A few days ago I was rather cynical when I read that Dutton would release his nuclear plan within days. Ok, when I’m wrong I’ll be the first to admit it… Well, maybe not the first but I’ll certainly admit it when I have no other choice and it’s clear that nobody will believe me if I attempt to argue that I never said something when there’s a record of me saying the very thing that I’m denying… I guess that’s why I’d have never made it as a politician!
Anyway, Peter Dutton has released his nuclear plan. Ok, not all of it because he wanted to release it in “bite-size chunks” so that we could have time to consider each thing before moving on to the next thing. For example, he’s announced the seven sites where the reactors will go and he’s explained the reason that they’ll go there is because there’s already poles and wires and they’ll be able to shut down the coal-fired power station that’s already there and just plug in the nuclear reactor. Not straight away, of course. First they’ll have to acquire the site from the owners who shouldn’t ask too much given that they’re no longer needing it. I’m sure that they won’t hold out when they know that – as they’ve already announced that it’s going there – the Coalition will have no alternative but to pay whatever the asking price is or else end up looking silly. Then they’ll have to build the nuclear plant, but how long can that take? That’s right, not as long as you think. Not even as long as other countries around the world because we’re in a hurry to get it up and running to save all those pensioners who have to choose between heating and eating.
As for the other considerations such as cost, well, that’s going to be released before the next election. This is not because they don’t know what the cost will be. Apparently they know but they don’t want to overwhelm us with too much information. So the cost is one of those things that would be too hard for us to contemplate.
Then we have the question of who will build it. This is not something that we need to worry about until after the election for the simple reason that until we know the cost, we can’t know who’ll build it. It’s like any building project: First you work out how much the house will cost, then you engage a builder and tell him the price… Oh wait, that’s not how that works, is it? Anyway, it’s how this works, so move on.
A few people were asking where we’ll get the processed uranium to put into the reactors. While we have uranium in Australia, we just export it to other countries and they do the refining. Will we do what Rex Connor wanted to do all those years ago and build our own plants or will we just say if we sell it to you, can we buy some back at mate’s rates?
While some people are suggesting that there could be delays because of state government bans and objections from the local communities, David Littleproud made it perfectly clear that this is something that will be worked out during the consultation process. The Coalition will consult with the local communities and tell them that it really doesn’t matter what they think because their legal advice is that they can ignore the state governments so why would they listen to a few disgruntled people who seem to think that they have a right to object to a democratically elected government…
The question of waste was answered by Ted O’Brien when he told us that it would be held onsite until they find out where the waste from those AUKUS subs is going and all the waste can be united into one safe spot. The suggestion that the prayer room at Parliament House might be a good choice was not taken seriously for some reason.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. How can they just decide that old power stations are the appropriate place without a lot of expert analysis into their suitability? Well, the answer to that is simple: It doesn’t really matter because they’ll never got the ban overturned unless there’s a really massive change in the Senate and so paying the owners of coal fired power stations for their land is something that keeps everyone happy because the owners can use the money and the subsidies to keep the coal burning and we won’t have to worry about little things like uranium processing or finding some company with a shack on Kangaroo Island to be the ones to organise the build or waste or being blamed when the whole thing runs into more delays than Snowy 2.0?
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