Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to stand to speak on the Interim report for the inquiry into nuclear power generation in Australia. I want to start out by acknowledging our chair, the fantastic member for Hunter. He did an exceptional job on this, and all credit is to him. I also wanted to acknowledge the member for Fairfax as our deputy chair, along with a few of my other colleagues. I want to acknowledge the member for Gippsland, the member for Swan, the member for Fraser, the member for Moreton, the member for Kooyong and the member for Cook. The contributions by everybody on the committee was exceptional. It's been a subject matter that's provoked a lot of different feelings across the spectrum within the chamber, so I think the level of respect that was afforded to every single member on that committee should be commended. That doesn't happen without good leadership, which came from both the chair, the member for Hunter, and the deputy chair, the member for Fairfax.

There are a couple of other people I do need to thank. The secretariat, Kate Portus, and her fantastic team, including Kimberlee, Ash, Cathy and Antonia. Without those people from the secretariat team, we can't do the work that we do. They make sure that we get to the locations we need to, make sure that we have people turn up to do the inquiry itself and to answer the questions of the committee. Thank you to all of you. We also were aptly supported by companies from Callide and Tarong power stations, who gave us very in-depth tours of both of their facilities. Thank you very much for your hospitality. Thank you very much for the explanation. For me personally, I've never had the opportunity to tour through a coal-fired power station. It was a big eye-opener for me and gave me a much better insight into the topic of power generation that we were looking at.

To my very good friend over here, the member for Flynn, we were able to go up to Mount Murchison and spend the afternoon with the wonderful Hazel Jensen, and his office helped put on a very country orientated afternoon tea, which was very much appreciated. It took me back to my childhood growing up on the farm. The hospitality that was afforded to us was the best we had on our entire trip around the country, doing this inquiry. To the member for Flynn, thank you very much for your warm hospitality up in your neck of the woods.

This inquiry is probably some of the most important work that I've been afforded the opportunity to do in my short time in this place. When you're jumping headfirst into a subject matter that's as big as nuclear power generation, there's a lot to take in. At the end of the day, there's a couple of pinch points that really started to show through—consistent themes that raised considerable questions for myself.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:24 to 16:34

Ultimately, what this inquiry has found is this is nothing more than nuclear nonsense. Pursuing a nuclear power future is going to be a costlier process that takes more time than we can afford. This is about building an alternative power generation industry that is estimated to cost around $600 billion. This is not an investment being made by private industry; this is an investment that the Australian taxpayer is being asked to foot to deliver on—it's nuclear nonsense. It is a very big worry. I want to step through a few different parts of what the inquiry uncovered along the way. I'm going to start off with social license, and I think this is probably one of the most important places for us to start. The reason I say that is that this has the possibility of blowing out the delivery of any future nuclear power generation in this country by significantly large timeframes. Clare Savage from the Australian Energy Regulator said that, with social licence where it currently stands, she would estimate eight to 10 years or thereabout to deliver the legislative requirements to enable the pursuit of nuclear power generation in this country. That's been refuted by the other side, but the problem you have with that is that, when you've got organisations like Liberals Against Nuclear, you know you have a problem with social licence, the very linchpin that is probably going to see your policy either sink or swim. That's not something that you can dismiss. It's not something that you can dismiss from my personal experience, having seen what happened around nuclear-waste storage facilities in South Australia. Social licence wasn't obtained, and it sank the pursuit of a nuclear waste storage facility out in the mid-north. It gets much harder when you have your own party faithful, your rank and file, starting up a group called Liberals Against Nuclear, because that's not, as some people would put it, just the 'crazy left'. That's your side of the equation adding their voice to what is a real concern for people in this country.

The inquiry also talked about cost, and there are a couple of components to cost: the upfront cost but also the potential cost blowouts. When we look at examples across the world, there are instances where the cost blowout is absolutely astronomical. You have the Hinkley Point C project, which has blown out now to around $92 billion for a single nuclear reactor, which is just mind-blowing. It really is mind-blowing. That is just one example of a cost blowout. The Vogtle nuclear power station is seven years late and $17 billion over budget. The list goes on and on and on. The other problem with that is the fact that there is this pursuit of small modular reactors in South Australia; actually, it's the only type of reactor that's been slated for South Australia. The problem with small modular reactors, as my good friend from Western Australia will attest, is that they don't exist commercially off the shelf anywhere in the Western World, which makes it really difficult to comprehend how we are going to establish a nuclear power generation industry in South Australia if we're pursuing a technology that doesn't exist. This is the type of fantasy-land place that we are currently sitting in. It's just not comprehensible. I just can't get my head around where we currently are at.

On top of this, not only are we pursuing technology that's not currently commercially available around the world, but there's this fake promise that it's going to deliver hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs. This does not mean that it's a straightforward transition for coal workers coming out of their existing coal-fired power stations straight into what has not yet been built: a nuclear power station. This will require retraining, and it does run with the problem that there is a huge time delay between an announcement to pursue nuclear power generation in this country and delivery of a nuclear reactor in this country. The first nuclear reactor will take around 15 to 20 years to deliver—we're talking the 2040s. Most of our coal-fired power stations are due to close in the early 2030s. That is a huge time lag between closure and a new station coming online. This enquiry has found that it is not feasible to pursue nuclear power generation in Australia.

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

I rise to make a contribution in respect to the interim report into nuclear power generation in Australia, particularly from the point of view of my electorate of Flynn, in Central Queensland, where there has been a proposal to possibly build a nuclear facility at the Callide Power Station near Biloela.

The whole energy debate is obviously front and centre. It is very topical. There are many different points of view. It is a rather polarising debate, with those that support traditional power generation, coal and gas, versus the renewable energy industry, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, pumped hydro and so forth; and other alternative energy sources, such as the production of green hydrogen et cetera.

One of the biggest tragedies to me in this whole energy debate is that nearly 25 years ago there was a decision made in Parliament House to put a moratorium on nuclear energy in Australia. What that has led to is a whole generation of people in our education system who have not pursued the science and everything that is involved in respect to anything nuclear. That has put Australia in a very difficult position right now. We know that we have signed up to the AUKUS program, to have nuclear submarines here. We will have to train people to manage, to build and to operate. We will have to come up with the technologies to deal with the waste, the maintenance and everything in regard to having nuclear submarines. Having made that decision as Australians—our government has committed some $4 billion to Rolls-Royce to develop the nuclear reactors that will go in those submarine boats—doesn't it make practical, common sense to include industrial and domestic nuclear power? To me it does.

These arguments that are very exaggerated in respect to having nuclear energy are very topical and, as I said, very polarising. There are over 400 nuclear reactors around the world providing clean, efficient and reliable power to many industrialised countries. Many of those industrialised countries are revamping their nuclear systems and reinvesting in nuclear systems. For Australia to shut itself out from that possibility is, to me, a tragedy for future generations of Australians. We should be having sensible and logical debates about our energy future.

Here in Australia we do have a nuclear reactor, at Lucas Heights. It has been there since 1960 or thereabouts. It is recognised as a gold standard medical nuclear facility. There are scientists—and the medical profession in general—who go to Sydney, to Lucas heights, to pursue their profession, to perform studies in respect to medical nuclear technology. All of the waste that has been produced at Lucas Heights is stored onsite, and has been since it was started. There is an argument that, come 2030, Lucas Heights will run low on storage, and that is why the previous government developed a proposal to build a nuclear waste site at Kimba in South Australia, but that has now been vetoed. The point is that we've already got this technology. We're already dealing with it. We've already signed up to the AUKUS agreement with the possibility of having nuclear-powered submarines. Why can't we have this logical debate in respect of nuclear energy and let the experts make these decisions and feed into these conversations instead of to-ing and fro-ing with politicians such as me who really know nothing about it. We're only scratching the surface.

The former speaker talked about social licence. Up in Central Queensland, where I come from, as I said, there's a proposal by the coalition to build a facility there should we become the government. I have held many forums—a dozen, in fact—on this very subject, and, of all 3,000 people who responded to us, 68 per cent of them were in favour of pursuing nuclear technology. It's pretty much a must-have where I come from. The Flynn electorate in Central Queensland is one of the big economic engine rooms in Australia. We have the coal industry, the alumina industry and the coal-loading terminal at Gladstone, which is the world's fourth-largest coal-loading terminal. There is the gas industry, heavy industry of all sorts, the railways and all of that sort of thing. It needs a constant, reliable source of energy. People up there know you cannot run the alumina smelter and the two refineries there on wind turbines and solar panels; it simply won't work. You cannot run the electric train system to the Central Queensland coalmines, which deliver 70 million tonnes of coal to the Port of Gladstone, on wind turbines and solar panels. It's illogical even to suggest that you can. You need a system of batteries and pumped Hydro—an enormous investment—to make it even feasible to work.

This is another argument that has come up in this report: cost. What does it all cost? I know we're only coming up with ballpark figures, and the coalition has engaged Frontier Economic to do their estimations on it. They've come up with a figure of approximately $330 billion, and that's expensive. I recognise that. But so is renewable energy. Again, Frontier Economics came up with a figure of over $600 billion for renewables. I would argue that it's going to be a lot more than that, and I'll tell you why that is. In my electorate again, we are having these enormous wind turbines been built. I'm dealing with over eight proposals in my electorate alone. We know from facts that are there now—Lotus Creek, for example, is a $1.3 billion project for 46 turbines. If you do the math there, that's $28 million a turbine. I've done a lot of work with Steven Nowakowski mapping all of these turbines right around Australia. There are some 21,000 of them that we have identified and we have mapped. If you do some ballpark figures on that, use a nominal figures of $20 million per turbine and multiply that by 20,000 turbines, you're talking $400 billion dollars, and that's just for the wind turbines. When you start adding in the transmission lines, the pumped hydro, all of the network charges and everything that's got to happen to make it work—Princeton University in America and the University of Melbourne's estimation of $1.5 trillion by 2030, in my humble opinion, is more like the ballpark.

If we ask the government how much renewable energy will cost us, they won't tell us. They don't have a figure. I find it quite appalling to saddle Australians to these enormous projects, particularly when they've got issues like the Capacity Investment Scheme, where Australians will be asked to underwrite the power generation of these projects even if they don't produce any power. That's quite a ridiculous notion.

Nuclear energy, as I said, is widely accepted where I come from. I understand there is angst amongst communities everywhere. Everybody uses these silly little memes of three-eyed fish and so forth. What nonsense! What absolute nonsense! As I said, there are over 400 nuclear facilities around the world, providing the cleanest and most reliable power to the biggest industrial nations on the planet. We, as Australians, should be having sensible debates about what our future holds and how we are going to provide reliable and affordable energy for our consumers that has longevity attached to it.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to speak on this committee inquiry report. As a member of the committee, I saw this as a really important inquiry. An interesting observation is that there is some talent in the coalition, and there are some ideas. Sometimes there are big ideas, but big ideas don't necessarily mean good ideas. This is an example of not just a not-good idea but a terrible idea.

It is great to have the opportunity to reflect on the interim findings and share some insights with the chamber today. As the only engineer in the Labor Party caucus, I was naturally excited to participate in this work. The expertise has served me well through my time in this place and especially in this inquiry. It's not just because I've worked in steel capped boots in the mines but also because I've had the opportunity to work in decarbonisation for over 12 years. Looking at the energy transition, electricity grids and future energy needs have been my bread and butter for over 12 years. That insight has brought some skills and expertise to this inquiry. As an engineer, I believe in evidence based decision-making, and this report provides that evidence.

Over the course of this inquiry, the committee held 19 public hearings right across the country. We heard from a wide range of voices, from global nuclear experts to Australian scientists, engineers and energy and climate change specialists. We listened closely to our federal agencies responsible for Australia's existing nuclear activities. I think it's also important to say that, yes; we do have a current nuclear industry. The nuclear industry plays a really important role in our health sector. The medical isotopes that are produced by Lucas Heights are lifesaving across the country. I'm going to say that I think that the Australian public is smart enough to understand that, but when we're talking about nuclear power generation, this is a very different proposition. We also heard directly from First Nations communities, environmental organisations and everyday Australians. All raised serious concerns about the trust, transparency and social license for nuclear power energy.

The interim report makes one thing abundantly clear. Peter Dutton—whoops, sorry!—the opposition leader's nuclear fantasy is indeed a nuclear nightmare. It doesn't stack up. It won't be on time or on cost, not even on the proportion that it will contribute to the electricity grid, and it's simply not appropriate for Australia. This inquiry asked two questions: can nuclear be rolled out fast enough, and can it compete on cost? The answer, based on the evidence from the real experts, is clear. It's a resounding no. Can it be compatible with the future electricity grid? We should have an idea on what this can do, and, when we asked if it could be rolled out fast enough and compete on cost, the truth is it cannot, and so I think that we should throw it in the trash can.

Even if we lifted the ban and started right now, we wouldn't see a single nuclear power station until the 2040s—that's nearly two decades away. That's too late to hit our climate targets and too late to support coal workers and communities going through the transition. It's not just about timing; it's also about cost. Nuclear is the most expensive form of electricity. It is expensive to run. Let's be truthful about this policy. This policy really is about kicking the can down the road on climate change action. Let's be honest, because Australia has no commercial nuclear experience, and we're told to expect a 100 per cent premium on build costs. That's right: double the price. Who's going to pay for that? Is this a commercial idea? No. The proposal is for taxpayers to pay for this—me, my electorate, all of Australia. If we are talking about dollar figures, we're talking about $600 billion—that's a lot of coin. If we consider the budget that we delivered last night, that was $785 billion. So when you look at this one expensive idea, it is, honestly, off the charts.

Also, let's get real about workers. The future is clean, fast and affordable. It's funny: there's a really great book written by a guy called Charles Duhigg called Smarter, Faster, Better, and I can't help but think that this idea is dumber, slower, crapper. Renewables are powering homes already. The biggest form of electricity growth that we have seen in Australia has been rooftop solar. People are enjoying seeing the democratisation of their electricity. What we are seeing is that renewables are delivering jobs and delivering investment, and it's honestly cheaper because—guess what. We don't pay when the sun is shining and when the wind is blowing. What I will say is that we do need to make sure that we have firming opportunities for our electricity grid as well, so gas has a role to play in the meantime. We also have batteries, and there will be solutions like pumped hydro. We have the technology. We have the know-how. We have the workforce. We don't need another distraction; what we need is action. This report makes it clear: nuclear is not the answer. Australia can't afford to waste more time or money chasing a nuclear nightmare. Let's focus on what works and what will actually deliver cleaner, cheaper energy for all Australians.

I also want to thank the entire committee for all of the work that they did and the member for Hunter for his leadership as the chair on this inquiry. It was great to have the opportunity to spend time in Collie, which is in south-west WA. This is a country town that has been a coalmining town and a coal-fired power station town. They have done an important job of providing electricity for the state. But we saw the state government announce that we would be closing down a coal-fired power station. They did that because they knew that that was the right thing to do to ensure that we reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our grid. What that also did was provide certainty to our workers. So what the WA state government is in the process of doing is investing in amazing industries to have a look at the way that we can create a just transition for those workers. I think that that's what coal workers want. This nuclear fantasy will not deliver jobs by the time this coal-fired power station closes down. It is not practical; it's not going to deliver real solutions.

The other thing that I wanted to talk about is what goods of the future looks like. What we're seeing is people looking at what is the most cost competitive form of energy for electricity grids. First is solar panels, and second is wind. It's cheap, and this is what we are seeing commercial businesses invest in. As we look at the grid changing, this idea of base load is actually, again, a fallacy. When people talk about the switching of coal-fired power stations to nuclear power stations, it's wrong. That's something that we don't need any more. It takes too long to ramp up the coal-fired power station and too long to ramp it down. The truth is that nuclear power stations do not have that ability and they are not compatible with the cheapest form of electricity which exists here in Australia. It's interesting because Australia has such an exciting opportunity to be a part of the clean energy revolution across the world, and that will be through renewable energy. We have an opportunity to see our electricity prices reduced, and we will do that through renewables. Nuclear power is not going to be the solution for Australia or Western Australia. We need to make sure that we invest in what's smart. We need to do things that are evidence-based. Through all of the time I have worked as an engineer in decarbonisation, this has never been an idea that the big companies have talked about, and I worked for the big ASX 200 companies on St Georges Terrace for more than a decade. I see this as the opposite of the book Smarter faster better: dumber, slower, crapper, bad idea, nuclear nightmare. Let's not vote this in.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased that the chair of this committee has joined us in the chamber. He won't like what I'm going to say, but I'm disappointed with the negativity and with the committee comments—that is, the majority of the committee, which was made up entirely of government members—in the interim report. It is curious and depressing how government members form a different view to the rest of the G20 nations. I was just listening to the member for Swan speaking about community license, and it would come as a disappointment to her just how much the community is accepting the view—particularly young Australians—that we need to find a different way to net zero because the pathway we are on is costing us business, wealth and investment all around Australia.

The government's net zero by 2025 plan, with impossibly shorter-term targets, target that destination with a renewables-only pathway. Quite frankly, only zealots believe this is close to possible without an alternative to coal baseload generation. The world is choosing nuclear in the mix.

Let me go to the South Australian experience. I'm a South Australian. We're very lucky in this parliament—as I've said on many occasions—that we've had South Australia on this electricity pathway for some time. They are the canary in the coalmine. South Australia has a 75 per cent renewable network, and we should say: 'Wahey! That's a really good outcome!' It is better than the next mainland state in Australia by double. South Australia has doubled the amount of renewable electricity put into the grid from the next state. But it's not the only thing we excel at; we have a 50 per cent higher retail price then the next state. The price of electricity is 50 per cent higher in South Australia than it is in New South Wales, and Victoria has a very similar rate. It's like that old saying: 'South Australia is the driest state on the driest continent.' In this particular case, South Australia has the highest electricity price in a country that has some of the highest electricity prices in the world. No wonder our businesses and our industries are struggling.

As a matter of proof on this, I use my own build. I'm very happy to do so. I went back recently and pulled out some accounts from just after the election of the Albanese government—from July 2022. My electricity was 28 cents per kilowatt hour. My latest bill is 42! I don't know what the member for Hunter is like with his maths, but I can tell you that's a 50 per cent increase. It's 50 per cent higher now than it was three years ago, and it's bound to get worse, because Victoria is shutting down its coal-fired power stations—it may not be, actually; it's looking for an extension on Loy Yang at the moment—and that's where South Australia is getting it backup from. When the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine—we've heard it all before—that's where South Australia gets its power from. There is an investment in batteries around at the moment, but we know, and this is an important thing for people to understand, that the cost of renewable energy is in the firming. When you begin the journey of firming, it is cheap. It costs virtually nothing. Going from zero to a position of 20 per cent renewable—you just plug into the power station. The coal-fired power station comes in, the gas comes in, and they back it up. It doesn't cost anything. When you get to 50, it starts to hurt.

It was the lowering of cost when energy was abundant that closed down the coal-fired power station in Port Augusta. A power station that used to be able to sell energy at a profit all of the time became a power station that could sell energy at a profit only some of the time. In fact, that place could run at a profit for fewer than 70 days a year, but it had to operate all the time. In the end, it became a liability. They closed it down, and the price of our power spiked in South Australia quite dramatically. It has not come down since. My bill that I was telling you about has had a 50 per cent increase in the last three years. I was at a fish processor in Port Lincoln quite recently, and they shared their electricity bills with me. Despite the fact they'd covered the roof with solar panels, they'd had more than a 50 per cent increase. They use bucketloads of electricity because they have giant freezers there to chill and freeze the fish. I haven't spoken to them, but I bet they're very excited about the $150 rebate that came through the budget yesterday! They'd be even less excited, even marginally, about the scrapping of the instant asset tax write-offs.

The problem with renewables is this cost of firming. When this committee was established, I criticised it's narrow scope in a speech. It was then, and it remains, a lynch mob—a platform for antinuclear zealots that was always intended to find the government's renewable-only policies were the best pathway, despite clear evidence from many people in the inquiry. I haven't had the opportunity to read every page yet, but I can certainly find evidence of disputing opinion. One of the sections in this report calls for social licence, and the committee went to every site that the coalition has nominated as a possible site for nuclear generation. I think the member for Hunter would've been disappointed with the protest crowd at Port Augusta when he got there. They weren't exactly manning the barricades out there with their placards, were they? There were a couple of people who were opposed who gave evidence; I can report that they were left over from an earlier nuclear war about the siting of the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility, where one of the sites suggested was the Flinders Ranges. Despite the fact that they live nowhere near Port Augusta, they came down for the hearing on that particular issue. It shows the government's complete fear of anything that looks like nuclear.

We had a community in Australia—Kimba, my hometown—that had stuck its hand up to host the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility and was keen to do so, with more than 62 per cent of the population in favour of it. It had been through both houses of the parliament, and then, when an Indigenous organisation raised an objection—an objection that would, in fact, have been easily overruled—the government ran for cover. Here we are now, three years later—

and we still have no answer for where the waste—

from Lucas Heights is going to go when that facility is full. ARPANSA has warned that it will be full in some sections by 2029. This government has no plan.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That decision was made when you were in government.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection, because when we were in government we tried to get this beyond judicial review, but those in the Labor Party and those on the crossbenches of the Senate who knew not what they were talking about refused that position.

It's worth noting, member for Moreton, that the department contacted this Indigenous group 180 times to inform them of what was going on and could get no response. They then went to court and said, 'We haven't been consulted.' How pathetic—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

It was your opposition that did not allow it to pass through the Senate as we intended.

Port Augusta has been visited by the member for Fairfax. I met with the representatives of the Port Augusta Council and residents on a number of occasions. Will Shackel bought the Nuclear for Australia travelling roadshow to Port Augusta, and the panel of experts included 2023 Miss America Grace Stanke. She was very warmly received. That panel was very warmly received. Last year, I sent out a flier. I told the people of Port Augusta that as part of the coalition's plans there would be an industrial precinct that would be able to access electricity directly from the power station—not going through the transmission grid and upping the price by more than 50 per cent—the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable form of electricity available in Australia.

There would be a flocking of industrial invest into any community that hosted these facilities. With all that information, no wonder we're getting a good result in Port Augusta. When I put out this flyer, I didn't get much response, I have to say. It went to every citizen in Port Augusta, and I rang up a mate to make sure that Australia Post had done the right thing. I said, 'Did you get a flyer from me in the post?' He said, 'Yeah, yeah, the nuclear thing?' I said: 'Yeah. What do you reckon? I haven't had any negative feedback.' He said: 'No. That's because everyone I know reckons it's a bloody good idea and you should get on with it.' That sums it up, I think. Government policies are strangling Australian industry at the moment. We need a change. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you remember learning in primary school how unique our island continent is? I remember being taught that the Great Barrier Reef is the longest reef in the world and it can be seen from outer space. I'm not sure if that's true but I remember hearing about that—it's a big thing in Queensland—and that we were the smallest continent, filled with animals not found anywhere else. One fact I particularly remember is that Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world. It's not the driest but is the driest inhabited continent. Antarctica is actually drier.

Growing up in Saint George, out in western Queensland, this fact wasn't too hard to imagine. We went for long periods without rain. In fact, 70 per cent of Australia is classified as either arid or semiarid. In the arid zone, there is an average rainfall of 250 millimetres or less. This fact is particularly pertinent now, given the coalition's nuclear fantasy. The nuclear plan of the honourable opposition leader, Mr Dutton, is fanciful in numerous ways, as was detailed by Mr Repacholi in his speech this morning. But, there are so many other things.

We know it's fanciful because of the cost, the timeframe, the risk, the legal barriers and the lack of social licence. That's has been covered by many of the other speakers so far. I'm going to particularly talk about the fact that the LNP's nuclear pipedream involves generating nuclear energy on the driest inhabited continent on earth, and I'm particularly going to talk about Queensland.

We know that water plays a crucial role in the generation of nuclear power.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Most people know that water plays a crucial role. Put simply, by Associate Professor Obbard from the University of New South Wales, Nuclear Innovation Centre, 'The job of water is to somehow pump all the heat out of the reactor and do something useful with it to make electricity.'

I'm sure the member for Fairfax, when he came up with this wonderful plan that he took to his leader, did something as simple as googling those words 'nuclear power water'. That's what I did. In fact, I did it today, and this is what came up: 'Nuclear power plants require significant amounts of water for cooling, primarily to condense steam back into water after it has powered turbines but also to cool the reactor core. While the water is used extensively, it is not consumed but rather recycled and is used in a closed-loop system.' They typically use 13 billion to 24 billion litres per year or about 35 million to 65 million litres per day.

To put that in context, as someone that used to be on the Olympic Games committee, an Olympic-sized swimming pool is about 2.5 million litres. So the nuclear reactors use 14 to 26 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water per day. That water will not be used for farming. We know that the two proposed sites for nuclear power plants in Queensland—I went there with chair of the committee—are the coal-fired power stations at Callide and Tarong.

I had visited Tarong many years before, when I was a mines adviser in the Queensland state government. Callide currently has an allocation of 20,000 megalitres a year from the Callide Dam. It's estimated that a nuclear power plant would require at least double this amount and maybe even more. It's similar story at Tarong, which will require an additional 55 per cent more water than the current coal-fired power station uses. The dams that both power stations draw their water from also supply drinking water to little towns like Gladstone, Kingaroy and Biloela. These dams have another vital use. They supply water for irrigation for agriculture and the replenishment of aquifers in these areas.

I know that there is one member from the National Party present in the chamber. I do note that the member for Fairfax sits here in the Liberal Party room; he doesn't sit in the National Party room. I also know a little bit of political history, and when I was growing up in the bush, I was represented in my town by a party called the Country Party. The Country Party looked after farmers, and they were also made up of farmers. They were never the Liberal lapdogs. The Country Party in Queensland stood up for themselves and they stood up for farmers in particular. The old Country Party would never abandon the bush. They would never screw over farmers in pursuit of a nuclear fantasy around Callide and Tarong to appease their inner-city liberals. The MP for Fairfax talked about regional economic hubs. I listened to what he had to say. There's no place for farmers. They're giving up on the bush.

The coalition's plan rests on the assumption that there is water available in the first place. The Callide Dam is currently at 16.5 per cent capacity. It's fed by Awoonga Dam, which is currently under 50 per cent capacity. This is no surprise when you consider that since 1964, which isn't that long ago, the Banana shire LGA, which contains Callide, has had 11 periods of drought as declared by the Queensland government. The Queensland government started recording drought declaration status in 1964, and the records show that in the same timeframe the area encompassing Tarong has had 12 periods of declared drought. Why would you choose the areas that have been drought declared basically every other year and say, 'Let's put a water-intensive nuclear power station there.' It's unbelievable.

This has obviously been designed by a Liberal, and not by a National who understands farmers and the bush. I'd certainly like to know what the LNP's backup plans are for Callide and Tarong when the dams dry up and more droughts are declared, as they invariably will be. For the townsfolk that want water to drink—bad luck. For the townsfolk who want to have a shower or a bath—bad luck. For local farmers that have a business that's hooked in to these water supplies—bad luck. However, like so much of the honourable opposition leader's nuclear plans, the backups are unspecified, uncertain and murky. No responsible government would gamble Australian taxpayer money—and such vast sums of it—on such an unreliable prospect. I didn't go to all of the other sites, but my understanding is that several of them have water constraints as well, as the chair can attest to—even the deputy chair can attest to that as well if he has been listening.

Although I'm sure the LNP would rather that we didn't, we also need to talk about the risk of a nuclear accident—vast quantities of water could be required to avoid a reactor meltdown. As the director of the Queensland Conservation Council states:

There simply is not enough water available in the proposed locations to run nuclear facilities, and no plan for where to store irradiated water required for heat reduction in the case of an emergency.

We heard great evidence from the people of Biloela and the people that came to the Nanango hearings. I understand from the people in the committee that there was great awareness and people all throughout Australia were prepared to engage with the idea. When the House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy published the interim report of their inquiry, we'd heard testimony over 19 days of public hearings across the country, including in each of the regions where the coalition plans to build nuclear power plants. The inquiry also considered more than 850 written submissions, and found:

The impact of nuclear power generation on Australia's water supplies has been inadequately considered by the Coalition in its proposal.

Meanwhile, the Albanese Labor government is getting on with harnessing the natural resources we are blessed with to generate renewable energy. During droughts—guess what—the sun shines more, and during droughts, the wind can still blow. That's the beauty of it! We've approved 77 renewable energy projects which will generate enough power for 10 million Australian homes. That's 15 gigawatts more than the Dutton plan will deliver in 20 or 30 years for $600 billion. The opposition leader's Commonwealth nuclear public servants haven't been hired yet. I don't think anybody needs to start working on their CVs right at the moment. This is not a science driven solution; it is a political wedge. Private capital won't touch it with a bargepole. Private capital knows that it would be better off putting it on race 7 at Eagle Farm rather than backing this fantasy.

So, while the Coalition exists in fantasy land, Labor is implementing a strong and responsible plan for Australia's current and future energy needs right now. Labor is working with the coal-fired power stations, working with the gas-fired power stations and working with renewable energy projects to make sure that we've got a manufacturing sector right now, not some fantasy that'll come along in 40 years. Labor is working with these people right now to ensure that we have a manufacturing sector and also that we look after the farmers in the bush and make sure their water supplies are secured. I might be from the bush and representing the city now, but I understand how to look after farmers; the Nationals seem to have forgotten that.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge, as I follow on from the member for Moreton, that that was possibly his last contribution in this place. He is just about quoted out; another couple of days. That probably isn't going to be one of your best contributions, unfortunately. I don't think it will age well.

To the chair of the committee, the member for Hunter, I thank you for bringing the committee to Collie, in my electorate. It was good to give the people of Collie, and certainly some experts that appeared before the committee, the opportunity to have some input into the findings of the committee. Having looked at the evidence and looked at what was received, I find it difficult to see how the committee arrived at its conclusion, but it is the privilege of the chair to direct the secretariat to produce the report at the end of the day. My good friend the member for Cook, who has only been in this place a little bit over 12 months, said during his contribution this morning that he came in here naively thinking that these committees were about going out, gathering evidence, considering that evidence in an unbiased and balanced way and then coming out with a conclusion that is supported by the evidence and in the best interests of the nation. But he was sadly disillusioned by the way that things panned out. I think back to my own experiences. I'm the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture. In the middle of last year we had a report that was delivered that certainly wasn't backed up by the evidence that the committee heard over the period of its work.

I return to the issue at hand, which is the potential for nuclear energy in this country and how it might solve some of the issues that we're confronting, which include some of the highest energy costs in the world, which are up to three times higher than equivalent jurisdictions. The Labor Party has never revealed the true cost of its renewables only plan through to 2050, and not even the market operator could advise the House Select Committee on Nuclear Energy of the total system cost of the renewables only plan, but we do see the cost to businesses and households soaring, with an up to $1,300 increase in the last three years alone, and, as I said, the highest energy costs of any similar jurisdiction in the world.

No evidence was presented to the inquiry to challenge the Frontier Economics report, which put a price tag of $642 billion on the Labor Party's plan, and that's before factoring in the billions more for transmission lines, land acquisition and storage. Of course, the $642 billion—for those people from Western Australia who may watch this video—didn't include Western Australia; that's the eastern market grid. Western Australia, with the South West Interconnected System, is separate from that. In November last year it was quite revealing on ABC's Country Hour when a Jai Thomas, the coordinator of energy for a WA government initiative called Powering WA, estimated that the level of investment required for the WA system would be—and this is a direct quote—in the order of $200 billion over the next 20 to 25 years. That's just for the WA system, so that's on top of the eastern market over here.

In comparison, the total system cost of the coalition's plan to transform the entire National Electricity Market through to 2050, including nuclear energy, is $331 billion. This includes transmission lines, renewables, gas and nuclear. The nuclear part of the equation is around $120 billion, with nuclear making up 38 per cent of a balanced energy mix. Labor's 100 per cent renewables-only plan, by comparison, is 44 per cent more expensive and does not provide any firming baseload power for when the sun does not shine and the wind doesn't blow.

The nuclear energy committee visited Collie, the site for a proposed small modular reactor, in my electorate. I thank all those who took the time to make a submission or give evidence to the committee. Collie has long been the energy capital of Western Australia, with several coal-fired power plants delivering reliable electricity to large parts of Western Australia through the comprehensive transmission network which radiates out of Collie. Collie also produces the electricity for the nearby Worsley Alumina refinery, which supports over 2,000 jobs. The good people of Collie and surrounds have a high degree of energy literacy. If they haven't worked in the coalmines or in the power plants, they've have been involved in other industries dependent on the reliable energy produced in Collie and are most accustomed to wages commensurate with their skills. They're all concerned about their employment, particularly given that the WA state government plans to close down the coalmines and the Muja power plant in 2029.

I know the Labor Party think they're on a political winner here, but we did see in the Queensland election that they gave up on trying to run the scare campaign after a few weeks. In the recent WA election—which, I'll be the first to admit, wasn't great for the WA Liberal Party—it was very revealing that in the seat of Collie-Preston, which is a Labor town and a union town, there was a 19 per cent two-party preferred swing against Jodie Hanns, who led the scare campaign on behalf of Labor in WA. The member for Perth popped up with the odd cameo performance, but it's mainly been the member for Collie-Preston running the scare campaign. The swing against the sitting member on the primary vote was 20 per cent. I'm just not that sure that this is the political winner, particularly in the town of Collie, that people think it is.

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

It was 22.9 per cent.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry? Do you want to quote the numbers to me?

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

I was looking at the results. You only got 22.9 per cent.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What's the two-party preferred swing? It's 20 per cent. We have a preferential voting system, in case you hadn't noticed. You might notice come election day.

The interest in nuclear energy is not just confined to my electorate to Collie. In fact, in the town of Kalgoorlie, which is at the end of a 600-kilometre transmission line which has regularly had power blackouts—in February 2024 the power was out for up to a week for some residents there—they are crying out for a nuclear power plant.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was it transmission issues?

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it was transmission issues.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was transmission issues, so it was nothing to do with the power plant.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But, if you have a power plant in Kalgoorlie, then you don't have the transmission issues. You can send it back down the line, Dan.

Am I able to speak here?

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the Leader of the Opposition came to Diggers and Dealers in Kalgoorlie in August last year to meet with mining industry people, as we drove into town, there was a banner on one of the main intersections on Hammond Street. The banner said 'Kalgoorlie-Boulder welcomes Peter Dutton and welcomes nuclear energy'. There are towns out there and there are people across my electorate who welcome nuclear energy because they can see the benefits of it. But it's not only that; in the seat of O'Connor, we've got three uranium deposits—Australia does mine uranium; we export it to the rest of the world—that are waiting to be exploited. One of them, Deep Yellow's Mulga Rock, is permitted and ready to go. They are in the process of preparing that mine for operation. So we will see uranium being mined in O'Connor. It'll be trucked through Kalgoorlie and then through to South Australia, where it will be exported out of the Port of Adelaide, which is already accredited. We export a significant amount of uranium out of Adelaide.

An honourable member interjecting—

That's right. So we mine uranium and we export it. But not only that; we have an extraordinary storage site in the electorate of O'Connor at Sandy Ridge, which is about halfway between Coolgardie and Southern Cross. It's one of the most geologically stable parts of the planet's surface. It is fully permanent. It is permanent to accept low-level nuclear waste. There was the planned site in South Australia at Kimba which fell over, but the site at Sandy Ridge is permanent to take low-level nuclear waste and is ready to go.

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

I'd just like to pay tribute to the work of the member for Hunter in chairing this nuclear energy inquiry—yet another inquiry into the viability of nuclear energy in Australia. I think the member for Hunter did an extraordinary job on a very tight schedule. We do travel a lot, and it was a pretty hectic schedule, going all around the country, listening to plenty of submissions, hearing from a lot of experts and delivering what I believe to be a really robust interim report, which is absolutely crystal clear. Its findings say this: nuclear energy is too slow, it's too expensive and it's too risky. If the findings weren't in before, they're in now. The facts are here. The expert advice is consistent.

Australians deserve honesty, not a half-baked nuclear fantasy conjured up to distract from a decade of climate inaction by the Liberals and Nationals. Their policy proposal for nuclear is not a serious policy proposal, and, because of that, the Liberals and Nationals are not serious political parties. Their nuclear policy is a dangerous delaying tactic. It's a Trojan Horse for extending the life of coal-fired power stations. And it's a plan that would raise power bills, not lower them.

The chair of the committee, the member for Hunter, summed it up best. He said it could be well into the 2040s before we might see nuclear energy generated in Australia—well into the 2040s. That's 15 years from now, at a minimum. And that's if everything goes right, which, we know, with nuclear, it rarely does. Just ask the UK, where Hinkley Point C is now nearly a decade overdue and 20 billion pounds over budget, or the US, where Georgia's Vogtle nuclear plant has doubled in cost and is seven years late.

This is a problem—a real problem—that those opposite do not acknowledge. Australia does not have the time to wait for nuclear power, because under the former coalition government, let's not forget, the operators of 24 coal-fired power plants announced their plants' closures. Ninety per cent of our coal-fired power is forecast to retire by 2035. That's just 10 years away. To make matters worse, during their 10 years in government they did next to nothing about this. They didn't introduce a nuclear plan when they were actually in government, and then they left us with four gigawatts less power in the system while only introducing one gigawatt of new power. That's a deficit of three gigawatts. With power exiting the system, with coal-fired power shutting in the next decade, we need new power in the system now, not in 20 years—the time we'd be waiting for their expensive and risky nuclear reactors.

In the interim, prices will go up. And what's going to happen with power in between? Are the lights going to go out? What's going to happen to manufacturing? What's going to happen to industry? Their plan is not just reckless; it's a fantasy.

Independent experts at the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator have made these facts plain and simple for us to read. Their latest GenCost report confirms that reliable renewables, firmed solar and wind, are the cheapest form of energy. They price it from $83 to $120 per megawatt hour by 2030. In contrast, the same report shows nuclear power, even the so-called small modular reactors, would cost up to $382 per megawatt hour to produce electricity. That's up to eight times more than renewables. Even if nuclear weren't prohibitively expensive, it still wouldn't work because nuclear power simply isn't compatible with renewables. It is inflexible, needs to run constantly, can't ramp up or down quickly and can't respond to fluctuations in solar or wind output. That makes it a poor fit for a modern grid that needs clean, variable sources of energy in it.

By contrast, firmed renewables backed by batteries, pumped hydro and flexible gas can respond in real time. They are adaptable and scalable, and they are already being built. We heard the minister for the environment say the other day that in our term of government we've added 15 gigawatts of renewable energy generation into the grid, which is more than the Liberals plan for their seven nuclear reactors. We're doing it; it's happening right now. So trying to force nuclear into a renewables backed grid is like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. It's inefficient, drives up system costs and makes it harder to deliver the flexible energy that Australians need.

Nuclear doesn't complement renewables; it competes with them, and it will destroy them. Every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar taken away from proven technologies that are cheaper, faster, dispatchable and already working. That doesn't even factor in the enormous first-of-a-kind cost Australia would have to pay because we do not have a nuclear power industry here. We'd be spending $16 billion per reactor—money that would come straight from cuts, higher bills, increased taxes, or a combination of all of those things.

We've been here before. The same people who told us that climate change didn't matter are now saying that nuclear is the answer to it. The same people who delivered zero large-scale generation projects in nearly a decade now want us to trust them when they are in opposition with nuclear reactors. They didn't support renewables when they had the chance. They're not serious about climate action now, and their nuclear push is not about getting energy into the system in the short term. It's about an ideology; it's about delaying action, and it's about locking in fossil fuels for another generation. Don't take it from me; take it from the Leader of the Nationals who admitted on radio that their plan is to sweat out coal assets into nuclear. In other words, they want to run ageing coal power stations as long as possible—they are unreliable and breakdown; some are always out of action—and for us to cross our fingers because nuclear, they promise, will show up one day in two or three decades time. That's not a plan. That's a cover to extend the life of fossil fuels in our energy grid.

Renewable energy is the path forward to solving our energy challenges. It's not a theory or a hope. It's happening right now, delivering for households, businesses and communities across the country. It's not only the cheapest source of new power generation; it's also the quickest to dispatch. It's one of the safest to operate, and it's the most sustainable in reducing emissions. When backed by storage and gas, which we can turn on or off when we don't need it, this smart investment in the grid is capable of delivering reliable and resilient power across the country, particularly for our manufacturers.

This report shows that we don't need to gamble on this technology in 20 to 30 years time. We already have the tools to lower power bills, we have the tools to cut emissions, and we have the plan to get enough energy back into our system. Since we came to office in 2022, we've overseen a 25 per cent increase in renewable electricity generation in the national electricity market. It's helping to push down emissions, and, as AEMO have said many times, it's helping to put downward pressure on wholesale power prices. Emissions from the grid are now at record lows, and they will continue to go lower under Labor.

We're building the transmission we need through our Rewiring the Nation program. We're investing in batteries, both in grid-scale and in communities, just like in Bennelong at North Epping. Through our Capacity Investment Scheme, we are unlocking over 32 gigawatts of new, clean dispatchable energy. It's happening. Last year, there was 5.9 gigawatts of renewable energy generation, enough to power 1.7 million homes. We approved over 80 renewable energy projects, enough to power 10 million Australian homes. In New South Wales alone, we have backed six dispatchable energy projects, and in Victoria and South Australia investor interest has been so strong we've received 32 times more bids than we needed. Households are buying in on this, too, with more than three 330,000 rooftop solar installations in Australia last year. If it works on the small scale, it's going to work on a large scale as well, isn't it? The more we invest in this, the more returns our communities will get in lowering emissions and putting more of the cheapest form of new power in the grid.

Then you get into the fact that nuclear is illegal in many states—there is a huge impediment there—because it comes with baggage. There's the waste, the safety concerns and the distinct lack of social licence to do it. They never mentioned once in their 22 energy policies they would do nuclear; they're just doing it now because of their ideology. We reject it.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition wants you to believe nuclear is a magic solution that will solve both our climate and our energy woes. Here's why they're wrong: nuclear is the most expensive form of energy generation. Renewables—wind and solar backed by storage—are the cheapest, followed by coal, then gas, then by pricy nuclear. This is according to the CSIRO, whose analysis does include the cost of transition infrastructure. Nuclear plants take decades to build. Construction of new plants is frequently delayed, such as in France, where their recent Flamanville 3 reactor came online after a 12-year delay and quadruple the amount of the initial cost estimate. That's a country with an already well-established nuclear industry. The UK's Hinkley Point C nuclear energy facility—mentioned by the previous member—is costing three times more than promised and running 14 years late. In the US, there's a seven-year delay and double the cost for the Vogtle unit 3 plant in Georgia. They have essentially stopped building new nuclear plants in the US because it's just not stacking up for the government or for private investors.

So, nuclear—when do we get it? The short answer is never. The Flamanville 3 station in France had a 12-year delay and quadruple the initial cost estimate. The UK's Hinkley Point C reactor had a 14-year delay and triple the cost. The Vogtle unit 3 plant in the US had a seven-year delay and double the cost. These are all countries with an existing nuclear industry. The Leader of the Opposition reckons we'll get nuclear by 2035 and that it will cost $331 billion. In the real world, however, where—hopefully—most of us reside and which it seems the LNP are increasingly detached from, nuclear in Australia will start hitting our grid only by sometime around 2050. And the cost? Triple the coalition's optimistic assessment up to $993 billion. In the real world this just ain't gonna happen. It's a pipedream.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, it goes ahead: we get nuclear by 2050, while in the intervening period we will have screwed up our chance to transition to 100 per cent renewables because their plan involves delaying renewables construction and relying on ageing, expensive coal and gas in the interim. Even if we did get it, it would be six per cent of our energy needs and, as the most expensive form of energy, drive up our power bill enormously. In the real-world scenario, this just never happens. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition knows this and is just wanting to play politics with our energy transition. The best case scenario is that in 25 years we have six per cent of our energy covered by an incredibly expensive energy source, and we've completely turbocharged climate change in the meantime.

Nuclear sounds too good to be true, right? That's because it is. Nuclear is not only not as reliable as it has been touted to be by those trying to sell us this pup but is also not immune to the effects of climate change. Nuclear reactors rely on water to cool them, meaning they're vulnerable to droughts and even water that is simply too hot to cool the reactor, as they experienced in France. Coastal reactors are vulnerable to—get this; it sounds crazy—swarms of jellyfish clogging up their intake pipes because the acidification of the oceans due to climate change has turbocharged the jellyfish numbers. This has caused plant shutdowns across the globe, from Scotland to Japan to California.

Perhaps most importantly, the coalition's plan in the intervening decades before they could theoretically get nuclear going is to delay renewables and keep us reliant on ageing, expensive coal and gas infrastructure that's cooking our planet.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to say a few words about some of the comments made about this report. I gather there was a lot of work done, but I don't agree with all the conclusions. I just want to repeat a few reality checks. A lot of people are concerned about the cost, the delay in building them overseas, that it's not the answer, that it's a stalking horse to keep coal and gas in the system, that it uses way too much water and that renewable energy is very affordable and cheap. I just want to place some corrections on that.

First of all, the states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland are already relying on coal and gas, and they are subsidising the power stations to stay in. It's not a secret plan of the coalition; it's just a reality that 60 per cent of the energy in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales—roughly; if you follow the AEMO live generation, it's still 60 to 65 per cent—comes from coal. You can install all the gigawatts that the former member for Bennelong talked about, but the fact of the matter is they are all low capacity, randomly generating and often generate nothing or next to nothing. Capacity factor is how often an installed capacity actually generates. Everyone thinks Australia is so sunny and we'll have heaps of solar power. There is light for half the day, so it's at least 50 per cent. But actually, averaged over a year, it's 24 per cent. When it's light in the early morning, it's not generating, although it's light. In the dusk it's not, because the sun is not going straight onto the solar panels. When it's cloudy, it stops. When it's raining, it stops. When you have wet weeks and months, it stops. So you can install as much as you like and, because Australia is part of a world that has a north-south axis for the biggest part of the national electricity market and because of our native weather patterns, all these renewable generators are highly correlated. That means they all generate at the same time and they generally, over vast distances, stop at the same time, and overinstalling them doesn't mean that you will get something that's available 24 per cent of the time on average. If you build four times as much, you won't get 100 per cent of the time; it just means more and more installed capacity all stops at the one time.

The second thing is, 'All it needs is a lot of firming, and we are firming.' Well, that's what the New South Wales government is paying the power stations for. Firming is a euphemism for what you turn to when renewables are not generating. At the moment, the New South Wales Labor government is subsidising power stations to stay there because the market rules have sent them broke. They are old plants designed to get up to steam and spin a generator, which then generates electricity. They're not designed to ramp up or ramp down. Some of the new nuclear plants can do that handsomely. The BWRX-300 that Canada is building can ramp from 45 per cent up to 95 per cent because the neutronics in these modern plants is great. You can go from 45 per cent up to 95 per cent. But back-up is expensive because it is generally a low-capacity-factor utilisation. If you're having gas on standby and it sits there and it's only firing up when there's a shortage, it makes it a really inefficient gas power plant. It's the same for coal, pumped hydro and batteries. They are very expensive.

Why are people's electricity bills going up and up even though they've got rooftop solar? There are plenty of businesses that have got rooftop solar and batteries, yet their bills are still going up. That is because in your bill stack, what makes up your bill, the electricity is the minority part. That's the wholesale cost of electricity. It is low compared to the network costs, the poles and wires and all the synchronous condensers that you have to add to the system that utilise energy but don't generate energy. All the new poles and wires, the massive expansion—all these extra bits and pieces on a renewables based grid—are what makes it expensive. Sure, they're cheap. But they're only cheap 24 per cent of the time. By giving them a red-carpet ride onto the grid, they can do that because the market allows them to. They're not responsible for the other 75 per cent of the time.

They also get other payments than what they get paid for their electricity. If you're a coal plant, unless you're selling electricity, you get diddly squat. You don't get paid anything. It's the same for gas. It's the same for countries overseas. You can bid in the market, but you only get paid for your electricity except if you're renewable. You can get a contract for difference, so your risk is reduced. You can get Capacity Investment Scheme payments to get your facility up and built. You get the grid from the whole public that pays in their bill. You can get the grid built for you even though you're not near where the load is needed. When we had a sensible, engineering based system, you had your load near where the generation was happening, and you had your fuel next to the load.

Basically, firming is expensive. Putting electricity into batteries, into a pumped hydro from direct current into alternating current, sending it through the wires, then putting it into a battery energy storage system, then taking it out, then inverting it back into AC and then getting it to your house uses oodles of the energy you've just generated. In an alternating current generated system, it's AC to AC to your house. You can transmit alternating current hundreds of miles without much consumption of the electricity.

These guys called Tesla—remember him?—George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison had battles about this in the 1880s and 1890s. One guy was building a DC system, and the other decided: 'No; this is crazy. You're losing all your energy.' They had to build a direct-current power station every two or three blocks in Chicago and New York because they couldn't transmit it. Tesla came along and developed how to make alternating current. It's pretty easy. You have copper wires intersecting the electromagnetic field of a magnet, and—hey presto!—electrons come out the end of it. How do you get a big 150-tonne magnet to spin around at 50 hertz a second? You boil water to produce steam, which spins a turbine that then spins the generator. Hey presto; that's what you've got.

That's what you get in nuclear. They are big. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy said, 'The member for Lyne has talked about nuclear; it's just a big kettle.' Actually, a coal plant is just a big kettle. A closed-cycle gas plant has a gas energy source which spins a turbine. But then it has a side channel that boils water so that you've got two bites of the energy to make more.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the idea that you have a cheap system based on renewables is quite fallacious. It is not a cheap system. It's cheap when you've got it, but, for the rest of the time, it makes the system unsustainable. The International Energy Agency has written about this forever—or since this renewable transition was proposed. They said, 'Up to 10 per cent, it doesn't cost you much; it's just money for jam.' You stick a wind tower up and—hey presto!—you get a bit of extra electricity. It's the same with a solar panel. But, once you get into the double figures, all the integration costs, all the extra poles and wires, all the bits and pieces, all the inverters, all the batteries and all the pumped hydro just sends you broke. Now—hey presto!—that's what happened in Germany. They have thousands of wind towers and they are about to start up their nuclear plants, because, if you have big baseload providers that can work with the existing renewables, then—hey presto!—you don't have to rely on Russia; you can just rely on yourself. And Germany has worked that out the hard way.

An honourable member: And you can't get gas anymore.

Yes—and you can't get gas. So you need a constant—

An honourable member interjecting—

But we can get uranium and we can run a plant for three years, so a lot of the stuff is very—

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member's has expired. Thank you.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 17:56