The report’s costings are based on the bills for construction of large-scale nuclear plants in nations with comparable economies to Australia – the US, UK, France, Finland and Czech Republic – and the forecast costs of small modular reactors, which are not yet in commercial operation.
To arrive at its price estimate of $665 per household each year, the institute took the average of construction costs from these countries’ recent reactor builds.
It excluded cheaper nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates, where the authoritarian regime recently built reactors using migrant workers from Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Cheaper builds in South Korea were also excluded, although the north Asian economic powerhouse has kicked off 11 nuclear projects since 2005 and completed 20 before 2005. The report noted that South Korea’s nuclear construction company was unable to replicate the low costs overseas, such as two reactors it was contracted to build in the Czech Republic.
It said household energy bills could rise between $450 and $1154 in NSW and Victoria based on current energy bills in those states. This figure is based on the electricity use of a medium household. Bigger families would pay more.
Credit: Matt Golding
Based solely on data from the US, where the cheapest nuclear plants were built, power prices would rise about $450.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor told the Press Club in May that the nuclear plants the opposition plans to build would be commercially viable and not publicly subsidised.
However, O’Brien has said nuclear plants would be built by a government-owned entity, like Snowy Hydro.
If the opposition chose this model of public funding, the construction costs would add to national gross debt and incur interest on the repayments for loans that would be taken out to fund construction.
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The CSIRO’s GenCost report on electricity generation, released in May and produced in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator, said renewable energy delivers cheaper power than nuclear plants.
The institute’s Australian electricity analyst Johanna Bowyer said the cost of building nuclear plants typically blew out around the world, ranging from 1.7 to 3.4 times the original price. The UK’s Hinkley Point C plant, which was announced in 2007 at a cost of $18 billion, is now set to be completed 13 years late at a cost of $90 billion.
“The cost of electricity generated from nuclear plants would likely be 1.5 to 3.8 times the current cost of electricity generation in Eastern Australia,” Bowyer said.