Bowen gives Dutton’s nuclear plans a blast as energy sources shape up as an election battle

South Western Times
Thu, 22 February 2024

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen called on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to release plans for nuclear power ahead of the next election.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has demanded Opposition Leader Peter Dutton release information on his party’s plans to embrace nuclear energy.

Talking to the media in Bunbury, Mr Bowen called out Mr Dutton on what he described as a “fantasy” plan.

“I’d say this, the time for talk is over,” he said.


“If the Liberal Party wants to propose a nuclear reactor for Bunbury we’d let them come out and announce their policy and the people of Bunbury will have their say on it.

“Come on, come on Mr Dutton, the next election is getting closer, tell us what your policies are, don’t say ‘oh, we’re going to think about nuclear,’ show us where they’re gonna be, show us what the cost is, then we’ll have a debate about it.”


Talking to media last week, Mr Dutton gave another indication his party would be taking its nuclear pitch to the polls.   

“We need to have a mature conversation about nuclear,” he said.

“It’s the latest technology that has zero emissions and it can firm up renewables in the system.”

Mr Bowen slammed the idea.

“It’s a fantasy, I mean, they might as well issue a Golden Book, that’s how realistic nuclear power is for Australia,” he said.

“We don’t have a nuclear industry in Australia, it will take years to get one up and running, years, decades.

“It’s the most expensive form of energy available in the world, renewable is the cheapest, nuclear is the most expensive, coal and gas come in between.

“Why anybody would propose an answer for Australia which is slow to build, expensive to build and does not have social licence to use is beyond me.”

The idea of embracing nuclear power is not new for Mr Dutton with the Liberal leader having brought it up last year during a speech at the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative-leaning think tank.

At the July event he said nuclear was the way forward.

“If the Government wants to stop coal-fired power and phase out gas-fired power, the only feasible and proven technology which can firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean cost effective and consistent power is next generation nuclear technologies,” he said.

“My old friend Chris Bowen has burrowed so deeply down the renewable rabbit hole that he refuses to consider these new nuclear technologies to be any part of the solution of our energy problems.”

According to the CSIRO, nuclear power is not an “economically competitive solution” in Australia and by the time costs of small modular reactors improved it would be too late to make a difference for a net zero emissions goal.   

If it takes so long to get a nuke power plant up and running then we should start now.

Frank wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 10:38am:


Yet the Coalition were prepared to raise taxes for low and middle income earners whilst giving the wealthy a much larger tax break....You are a hypocrite and a smacking dickhead Fwank!!!

Quote:


Were was your concern when the Coalition gave billionairs a tax cut and screwed low income earners arsehole???



https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/stage-3-tax-cuts-go-to-wealthy-occupation...

We've got solar - and the cash is for costs of living.... some bloke got it right as I did years ago with my Guinness Quotient - he said once you could buy 100 schooners of beer for $300 (or something) - now you can only buy 45 (or something) ... anything left over goes into other things - the car needs an oil change and the oil costs up to $100 - I could be back in my Jaguar, FCS...

My Guinness Quotient of Comparative Prosperity meant that I could drink five pints a day @ $20 a day..... now you're lucky to get two... that's inflation for you.

Captain Nemo wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 12:31pm:

Exactly.

But blustering Poison Pill Phil is too addled to remember or understand that.

philperth2010 wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 4:54pm:


Greg Jericho and the Australia Institute/Grauniad are not on my list of credible. More like the pinch-of-salt-or-three brigade.



So why did Labor promise before the 20232 lection to deliver the Stage 3 tax cuts unchanged??

They opposed it under Shorten in 2019. Lost the election. So they changed their position. Won the 2022 election. Then broke their election promise and did change it.

Albo. Fighting Tories while saddling the barbed wire fence, the little yeah-but-no-but pseodo-PM.

AusGeoff wrote on Feb 26^th, 2024 at 4:37am:


It might have been a good idea back then. But since then, nuclear has gone from the cheapest to the most expensive option. Does that makes sense to you? Labour support nuclear when it is the cheapest option, the coalition supports it when it will send the country broke. And you think this makes Labor look like hypocrits? The coalition might have actually been able to get nuclear up and running in this country if they had not spend decades with their head in the sand on climate change.

the whole question sidesteps the immigration debate. would all these new stations even be a huge priority with a stable or even gradually declining population? i bet not. immigration is the ultimate nexus issue; all other issues simply revolve around and emerge from it, but no one wants to talk about it (at least in serious detail) or make the obvious connections.