The Dutton Coalition’s push to introduce nuclear power
The conservative Howard government made nuclear power illegal in Australia in the late 1990s (EPBC and ARPANS Acts) and those prohibitions remain as of mid-2024. However the federal Dutton Coalition opposition says that if elected, it will repeal legal bans and use taxpayers’ money to build seven nuclear power plants in five states (with multiple reactors at some or all of the seven sites). The federal Albanese Labor government supports the legal bans and has no plans to introduce nuclear power, promoting renewable energy sources instead.
No power reactors have ever been built in Australia. The strongest push was for a power reactor at Jervis Bay in the late 1960s to early 1970s. That push was underpinned by a hidden weapons agenda as then Prime Minister John Gorton later acknowledged.
Key information on the Dutton Coalition’s nuclear power plan:
- PowerPoint: The Dutton Coalition’s Nuclear Power Plan (August 2024) and for a video of the PowerPoint presentation click here.
- Fact-checking the Coalition’s nuclear misinformation (and see also this myth-busting information)
- Dutton’s nuclear power plan will increase greenhouse emissions
- Dutton’s nuclear power plan will increase power bills AND taxes
- Dutton’s nuclear thuggery: planning to override state govt legal bans, use compulsory acquisition laws to acquire sites, and to ignore/override community opposition
- Power Games: Assessing coal to nuclear proposals in Australia: Cost, timing, consent and other constraints, 30-page report, Australian Conservation Foundation, June 2024.
- Port Augusta at risk in a nuclear reactor accident (David Noonan, Aug 2024)
- Read about the non-existent ‘small modular reactors‘ that the Dutton Coalition wants to build in WA and SA.
Other articles and reports about Australia’s nuclear power debate
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- 2024: Coalition “in a panic” about response to confused and unpopular nuclear power plan
- 2024: Peter Dutton’s nuclear push is a “suicide note” playing mostly to right wing echo chambers
- 2024: The demise of nuclear power in Australia’s AUKUS partner countries
- 2023 – Submission to Senate nuclear power inquiry by FoE and 10 other Australian environment groups.
- Nuclear Power’s Economic Crisis and its Implications for Australia, Dec. 2021 report by Friends of the Earth Australia
- (Former) NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro’s nuclear falsehoods (March 2020)
- 2019 – detailed joint NGO submission to NSW nuclear inquiry covering nuclear power and uranium mining
- 2019 – civil society statement opposing nuclear power in Australia with 50+ signatory groups (environment, health, faith and indigenous groups plus trade unions).
- 2019 – Australian environment groups’ submission to federal nuclear power inquiry (lots on nuclear economics, ‘generation IV’ concepts, small modular reactors etc).
- Global nuclear power issues
- Responses to nuclear power propagandists
- Impacts of nuclear power and uranium mining on water resources
- Public opinion in Australia towards nuclear power and uranium mining
- Main nuclear power section of this FoE website
Some reasons to say ‘no’ to nuclear power in Australia
UNNECESSARY
We don’t need nuclear power. As of mid-2024, renewables supply nearly 40% of Australia’s electricity (over 70% in SA) and the federal government’s target is 82% by 2030.
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan, a roadmap for the optimal future grid, backs an accelerated build of renewables to reach 83% of renewable generation by 2030, 96% by 2040 and 98% by 2050 as the best, most likely option.
More information: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/links-to-literature-on-clean-energy-options/
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nuclear power is the one and only energy source with a direct and repeatedly-demonstrated connection to the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. For example, the first and only serious push for nuclear power in Australia was driven by a weapons agenda as then PM John Gorton later acknowledged.
More information: www.nuclear.foe.org.au/power-weapons
ACCIDENTS AND ATTACKS
In addition to the risk of accidents, nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to disasters from sabotage, terrorism, or the use of conventional forces to attack nuclear facilities during war.
More information: www.nuclear.foe.org.au/power
ROUTINE EMISSIONS − RADIATION & CANCER
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation notes that international cancer incidence and mortality data demonstrate statistically-significant links between radiation and all solid tumours as a group, as well as for cancers of the stomach, colon, liver, lung, breast, ovary, bladder, thyroid, and for non-melanoma skin cancers and most types of leukaemia.
More information: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/radiation/
NUCLEAR WASTE
The 2006 government-commissioned Switkowski report envisaged the construction of 25 power reactors, which would produce up to 45,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste. There is not a single permanent repository for spent fuel or high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world.
More information:
https://nuclear.foe.org.au/nuclear-waste-international-issues/
https://nuclear.foe.org.au/waste-import/
DEMOCRACTIC RIGHTS
Democratic rights have often been trampled in the pursuit of nuclear projects. The Howard government sought legal advice on its powers to override state laws banning nuclear power plants. The current (2012) Labor government is working to impose a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the NT despite the opposition of many Traditional Owners, an unresolved Federal Court challenge, and NT legislation banning the imposition of nuclear dumps. The government also plans to give itself the power to override any and all state/territorry laws, and affected local councils and communities have no say.
COST
Too cheap to meter, or too expensive to matter? The nuclear power industry survives only because of huge taxpayer subsidies.
More information: EnergyScience Briefing Paper #1: http://www.energyscience.org.au/factsheets.html
REDUCED PROPERTY PRICES. COMPULSORY LAND ACQUISITION. NO INSURANCE.
A nuclear power plant would reduce local property values. The government may use compulsory land acquisition powers to seize land for reactors – just as it has previously seized land for a nuclear waste dump. Insurance companies do not insure against the risk of nuclear accidents.
WATER
Nuclear power is the most water-intensive of all the energy sources. Reactors typically consume 35-65 million litres of water per day.
More information: https://nuclear.foe.org.au/water-consumption-and-pollution-uranium-and-nuclear-power/
TOO SLOW
It would take 15 years or more to develop nuclear power in Australia. Clean energy solutions can be deployed immediately.
GREENHOUSE GASES
Nuclear power emits three times more greenhouse gases than wind power according to the 2006 Switkowski report. Nuclear power is also far more greenhouse intensive than energy efficiency measures.
More information: https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/806/nuclear-power-no-solution-climate-change
Where would reactors be located in Australia?
See this Don’t Nuke the Climate webpage for information on the seven sites targeted by the Dutton Coalition.
Here’s some older information about nuclear power siting options:
Andrew Macintosh (The Australia Institute), 2007, “Siting Nuclear Power Plants in Australia Where would they go?“, Web Paper No. 40.
Do you live near one of the areas most likely to be targeted for nuclear power reactors? Using four primary criteria and six secondary criteria, a report by The Australia Institute identified the following sites as potential sites for nuclear power:
Queensland:
Townsville
Mackay
Rockhampton (e.g. around Yeppoon, Emu Park or Keppel Sands)
Bundaberg
Gladstone
Sunshine Coast (e.g. near Maroochydore, Coolum or Noosa)
Bribie Island area
New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory:
Port Stephens (e.g. Nelson Bay)
Central Coast (e.g. near Tuggerah Lakes)
Port Kembla
Botany Bay
Jervis Bay and Sussex Inlet
Victoria:
South Gippsland (e.g. Yarram, Woodside, Seaspray)
Western Port (e.g. French Island, Hastings, Kooweerup, Coronet Bay)
Port Phillip (e.g. Newport, Werribee, Avalon)
Portland
South Australia:
Mt Gambier/Millicent
Port Adelaide
Port Augusta and Port Pirie
Western Australia and the Northern Territory were excluded from the Australia Institute siting study because they are not on the National Electricity Market grid. The report does not consider Tasmania in any detail and considers it unlikely that a nuclear power plant would be constructed in Tasmania in the short to medium term.
Siting criteria
The study used four primary criteria for the siting of nuclear power plants in Australia:
1. Proximity to appropriate existing electricity infrastructure; sites close to the National Electricity Market, preferably near existing large generators;
2. Proximity to major centres of electricity demand;
3. Proximity to transport infrastructure to facilitate the movement of nuclear fuel, waste and other relevant materials; and
4. Access to large quantities of water for reactor cooling − coastal sites
Secondary criteria included the following:
1. Population density − sites with adequate buffers to populated areas.
2. Geological and seismological issues.
3. Atmospheric conditions − sites with low risk of extreme weather events and suitable pollution dispersion conditions.
4. Security risk − sites with low security risks (e.g. sufficient buffers to potentially hazardous areas).
5. Sensitive ecological areas − sites that pose minimal risk to important ecological areas.
6. Heritage and aesthetics − sites that pose minimal risk to important heritage areas.
7. Economic factors – sites that accommodate local economic and social factors.