The Federal Election has been called, and people are now banging on my door demanding I provide them with some deep analysis on the ‘nuclear debate’. They want to know what I think about Peter Dutton’s grand plan to build nuclear power stations across Australia.
Here’s what I think: I’m not wasting your time or mine.
Not because I’ve got nothing to say. I’ve worked in a nuclear power station in the UK1. I have a good idea of what’s involved in planning, designing, building, regulating, commissioning, running, fueling and decommissioning the things.
It’s not that nuclear is scary or evil or unsafe. I LOVE nuclear engineering. It’s just not gonna happen here. Not in the next fifty years. Likely not ever.
We don’t have the engineers. We don’t have the institutions. We can’t even build a giant water battery in the mountains without losing six years and ten billion bucks. Snowy 2.0 is what happens when you try to dig before thinking. But sure – let’s pretend we’re just a few policy tweaks away from joining France and South Korea.