Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his climate change and energy spokesman,Ted O’Brien,are calling for the government to halt the rollout of new energy transmission linesamid a farmer backlash over land access. The Coalition has mounted a campaign for nuclear power to be added to the nation’s energy mix.
Nuclear advocates have criticised previous CSIRO reports for not incorporating the costs of tens of billions of dollars of transmission lines needed to link the growing fleet of wind and solar farms across the country into population centres.
However,CSIRO has now included more than $30 billion of new transmission lines and projects to provide back up power when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining – such as the$12 billion Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro dam.
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Its findings still showed that renewables were cheaper than nuclear,coal and other fossil fuels.
The report said that small modular reactors (SMR),a nascent technology not yet in commercial use but favoured by the opposition,would be far more expensive than coal and gas plants as well as renewables.