The opposition is more interested in keeping the Nationals in the tent than carbon emissions at bay.
Already a subscriber?A vitriolic argument last week between the Coalition and the CSIRO is just another battle in the long-running climate wars. For the Coalition it’s the application of the age-old philosophy: ‘Why put off until tomorrow what you can put off forever?’attacked the CSIRO’s latest GenCost Report as “discredited” for failing to include some of the transmission costs for renewables.
This would save on new transmission costs, which must be included when comparing nuclear with firmed renewables. Yet after taking account of the savings on transmission costs, the GenCost Report estimates the levelised cost of electricity from SMRs to be 4.2-4.9 times that of solar and wind power. From regulatory approval to commissioning to training an entire workforce from scratch, conventional nuclear power stations would not be generating electricity in Australia within two decades.Here the law of comparative advantage is relevant. Noting that another country produces computer chips is not an argument that Australia should do so. China has its own deposits of iron ore yet buys huge amounts from Australia. Why? Because Australia has a comparative advantage in iron ore production.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has joined an International Atomic Energy Agency project to appraise the costs of nuclear SMR. The project is due for completion in December this year.But there is a political strategy underlying the Coalition’s commitment to nuclear SMRs. Many, if not most, Nationals MPs are strongly opposed to renewables with transmission lines going through their electorates.
For Labor’s part, rooftop solar still has a large amount of untapped potential and, in built-up areas, does not need a lot of extra transmission capacity.
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