Speaking at a press conference this morning, Dutton said the plants would be built at the sites of existing coal power stations: two in each of NSW (Lithgow and Liddell) and Queensland (Tarong and Callide), plus Victoria’s Loy Yang, Collie in Western Australia and Port Augusta in South Australia.
Dutton claimed two plants will be up and running between 2035 and 2037 – a far shorter timeframe than what some experts believe is possible – and said the nuclear stations would be publicly owned.
However, he refused to say how much the plan would cost taxpayers, although admitted it would be a “big bill”.
“We will have more to say in relation to the cost in due course and, as you know, we’ve done this in a step-by-step process,” he said.
“The focus today is on the sites.”
When questioned about how the Coalition would get the power plants up and running in as little as 10 years from the next election, Dutton said the energy plans would rely on overseas expertise.
“We want to rely on international experience,” he said.
“We don’t want to be the purchaser of the first in class or have an Australian-made technology.”
Dutton said any nuclear waste from the plants would be stored on-site until being transferred to the same storage facility used for waste from AUKUS submarines.
He said all seven power stations would be operational sometime in the 2040s.
The much-anticipated announcement was approved at a full meeting of the Coalition party room this morning.
Dutton planned to make the announcement during next month’s parliamentary break, but recent strong poll results for the Coalition prompted him to bring it forward.
The opposition leader says nuclear power will be needed for Australia to meet its target of net zero emissions by 2050.
But the move has caused tensions with some Liberal MPs and Coalition partners, the Nationals, while Labor insists renewable energy is the best source to power Australia’s network.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan told Today this morning he would be happy to see nuclear power plants in his state of Queensland.
“If we want lower power prices, we need more reliable power supply is right now the reason your power bills are going up by so much,” Canavan said.
Canavan said the Coalition would be offering a “balanced energy policy” with renewables as part of it.
NSW and other states have their own bans on nuclear activity through state legislation that would need to be overturned for the Coalition’s plan to be able to be implemented.
Dutton said he would negotiate with premiers to overturn those bans, suggesting they could be convinced with a “bucket of money”.
But NSW Premier Chris Minns said moving to nuclear power was too costly and the form of energy was banned in the state.
“Who’s paying for that? Is it just going to go on the federal government’s debt line? That’s a massive amount of money. And the truth is, we don’t have a minute to spare,” he told Today.
“We have to transition our energy generation from coal-fired power to another source in a very short space of time.”