Australian opposition plans nation's first nuclear power plants by 2035

Australia’s main opposition party has announced plans to build Australia’s first nuclear power plants as early as 2035.

The policy announcement on Wednesday ensures the major parties will be divided on how Australia will curb its greenhouse gas emissions at elections due within a year.

“I’m very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy, on nuclear, on power prices, on lights going out, on who has a sustainable pathway for our country going forward,” opposition leader Peter Dutton told reporters.

Seven government-owned reactors would be built on the sites of ageing coal-fired electricity plants in five of Australia’s six states, Dutton said.

The first two would be built from 2035-to-2037 and the last in the 2040s.

He said the estimated costs would be announced at a later date.

The parties haven’t gone to an election with the same carbon reduction policies since 2007.

'Most expensive form of energy'

The current centre-left government has rejected nuclear power generation in Australia as too expensive.

Too many coal-fired generators would have been decommissioned before nuclear power could fill the gap.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen accused the conservative opposition Liberal Party of serving Australia’s influential coal and gas industry lobbies.

“It’s not really an announcement. We know that Mr Dutton wants to slow down the rollout of renewables, and he wants to introduce the most expensive form of energy that’s slow to build,” Bowen told reporters.

“But today, we’ve seen no costs, we’ve seen no gigawatts, we’ve seen no detail. This is a joke. It’s a serious joke because it threatens our transition” from fossil fuels, Bowen added.

Bowen’s Labor Party came to power in the 2022 elections promising deeper cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 than the previous coalition government had committed to.

Dutton has ruled out announcing a renewed 2030 target before the next election. But the major parties have agreed on a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Australia has historically been one of the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters on a per capita basis because of its heavy reliance on abundant reserves of cheap coal and gas.