But now to the CSIRO and its report into energy costs, which has hit Coalition plans for a nuclear future:
JIM CHALMERS: The CSIRO has completely torpedoed this uncosted nuclear fantasy of Peter Dutton’s.
– Nine News (Sydney), 21 May, 2024
The CSIRO is Australia’s premier science body.
And it has bad news for those who argue that nuclear energy is the key to reaching net zero:
Nuclear option unviable …
– Sydney Morning Herald, 22 May, 2024
Nuclear could cost up to $17b and take until 2040 to build …
– Australian Financial Review, 22 May, 2024
CSIRO report paints grim picture of cost, timeline of Coalition’s nuclear idea
– news.com.au, 22 May, 2024
The CSIRO has said before that nuclear energy in Australia can’t compete with renewables and would come too late to save us from global warming.
But it’s now teamed up with the Australian Energy Market Operator to put numbers on its assessment, saying we wouldn’t see the first reactor until 2040.
With Seven’s Mark Riley reporting:
MARK RILEY: … as a comprehensive CSIRO study finds powering Australia through the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan would cost twice as much as renewables and take 15 years to build, extending coal and gas-fired generation.
– Seven News (Sydney), 22 May, 2024
So how was this reported at The Australian, which has long campaigned for nuclear energy and lower power prices?
Well, it certainly wasn’t front-page news, where the paper was warning about the risk of green energy and blackouts.
But tucked away on page five was this enticing headline:
CSIRO runs ruler over value of large-scale nuclear power
– The Australian, 22 May, 2024
Wow. Talk about clickbait.
And online, the story was even harder to locate although we did find the CEO of Woodside slamming Labor’s energy policy as wishful thinking.
But this subtle downplaying by the Oz was nothing compared to the approach at Sky After Dark where commentators lined up to sink the slipper into the scientists at CSIRO and claim that its negation of nuclear should just be ignored.
With Chris Kenny landing the first blow:
CHRIS KENNY: Is this science or is this advocacy? Is this science or is this ideology?
– The Kenny Report, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
Kenny accusing the nation’s science and energy experts of fiddling the figures to suit the renewable message:
CHRIS KENNY: So the CSIRO, they just juggle around with some of their numbers and they chuck in a bit of transmission here and a bit of firming there and some batteries there and they pretend they’ve invented a new form of energy, reliable renewables.
– The Kenny Report, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
Yes, these government scientists can’t be trusted.
And on Sharri Markson’s show, former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger was telling us why:
MICHAEL KROGER: The CSIRO haven’t got the credibility they had 20-30 years ago …
… because they’ve been very much part of the, sort of, you know, the screaming cultural left on these environmental issues over more than a decade now.
– Sharri, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
And that message was echoed by Peta Credlin, also on Sky, who declared:
PETA CREDLIN: I know where I want to go, I want to go nuclear.
– Credlin, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
And beaming into Credlin’s program from Stockholm, her fellow traveller, Nick Cater, agreed:
NICK CATER: We know the technology is there, we know it works. Sweden right, 40 per cent nuclear …
… I just think it’s a no brainer.
– Credlin, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
Nick Cater is a massive fan of nuclear power and an even bigger fan of Sweden and Finland’s nuclear reactors, and having travelled there at his own expense, he’s been enthusing about it all to The Australian, and to Sky News in several other crosses to Credlin from the country.
As well appearing on the libertarian digital channel, ADH TV:
NICK CATER: We’re in a clean energy paradise here in Finland. The electricity grid is running at 90-95 per cent carbon free. They’ve got the second cheapest electricity in Europe all thanks to nuclear.
– Reality Bites, ADH TV, 16 May, 2024
But it’s not ‘all thanks to nuclear’ which actually generates only a third of Finland’s electricity.
And it’s not recent decisions that have made Finland’s power cheap.
Finland opted for nuclear energy 60 years ago and building it today is an entirely different proposition.
This brand new nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto Island, for example, where Cater says:
NICK CATER: I would quite happily settle for a holiday cottage right here. I tell you what, right here. And the good thing is, the lights wouldn’t go out.
– Reality Bites, ADH TV, 16 May, 2024
That was due to open way back in 2009 and cost three billion Euros. But it ended up costing nearly four times as much and it arrived 14 years late.
With even The Australian in 2015 calling it a ‘cautionary tale’.
Technical problems have also kept it shut down for 73 days since it opened.
And that’s in a country which has experience in nuclear power, existing sites and wide popular support. Unlike Australia.
But let’s go back to Sky, where Andrew Bolt was also spruiking the nuclear cause, inviting on 17-year-old Will Shackel, and asking:
ANDREW BOLT: Look, the CSIRO saying nuclear power is much more expensive than wind and solar, it will take 50 years to save us, too late. Do you believe it? What do you know at 17 that the CSIRO does not know at all?
– The Bolt Report, Sky News Australia, 22 May, 2024
Good question.
Which in fact was met with some good answers from the teenage founder of Nuclear for Australia, including a call to lift the ban on nuclear energy in this country and have a proper debate.
But even Shackel couldn’t answer the problem that nuclear power would not deliver low emissions electricity in Australia until 2040 or later, while climate change action is needed now.
However, let’s not pretend that the Coalition’s energy policy is the only one to get a free pass from sections of the media.
Labor’s reliance on carbon capture and storage to hit net zero by 2050 is even more pie in the sky.
Because, as Crikey’s Bernard Keane observed last week:
Unlike Dutton’s nuclear power technology, carbon capture doesn’t work.
– Crikey, 23 May, 2024
With Keane citing a number of recent failures and a long list of abandoned projects.
The CSIRO and AEMO report finds that carbon capture would cost almost as much as large-scale nuclear, whether it’s trying to clean up coal or gas.
And trying is still the operative word.
Surely the media should also have highlighted that fantasy as well.