclear plans. The HPC project will build:

a total capacity of 3.2 GW,
two nuclear reactors, each of 1.6 GW,
a single type of reactor,
on one site, and
in a country that:
- opened its first nuclear reactor in 1956,
- runs nine operating nuclear reactors at 5 locations, and
- has a total capacity of 6.5 GW.

The HPC timeline:

1981: The UK government announced HPC.
2008: Enabling work started, e.g. building a car park.
2014: Planning for building a sea wall and jetty: 400 staff.
2018: start construction of Reactor 1.
2019: start construction of reactor 2.
2031: Estimated startup of reactor 1.
2033: My guess at the startup of reactor 2.

The first HPC reactor build took 13 years, but the entire process may run for 52 years.

HPC had to cope with (1) Covid, (2) Brexit, (3) legal challenges, (4) political opposition, and (5) financial difficulties of the builders. Australian nuclear development would not face any Brexit and would be unlikely to face another world epidemic, but technical, legal, political and financial difficulties and delays come with the territory.

The HPC costs:

The initial cost estimate in 2007 was 9 billion pounds.
The 2024 estimate is 48 billion pounds.
This is 5.3 times the 2007 estimate.
This total cost would be 92.6 billion in today’s Australian dollars.

(Cost of Hinkley Point C blows out to over AU$93 billion: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)

Hinkley Point: A massive project

The HPC project is one of the largest construction sites in Europe, involving:

1.6 GW reactors: this capacity is 91% of the world’s largest reactor (1.75 GW in China),
building docks to ship in materials and equipment,
building massive foundations for security,
using 50 cranes, one being the biggest crane in the world,
building a concrete factory,
making consistent, highest-quality nuclear safety concrete,
boring 9 kilometres of tunnels to carry seawater for cooling, tunnels like those for car tunnels and pumped hydro.

Each reactor had a small pour of concrete (2,000 cubic metres) and a large pour. The large pour:

needed three days of continuous pouring,
used 40 concrete placing booms, and
took a UK record volume of concrete:
- 9,000 cubic metres of concrete,
- 1,406 loads from concrete trucks,
- a truckload of concrete every 3 minutes for 3 days with no breaks,
- 3.6 Olympic swimming pools of concrete.

The workforce:

peaked at 5,600 people on site,
included 510 people living in purpose-built accommodation on the site,
required a fleet of 160 buses for site transportation,
will become 900 permanent jobs.

Two assumptions:

An Olympic swimming pool 50 metres long, 25 metres wide and averaging 2 metres deep contains 2,500 cubic meters of water.
A concrete truck with six wheels can deliver 5.6 cubic metres of concrete, and a truck with eight wheels can deliver 7.2 cubic metres. I used an average of 6.4 cubic metres per truck.

UK nuclear capacity

The UK has:

nuclear generation at five sites,
nine operating reactors,
nuclear capacity of 6.5 gigawatts (GW), and
plans for all but one of these plants to shut down before 2030.

(Civil Nuclear Roadmap: House of Commons Library: 14 Feb 2024)

Coalition scheme: Far bigger than Hinkley Point C

Alarmingly, the Coalition’s nuclear scheme is far more complex than the Hinkley Point C (HPC) project. The Coalition would build:

a total capacity of 7.2 GW, which is:
- more than double HPC’s 3.2 GW, and
- more than the total UK nuclear capacity of 6.5 GW,
seven reactors, this is:
- more than the two HPC reactors, and
- just less than the UK’s nine reactors,
at seven sites spread across Australia, which is:
- far more complex than the HPC’s one site, and
- more than the UK’s five sites,
at least two types of reactor, compared to HPC’s one type,
small modular reactors for which there is no commercial plan,
several reactors of 1.485 GW, which are big at 93% the size of HPC’s 1.6 GW reactors,
reactors in five states, each with different legislation, including legislation in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland prohibiting nuclear reactors, and
in a country with no nuclear generation experience, compared with the UK’s 68 years of experience.

Should we follow Ontario and go nuclear?

Now let’s look at a nuclear project the Coalition says supports our going nuclear: the example of Ontario, Canada.

** Ontario Hydro went nuclear & bankrupt

To present this as a nuclear success story, the Coalition:

fabricated its nuclear scheme talking point, i.e., its claim that Australians pay four times more for electricity than in Ontario (See below: Fabrication of Evidence.),
ignores Ontario Hydro getting into debt by building its nuclear generators and going broke,
ignores that Ontario Hydro’s customers covered debt equivalent to 70 billion current Australian dollars, paid off via a fixed “debt recovery charge” in their bills from 2002 until 2018,
ignores that Ontario’s current electricity bills do not reflect this debt repayment,
ignores the Ontario government subsidy for electricity, the “Ontario Electricity Rebate” entry in bills. The bill shown in the Tristan Edis article shows a rebate of 19% of the electricity charges,
ignores that the Ontario government has a big role in setting prices, and
asserts that nuclear generators run for 80 years, ignoring the many refurbished nuclear reactors in Ontario (see below).

(Ontario’s huge nuclear debt: Renew Economy: Tristan Edis: 30 Oct 2024)

** Nuclear plant refurbishment

The Coalition media release says, “A … nuclear power plant will be a national asset delivering … consistent energy for 80 years”. The Coalition’s 80-year nuclear scheme ignores a major factor, the refurbishment of nuclear generators.

The Ontario government was planning the refurbishment of the four Darlington reactors in 2017, only 25 years after they started generation. The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario in 2017 estimated that the refurbishment of ten reactors at Bruce and Darlington and life extension work at Pickering would cost CA$25 billion in 2017 dollars. (Add 10% to get Australian dollars) Each reactor closes for about 3 years for refurbishment.

(Report on Nuclear Refurbishment: The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario: 2017)

These refurbishments are major investment decisions in themselves, and sometimes it is cheaper to close a plant. There are several closed nuclear generators in Ontario.

A plan for nuclear energy must include refurbishment costs and details for meeting demand during the years while refurbishment closes reactors. Providing replacement generation for refurbishment closures with five large nuclear reactors spread across Australia would not be simple. It might need extra transmission lines between states. Nuclear development without this planning could produce extended power shortages and large cost increases.

Accidents can also close reactors, so plans to cover outages are required from the start of operation. The difficulty here is that suddenly losing 1.4 GW of capacity jolts the grid, and replacing this capacity for a day or a month requires a plan.

** Coalition fabricated evidence for nuclear

Fabrication of evidence

** Australia gets stronger sun than Ontario

The Coalition urges us to follow Ontario and go nuclear. Another reason for not following Ontario is Australia gets far stronger sun than Ontario.

This graph highlights that being closer to the equator, Australia benefits from:

significantly more sunlight than Ontario,
higher energy output per solar panel, and
milder seasonal variations, ensuring stronger solar generation even in winter.

As a result, the advantages of nuclear power for Australia are far less than for Ontario.

For more about this, and an explanation of the graph, see Australia’s strong sun on this site.

The scheme will not give a net-zero grid.

The brief media release:

states, “Our plan will deliver a net-zero electricity grid by 2050”, and
uses the words “zero-emissions nuclear” nine times.

However, seven gigawatts of nuclear alone will not deliver net zero.

By 2050, the demand for electricity will have doubled, and this scheme might:

supply 13% of 2050 demand with nuclear generation,
put the brakes on renewables growth, even cancelling some wind and solar contracts,
see 19 GW of coal capacity closed – all the generators, bar one, have already announced closing dates before 2050,
pay to keep 2 GW of coal generation running,
build considerable gas capacity and gas pipelines to meet supply.

The scheme will need substantial gas and coal generation, so to achieve net zero, the Coalition would have offset these carbon emissions by massive investment in dubious schemes like:

carbon capture and storage, and
buying carbon offsets, like paying farmers to plant trees to take up carbon dioxide.

The Coalition has used the term “net zero” many times without mentioning offsets or their costs.

Small modular reactor won’t run by 2035

The media release asserts we could have a small modular reactor (SMR) generating by 2035. This is fanciful; these reactors are not a proven technology. To the contrary, NuScale attempted to build an SMR in Idaho, USA, with a capacity of 0.462 GW. However, the cost blew out from US$ 3 billion to 9.3 billion, and they cancelled the project.

(The parlous state of the nuclear power sector: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)

Some risk factors

Many factors make this a risky gamble; they could increase the scheme’s costs far beyond estimates and increase the cost of living.

Factor: Australia has never built a nuclear generator – and countries with experience have had massive cost overruns and delays, e.g. the Hinckley Point C project discussed above.

Factor: The government would pay a premium to acquire the proposed sites forcibly. For example, AGL does not like nuclear power’s costs and expected delays and has started building a $750 million battery at its Liddell site in NSW.

Factor: We would depend on nuclear fuel from overseas, subject to supply disruption and price hikes. The fuel would also have to travel large distances, possibly from the USA to Australian ports and then by road to the inland sites.

Factor: All nuclear projects and operations need to be super secure. This dramatically increases the costs of building and running the reactors. The risks include:

design and construction faults,
human error,
government cost-cutting on maintenance
cyber-attack,
terrorism,
radiation leaks,
extreme weather,
droughts, which could restrict cooling water,
earthquakes and tsunamis, and
warfare.

Factor: Nuclear power has many easily overlooked costs. For example, we would need to develop emergency plans for:

farmers located near nuclear reactors, and there are 11,000 farms within 80 kilometres of the seven proposed sites. In the U.S., these farms have established procedures to manage potential radiation leaks, and
transporting nuclear materials, covering all relevant ports, roads, towns, and cities.

We need flexible, not baseload generators.

One of the Coalition talking points is “Australia needs baseload nuclear generators”. In the media release, they call it “consistent 24/7 electricity”. These baseload generators must run steadily without pausing when they are running. (Nuclear generators in the US run about 92% of the time.)

Contradicting this, Australian Energy Market Operator CEO, Daniel Westerman, says that:

Our grid used to depend on (1) baseload coal generation supported by (2) gas generators to meet demand peaks.

That worked when coal generated the cheapest electricity, but now this does not work because renewables generate the lowest cost electricity and win dispatch ahead of coal and gas generators.

Today, our grid urgently needs: (1) renewable electricity, (2) batteries, (3) pumped hydro, (4) flexible gas generation and (5) transmission lines.

Australia does not need nuclear baseload generators.

(The baseload coal & gas peaking paradigm is no longer fit for our modern grid, says the AEMO chief: Renew Economy: 23 Oct 2024)

** Baseload generators often pay to run

Our levels of renewable generation are high and increasing. This means that our current baseload coal generators struggle, and our future baseload nuclear generation would have even more difficulties. Our baseload coal generators struggle to sell their electricity to the grid because:

our large-scale renewable generators produce cheap electricity, bid low in the AEMO auctions, and AEMO dispatches their renewable electricity to the grid,
rooftop solar meets the householder’s demand, reducing electric demand on the grid,
rooftop solar also supplies large amounts of electricity to the grid, electricity that AEMO cannot currently turn off, and
baseload coal generators need to run without stopping, so they often bid negative, i.e., offer to pay, so AEMO dispatches their coal electricity.

Look at the National Electricity Market (NEM) dashboard in the middle of the day. You’ll see the 5-minute prices in each state and, with rare exceptions, see some negative prices set by coal generators paying to avoid stopping.

** Our high levels of renewable generation

Renewable generation is significant and increasing. For example, on the East Coast grid:

Renewables generated a peak of 75.3% of demand on Sunday, 20 Oct 2024, at 11.15 am. Rooftop solar comprised 52% of this, while coal output had to drop to 24.1% of demand.
Renewables generated an average of about 40% of electricity in 2023 and are headed for the 2030 target of 83% of renewable generation over a year.

In South Australia:

On Saturday, 19 October 2024, at 1.15 p.m., rooftop solar provided 112.9% of SA demand, and SA exported its excess electricity.
During November 2021, wind and solar provided more than 100% of local SA demand for 93 hours straight, day and windy night; a little gas generation provided grid stability, and SA exported its excess electricity.
In October 2023, wind and solar generated 86.8% of SA demand.
In tax year 2023-24, wind and solar generated over 70% of SA demand.
In 2027, wind and solar will generate 100% of SA demand.

(Rooftop solar propels renewables to 75% of demand: Renew Economy: 23 Oct 2024)

** AGL is trying to pause baseload generation

Like all baseload coal plant operators, AGL often pays to keep its coal generators running. To avoid these payments, AGL is trialling the shutdown of its Bayswater plant for up to twelve hours at a time. This trial shows:

it’s not economical for the coal generators to provide baseload power, i.e. generate 7 days a week and 24 hours a day,
the Coalition is wrong to say we must have more baseload,
we do not need coal baseload generation, and
we do not need nuclear baseload generation.

(Coal generators are trying brief shutdowns to avoid costly baseload generation: Renew Economy: 1 Oct 2024)

** Baseload increases the low-demand risk

Baseload generation is part of an emerging problem for the grid: having more generation than demand, which can lead to blackouts. In 2024, AEMO introduced a “minimum system demand risk event” and is developing ways of managing this risk.

(Rooftop solar management: AEMO: 2024)

Rooftop solar generation supplies substantial amounts of electricity to the grid during the day, for example:

at 1.15 pm on 19 Oct 2024, in South Australia, rooftops supplied 112.9% of SA demand,
at 1 pm on Saturday, 12 Oct 2024, East Coast rooftops supplied 50% of the East Coast grid demand,
rooftop generation is the second largest renewable energy source in Australia, after wind generation, and before large-scale solar farms, and
rooftop generation is the fourth largest source of electricity, 11.2% of Australian generation.

Rooftop solar reduces demand on our large-scale generators by (1) supplying electricity to houses and businesses, and (2) exporting surplus electricity to the grid, enough to occasionally meet the entire local demand.

One in three Australian homes have solar panels, and AEMO expects rooftop generation to grow strongly; it could triple in the next 30 years. As people install more rooftop solar panels, the whole East Coast grid will become more like South Australia.

If the Coalition scheme proceeds, we could have generation from:

large-scale solar and wind, which the owners can turn off,
Rooftop solar that currently cannot turn off, and
Baseload nuclear or coal, which needs to keep running.

We will increasingly have the problem of insufficient demand, and any baseload generator that must run all the time increases the chances of supply exceeding demand. For example, in the isolated Southwestern Australian grid, noon demand is becoming too low, so they are building big batteries to increase demand.

** Nuclear baseload: expensive electricity

The Coalition’s scheme would produce expensive electricity as it would often need to turn off the cheapest generators (wind turbines, solar farms and rooftop solar) to allow the most expensive (nuclear) to keep running.

Baseload generators would displace cheap renewables at times when there was surplus generation capacity, and one measure of this on the current grid is “the percentage of the time when prices are negative”, i.e., when generators pay so that AEMO dispatches their electricity.

In SA, renewables can already supply all the local demand. Actually, rooftop solar alone can do this, and negative prices reflect this surplus generation capacity. Prices were negative:

4% of the time in 2019,
25% of the time in 2023, and
34% of the time in the December quarter of 2023.

So, if SA had a baseload nuclear generator now, for about 34% of the time, nuclear generation would be displacing low-cost renewable generation, e.g., rooftop solar that only costs the retailer about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. This would increase the cost of electricity.

This “time with excess generation capacity” is increasing in other states too, as levels of renewable coapaicty increase.

State	2019 Time with negative price	2023 Time with negative price
South Australia	4%	25%
Victoria	1%	22%
Queensland	2%	14.5%
NSW	0%	7%

The Coalition argues for baseload nuclear power, saying we must have “a balanced energy mix”. Their pitch sounds modern, reasonable, and attractive, but some “mixes” don’t work. Oil does not mix with water, and baseload does not mix with a high level of renewables.

Baseload generation is incompatible with high levels of renewable generation.

We need flexible generators, not inflexible baseload nuclear generators.

Industry opposes nuclear: AGL

Even the energy industry is against the nuclear scheme, for example, AGL.

(Energy Giant AGL issues a warning on Dutton’s nuclear plan: The Age: 25 Sep 2024)

Nuclear waste

US Government websites say:

The US has no permanent disposal facility for high-level nuclear waste (HLW).
The US has run nuclear generation since 1957, for 67 years.
The US has over 90,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors, increasing by 2,000 tonnes annually.
Commercial reactors store their HLW, including spent nuclear fuel, in storage ponds for 1 or 2 years to cool and then in dry storage casks on concrete pads at their sites.
High-level nuclear waste stays highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

This makes it clear that disposing of nuclear waste is highly problematic.

The Coalition climate denial continues.

The Coalition repeatedly mentions “net zero nuclear” and claims its scheme will deliver a net-zero electricity grid, but with a brake on renewables, it needs more gas and coal generation, and that will increase emissions.

As the scheme includes the possible cancellation of renewables contracts, it continues the Coalition’s attack on renewable energy and emissions reduction. The Coalition might even want to frighten renewable energy investors and slow the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Coalition presents its nuclear scheme as the solution for Australia’s electricity needs. However, the last of their reactors would only start generating in 2050 at best, and their total nuclear generation would only provide 13% of the demand in 2050. So, nuclear is a minor part of the solution. When asked for more details and costs, the Coalition only says it will release more information before the election. The Coalition is hiding 87% of its energy policy.

The Coalition must present a complete plan and provide the costs of all the activities involved before attacking realistic efforts to meet demand.

Updated 12 Dec 2024