Providing the government’s response to the Coalition’s nuclear energy proposal costings, Energy Minister Chris Bowen has outlined his three main issues with the policy.

Firstly, Bowen says the costings assume Australians will use less electricity in 2050 than AEMO has predicted.

“This is a fatal error in their costings and it is a dangerous error because it is risky, it runs the risk of leaving Australians short of the energy they need,” Bowen told a Sydney press conference.

Secondly, the energy minister says the costings reject the CSIRO and AEMO’s calculations of the ongoing costs of nuclear.

“[The costings] have assumed an ongoing cost of $30 a megawatt hour when it comes to nuclear. AEMO and CSIRO say to recoup the capital cost of nuclear, that would need a price of $145 to $238 a megawatt hour. That’s a big difference.”

Thirdly, Bowen claims the costings are based on less transmission than Australia currently relied on,

“On page 45 of their modelling, they assume savings because of fewer transmission lines. They haven’t outlined what transmission lines they will cancel,” Bowen said.

“If they are to be taken seriously they need to outline exactly what transmission lines they will cancel.”

Bowen said that whether power comes from renewables or nuclear, “you have to get it to homes and businesses”.

“That takes transmission and the transmission lines are full and need to be duplicated,” Bowen said.