Australia’s main opposition party yesterday announced plans to build the nation’s first nuclear power plants as early as 2035, saying that the government’s policies for decarbonizing the economy with renewable energy sources including solar, wind turbines and green hydrogen would not work.
The policy announcement ensures that the major parties would be divided on how Australia curbs its greenhouse gas emissions at elections due within a year.
The parties have not gone to an election with the same carbon reduction policies since 2007.
Photo: AP
“I’m very happy for the election to be a referendum on energy, on nuclear, on power prices, on lights going out, on who has a sustainable pathway for our country going forward,” opposition leader Peter Dutton told reporters.
Seven government-owned reactors would be built on the sites of aging coal-fired electricity plants in five of Australia’s six states, Dutton said.
The first two would be built from 2035 to 2037 and the last in the 2040s, he said.
The estimated costs would be announced at a later date, he added.
The government has rejected nuclear power generation in Australia as too expensive.
Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen accused the opposition Liberal Party of serving Australia’s influential coal and gas industry lobbies.
“It’s not really an announcement. We know that Mr Dutton wants to slow down the rollout of renewables and he wants to introduce the most expensive form of energy that’s slow to build, but today, we’ve seen no costs, we’ve seen no gigawatts, we’ve seen no detail,” Bowen told reporters. “This is a joke. It’s a serious joke, because it threatens our transition” from fossil fuels.”
Bowen’s Labor Party came to power in 2022 elections, promising deeper cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 than the previous coalition government had committed to.
The previous Liberal Party-led government promised to reduce emissions by between 26 percent and 28 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
Labor promised a 43 percent reduction and parliament enshrined that target in law, creating difficulties for any future government that wanted to reduce it and offering certainty for investors.
Dutton has ruled out a new 2030 target before the next election, but the major parties have agreed on a net zero emissions target by 2050.
Dutton said that Labor could not reach its 2030 target with a policy toward relying solely on renewable energy.
A Liberal Party-led government would use nuclear power, renewable energy sources and “significant amounts of gas,” Dutton said.
“I want to make sure that the Australian public understands today that we have a vision for our country to deliver cleaner electricity, cheaper electricity and consistent electricity,” he said.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS