Rolling out nuclear power plants in Australia could add $1000 a year to household electricity bills, according to energy experts, and regulators should focus on lower cost, renewable power.
The warning has been issued at a Smart Energy Council event on Monday, which heard from Australian and Canadian experts about energy technology.
However, the advice was contradicted by testimony at the separate Nuclear Power Generation inquiry in Canberra, where a former nuclear executive called Australia’s plan to rely on wind, solar and hydro energy “a work of fiction”.
The energy debate comes five months after federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton announced plans to establish nuclear power plants in seven Australian locations if his party won government at the next election.
The Smart Energy Council event heard Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis modelling found that a switch to nuclear energy would increase the median power bill for households with two people by $665 per year.
A family of four would see their electricity bill rise by almost $1000 a year after the move, independent economist and Climate Council spokeswoman Nicki Hutley said.
“That’s a very significant increase in what is a relatively large part of a family’s bills,” she said.
“It’s not just household energy bills that we’re worried about – businesses have to pay for energy as well and when they pay higher energy costs that gets passed on.”
Developing nuclear power plants in Australia would also be costly due to the nation’s lack of experience with the technology, Canada-based York University sustainable energy initiative co-chair Professor Mark Winfield said.
Those costs would include underwriting potential nuclear disasters and expenses that continued to rise over time.
“The single biggest thing we would recommend... is a least-cost approach, which is to look at what are the options with the lowest cost and then optimise those,” Prof Winfield told AAP.
“New-build nuclear, which is what you’d be looking at, just can’t compete with the (renewable) options that are available.”
But the advice was contradicted by Adrian Paterson, former chief executive of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, at the parliamentary nuclear energy inquiry.
Renewable energy sources including solar power and wind turbines would not be reliable enough for consumers, would raise the price of electricity, and could endanger birdlife, he said.
The federal government should remove its ban on nuclear projects, Dr Paterson said, and reverse its renewable energy policies.
“The systems that we are trying to put together is nothing other than a work of fiction dressed up in engineering clothes,” he said.
“The price of electricity, once we get to this mythical 40 to 50 per cent (renewable energy), will continue to rise.”
