The nation’s leading science agency has poured cold water on the Coalition’s nuclear ambitions, finding that the cost of building a large-scale reactor would be roughly twice that of renewables. The CSIRO took on board the Coalition's earlier criticism of its nuclear analysis and still found that the technology is the most expensive pathway for Australian’s clean energy transition.
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00:00Armed with the latest independent modelling, the Energy Minister out to torpedo his opponent's
00:12policy.
00:21Peter Dutton's released part of the Coalition's plan to build seven nuclear reactors across
00:25the country if elected.
00:27Within days he'll release the final component, the cost, already promising it'll be cheaper
00:33than Labor's renewables-led plan.
00:35I think there's a much better way to bring our prices down as opposed to continual price
00:39increases under Labor for your electricity.
00:41But that claim's been challenged in a new CSIRO report, which found once again that
00:46nuclear power is roughly twice the cost of renewables, even when storage and new transmission
00:52lines are factored in.
00:54We're still finding that large-scale nuclear will be 1.5 to 2.5 times the cost of generating
01:00from firmed solar and wind.
01:03When it first examined nuclear costs, the CSIRO was criticised for failing to factor
01:08in the longer lifespan of reactors compared with wind and solar farms, as well as their
01:13ability to run at near full capacity around the clock.
01:16In this update, the agency accommodated those complaints and updated its assumptions, and
01:22still found nuclear was the most expensive new form of power generation.
01:27It just looks to me like there's a heavy hand of Chris Bowen in all of this.
01:30This is an independent report.
01:33It's not just the cost.
01:34The report also challenges the Coalition's timeline.
01:37Peter Dutton insists the first reactor would be connected to the grid by 2035.
01:42The CSIRO reckons it'd be closer to 2040.
01:46By that date, on current projections, almost all of Australia's coal-fired power stations
01:51will have closed, raising the risk of a gap in supply and reliability.