David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

1,430 terawatt hours per year is the amount of electricity needed to be able to power Australia to be a green energy superpower, something that we all aspire for this country to be. That is an awful lot of energy. If we are going to power that through green energy, we have to consider all options to do so, with nuclear power being one of those. There is no way that we can get to net zero emissions or, even better, zero emissions without nuclear base load power. All clean energy options need to be on the table. That includes nuclear, pumped hydro, geothermal—all sorts of other ways.

This fixation on renewables only is a fallacy that's being sold to the Australian public, and they're being lied to because there is no way that we can get to where we need to be and be a hydrogen superpower simply on renewables. The variable and intermittent nature of those generation techniques is not doable. My learned friend over here talked about unproven technologies. The other fallacy that the Australian people are sold is that batteries can solve this. There is no battery that can provide the deep storage of energy that will be needed to firm up intermittent power from wind and solar sufficiently to power industries as they are now, let alone as we electrify industries to reduce emissions down to the lowest possible part we can. Stop telling lies. Nuclear power is a proven technology, and it will play a part in our energy mix in the future.