Date Published 22 April 2025

Author: Robert Watson
(with no AI assistance!)

Reading Time: 25 minutes

With a federal election pending, Australians are having to choose between alternative
technologies for their future power supply, This essay exanimes as much detail of the
Coalition nuclear proposal as is available so far, and whether it will be good for Australia

SYNOPSIS

Australia is in fairly urgent need of finding alternative power sources for the fossil fuels coal, gas and oil to help reduce greenhouse emissions and arrest global warming from climate change. Scientists and climate researchers are almost all of one voice that new power sources should be renewable and as clean as possible.

In June 2024, the Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton announced the conservative parties plan to build a nuclear power industry in Australia as an alternative power source.

Should the Coalition win the coming election and decide to proceed with development, the Australian population should be aware of the many possible portentous consequences about that decision. The Coalition has focused all attention on costs and alleged savings – there is so much more to consider than that.
This essay will examine the following aspects of the proposed nuclear development:

• THE NUCLEAR PROPOSAL AND AUSTRALIA’S HISTORY OF NUCLEAR EXPERIENCE
• THE NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT COSTS AND COMPARISON
• THE LOCATION OF THE PROPOSED REACTORS AND WATER PROBLEM
• THE CAPACITY & COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED REACTORS
• TIMING OF COALITIONS NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT
• NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL, COOLING WATER DISPOSAL, SAFETY & HEALTH ELEMENTS
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES | APPENDIX

THE NUCLEAR PROPOSAL AND AUSTRALIA’S HISTORY OF NUCLEAR EXPERIENCE

In June 2024, the Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton alongside Ted O’Brien, his spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy, and David Littleproud, leader of The National Party, announced the conservative parties plan to build a nuclear power industry in Australia as an alternative power source.

Dutton announced that <font-style:italic;>‘a future Federal Coalition Government will introduce zero-emissions nuclear energy in Australia, which has proven to get electricity prices and emissions down all over the world, to work in partnership with renewable energy and gas as part of a balanced energy mix. There would be seven locations (see location map below), with each location offering important technical attributes needed for a zero-emissions nuclear plant, including cooling water capacity and transmission infrastructure, along with a local community which has a skilled workforce. A Federal Coalition Government will initially develop two establishment projects using either small modular reactors (SMRs) or modern larger plants such as the AP1000 or APR1400. They will start producing electricity by 2035 (with small modular reactors) or 2037 (if modern larger plants are found to be the best option). The Australian Government will own these assets, but form partnerships with experienced nuclear companies to build and operate them.’¹

Australia is the only country of the world’s countries with the top 20 economies not to have nuclear energy, and naturally, no experience in planning, building and operating a nuclear energy project. There are few courses available within Australia to produce graduates in nuclear power engineering, and those that do qualify are employed overseas in a world with high demand for nuclear technologists that is not being met. Should the AUKUS submarine deal with USA come to fruition there would be a need of about 10,000 to 30,000 nuclear workforce jobs, many needing specialist training, just for AUKUS². Where will Australia find the hundreds of qualified engineers and many thousands of specialised technicians to build and then run a nuclear power project of seven reactors?

THE NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT COSTS AND COMPARISON

By using a ‘balanced mix nuclear plan’ the Coalition and Liberal Party advertising, website and their supposed independent analyst, Frontier Economics, talk about alleged savings of $263 billion or 44% compared to Labor’s renewables only plan. Impressive savings, but is it correct, and what do they really mean?

The Coalition nuclear proposal was released for over six months before any long-awaited official costings were released. Costings released in December 2024 were based on modelling by Frontier Economics, and suggest a cost of $311 billion³. The modelled dollar figure to build seven nuclear power stations is A$263 billion, or 44% less than Labor’s renewables plan according to Dutton, a parade of coalition shadows., and Frontier Economics, who, incidentally also modelled the disputed Labor costing of $600 billion. The ambiguity contained in the Coalition figures, and the lack of detail on the type of financial modelling used has left economists and many in the science community dubious.

The most obvious and glaring issue with the Coalition nuclear project costs are the amount allowed for building the five large scale reactors with output capacity of 2 megawatts each. The Federal Coalition’s nuclear costings assume a price of $10,000 per kilowatt, which makes the cost of each 2 megawatt reactor $20 billion, and the total cost for five reactors $100 billion⁴. The figure of $10,000 per kilowatt is what is called the ‘overnight’ figure, which is the figure for that time only without allowances for contingencies such as escalating financing, time and infrastructure costs. Figures from Flyvbjerg Database4 indicate that of 120 nuclear power projects examined there was a mean cost overrun of 120% with more than 45% of the 120 projects exceeding a 200% cost overrun. An example is the Hinkley C nuclear reactor, the flagship of the UK nuclear power industry, which was announced in 2016. The scheduled completion date was 2025, at a cost of A$34 billion however, the first of the reactors is likely delayed until 2031 with a cost of A$87 billion⁵.

SMRs.The proposed two small modular reactors (SMRs) in the Coalitions nuclear project are beset with major problems and are unlikely to ever be commissioned. The only countries with fully operating SMRs are China and Russia, while there are several other countries with SMRs either under construction or abandoned due to cost overruns. IEEFA (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis) analysts found that SMRs in operation or under construction cost three to seven times more than originally planned. Proposed SMRs in the US have also already seen cost estimates blow out by between two and four times in recent years. SMRs have attracted publicity in recent years as being cheaper and safer as well as taking less time to build. In fact the truth is the reverse of this¹⁹. Four SMRs either under construction or abandoned during construction in USA have experienced cost overruns and the US Department of Energy modelled a cost per megawatt being more than 50% higher than for large reactors²⁰. The time overruns being experienced for SMRs (see above diagram) indicate Duttons plan for SMRs to build first and more quickly will not work.

The Climate Council of Australia analysed the Coalition’s nuclear power costs when they were released in December and have concluded that up to $490 billion of costs are either underestimated or omitted from the Coalition figures. Some of the tangible costs included the Climate Council analysis were the true cost of building nuclear, much as outlined above, and under-estimating the cost of meeting Australia’s power consumption in 2050 by assuming a drop-off in electricity demand as fossil fuels supplants electricity under a Coalition plan⁵.

Other costs not included according to the Smart Energy Council are⁶:
• Coal-Keeper – using taxpayer dollars to extend the life of polluting, inefficient coal-fired power stations, including refurbishing the plants to keep coal in the system until they can be replaced by nuclear.
• “Throwing buckets of money” at State Governments, as Peter Dutton has committed.
• The cost of compulsory acquisition of the sites.
• The cost of community consultation.
• The cost of establishing Emergency Planning Zones, and any costs associated with contamination clean ups in the event of nuclear accidents; and
• The cost of storage of nuclear waste.

Another cost not mentioned by the Smart Energy Council is the cost to an ever-increasing deficit budget, as the financing of this project, alongside the incredibly expensive AUKUS, will be met by you and I and all Australians. Dutton has opted for government funding (meaning the people), after new data revealed that the custodians of more than $4 trillion in Australian retirement savings, as well as IGCC representing more than 100 institutional investors managing more than $35 trillion in capital have almost
no appetite for investing in the nuclear technology.

Only 14 per cent of 65 large superannuation fund managers and asset owners surveyed by a major climate-focused investment organisation are planning to gain exposure to nuclear in the near future, compared with 63 per cent who showed interest in making renewable energy investments⁷.

There seems little doubt that the costs included in Dutton’s nuclear proposal are minimised in an attempt to make voters believe that a nuclear alternative can be cheaper. That is certainly not the case if you consider that Labor’s renewable proposal is for 100% of usable power by 2050 and the more costly Coalition proposal is for a mere 4% power supply on costing alone.

THE LOCATION OF THE PROPOSED REACTORS AND THE PROBLEM OF WATER

The seven proposed nuclear power locations are listed below. The sites are all operating or recently closed coal-fired power station sites and their individual power capacity is also listed in gigawatts as well as the projected date of closure.
• Liddell, NSW – already closed
• Mt Piper, NSW, 1.4 gigawatt (<2040)
• Loy Yang VIC, 2.2 gigawatt (2035); 1.1gigawatt (<2047)
• Tarong, QLD, 1.8 gigawatt (2037)
• Callide, QLD, 0.7 gigawatt (2028); 0.8gigawatt (<2050)
• Northern, SA (SMR only) – already closed
• Muja, WA (SMR only), 0.5 gigawatt (2029)

The positive aspect of the placement of nuclear reactors on existing power transmission sites is that at least for the life left in the already existing transmission systems that infrastructure could be used for transmission from a nuclear power plant.

The enormous quantities of cooling water that are required by nuclear power stations will be a problem that has not been addressed by the Coalition.

According to studies conducted by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) an average-sized 1 gigawatt nuclear reactor uses approximately 50 million litres of water a day (between 35 and 65 million) – that’s 20 Olympic swimming pools of water every day. Several of the proposed Australian reactors are larger than 1 gigawatt and would therefore consume even more water. For a minimal 6 gigawatt of total power from all seven reactors water required for normal running is 300 million litres per day and for maximum output of say 10 gigawatt 500 million litres of water, in a country with a long history of water shortages, even for the relatively small quantities required for agriculture.

On top of the day to day water requirements a nuclear power station must have enough standby water in case of nuclear accidents. In the event of an accident, only vast and continual quantities of water can prevent the nuclear fuel rods melting down in the reactor core.

Fukushima. In March 2011 a powerful earthquake along eastern Japan caused a tsunami with waves up to 10 metres high. Combined the earthquake and tsunami caused more than 19,000 deaths and widespread devastation in north-eastern Japan. It also caused the flooding of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant resulting in the second worst nuclear disaster in history, only behind that in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986⁸. The details of the Fukushima nuclear accident are well documented, but there is one aspect of Fukushima that is worth noting in relation to the Coalition’s Australian proposal. A complete meltdown at Fukushima was averted only because the nuclear plant was near the ocean and had access to the 1.3 million tonnes or about 1250 Gigalitres of seawater, that was needed to keep the nuclear core cool enough to prevent a meltdown.

Of the seven Coalition reactors, sites for four of the five large scale reactors , Callide, Tarong, Liddell and Mt. Piper, are at least 100 kilometres from the sea. Where would the water come from in the event of an emergency?

Dutton has been questioned about the availability of water for everyday operation of the reactors and despite his assurances there’s enough water for his seven nuclear plants, it has not been properly assessed. Even the National MP Darren Chester, a political ally says that “facts, not opinions” are required and would take up to 2 years to determine.

Another obstacle of location for Dutton, should he win government and really try to instigate the nuclear proposal, is a solid wall of state governments both Liberal (LNP) and Labor all backing the renewables plan of Labor, with the possible exception of Tasmania where there is no provision for a nuclear reactor.

THE CAPACITY & COMPARISON OF PROPOSED REACTORS

The likely capacity of the five large reactors is about 2 gigawatts each and the two small modular reactors (SMRs) about 470 megawatts each. The current power capacity of the existing coal-fires power stations being replaced averages about 6.5 gigawatts and reducing as power stations reach end-of-life and become less reliable with age.

The CO2 emissions from five of the seven coal-fired plants still operating – Callide, Tarong, Mt Piper, Loy Yang and Muja – are more than 42.7 million tonnes per year, which is the equivalent to 13.3 cars on the road. The Loy Yang power station contributes 18.55 million tonnes of the total of 42.7 million tonnes or about 43%9 as the brown lignite coal in Victoria is of lower quality to NSW and Queensland’s black bituminous coal.

An oddity in the proposal of the Coalition and the modelling done by Frontier Economics is the expectation that an ageing and progressively retiring group of coal-fired power stations will be able to generate enough electricity to satisfy demand while the nuclear plants are constructed. The Frontier Economics modelling report assumes the coal plants will generate at least 72% and up to 81% of their capacity during this construction phase. The Institute for Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)¹⁰ studied the 13 coal plants that have closed since 2000 and found in the 10 years before they were turned off, they were only available on average 66% of the time due to unplanned outages and the need for increased maintenance. A report from the Climate Council early in 2025¹¹ on ageing coal generators backs up the IEEFA findings, saying that more than 60% of coal capacity on our main grid is older than 40 years and a coal generator’s availability to produce electricity begins to decline from 40 years old, decreasing from 81% to 65% on average.

On evidence so far, the contention of the necessary amount of supplementary power being available from these ageing plants is wrong, even on the over-optimistic construction timing offered by Dutton.

TIMING OF COALITIONS NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT

Estimates of the time-frame for nuclear deployment vary widely, from the conservative parties optimistic 10-12 years (not including time for planning, permitting and financing), ranging through to at least 15 years estimated by CSIRO and AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operators), and out to longer than 20 years by some with experience of deployment overseas in countries with previous nuclear experience.¹²

Significant pre-construction delays are to be expected with a period of up to 5 years suggested by SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd at the Parliamentary committee enquiry¹¹ for community consultation, site selection, feasibility studies, environmental and development approvals and arranging financial facilities. Even 5 years may be optimistic for a clear path to construction when factors such as finding enough qualified technical staff and the many, perhaps hundreds, of qualified construction staff are acquired. The UK has 700 people working in the running, maintenance and safety of only nine nuclear reactors.¹⁴ The nuclear “brain-power” and technological manpower that Australia lacks would have to be found in a world desperately short of nuclear skills. At this pre-construction stage the nuclear power scheme would start competing with AUKUS for many of the same people should AUKUS progress further.

A significant factor effecting the timing of any nuclear development will almost certainly be the battle for any future Coalition government to persuade governments, state and federally, to lift bans on nuclear use. Opposition energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien stated the obvious that investors would not flock to nuclear until federal and state governments lifted bans on its use.

O’Brien said, “In jurisdictions where nuclear is legal, there is an insatiable appetite to invest. If Australia is serious about achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, we must include nuclear energy in our mix.”⁷

Note that during the term of the outgoing parliament Ted O’Brien and the Liberal Party voted, with Labor, to keep the nuclear bans in place. Interesting for a party that was about to embark on an extremely expensive nuclear scheme, and, the “insatiable appetite to invest” seems to have dissipated.

Amongst the many issues that could impact on Dutton’s optimistic timing forecasts, establishment of a nuclear industry would require significant legal and regulatory changes federally and in all states. Overcoming almost certain community opposition to the establishment of the reactors in the proposed sites will be difficult.

In countries with decades of nuclear history and experienced work forces, lengthy time overruns in construction of nuclear reactors are the rule, not the exception. The Shin Hanul II reactor built on an existing site with workforce with 50 years experience took 11 years. The UK took 19 years, Finland 19 years, France 17 years and the US 15 years, all on existing sites with experienced workforces suggests 15 years would be very optimistic for the first Australian reactor.¹⁴

NUCLEAR WASTE & COOLING WATER DISPOSAL, SAFETY & HEALTH ELEMENTS

How it Works. Nuclear reactors contain and control nuclear chain reactions that produce heat through a physical process called fission. That heat is used to make steam that spins a turbine to create electricity. The most common fuel type is Uranium-235, which is enriched, pelletised and packed into sealed metal tubes. The metal tubes are the fuel rods and they are stacked together in a fuel assembly named the reactor core. The nuclear fuel is considered spent when it can no longer sustain fission reaction – somewhere between three and eight years. A 1 gigawatt reactor will discharge about 40 spent fuel assemblies each year, which is on average about 200 fuel rods, equating to 25–30 tonnes of waste or 10 cubic metres. The majority of the fuel rods is high-level nuclear waste with a small proportion maybe recycled through enrichment to recover any remaining fissile material15.

The radioactive waste we produce. Australia’s nuclear waste has mostly been low-level nuclear waste from medicine clothing and instruments, research apparatus, and about 85% of the waste from the ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) nuclear research facility. A small amount of intermediate-level waste is generated from nuclear medicine production and the OPAL research reactor at ANSTO. Most low-level nuclear waste is stored in 200-litre drums on-site at ANSTO and in over 100 other locations across Australia. The more dangerous intermediate-level waste has to be shielded for handling and transportation and is stored in steel and concrete, mostly at ANSTO Lucas Heights near Sydney. There is no dedicated facility in Australia for the storage and/or disposal of either low or intermediate waste.

These figures are contradicting those of Dutton who, when casually replying to a question about waste, said that a 0.45 gigawatt (450mw) reactor would produce total waste equivalent to a can of coke per year – that’s total waste! On Dutton’s reckoning a 1 gigawatt reactor would produce 2 cans of waste. And a 2 gigawatt reactor (closer to the proposed large Australian reactors) 4 coke cans. Although, Dutton did say in one of the election debates that he wasn’t a scientist.

Given that the projected amount of waste is arguable, the type of waste that will be emanating from these nuclear plants is not. In this case it’s high-level, extremely dangerous radioactive waste, and Australia does not have a suitable and safe storage solution – not even for the estimated radioactive waste inventory of 4377 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste and 13,287 cubic metres of low-level waste we now hold¹⁶, let alone the massive amounts of far more toxic high-level waste to be propagated by the Coalitions proposal. However, Australia is not alone because there is no country in the world that has a fail-safe, absolutely secure method of handling and/or disposing of nuclear waste.

Current Interim Storage Methods for high-level waste.¹⁷ Interim storage is necessary when waste is first decommissioned for initial cooling and safety from the initial radiation hazard that is still abundantly strong. Spent fuel as nuclear waste around the world is stored in two ways – wet storage and dry storage.

Wet storage as an intermediate step consists of storing waste materials underwater so they are cooled and their radioactive properties dispersed, before disposal. This method is said to be effective for up to 80 years.
Dry storage cannot be used when nuclear waste material is first decommissioned. The waste material must be water-cooled before transferred to dry storage. For dry storage waste materials are enclosed in steel containers in a bed of concrete. The duration of wet storage is relatively short, three to ten years, after which it is transferred to dry storage or final disposal.

Final Disposal Options for all levels of radiation in waste. Low-level and some short-lived intermediate-level waste are disposed of near or up to 10 metres below ground level in tunnels and caverns. The waste material is packed into constructed vaults and the vaults are back-filled after placement.

Deep geological disposal is used for high-level radioactive waste and some longer-lived intermediate waste. The usual method is to place the waste material into a steel canister, which itself is usually encased in a copper overpack. The container is then often encased in either concrete or bentonite, depending on the material present at the final disposal site. Disposal sites are deep abandoned mines and deep boreholes within stable geological formations. Back-filling is often used¹⁸.

While the above fairly briefly described methods of storage and disposal, eventually, the problem of non-permanent solutions to storage and disposal, that now beset the use of fossil fuels with CO2 emissions, will effect disposed radioactive waste when permanent disposal space becomes short or difficult to acquire, and the waste radiation is still millions of years from becoming inert and non-hazardous.
The biggest health hazard of nuclear use is radiation poisoning, which in large enough quantities will cause death and in small to even minute quantities will cause illnesses in communities and birth abnormalities in babies. Radiation poisoning could occur from small leakages, even from low level waste, into groundwater or subsoil used in agriculture, or from larger radiation leaks from storage not well enough protected from weather or natural calamities such as earthquakes.

The rhetoric of how wonderful nuclear power is from the Coalition politicians is constant, but since not one of Peter Dutton, Angus Taylor, Ted O’Brien or David Littleproud has even an under-graduate science degree, as do none of the 38 consultants listed on Frontier Economics website, it’s not difficult to understand why these people only speak about the headline points of nuclear power – they are very short on detail.
Not only does Australia not have the skills, but also Australians do not have the passion for a risky venture that shows low-level dividends and high-level risks to our health, our environment and our finances.

CONCLUSION

The cost of constructing seven nuclear reactors alone, without the related costs outlined earlier, to deliver only about 4% of required power, would be the same as the cost of delivering more than 80% renewable power by 2030, and almost 100% renewable mix by 2050, including the cost of building all the enabling renewable transmission infrastructure.

Most of the debate about the Coalition nuclear proposal has been about cost and timing. On costs and timing alone, for the Coalitions estimates to be met, world records would need to be broken! While costs and timing consideration are important, by far the most important and urgent discussion should be about nuclear waste disposal.

We will never get a renewable power economy with the Coalition. Under Labor we’ll get there eventually. Moreover, with a diversified government and parliament comprised of all parties and independents as well as input from community forums and the necessity to negotiate and compromise we’ll achieve a renewable power economy, clean air everywhere and a healthy and safe natural environment. A renewable power economy will cost a lot, it will take a few years to achieve but once established it’s there forever.

The choice different countries have made over the past two hundred years as to which power technology will suit them is based mostly availability of the power source and cost to set it up. Many countries such as UK and USA have used different technologies at different times depending on the reliability, supply and cost of their existing source. Today all countries with advanced economies and many middle-economy countries are planning or in the process of changing from coal and gas power generation to renewable power sources. There is also a growing list of countries that have phased our, or are phasing out of nuclear. These countries include Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Taiwan, Lithuania and Switzerland. The few countries considering new nuclear programs such as Albania, Serbia, Latvia and Turkey amongst them are doing so because of the cost and availability of fossil fuels, and, more importantly, because of the growing instability in their relations with Russia, their main supplier of fossil fuels and power.

Why then would Peter Dutton, Angus Taylor, David Littleproud and Ted O’Brien, along with support from Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, amongst other infuential miners, want Australia to embark on a risky venture like nuclear power development when our available sources of renewable energy is the envy of the world? Australia has developed substantial expertise and infrastructure for renewables, conversely, we have almost none for nuclear. Nuclear will provide a paltry 4% of electricity needs, renewables almost 100%.

The words of Ketan Joshi probably help answer that question … “It’s not clear what’s worse: That the Coalition really means its nuclear plan, or is just making it up to push ahead with coal and gas.”¹³

There seems a very clear answer to that!