TRANSCRIPT
6PR PERTH MORNINGS WITH GARY ADSHEAD
Gary Adshead
The former Coalition Government believes that nuclear power is something that we need to be exploring and developing as part of the transition away from Fossil Fuels. No doubt about it, indeed. Ted O’Brien, who’s the opposition climate change and energy spokesperson has just come back from the UK looking at what the United Kingdom is doing to actually turbocharge their nuclear industry. And Ted joins me in the studio now. Thanks very much for your time.
Ted O’Brien
Absolute pleasure. Great to be with you, Gary.
Gary Adshead
You’ve gone to have a look at the UK now. You’d have to say they’re in a different situation than us. But why are they putting so many eggs into that basket? Did they tell you?
Ted O’Brien
Well, look, nuclear in the UK is just ramping up further and further. I think it’s because the UK is pragmatic and I mean I think Western Australians are and I say that as a Queenslander, I think Queenslanders are too. In the UK they know that there’s two big issues right now. One is energy security and the other is the need to decarbonise. And there’s only one proven industrial scale form of zero-emissions technology that can help do that, and that’s zero-emissions nuclear.
Gary Adshead
So from, their point of view, they don’t have the same gas reliance that we do in terms of our energy system. There’s no doubt about that. But are you saying that UK citizens have become more relaxed about it, having, you know, seen it and had it there for many, years than perhaps here in Australia where there’s still the unknown. And then, of course, there’s all the horror stories around Fukushima, Chernobyl going way back. But that still lingers in people’s minds that this is just too dangerous an energy to go down the path of.
Ted O’Brien
I think there’s no doubt that in countries like the UK and another 31 countries in the world that have nuclear energy today, their citizens know that this is the safest form of energy generation the world has ever seen, and it provides that baseload zero-emissions energy. So, they’re comfortable with it.
In Australia I think the dial is moving, Gary. I think Australians are realising there’s a reason why the rest of the world adopts nuclear energy, but there’s no doubt it’s had a difficult past because of people’s perception when it comes to incidents that you mentioned, such as Chernobyl. I mean nobody in their right mind wants to see Soviet era nuclear technology in Australia and it’s certainly something that the Coalition in opposition isn’t looking at. We are only looking at new and emerging technologies or those in the trade would refer to it as, generation three-plus and beyond.
Gary Adshead
You know, I could say to you, you’re wasting your breath while there’s Labor governments in the States and also of course, federally. I mean the WA Labor Party has a policy which is very emphatic. I think it’s 342, 342 of their Labor platform, reject nuclear power as an option for electricity generation in Western Australia. Full stop. And so why keep pushing it?
Ted O’Brien
Yeah. Well, Gary, I mean, an overarching comment before I specifically answer your question, and that is that we need an ‘All-of-the-Above’ approach. I’m not suggesting for a moment that there’s a silver bullet out there. Next-generation nuclear energy needs to be considered as part of a balanced mix. It is not in and of itself the only solution. Now, with that said, you’re right. There are governments today in Australia who just have this very ideological opposition to the technology. Should we therefore not fight for it to be well considered? We can’t afford to be that passive. I mean, at the end of the day, if we’re fair dinkum in Australia about trying to reach net-zero, we will not get there unless we have zero-emissions nuclear energy. That’s the lesson I’ve learnt from travelling and talking to many people in other countries. Our closest allies, our closest trading partners, the IPCC of the United Nations, they all say the pathways to net-zero must include zero-emissions nuclear energy. And therefore, my view is, in Australia we must have this discussion.
Gary Adshead
133 882 if you would like to ask Ted a question about this. What does it look like to you if all of a sudden Labor policy changes and they’re prepared to explore taking Uranium out of the earth, whether they export it or they enrich it and they use it here- what does it look like? Are we talking massive plants? Are we talking these small satellite hubs that sort of power towns and villages? What are we looking at?
Ted O’Brien
Gary, we’re looking at generation three-plus and beyond. And so, when you hit generation three-plus nuclear technology, you have all the passive safety features involved. And that’s the priority. It has to be the new stuff, not the old stuff, if you like. And then what does generation three-plus mean in terms of sizes? Well, you’ve got micro, you’ve got small, and you’ve got large. Micro reactors are very small reactors. And you know, they literally come in on the back of a truck. They can be as large as you know, let’s say 20MW, right? You can go to remote mining communities so long as you’ve got a slab of concrete and you can connect it up, you can use it off grid, and then you’ve got the small modular reactors.
Now, these are obviously larger than the micro-ones, but they’re still small. The generation three-plus small modular reactors, it’s the exact same proven technology that you see today in the large ones, but they’re just in smaller units.
And so, I mean, I was just in the UK and if you look at Rolls Royce, they’ve got a 470-megawatt unit, that they’re looking at and these things come off the factory shelf. The micro-reactors, small modular reactors, unlike the old traditional plants, these are factory made. And so, all the work gets done in a factory. It’s sort of like Lego. You take it to site, at site, it is assembled. Now that collapses the time to market. And because they’re small, it also means you’re looking at less capital expense up front. And this is why the world is getting excited about these SMRs.
And then you’ve got the large reactors and there are generation three plus, large reactors today operating around the world and indeed in the UK. I mean you know, they’re moving towards a mix of large and SMR, small modular reactors for their future.
Gary Adshead
I take it there’s absolutely no doubt that we’ve got the Uranium there, to fuel these.
Ted O’Brien
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Australia has the largest volumes of Uranium in the ground, in the world. We’re the world’s third largest exporters. And so, you’ve got to stick to your strengths and our abundant natural resources are a strength, including Uranium.
Gary Adshead
So, you’re talking about, I take it if we were, say, pick a town like Kalgoorlie or Laverton out in the Goldfields where they’re reliant on all that transmission and generation, you’re saying that places like that, a nuclear reactor could take over the power supply?
Ted O’Brien
Well, Gary, I have purposely avoided commenting on any specific location.
Gary Adshead
Do you have a size of a town in mind? I mean, do you have sort of like.
Ted O’Brien
Well, no, because I mean, we are doing a lot of research at the moment, but we’ve avoided coming out talking about any specific location for obvious reasons. People start thinking, well, that must be a policy position, right? But it varies. And so, if you sort of think, you know, this is sort of a ‘rule of thumb’ which isn’t precise, but nevertheless, let’s just say one megawatt can power about a thousand homes, right?
Then you say, well, okay, so if you’re talking about a 20-megawatt micro reactor, there’s 20,000 homes. If you’re talking about an SMR of, let’s say 300MW, maybe that’s 300,000 homes. Um, but of course you don’t do your site selection just based on such simplicity. The advice we’ve received from experts on the small modular reactors and any large reactors is one idea is to look at using retired coal fired plants. So basically, using sites that have had coal fired power stations on them, which means you leverage the existing infrastructure, the big transmission lines.
Now, reports that have gone into the Department of Energy in the United States suggest that that’ll reduce capital costs somewhere between 15 and about 30% just because you are leveraging the existing infrastructure. So that’s one of the things we are looking at, at the moment.
And then of course around the world you see micro-reactors being looked at to replace diesel and obviously the small modular reactors to replace coal. Likewise with the large reactors. And so there are technological developments, there are site specific developments, but like any technology, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a wind farm, whether it be a transmission line or a nuclear reactor, there’s always that prerequisite of a social license. At the end of the day, it’s critically important that a community is engaged, and a community is satisfied to bring forward a major piece of infrastructure.
Gary Adshead
Because then there’s the debate around waste and where to put it. And we’re having that at the moment in relation to submarine development and so on as well here. So we talk about waste. What do you say to that? No one wants it in their backyard, Ted.
Ted O’Brien
Gary, a really good point, and this is one of the big lessons I learnt from the United Kingdom and so what happens with management of waste across the world, by the way, with nuclear plants is, the spent fuel, so the high-level waste from a plant, that stays and is stored on the plant. But then the ideal solution is, it goes to a long-term repository.
Now in the United Kingdom, in light of AUKUS and our adoption of nuclear propelled submarines, I wanted to understand how does the UK manage its waste? What is its plans moving forward? And what I learnt there was that it’s deep, geological repository will manage both the civil and submarine spent fuel. So, in other words, that high level waste will go to the same facility. Now, it will be managed differently and accounted for differently because you know, one side’s defence and military and the other side is civil. But what that means in the Australian context therefore is we do at least have bipartisanship on AUKUS and so we know that we are responsible, as a nation, to manage any nuclear waste from those submarines. And so, whatever the Albanese Government decides on its repository for nuclear waste is really what should be informing our own policies, moving forward on civil waste.
Gary Adshead
Do you think they’ll put that off until after the 2025 election about where they’re going to dump it or put it?
Ted O’Brien
Well, I think Gary, everyone knows Albanese doesn’t do detail well and so I’m not expecting him to really be coming forward with great transparency and detail. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be asking the question because we have signed up as a government and I support it wholeheartedly, by the way, to the AUKUS deal to manage all nuclear waste coming from those submarines. As for where that site should be managed, that’s a matter for the Albanese Government.
Gary Adshead
How hard and fast is this your policy going into that 2025 federal election? I mean, how much are we going to be talking about it as an absolute must do, in terms of the transition from your point of view?
Ted O’Brien
Well, separate from what we might come out with as a policy, Gary, I think we should be having that conversation right now. And I’m grateful for the opportunity this morning because I do not believe there is a credible pathway to net-zero without zero-emissions, nuclear energy.
Gary Adshead
Even if we accelerate the renewable strategy that we’ve got, and we do more on that?
Ted O’Brien
Oh, look, I think the renewables only approach by the Albanese Government is daft and dangerous and we are seeing that with a more unreliable grid and higher power prices. From the Coalition’s perspective, we believe in ‘All-of-the-Above’ approach. We believe that renewables have an important role to play, but the objective should not be to have a maximum level of renewables but an optimum level. And renewables can’t do it all alone. They’re intermittent. You know, the old rule and the wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine. So they need help, which is why gas is so important, which is another area of concern because we’re going to see a depletion of gas and that’s going to impact a lot of Australia, including the west. And as we move forward, we need to be considering zero-emissions nuclear energy.
Gary Adshead
Ted, thanks very much for coming in with your jet lag, having got off that airplane. Thanks.
Ted O’Brien
Thanks very much Gary, all the best.