Speaker 1: From a sports media I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Peter Dutton's first major promise when he became Opposition leader
Speaker 1: was to build nuclear power plants. It was a curious
Speaker 1: idea with no cost attached and not a lot of
Speaker 1: community support.
Speaker 2: According to Poling, Peter Dutton's had an idea nuclear power
Speaker 2: stations that will cost six hundred billion to build.
Speaker 1: Now the government has signaled it wants the next election
Speaker 1: to be fought on the idea, with the release of
Speaker 1: a new attack ad.
Speaker 2: And because nuclear is the most expensive form of energy
Speaker 2: for Australia, your power bill will.
Speaker 1: Go up beyond the cost. Questions remained about the legality
Speaker 1: and safety of nuclear power plants in Australia. Today, emeritus
Speaker 1: professor and the former head of the School of Science
Speaker 1: at Griffith University, Ian Lowe fact checks Peter Dutton's nuclear promise.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, September eleventh.
Speaker 3: Okay, Fron, thank you very much for being here today.
Speaker 3: I'm very pleased to be joined by my colleagues because
Speaker 3: it's a major announcement.
Speaker 1: And when Peter Dutton announced that a future coalition government
Speaker 1: would introduce nuclear energy into Australia, what was your immediate
Speaker 1: reaction to the announcement, Well, it.
Speaker 4: Was initially disbelief at the most fundamental level.
Speaker 3: And today we announced seven locations that we have looked
Speaker 3: at in great detail over a long period of time
Speaker 3: that can host nuclear sites, and that will be He.
Speaker 4: Was announcing something that is legally impossible because the Howard
Speaker 4: government twenty five years ago legislated a prohibition of nuclear energy.
Speaker 4: In fact, that legislative prohibition on all stages of the
Speaker 4: nuclear fuel cycle, beyond mining and export of uranium oxide.
Speaker 4: And in addition to the federal prohibition which was legislated
Speaker 4: twenty five years ago by a liberal government, the three
Speaker 4: mainland eastern states, Queens and New South Wales and Victoria
Speaker 4: all have legislation which would prohibit some or all of
Speaker 4: the steps needed to build a nuclear power station. The
Speaker 4: only possible explanation I can see is that there are
Speaker 4: still people on the backbench of the coalition who are
Speaker 4: skeptical about climate change, and given that they lost previously
Speaker 4: rock solid coalition seats at the last election to teel
Speaker 4: independence campaigning to see stronger action on climate change, it's
Speaker 4: not politically credible to go to the electric saying we're
Speaker 4: going to do nothing about climate change. We're going to
Speaker 4: keep burning colon gas. But if you go to the
Speaker 4: electric and say we're going to build nuclear power stations,
Speaker 4: what that's implicitly saying is we need to keep burning cold.
Speaker 5: We already are a nuclear nation, and it's with enormous
Speaker 5: hope and optimism that I look towards the only credible
Speaker 5: pathway to decarbonize and reach net zero while ensuring Australia
Speaker 5: remains a highly prosperous country, a strong country.
Speaker 4: The seven nuclear power stations that they announced, what if
Speaker 4: they were built, provide about five percent of the electrical
Speaker 4: capacity that we need to get to zero emissions, and
Speaker 4: both the media release and subsequent comments by the coalition
Speaker 4: have been totally silent about where the other ninety five
Speaker 4: percent of our electricity would come from. And of course,
Speaker 4: in the absence of a nuclear industry, the energy to
Speaker 4: build nuclear power stations would be fossil fuel energy. So
Speaker 4: if we were to build seven nuclear power stations, we'd
Speaker 4: be burning more because it takes considerable amounts of fossil
Speaker 4: fuel energy to build a nuclear power station. So our
Speaker 4: greenhouse gas emissions would actually accelerate in the next ten
Speaker 4: or fifteen years if we were going to go down
Speaker 4: the nuclear path. So I think it's really a smoke
Speaker 4: screen to disguise the fact that their agenda is to
Speaker 4: keep burning fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: One of the key claims that PEDIDUTM is also pushing
Speaker 1: is around energy prices. We've all experienced the cost of
Speaker 1: rising energy prices. Pettidutm is claiming that nuclear power would
Speaker 1: help get our bills down, and of course that's an
Speaker 1: appealing thought. The opposition is even said that that nuclear
Speaker 1: has helped bring prices down around the world. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Well, that's as close to being a bare faced lie
Speaker 4: as you can say in public and get away with it. Firstly,
Speaker 4: nuclear power is not used all around the world.
Speaker 3: People look at what's happening with nuclear around the world.
Speaker 3: Nineteen of the twenty biggest economies have adopted nuclear or
Speaker 3: have signed up to it. They've done it because it's safe,
Speaker 3: it's zero missions, it can deliver cheaper electricity, and it's
Speaker 3: a constant source of twenty four to seven power.
Speaker 4: There are thirty countries that have nuclear power, including the
Speaker 4: four that have one reactor and the six that have two.
Speaker 4: In most countries it either doesn't exist or as a
Speaker 4: minor component of electricity supply. Secondly, it doesn't bring prices down.
Speaker 4: In fact, when I looked at average world prices for
Speaker 4: different forms of energy last year, the figures were solar
Speaker 4: three point seven cents a killer what hour, wind four
Speaker 4: point one, gas eight, coal eleven nuclear sixteen. So it's
Speaker 4: not just a bit more expensive, it's about four times
Speaker 4: as expensive as solar or wind. And I'm in the
Speaker 4: UK at the moment, and not very far from here.
Speaker 4: The UK is building one nuclear power station, Hinckley Point C.
Speaker 4: It was initially supposed to cost about twenty billion Australian
Speaker 4: dollars and befunctioning by twenty sixteen. They're now talking about
Speaker 4: generating electricity by twenty twenty eight, with a final cost
Speaker 4: somewhere north of one hundred billion dollars. And in fact,
Speaker 4: all of the only three nuclear power stations being built
Speaker 4: in Western Europe are all years behind schedule and billions
Speaker 4: over budget. And the claims of cheap electricity were based
Speaker 4: on the industry statements of cost, but nothing built in
Speaker 4: recent years has come anywhere near the cost that the
Speaker 4: industry has claimed that will been way over budget.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the cost of building a nucular reactor in Britain.
Speaker 1: We haven't spoken about the costs of building these seven
Speaker 1: reactors here. What does the opposition said about the cost
Speaker 1: of their plan.
Speaker 4: The silence has been deafening. The Coalition have released no
Speaker 4: figures and in a sense they probably can't because at
Speaker 4: the moment there are no working small modular reactors. You
Speaker 4: can't write a check and buy a small modular reactor.
Speaker 4: Nobody knows what the cost will be because they are
Speaker 4: not yet operational, and the Australian Academy of Technology and
Speaker 4: Engineering has released a discussion paper about small modular reactors,
Speaker 4: pointing out that there are several possible designs being considered
Speaker 4: around the world, but none of them are yet commercially available,
Speaker 4: and they said it would probably be the twenty forties
Speaker 4: before it's possible to write a check and buy a
Speaker 4: so called small modular reactor if we wanted to go
Speaker 4: down that path, and similarly, if we were to build
Speaker 4: large nuclear reactors. The cost depends on what design you
Speaker 4: adopt and who you to build them. Basically, the nuclear
Speaker 4: industry in recent years has been going way of a budget,
Speaker 4: with every new nuclear power station that's been built in
Speaker 4: the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 1: Okay, but what about one of the claims underpinning this
Speaker 1: announcement and actually arguably spurred this announcement on, and that
Speaker 1: is that coal fired power stations are coming to the
Speaker 1: end of their life over the next ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 1: That much is true, isn't it? And why did they
Speaker 1: need to be replaced by something.
Speaker 4: That is certainly true? There are two problems that they're announcement.
Speaker 4: One is that they've said that some stations that aren't
Speaker 4: projected to close will close. If we were to close
Speaker 4: down the power stations that are listed in their media
Speaker 4: release as due to close by twenty thirty seven, and
Speaker 4: if we were improbably to build seven nuclear power stations
Speaker 4: by twenty thirty seven, they would only provide about a
Speaker 4: third of the electricity that we will have lost through
Speaker 4: the closure of coal So the numbers just don't add up.
Speaker 4: It's also wildly improbable that we could build seven nuclear
Speaker 4: power stations in the next twelve years, because the Switzkowski report,
Speaker 4: chaired by the head of the Australian Nuclear Organization, presented
Speaker 4: to the Howard government, said that it would take at
Speaker 4: least ten years in more likely fifteen to build one
Speaker 4: nuclear power station, so the idea we could build seven
Speaker 4: by twenty thirty seven seems pure fantasy.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break Peter Dutton versus the States,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking about the claims that have been
Speaker 1: in the opposition's planned for nucular power. You've mentioned that
Speaker 1: they have outlined seven sites in which they are looking
Speaker 1: to build these nuclear power stations. Tell me about where
Speaker 1: these nuclear stations are proposed to go well.
Speaker 4: The proposal is to cite them where existing coal fired
Speaker 4: power stations are likely to close in the next twelve years.
Speaker 4: The argument for citing nuclear power stations where coal is
Speaker 4: being closed down is that there is a distribution system
Speaker 4: so you don't need to invest in new power lines.
Speaker 4: Not all those sites are even potentially available in the
Speaker 4: state governments in Queens and New Southales. Victoria said they
Speaker 4: are not interested at all in overturning their state prohibitions.
Speaker 6: We've got a prohibition on nuclear generated power in New
Speaker 6: South Wales and we're not going to remove that in
Speaker 6: the state. And I don't know whether the Opposition is
Speaker 6: planning or doing it if they were to win government either.
Speaker 1: I think it's the same.
Speaker 7: And we would fight him every step of the way.
Speaker 7: As I have said, we own the sites. We own
Speaker 7: the sites that he wants to use, and we own
Speaker 7: the transmission lines that he wants toxic.
Speaker 2: It's risky, it's more expensive.
Speaker 6: And it is decades and decades are white.
Speaker 4: And the L and P. Dutton's own political colleagues in
Speaker 4: Queensland have said that they're not interested in building nuclear
Speaker 4: power stations.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, I got to be really clear. It's not
Speaker 6: part of our plan.
Speaker 1: We won't look at it.
Speaker 6: It is not part of our plan.
Speaker 5: He didn't know's my position on it.
Speaker 4: So none of the state governments where nuclear power would
Speaker 4: need to be established, and even the potential alternative government
Speaker 4: in Queensland have said they're not on board with this proposal.
Speaker 4: It just seems politically unrealistic. Even if the government were
Speaker 4: somehow to find a majority in both houses in Parliament
Speaker 4: to repeal the federal prohibition of nuclear power, and there's
Speaker 4: only been one brief period in the last thirty years
Speaker 4: where the government in power had control of the Senate,
Speaker 4: and since it was the Crossbench that persuaded John Howard
Speaker 4: to put the ban on nuclear power in the Environmental
Speaker 4: Protection of Vadavasity Conservation Act. It defires credibility to suggest
Speaker 4: that a coalition government would be able to persuade the
Speaker 4: Crossbench to support moving that from the federal legislation.
Speaker 1: And do we have the expertise to build these reactors here?
Speaker 1: Do we have an industry to build these things?
Speaker 4: That would be a massive challenge. We don't have a
Speaker 4: workforce that is skilled in building nuclear reactors, and we
Speaker 4: don't have a regulatory regime that would give the community
Speaker 4: confidence that a nuclear power station could be built and
Speaker 4: operated safely. And that was why these Swurdkowski reports said
Speaker 4: it would take at least ten years fifteen to build
Speaker 4: one nuclear reactor because we would need to develop the
Speaker 4: workforce and develop the regulatory regime that would allow that.
Speaker 4: Even in countries that have an existing regulation system and
Speaker 4: a trained workforce like the UK, nuclear power stations are
Speaker 4: taking much longer than that to build.
Speaker 1: And what about the risks of waste management when it
Speaker 1: comes to nuclear power plants. Have you had the coalition
Speaker 1: speak about that at all?
Speaker 4: The Coalition is silent about the issue of waste management.
Speaker 4: But I was on the expert Advisory committee for the
Speaker 4: South Australian Nuclear Oil Commission, and it estimated in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: nearly a decade ago, that it would then cost about
Speaker 4: forty billion Australian dollars to build a secure storage for
Speaker 4: the radioactive waste that comes from nuclear power stations. So
Speaker 4: as well as the huge cost of building nuclear power stations,
Speaker 4: there is the unexplained and yet unknowable cost of managing
Speaker 4: the radioactive waste which needs to be managed for geological time.
Speaker 4: I mean we're not talking about a few years or
Speaker 4: a few decades. We're talking about tens of thousands, possibly
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of years, is the period for which
Speaker 4: radioactive waste from nuclear power stations needs to be isolated
Speaker 4: from the biosphere to prevent damage to humans and ecological systems.
Speaker 1: Allan thank you for your time, A real pleasure mate.
Speaker 1: Also in the use today, Prime Minister Anthony Alberesi has
Speaker 1: vowed to ban children from social media, with legislation to
Speaker 1: be introduced by the end of this year. Children up
Speaker 1: to the age of sixteen could be prevented from platforms
Speaker 1: like Snapchat Instagram, but the cutoff age won't be decided
Speaker 1: until the government has trialed age verification technology. The Prime
Speaker 1: minister says he wants to get kids off devices and
Speaker 1: onto footy fields. Oppositional lyder Peter Dunne says he will
Speaker 1: support a ban, and thousands of farmers have gathered at
Speaker 1: parliam the House to protest the government's ban on live
Speaker 1: sheep exports. The ban, which is said to be phased
Speaker 1: in over four years, passed the House and the Senate
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly earlier this year, but National's leader David little Proud
Speaker 1: has told the crowd of farmers that the first bill
Speaker 1: he would bring to Parliament if the Coalition wins the
Speaker 1: next election will be a repeal of the live export ban.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.