Coal- and gas-fired power plants will stay open longer under the coalition’s $330 billion nuclear transition plan.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven publicly owned nuclear power plants across the country, with the first expected to come online in the mid-to-late 2030s, a timetable ruled out by some experts.
“This is a plan that will underpin our country’s economic success for the next century,” he told reporters Friday.
Renewables would make up just over half of Australia’s energy grid by 2050, with nuclear power making up just under 40 per cent and the rest a mix of storage and gas, fragments of the plan claim ahead of its release.
Labour’s plan is for the grid to be powered by just over 80 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
This figure will rise to more than 90 percent by 2050, with the remainder going to storage and gas.
The coalition plan was modeled by Frontier Economics, costing the Labor transition around $600 billion, compared to $331 billion for the coalition nuclear plan.
Dutton promised “massive savings.”
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven publicly owned nuclear power plants across the country.
“This means lower energy bills for households, lower operating costs for small businesses and a stronger, more resilient economy,” the opposition leader said.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has dismissed this figure, saying the government’s renewable energy plan would cost $122 billion, citing a forecast made by the national energy grid operator.
“They’re making it up as they go,” Bowen told ABC TV of the coalition’s costs on Friday.
Bowen said preliminary reports about the coalition plan before Friday’s full announcement that nuclear power would need fewer transmission lines – which would lower the estimated cost – were incorrect.
Coalition proposal favors nuclear reactors nationwide
“I’m not sure how they’re going to get nuclear power into the grid, maybe through carrier pigeons if they’re going to claim that they’re going to need less transmission somehow,” he said.
“They’ve had to make some very heroic assumptions here and they’ve had to stretch the truth to try to come up with some very dubious numbers.”
Keeping coal-fired power stations open beyond their useful lives was a threat to energy reliability, with outages and breakdowns occurring daily, Bowen said.
“It’s a recipe for blackouts to keep older coal power plants on the grid longer,” he said.
The coalition is pushing for an end to Australia’s nuclear ban but has faced opposition from states.