Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Lyne's motion. I also wish to speak about what the nuclear industry could mean for Australia, particularly in my electorate of Flynn in Central Queensland. According to Labor's budget estimates, the next two years will see an increase in electricity prices of 56 per cent. How can these electricity prices be reduced? Australia has signed up to net zero emissions by 2050, and how can this be achieved? The answer is right in front of us. It is nuclear energy.

Australia is the only G20 country not to have nuclear energy. According to the US Office of Nuclear Energy, nuclear is the largest source of clean power in the United States and is worth an estimated $60 billion to the country's gross domestic product. If that works in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere, why can't it work in Australia? Cost estimates for nuclear energy can range from $65 a megawatt hour or below, which is less than a new coal plant, to over $300 a megawatt hour, which is well above the high-cost diesel generators. A small modular reactor has a maximum energy capacity of 7,300,000 megawatt hours a year.

Support for nuclear power is growing. A Lowy Institute poll last year found a majority would support removing the ban on nuclear power. In 2011, only 35 per cent of people were in favour of nuclear energy. Nuclear power is safe and has resulted in far fewer deaths than dam failures, oil rig explosions and even, on some measures, people falling while installing solar panels. Nuclear does less damage to the natural environment than other energy options. Wind energy takes 250 times more land than nuclear power. Solar energy takes up 150 times more land. Between 1965 and 2018, the world spent $2 trillion on nuclear energy compared to $2.3 trillion on solar and wind. Yet nuclear today produces around double the electricity of solar and wind. It is 95 per cent reliable, while solar and wind are 25 per cent and 35 per cent productive, respectively. The nuclear asset life ranges from 40 to 80 years, which is far longer than solar or wind projects, which average around 20 years. What people fail to recognise is that this means that solar or wind projects need to be installed and disassembled possibly four times in the lifespan of a nuclear asset. This is also not to mention the environmental impact of renewable energy, as wind turbine blades can't be recycled, so they're piling up in landfills.

Australia has 20 coal-fired power stations, which employ a total of 4,800 people. The Flynn electorate has three coal-fired power stations: Callide, Stanwell and Gladstone. On 28 September the Queensland Labor government announced plans to transition Queensland coal-fired power stations to a clean energy hub from 2027. So why don't we convert these power stations in the electorate of Flynn to nuclear power stations when the time comes? In the United States they are converting coal-fired power stations to nuclear plants, which provide tangible economic employment and environmental benefits to local communities. If we did this it would also not require the massive expense of rewiring the grid with high-voltage transmission lines that are required to connect solar and wind farms. You may simply plug into the existing system with a nuclear option.

We already have a nuclear reactor in Australia and have had for many, many years. The Lucas Heights nuclear medicine facility is right in the middle of Sydney. And we all know somebody who has suffered from cancer and has undergone radiation therapy. Lucas Heights is where this medical treatment is developed. So, to argue that nuclear technology is not safe is not correct. Australia has the world's largest known reserves of uranium, and we export it to over 40 countries worldwide. We have these reserves, so why not use them? It is rather hypocritical to have a zero tolerance policy in respect of nuclear energy when we provide the world with the primary source to make nuclear power possible.

In conclusion, it's important that Australia plans for the future, and I believe that nuclear power is the answer to our energy needs. To the federal government I say, let's have this conversation; it's time for an open discussion.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by thanking the member for Lyne for yet another opportunity to have a conversation about nuclear energy. I'd like to remind the member that he and his party had the last nine years of government to implement some sort of effective energy policy. They had 22 chances with their stop-start energy policies to implement some sort of effective change. And now we see that Australians are feeling the crunch of the havoc in energy markets that they caused.

But we come here today and see that the opposition's solution is to look at an energy source that is the most expensive and the slowest to implement. I mean, I just don't understand why we're still here, having yet another conversation about nuclear power. Maybe they think that if they talk about nuclear energy for long enough then they can distract the Australian people from their failed energy policies, that they can distract them from the fact that they dumped their emissions intensity scheme or that they dumped their clean energy target or that they dumped three versions of the National Energy Guarantee or that they dumped a prime minister over their energy policy failures.

But there's one thing we know that the Liberals and Nationals in this place cannot dump, and that is their unhealthy obsession with nuclear power. So I did a little bit of research. The member who just spoke mentioned that we should start a conversation about nuclear power. Well, I thought I'd see how long the Liberals and Nationals have been talking about nuclear power. How long have we had to hear about the little radioactive carrot that they dangle in front of their radioactive base every now and then? And, believe it or not, they've been having this conversation for 68 years. Hansard shows that Senator Spooner, in 1955, took to the dispatch box to praise nuclear energy. For 55 years they have been having this conversation, and we're here again today.

The Liberals and Nationals talk about putting nuclear reactors right across Australia, but we all know the real facts, and I'll say them again. Just as they were told back in 1955, nuclear energy for Australia just does not stack up. It's too expensive, it takes too long to build, and we have no plan to get rid of the radioactive waste. You should have seen the list of reasons, Deputy Speaker, that I typed up as to why nuclear energy isn't the solution. But I've got only five minutes, so I've reduced it down into a little speech, and the next time this comes up, those opposite may want to listen to the speech again, because the reasons will be the same.

Nuclear energy doesn't pass any reasonable economic test, and it certainly doesn't pass the pub test. It can't be introduced or maintained without a huge cost to taxpayers, and it is the most expensive form of energy today—more expensive than coal and gas and, of course, more expensive than renewable energy. Even the industry itself, in the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2020, said that nuclear, despite over half a century of industrial experience, continues to see costs rising. CSIRO and AEMO continue to produce report after report that has found that nuclear would be far and away the most expensive form of energy for Australia. Now they're talking about these small modular reactors, these silver bullets for nuclear energy. AEMO and CSIRO found that these reactors would cost $16,773 a kilowatt in capital costs—that's $5 billion per reactor—and that Australia would need 80 reactors. That's $400 billion for yet another Liberal energy folly.

Compare that to what this government is doing and what the world is doing: investing in renewable energy. Renewable energy is a proven technology with low cost, global momentum, investment desire and, importantly, near-immediate dispatchable power. Renewable energy is creating jobs in the cities and it's creating jobs in the regions. It's the cheapest form of energy available today, and it's only getting cheaper. And renewables can be built quickly, meaning we can transition from fossil fuels to emissions-free power generation quickly to help save our planet.

I'd hope that this motion would be the last time a member of the Liberals or Nationals brought up nuclear, but I know it won't be. They've been talking about it since 1955; they're talking about it in 2023. It's just a continuation of denial, delay and dysfunction. Australia has moved on; it's time to stop talking about nuclear.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise to speak on this private member's motion by the member for Lyne. We must remove federal and state bans so nuclear energy can deliver affordable energy security to our decarbonised electricity grid. Australia has been at the forefront of nuclear science and technology since the 1950s, when the Australian Atomic Energy Commission set up a research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. Lucas Heights is one of only 70 reactors worldwide capable of producing life-saving medical radioisotopes. We have one of the world's leading safety authorities to oversee the operation of Australia's nuclear industries.

Today, in Senate estimates, a top federal bureaucrat needed help to answer questions about how Australia can achieve an uplift in transmission assets across the grid with the issue of rolling out thousands of kilometres of lines, especially to remote solar and wind farms in communities that struggle with towers on their properties. Most decarbonisation scenarios show that accelerating renewables deployment over time—access to the thousands of sites needed for renewables—will become increasingly difficult, as the best sites are developed first. Australia's leading systems engineers came to the parliament and warned us that, as the arms race to renewables takes off, land for lower-capacity sites will become more expensive and difficult to find. The energy they provide is intermittent, so we will have to import new community batteries every 15 years. Yet today environmental department heads could not give assurances that there will be enough batteries to sustain an 82 per cent renewable grid.

Our 2050 policy says that everything from our cars, buses and planes to cement plants will be electric. We will need a 215 per cent increase on the 200 terawatt hours of electricity we generate now. Nuclear is the only low-emissions power generator that can operate reliably, regardless of weather. It has worked for 33 nations in six continents for generations. Australia has one of the largest grids in the world. We used to have the third-cheapest power bills in the OECD. We are now the third most expensive in the OECD, with the spot price reaching record highs last week. Labor claims nuclear power is not cost-effective. Why do more than 30 countries in the world rely on nuclear, with power more affordable than ours?

Engineers warn us that the total 60-year nominal capital cost of a renewable net zero option, including hydro, solar, wind and batteries, stands at over $1.2 trillion. The total 60-year nominal cost of nuclear power stations is less than half that at $594 billion. Nuclear is cheaper than renewables, it's familiar to Australia, it's already on submarines that come to our harbours, it's already in Sydney. This Labor government prefers scaremongering to listening to experts. It seems to think that if we build lots and lots of wind and solar, power will become as cheap as possible, but that is not the reality of things. These resources cannot match the demand of the grid, which must be met by reliable supply every second of the day and night. Instead, we will be left with an extremely expensive and highly volatile power system.

Nuclear technology options are being manufactured to create reliable baseload power in Canada and the United States. We just need them here. The perfect sites for our nuclear power stations are our old coal-fired power stations, just as they are retrofitted in the United Kingdom. The existing steam turbine generators from old coal-fired power stations and their electrical distribution systems can provide nuclear power to the grid without significant modification, saving the pain and cost of building transmission lines for renewables, which threaten to carve up parts of Wide Bay. This is the only way we can reach net zero by 2050.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, I would first like to commend the member for Lyne for championing this issue. I think it's incredibly important that we clearly understand that the world is changing. Australia is going to be left behind again. The technology is racing ahead. We want smart manufacturing and well-paid manufacturing jobs.

We're missing out on these opportunities because of this Dark Ages mentality. We live in this quasi belief that all the other countries that are developing small modular reactors are somehow dumber than us. All these dumb countries, dumb countries like the United Kingdom, like France, like Scandinavia, like Sweden, like Czechoslovakia, like Argentina, like Canada, like the United States, like Russia, like China—we don't know completely what their purposes are—and like Japan. We had the ambassador from Japan in on the last sitting day in parliament. We posed the question to them about where they are with nuclear, because we all hear about Fukishima. They said, 'The issue we have is that Fukishima could have stood up to two earthquakes, but it couldn't stand up to a tidal wave.' We have to get on the record that the fatalities from the Fukishima nuclear disaster were zero. No-one died in the Fukushima nuclear disaster. That was not a small modular reactor. They are large reactors, and we should be on board with making sure that we avail ourselves of the opportunities—the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars—that are coming forward in this new industry.

I was not amazed, but I think it has to be quite clear that the Australian people's concern about US nuclear submarines has been overwhelmingly non-evident. People don't care. What happens if one of these nuclear submarines comes into our port and turns on our light? Do we insist that they turn it off, because that's nuclear power lighting up our dock? What happens if someone runs an extension cord down to drill a screw in on the port or do something away from the nuclear submarine? Are you going to ban it? Where we have ended up right now is archaic.

We've got to understand that, if we are going to try to hit zero emissions, we are going to need sustainable base load power. We've seen the costs of Snowy Hydro 2.0. They're heading north of $10 billion. Renewables are incredibly expensive when you compare apples with apples—that is, 24/7 dispatchable—because they need the cost of pumped hydro, which is massive, or they need the cost of batteries, which is massive. Currently, the battery technology has no hope of delivering sustainable base load power. The quote we got in this building for how much it would cost for a battery backup at 24/7 sustainable power was $5 trillion. We don't have that money, so we have got to be smart and work around it.

Not only are they developing small modular reactors; we're also have process in Australia, such as with Professor Mark Ho, developing microreactors up to 50 megawatts. These are going to end up on Pacific islands. They're going to be all around the world, and we're going to sit back here and say we don't believe in them. It's like saying you don't believe in mobile phones, fridges or colour televisions. It's coming, and the smartest thing for us to do in this nation is get on board. In the coming months, they are going to blow up Liddell Power Station. They're not going to dismantle it; they're going to blow it up. Here is a place with transmission lines and connections. It would be the ideal spot for us to work towards having small modular reactors. Put it to the people of Muswellbrook. Tell them that their jobs stay, that everything continues on. Tell them about exactly where the technology is. I want it noted on the record that we support small modular reactors so in the future, when we get them—and they will turn up—we can refer back to this as those who were trying to make sure that Australia was on the front foot. If not, we continue on with this ridiculous process of a massive footprint of such things as wind turbines, which are disliked intensely in regional areas because of transmission lines, the footprint and the social upset they cause. Once small modular reactors come in—and they will—they will all be out of date.

I support this. I clearly put down my support of it and I tell you what: if you want to see a fight, come out to regional areas and see the fight we're having over wind towers.

Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rose to speak in response to the motion of the member for Lyne regarding nuclear energy. First, a question: who wants a nuclear reactor in their electorate? I know I don't, and I strongly believe that sentiment will be echoed and supported by communities in my electorate of Pearce. To be able to provide power on the scale needed under the coalition's nuclear energy plan, we would need to build 80 small-scale nuclear reactors around Australia. That would amount to a cost of $402 billion, or 17 per cent of GDP, which is 30 times more than the government spent last year on transport and communications and over 10 times more than the amount spent on defence. Nuclear energy has been looked into numerous times in inquiry after inquiry, including the Switkowski report, which stated that nuclear reactors would need to be built close to population centres.

Across the world, energy prices are rising as a result of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. This is wreaking havoc on energy markets around the globe and pushing up electricity prices in Australia, yet the Liberals' and Nationals' answer is to have a chat about nuclear energy. Let me remind all that, during the nine years of the Liberal-National government, we had 22 stop-start energy policies. Australians are feeling the crunch, and yet Peter Dutton's solution is to look at the most expensive and slowest-to-implement energy. The CSIRO has written numerous reports—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry to interrupt, but you need to refer to members by their proper titles.

Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My apologies. The CSIRO has written numerous reports that found the cost of nuclear energy would be the most expensive energy for Australia. The CSIRO GenCost 2021-22: final report estimates that electricity produced by nuclear energy using small modular reactors, or SMRs, would likely be approximately two to five times more expensive than electricity produced by renewables. To achieve the lower end of this range would require SMRs to be deployed globally in large enough numbers to bring down costs available to Australia. Even the nuclear energy industry itself admits that cost is a prohibitive factor compared with renewable energy. Clearly the better option is to invest in renewables.

The CSIRO's 2021 GenCost report confirms the past year's findings that wind and solar are the cheapest source of electricity generation and storage in Australia. Nuclear power plants create radioactive waste, plain and simple. We need to remember that management of nuclear and radioactive waste has been a continuing issue in Australia, and we do not currently have a permanent disposal facility for radioactive waste.

Previous governments have been searching for an appropriate location for approximately four decades. I ask: what is the opposition's plan to deal with the massive amount of radioactive material that would be generated from 80 SMRs around Australia. And once you figure out where it's going to be disposed or stored, you then need to contemplate how it will be transported there. The likely scenario is on a truck. Dozens of trucks carrying nuclear and radioactive waste across the country, collecting and depositing spent nuclear fuel rods.

A recent incident in my home state of Western Australia caused worry and fear in the community when a tiny radioactive capsule was lost in transit. It is understood to have fallen off a truck. The emergency response was far from understated. Six days across 1,400 kilometres of highway with specialist teams using radiation-detecting equipment. Fortunately, it was found, but it could have been worse.

We need to consider what Australians want. Many Australians fear nuclear power because of safety concerns. In 2010 and 2012 an Australia-wide survey assessed Australians attitudes to nuclear power. And while Australians believe nuclear power offers a cleaner, more efficient option to coal, they were against nuclear power due to safety concerns and distrust. We are here to listen to our communities. Thank you.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like most Australians I've been keeping a very interested eye on the energy space in our country, and indeed globally, over the last 15 years or so. This was long before I was in politics because energy is so crucial to our modern society. As a small-business owner I know we need reliable, affordable power. As a father and grandfather, I want energy that is as environmentally friendly as possible to ensure my children and grandchildren have a healthy planet to live on well into the future. As a Liberal, and therefore someone who believes in personal responsibility, I'm very much in the camp that believes it is not only the government's responsibility to do their bit, but it is also the responsibility of business and every individual to play their part in getting the energy mix right, ensuring that all three components of the energy mix—reliability, affordability and environment—are met.

Everything in life is about balance, and energy supply is no different. Renewables have their benefits and their place in the energy mix, but realistically only as a supplement to a good baseload power source. Little is spoken about the detriments of renewable energy as many people see it as the saviour of the world. Yet many of the people in my electorate in Longman ask me questions. Where is the discussion around landfill when solar panels, wind towers and batteries reach end-of-life? Are we going to cleaner air but dirtier soil and waterways? Where is the discussion about volatility of lithium and its propensity to suddenly catch fire as we either sit on top of it as we drive EVs in the future or have it downstairs in battery storage as we sleep in our homes. What about the fact that we will need ugly solar and wind farms over three times the size of Tasmania to meet our baseload energy needs, not to mention the harm that that causes the environment by killing birds and clearing usable land? No, there is no discussion of any of this. That is simply ridiculous as we navigate our way through this energy transition stage. Not to mention the affordability issue, as we know that EVs are simply going to be out of reach of the Aussie battler.

At this critical time, we must look to other countries who have experimented with different types of energy. We must learn from their mistakes and adopt their successes. Nuclear energy has long been a taboo subject in this country because of events such as Chernobyl, Fukushima and various other reasons. But, as often happens with new technologies, they develop and improve over time, which is exactly what has happened with nuclear energy.

I recently had the privilege of being part of a delegation to Taiwan, which has had nuclear power for many years. They are now closing down their reactors. I asked them: 'Why are you shutting down nuclear energy in your country? Is it unreliable? Is it too expensive?' The reply was: 'No, it is purely political. We have many earthquakes in our country and people are concerned about the safety side.' I then said, 'Will the renewable energy you're replacing the nuclear with be as affordable and reliable?' I was given the reply, 'No, we accept that there will be brownouts at times and that energy will be more expensive.' Pressing further, I asked, 'If you were in Australia, would you have nuclear energy?' The reply was one word, 'Absolutely.'

After much research and discussion, and from what I now understand about nuclear energy, I believe that it very much needs to be part of the discussion about Australia's future energy supply. The benefits of the reliability and long-term affordability, and the fact that it is very much considered a form of green energy, hold nuclear in good stead. Other benefits include that it can utilise the existing grid and coal-fired power station sites, which will save money on new infrastructure. This, along with Australia's stable landmass and our abundance of uranium, coupled with the now very safe, small modular reactors, have led me to this conclusion.

I am a layman, with no expertise in the energy sector. However, my desire is to have a balanced and pragmatic discussion around energy supply in this country, with all energy types on the table. This discussion and research needs to be carried out by stakeholders who have no financial benefit or preconceived bias about any type of energy production—it should be devoid of emotion and based purely on facts, with all aspects and cohorts of society considered in the discussion. The entire life cycle of all energy generation types, including for nuclear energy, needs to be considered, including reliability, affordability, environmental impacts, initial setup costs, disposal of waste and refining costs.

If this government is serious about energy in this country then it will include nuclear in the discussion, as we are the only G20 nation that doesn't have nuclear energy.

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion put by the member for Lyne. I am advocating for us as a country to investigate how we utilise the nuclear expertise, technologies and scientists already in our country, to investigate whether nuclear energy has a viable role to play in our country to assist as we transition to a decarbonised economy. I note that many in the government have extolled the virtues of renewable energy technologies, but these are not mutually exclusive with nuclear. I also support renewables. Why is it, though, that we cannot look at both options?

The electorate of Hughes punches well above its weight in many areas. I am particularly proud that Hughes is the home of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, known as ANSTO, located in Lucas Heights. It has rightly been said in this motion that Australia has been at the forefront of nuclear science and technology since 1953, when the reactors were first established. ANSTO operates much of Australia's landmark infrastructure for nuclear science, research, innovation and technology. It contains the Open Pool Australian Light-water reactor—or OPAL—that's designed to produce the neutrons used in research and to promote radioisotopes. It is the only nuclear research reactor in Australia, and also one of the world's most modern. The ANSTO staff have showcased the facility to me on a number of occasions.

ANSTO has as its mission statement to deliver knowledge, value and trust through the application of nuclear science, technology and engineering. It has three main priority areas: health, environment and nuclear technologies. In terms of health, its most important research areas are in human health and the biosciences. Human health researchers have expertise in the design and optimisation of treatment tools and methods using nuclear technologies; the modelling of complex radiation physics; and the use of nuclear techniques to understand the neurophysiology of the brain. The biosciences group at ANSTO is focused on the development and translation of radiopharmaceuticals to improve the detection and diagnosis of disease. ANSTO has the expertise and capability to supply radioisotopes and undertake radiochemistry, radiation biology and pre-clinical imaging studies. This work has been particularly invaluable for Australia's cancer patients.

Within its environmental priorities, ANSTO conducts and enables interdisciplinary research, using nuclear and isotopic techniques to address some of Australia's and, indeed, the world's, most challenging environmental problems. It has a primary focus on water resource sustainability, an issue which is integral to Australia. Using their capabilities in isotopic-tracing analysis, ANSTO scientists provide water resource managers with information on water quality and sustainability of groundwater resources and aquatic ecosystems.

Nuclear technologies are also fundamental to ANSTO's work. Their research has addressed key scientific questions related both to the current generation of nuclear reactors and also to future systems. In particular, ANSTO researchers are investigating the key properties of nuclear waste, to improve safety for both short- and long-term storage. ANSTO's Education Team offers a wide variety of learning resources that align with the New South Wales curriculum, as well as providing education in science, nuclear technology and sustainability.

In my first speech in this place, I said that with the significant environment and climate change issues that we face in Australia, combined with the energy crisis, I'm committed to approaching how we can utilise the nuclear technology and innovation at ANSTO to answer our energy questions. My 15-year-old self, who had posters of Midnight Oil throughout her bedroom, would shudder at this speech; however, the nuclear energy of 2023 is very different to that of the past, and I saw this most recently at COP27 in Egypt. As Australia transitions to a decarbonised electricity grid, it makes no sense to cling to old attitudes about nuclear energy and to stubbornly refuse even to investigate the possibility of nuclear energy in all of these circumstances. I commend this motion to the House.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:22