19 June 2024
Craig Reucassel
Ted O’Brien is the Shadow Energy Spokesperson, he joins us now. Morning, Ted.
Ted O’Brien
Good morning, Craig.
Craig Reucassel
So just first off, you know, you – this is interesting. You’re with the Liberal National Party, the party of free enterprise. Nuclear power will be built by government. Is this an admission that no one will do this commercially?
Ted O’Brien
No, we spent a lot of time, Craig, looking around the world about what energy systems work best, provide the cheapest electricity, and so forth. And the answer to that has been a balanced mix. In our case as coal exits it’ll be renewables, gas, and zero emissions nuclear energy. Now when it comes to the government ownership, that too is common practice around the world. Especially as you look at like democracies in Western Europe, France, you get government owned. In our own part of the world, probably the country doing most development on nuclear is South Korea. Government owned. I was in Ontario, that Province of Canada, with highs up to 60% Nuclear last year. Government owned. Governments play a critical role.
Craig Reucassel
The hard thing about comparing with other countries is every country has a totally different energy makeup. So if you’ve got 100%, you know, if you’ve got an enormous amount of hydro power you go that. You go with what the cheapest option is. That’s what tends to do it. So the reason we haven’t built nuclear in the past in Australia, is because it wasn’t as cheap as coal. Don’t we find ourselves in a different position now that now we’re trying to do it, and your problem is you’re trying to say we’re going to bring power prices down, but then by investing in the most expensive energy source going around?
Ted O’Brien
Craig, I think you’re right in that you can’t just copy and paste any other country’s energy mix and say, all right well, we’ll just do what they do. You’re dead right on that. It comes down to a lot of, sort of, system planning here. I need the right engineering and economics to drive the whole thing. Nevertheless, the more that we have looked this – looked at this and sought advice, it comes down to the bill that hits your home so your household power bill or a business. That total system cost, once you get nuclear in the mix, it drives cost down. That has been the evidence around the world. Engineering and economics doesn’t change in that regard.
The problem is – the problem with the INAUDIBLE is what you’re comparing with his pre-existing, already built, already paid for nuclear power stations and so if I give myself…
Ted O’Brien
Well not really…
Craig Reucassel
The examples – the examples you’re giving…
Ted O’Brien
Actually, no, they’re not…
Craig Reucassel
The examples you’re giving from France are of that kind of thing. If I give my kid my old beat up car, and he just has to pay petrol, that’s very cheap. But if I say to him, hey, you’ve got to build yourself a new car that you’ve never built before that’s going to be more expensive. That’s the problem with this comparison to what the prices are overseas.
Ted O’Brien
Well, let’s just use your example then, right? Depends what your son wants to do. If he – if he wants to drive to Brisbane and back, go along that sort of long electricity grid if you like, all the way up to Northern Queensland. You can give him your – your beat up car as you say. And you know you’ll say, well, this is how much it’s gonna cost, son. Or if you like, you know what’s cheaper son? Why don’t you go and buy a bike? Actually, you can probably buy lots of bikes. This is – this is what it comes down to. Different technologies do different jobs, both bikes and beat up cars can provide transport. Renewable energy has a really important role to play on our grid, but it is not a baseload power system.
Craig Reucassel
Again it’s an interesting standard, baseload. So because the problem with the baseload is it’s a really old idea, isn’t it? So the reason that coal is slowly closing down right now, is because it’s baseload. It’s – the economy is not working for it because in the middle of the day when it’s pumping out, because it’s baseload always pumping out power, right? In the middle of the day there’s so much renewable energy that it goes to zero, they’re getting zero pain for that. Now, all it has to do is, you know, with a bit of – with storage, if you move that really cheap power to night times or to those peak times, you’ve got a massive problem for something like nuclear. Baseload is an old thought, isn’t it?
Ted O’Brien
No, Craig, it’s not. I partly agree with you, by the way, in that latter point. I think out there is enormous scope for us to be doing more on storage for renewables, especially with solar on rooftops. But anyway, that’s another conversation. So I do agree with that part. But baseload is not an old thought anD this is the key lesson from overseas. There’s a reason why other countries are moving from coal to nuclear, because they are realizing that you do need that constant 24/7 source of power. We know due to climate change, that the weather gets more volatile. So the last thing we should be doing is putting all our eggs-in-one-basket with a weather dependent electricity system. Do we need renewables? Yes, we do. But it’s got to be part of a balanced mix. That’s where zero emissions nuclear energy comes in playing the same role that coal has for us historically, but of course, it’s zero emissions and it’s the only credible pathway for us to get to net zero.
Craig Reucassel
I still don’t quite understand given – I mean, look, the costs of building this are going to be astronomical. I know you haven’t released those yet. But even when it comes to running it, you know, the CSIRO study suggests it’s going to be one and a half to two times the cost of renewables and that’s renewables including storage, including the cost of transmission lines. How – I still don’t quite understand how you can pay much more and get cheaper electricity. That’s the bit that I keep – every time I see I like, I totally agree with you that on a climate change perspective, nuclear is fantastic. It’s got zero emissions. I agree with that. I’m just mystified by how you keep saying I’m going to bring down prices by going to a much more expensive form of energy. That confuses me to death.
Ted O’Brien
Fair enough. And I suppose it goes back to that. The example of your son right? You buy a car you buy a bike and how on earth is it going to be cheaper for you to drive the car up to – up to Cairns from Sydney, you know, bikes are cheaper. It is a different sort of a technology. Can I put it this way to you? If you invest in a zero emissions nuclear power plant, you are investing in a long term asset that can – was designed for up to 80 years, probably by extension 100 years. And it just keeps running 24/7. Boring as all, but it does the job. You know, yes. Is there a large capital expense upfront? Yes, but you end up amortising that asset over a long period of time. And it’s sort of like when you look at highways, you look at big rail projects. Do they cost money? Yeah, they do. Do we keep doing it? Yes, we do. Why? Because it delivers cheaper services for those who use it. And at the centre of our entire policy is how do we deliver cheaper electricity…
Craig Reucassel
Absolutely.
Ted O’Brien
… to the household and the business?
Craig Reucassel
And that’s kind of the problem isn’t it? Well, it’s kind of the problem for nuclear and in the end is that now nuclear in the past hasn’t been compared to what we have in Australia, which is that, you know, people know sitting at home with solar on their roof. They chuck it up there. You don’t pay anything. You know, it’s zero. It’s essentially a zero cost for years and years and years so that’s what nuclear is now competing with. Now it might have been competitive with coal in the past.
Ted O’Brien
Craig it’s not – Craig it’s not. With respect, mate, it’s actually not. Nuclear will complement the solar on your roof because I’ve got solar on my roof too, right. But I tell you what, it doesn’t work at night. And so…
Craig Reucassel
But I’ve got a battery as well and it does work at night. I mean, you know, you can – that’s where we get into we’re obviously not their yet.
Ted O’Brien
Are you completely off grid and you’re saying the entire country should off grid?
Craig Reucassel
It’s interesting to talk about security because you know, I don’t know if I necessarily feel safer because they have a nuclear power station there. You’ve chosen these places, these seven places around Australia, because they have old coal plants where there is transmission. But have you looked into whether they’re suitable for nuclear? I’ve seen a lot of people concerned about for instance, some of these areas like the Hunter having had earthquakes in the past. You’ve picked them because of the transmission lines, not because they’re safe for nuclear. No, absolutely not, I’m not saying that.
Ted O’Brien
Okay, so – so therefore what we always need in this country, and this is – we’re just talking our side before we even get to businesses, right? Businesses is another story. But you need that constant 24/7. This is our energy security. And if we don’t, as a nation, have energy security then we are vulnerable when it comes to our national security. And so there are other strategic reasons open above the fact that it does deliver, as part of a mix, cheaper electricity and I’ve seen that by the way myself. We have actually done a pretty exhaustive study on this. And that looks at everything you’ve said there and more. When it comes to Australia there are countries, I mean if you look at the West Coast for US, you look at Taiwan, Japan, which are really – have enormous amount of seismic activity. Australia doesn’t have that – anything like that. These – these plants are built to withstand any particular shocks in those countries. You know, we are accustomed to building skyscrapers and so forth. I mean, the engineering is what counts and the engineering is what does it. When you look at the sites we’ve looked at, that hasn’t come up as a concern at all. Yes, the transmission lines are there so you don’t have to build out 28,000km of transmission lines, got the water infrastructure there. These are also communities, Craig, which have high energy IQ. They get it and for a lot of them, there’s going to be hundreds, if not 1000s of jobs that are going to be lost as coal closes, and they don’t have a place to go. 77% of the jobs in a coal plant can seamlessly transition into a nuclear plant. So this is also going to underpin, for generations to come, these local communities.
Craig Reucassel
Yeah, terms of – in terms of, interesting you bring up the coal stations there – fire powered – power stations. Look, I know you haven’t released any of the costing yet, you haven’t released where the waste is going to go. Haven’t released a lot of the details at this point.
Ted O’Brien
We can talk waste, we have talked about that. Ah, cost…
Craig Reucassel
Where is the waste going to go?
Ted O’Brien
We’ll be – costings will be released in due course ahead of the next election. So all that will be transparent. On the waste. Again, we’ve looked at how this is done around the world and it has been successfully managed. There’s no industry in the world, I found, that better manages the waste than the civil nuclear industry. So what would we be doing in Australia? As per oversees, the spent fuel from a plant would be stored on-site for the life of the asset, and then it’ll be transferred to a permanent repository. The location of that permanent repository is currently under exploration by the Albanese Labor government, because it will be needing to store the spent fuel rods and so forth from our submarines – our nuclear propelled submarines.
Craig Reucassel
And every time that has been proposed in Australia, it has been proposed many times, by Bob Hawke for instance, and having these facilities it’s always been a huge pushback from the government. In the news today, suggesting that you know, even if you get pushback from the community in the area – Liddell, Mount Piper, or even just get pushed back from the areas where you’re going to put the waste. You’re going to go ahead with it. You’re talking about compulsory acquisitions. This doesn’t seem to be a really, you know, this would be a pretty vicious policy.
Ted O’Brien
Craig, when it comes to your point about the waste, whether or not Australia goes down the path of nuclear energy it will have to be storing high level spent fuel, nuclear waste, and that is the responsibility of the Albanese government. They’ve signed a deal to do just that. And I’m not complaining about it we’re cooperating with them, right? So it’s sort of – it’s not like, oh well if – if in fact, the coalition’s nuclear plan comes to fruition, then we’ve got to find a permanent repository for high level waste. That will have to happen regardless, the Albanese government…
Craig Reucassel
But one bad policy doesn’t justify another bad policy. Like, just because we made well, because we said we’re getting nuclear…
Ted O’Brien
I wouldn’t say AUKUS is a bad policy. I would absolutely disagree with that. So we did a lot of meat but yeah, we’ll keep talking, thank you mate.
Craig Reucassel
I’m not actually saying it is. I’m not saying it is. I’m saying… just because you’ve made this other policy doesn’t then justify that whatever flows from this other one. Anyway, thank you for talking to us, Ted, I appreciate that. We will no doubt be talking again because I feel like this is going to be a topic that we’re getting enormous amount of texting about this. A lot of people are really interested in it and you know, on all – on all sides, people in favour, people against it. People just really – with curious questions about it. So thank you for coming on and talking through and when we – we’ll get you back when there’s a bit more detail, a bit more meat on the bone, okay?
Ted O’Brien there, the Shadow Energy spokesperson.