Despite clear evidence that the Coalition’s nuclear power policy is untenable, Peter Dutton and friends are sticking with this industrial-level distraction, forcing us all to talk about it instead of focusing on real solutions to Australia’s future energy needs.
The CSIRO’s latest GenCost Report makes it obvious that renewables, particularly solar and wind, remain the least expensive new electricity technology to build. The report says any electricity generated by nuclear energy would be at least 50 per cent more expensive than renewable power. Nuclear power would also take at least fifteen years to develop.
A single 1,000MW nuclear plant is estimated by the CSIRO to cost at least $8.6bn in 2024 money – and Peter Dutton has been talking about multiple plants.
These numbers don’t even try to factor in the unfathomable additional costs if anything goes wrong, or to deal with the waste for centuries, or to pay for the PR campaigns to convince electorates to host this technology.
Shoot the messenger
The Coalition has responded to the CSIRO’s report by shooting the messenger, and claiming the national science organisation has been politicised by the ALP.
In the past, this sort of thing was the domain of fringe players like One Nation’s coal enthusiast Malcolm Roberts, who said in 2020 (regarding climate data) that ‘there’s a lot of group think in the CSIRO and they follow the political agenda… the CSIRO has been corrupted in its prosecution of science’.
More recently, prominent members of the Coalition have also been taking up the charge against science that doesn’t suit them, just like their fellow travellers in the US and UK, all influenced by the same thinktanks and shadowy players, mostly with strong links to the fossil fuel industries, who will benefit the longer the inevitable transition to renewables is delayed.
The fact is that there’s very little scientific expertise among Australia’s federal political class – only 9 per cent have any qualifications in science or engineering.
Ex-cop Peter Dutton has no science credentials at all, but dipped his toe in the murky waters of scientific doubt-mongering back in March when he said without justification that a previous CSIRO energy report was ‘discredited’ and ‘not a genuine piece of work’.
He has suggested that the latest report is ‘based on the current government settings, which are against the use of nuclear.’
Independent?
The CSIRO is Australia’s leading scientific organisation, producing peer-reviewed science to support government as it develops policy. It is designed to be at arms length from the political maneuvering of the day. The organisation’s independence has been somewhat eroded in recent years, but not in the way the current group of political detractors suggest.
The clearest example of this is GISERA, the Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance, created in 2011 as a collaboration between the CSIRO, governments and the gas industry in order to give a pseudo-scientific backbone to the unconventional gas rush as it engulfed the country, by providing money for favourable research.
Following the blueprint of similar organisations in the USA, GISERA provides a veneer of scientific respectability for what is fundamentally a destructive extractive industry, extremely damaging to climate, air and water. The long term rewards of this strategy can be clearly seen in the gas policies of the current federal government, as well as Labor state governments across the country.
Alternative facts
Gas and nuclear aside though, the growing anti-science trend in politics has implications way beyond the Australian energy debate. It’s about cutting politics entirely adrift from reality.
Trump appointee Kellyanne Conway can be thanked for introducing the delightful concept of ‘alternative facts’ into the political lexicon in 2017, but current political actors here and around the world are carrying this concept into increasingly dangerous territory.
As CSIRO CEO Doug Hilton puts it, ‘We need to avoid a situation where, as a nation, we have 50 or 60 per cent of our population that are broadly distrustful of science. We’ve seen how desperately difficult it was for countries that thought like that to deal with things like the pandemic. It’ll be just as difficult for them to deal with net zero.
‘We need really good debate around science, but we don’t want a country that disparages science, scientists and scientific organisations. I think that would be a disaster for Australia.’
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
