The Coalition’s energy spokesman Dan Tehan is in the US, where he had a meeting on Tuesday (AEST) with one of the Trump administration’s top energy officials – acting undersecretary for energy Mike Goff – and told this masthead Australia should become one of the dozens of nations to work with the US to develop nuclear energy programs. He refused to be drawn on speculation about the net zero compromise.
“The Albanese government should be building co-operation with the US Department of Energy now with regard to technological breakthroughs occurring in the nuclear area,” he told this masthead. “In government, this is something we would seek to do immediately.”
Tehan was immigration spokesman when Peter Dutton championed an audacious nuclear plan.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Tehan is travelling to Idaho to inspect the small modular reactors trumpeted by former opposition leader Dutton before the last election and even smaller “micro-reactors” – a technology Tehan said was being developed by Australian Nuclear Association president Mark Ho.
“Basically, you’d be able to fit it into a shipping container, a micro reactor. It would not be at the household level but it could be used for mine sites and could replace diesel in remote locations,” he said, labelling the products a game changer that could be deployed at scale early next decade.
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The Coalition has ditched its heavily criticised election promise to build seven nuclear plants, but it retains a pledge to scrap the nation’s nuclear energy ban and invite private capital to build plants. Tehan said a Coalition government would consider public-private partnerships, similar to those seen on big infrastructure projects to mandate safety.
“There’s various funding models,” he said. “In the UK a lot of the design work in bringing in private capital to utilities involved the government taking a ‘golden share’, which basically means the government has the veto right on where the capital comes … and a board position. You can ensure majority Australian ownership.”
Former prime minister John Howard said on Monday that the world was “making a mistake by going overboard about climate change”, adding that he did not believe net zero “is worth the price we’re paying for it”.
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