19 June 2024
Chris O’Keefe
All right, the big story of the day. The Federal Opposition has announced the seven locations where they’re playing – where they plan to build nuclear power plants. So in New South Wales – Liddell power station, the coal fired power station in Muswellbrook, will be turned into a nuclear power plant. And Mount Piper power station in Lithgow be turned into a nuclear power plant. In Victoria, Loy Yang power station. In Queensland, Callide and Tarong. The Northern Power Station in South Australia and Muja power station in WA. This is the bit I like about this. Peter Dutton wants these power plants to be owned by the people of Australia. Publicly owned by the Commonwealth and that’s the first one – he wants the first one to be built and running by 2035.
Peter Dutton [grab]
We have a vision for our country to deliver cleaner electricity, cheaper electricity and consistent electricity. This is a plan for our country which will underpin a century of economic growth and jobs for these communities.
Chris O’Keefe
Well Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, he obviously disagrees with the whole thing.
Anthony Albanese [grab]
You can’t have energy security by saying “we’ll do nothing for 15 years” following on from the coalition’s 22 energy policies that they announced – and didn’t land one. This is a recipe for higher energy prices, for less energy security, less job creation. This is economic madness.
Chris O’Keefe
Well Ted O’Brien, Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change is live on the line. Ted, g’day.
Ted O’Brien
G’day Chris.
Chris O’Keefe
This is your baby. You’ve done a lot of work on it. Why have you decided to, firstly, make it publicly funded and publicly owned?
Ted O’Brien
Ultimately, I think the Australian people should be owning this. This is really – when you’re talking about zero emissions nuclear power plant, you’re talking about assets, Chris, that will last around about 80 years, maybe up to 100 years. And if you look at what problem it solves for Australia, it solves the problem of Australians falling into energy poverty, but it also underpins our energy security. In other words, it’s going to keep the lights on for our country. When you have an asset, which is so fundamental to everything we do as a nation and such a long-term asset, then it does beg the question of government ownership – and we’ve answered that question today. We believe it should be in the hands of the government.
Chris O’Keefe
Is that because you don’t – you can’t guarantee that a private company will do it?
Ted O’Brien
No, if you look around the world it’s actually common practice. And this is something I’ve learned, and I’ve been looking at this, but if you look at – if you look at Europe. And you say well, who’s probably the most successful in Europe, you’d look at the French. Government-owned. If you look in our part of the world, you’d probably say the South Koreans. Government-owned. If you look at North America, Ontario, that province, government-owned. And so, it is common practice across the world and it’s not unprecedented in Australia, I mean Snowy 2.0 hydro that’s government-owned. They own – you know – gas plants, that’s government-owned, so…
Chris O’Keefe
Is it an admission too we should never have sold the coal generators to begin with?
Ted O’Brien
I’m always hesitant to criticize generations of the past, right? I mean, people often talk about selling assets. A lot of people bagged the National Electricity System, which is referred to as the NEM – the National Electricity Market, saying oh look, it’s not doing the job. At the time those who established that system did it for the right reasons and it worked for a while. But as of today, we have problems, and we need to take a different approach. In this case, we’re talking about zero emissions nuclear energy.
Chris O’Keefe
Okay, so why have we now moved away from the idea of – we’ve had you on this program before – the small modular nuclear reactors and instead just getting the ones off the shelf, the big nuclear reactors, and chucking them on sites where there are currently coal fired power stations? Why the change?
Ted O’Brien
Chris, there’s actually no change at all. We have spoken previously about small modular reactors, and I think they are a wonderful technology. But we’ve also been very public for some time saying we’re also looking at the modern, larger plants like the AP1000s, or APR1400s for those who are really into the technology, right. Either way, what – what we did say and we’re consistent with it today, it has to be generation three and beyond. In other words, the latest technology. So, we are looking at those small modular reactors, but we’re also looking at the larger plants and so that hasn’t actually changed.
Chris O’Keefe
For a layman. What’s – what sort of gigawatts does one of these plants generate?
Ted O’Brien
So, if you’re looking at the small ones, you know, you can have the really small ones that we’re talking about, you know, 50 megawatts through to…
Chris O’Keefe
No, the ones that you are proposing today. The normal nuclear reactors that are going on these coal fired power stations, how much electricity are they going to generate?
Ted O’Brien
So, we haven’t announced today a specific reactor type. But if you want just an example, I’ll sort of just give you a general example. An SMR, one of them that I’ve looked at recently is around 300 megawatts. And that’s the – what the Canadians are looking at. It’s referred to General Electric GE Hitachi model. It’s called the BWX 300. So, 300 megawatts. Then if you look at the larger ones, if you look at the AP1000, which is a Westinghouse – that’s 1.1 gigawatt, so 1100. So, you know, look, they vary…
Chris O’Keefe
So, they don’t – they don’t replace coal fired power as such, gigawatt to gigawatt do they?
Ted O’Brien
In terms of the actual unit… no, in terms of the output it does in the system, but it doesn’t at a specific site. So, for example, you wouldn’t look at particular site and go, Okay, so that power plant, you know, and I’m making these numbers up, right, that power plant is, you know, 1.25 gigawatts. We’re going to replace it precisely with 1.25 gigawatts. Now it doesn’t work like that. But the – one of the things we announced today, Chris, is we are going to establish an independent body which will be the Australian Nuclear Energy Coordinating Authority, and that independent body – they’re the ones, once we come into government, that will do all the various technical assessments to answer those very questions – what should be the technology? What should be the capacity? And so forth. You need the experts doing that, not politicians.
Chris O’Keefe
In terms of its output? What’s a Westinghouse cost at the moment?
Ted O’Brien
Well, you probably just have to look up the – the website they’ve got so many different models, right, but whatever…
Chris O’Keefe
But you know, you’re putting a proposal forward so, so roughly what – like, what would a Westinghouse that would go at Mount Piper, cost us?
Ted O’Brien
No, so Chris we’re going to keep away from that. You know why. We – a lot of people asked questions today about – so what are the costings? What are the economics? And as Peter Dutton made clear, and I’ve spoken to a fair bit of media since. In due course, we will be releasing costings and economics and so forth. But we’ve contained today’s announcement, purely to looking at the locations, the benefits, and so forth. At a later point, but we’ll certainly be talking about the costings and economics. So yes, done the work, but we’ve contained the announcement today.
Chris O’Keefe
I’m looking here, it’s roughly sort of one and a half billion dollars for one of the smaller ones that’s only enough power to generate 300 – enough power – to power 300,000 homes, one and a half billion US, so you know close to 3 billion Australian. Do you reckon you can get these things sub 10 billion once everything’s said and done?
Ted O’Brien
I did make comments, Chris. I’m trying to avoid going too specific about our policy, right, because we’re not announcing today, but when a report came out a few weeks ago, and that was the GenCost report from the CSIRO – problems galore on that one, but you know when looking at…
Chris O’Keefe
Well, CNBC say that an AP1000 would cost approximately $6.8 billion USD, it’s a lot of money.
Ted O’Brien
There is no doubt the capital expense upfront for 80-to-100-year assets that work 24/7 around the clock consistently with a – with clean energy does cost money. But the beauty of it is these assets are so long term and so reliable across the world. They’ve proven to bring prices down. And that ultimately, Chris, you know if you look at Peter Dutton’s comments today – certainly instructions he’s given me as the shadow minister, this is about getting prices down for Australian households and businesses. Nuclear does just that.
Chris O’Keefe
I’m just trying to get my head around this, and I know you don’t want to go into the nuts and bolts, but we’ve got – a lot of these models that you’ve quoted today, it’s publicly available information. So, 10 billion Australian dollars for an AP1000. If you’ve got seven of those – 70 billion Australian dollars – seven zero billion. Gee whiz, that’s a lot of money. What are we looking at? A nuclear reactor tax or something to pay for it?
Ted O’Brien
So, Chris, without sort of confirming any of those numbers, if you look at Labor’s plan, now they haven’t released any costings or economics by the way. We will in due course – they haven’t and they’re in government. But nevertheless, Princeton University, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, did a study and they estimated that it could be up to $1.5 trillion is what Labor’s proposal is looking at. So, again, when you look at what we need to do to move forward, we’ve got to be comparing different options. But we make – make no apologies for this, and I’ve done…
Chris O’Keefe
So, look the bottom line is, and then I respect the fact that – I respect the fact you’ve done a lot of work, and you know, kudos to you guys for bringing an idea that the public can debate but bottom line is, no sugarcoating it, it’s going to be expensive.
Ted O’Brien
It is going to be a big capital project upfront. But it won’t be expensive for electricity users, and that’s why we’re doing it.
Chris O’Keefe
Expensive for the Australian taxpayer because it is going to be publicly owned.
Ted O’Brien
It’ll certainly be an expense of the Australian taxpayer. But it will be cheaper, because remember, taxpayers are also energy users, right. So, you know, our – our costing’s far cheaper than what Labor’s plan is. Ultimately, therefore, whether it be the consumer or the taxpayer Australians win. And we’re going to be able to get prices down while keeping the lights on and that’s something that Labor can’t guarantee.
Chris O’Keefe
We’ll Ted, I’ll tell you what, I’ve got a lot of respect for you for going to the efforts and the lengths that you have to compile energy policy that is bold, that is brave, and I think Australians want to hear. So well done and all the best with it.
Ted O’Brien
Thanks very much, Chris. All the best.
Chris O’Keefe
That’s Shadow Energy Minister Ted O’Brien.