Shadow climate and energy minister Ted O’Brien has lashed out at the government for mocking and dismissing the debate over nuclear power.
The Coalition has launched a formal internal investigation into “advanced and next-generation” nuclear technology, but the government continues to reject calls to include the baseload power source in Australia’s energy grid.
Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Wednesday used an answer in Question Time, spruiking renewables to mock the Coalition’s push for what he described as the “most expensive form of energy”.
“I can report to the house the ideas factory over there has been whirling away again, and there has been Liberal and National Senators and Members promoting nuclear energy again today, but they don’t have much detail,” Mr Bowen said.
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But Mr O’Brien blasted the minister and accused the government of avoiding a “mature conversation” on the issue.
“Getting giggles from the backbench doesn’t help families and businesses struggling with skyrocketing power bills,” Mr O’Brien told SkyNews.com.au.
“You have to question why Labor is so nervous about a mature conversation about the prospect of new and emerging nuclear technology in Australia’s energy mix.
“Labor is running from a serious discussion about nuclear as quickly as they’re running from their promise to deliver a $275 cut to household power bills.”
During Question Time, the Energy Minister pointed to a submission from Nuclear for Climate Australia to the Senate inquiry into the government’s Climate Change Bill.
Mr Bowen said the groups pitch would require eighty modular reactors to meet the proposed energy generation.
“That is one every second MP. Put your hand up if you would like one. There we go. You get a nuclear power plant, you get a nuclear power plant, and you get a nuclear power plant, there is plenty to go around,” Mr Bowen said pointing to Coalition MPs.
The government has consistently rubbished calls for nuclear energy, labelling it the “slowest and most expensive” form of energy.
The Energy Minister’s claims echoed the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report in 2019 which found that solar and wind generation was quicker and cheaper to establish.
“Stabilizing the climate is urgent, nuclear power is slow,” said the report’s lead author Mycle Schneider.
“It meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”
But a recent report by the International Energy Agency found that nuclear power had the potential to play a “significant role” in the transition to renewable energy.
The Albanese Government has declared it would ensure more than 80 per cent of Australia’s energy grid would be comprised of renewable energy by 2030.
However, according to the IEA study, building sustainable and clean energy systems would be “harder, riskier and more expensive” without nuclear.
Australia’s more than two-decade moratorium on a nuclear industry remains the biggest roadblock to calls to adopt the energy generation and capitalise on the country’s massive deposits of uranium.
Nine Coalition Senators on Wednesday moved a private member’s bill in the Senate to scrap the nuclear energy ban.
Senator Matt Canavan said the moratorium, which was negotiated between the then-Howard government and the Greens and Labor in the late 1990s, could potentially “cost us for generations” unless it was lifted.
Speaking to Sky News Australia on Wednesday morning, Senator Canavan said the private member’s bill would not mean nuclear generation would immediately be kickstarted in Australia, but it would provide the government options to meet future energy demands.
“That’s why we should get rid of the ban today and so we can at least start considering proposals, getting rid of the ban doesn’t mean they’ll start tomorrow,” Senator Canavan said.
“The longer we delay that the more likely we’ll end up in a crisis that Europe’s in.”
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