Any day now, we’ll get the complete particulars on the Coalition’s nuclear proposal. “[Peter] Dutton is making ready to launch the long-anticipated costings of his get together’s nuclear coverage this week,” learn a line in a Sydney Morning Herald story simply this morning.
Should you really feel such as you’ve heard that one earlier than, you’re not mistaken. Here’s a non-exhaustive listing of the numerous, many Coalition nuclear (non) bulletins from the previous few years.
June 5, 2022
Opposition Chief Peter Dutton proclaims his new frontbench, together with Ted O’Brien within the local weather change and power portfolio. Three years earlier, O’Brien had chaired an inquiry into nuclear power and declared it “needs to be on the desk for consideration as a part of our future power combine”.
August 2, 2022
Dutton proclaims he has “initiated a proper inside course of to look at the potential for superior and next-generation nuclear applied sciences to contribute to Australia’s power safety and cut back energy costs”. O’Brien is put accountable for the evaluation.
July 7, 2023
Dutton makes use of a speech to the Liberal-aligned suppose tank Institute of Public Affairs to name for a debate about eradicating Australia’s ban on nuclear energy — “a step that was not taken throughout the 9 years of Coalition authorities, wherein he was a senior member”, as Guardian Australia famous on the time. In his speech, Dutton says he want to convert coal-fired crops into websites for small modular reactors — a proposed future know-how that’s nonetheless underneath growth and whose “financial competitiveness continues to be to be confirmed in apply”, in keeping with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company.
August 16, 2023
A narrative in The Australian Monetary Evaluate says Dutton is more likely to “formalise the Coalition’s official place on nuclear energy, together with probably overturning the 1998 ban”. It notes “the Coalition has but to determine its official place to take to the following election, however current feedback recommend a pledge to overturn the 1998 ban is wanting more and more seemingly”.
In the meantime, on December 21, 2023, CSIRO’s GenCost report finds “electrical energy produced by renewables is cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear energy and is predicted to stay the bottom price energy supply for many years to come back”, as The Sydney Morning Herald stories.
March 5, 2024
ABC Information stories: “Opposition Chief Peter Dutton says he might be up entrance with voters about the place the Coalition is trying to place potential nuclear reactors when the get together proclaims its coverage in coming weeks.”
March 12, 2024
Dutton assaults the CSIRO’s credibility, saying its December nuclear energy report has been “discredited”, is “not a real piece of labor” and that it’s “not relied on”. That very same day, The Australian stories a drop from the Coalition that claims Dutton is “contemplating a variety of choices for group incentives … together with potential subsidised electrical energy costs for native industries, upgraded group infrastructure, and transition packages for employees to higher-paid jobs”. The identical story says the Coalition is “near asserting a ultimate power coverage”.
Later that week, CSIRO’s chief government Doug Hilton defends his company and its findings, saying: “The GenCost report could be trusted by all our elected representatives, no matter whether or not they’re advocating for electrical energy era by renewables, coal, gasoline or nuclear power.”
April 2, 2024
The Australian stories Dutton is “poised to launch a serious incentive package deal for coal communities to maneuver from coal-fired energy stations to nuclear power, promising increased paying jobs and trade power subsidies”. The story says “the Coalition will launch the primary main plank of its nuclear power plan inside weeks”.
Might 24, 2024
Dutton, who at this level nonetheless hasn’t revealed precisely the place his proposed nuclear crops might be constructed, claims communities that have already got coal energy stations could be supportive of nuclear power: “While you take a look at the communities the place there’s a excessive power IQ, that’s the place they’ve obtained a coal-fired energy station now, individuals are in favour [of nuclear] as a result of they perceive the know-how.”
June 16, 2024
“Peter Dutton has once more refused to disclose key particulars on the Coalition’s nuclear energy coverage, declaring he would take into account asserting his different 2035 emissions discount purpose if the federal government launched modelling on interim local weather targets,” reads a narrative by NCA NewsWire. “Mr Dutton mentioned he would reveal the opposition’s power plan inside ‘weeks’ in March however once more declined to spell out the complete particulars of his imaginative and prescient for Australia’s power transition.”
June 19, 2024
Dutton lastly reveals a part of his nuclear plans, together with the proposed places of seven nuclear energy crops. However the announcement says nothing in regards to the estimated prices. In an evaluation piece for ABC Information, RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas wonders whether or not the detail-starved announcement is “crafty genius or … political self-destruction”. The piece includes a paraphrased remark from a senior Liberal suggesting “the delay in releasing the figures was to rob Labor of the power to query the financial foundation of the coverage — you possibly can’t pull and choose aside numbers that haven’t been offered”.
August 20, 2024
Guardian Australia notes that nothing new has develop into identified in regards to the Coalition’s nuclear plans, together with particulars on prices and proof to again up claims made months earlier: “Extra element had been anticipated earlier than Parliament returned final week, however none was launched.”
September 19, 2024
The Australian stories: “Amid rising expectations of a March election, the Coalition will unveil its full power coverage package deal earlier than December.”
The next day, a report by the Institute for Vitality Economics and Monetary Evaluation says “the Coalition’s plan for seven nuclear energy crops would elevate energy payments for common households by $665 a yr based mostly on estimated prices of six abroad nuclear initiatives”, in keeping with Guardian Australia.
September 23, 2024
Forward of a speech by Dutton to the Committee for Financial Improvement of Australia, the Australian Related Press stories the opposition chief is “anticipated to disclose additional particulars on the Coalition’s plans for a nuclear energy-powered Australia”. However following the speech, the information stories sound extra like this: “Peter Dutton geese price query on Coalition’s nuclear reactor plan.”
December 5, 2024
The Sydney Morning Herald stories Dutton “will reveal his costings for seven government-backed nuclear crops as quickly as subsequent week” and that the Coalition will declare its power grid plan “would price lower than Labor’s”.
Aaaand in the present day, December 9, 2024, a brand new CSIRO report, which has reportedly “modified its modelling to accommodate criticism from the Peter Dutton-led Coalition that it had unfairly favoured wind and photo voltaic power sources”, nonetheless finds nuclear energy could be “about 50% costlier than renewables”.
Dutton complains the CSIRO is “bagging” the Coalition’s plan, though the group hasn’t seen it but: “It simply appears to me like there’s a heavy hand of Chris Bowen in all this, and I don’t suppose folks need to see that.”
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