Australia news live: Coalition to release costings on nuclear policy

Adam Morton

Factcheck of Coalition’s case for nuclear

For those who want to know more about the nuclear debate, here is a factcheck we published in June:

Adam Morton

More facts to consider as we learn more of Coalition nuclear costings

Continuing from our earlier post: there are a few other things worth considering as we hear more about the Coalition’s nuclear proposal.

• It claims nuclear plants could be developed and operational by the mid-2030s, depending on the tech used. Few experts believe this is credible. Why? Only five large-scale nuclear plants have reached construction stage in the US and western Europe this century. Four were spectacularly over time and over budget. The fifth was cancelled after A$13bn had been spent.

• CSIRO found it would take at least 15 years to develop a nuclear industry and have a generator running in Australia.

• Experts say this raises questions about grid reliability as the coal plants that the Coalition wants to replace with nuclear are ageing and mostly won’t last that long. It says Peter Dutton’s pledge to slow the roll out of renewable energy and wait for nuclear plants puts the grid at risk. According to reports this morning, Frontier Economics assumes two-thirds of coal plants that the government expects to close by 2034 will still be operating then.

• Like solar and wind, nuclear energy generation is zero emissions. But burning more coal and gas before it could become available would add significantly to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. It means climate pollution would be higher under the Coalition’s plan – and scientists say deep cuts in emissions are needed now. The opposition has voted against all of Labor’s climate policies and has no emissions reduction policies of its own for the next decade.

Good morning

Emily Wind

Emily Wind here, signing on for blogging duties this Friday. I’ll be taking you through our live coverage for most of today.

As always, you can read out with any tips via email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.

Let’s get started.

Coalition’s nuclear costings contain some big unknowns

Peter Hannam

We’ve asked Danny Price and Frontier Economics (which he co-founded and of which he is managing director) for a copy of the report he has compiled for the Coalition on its nuclear plans.

From what’s reported in the media given excerpts from Price’s report, we find a few puzzling results. As we reported here last month, Price’s part 1 of two reports was intended to set a “base case” for the second component.

For unexplained reasons (so far), that base shifted to the tune $48bn in a couple of weeks, at least as far as Price’s estimate of what Labor’s net zero plans for the grid entail. Price claimed the latter – based on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s most likely “step change” scenario – would cost $642bn but that number drops to $594bn in the second report, according to details in the Daily Telegraph. That’s not so far off Aemo’s “real cost” estimate of $580bn, or so Price stated in his “base case” part 1 report.

(The $122bn Aemo tally was based on standard accounting methods to assess the “net present value” of future spending, a requirement imposed on Aemo by former Coalition energy minister Angus Taylor, the government revealed this week.)

According to the version in the Daily Telegraph, only one-third of the remaining coal-fired generators will close by 2034, compared with 90% in Aemo’s “step change” scenario by then. The extension of already unreliable power plants would include additional fuel and maintenance costs, not to mention additional carbon pollution from the relatively emission intensive energy source.

Media outlets, including the Australian Financial Review, which have been giving snippets of the Frontier Economics report, report overall electricity use will be lower by 2050 than Aemo estimates. One reason is that there will be less electrification of transport than Aemo forecasts but that presumably brings with it an additional fuel cost – not yet made public by Frontier – and additional carbon emissions that will count against a net zero achievement by 2050.

Outlets given access to the extracts say nuclear is assumed to be “always on” and operating “around the clock”. This assessment compares with the 53%-89% range assumed by CSIRO in its latest GenCost report, based on operations of the present coal fleet average over 2011-21. In recent decades, the average capacity use globally has been in the 80% range, with 10% of reactors operating at a capacity factor of 60% or less. To run nuclear plants at full capacity – an unlikely assumption given maintenance needs, for starters – would also mean curtailing (block) output for renewable energy generators, undermining their costs and investment appeal to owners and their financial backers.

No doubt there will be other assumptions carrying big question marks if/when we see the modelling Price plugged in.

Coalition to release nuclear costings – what we know so far

Adam Morton

We haven’t seen the details, but the opposition has released them to some newspapers. It reports that the opposition will claim its plan will lead to 38% of electricity coming from nuclear energy and 54% from renewable energy by 2050 and cost $263bn less than Labor’s policy to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

We can’t assess the Coalition’s claims without seeing them in detail, but there are a few things worth remembering today:

• Most independent experts including the CSIRO don’t agree that adding nuclear power could lead to a cheaper grid. They have repeatedly found that solar and wind with firming support from energy storage, new transmission connections and “peaking” gas plants is the cheapest source of electricity.

• CSIRO’s latest draft Gencost report – its annual assessment of electricity costs – this week found electricity generated from renewable energy with firming support in 2030 would cost at least 50% less than nuclear.

• Several energy experts told Guardian Australia that international experience suggested the cost of building nuclear power plants could be much higher than the CSIRO has suggested – possibly more than double.

• The Coalition will defend its policy using analysis by Danny Price, from the consultants Frontier Economics. He has a long history in national energy and climate debates, mostly working with the Coalition.

• Price reportedly says his modelling shows the “total system cost” of the electricity grid is cheaper with 38% nuclear power and 53% renewable energy than if it runs overwhelmingly on solar and wind plus firming. A first stage of Price’s analysis last month argued the Australian Energy Market Operator had underestimated the cost of running the grid predominantly on renewable energy and storage, largely because the operator had adjusted for inflation, a standard accounting practice.

• The Coalition and News Corp tabloids have claimed that Price’s work was evidence of a “$500bn green hole” in Labor’s plan. But this is not a widely held view.