Dutton’s dangerous nuclear fantasy will cost workers, says ACTU
Media Release - June 19, 2024 ACTU.
The ACTU condemns Peter Dutton’s election promise of building nuclear power plants as ‘dangerous’ and ‘costly’ for Australian workers.

Today, the Coalition proposed seven nuclear power sites covering five states: Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia. Dutton claimed that the first sites would be operational between 2035 and 2037, significantly earlier than the 2040 timeframe the CSIRO and other experts believe is feasible, even with the assumption of no project delays.

According to the CSIRO, nuclear power is at least twice as expensive as renewable energy, while the Clean Energy Council estimates it to be six times as expensive.

Dutton’s proposal lacks key details of serious concern to workers, such as the handling and disposal of nuclear waste and the transportation of radioactive materials through Australian communities. Nuclear waste lasts thousands of years and requires burial hundreds of metres below ground in concrete bunkers.

Australia has the most sun and wind per capita of any developed country and evidence shows renewables continue to be the single cheapest source of new power on the grid.

The ACTU warns that Dutton’s proposal would derail Australia’s path to cheaper and cleaner energy, including the hundreds of thousands of good new jobs to be created as part of the federal government’s plan to transform Australia into a renewable energy superpower with the Future Made in Australia policy.

Today’s proposal builds on Dutton’s recent announcement opposing the government’s internationally agreed emissions reduction targets, while failing to outline a 2030 emissions reduction target of his own before the election.

Quotes attributable to ACTU President Michele O’Neil:

“Peter Dutton’s nuclear fantasy is costly for workers, expensive for families and dangerous for local communities.

“Working people in these communities need good, secure, safe jobs now – not in 20 years time with no plan or detail.

“All the experts agree that nuclear power is slow, expensive, and dangerous. This will mean higher power prices, fewer clean energy jobs, and greater risks for workers’ health and safety.

“Dutton wants to put workers’ safety and livelihoods at risk, all so he can appease climate change deniers in the Coalition who oppose clean energy.

“From opposing workers’ rights to promoting his nuclear fantasy, Peter Dutton is the Mr Burns of Australian politics. He is simply out of touch with the everyday struggles of working Australians.

“Australia has so much potential to become a clean energy superpower and create thousands of jobs with the federal government’s Future Made in Australia plan. Instead, we have an Opposition Leader who is obsessed with playing politics with the lives of workers and taking Australia backwards.”

Nuclear has a role in clean energy generation but Dutton is just playing politics. His “nuclear plan” is complete bullshit—don’t waste time on it.

Jovial Monk wrote on Jun 20^th, 2024 at 8:22am:

Nuclear has a role in clean energy generation but Dutton is just playing politics. His “nuclear plan” is complete bullshit—don’t waste time on it.

The plan was designed first with the goal of using more Coal and Gas as demanded by their mining industry benefactors and worked backwards from there.

More Coal means fewer renewables, but they have to pretend to care about climate change otherwise they'll never win back the teal votes.

So how can they attack renewables, champion coal and gas and pretend to care about emissions?

Nuclear.

It takes a quarter of a century for experienced countries to build their reactors, so without any delays or setbacks that's already secured 25+ years of more coal and gas, and because of the enormous cost of Nuclear, they'll be incentivised to hurt the renewables industry, scaring off investment so it doesn't continue to get cheaper.

More expensive renewables make nuclear look relatively cheaper.

That's not to mention that they need legislative change before they can even begin, so add years on for that.

If they were serious about the energy, they needed to identify and forecast our future needs and start from there and work backwards, and if they cared about emissions, that would be the guiding hand for their tech.

But they care about coal and Gina.

Right now we know nothing about their plan's generation capacity and what will be their shortfall backup.

It's obvious that it's not a serious plan and they've already said they won't release a bunch of the detail until after the election.

It's politically driven bullshit and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone, other than it being a massive risk if they actually win and are forced to implement it.

This is their 29th energy 'policy' in the last decade.  Another thought bubble in Duttons vacuous head.

Just build efficient coal/gas power stations to power all the new electric cars.

There will be large numbers of union members who see the benefit in a clean, safe, reliable and cheap source of power.  The boost to industry will be significant. The ACTU leadership will find itself out of touch with the members.

Belgarion wrote on Jun 20^th, 2024 at 11:16am:

There will be large numbers of union members who see the benefit in a clean, safe, reliable and cheap source of power.  The boost to industry will be significant. The ACTU leadership will find itself out of touch with the members.

Quote:

There will be large numbers of union members who see the benefit in a clean, safe, reliable and cheap source of power.

Yes and one day such a thing will exist.

Are you suggesting one day we will see large union membership?

It's been on a massive decline for decades!
Back to topic.

I want more details over " Duddo" plan.

Couldn't care less where they are built but will they actually lower prices or just be a more reliable, extra energy source?

These things aren't cheap.

I do note a close friend in Texas has nuclear power as his electrical source and pays $80 every three months.

His truck rego is also a quarter of ours per year.

Everything isn't actually bigger in Texas, at least cost of living!

Frank wrote on Jun 20^th, 2024 at 10:47am:

Just build efficient coal/gas power stations to power all the new electric cars.

I believe a mix of coal, natural environment energy, gas and nuclear is the best solution.
One industry failure is another success.

We need reliable AFFORDABLE energy .

Let's not put our eggs in one basket.

Nuclear submarines - now nuclear power stations - what comes next, nuclear weapons?

All these numbers about wind and solar being cheaper exclude transmission, which is a massive part of your electricity bill. The new transmission lines cost a lot of money to build and their on going maintenance has to be factored in

But the CSIRO for some reason don't include new transmission in their figures.

There is a lot of irrational fear around nuclear. All these silly thoughts about nuclear bombs and nuclear war. Totally unrelated to nuclear power.

https://i.imgur.com/Ac1kXcJ.jpg

Quote:

All these numbers about wind and solar being cheaper exclude transmission

What makes you think that?

If renewable energy was the cheapest electricity source and nuclear the most expensive, the green energy barons would have nothing to fear from a nuclear competitor.

And yet....

Bias_2012 wrote on Jun 21^st, 2024 at 12:47am:

Nuclear submarines - now nuclear power stations - what comes next, nuclear weapons?

The war in Ukraine has shown what has happened when a nation gives up their nuclear weapons.

Now every country will have to consider making their own nukes.

Frank wrote on Jun 25^th, 2024 at 7:50am:

If renewable energy was the cheapest electricity source and nuclear the most expensive, the green energy barons would have nothing to fear from a nuclear competitor. And yet....

Australia is not the only country that was caught up in the exuberance of the 2019 Paris climate conference and promised more than it could possibly achieve. It is hard to find a single Western economy remotely on track to meet 2030 commitments, let alone the big one in 2050.

In a report published last month by the Fraser Institute, Czech-Canadian scientist Vaclav Smil outlined the task ahead. More than 4 terawatts of electricity-generating capacity must be replaced, and almost 1.5 billion gasoline and diesel vehicle engines must be converted to electricity.

Almost all the world’s agricultural and crop-processing machinery must be replaced, including 50 million tractors and more than 100 million irrigation pumps. New heat sources must be developed to smelt iron, manufacture cement and glass, process chemicals and preserve food. More than half a billion domestic, industrial and institutional gas furnaces must be abandoned. Novel forms of motive power must be found for 120,000 merchant vessels, and we’ll need to develop a carbon-free way of keeping 25,000 jetliners in the air.

All this must be achieved in a single generation, even though we have yet to reach the peak of global fossil fuel consumption and deploy any zero-carbon large-scale processes to produce essential materials.

For Smil, the most disturbing thing about the net-zero fallacy is what it tells us about the economic, numerical and scientific illiteracy of a generation that is, on paper, the most educated in history. As Smil told American author Robert Bryce in an email exchange, we live in a fully post-factual world.

The net-zero fallacy has taken root “because the soil is receptive: utterly brainless mass of mobile-bound individuals devoid of any historical perspective and any kindergarten commonsense understanding”.

Frank wrote on Jun 25^th, 2024 at 7:50am:

If renewable energy was the cheapest electricity source and nuclear the most expensive, the green energy barons would have nothing to fear from a nuclear competitor. And yet....

It's because the current Liberal plan is not to deliver Nuclear, but to stop future investment in renewables and push gas.

If there was still a priority for renewables, with our baseload to be replaced by Nuclear we'd be having a very different conversation.

But this isn't a Nuclear policy or even an energy policy.

It's a mining policy.

Remember what was said about The Voice and the lack of detail?

This isn't just about Indigenous Representation, but the future of our entire economy.

If ever we've needed detail, it's now.

If you don't know, vote no.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Jun 25^th, 2024 at 8:45am:

Frank wrote on Jun 25th, 2024 at 7:50am: If renewable energy was the cheapest electricity source and nuclear the most expensive, the green energy barons would have nothing to fear from a nuclear competitor. And yet.... It's because the current Liberal plan is not to deliver Nuclear, but to stop future investment in renewables and push gas. If there was still a priority for renewables, with our baseload to be replaced by Nuclear we'd be having a very different conversation. But this isn't a Nuclear policy or even an energy policy. It's a mining policy. Remember what was said about The Voice and the lack of detail? This isn't just about Indigenous Representation, but the future of our entire economy. If ever we've needed detail, it's now. If you don't know, vote no.

This was NOT a policy presentation - which would need some detail including costing.

It was a proposal to reverse the ban on nuclear power (since we have bipartisan AUKUS policy already which will require a revisuion of our inshore nuclear stance - and look at replacing the decommissioned coal power plants with some sort of nuc l ear plants - there is a variety of them.  Some good arguments have been proposed in favour:

The wires are already in place so no need to build new, additional  transmission networks
Nuclear can provide caseload that can be complemented by intermittent renewables
Nuclear is not intermittent
Gas has bypartisan support and so it will also be in the mix
2030 net zero is obviosly unachievable so let's not pretend
Nuclear is in the mix in most developed, advanced economies like ours and we had ed the biggest deposits of uranium and are one of the biggest exporters- let's think about using it ourselves for our benefit (there is a lot of complaining about Australia just shipping raw materials out instead of value adding locally, which our own nuclear industry would do)
We will need a nuclear industry with AUKUS anyway.


Renewables like  solar and wind and pumped hydro are not sufficient in the foreseeable future to replace coal, oil and gas. So if we are phasing out fossil fuels without a substitute, we are ruining our country in catastrophic ways. Nuclear is an obvious substitute. Discuss.


That's what's on the table.

Albo supports AUKUS = Australian nuclear submarines.
But not any OTHER Australian nuclear capability.

Moronic.

Labor should have opposed AUKUS if they are really against Australian nuclear capability.

But as usual, Labor is yeah but no but yeah but no but fighting tories, yeah but.


Labor's balls are squeezed by the Greens. Picture that.

Frank wrote on Jun 26^th, 2024 at 8:56pm:

Albo supports AUKUS = Australian nuclear submarines. But not any OTHER Australian nuclear capability. Moronic. Labor should have opposed AUKUS if they are really against Australian nuclear capability. But as usual, Labor is yeah but no but yeah but no but fighting tories, yeah but. Labor's balls are squeezed by the Greens. Picture that.

The issue for most, and at least me, isn't the use of Nuclear.

That's a distraction to have everyone miss the intention of the policy.

For anyone serious about reducing carbon emissions but still wanting to ensure reliable baseload power, the topic of Nuclear will always have to be raised.

But it's not as simple as that in Australia given the various bans, our climate and the NIMBYism that pretty much rules out all of the suitable locations should it progress to the point of building new reactors.

But the key part of that is "anyone serious about reducing carbon emissions".

This is being proposed by the Liberal Party, who are in coalition with the Nationals.  So you've got Climate Change deniers and those ideologically opposed to renewables.

We know it's not about that for them.

The issue is why are the Libs suggesting Nuclear and do they have any intention of actually following through with the plan?

From the details we know about it now, the conclusion is no, they don't.

Nuclear is being used as an excuse to move away from renewables and stall the reduction in emissions so they can push more gas into the energy generation market as a "transition fuel" until we're reliant on it and like the southeastern states, locked into paying more for our gas than it's exported overseas until they eventually drop Nuclear and we're stuck without renewables to fall back on.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Jun 27^th, 2024 at 11:45am:

Frank wrote on Jun 26th, 2024 at 8:56pm: Albo supports AUKUS = Australian nuclear submarines. But not any OTHER Australian nuclear capability. Moronic. Labor should have opposed AUKUS if they are really against Australian nuclear capability. But as usual, Labor is yeah but no but yeah but no but fighting tories, yeah but. Labor's balls are squeezed by the Greens. Picture that. The issue for most, and at least me, isn't the use of Nuclear. That's a distraction to have everyone miss the intention of the policy. For anyone serious about reducing carbon emissions but still wanting to ensure reliable baseload power, the topic of Nuclear will always have to be raised. But it's not as simple as that in Australia given the various bans, our climate and the NIMBYism that pretty much rules out all of the suitable locations should it progress to the point of building new reactors. But the key part of that is "anyone serious about reducing carbon emissions". This is being proposed by the Liberal Party, who are in coalition with the Nationals.  So you've got Climate Change deniers and those ideologically opposed to renewables. We know it's not about that for them. The issue is why are the Libs suggesting Nuclear and do they have any intention of actually following through with the plan? From the details we know about it now, the conclusion is no, they don't. Nuclear is being used as an excuse to move away from renewables and stall the reduction in emissions so they can push more gas into the energy generation market as a "transition fuel" until we're reliant on it and like the southeastern states, locked into paying more for our gas than it's exported overseas until they eventually drop Nuclear and we're stuck without renewables to fall back on.

Gas has bipartisan support into the future.
The Albanese government has shed its ambivalence towards gas, adopting a strategy that locks in its use beyond 2050 to underpin renewables, power manufacturing, and help trade partners manage their energy transitions.

Your outlook and argument is based on the old cloth-capped comrades' view of a Manichaean political divide between good Labor and evil LibNats



There is simply NO WAY to run an economy like Australia's on renewables alone. No way. Fantasy.

The Libs and Labs are past their use-by date ... this issue of energy shows that up more than any other issue

We ought to call in the administrators to take over, and send the Lib/Lab idiots home to look after their wives and kids, if they even know how to do that, they're totally useless at everything else

whiteknight wrote on Jun 20^th, 2024 at 7:52am:

Dutton’s dangerous nuclear fantasy will cost workers, says ACTU Media Release - June 19, 2024 ACTU. The ACTU condemns Peter Dutton’s election promise of building nuclear power plants as ‘dangerous’ and ‘costly’ for Australian workers.

There is, however, another, no less deadly, trap we fall into: ruling options in or out on political grounds, precluding their proper consideration in the planning stage.

The torturous history of our submarine projects is a case in point. The Coles review of the Collins project rightly concluded that the Hawke Labor government had decided to specify a submarine “unlike any other in the world, without appreciating the potential consequences”. An off-the-shelf purchase having been arbitrarily excluded, the project ended up costing three times its initial budget.

Labor then repeated the error in late 2011, when it ruled out procuring nuclear submarines. As I argued on these pages in January 2012, that “irresponsible” exclusion, which the Coalition accepted, was sure to haunt us – as it did when the strategic outlook deteriorated.

And rarely was the error made to more spectacular effect than in the NBN, whose initial costings were literally incredible. With Labor ruling out, solely on political grounds, the option New Zealand chose of starting with a copper upgrade and progressively deploying fibre, the NBN’s fixed line network ended up costing, per unit of traffic carried, 25 to 30 per cent more than its cross-Tasman counterpart, while providing consumers with slower, more expensive service.

That outcome was utterly predictable; what my 2010 estimate of the error’s likely cost got badly wrong was the scale of its impact. I suggested it would result in the supposedly self-financing NBN losing $10bn to $20bn of taxpayers’ money; in reality, it has lost more than twice that.

But politicians have an unparalleled ability to forget everything and learn nothing. Instead of open-mindedly assessing the costs and benefits of nuclear power, Labor’s fog machine is treating us to reports, such as the CSIRO’s, whose only merit is as a salutary reminder of the tricks analysts use when they set out to reach a predetermined conclusion.

Yet Labor’s errors can’t let the Coalition off the hook. It needs to be wary of making commitments that have not been thoroughly tested. Just as options should not be arbitrarily ruled out, they should not be carelessly ruled in. Rather, in keeping with that conservative adage, “festina lente” (hasten slowly), all the options, including coal and gas, should be on the table.

In this fiscal year, our governments will spend more than $8bn subsidising households’ power bills – bills they have done absolutely everything to inflate. Faced with that madness, it does not take much insight to suggest it would be far wiser to chart a new course, driven by analysis rather than zealotry.

“For a successful technology,” wrote Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman many years ago, “reality must take precedence over public relations: for nature cannot be fooled.” The sooner we take that principle to heart, and ensure nuclear power’s potential contribution is examined rigorously, objectively and transparently, the better.

Henry Ergas AO