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https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-plan-is-fiscal-irresponsibility-on-an-epic-scale-and-rank-political-opportunism/>
"While the Coalition has failed to release any detail or costings, today we
have confirmation that if it gets into office, Australians will be paying a
multi-billion dollar “nukebuilder” tax for generations to come for a national
build out of government-owned nuclear reactors across seven locations,
including on the sites of former coal-fired power stations.
It beggars belief that opposition leader Peter Dutton proposes nationalising a
nuclear public debt bomb and detonating it at the heart of energy policy in
this country.
This exacerbates the problem that electricity generated from nuclear is two to
four times as expensive as power from firmed renewables – as the CSIRO has
confirmed – and would permanently lock in higher energy prices for consumers
already crushed by cost of living pressures.
The medium term energy price implications are horrendous. Electricity prices
would skyrocket as private investment in new replacement capacity is crowded
out, resulting in undersupply for the next 15-25 years while we wait for the
LNP’s nuclear white elephants to arrive.
We know that firmed renewables – utility scale solar and wind, backed by big
batteries, and orchestrated with accelerated deployments of distributed
consumer energy resources such as rooftop solar, storage and EVs in a
modernised grid – can and will keep the lights on, delivering consistent,
secure, reliable and affordable supply at a fraction of the cost. This
transition is already underway and accelerating.
Critically, the Coalition’s announcement puts at serious and imminent risk
planned private capital investments in clean energy as policy uncertainty and
chaos make proposals uninvestable – especially in light of public statements by
Nationals Leader David Littleproud that the LNP would, bizarrely, “cap”
renewables investment here.
The thought bubble released this week threatens to undermine our energy and
economic security and our future prosperity as it creates sovereign risk.
By destroying investor confidence, it deters the private clean energy capital
we need to attract at speed and scale – capital for which we are competing with
the rest of the world.
The LNP wants to burn untold tens of billions of public money in a nuclear debt
bin fire because nuclear is 100% uncommercial – no private investor will touch
it with a ten foot pole short of massive multi-decade subsidies."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
