The Coalition says it wants cheaper power, not ideology. But its evidence-free plan is all ideology | Adam Morton - The Guardian

The Coalition has released a policy position supporting nuclear energy as part of its energy platform, framed around the goal of cheaper power. Adam Morton's Guardian column argues the policy lacks detailed costing or technical evidence to support the claim that nuclear would deliver lower electricity prices than the renewables-plus-gas pathway currently being built.

Where this fits

This is the firm-power debate stripped to its essentials. The Coalition is correct that a reliable, affordable grid needs firm dispatchable power. Nuclear delivers that. But the article highlights the real weakness in the nuclear case as it stands in Australian politics: no one has published a detailed, independent cost-benefit analysis showing nuclear would be cheaper than a renewables-gas system scaled to Australian conditions, including land, transmission, interconnection, and the cost of gas firming itself. Until that work exists, both sides are arguing ideology. Energy Realism's position is not that nuclear is cheaper, that is an open question requiring honest modelling, but that a renewables-only path has systematically under-counted whole-system costs, and that the firm-power alternative (nuclear) is banned by law, making the comparison impossible.

What it means

Australia cannot choose between energy systems on evidence if one is forbidden. The renewable buildout proceeding now will require decades of gas backup and a transmission network scaled to manage weather-dependent supply. Whether nuclear could deliver firmer, cheaper power at lower material and supply-chain risk remains unknown because the question is not being studied seriously. That is not ideology: it is foreclosure.