(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s main opposition group laid out a A$331 billion ($211 billion) plan to create a taxpayer-funded nuclear power industry in just over a decade, despite the nation’s top scientists saying renewable energy such as wind and solar energy is more cost effective.
The center-right Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton announced the cost of his nuclear policy at a press conference in Brisbane on Friday, making it a major plank of the election platform of his coalition with the National Party before an election due by May. It comes amid a global resurgence in the technology after a surge in energy prices following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Nuclear power will “underpin the economic success of our country for the next century,” Dutton said. “This will make electricity reliable. It will make it more consistent. It will make it cheaper for Australians, and it will help us decarbonize.”
Climate change has been politicized for decades in Australia, which has been hit by increased flooding, drought and fires but is also one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel exporters and per-capita emitters. The issue was seen as a major factor in the ousting of Dutton’s predecessor at the 2022 election.
The Labor government has been stimulating renewables, arguing that the nation should tap its natural benefits as one of the sunniest continents with vast, sparsely populated regions available for wind and solar to replace an aging fleet of coal-fired power stations. The coalition has been critical of that position, calling for round-the-clock generation such as nuclear to ensure the grid stays stable.
Dutton’s proposal calls for seven nuclear plants by 2050, with the first operational by 2036. The power source is currently banned in Australia and any atomic industry would need to be built from scratch.
The opposition leader said that under his plan, by 2050 Australia’s energy mix would be 54% renewable energy, 38% nuclear and 8% for storage and gas power. The Labor government, in contrast, has set a goal to have 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive possible options for Australia, and renewable energy the cheapest, Australia’s premier science body said in a report earlier this month. Dutton criticized those findings last week.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. ahead of Dutton’s announcement that the opposition was making “heroic assumptions.”
“What the Coalition is asking the Australian people to believe is this — that they can introduce the most expensive form of energy, and it’ll end up being cheaper,” Bowen said.
(Updates with global context, energy mix)
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