Australia’s main opposition party yesterday announced plans to build the nation’s first nuclear power plants as early as 2035, saying that the government’s policies for decarbonizing the economy with renewable energy sources including solar, wind turbines and green hydrogen would not work.
The policy announcement ensures that the major parties would be divided on how Australia curbs its greenhouse gas emissions at elections due within a year.
The parties have not gone to an election with the same carbon reduction policies since 2007.
Photo: AP
“I’m very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy, on nuclear, on power prices, on lights going out, on who has a sustainable pathway for our country going forward,” opposition leader Peter Dutton told reporters.
Seven government-owned reactors would be built on the sites of aging coal-fired electricity plants in five of Australia’s six states, Dutton said.
The first two would be built from 2035 to 2037 and the last in the 2040s, he said.
The estimated costs would be announced at a later date, he added.
The government has rejected nuclear power generation in Australia as too expensive.
Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen accused the opposition Liberal Party of serving Australia’s influential coal and gas industry lobbies.
“It’s not really an announcement. We know that Mr Dutton wants to slow down the rollout of renewables and he wants to introduce the most expensive form of energy that’s slow to build, but today, we’ve seen no costs, we’ve seen no gigawatts, we’ve seen no detail,” Bowen told reporters. “This is a joke. It’s a serious joke, because it threatens our transition” from fossil fuels.”
Bowen’s Labor Party came to power in 2022 elections, promising deeper cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 than the previous coalition government had committed to.
The previous Liberal Party-led government promised to reduce emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
Labor promised a 43 percent reduction and parliament enshrined that target in law, creating difficulties for any future government that wanted to reduce it and offering certainty for investors.
Dutton has ruled out a new 2030 target before the next election, but the major parties have agreed on a net zero emissions target by 2050.
Dutton said that Labor could not reach its 2030 target with a policy toward relying solely on renewable energy.
A Liberal Party-led government would use nuclear power, renewable energy sources and “significant amounts of gas,” Dutton said.
“I want to make sure that the Australian public understands today that we have a vision for our country to deliver cleaner electricity, cheaper electricity and consistent electricity,” he said.
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