Call for nuclear power in Australia stirs debate as experts back renewables

Opposition leader stakes election prospects on atomic energy plan despite its high cost

- Jonathan Pearlman

SYDNEY - Australia's opposition leader Peter Dutton, who leads in opinion polls, has staked his election prospects on a A$331 billion (S$280 billion) plan to switch to nuclear energy by 2036, but experts say the move is the wrong option for the country and will be expensive and unachievable.

Presented as a way to "keep the lights on", Mr Dutton's 25-year plan, whose costings were unveiled on Dec 13, would involve building seven reactors that would come online from the mid-2030s to 2050, and increase planned gas and coal usage in the meantime.

In a country that has long rejected nuclear energy over safety and cost concerns, Mr Dutton's plan has sparked debate about whether Australia should adopt nuclear energy as a way to achieve its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

But most experts say Australia should stick to renewables as a pathway to reducing emissions, and that nuclear energy should have a limited role, if at all.

An expert on sustainable energy, Associate Professor Liam Wagner from Curtin University, told The Straits Times he did not believe Australia, which has never had a nuclear power plant, could meet the costs or timelines proposed by Mr Dutton.

As a result, he said, Australia would need to extend the lifelines of its coal-powered stations, which are already ageing and unreliable.

"The biggest concerns for me are the cost, the time and the significant delays that are expected by installing nuclear," he said.

"We would be doing this for the first time. We don't have the experts to run them, to build them or to regulate them."