Opposition leader Peter Dutton will finally put a price tag on the coalition’s nuclear ambitions shortly, and he’s expected to detail modelling that shows it will be 263-billion-dollars cheaper than Labor’s plans. The figured from Frontier Economics reveal that by 2050, the coalition’s plan would see 38 percent of power coming from nuclear.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00The opposition has said that they will build seven taxpayer-owned nuclear power plants
00:08across the country, mostly in regional areas, two in regional Queensland, two in regional
00:13New South Wales, for example.
00:15And they have released some early details of their modelling, which will be released
00:19in full today.
00:21The ABC has now been given a pretty broad statement from Peter Dutton's office, which
00:26explains some of their thinking.
00:28The key point being that Frontier Economics, which the Coalition has got to do their modelling,
00:34is arguing that it would be $263 billion cheaper to go with the Coalition's energy make-up
00:42than it would be if we were to go down Labor's mostly renewables route.
00:49So that's $331 billion for the Coalition's plan and $594 billion for Labor's plan.
00:57Some of the key assumptions that this modelling is making is that by 2050, renewables will
01:02make up 54% of the energy make-up in Australia, with nuclear 38%, and then some other power
01:09sources, gas included, for that small 8% left.
01:13There is also a note that there would be 14 gigawatts of power from nuclear energy.
01:19Now that is not very much compared with what the Australian energy market operator thinks
01:24that we will need by 2050, but the Coalition's modelling is saying that they think we won't
01:30have as much or as many electric vehicles as the energy market operator assumes and
01:36therefore we won't have as much need for power.
01:40So there are a lot of assumptions being made and a lot of modelling details that are being
01:46tested or will be tested once the full details come out.
01:49We've heard from the Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, who says that this is just a fantasy
01:56plan.
01:57He was on earlier this morning saying that he thinks that the Coalition has been a bit
02:02tricky with some of its numbers.
02:04Have a listen.
02:05What the Coalition is asking the Australian people to believe is this, that they can introduce
02:09the most expensive form of energy and it will end up being cheaper.
02:13I mean, it won't pass the pub test, it won't pass the sniff test, because it is just a
02:17fantasy.
02:19Chris Bowen, the Energy Minister there.
02:22We know as well, earlier this week we saw a report from the CSIRO which modelled nuclear
02:28energy and the Coalition's plan to cost twice as much as Labor's plan.
02:33So that's obviously starkly different to what the Coalition's modelling is claiming and
02:37so there will be a lot of questions no doubt once Peter Dutton reveals more details about
02:43his plan today.