Industry watchers see Australia facing an uphill battle to move forward with a nuclear election promise made by the Liberal Party last month.
If the party wins the 2025 election, opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven nuclear power plants, which would start coming online in 2035.
While the uranium exploration and mining members of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies are welcoming of the proposal, they believe there are many barriers to overcome and a lot of questions still to be answered.
AMEC Chief Executive Warren Pearce tells Mining.com.au that although a lot of the organisation’s members are “very pleased” to see the debate around nuclear taking place, more information is needed.
“I think a lot of them are very interested to see or want information made available about costs, about time frames, about how it will contribute to the energy mix,” he says.
“Obviously as miners we’re energy takers, which means cost is important to us and I would be very interested to see how that information comes forward and what that might actually look like and the time frames around it.
“But I think overwhelmingly our membership is very positive around uranium mining but also around nuclear energy.
“All options have to be on the table, especially zero emission technologies like nuclear. We should explore whether this is a viable pathway for Australia.”
“All options have to be on the table, especially zero emission technologies like nuclear. We should explore whether this is a viable pathway for Australia.”
But Pearce says even if the Australian parliament is able to remove the nuclear prohibition currently in place at a federal level, there is still the issue of the state-level bans on uranium mining and exploration in the majority of Australian states and territories.
“You’ve still got pretty much all state governments opposed to it I think, which makes that very difficult, which means it will be a different path for the federal government to actually pursue and deliver it,” he says.
“I wouldn’t think it was one of those issues where people are going to be particularly agreeable, it’s going to be a hard fought battle if that’s going to be the pathway.”
‘Unsupportive politics and uncertain regulation’
Leonard Quong, head of Australian research at BloombergNEF, says legal hurdles aside, an abundance of high-quality renewables and an aging coal fleet stand in the way of Australia’s nuclear industry before it even starts.
“Modern nuclear technology is a safe, dispatchable, zero-carbon form of electricity generation that will be essential for the world to reach its global carbon targets. But it is also a very expensive technology in markets with limited experience, unsupportive politics and uncertain regulation – such as Australia,” he says.
The opposition’s proposal is to build the nuclear reactors on the sites of end-of-life coal-fired power stations, including in Gippsland in Victoria, Gladstone in Queensland, Port Augusta in South Australia, Collie in Western Australia, and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales.
Collie in the southwest of Western Australia is heavily reliant on its coal-fired power industry, but that will come to an end in 2027 with the closure of the Collie Power Station.
This will see over 1,200 employees and contractors out of work.
The Western Australian Government has promised $547.4 million in funding to support Collie and surrounding regions over the next decade to grow new industries and local jobs.
This package includes a new $200 million Industrial Transition Fund to attract major projects and new industries to the town.
Mining.com.au reached out to the Labor member for Collie-Preston, Jodie Hanns, to find out what the sentiment in the southwest town of Western Australia is like surrounding Dutton’s nuclear proposal, but she declined to comment on the matter.
Nuclear not fast enough
BloombergNEF’s Quong says to avoid power supply shortfalls and high electricity bills, Australia’s shuttered coal assets must be replaced by a mix of low-cost renewables and energy storage, well before nuclear could make a material difference.
“To get to its legislated net-zero target, Australia will need to more than double its electricity production by the middle of the century, while also reducing carbon intensity,” he says.
“Nuclear power could lower the amount of wind, solar, storage, and power networks Australia would otherwise need to build – but not by much even in a scenario with 14 gigawatts of nuclear installed by 2050, and at a steep, uncertain price.”
According to BloombergNEF, it would take 14 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power to displace 43GW of wind, solar and storage capacity.
The Climate Council estimates that the electricity delivered by the seven nuclear reactors would only provide around 12% of the power Australia will need by 2050.
AMEC would like to see the state-level uranium bans being overturned.
“This would enable exploration in uranium mining to take place in Australia,” Pearce says.
“It’s a great investment opportunity for Australia and a great opportunity for us to support the clean energy transition around the world.”
Australia has the world’s largest accumulation of uranium resources, almost a third of the global total.
The country ranks fourth in terms of uranium production, producing over 4,000 tonnes of uranium in 2022, accounting for about 8% of global supply. Currently though all Australia’s uranium production is exported.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: BloombergNEF and Unsplash
