The Coalition’s nuclear power folly


The Coalition’s nuclear scheme would be an expensive and destructive folly for Australia.


Coalition’s deceptive current electricity costs

The Coalition is selling its nuclear scheme by falsely saying that Australian households are paying far more for electricity than households in places with nuclear power. This is based on a grossly inflated Australian cost: We can’t trust the nuclear campaign’s simplest statistics! See: Misinformation about current Australian electricity costs.


The Coalition’s 13.2 GW nuclear scheme.

The nuclear scheme is:

  • too massive: at 13.2 GW it’s 4.1 times the size of the enormous 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Britain with its many years of delay and huge cost blowouts,
  • too spread out: building at five sites spread across Australia compared to the single site at Hinkley Point,
  • too likely to suffer massive delays and cost blowouts,
  • too likely to end in bankruptcies: all three contractors for the four most recent large nuclear generators in the west have gone bankrupt or been nationalised,
  • too inflexible: for nuclear to generate enough electricity to make it economical, the Coalition has the nuclear generators running flat out 90% of the time. This would increase the cost of electricity by displacing lower-cost renewables, like rooftop solar,
  • too small: it will not generate enough electricity to meet increasing demands as we electrify homes, transport and industry.
  • too late: most of our coal generators will retire before nuclear starts generation. The Coalition does not explain how it would supply demand over the next few years as coal generators retire.

Nuclear scheme: Nuclear & Coal capacities graph

Nuclear scheme nuclear and coal capacity contrasted with AEMO's assumed coal capacity: Gigawatts from 2010 - 2050

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This graph shows electricity generation capacity in gigawatts:

  • the proposed nuclear capacity (red),
  • the coal capacity assumed by the nuclear plan (brown), and
  • the more realistic coal capacity assumed by AEMO’s most likely scenario, the step change scenario (black),
  • the past decline in coal capacity between 2010 and 2024 to provide context for the expected decline in coal capacity.

Risk: Extending coal fails.

For the nuclear scheme to meet the demand for electricity, the Coalition has assumed that (1) our ancient coal generators can run for years longer (brown on the graph) than AEMO assumed (black), (2) nuclear generation can start early (red), and (3) electricity demand will be much lower than AEMO’s step change scenario.

However, the grid already urgently needs extra capacity due to coal retirements (black), with the next retirement in 2026 and the last in 2037. The nuclear scheme is risky because our old coal generators are already experiencing high rates of failure, and the Coalition assumes that they can run reliably for many more years, despite coal plant owners being concerned about their falling reliability, increased maintenance, and lack of profitability as renewable capacity climbs.

The largest coal generator in the East Coast grid, AGL, says its coal plant closures can’t wait for nuclear power. (Renew Economy: 12 Feb 2025)


Risk: Nuclear starts late.

The nuclear scheme is also risky because the Coalition has assumed that nuclear can start generation far earlier than AEMO, the CSIRO, and others believe possible. The Coalition scheme has the first nuclear generation starting in 2036 and all 13.2 GW operating by 2049. AEMO and the CSIRO report that the first nuclear generation would be no sooner than 2040 (GenCost Report 2023-24, p 35,36). So, it is possible that all coal plants will have retired by the time nuclear starts. The assumed rapid build is also optimistic, considering the massive delays suffered overseas.

The Graph data comes from:

  • The nuclear capacity data: Frontier Economics Report 2: Figure 1: Page 7.
  • The nuclear scheme coal capacities: Frontier Economics Report 2: Figure 2″ Page 8.
  • The AEMO step change scenario coal capacities: AEMO 2024 Integrated System Plan: Figure 1: Page 10.
  • I took measurements from these graphs to get the data for the graph.

Gas and coal needed

The Coalition has said it will (1) keep our old and unreliable coal generators running and (2) rely on gas generation, but they have not provided any details or costs for this. It looks like their nuclear scheme is also a coal and gas scheme. Certainly, until the first nuclear plant starts up in 10 or 15 years, it is only a gas and coal scheme.

The costs of increasing gas generation would be considerable. The cost of extending coal generation too. Governments are already concerned about grid reliability and paying significant amounts to keep coal generators running as insurance, even though renewable energy capacity is increasing and should meet demand. For example, the NSW government will pay the 2.88 GW Eraring coal plant up to $225 million annually to extend generation until August 2027. This suggests it will cost enormous sums to keep Eraring or other coal plants running beyond their planned retirement to meet demand until all the nuclear capacity is operating in 2050 or probably later. It is also risky to extend the life of these old generators as they become more likely to fail. AEMO says the biggest risk to electricity supply is the unexpected failure of one of our large and increasingly unreliable coal generators.


Nuclear will increase the cost of living

The nuclear scheme abandons AEMO’s comprehensive plans, will increase the cost of living, and will make Australian industry less competitive by:

  • holding back the cheapest electricity from solar, wind, and batteries, supported by flexible gas generation (blue on the graph),
  • building the most expensive and risky generation, nuclear, with the first reactor starting generation in ten years, but more likely in 15 years,
  • heavily subsidising coal plants to extend their generating, and
  • expanding the second most expensive generation, gas, with urgency to cover coal closures.

More than just abandoning AEMO’s plans, the Coalition is undermining these plans by (1) talking about cancelling renewable energy contracts, (2) planning market intervention via this government-run nuclear scheme, and (3) frightening investors. The Coalition could slow the needed rapid expansion of capacity and cause electricity shortages and price hikes.

We should trust the guidance of reputable Australian organisations like AEMO and the CSIRO, which can offer fact-based financial analysis.


I have covered most of my key points in the above summary; the following text provides supporting details and elaboration.



AEMO has a depth of experience

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO):

  • manages Australian electricity and gas markets, e.g., every five minutes, AEMO decides which electricity generators will supply the market based on the generator’s bids to sell electricity,
  • produces an “Integrated System Plan” every two years to guide the infrastructure development of our east coast National Electricity Market (NEM), and
  • each year, together with the CSIRO, produces a “GenCost Report”, which estimates the costs of building new electricity generators and storage.

This ongoing hourly market management, long-term planning, and costing give AEMO a depth and breadth of experience in these matters.

The annual GENCOST 2023-24 report found that:

  • nuclear produces the most expensive electricity, and
  • renewables generate the cheapest electricity even when you consider the costs of the electricity storage and transmission needed to firm renewable generation.

In the “2024 Integrated System Plan“ AEMO sees the “step change scenario” as the most likely of their planning scenarios, with renewable energy, energy storage and gas backup being the most affordable and reliable way to supply demand.


The Coalition’s nuclear scheme

The Coalition has described its nuclear scheme in:

The June media release and interviews proposed:

  • building nuclear generation at seven locations, each with a retired or retiring coal generator:
    • Liddell, NSW,
    • Mount Piper, NSW,
    • Loy Yang, VIC,
    • Tarong, QLD,
    • Callide, QLD,
    • Northern, near Port Augusta in SA, and
    • Muja, near Perth in WA,
  • starting the first nuclear generation in 2035 for a small modular reactor or 2037 for a big reactor,
  • government paying for the total cost of building, running and maintaining the reactors,
  • running the nuclear plants for 80 years, and
  • delivering “a net-zero electricity grid by 2050”.
  • breaking contracts to stop wind and solar farm development,
  • making gas generation a big part of their scheme, and
  • extending the life of coal generators.

The Coalition’s media release says, “90% of baseload electricity, predominantly coal-fired power stations, is coming to the end of life over the next decade.” This is close to the “step change scenario” of the AEMO “2024 Integrated System Plan” with:

  • 90% of coal capacity (19 GW) closing by 2035, and
  • 100% (21 GW) closing by 2038,

The Frontier Economics Reports proposed:

  • A total of 13.2 GW of capacity at five sites,
  • No capacity in SA or WA

The Frontier Economics Reports made no mention of:

  • small modular reactors (SMR),
  • The individual sites and their generation capacities, or
  • The type of reactors.

Frightening renewables investors

While the Coalition talks about a balanced mix including renewable energy, their plan for renewable energy seems to be to minimise renewables, and they may be succeeding in this minimisation even from opposition by:

  • threatening to cancel renewables contracts,
  • encouraging protests against wind farms and transmission lines,
  • advocating for massive government intervention in the market to build these nuclear generators,
  • creating uncertainty by promoting vague and radical schemes, and
  • frightening renewable energy investors.

The Coalition could be frightening all energy investors via their scheme to change the direction of energy policy radically. That’s a problem because government investment in nuclear energy can only be a small part of an energy policy, and we will need private investment to meet 87% of the demand in 2050.

By frightening renewables investors, the Coalition is undermining the AEMO plan without offering a workable alternative. This puts us at risk of electricity shortages and steep price hikes.

They also jeopardise Australia’s chance to become a global renewable energy leader.


Already subsidising coal extensions.

The Coalition is considering extending the life of coal generation. However, all our coal generators, bar one, have announced a retirement date before 2050, and AEMO expects the earlier retirements shown on the capacity graph.

Our governments are already paying subsidies to keep some coal generators running, and these extensions will become more expensive as the plants get older. Here are two examples.

In 2024, The NSW government agreed to pay the Eraring coal plant (2.88 GW) up to $225 million annually to generate for an extra two years. Eraring now expects to close in August 2027.

(NSW to extend the life of the Eraring Coal Plant: Power Technology: 23 May 2024)

(Eraring extension: NSW Government)

Keeping Queensland’s Callide B coal plant (0.7 GW) open beyond its use-by date of 2028 could cost Queensland taxpayers up to $420 million annually, drive up electricity prices, and endanger grid reliability.

(Queensland opposition’s goalkeeper plan could cost taxpayers AU$ 420 million a year: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)

Our coal generators are old and no longer provide reliable baseload power. In November 2024, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued alerts due to extended outages at nearly half of the coal-fired power units in New South Wales, which left NSW and Queensland vulnerable.

(Extended outages of baseload power: Renew Economy: 26 Nov 2024)

Extending substantial coal generation would be expensive, risky, and prolong coal emissions.


New gas too late for early coal retirements

The Coalition says gas will play a big role, so they will consider new gas generators. They will need to be built fast.

The nearly complete Hunter Power Plant / Kurri Kurri gas peaking generator indicates the cost of building gas generation and the time needed:

  • In 2020, the Morrison government announced it would build a gas generator at Kurri Kurri.
  • The 0.750 GW peaking plant may start late in 2024 and burn diesel fuel because its gas pipeline is still not ready.
  • From 2020, that’s over 4 years to have it running on gas.
  • The expected cost for the plant, 21-kilometre gas pipeline, gas storage, and diesel storage will be about AU$1 billion.
  • The plant may only generate for an average of 1 hour a month.

The Coalition has discussed cancelling renewables contracts and might want new gas plants to meet the increasing demand and coal retirements. However, if the 2.88 GW Eraring plant closes in 2027, you might need four gas plants of 0.750 GW to replace the Eraring capacity – and those new gas plants might take 4 years to build, starting after 2029. New gas plants may not be ready in time to meet coal retirements.

(Kurri Kurri Power Plant: Climate Energy Finance: 10/5/2024)


All recent nuclear builds led to bankruptcy.

All four of the most recent major nuclear generation projects in the Western world led to bankruptcies.

Project  CompanyStatusDelay Years
Olkiluoto 3: FinlandArevaStarted 202314
Flamanville 3: USAEDFStarted 202412
Hinkley Point C: UKEDFThe first reactor due in 2031?
Vogtle: FranceWestinghouseStarted April 20247

The recent projects display:

  • cost overruns, all around 300%,
  • delays ranging from 7 years to 14 years, and
  • final costs between 31 and 132 billion Australian dollars,

These projects are financially dangerous for the builders and the governments. (1) Westinghouse went bankrupt, (2) EDF nearly went bankrupt, and the French nationalised it, and (3) AREVA became insolvent and restructured.

These bankruptcies and nationalisations starkly present the financial dangers of these nuclear projects and suggest why nuclear power is declining in the Western world.

(Is nuclear the answer to Australia’s climate Crisis? The Conversation: 3 Nov 2023)


The UK Hinkley Point C project

Looking more closely at the troubled UK Hinkley Point C project (HPC) shows that it is small compared to the Coalition’s nuclear plans. The HPC project will build:

  • a total capacity of 3.2 GW,
  • two nuclear reactors, each of 1.6 GW,
  • a single type of reactor,
  • on one site, and
  • in a country that:
    • opened its first nuclear reactor in 1956,
    • runs nine operating nuclear reactors at 5 locations, and
    • has a total capacity of 6.5 GW.

The HPC timeline:

  • 1981: The UK government announced HPC.
  • 2008: Enabling work started, e.g. building a car park.
  • 2014: Planning for building a sea wall and jetty: 400 staff.
  • 2018: start construction of Reactor 1.
  • 2019: start construction of reactor 2.
  • 2031: Estimated startup of reactor 1.
  • 2033: My guess at the startup of reactor 2.

The first HPC reactor build took 13 years, but the entire process may run for 52 years.

HPC had to cope with (1) Covid, (2) Brexit, (3) legal challenges, (4) political opposition, and (5) financial difficulties of the builders. Australian nuclear development would not face any Brexit and would be unlikely to face another world epidemic, but technical, legal, political and financial difficulties and delays come with the territory.

The HPC costs:

  • The initial cost estimate in 2007 was 9 billion pounds.
  • The 2024 estimate is 48 billion pounds.
  • This is 5.3 times the 2007 estimate.
  • This total cost would be 92.6 billion in today’s Australian dollars.

(Cost of Hinkley Point C blows out to over AU$93 billion: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)

Hinkley Point: A massive project

The HPC project is one of the largest construction sites in Europe, involving:

  • 1.6 GW reactors: this capacity is 91% of the world’s largest reactor (1.75 GW in China),
  • building docks to ship in materials and equipment,
  • building massive foundations for security,
  • using 50 cranes, one being the biggest crane in the world,
  • building a concrete factory,
  • making consistent, highest-quality nuclear safety concrete,
  • boring 9 kilometres of tunnels to carry seawater for cooling, tunnels like those for car tunnels and pumped hydro.

Each reactor had a small pour of concrete (2,000 cubic metres) and a large pour. The large pour:

  • needed three days of continuous pouring,
  • used 40 concrete placing booms, and
  • took a UK record volume of concrete:
    • 9,000 cubic metres of concrete,
    • 1,406 loads from concrete trucks,
    • a truckload of concrete every 3 minutes for 3 days with no breaks,
    • 3.6 Olympic swimming pools of concrete.

The workforce:

  • peaked at 5,600 people on site,
  • included 510 people living in purpose-built accommodation on the site,
  • required a fleet of 160 buses for site transportation,
  • will become 900 permanent jobs.

Two assumptions:

  • An Olympic swimming pool 50 metres long, 25 metres wide and averaging 2 metres deep contains 2,500 cubic meters of water.
  • A concrete truck with six wheels can deliver 5.6 cubic metres of concrete, and a truck with eight wheels can deliver 7.2 cubic metres. I used an average of 6.4 cubic metres per truck.

A YouTube video on Hinkley Point C


UK nuclear capacity

The UK has:

  • nuclear generation at five sites,
  • nine operating reactors,
  • nuclear capacity of 6.5 gigawatts (GW), and
  • plans for all but one of these plants to shut down before 2030.

(Civil Nuclear Roadmap: House of Commons Library: 14 Feb 2024)


Coalition scheme: Far bigger than Hinkley Point C

Alarmingly, the Coalition’s nuclear scheme is far more complex than the Hinkley Point C (HPC) project. The Coalition would build:

  • a total capacity of 13.2 GW, which is:
    • 4.1 times HPC’s 3.2 GW, and
    • double the total UK nuclear capacity of 6.5 GW,
  • five reactors, this is:
    • more than the two HPC reactors, and
    • half the UK’s nine reactors,
  • at five sites spread across Australia, which is far more complex than the HPC’s one site,
  • maybe two types of reactor, compared to HPC’s one type,
  • maybe small modular reactors for which there is no commercial plan,
  • several reactors of maybe 1.485 GW, which are big at 93% the size of HPC’s 1.6 GW reactors,
  • reactors in five states, each with different legislation, including legislation in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland prohibiting nuclear reactors, and
  • in a country with no nuclear generation experience, compared with the UK’s 68 years of experience.

Should we follow Ontario and go nuclear?

Now let’s look at a nuclear project the Coalition says supports our going nuclear: the example of Ontario, Canada.


** Ontario Hydro went nuclear & bankrupt

To present this as a nuclear success story, the Coalition:

  • fabricated its nuclear scheme talking point, i.e., its claim that Australians pay four times more for electricity than in Ontario (See below: Fabrication of Evidence.),
  • ignores Ontario Hydro getting into debt by building its nuclear generators and going broke,
  • ignores that Ontario Hydro’s customers covered debt equivalent to 70 billion current Australian dollars, paid off via a fixed “debt recovery charge” in their bills from 2002 until 2018,
  • ignores that Ontario’s current electricity bills do not reflect this debt repayment,
  • ignores the Ontario government subsidy for electricity, the “Ontario Electricity Rebate” entry in bills. The bill shown in the Tristan Edis article shows a rebate of 19% of the electricity charges,
  • ignores that the Ontario government has a big role in setting prices, and
  • asserts that nuclear generators run for 80 years, ignoring the many refurbished nuclear reactors in Ontario (see below).

(Ontario’s huge nuclear debt: Renew Economy: Tristan Edis: 30 Oct 2024)


** Nuclear plant refurbishment

The Coalition media release says, “A … nuclear power plant will be a national asset delivering … consistent energy for 80 years”. The Coalition’s 80-year nuclear scheme ignores a major factor, the refurbishment of nuclear generators.

The Ontario government was planning the refurbishment of the four Darlington reactors in 2017, only 25 years after they started generation. The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario in 2017 estimated that the refurbishment of ten reactors at Bruce and Darlington and life extension work at Pickering would cost CA$25 billion in 2017 dollars. (Add 10% to get Australian dollars) Each reactor closes for about 3 years for refurbishment.

(Report on Nuclear Refurbishment: The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario: 2017)

These refurbishments are major investment decisions in themselves, and sometimes it is cheaper to close a plant. There are several closed nuclear generators in Ontario.

A plan for nuclear energy must include refurbishment costs and details for meeting demand during the years while refurbishment closes reactors. Providing replacement generation for refurbishment closures with five large nuclear reactors spread across Australia would not be simple. It might need extra transmission lines between states. Nuclear development without this planning could produce extended power shortages and large cost increases.

Accidents can also close reactors, so plans to cover outages are required from the start of operation. The difficulty here is that suddenly losing 1.4 GW of capacity jolts the grid, and replacing this capacity for a day or a month requires a plan.


** Coalition fabricated evidence for nuclear

Fabrication of evidence


** Australia gets stronger sun than Ontario

The Coalition urges us to follow Ontario and go nuclear. Another reason for not following Ontario is Australia gets far stronger sun than Ontario.

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This graph highlights that being closer to the equator, Australia benefits from:

  • significantly more sunlight than Ontario,
  • higher energy output per solar panel, and
  • milder seasonal variations, ensuring stronger solar generation even in winter.

As a result, the advantages of nuclear power for Australia are far less than for Ontario.

For more about this, and an explanation of the graph, see Australia’s strong sun on this site.


The scheme will not give a net-zero grid.

The brief media release:

  • states, “Our plan will deliver a net-zero electricity grid by 2050”, and
  • uses the words “zero-emissions nuclear” nine times.

However, seven gigawatts of nuclear alone will not deliver net zero.

By 2050, the demand for electricity will have doubled, and this scheme might:

  • supply 13% of 2050 demand with nuclear generation,
  • put the brakes on renewables growth, even cancelling some wind and solar contracts,
  • see 19 GW of coal capacity closed – all the generators, bar one, have already announced closing dates before 2050,
  • pay to keep 2 GW of coal generation running,
  • build considerable gas capacity and gas pipelines to meet supply.

The scheme will need substantial gas and coal generation, so to achieve net zero, the Coalition would have offset these carbon emissions by massive investment in dubious schemes like:

  • carbon capture and storage, and
  • buying carbon offsets, like paying farmers to plant trees to take up carbon dioxide.

The Coalition has used the term “net zero” many times without mentioning offsets or their costs.


Small modular reactor won’t run by 2035

The media release asserts we could have a small modular reactor (SMR) generating by 2035. This is fanciful; these reactors are not a proven technology. To the contrary, NuScale attempted to build an SMR in Idaho, USA, with a capacity of 0.462 GW. The cost blew out from US$ 3 billion to 9.3 billion, and they cancelled the project.

(The parlous state of the nuclear power sector: Renew Economy: 18 Oct 2024)


Some risk factors

Many factors make this a risky gamble; they could increase the scheme’s costs far beyond estimates and increase the cost of living.

Factor: Australia has never built a nuclear generator – and countries with experience have had massive cost overruns and delays, e.g. the Hinckley Point C project discussed above.

Factor: The government would pay a premium to acquire the proposed sites forcibly. For example, AGL does not like nuclear power’s costs and expected delays and has started building a $750 million battery at its Liddell site in NSW.

Factor: We would depend on nuclear fuel from overseas, subject to supply disruption and price hikes. The fuel would also have to travel large distances, possibly from the USA to Australian ports and then by road to the inland sites.

Factor: All nuclear projects and operations need to be super secure. This dramatically increases the costs of building and running the reactors. The risks include:

  • design and construction faults,
  • human error,
  • government cost-cutting on maintenance
  • cyber-attack,
  • terrorism,
  • radiation leaks,
  • extreme weather,
  • droughts, which could restrict cooling water,
  • earthquakes and tsunamis, and
  • warfare.

Factor: Nuclear power has many easily overlooked costs. For example, we would need to develop emergency plans for:

  • farmers located near nuclear reactors, and there are 11,000 farms within 80 kilometres of the seven proposed sites. In the U.S., these farms have established procedures to manage potential radiation leaks, and
  • transporting nuclear materials, covering all relevant ports, roads, towns, and cities.

We need flexible, not baseload generators.

One of the Coalition talking points is “Australia needs baseload nuclear generators”. In the media release, they call it “consistent 24/7 electricity”. These baseload generators must run steadily without pausing when they are running. (Nuclear generators in the US run about 92% of the time.)

Contradicting this, Australian Energy Market Operator CEO, Daniel Westerman, says that:

Our grid used to depend on (1) baseload coal generation supported by (2) gas generators to meet demand peaks.

That worked when coal generated the cheapest electricity, but now this does not work because renewables generate the lowest cost electricity and win dispatch ahead of coal and gas generators.

Today, our grid urgently needs: (1) renewable electricity, (2) batteries, (3) pumped hydro, (4) flexible gas generation and (5) transmission lines.

Australia does not need nuclear baseload generators.

(The baseload coal & gas peaking paradigm is no longer fit for our modern grid, says the AEMO chief: Renew Economy: 23 Oct 2024)


** Baseload generators often pay to run

Our levels of renewable generation are high and increasing. This means that our current baseload coal generators struggle, and our future baseload nuclear generation would have even more difficulties. Our baseload coal generators struggle to sell their electricity to the grid because:

  • our large-scale renewable generators produce cheap electricity, bid low in the AEMO auctions, and AEMO dispatches their renewable electricity to the grid,
  • rooftop solar meets the householder’s demand, reducing electric demand on the grid,
  • rooftop solar also supplies large amounts of electricity to the grid, electricity that AEMO cannot currently turn off, and
  • baseload coal generators need to run without stopping, so they often bid negative, i.e., offer to pay, so AEMO dispatches their coal electricity.

Look at the National Electricity Market (NEM) dashboard in the middle of the day. You’ll see the 5-minute prices in each state and, with rare exceptions, see some negative prices set by coal generators paying to avoid stopping.


** Our high levels of renewable generation

Renewable generation is significant and increasing. For example, on the East Coast grid:

  • Renewables generated a peak of 75.3% of demand on Sunday, 20 Oct 2024, at 11.15 am. Rooftop solar comprised 52% of this, while coal output had to drop to 24.1% of demand.
  • Renewables generated an average of about 40% of electricity in 2023 and are headed for the 2030 target of 83% of renewable generation over a year.

In South Australia:

  • On Saturday, 19 October 2024, at 1.15 p.m., rooftop solar provided 112.9% of SA demand, and SA exported its excess electricity.
  • During November 2021, wind and solar provided more than 100% of local SA demand for 93 hours straight, day and windy night; a little gas generation provided grid stability, and SA exported its excess electricity.
  • In October 2023, wind and solar generated 86.8% of SA demand.
  • In tax year 2023-24, wind and solar generated over 70% of SA demand.
  • In 2027, wind and solar will generate 100% of SA demand.

(Rooftop solar propels renewables to 75% of demand: Renew Economy: 23 Oct 2024)

** AGL is trying to pause baseload generation

Like all baseload coal plant operators, AGL often pays to keep its coal generators running. To avoid these payments, AGL is trialling the shutdown of its Bayswater plant for up to twelve hours at a time. This trial shows:

  • it’s not economical for the coal generators to provide baseload power, i.e. generate 7 days a week and 24 hours a day,
  • the Coalition is wrong to say we must have more baseload,
  • we do not need coal baseload generation, and
  • we do not need nuclear baseload generation.

(Coal generators are trying brief shutdowns to avoid costly baseload generation: Renew Economy: 1 Oct 2024)

** Baseload increases the low-demand risk

Baseload generation is part of an emerging problem for the grid: having more generation than demand, which can lead to blackouts. In 2024, AEMO introduced a “minimum system demand risk event” and is developing ways of managing this risk.

(Rooftop solar management: AEMO: 2024)

Rooftop solar generation supplies substantial amounts of electricity to the grid during the day, for example:

  • at 1.15 pm on 19 Oct 2024, in South Australia, rooftops supplied 112.9% of SA demand,
  • at 1 pm on Saturday, 12 Oct 2024, East Coast rooftops supplied 50% of the East Coast grid demand,
  • rooftop generation is the second largest renewable energy source in Australia, after wind generation, and before large-scale solar farms, and
  • rooftop generation is the fourth largest source of electricity, 11.2% of Australian generation.

Rooftop solar reduces demand on our large-scale generators by (1) supplying electricity to houses and businesses, and (2) exporting surplus electricity to the grid, enough to occasionally meet the entire local demand.

One in three Australian homes have solar panels, and AEMO expects rooftop generation to grow strongly; it could triple in the next 30 years. As people install more rooftop solar panels, the whole East Coast grid will become more like South Australia.

If the Coalition scheme proceeds, we could have generation from:

  • large-scale solar and wind, which the owners can turn off,
  • Rooftop solar that currently cannot turn off, and
  • Baseload nuclear or coal, which needs to keep running.

We will increasingly have the problem of insufficient demand, and any baseload generator that must run all the time increases the chances of supply exceeding demand. For example, in the isolated Southwestern Australian grid, noon demand is becoming too low, so they are building big batteries to increase demand.

** Nuclear baseload: expensive electricity

The Coalition’s scheme would produce expensive electricity as it would often need to turn off the cheapest generators (wind turbines, solar farms and rooftop solar) to allow the most expensive (nuclear) to keep running.

Baseload generators would displace cheap renewables at times when there was surplus generation capacity, and one measure of this on the current grid is “the percentage of the time when prices are negative”, i.e., when generators pay so that AEMO dispatches their electricity.

In SA, renewables can already supply all the local demand. Actually, rooftop solar alone can do this, and negative prices reflect this surplus generation capacity. Prices were negative:

  • 4% of the time in 2019,
  • 25% of the time in 2023, and
  • 34% of the time in the December quarter of 2023.

So, if SA had a baseload nuclear generator now, for about 34% of the time, nuclear generation would be displacing low-cost renewable generation, e.g., rooftop solar that only costs the retailer about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. This would increase the cost of electricity.

This “time with excess generation capacity” is increasing in other states too, as levels of renewable coapaicty increase.

State  2019 Time with negative price2023 Time with negative price
South Australia4%25%
Victoria1%22%
Queensland2%14.5%
NSW0%7%

The Coalition argues for baseload nuclear power, saying we must have “a balanced energy mix”. Their pitch sounds modern, reasonable, and attractive, but some “mixes” don’t work. Oil does not mix with water, and baseload does not mix with a high level of renewables.

Baseload generation is incompatible with high levels of renewable generation.

We need flexible generators, not inflexible baseload nuclear generators.


Industry opposes nuclear: AGL

Even the energy industry is against the nuclear scheme, for example, AGL.

(Energy Giant AGL issues a warning on Dutton’s nuclear plan: The Age: 25 Sep 2024)


Water and transmission at nuclear sites

The nuclear scheme could generate about as much electricity at five sites as all our current coal plants at 13 sites. So, each nuclear site will likely:

  • be generating more electricity and need more cooling water, and
  • have greater generation capacity and need greater transmission capacity.

I’ve estimated the nuclear generation (GWh/year) and considered it alongside the 2017-18 coal generation.

** Extra transmission

The Coalition says they will use the existing transmission at these old coal sites and so will not need to build transmission from their nuclear plants. However, if the nuclear capacity is greater than the old coal capacity at a site, then the plant will probably need extra transmission capacity. I calculate the extra transmission due to this factor alone, ignoring the extra transmission needed due to (1) aging transmission lines and (2) renewable electricity and batteries using this transmission.

** Extra cooling water needed

If the nuclear electricity generation is greater than the old coal generation at this site, then the plant will use extra cooling water.

I’ve conservatively assumed that both nuclear and coal generators use the same amount of cooling water per unit of electricity generated.

** Calculation results

PlantCoalCoalNuclearNuclear
 CapacityGenerationIncreasedincreased
 2017-182017-18generationCapacity
 MWGWh/yearwater useTransmission
   factorfactor
Liddell: NSW1,6807,2222.91.6
Mt Piper: NSW1,4006,4403.21.9
Tarong: QLD1,8439,9782.11.4
Callide C: QLD1,6009,7172.11.7
Loy Yang: VIC3,21021,7111.00.8
Total9,73355,0681.91.4

The calculations suggest that, on average, over the five sites:

  • electricity generation and water use would be 1.9 times greater than 2017-18 coal generation, and
  • capacity and needed transmission would be 1.4 times greater.

This would be most concerning at Mt Piper where:

  • electricity generation and water use would be 3.2 times greater than 2017-18 coal generation, and
  • capacity and needed transmission would be 1.9 times greater.

Loy Yang in Victoria is the only site that would not need extra transmission or cooling water by these criteria.

The assumptions behind these calculations.

** Nuclear capacity at five sites

The Coalition had Frontier Economics (FE) cost their nuclear scheme, and my nuclear assumptions are based on their Report 2.

FE writes, “The regions where nuclear power stations are assumed to be commissioned are NSW, Queensland and Victoria. In total, just over 13,000 MW of nuclear power capacity is assumed to be commissioned across these three jurisdictions.” (FE Report 2, page 7)

I assume that the Coalition is still considering the same five nuclear sites in the eastern states as in their June 2024 media release; see the above results table.

*** Nuclear capacity 13.2 GW

The FE nuclear capacity graph shows that their “just over 13,000 MW” is 13,200 MW. (FE Report 2, Figure 1, page 7). I calculated this after measuring the graph with a ruler. As the FE reports do not mention individual sites, I arbitrarily assume that each site will have an equal share of the capacity, i.e., one-fifth of 13.2 GW = 2,640 MW.

*** Nuclear generation GWh/year

The FE Reports do not specify a capacity factor (The Conversation: 13 Dec 2024). That’s strange. To calculate the nuclear electricity generated, they must have had a capacity factor – but then decided to exclude it from their report.

The Coalition talks of running the nuclear plants hard 24/7, so I have used a capacity factor of 90%, giving generation at each nuclear site of 2,640 x 24 x 365 x 90% = 20,814 GWh/year.

** Small modular reactors

The FE reports do not include SMRs, but the Coalition is still considering them. On the day of the release of the FE report 2, Dutton (13/12/2024) said, “As we’ve said previously, in South Australia and Western Australia, [we are considering] small modular reactors.

** 2017-18 coal generation data

The coal capacities (MW) and generation (GWh/year) in 2017-18 come from a Melbourne University document, “Source: Coal capacity factors in the National Electricity Market 2017-18”, on figshare.unimelb.edu.au

If the Coalition wins this election, they will have to proceed with their nuclear scheme despite not knowing critical things like:

  • the availability of cooling water,
  • the necessary refurbishment costs to enable their 80-year plant life,
  • the cost of increased gas and coal usage, and
  • the costs of storing nuclear wastes.

Nuclear waste

Banner with "No Nuclear"

US Government websites say:

  • The US has no permanent disposal facility for high-level nuclear waste (HLW).
  • The US has run nuclear generation since 1957, for 67 years.
  • The US has over 90,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors, increasing by 2,000 tonnes annually.
  • Commercial reactors store their HLW, including spent nuclear fuel, in storage ponds for 1 or 2 years to cool and then in dry storage casks on concrete pads at their sites.
  • High-level nuclear waste stays highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

This makes it clear that disposing of nuclear waste is highly problematic.


The Coalition climate denial continues.

The Coalition repeatedly mentions “net zero nuclear” and claims its scheme will deliver a net-zero electricity grid, but with a brake on renewables, it needs more gas and coal generation, and that will increase emissions.

As the scheme includes the possible cancellation of renewables contracts, it continues the Coalition’s attack on renewable energy and emissions reduction. The Coalition might even want to frighten renewable energy investors and slow the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Coalition presents its nuclear scheme as the solution for Australia’s electricity needs. However, the last of their reactors would only start generating in 2050 at best, and their total nuclear generation would only provide 13% of the demand in 2050. So, nuclear is a minor part of the solution. When asked for more details and costs, the Coalition only says it will release more information before the election. The Coalition is hiding 87% of its energy policy.

The Coalition must present a complete plan and provide the costs of all the activities involved before attacking realistic efforts to meet demand.


Updated 14 Feb 2025