PM must go nuclear before Glasgow trip

SCOTT Morrison must make an aggressive bipartisan commitment to nuclear power in Australia the core of – and indeed, the absolute pre-condition to any commitment to ‘net zero’ by 2050.

If he goes to Glasgow, promising ‘net zero’, it must be conditional on either having obtained or obtaining such a bi-partisan agreement from Labor, and indeed the coalition parties themselves, to a rapid rolling out of nuclear power stations in Australia.

It is time for everybody to put their proverbial money – and far more importantly, a future of reliable, plentiful and (relatively) cheap energy for Australian businesses and Australian consumers – where their mouths are.

You want Australia to commit to net zero carbon dioxide emissions? Well, show that you really mean it; that you are not just engaging in nauseating virtue-signalling, by committing to the only way you can get there in reality: nuclear power.

The PM should be, he must be, throwing it right back at Labor leader Anthony Albanese: that any commitment to net zero without a feasible, deliverable plan to generate the baseload power which now overwhelmingly comes from coal-fired power stations, is not just fantasy but a really quite disgusting betrayal of Australia and especially future Australians.

Let me be very clear. A commitment to ‘net zero’ is not only utterly stupid; it’s pointless, it’s unachievable, it’s an expression of collective insanity, it is a national suicide note.

The first best option for Australia’s energy future is a portfolio of new state-of-theart coal-fired power stations, with some gas stations for peak periods, and with some wind and solar where they actually do ‘work’.

That is to say, pretty much what China – the world’s biggest emitter, pumping out just on 30 per cent of the entire global emissions - is doing and doing big-time.

The second best option is to build our base-load on a mix of coal and nuclear.

But what is not an option, this side of rampant unrestrained national insanity, is to do without coal and nuclear and indeed gas, which is precisely what ‘net zero’ demands. Without getting bogged down in the core argument over ‘climate change’ – or ‘climate crisis/ emergency’ – the momentum towards “net zero”, at least outside China and India, is arguably unstoppable right now.

We now almost certainly have to wait for the world to ‘wake up’ from this mesmerising insanity – or, just the reality of what will continue to be happening in China, and India, all the way to 2050 and beyond.

So, if we are going to have to accept it – and the closure of the existing coal-fired stations and no like-for-like replacement by either coal or gas – the line that has to be drawn in the sand, is nuclear. But it has to be dinkum – Chinese-style nuclear. Not a typical wishywashy – Australian-style maybe we’ll build one station some time in the next 100 years. Like when the subs arrive. That starts with a bipartisan commitment to repeal the legislative ban on nuclear, put in place by the Howard Coalition Government in 1998, in one of its grubby real-politik (and reality-stupid) trade-offs.

It follows with the same bi-partisan commitment to sweep away all the green, red and black tape which turns a, say, 6-10 years approvaland-build timeframe, into 20-25 years one if you are lucky and have sufficient patience and dollars to waste. It’s claimed that nuclear is too expensive; but that’s only because of the exorbitant and totally unnecessary costs that are imposed on it, beyond good and appropriate environmental protections.

The PM managed to step over one big line in the sand – and an even bigger community ‘feelings’ blockage – by dumping the useless 20th century subs and embracing 21st century nuclear ones.

He must now do the same with energy.