Energy Minister Chris Bowen says that, despite the Coalition’s previous “inappropriate” attacks against the CSIRO, the science body has found renewables are cheaper than nuclear.
The final report by the government’s chief scientific research arm and Australia’s energy market regulator AEMO found a nuclear plant could not be operational before 2040 and would cost $16 billion, which means the technology could not be used to help meet Australia’s international climate change commitment, which requires it to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
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Speaking on ABC Radio National, Bowen called out the Coalition’s pledge to build seven nuclear reactors in Australia if it were elected, saying it was not the right approach.
“Despite claims from the opposition, quite inappropriate attacks on CSIRO and AEMO from the opposition, that they hadn’t counted the cost of transmission. The cost of transmission and storage is counted and still renewables come out as the cheapest,” Bowen said.
“The CSIRO points out that nuclear will be [a] very long lead time to build, very slow to build. So nuclear is slow and expensive and is risky when it comes to the reliability of Australia’s energy system.”
Speaking later on Radio National, Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham defended his party’s commitment to nuclear, but would not say if he thought the CSIRO was wrong.
“We haven’t been able to go through [the report] in any type of detail. So it will take a little time to go through the findings, but the author, I believe, has been clear that this is a report not about the end consumer point and how it relates to energy customers,” he said.
“We will be working through our policy looking at this but also looking at the international evidence from the International Energy Agency, the OECD and others which is pretty clear about the role of nuclear and achieving net zero and doing so whilst keeping stability and low cost in your energy grid.”
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