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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

Peter Dutton’s first major promise when he became opposition leader was to build nuclear power plants.

It was a curious idea with no cost attached, and not a lot of community support according to polling.

Audio Excerpt - Labor Party Attack Advertisement:

“Peter Dutton’s had an idea. Nuclear power stations that will cost $600 billion to build.”

DANIEL:

Now, the government has signalled it wants the next election to be fought on the idea with the release of a new attack ad.

Audio Excerpt - Labor Party Attack Advertisement:

“And because nuclear is the most expensive form of energy for Australia, your power bill will go up.”

DANIEL:

Beyond the cost, questions remain about the legality and safety of nuclear power plants in Australia.

Today, Emeritus Professor and former Head of the School of Science at Griffith University, Ian Lowe, fact checks Peter Dutton’s nuclear promise.

It’s Wednesday, September 11.

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Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“Okay everyone, thank you very much for being here today. I'm very pleased to be joined by my colleagues because this is a major announcement.”

DANIEL:

Ian, when Peter Dutton announced that a future coalition government would introduce nuclear energy into Australia, what was your immediate reaction to the announcement?

IAN:

Well, it was initially disbelief at a most fundamental level.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“And today we announced seven locations that we have looked at in great detail over a long period of time that can host new nuclear sites and that will be part…”

IAN:

He was announcing something that is legally impossible because the Howard government, 25 years ago, legislated a prohibition of nuclear energy.

In fact, it legislated a prohibition on all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle beyond mining and export of uranium oxide. And in addition to the federal prohibition, which was legislated 25 years ago by a Liberal government, the three mainland eastern states: Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, all have legislation which would prohibit some or all of the steps needed to build a nuclear power station.

The only possible explanation I can see is that there are still people on the backbench of the coalition who are sceptical about climate change and, given that they lost previously rock solid coalition seats at the last election to teal independents campaigning to see stronger action on climate change, it's not politically credible to go to the electorate saying we're going to do nothing about climate change. We're going to keep burning coal and gas.

But if you go to the electorate and say, we're going to build nuclear power stations, what that's implicitly saying is we need to keep burning coal.

Audio Excerpt - Ted O’Brien:

“We already are a nuclear nation, and it’s with enormous hope and optimism that I look towards the only credible pathway to decarbonise and reach net zero while ensuring Australia remains a highly prosperous country, a strong country.”

IAN:

The seven nuclear power stations that they announced would, if they were built, provide about 5% of the electrical capacity that we need to get to zero emissions. And, both the media release and the subsequent comments by the coalition have been totally silent about where the other 95% of our electricity would come from.

And, you know, of course in the absence of a nuclear industry, the energy to build nuclear power stations would be fossil fuel energy. So, if we were to build seven nuclear power stations, we'd be burning more because it takes considerable amounts of fossil fuel energy to build a nuclear power station. So our greenhouse gas emissions would actually accelerate in the next 10 or 15 years if we were going to go down the nuclear path.

So I think it's really a smokescreen to disguise the fact that their agenda is to keep burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.

DANIEL:

One of the key claims that Peter Dutton is also pushing is around energy prices. We've all experienced the cost of rising energy prices. Peter Dutton is claiming that nuclear power would help get our bills down and, of course, that's an appealing thought. The opposition has even said that nuclear has helped bring prices down around the world, is that correct?

IAN:

Well, that's as close to being a barefaced lie as you can say in public and get away with it. Firstly, nuclear power is not used all around the world.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“People, look at what's happening with nuclear around the world. 19 of the 20 biggest economies have adopted nuclear or have signed up to it. They've done it because it's safe; It's zero emissions; It can deliver cheaper electricity; and it's a constant source of 24/7 power.”

IAN:

There are 30 countries that have nuclear power, including the four that have had one reactor and the six that have two. In most countries, it either doesn't exist or is a minor component of electricity supply.

Secondly, it doesn't bring prices down. In fact, when I looked at average world prices for different forms of energy last year, the figures were: solar 3.7 cents per kilowatt hour; wind 4.1; gas 8; Coal 11; Nuclear 16. So it's not just a bit more expensive, it's about four times as expensive as solar or wind.

And, I'm in the UK at the moment and not very far from here the UK is building one nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C. It was initially supposed to cost about $20 billion Australian dollars and be functioning by 2016. They're now talking about generating electricity by 2028 with the final cost somewhere north of $100 billion.

And in fact all of the, the only three nuclear power stations being built in Western Europe are all years behind schedule and billions over budget. And the claims of cheap electricity were based on the industry statements of cost, but nothing built in recent years has come anywhere near the cost that the industry has claimed. They’ve all been way over budget.

DANIEL:

You mentioned the cost of building a nuclear reactor in Britain. We haven't spoken about the costs of building these seven reactors here. What has the opposition said about the cost of their plan?

IAN:

The silence has been deafening. The coalition have released no figures and, in a sense, they probably can't because at the moment there are no working small modular reactors. You can't write a cheque and buy a small modular reactor. Nobody knows what the cost will be because they are not yet operational.

And The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering has released a discussion paper about small modular reactors, pointing out that there are several possible designs being considered around the world but none of them are yet commercially available. And they said it would probably be about the 2040s before it's possible to write a cheque and buy a so-called small modular reactor, If we wanted to go down that path.

And similarly, if we were to build large nuclear reactors, the cost depends on what design you adopt and who you get to build them. Basically, the nuclear industry in recent years has been going way over budget with every, every new nuclear power station being built in the northern hemisphere.

DANIEL:

Okay, but what about one of the claims underpinning this announcement and actually arguably spurred this announcement on, and that is that coal fired power stations are coming to the end of their life over the next 10 to 15 years. That much is true, isn't it? And won’t they need to be replaced by something?

IAN:

That is certainly true. There were two problems in their announcement. One is that they've said that some stations that aren't projected to close will close. If we were to close down the power stations that are listed in their media release as due to close by 2037, and if we were improbably to build seven nuclear power stations by 2037, they would only provide about a third of the electricity that we will have lost through the closure of coal. So the numbers just don't add up.

It's also wildly improbable that we could build 7 nuclear power stations in the next 12 years, because the Switkowski Report, chaired by the head of the Australian Nuclear Organisation presented to the Howard government, said that it would take at least ten years and more likely 15 to build one nuclear power station. So the idea we could build seven by 2037 seemed pure fantasy.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break, Peter Dutton versus the states.

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DANIEL:

Ian, we've been talking about the claims that have been in the opposition's plan for nuclear power. You've mentioned that they have outlined seven sites in which they are looking to build these nuclear power stations. Tell me about where these nuclear stations are proposed to go.

IAN:

Well, the proposal is to site them where existing coal fired power stations are likely to close in the next 12 years. The argument for siting nuclear power stations where coal is being closed down is that there is a distribution system so you don’t need to invest in new power lines.

Not all those sites are even potentially available. The state governments in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria said they are not interested at all in overturning their state prohibitions.

Audio Excerpt - Chris Minns:

“We've got a prohibition on nuclear generated power in New South Wales, and we're not going to remove that in the state, and I don't know whether the opposition's planning on doing it if they were to win government either.”

Audio Excerpt - Steven Miles:

“And we would fight him every step of the way. As I have said, we own the sites. We own the sites that he wants to use and we own the transmission lines that he wants to use.”

Audio Excerpt - Jacinta Allan:

“It's toxic. It's risky. It's more expensive and it is decades and decades away.”

IAN:

And the LNP, Duttons own political colleagues in Queensland, have said that they're not interested in building nuclear power stations.

Audio Excerpt - David Crisafulli:

“Oh no, no, no, I've got to be really clear. It's not part of our plan. It is not part of our plan. Peter knows my position on it.”

IAN:

So, none of the state governments where nuclear power would need to be established, and even the potential alternative government in Queensland, have said they're not on board with this proposal.

It just seems politically unrealistic even if the government were somehow to find a majority in both houses of Parliament to repeal the federal prohibition of nuclear power. There's only been one brief period in the last 30 years where the government in power had control of the Senate, and since it was the crossbench that persuaded John Howard to put the ban on nuclear power and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, it defies credibility to suggest that a coalition government would be able to persuade the crossbench to support removing that from the federal legislation.

DANIEL:

And do we have the, the expertise to build these reactors here? Do we have an industry to build these things?

IAN:

That would be a massive challenge. We don't have a workforce that is skilled in building nuclear reactors, and we don't have a regulatory regime that would give the community confidence that a nuclear power station could be built and operated safely. And that was why the Switkowski Report said it would take at least 10 years and possibly 15 to build 1 nuclear reactor, because we would need to develop the workforce and develop the regulatory regime that would allow that. Even in countries that have an existing regulation system and a trained workforce like the UK, nuclear power stations are taking much longer than that to build.

DANIEL:

And what about the risks of waste management when it comes to nuclear power plants? Have you heard the Coalition speak about that at all?

IAN:

The coalition is silent about the issue of waste management but I was on the expert advisory committee for the South Australian Nuclear Royal Commission, and it is estimated in 2015, nearly a decade ago, that it would then cost about $40 billion Australian Dollars to build a secure storage for the radioactive waste that comes from nuclear power stations. So, as well as the huge cost of building nuclear power stations, there is the unexplained and yet unknowable cost of managing the radioactive waste which needs to be managed for geological time. I mean, we're not talking about a few years or a few decades. We're talking about tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of years is the period for which radioactive waste from nuclear power stations needs to be isolated from the biosphere to prevent damage to humans and ecological systems.

DANIEL:

Ian, thank you for your time.

IAN:

Real pleasure mate.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today,

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has vowed to ban children from social media with legislation to be introduced by the end of this year.

Children up to the age of 16 could be prevented from platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, but the age cut off won’t be decided until the government has trialled age verification technology. The Prime Minister says he wants to get kids off devices and onto footy fields.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton says he will support a ban.

And, thousands of farmers have gathered at parliament house to protest the government’s ban on live sheep exports. The ban, which is set to be phased in over four years, passed the house and senate overwhelmingly earlier this year.

But Nationals leader David Littleproud, has told the crowd of farmers that the first bill he would bring to parliament if the coalition wins the next election will be a repeal of the live export ban.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.