Melissa Price backs nuclear option at Kimberley Economic Forum

The Kimberley should be ready to have the conversation about adopting nuclear power according to Durack MP Melissa Price, who has called for Australia to use the controversial energy source to tackle climate change. Speaking at the Kimberley Economic Forum on November 10, Ms Price said the Opposition would be calling for an “informed and honest debate” on how nuclear technologies could be part of Australia’s decarbonisation mix going into the future. Although Ms Price said the Coalition was not yet in a position to say where nuclear facilities could be located, it was a conversation that people of the Kimberley must be included in. “We must bring all Australians, including the people of the Kimberley, along for the journey,” she said. Echoing Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Ms Price cited new reactor technologies, Australia’s large uranium deposits and the potential to lower power prices as key factors in the Coalition’s advocacy for nuclear energy. “Australians are hungry for affordable, reliable and secure sources of power that emit zero emissions,” Ms Price said. “And while renewables play a huge part in painting this picture, it’s at times when the wind is not blowing and the sun’s not shining, that nuclear could play its part. “In fact, there’s over 70 designs of small modular reactors that are currently in development or construction in 18 separate countries.” Despite her comments, one of Australia’s leading scientific agencies, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, still views nuclear power as a non-starter, even with new reactor technologies. A CSIRO report released in June found there was “no prospect” of nuclear small modular reactors being introduced to Australia in the next decade given the technology’s “commercial immaturity and high cost”. It also found renewables such as solar and wind remained the “cheapest new-build electricity generation option in Australia”. Ridiculing the Opposition’s advocacy for nuclear power at the NSW Labor Conference on October 15-16, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Opposition wanted to “glow in the dark”. “The only suggestion they’ve put forward is a rather extraordinary idea ... that we should move to the most expensive form of new energy and embrace nuclear power,” he said. Environmental groups have also opposed the feasibility of nuclear as a transitional energy source. In a letter to the Advertiser, Conservation Council WA Nuclear Free campaigner Mia Pepper said the new debate on nuclear was a culture wars issue. “The debate on nuclear, framed as an energy option to address the climate crisis they (the Coalition) didn’t believe was happening, is less about nuclear power than it is about perpetuating the culture wars,” she said. In a statement released in January the Climate Council said nuclear power was the “slowest, most expensive and most dangerous form of new power generation for Australia” and debating the subject was a “distraction from genuine climate action”.