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| Nuclear is a necessary part of our energy Plan B |
Dr Michael de Percy, a respected political scientist and political commentator, recently delivered an insightful presentation to the Crookwell Rotary Club and their invited guests. The topic of discussion was nuclear energy, a subject that has become increasingly pertinent in global and local energy debates. As a resident of Gunning in the Upper Lachlan Shire, Dr de Percy provided a unique perspective on the potential role of nuclear power in addressing energy security and climate challenges. His talk was well received, sparking engaging conversations among attendees about the future of energy production in Australia. A brief extract of his presentation follows.
Networked infrastructure like roads, telecommunications networks, and energy grids are peculiar beasts.
In Australia, vast distances mean the cost of deploying infrastructure often outweighs the market’s ability to make a decent return on investment.
For much of Australia’s history, government has owned and operated transport, telecommunications, and energy systems to ensure these important services were delivered to citizens.
To keep costs down, governments adopted a market dominance and cost recovery model. This model prevented alternative systems from developing so the private sector wasn’t competing with the government.
The approach enabled relatively sound transport, telecommunications, and energy systems to operate during the last century. But technological convergence has created problems for Australia when it comes to cross-platform competition in services such as rail, communications, and energy.
Once a particular technology is selected by government, resources are committed, and institutions are established to support the original policy decision.
History proves that time and again Australian policymakers have made decisions that seemed logical at the time, only to create major headaches in the future once technologies evolved.
These decisions often neglected the political issues that arose over the long time periods associated with the deployment of infrastructure.
Wireless telegraphy, FM radio, Australia’s rail network, the National Broadband Network, and more recently, renewables energy systems, are cases in point.
Nuclear energy is emerging as another technology that Australia has neglected. All indications internationally suggest that we will not achieve our emissions reduction targets nor provide sufficient energy for our future needs without nuclear.
The challenges to nuclear energy in Australia are inherently political. Labor’s antinuclear narrative stems from the role of the McClelland Royal Commission into British Nuclear Testing (which was designed to ignore Labor’s postwar role in allowing the nuclear tests) and reinforced by the Howard Government’s prohibition of nuclear in 1998 to enable the new OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights.
However, the absence of a Plan B for Australia's energy needs, and the results of renewables-only strategies internationally, mean that Australia’s energy future is particularly bleak.
The current renewables-only policy is failing rapidly, costing more, taking longer, facing community opposition, and it is unlikely to meet our future energy needs.
Following Australia’s historical pattern of infrastructure deployment, we have committed ourselves to one path that will have future ramifications.
Ignoring nuclear at this stage means we have no Plan B, and once we’ve blown our dough on the current policy, there will be hard times ahead to fix yet another infrastructure problem of our own making.
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| My article in the Upper Lachlan Gazette, Issue 171, 18 December 2024 |