It’s time to lift the ban on nuclear energy - MacroBusiness

MacroBusiness has published a call to lift Australia's ban on nuclear energy generation, framing the prohibition as an obstacle to the country's energy security and cost-effective decarbonisation.

Where this fits

The piece sits at the core of Energy Realism's case: Australia has locked itself into a renewables-only path while a firm, low-emission, long-lived alternative remains banned by law. That legal bar is not a scientific or safety constraint, but a policy choice. It forces the grid onto weather-dependent generation that requires either gas firming or vast battery storage (both expensive, both dependent on offshore supply chains), plus transmission overbuild to move solar and wind from resource-rich regions to load centres. The ban forecloses the option that would deliver firm baseload power with the lowest lifecycle emissions of any source and the smallest material footprint per unit of reliable output.

What it means

Australia is building a renewables-only system at high whole-system cost, locking in dependence on China for panels, batteries, inverters and processed minerals, while refusing the energy-dense alternative that would reduce that dependence and lower the real cost of firm decarbonisation. The energy transition is not cost-free, and the ban makes it more expensive. The conversation has long moved past whether nuclear is safe; the question now is why Australia continues to pay a premium in money, materials and strategic exposure to avoid it. Lifting the ban would not solve the grid problem overnight, but it would restore optionality and acknowledge the cost of the choice being made.