It has been convenient for renewable energy enthusiasts to blame nuclear energy policy for Peter Dutton’s demise.
Of course, this isn’t true.
Not only was the nuclear plan put forward daft, Dutton’s loss was seen coming long before it was introduced into the news cycle.
The Liberals never should have allowed a complex federal election defeat to turn into a referendum on a critical power source.
Especially not one our neighbours and allies increasingly rely on to fuel the technology revolution on our doorstep.
And yes, I understand the Liberals technically support nuclear in some form of limp-wristed, vague future sort-of way, but as the party that banned nuclear without a sunset clause, they shoulder the responsibility of fixing their mistake. With some proper effort.
Australia’s collective of gutless Energy Ministers have turned us into the backwater of the Pacific, not the powerhouse they promised at elections over the years.
For perspective, there are 62 nuclear plants operating in China and 39 under construction. Beijing, where Labor like to go to shake a lot of hands and feel important, are the largest current investor in nuclear technology and are setting it up as the baseload backbone of their self-contained grid.
Isn’t it strange how our Energy Minister listens to China on renewables, which China makes a fortune selling to us, but dismisses their world-leading nuclear expansion used to keep their manufacturing industry competitive against … well, us. Someone needs to ask Labor the question, why are all the world’s global superpowers falling back to nuclear? It is a question that demands an answer.
Indeed, Reform Leader Nigel Farage shouted, Energy! Energy! Energy! Energy! Energy! from the stage at ARC yesterday, when asked how Britain could re-industrialise and save its economy.
‘The idiotic path vote blue, go green, yep, that was the Tories. They even wrote Net Zero into law. They should not be forgiven for that … we can’t even enter the 21st Century. The only solution to that, let me tell you, it is not wind turbines … we need baseload power … if Reform win the next general election, the first phone call I’ll make is to South Korea, to get their nuclear engineers over here, and they will deliver nuclear energy, for this country, on time, and at 20 per cent of the cost that we are currently spending on Sizewell and Hinkley. We must go nuclear. We must do so in a very big way.’
This is from the parallel party to One Nation, and if the Liberals aren’t careful, they will end up like their UK counterparts holding the failed green experiment.
Our country is the best place in the world for nuclear energy. We are without equal.
To me, Australia’s nuclear future is far too important to die at a forgotten federal election with so little debate, fumbled in the mad rush of politics.
Unfortunately, the Liberals seem a little shy to re-engage.
Either they do not understand the energy conversation, are not capable of making the argument, or genuinely want to keep the renewable energy ecosystem alive for a variety of reasons. Keep in mind, green energy is profitable, just not for the taxpayer. The Liberals wishing to preserve the green sector as deliberate policy is plausible, considering they’ve kept renewable energy on their policy platform, refuse to tear up the Paris Agreement when directly questioned, and certainly won’t dismantle the Rudd-era Department of Climate Change ignorantly tacked on to Energy and Environment.
Would it be hard work to dismantle the Department? Definitely. It has spread through bureaucracy like a virus. But find me the Liberal enthusiastic about war-gaming that task, costing it, and drawing up a plan…
Picking a powerful enemy and creating a hot war as part of an election campaign takes guts. You might even say One Nation has over-committed on its enemies (all they can do now is pick so many battles that their enemies start fighting each other or get too confused to focus).
The Liberals went the other way. They are too conciliatory. Too ‘mature’. Too polite. There isn’t a skerrick of mud on Taylor.
Nuclear is the battle that screws over the Teals. And I thought the Liberals wanted their rich Teal seats back?
With woeful polls, it would not surprise me if Liberal advisors are trying to herd their remaining politicians into safe policy spaces. Bubble-wrap them. Bold moves are the luxury of revolutionaries and those with the balance of power.
Remember, Dutton’s failed nuclear pitch was cheered on by left-wing media and the entire suite of political opposition, all of whom are desperate to keep the ignorant narrative of nuclear = death alive.
That means it is their weakness.
Left-wing parties will never win another election if the public work out the whole carbon fear campaign was for nothing and that the problem could have been solved decades ago but was kept alive for political purposes. At huge expense. That Canberra taxed families into poverty to make green businesses and bureaucrats rich…
The Left, collectively, have significant political capital riding on the Hollywood poster of a climate apocalypse.
And it is there for the taking.
I know what you’re thinking. Oh, but doesn’t nuclear power solve the climate crisis? Yes. That’s the point.
Nuclear averts the imagined apocalypse and erases the lucrative climate grift.
Entirely.
You don’t need Net Zero targets, carbon capture, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, rare-earths, or African children slaving away in a mine if you have Aussie uranium.
Nuclear energy makes a farce out of Bowen’s Department, raises very serious questions about the potential wasting of untold billions in taxpayer money, and would trigger the dissolution of a parasitic bureaucracy so vast we can’t even describe it, let alone cost it.
The idea that nuclear is ‘expensive’, even at the insanely inflated figures quoted during the election (totally out of whack with our peers), nuclear is a bargain when calculated over a century of energy costs. And yes, these long-term costings matter, because infrastructure is meant to live beyond the lifespan of the election cycle.
Do you know how much wind, solar, batteries, and their special grid will cost this country over the next century? No? No one does. The cost is so outrageous, it cannot be contemplated. It is a permanently expanding, cyclic, concern.
And yes, I am aware of the Green Bond Bubble, as are other Western nations. Without adding thousands of words to this article in way of explanation, the quiet and orderly transition back to nuclear is being seen as a way to de-escalate what is currently a serious future economic crisis when it comes to investments. No one talks about this, because they’re all too scared to touch it. How much of people’s retirement savings have been sunk into a doomed technology?
Even though the science is robust for nuclear, the costings stack up over dozens of nations, and everyone else has seen the writing on the wall … what about Australia?
Are conservatives, at least conservative voters, willing to see the nuclear debate run again? Properly…?
We asked our Spectator Australia followers over on Facebook this a few days ago and were inundated with over a thousand comments.
In no particular order, here are some of their observations.
Nuclear power is simply advanced grid-level power generation with minimal environmental impact. Cheap, stable, and reliable.
It’s safe enough for 31 countries to use nuclear power plants.
The fatality rate per terawatt of electricity generated for nuclear is basically the same as solar and wind. The anti-nuclear movement was created by the fossil-fuel industry back in the 60s and 70s to prevent competition from nuclear power. Without the anti-nuclear movement, the climate crisis would be largely solved … we have climate change deniers and climate change solution deniers. Both are responsible for the climate crisis.
Nuclear is the obvious and lowest cost overall solution.
Renewables are good but you must have base power for a country this size. Nuclear is the cleanest solution.
Those who contest it fall into two camps: people who think Australia can live off coal and gas forever (reserves are genuinely limited), or the never-nuclear cohort who buy-in to misinformation about modern reactors, costs, and waste management. One wonders how many are aware of the nuclear facilities Australia has already built in NSW for medical essentials…
There is certainly going to be some education required to undo the damage that decades of activism caused to Australia’s knowledge on the nuclear issue.
We are so far behind the rest of the world that other nations are genuinely confused by our views, almost like coming across a first-world nation that forgot to invent the wheel.
History is full of mistakes and quirks that have to be corrected for a nation to move forward.
But the facts are facts…
Australia needs a single, reliable, and stable energy grid whose fuel source is locally-derived and not reliant upon the weather.
The question is, do conservatives have the courage to rise up and have an adult discussion?
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
