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Nuclear

Answer

Nuclear is not the answer - it’s too slow and too expensive. I'm open to any proposal that will drive down energy costs, but what I'm hearing from people in Casey is they'd rather have solar panels on their roof than a nuclear power plant in the valley.

Let's call out the Liberal Party's nuclear proposal for what it is - a distraction to extend fossil fuels well beyond their useful life and to stop investment in renewable energy. The Climate Change Authority's assessment of the Liberal Party's proposal showed that while we wait for nuclear power there would be a 'carbon emission bomb of more than 2 billion tonnes in the next 25 years.' Voting for the Liberal Party means Australia will miss all our legislated targets and make it virtually impossible to hit the bipartisan net zero by 2050 target.

The CSIRO GenCost 2024-25 report confirms that solar and wind, paired with battery storage and transmission upgrades, are the cheapest forms of new electricity generation.

The facts about Australia’s renewable energy in 2023:

  • Renewables accounted for 39.4% of Australia’s total electricity supply, with a forecast 45% by end of 2024 and 48% by end of 2025.
  • 5.9 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable generation capacity was added, with the Clean Energy Regulator forecasting between 7.2 and 7.5 GW of renewable capacity will be installed by the end of 2024 - a record year for new installations.
  • 337,498 households and small businesses installed rooftop solar adding 3.1 GW of new capacity and another 3.15 GW of rooftop solar was forecast to be installed by end of 2024.

Cost: Nuclear is too expensive. Nuclear energy costs almost 4x as much as renewables: 16 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to 3.7 cents for solar and 4.1 cents for wind power.

Time: Nuclear is complex to get approvals and to slow to build, with best guess about 15 years from getting starting to operating. Our energy transition is now, 2040 is too late.

Jobs: Unlike renewables, Australia has no local nuclear workforce or expertise. So instead of creating jobs, a shift to nuclear will mean relying on overseas expertise and labour, sending Australian money offshore. Building a nuclear industry from scratch would be a decades-long endeavour, and in the meantime we would be reliant on foreign companies and workers.