Ziggy wrong on cost: scientist

Australian
Tuesday 16/1/2007 Page: 4
Matthew Warren Environment writer

A SCIENTIST who worked on Australia's last attempt at building a nuclear power reactor reckons the cost of the energy would be greater than that estimated by the Switkowski report.

Nuclear scientist John Blakemore, now president of the Manufacturing Society of Australia, said yesterday that nuclear power would be twice as expensive as conventional coal-fired electricity in Australia.

The final report by former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski to the federal Government on the feasibility of nuclear energy, released in December, estimated it would be 20 to 50 per cent more expensive than coal, but would require a significant price on carbon and some government assistance to be a competitive alternative.

Dr Blakemore said the price gap was much greater because of the abundant and low-cost reserves of fossil fuels in Australia.

Construction of a power reactor at Jervis Bay in NSW was halted in 1971 when the federal government realised the cost of the project, and therefore the electricity it produced, would be prohibitively expensive.

"Nothing has changed," Dr Blakemore told The Australian. "We were going to build that station but then the cost was so enormous we couldn't justify it on the basis of economics." Dr Blakemore, who worked as a junior technical expert on the Jervis Bay project, said renewable and clean-coal technologies were likely to be a far more cost-effective solution for Australia than nuclear power.

Last year, Australia's energy generators said current nuclear technology was between 50 and 100 per cent more expensive than conventional coal and would become viable only with a massive spike in coal and gas prices or a significant government-imposed impost on carbon emissions.

This month, the Energy Supply Association of Australia is expected to release its latest estimates of future energy supply costs, including evolving low emissions technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which are likely to challenge some of the findings of the report commissioned by the federal Government.

The final Switkowski report said nuclear energy would compete with low-emission technologies such as solar and wind power as well as clean coal and geothermal technologies, but argued that nuclear had an advantage because it was certain and proven technology.

The Gorton government started site preparation works on the Murray's Beach reactor in the late 1960s, believing nuclear power could be competitive with other energy sources by the 1980s. But by June 1971 work on the site, now the carpark for Murray's Beach, was halted and the project was eventually shelved after blowouts on the cost of construction.