There was no shortage of cunning showmanship when the Coalition stumped up to release its long-awaited $331 billion nuclear power plan.

Having failed to follow through on previous pledges to detail the cost of establishing seven government-owned nuclear power plants, the Coalition waited for a Friday less than two weeks from Christmas to deliver the news.

Granted, what's the rush? It's not like the first of them will be producing energy for another 12 years — if not years longer, according to the CSIRO.

But the decision to seek to bury the news at the end of a week so late in the year offers an insight into the confidence the party has in the signature policy it will take to the next federal election.

Tactically releasing some of the details in advance, the party briefed select details of its plans in the hope it would deliver the headlines it wanted on Friday morning. And deliver they did.

Headlines screamed that the Coalition's policy would be $263 billion cheaper than Labor's.

It was then only during the press conference, when the party sent out the analysis it commissioned that it suddenly became clear why it had waited so long to announce the details.

In a world of comparing apples and oranges, the $263 billion figure looks to have come from comparing apples and elephants.

Cooking the books to make a political point

The CSIRO and energy market operator AEMO have found that nuclear energy is twice as expensive as renewables.

So how does the Coalition end up disingenuously saying its plan would be 44 per cent cheaper?

You opt for an accounting measure that means you spread the costs over the 50-year life span of the nuclear plans. In doing so, you can punt the bulk of the costs beyond the 25-year costing window.

It's hardly a new trick. Governments from all persuasions have long used off-book accounting to hide the true costs of major projects.

Another key assumption in the Coalition's plan is it forecasts Australia would only need half of the energy needs the Labor plan aims for.

That assumes a future where electric vehicles aren't adopted at the rates forecasted. It also likely ignores the insatiable demand artificial intelligence has for energy.

A study in the scientific journal Joule last year found that if every Google search used generative AI (instead of traditional search technology), it would use as much energy as Ireland uses over a whole year.

The Coalition plan would also see higher emissions for longer, with coal-fired plants required to stay online longer to fill the gap until nuclear becomes available.

But details schmetails.

The multi-billion-dollar question

The Coalition's crowing about how much cheaper its plan is intertwined with its reminder that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has failed to deliver his pledge to cut electricity bills by $275.

Dutton isn't looking for a debate on the economics of nuclear energy.

He wants a debate on electricity prices.

He's also betting that voters will pay little attention beyond hearing the words "Coalition", "nuclear" and "cheaper".

The opposition leader is hoping voters will conflate what he's saying about developing publicly-owned nuclear energy with the bills they pay to heat and cool their homes.

He knows all too well how hard people are doing it. But even if he's elected, his plan will do little to make those bills any cheaper within five terms of government.

The reality is, the Coalition didn't ask Frontier Economics to model what the nuclear plan would mean for electricity prices.

"It is not pricing analysis," Shadow Energy Minister Ted O'Brien conceded at the press conference. The report also makes that clear.

It's a cunning decision and leaves the Coalition, if elected, unable to be held accountable for putting a price on the savings — a lesson Albanese has learned the hard way.

Its approach has been savvy communications.

But in seeking to conflate and confuse on its centrepiece policy, the Coalition is doing little more than treating voters like mugs, assuming they'll be more interested in style over substance.