Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese appears to be on an electoral winner by adopting the 2050 net-zero emissions target. Scott Morrison has stated he will make no such pledge to Australians “unless I can tell them how we will achieve it and what this will cost”.
The Opposition Leader has not answered the questions of how and at what cost. Instead, he points out comparable countries have committed to 2050 so why can’t we? Countries such as the US under Joe Biden, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Britain.
So what’s going on? Why are these countries confidently able to commit to the target, but not us? The answer is to be found in one word: nuclear.
South Korea has 24 nuclear plants producing 26 per cent of its energy. The US has 98 plants for 20 per cent, Canada has 19 plants for 15 per cent, and Britain’s Rolls-Royce is planning to build 16 new reactors. Even Japan, which shut down its nuclear plants following the Fukushima disaster, is beginning to recommission them.
The Prime Minister claims he wants to achieve net-zero emissions through “technology, not higher taxes”. But none of the technologies proposed, such as carbon capture and storage, are near technical efficacy.
With Joel Fitzgibbon gone from shadow cabinet, Labor’s fanatical energy spokesman Mark Butler has slipped into the draft platform that the party will adopt tough interim targets for 2030-35, while any mention of coal or gas exports has been excluded.
Morrison knows Labor’s policies will be unaffordable and not properly costed. It’s a political trap Labor is falling headlong into — again. Meanwhile, the message being heard by blue-collar workers and voters in the suburbs is that Labor cares little about them.
Labor members are talking openly about bringing on a spill unless Albanese tempers the party’s heavy emphasis on renewables and rethinks underlying opposition to coal and gas. It’s not just Labor’s Right that wants change. Queensland senator Murray Watt, in Albanese’s Left faction, has come out in support of Fitzgibbon’s views. And Chris Bowen has stated Labor has lost touch with people in the suburbs.
Labor’s new energy platform depicts its real priorities: “Labor believes Australia’s future prosperity lies as an energy superpower, built on our world-class renewable energy resources.”
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This is deceptive virtue signalling. Australia cannot competitively manufacture solar panels or wind turbines to create jobs. Government estimates of jobs in the renewable sector last year were 26,850, compared with 255,800 in the resources sector and almost a million in manufacturing that rely on cheap baseload power.
Australia will not be a renewable energy superpower. In fact, Australia’s prosperity is built on its resources industry. We have 30 per cent of the world’s uranium, processed to make yellowcake for export. We also have 10 per cent of the world’s black coal and vast iron ore and gas reserves that are tied up in long-term export contracts.
Albanese and Butler’s Nirvana of renewable energy backed up by pumped hydro is a mirage. Australia’s arid climate means the capacity of pumped hydro is limited and costly. Batteries are too expensive and useful only for short-term balancing of the system.
It’s the realisation that these backup technologies can provide only limited support to renewables that led the countries that Albanese named to keep nuclear as part of their roadmap to 2050.
Yet the Australian Energy Market Operator in its 2020 Integrated System Plan excluded nuclear, instead proposing vastly increased costly interconnections and increased reliance on diminishing fossil fuel facilities. Environmental Progress founder Michael Shellenberger has noted that by not including nuclear solutions the AEMO plan “is taking major risks with the Australian people’s health and welfare”.
Japan has adopted the 2050 target and nuclear will be a big part. But in the interim it is using gas and fast-tracking 22 high-efficiency, low-emission (HELE) coal-fired plants to replace ageing plants. Japan is Australia’s biggest export market for coal.
I am not saying we should build new HELE coal plants as some in the Coalition want. But Albanese must signal real support for the alternative with a roadmap to 2050 that includes new gas fields to reduce prices and gas power plants to replace aging coal ones to support manufacturing workers and voters in the suburbs.
Albanese can save his leadership by bravely making such solid commitments despite internal resistance and by not precluding nuclear as a zero emission baseload backup for renewables in the future.
Removing its mental block on nuclear might also allow Labor to suggest a rethink of Australia’s $100 billion order of French nuclear barracuda submarines redesigned with diesel electric drives making them slower, louder and with less underwater endurance.
To succeed, Albanese must adopt centrist policies, remove Butler from the energy space and bring back Fitzgibbon. He must not sell out Labor’s traditional base on the altar of renewables. And he must include an honest conversation with Australians about a safe nuclear option as potentially the only way to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.
* Theo Theophanous is a former Victorian Labor energy, and resources minister.
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