Keep coal firing and start up nuclear to power data centres - AFR

A proposal to keep existing coal plants running while building new nuclear capacity to power data centre growth has surfaced in Australian energy debate. The framing positions coal and nuclear as complementary firm-power sources needed to meet rising demand from artificial intelligence and hyperscale computing, rather than treating coal as something to be retired on schedule.

Where this fits

This exposes the hard constraint Energy Realism names: a renewables-only grid cannot reliably supply the baseload electricity that data centres demand. Renewables are weather-dependent and intermittent. Without firm dispatchable power, Australia either keeps coal open longer than planned, or must build so much extra solar and wind capacity, plus batteries, transmission, and gas for firming, that the total-system cost balloons past any renewable-only case. The proposal names nuclear as the superior alternative, which it is on emissions, land use, materials intensity and operating life. But it also names coal staying open, which is the cost of not having chosen nuclear years ago. This is a sovereignty and reliability story: Australia needs firm power. The question is which kind, and at what price.

What it means

Australia faces a choice it should have faced a decade ago. Data centre demand is real and growing. Renewables alone cannot supply it reliably or affordably. Coal retirements are already slipping; keeping plants online burns money and emissions. Nuclear would deliver firm, low-carbon, low-material baseload. The honest constraint is that law bans it, while renewables and gas remain the only legal path. The result: either coal stays, or Australia builds an over-sized renewable fleet with Chinese-supplied panels and batteries, firmed by gas, at higher whole-system cost than a firm alternative would have cost.