Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have a couple of matters that I would like to clarify. I note with interest that the minister made the leap from Britain, having made a decision that two degrees of warming was too much—and therefore it would set a target of a reduction of 60 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2050—to say that is why the Blair government had adopted nuclear power. I believe that is not in fact the case.

Britain’s move to nuclear power is in fact about upgrading existing nuclear power plants. It would cost ₤70 billion to decommission existing plants—a substantial cost. But the reason for Britain’s move to nuclear power is energy security for the UK rather than the greenhouse effect. The whole of Europe is traumatised by Russia having turned off the gas. I think it is fairly clear to everyone that Australia has very different policy positions and opportunities because we are blessed with abundant energy—particularly solar energy—and a whole range of energy options. Britain does not have those options; neither do other European countries. They are completely traumatised by the Russians turning off the gas, and that is why the focus has switched heavily onto energy security at the same time as people are trying to address climate change. Britain has decided to invest vast amounts in nuclear energy—against the advice of its sustainability commission, which recommended against it. But I would argue that the British imperative is as much about fear of the Russians turning off the gas as it is about anything else.

I would like to point out again, in relation to ABARE and nuclear energy in Australia—and the minister is now talking up nuclear—that ABARE tried their level best with this report to put the best possible spin on nuclear. They had to try very hard, but the best they could come up with was one or two nuclear plants operating by 2050, not the 25 that have been talked about. But the report rightly says that, had ABARE assumed nuclear power costs to be in the upper half of the estimated cost range from international literature and not in the lower half—which is what they did to come up with their one or two power plants—some or all of the contribution of nuclear power would have been displaced by other technologies.

So the economic reality is: if you price carbon, nuclear is still not going to stand up against renewables without a huge government subsidy. And the government cannot give us a price, right now, on the decommissioning of Lucas Heights. We cannot even get a price on the one single facility that we have, let alone an estimate of what you would pay for your power. The Switkowski report proposed that the costs of decommissioning be put onto the consumer in the price of energy from any nuclear facility. We have got no idea what that would be. So you are stuck in this situation where, if you put a price on carbon to try and make nuclear viable, you still have to subsidise it to the hilt, and the cost will be even greater because you have to incorporate into the cost the decommissioning costs.

The realities are, in that situation, that the renewables will absolutely be the most cost-effective scenario in terms of energy supply. But, once again, Minister, I put on the record here that ABARE tried its best for you, as it constantly does; it tried to assume that nuclear would be in the lower-cost half of the estimated cost range, even though international literature shows to the contrary.

In fact, they say in the report that you would only get a higher uptake of nuclear power if you had early confirmation that carbon capture and storage was not going to work, and that would not suit the government’s analysis, even though we have no proven carbon capture and storage. They go on to say that there would have to be significant improvements in nuclear waste disposal capability. We do not have that. They do not have that at Yucca Mountain either. You would have to have technical breakthroughs in the ability of nuclear power to co-produce hydrogen and desalinated water, and a higher demand for these by-products, plus a reinvigorated UN supporting both a global treaty on nuclear materials proliferation and a new terrorism task force. I would suggest to you that the likelihood of those things coming together is remote. ABARE might be able to dream up scenarios in which all that occurs. Good luck to them, because it is not going to happen.

The reality is that, as the Switkowski report acknowledges, you are not going to have nuclear power in Australia. The private sector is not going to invest in it without bipartisan support. You have not got it. There is huge community opposition. And even if you brought all of those things on stream, the Achilles heel you have on climate change is that we have only 10 or 15 years to significantly reduce greenhouse gases, and nuclear will not be on-stream within that time frame.

By the time you built any reactor in Australia—given that all those issues were out of the way—you would be at the stage of locking in dangerous climate change, at least for 2100, within the next 10 or 15 years. And that is the big problem you have on nuclear: it cannot go anywhere near solving—it cannot even begin to solve—the greenhouse gas reduction issues in the 10 to 15 year time frame we have.

So I support the Labor amendment, but I would like to hear from Senator Carr about how, if the Labor trigger were in place—and, as the senator would be aware, ours is a much more stringent trigger, but let us assume the 500,000 tonne trigger was in place—this amendment would work in practice. If it were passed into law, how would an environment minister—having called in a project such as the Anvil Hill coalmine, which would generate 12½ million tonnes of carbon dioxide, an amount well over the trigger, by seven times or whatever—operate under the act if this trigger were in place? It obviously would be triggered by a development such as Anvil Hill. What would then happen? What would the minister do in relation to that information?