Nuclear power in Australia — a silver bullet or white elephant?

"It's time to talk nuclear," Ted O'Brien declared in a video message filmed on an isolated beach last February.

A year on, nuclear energy for Australia has firmed as Coalition policy, and Mr O'Brien's "enormous optimism" has earned derision from Energy Minister Chris Bowen. But now we are transitioning away from coal. The main reason for that is the obvious one: to reduce emissions and meet our climate targets.It poses an urgent question for both climate reasons and energy security reasons: what will fill that gap?Renewable power has twin benefits: it's green, and it's also cheap.

The CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator tell us that even with the cost of transmission and storage, renewables are still the cheapest form of power, with the temporary exception of gas, which the government says will play a role in the transition. But setting up in the Australian context would be a different proposition, and would present several hurdles.

The east coast electricity market is relatively small by global standards, owing to Australia's small population. If this sounds appealing, cool your jets – the technology to do this on any notable scale doesn't exist. Attempts to build them elsewhere, such as in the US, have so far run into fatal cost barriers.

Those pleas weren't heeded, beyond a very low-key parliamentary inquiry, as the party feared a scare campaign on nuclear reactors in the suburbs. But Coalition MPs are confident they can sell the idea to voters, insisting the issue plays well with younger voters in particular. Just a handful of regions have coal-fired power stations that could fit the bill. This includes the Hunter, Gippsland and Central Queensland.

"Every country in the world with nuclear has required massive transfers of taxpayer wealth to the nuclear constructors," he said. Labor's national platform currently includes an explicit ban on nuclear power, and some key unions are resolutely opposed to the industry.All of that points to a difficult road ahead. And it's one many energy experts say it would lead to a small benefit at best.

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