Thread: Keeping tabs on Australia"s newly elected Government

Coalition to impose ‘cap’ on renewable energy investment, Nationals leader says

David Littleproud has claimed Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms” like the planned offshore zone south of Sydney, adding the Coalition will “cap” federal government investment into renewable energy if elected.

The Nationals leader visited Wollongong on Monday, where he promised the opposition would instead offer a “calm” and “methodical” energy pathway to net zero by 2050.

Littleproud offered no details of the Coalition energy plan, only conceding “it will take a little longer to get there”.

The Albanese government on Saturday gave the green light to a 1,022 sq km area, 20-km off the Illawarra coast, in the next stage to become the country’s fourth dedicated windfarm zone.

While the development over the weekend was welcomed by a number of groups, some in the community have continued to oppose offshore windfarms due to potential environmental, economic and social impacts.

The Coalition is yet to detail its full energy plan, which will include a mix of nuclear, coal, gas and renewables. Littleproud said a Coalition government would result in “no windfarm” for the Illawarra.

“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them,” he said.

“The Coalition isn’t against renewables, but renewables should be in an environment they can’t destroy. Why don’t we give priority to where they can make a difference and give energy independence to businesses and households, which is on rooftops where the concentration of power and population is?”

Asked why the Nationals supported an offshore windfarm in Victoria’s Gippsland, but not in the Illawarra, Littleproud said: “They are fixed in Gippsland, this is floating.”

He said, unlike the Illawarra zone, few people lived near the Gippsland site, “and the transmission lines that are required aren’t as necessary”.

Earlier on Monday , Littleproud told ABC radio the Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore”.

“From what you’ll see in our energy mix, we won’t need large-scale industrial renewable projects. So that’s in essence where we’ll get to and be very clear and upfront and we are committed to that pathway. But it won’t be a linear pathway that you’re experiencing at the moment,” he said.

“It’d be one that’ll invest in the technology that’s zero emissions and it will take a little longer to get there.”

Guardian Australia has contacted the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien, and the member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, for comment.

The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, defended the Illawarra’s windfarm announcement on Monday, saying three other areas around the country had also been marked as wind energy hubs.

“It’s very energy-rich, it’s very windy off our coast, and it’s windy constantly,” he said.

“Unlike onshore wind, which is windy some of the time and not some of the time, offshore wind is pretty much always windy. During the night, during the day, all the time.”

The Clean Energy Council’s chief executive, Kane Thornton, said his group were certain Illawarra residents would prefer “wind turbines that are 20 kilometres offshore, as opposed to a nuclear reactor on their doorstep”.

“It is disappointing that the Coalition has chosen to oppose sensible policy developments such as offshore wind and instead focus on stoking division in regional communities,” he said.

“This will undermine investor confidence in infrastructure projects right across Australia.”

In a statement to Guardian Australia, Littleproud clarified the Nationals are not against renewables but preferred “common sense and sensible options”, such as solar on rooftops.

“While the Gippsland project is smaller in size, the offshore wind farm in the Illawarra will still be 1,022 square kilometres and just 20 kilometres from the coast.”

Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, has said the Coalition is looking at six or seven nuclear power sites around the country but their locations will only be revealed “at a time of our choosing”.

Dutton has also backed away from Labor’s legislated 43% emissions reduction target by 2030 as part of Australia’s commitments to the 2050 net zero agreement, warning it would “harm Australian families and businesses in the interim”.

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Peter Dutton’s plans will breach the Paris agreement on climate – that much is clear

The Coalition’s rejection of a 43% cut in emissions by 2030 will have major ramifications for us and the world

Peter Dutton plans to breach the text and spirit of the landmark Paris climate agreement, backed in 2015 by a Coalition government along with the leaders of more than 190 other countries.

This should be clear to anyone who clicks on this link and reads the deal reached in the French capital.

Dutton did not say in an interview with News Corp published on Saturday that he would formally pull out of the agreement if the Coalition won the next election. But he did confirm a position that would put Australia at odds with what it sets out to do.

Since this was pointed out by people with decades of experience at highly technical climate negotiations, the Coalition has responded with a mix of half-truths and falsehoods.

Both Dutton and Ted O’Brien, the opposition climate change and energy spokesperson, say a Coalition government would be committed to the agreement but reject the national 2030 emissions target – that is, a minimum 43% cut below what emissions were in 2005.

A bit on the target: Labor took it to the 2022 election after asking the consultants RepuTex to calculate what its policies would deliver. It was legislated with the support of the Greens and independent MPs after they made an evidence-based argument that Australia should be doing more. It was also submitted to the UN as a pledge.

Here’s what the Paris agreement says about these pledges, known in UN lingo as “nationally determined contributions”: that countries will build on them over time. Article 4.3 of the agreement says each commitment a country makes will be a progression – an improvement – and “reflect its highest possible ambition”. Article 4.11 says a country can adjust its commitment “with a view to enhancing its level of ambition”.

It means countries can increase commitments at any time they like, but there should not be backsliding.

The climate crisis is already fuelling heatwaves, extreme weather and potentially extraordinary and catastrophic changes in natural systems. In Paris governments accepted the scientific and economic evidence that the threat and cost of climate change to lives, livelihoods and the natural world was escalating. They agreed they needed to ramp up action, not put it off.

Dutton and O’Brien seem to ignore this part of the Paris agreement, and instead argue the Coalition is committed to the deal because it would stick to a target of net zero emissions by 2050.

This is misleading. In addition to including net zero – expressed as aiming for a global balance in the second half of the century between the greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere and the CO2 we draw out of it – the agreement emphasises the need to act rapidly, with new national pledges every five years. It says countries will aim to hold the increase in average temperatures since preindustrial levels to well below 2C and try to limit it to 1.5C – a level that we have already nearly reached.

Promising to do less now, having few if any policies to reduce emissions before 2040 and planning for Australia to in the meantime pump hundreds of millions of additional tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere would be the opposite of being committed to this goal.

The Coalition should be clear with the public about what it is proposing, and news media should be clear with audiences about the potential ramifications.

Australia will face no direct penalties under the UN process if it goes down Dutton’s path – or, for that matter, if Labor stays in power but misses its target. National pledges under the Paris agreement are not binding in this way.

But John Connor, who helped Fiji run the UN climate negotiations between 2017 and 2019 and now leads the Australian Carbon Market Institute, says the Coalition’s plan to weaken a commitment under the Paris deal would be historic. No other country has done it.

Experts say the ramifications could include Australia being diplomatically isolated – a return to the days of the Morrison government, when it was grouped with laggards such as Russia and Saudi Arabia on climate. It would, by design, hurt the country’s ability to attract the hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment needed to replace fossil fuels and build new, clean industries.

New wind farm in North Queensland to power 240,000 homes

The Albanese Government has approved another new wind farm in Queensland which will generate enough energy to power 240,000 Queensland homes.

The 400 megawatt Gawara Baya Wind Farm is located 65km southwest of Ingham, Queensland and includes the installation of 69 wind turbines.

This is another big step in the Government’s plan to make Australia a renewable energy superpower.

The project is expected to increase wind generation in the National Electricity Market by 5.2 per cent, and overall renewable generation by 1.8 per cent.

Australians saw how a decade of political fights stopped action on climate change.

Under the Liberals and Nationals, 24 coal fired power plants with a total capacity of 26.7 GW announced their closure dates, but the previous government failed to deliver any policy to ensure replacement energy capacity.

At the last election, Australians voted for progress on renewables. That’s exactly what Labor is delivering.

The project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, which is equivalent to taking around 375,000 cars off the road each year.

We know projects like this are vital to boosting renewables capacity and putting downward pressure on prices, but they are also great for local jobs and economies. This project will support up to 300 direct jobs in construction and up to 20 operational ongoing jobs.

The approval of the wind farm is subject to strict conditions to protect the Sharman’s Rock-Wallaby and northern Greater Glider, and follows a rigorous assessment process.

The conditions include clearance limits, hours of operation during construction, and submission of environmental management plans which will set out how any impacts will be managed, mitigated, avoided or offset.

Quotes attributable to Minister for the Environment and Water, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP:

“The Coalition has spent a decade trying to kill off renewables and our transition to net zero. Australians voted for an end to that and we are delivering. Labor is transforming Australia into a renewable energy superpower while Peter Dutton wants to send us back decades.

“I’ve ticked off a record 54 renewable energy projects - more than the Abbott and Turnbull Governments combined and enough to power more than three million Australian homes.

“While Peter Dutton and the Coalition are watering down our climate targets, Labor is getting on with the job of the renewable energy transition.

“Not only are we delivering cheaper cleaner power sooner, but we are on track to reaching our 2030 emissions target. It’s achievable, and we’re doing it.”

https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibe...r-240000-homes

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Dutton’s surprise climate policy proves he ‘can’t be taken seriously’, Albanese says

Anthony Albanese says Peter Dutton has forfeited his claim to the prime ministership because refusing to name a short-term emissions reduction target shows he is not serious about addressing climate change.

Some Liberal MPs were taken by surprise when Dutton confirmed the opposition would not name a 2030 climate target until after the next election. Moderate Liberals have sought to downplay the significance of the announcement, stressing the party remains committed to net zero by 2050 amid concerns it may hurt the Coalition in seats held by, or under threat from, climate-focused “teal” independents.

In a podcast interview with Guardian Australia, Albanese said Dutton’s refusal to commit the Coalition to any 2030 emissions reduction target before the next election proved he was not serious about governing.

“It is just not a serious policy and if you don’t have a serious policy on energy and climate then you can’t be taken seriously as the alternative prime minister of Australia,” Albanese said.

“The point of having a target was to have ambition and try to meet it.”

He claimed Dutton “leads a divided party and he’s a divisive leader”.

The latest Coalition discussion on energy and climate goals has again exposed a schism between rural or regional Nationals and Liberals, and more moderate city-dwelling Liberal colleagues. Bridget Archer, often outspoken against her party’s own decisions, called the scrapping of targets a “regressive” step that should be put to voters before the election.

The shadow assistant minister for housing, Andrew Bragg, told Sky News it was not “a particularly new policy”, saying the Coalition had foreshadowed the plan for some time, and stressed a commitment to the Paris agreement. Menzies MP Keith Wolahan told the ABC the opposition was seeking to be “transparent” with the public about the difficulty of the energy transition.

The Paris agreement, aimed at limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C, requires its almost 200 signatory nations to set targets and strive to meet them. While falling short of the targets does not automatically force a country out, backsliding by lowering the target is not permitted.

It’s understood the weekend newspaper headlines confirming Dutton would scrap Labor’s 2030 target took some by surprise, and that the issue hadn’t been discussed in the wider Liberal party room – although Dutton said on Wednesday the stance had gone through shadow cabinet.

Shadow ministers Ted O’Brien and David Coleman appeared on weekend TV to say Australia remained committed to Paris, but Dutton did not appear publicly until Tuesday, when he said his party would not confirm a 2030 target unless it won government.

Other Coalition members noted the Coalition opposition in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland had backed or not opposed the 2030 targets set by the Labor governments in those states.

Several Liberal members said they could understand Dutton’s reticence to name a 2030 target, noting the potential for the Coalition to be exposed to the same kind of scepticism they are currently mounting against Labor, but said it created a “difficult” situation – especially in urban seats.

The situation is a “gift” to teal MPs and potential challengers, several Liberals admitted, while others maintained the next election would hinge on cost of living and energy prices rather than global climate targets.

Climate 200, the fundraising vehicle that supported numerous independent challenges in 2022, is running a donation drive on the back of the Liberal policy, emailing supporters to seek funds to “stop Dutton derailing global climate progress.”

“Every seat we can add to the pro-climate crossbench is another line of defence for the Paris agreement,” Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay wrote.

Independent MPs including Allegra Spender, Zoe Daniel, Monique Ryan and Sophie Scamps have all publicly slammed Dutton’s announcement; Spender will hold a public event next week in her electorate to discuss “Dutton’s climate disaster”.

Speaking to Guardian Australia, Albanese dismissed Dutton’s plan to introduce nuclear power as scaremongering.

“It’s not really an attempt at an alternative policy,” he said. “It’s just an attempt to create fear.”

But the prime minister acknowledged sections of the community were also anxious about the transition to renewable energy. The government’s target of a 43% cut on 2005-level emissions by 2030 involves drawing 82% of energy from renewables by the same deadline.

“We certainly need to make sure that the community comes with us on the journey on climate change.”

Albanese suggested that in shunning interim targets while claiming to still be committed to the Paris climate agreement — which requires interim targets — Dutton was only trying to unify the Coalition, not solve the climate crisis.

“This requires a whole of government approach but a whole of society approach as well, which is why the business community had been so strong in saying they want that investment certainty,” he said. “And Peter Dutton’s plan is to rip all of that up, start again, go back to the climate wars that were really a civil war within the Liberal and National parties.”

Chris Bowen labels Coalition’s nuclear plan a ‘risky scam’ as premiers affirm state bans

Chris Bowen has labelled the Coalition’s nuclear plan a “risky scam”, citing the fact owners of six of the seven proposed sites for power plants won’t sell and five are located in states with their own bans on nuclear power.

In a move that frustrated some on his backbench on Wednesday, Peter Dutton revealed the sites but without providing costings for the proposed government-owned nuclear power plants, nor an estimate of the amount of electricity to be added to the system and or justification for the ambitious 2035-37 timeframe for the first two plants.

Although the Coalition has said it proposes to build the plants – at Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Mount Piper and Liddell in New South Wales, Collie in Western Australia, Loy Yang in Victoria, and one near Port Augusta in South Australia – it has not committed to doing so.

The deputy Nationals leader, Perin Davey, revealed that if local communities were “absolutely adamant” they didn’t want them then the Coalition “will not proceed” and will not search for alternative sites.

The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, later refuted Davey’s comments, saying he and Dutton would be “prepared to make the tough decisions in the national interest”.

The independent MP Andrew Gee, whose electorate of Calare includes Mount Piper, said that “even supporters of nuclear power have questions about this announcement”, including cost and whether the current owners had been consulted.

So far Coalition MPs whose electorates will host the power plants, including Littleproud, and MPs Colin Boyce and Darren Chester, have backed the plan.

But other MPs felt the snap Coalition party room on Wednesday morning wasn’t a genuine consultation, with key details missing from the proposal. Those MPs have muted their criticism only because it is pointless to criticise a policy that will likely never come to fruition.

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HereÂ’s what we know about the CoalitionÂ’s seven planned nuclear power sites

The Coalition has announced their nuclear power policy, revealing the seven sites where power plants could be rolled out.

But details around how the sites would work remain murky, especially when it comes to dealing with the existing owners, accessible water, cost, waste and legality.

Guardian Australia understands that the Coalition has not consulted the communities or the site owners about their proposal.

The Coalition has also offered no further information to the MPs who represent the sites and who will have to face these questions in the coming election.

Here’s what we know so far about the sites – and the potential issues facing them.

Just one example from the link above.

New South Wales

Liddell

Where is it? North-west of Newcastle in the federal electorate of Hunter. Labor MP Dan Repacholi holds the seat with a slim margin.

Who owns it? AGL, which shuttered the power station in 2023.

Issues with the site: AGL does not wish to sell the site. Work has already started to turn the site into a $750m battery.

Mount Piper power station

Where is it: About 25km from the Central West town of Lithgow. It sits in the electorate of Calare, which is held by former Nationals turned independent MP Andrew Gee.

Who owns it: Energy Australia.

Issues with the site: Energy Australia intends on keeping the power plant operating until at least 2040, but has already put in place plans to start transitioning, with potential for the site to play a “reserve” role in the power grid. The company plans to use the site as a “firming” power source for renewables, as part of its own shift to renewables, mostly in wind.

Is the state government in favour? No. The Labor state premier, Chris Minns, has said his government would not overturn the state’s nuclear ban.

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‘No credible reason’ to expect cheaper power bills under Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan, experts say

Peter Dutton’s claim that nuclear energy would lead to cheaper power bills has been rejected by energy experts, with one saying there was “no credible reason” to think adding “the most expensive form of bulk electricity” would cut prices.

Senate opposition firms against Coalition’s nuclear power plan as David Pocock blasts ‘reckless’ proposal

Senate opposition to the Coalition’s nuclear plan is firming, presenting a major hurdle to Peter Dutton’s proposal for seven nuclear power plants on top of state objections.

In addition to Labor and the Greens, independent senators Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock have voiced major criticisms of the policy, while Jacqui Lambie, who has previously expressed support for nuclear to be part of the mix, is investigating the Coalition’s proposal and is concerned nuclear plants are “incredibly expensive”.

Anthony Albanese has accused the Coalition of hampering power price reductions in the short term by pursuing a nuclear power “fantasy” and “disrupting certainty” of investment in renewable energy.

On Thursday the prime minister muscled up against Peter Dutton’s proposal to build seven nuclear power plants, arguing it had not survived one day of scrutiny and accusing the Coalition of pursuing the “destination of denial” instead of more practical steps to reduce emissions and prices.

“Now they’ve moved away from coal but they’ve found another destination of denial,” he said.

“There will be issues of more energy insecurity, because we know it is disrupting the certainty that the business community have been crying out for.

“That’s how you reduce prices – by increasing supply.”

Even if elected, Dutton would need the support of the Senate to overturn the federal ban.

Thorpe, whose term expires in 2028, said: “My people have known for thousands of years that uranium is poison and needs to stay in the ground. Nuclear doesn’t make sense economically, technologically or environmentally.”

“We should stick to what works: renewables.”

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Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan pushes back on Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's nuclear power plan

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has told federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton she will not be negotiating on a nuclear power plant in the state.

Her refusal came as welcome news for residents in Traralgon in the Gippsland region who staged a snap rally outside federal MP Darren Chester's office vowing to fight the plan.

"We just don't need it, there's enough renewable energy," one resident said.

Their representative in state parliament is undecided and says he wants to educate himself.

"It's a hard one to actually say," Morwell MP Martin Cameron said when asked about his stance.

"It's nothing to be scared about, I don't think."

Labor is challenging the state coalition to stop the plan.

"Nuclear energy, it's toxic, it's risky," Allan said.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto said he will wait to see where the conversation goes.

"We have no plans for it, but we acknowledge the a future government may initiate that discussion, I don't think we should be foreclosing that discussion," Pesutto said.

Labour Minister Danny Pearson said Pesutto "has 24 hours to show some spine".

The biggest hurdle to Dutton's plan in the state is a ban on nuclear written into legislation.

It would either have to be repealed by a like-minded state government or it would need to be challenged through the courts.

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Nuclear engineer dismisses Peter Dutton’s claim that small modular reactors could be commercially viable soon

Australia would need “many decades” to develop the regulations and skills to operate a nuclear power plant, and the experience gained at the existing Lucas Heights facility won’t help much, according to New South Wales’ chief scientist and engineer.

Hugh Durrant-Whyte said he stood by comments made to a 2019 NSW upper house inquiry into uranium mining and nuclear facilities that running a plant and its fuel supply chain would require skills “built up over many decades”.

Stressing he spoke in the capacity of a trained nuclear engineer rather than as the state’s chief scientist, Durrant-Whyte said the industry demanded regulations and monitoring for all stages of fuel handling, power generation and waste management.

He told Guardian Australia that 2040 or even 2045 was the “realistic” timeframe.

“We would need people who were trained [on] how to measure radioactivity, how to measure containment vessel strengths, how to [manage] everything we do.”

Snip

“It’s not like we haven’t had this [nuclear] conversation many times over the last 20 years in Australia,” Durrant-Whyte said. “[I]t would be expensive, and likely more expensive than anything else you could possibly think of.”

Over my dead body.

Mr Dutton said Australians would be “pleasantly surprised” when the costings are eventually revealed.

“It’s a lot of money, there’s no question about that, but this is an investment,” he told Nine’s Today program.

But a survey from the Australia Institute showed 65 per cent of Australians were not prepared to pay any more to have nuclear power in the nation’s energy mix, regardless of their voting intentions.

“The numbers are clear: residents across the country, regardless of who they vote for, don’t support a nuclear future that requires them to pay more for electricity than they already do,” the institute’s executive director Richard Denniss said.

First Nations elders also harbour concerns about the reactors and have vowed to fight the opposition’s plans.

One of the sites earmarked for a nuclear plant, Tarong in Queensland, is located on Indigenous elder Aunty Jannine Smith’s country.

“Over my dead body. I will be in a tent outside Tarong gates,” she told AAP.

“It’s a death sentence to that land.”

Ms Smith said building a nuclear plant on that land would be “severing the connection to that sacred site of ours”.

“We are the custodians of the land, the land is our mother and we don’t own our mother, we care for her,” she said.

Queensland Conservation Council’s Paul Spearim said “white Australia has a short-sighted approach to country”.

He pointed to Maralinga and Emu Field in South Australia where the British held nuclear tests that exposed more than 1000 Indigenous people to radiation.

“We have learnt that white Australia cannot be trusted with nuclear power, and you continue to act without care for our sacred country,” Mr Spearim said.

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The First Nations Fight Against Nuclear

The Decades-Long First Nations Fight Against Nuclear

In arguably the least-anticipated drop of 2024, the Coalition has revealed its plan to turn Australia nuclear. For Peter “I need details about the Voice” Dutton, the proposal to build seven nuclear power plants by 2050 is overwhelmingly devoid of detail.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already derided the plan as a “fantasy”, citing a lack of a cost plan, community consultation, details on types of reactors or the proportion of nuclear energy in the system.

But beyond the details there’s a missing piece in the ongoing critique of Dutton’s nuclear plan: that First Nations people have been fighting nuclear for decades.

From nuclear weapons testing to uranium mining and nuclear waste dumps; any discussion involving nuclear in Australia requires reflection on the disproportionate impact any nuclear initiative would have on First Nations people and Country.

Much more in the link above

Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan could cost as much as $600bn and supply just 3.7% of Australia’s energy by 2050, experts say

The Coalition’s pledge to build seven nuclear reactors as part of its controversial energy plan could cost taxpayers as much as $600bn while supplying just 3.7% of Australia’s energy mix by 2050, according to the Smart Energy Council.

The analysis found the plan would cost a minimum of $116bn – the same cost as delivering the Albanese government’s plan for 82% renewables by 2030, and an almost 100% renewable energy mix by 2050.

The Coalition has drawn widespread criticism for not releasing the costings of the nuclear power proposal it unveiled on Wednesday as part of its plan for Australia’s energy future if elected. On Friday, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the costings would come “very soon”, but did not confirm whether it would be days, weeks or months.

The Smart Energy Council came to the $116bn figure using data from the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator’s latest GenCost report. It factored in the Coalition’s proposed timeframe and the capital costs of replacing the 11 gigawatts of coal capacity produced on the seven sites with nuclear reactors.

But factoring in the experience of cost and timeframe blowouts in the UK, the refurbishment of coal-fired power stations, and Dutton’s plan to compensate the states, the Smart Energy Council found the cost could reach as much as $600bn.

The council found the large nuclear reactors – of which there will be five alongside two smaller reactors – would likely cost $60bn each and were unlikely to be built by 2040. Dutton has said that they plan for the reactors to be built and operational by the second half of the 2030s.

“At best, Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal would deliver 3.7% of the energy required at the same cost as the government’s comprehensive strategy,” John Grimes, the chief executive of the Smart Energy Council, said.

“In reality, current cost overruns happening right now in the UK could mean a $600bn bill to Australian taxpayers, whilst delivering a small proportion of the energy that is actually required.

“The most optimistic assessment of Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal indicates it is a pale shadow of the reliable renewables plan outlined and costed by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo).”


The Smart Energy Council called on the opposition to immediately release its costings and the generation capacity of the proposed seven nuclear reactors.

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Peter Dutton vows to override state nuclear bans as he steps up attack on PM

Peter Dutton has vowed a Coalition government would override the states’ legislated ban on nuclear power, telling party officials on Saturday that state premiers “won’t stop us”.

The opposition leader made the comments in an address to the federal Liberal party council in Sydney, where he escalated his attacks on Anthony Albanese. He called the prime minister a “fraud” and a “child in a man’s body” that is “still captured in his university years”.

On Wednesday, the Coalition unveiled its controversial nuclear energy plan in the event it wins government, including seven proposed sites for nuclear reactors across five states. The nuclear pledge drew unanimous blowback from state premiers.

In question time this week, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said he wanted to “make it clear” that his government would not be repealing the ban on nuclear energy in the state. The premiers of Victoria and Queensland said the same.

In responding to the criticism, Dutton said he would work “respectfully and collaboratively” with state premiers, “but I don’t answer to them”.

“The decisions I make will be in our national interest to the benefit of the Australian people,” he said on Saturday.

“Commonwealth laws override state laws even to the level of the inconsistency. So support or opposition at a state level won’t stop us rolling out our new energy system,” he said to a round of applause erupting from the room.

Some state opposition leaders have also opposed the Coalition’s nuclear pledge, with Victoria’s opposition leader, John Pesutto, saying his party had “no plans for nuclear” and Queensland’s opposition leader, David Crisafulli, also saying it was not part of the party’s plan and would remain that way.

In his address, Dutton said Crisafulli had taken “a perfectly understandable position on nuclear power” and was “getting a hard time from the worst premier in Australia, Steven Miles”.

Dutton said Australians would decide their energy future, saying the “the next election will not only define the next political term, it will define the future and fate of this nation”.

During his speech, Dutton slammed Albanese as being out of “his depth”, later adding “visionary Labor leaders – like the late, great Bob Hawke – knew that zero emissions nuclear energy was a good thing”.

“But Labor’s current crop of leaders have been reduced to posting juvenile social media memes of three-eyed fish and koalas.

“Frankly, their behaviour is an affront to the intelligence of the voters whom they seek to represent,” he said.

He then diverged from his scripted remarks to say “our prime minister is a man with his mind still captured in his university years, he’s as a child in a man’s body”.

“[Albanese’s] more interested in appeasing the international climate lobby than sticking up for the interests of everyday Australians,” he said.

Dutton said people between the ages of 18 and 34 were “looking at a Liberal party for the first time [that] is offering environmental policy which is superior to that which the Labor and the Greens party will offer at the next election”.

“They’re comfortable with [nuclear energy] because they’re well read, because they understand modern technology and they have a passion for reducing emissions,” Dutton said.

Prof Anne Twomey, a constitutional law expert at the University of Sydney, said the commonwealth can override state laws, but there were a number of hurdles the government would face.

The first would be enacting legislation that overrides any inconsistent state laws and passing that through the Senate, while ensuring government decision-making processes around the laws were done fairly.

“If you get through both of those, then … so long as the commonwealth enacts laws that are valid, that are supported by the Constitution, then those laws will override state laws that are inconsistent.”

Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, said in a statement after Dutton’s remarks: “There is no plan that sits behind Peter Dutton and his Liberal National colleagues’ announcement to bring a nuclear power plant to Victoria – and no
detail about how much it would cost, how long it would take, where the waste would go, the impact on water supply and the water security for the Gippsland community.

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Coalition won’t reveal 2030 emissions target unless it wins election, Peter Dutton says | Australian politics

Confused Coalition stance on 2030 emissions target risks ‘chasing away’ investment, Albanese says

Prime minister says there will be ‘regrettable’ consequences for global relationships after Liberal leader won’t commit to 2030 target

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has accused Peter Dutton of being “afraid of the future” and risking “chasing away” investment in clean energy in Australia, after the opposition leader confirmed the Coalition will not set a 2030 emissions reduction target unless it wins the next election.

Albanese called Dutton’s stance “absurd”, highlighting confused messages from the Coalition about its climate policy, and saying any backtrack on Australia’s emissions reductions commitments would be “walking away from the Paris agreement”.

After foreshadowing on Saturday that the Coalition could walk away from the Paris agreement and scrap Labor’s legislated target to cut emissions by 43% by 2030, Dutton said the Coalition remained committed to net zero by 2050, but would not reveal its interim targets in opposition.

“We need to make sure that we don’t harm Australian families and businesses in the interim and that is what Labor is doing,” Dutton said on Tuesday.

“And in terms of the targets otherwise, we’ll make those decisions when we are in government.”

The Liberal leader told 2GB later on Tuesday: “It’s very hard in opposition – without all the modelling and the advice from government – to put an exact figure on the table.”

The Coalition has delayed releasing its own energy policy, despite raising nuclear as a solution. Albanese on Tuesday afternoon called the repeatedly delayed nuclear announcement a “fantasy”, claiming it would lead to higher energy prices and emissions.

“We know that the consequences of that for our relationships in our region and around the world with our closest allies will be ones that are regrettable, to say the least,” Albanese told a press conference in Canberra.

“Instead of chasing investment in new industries with new opportunities in new jobs, he is chasing them away. No action until 2040 means energy shortfalls. It is something that Australia should not pursue.”

Albanese claimed “there hasn’t been any proper process to determine the Coalition’s policy”, noting that Liberal senator Andrew Bragg had said moments after Dutton’s press conference that he believed the Coalition would set its own 2030 target before the election.

Dutton told the Weekend Australian he would oppose the legislated 2030 target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election, declaring there was “no sense in [at]signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”.

Government department projections last year suggested Australia was on track for a 42% reduction in emissions by 2030. The government said it showed the 43% target was within reach. Albanese said on Tuesday they were “very much on track” to meet the target.

On Tuesday, Dutton doubled down, claiming Labor’s targets would “trash” the economy.

“I think it’s very clear that we have absolute commitment to Paris and our commitment for net zero by 2050,” he said.

“It’s important it doesn’t need to be linear, as we’ve pointed out, and we’re not going to send the economy into freefall and families bankrupt through an ideologically based approach, which is what Anthony Albanese is doing at the moment.”

Farmers who graze sheep under solar panels say it improves productivity. So why don’t we do it more?

As a flock of about 2,000 sheep graze between rows of solar panels, grazier Tony Inder wonders what all the fuss is about. “I’m not going to suggest it’s everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “But as far as sheep grazing goes, solar is really good.”

Inder is talking about concerns over the encroachment of prime agricultural land by ever-expanding solar and windfarms, a well-trodden talking point for the loudest opponents to Australia’s energy transition.

But on Inder’s New South Wales property, a solar farm has increased wool production. It is a symbiotic relationship that the director of the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference, Karin Stark, wants to see replicated across as many solar farms as possible as Australia’s energy grid transitions away from fossil fuels.

“It’s all about farm diversification,” Stark says. “At the moment a lot of us farmers are reliant on when it’s going to rain, having solar and wind provides this secondary income.”

By keeping the grass trimmed, which can otherwise pose a fire risk during dry summer months, sheep save the developer the cost of slashing it themselves.

In exchange, the panels provide shelter for the sheep, encourage healthier pasture growth under the shade of the panels and create “drip lines” from condensation rolling off the face of the panels.

“We had strips of green grass right through the drought,” Dubbo sheep grazier Tom Warren says. Warren has seen a 15% rise in wool production due to a solar farm installed on his property more than seven years ago.

Despite these success stories, a 2023 Agrivoltaic Resource Centre report authored by Stark found that solar grazing is under utilised in Australia because developers, despite saying they intend to host livestock, make few planning adjustments to ensure that happens.

“The result is that many solar farms are poorly suited for sheep,” Stark says. “Developers need to be talking to landholders earlier than they currently are.”

Prof Bernadette McCabe, the director of the Centre for Agricultural Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland, says farming and solar are “two very different activities” and there’s “minimal research and demonstrated success” of running them in combination.

The expectation to retain farming land for primary production is driving greater interest in the coexistence of agriculture and renewable energy but McCabe says “misaligned incentives” between the developers and farmers must be better managed.

It’s these conflicting goals that are giving anti-renewable voices “fodder to attack the renewable energy industry”, according to former New South Wales solar developer Ben Wynn.

He says energy developers often “talk up the possibility” of coexisting with livestock production but don’t have “genuine desire to do so”.

Wynn is now part of a community group opposing a large solar farm proposed south of Tamworth because it lies on productive cropping country.

“We need this transition to speed up, but if we take up highly arable black soils we are giving oxygen to the naysayers,” he says.

Wynn also led the construction of a prototype solar farm outside Tamworth, raised high off the ground with steel posts to stay out of reach of a cattle herd below.

“Cattle are massive, they will rub and scratch themselves up against anything,” Wynn says.

The project was a success but Wynn says it is too expensive to be feasible on a large scale because the installation costs are three-to-four fold the cost of regular low-lying solar panels.

The integration of sheep and solar is “highly feasible”, McCabe says, because they can graze under ordinary height panels. But she says it is “still early days” to know if it will become economically viable for cattle.

Dr Nicholas Aberle, the energy generation and storage policy director at the Clean Energy Council, says solar developers should explore dual land use options but warns it be may not be suitable for every project. He adds that “the abundance of land in Australia means it isn’t always necessary”.

According to an analysis by the Clean Energy Council, less than 0.027% of land used for agriculture production would be needed to power the east coast states with solar projects – far less than the one-third of all prime agricultural land that the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs has claimed will be “taken over” by renewables”. That argument, which has been heavily refuted by experts, has been taken up by the National party, whose leader, David Littleproud, said regional Australia had reached saturation point with renewable energy developments.

Queensland grazier and the chair of the Future Farmers Network, Caitlin McConnel, has sold electricity to the grid from a dozen custom-built solar arrays on her farm’s cattle pastures for more than a decade.

“Trial and error” and years of modifications have made them structurally sound around cattle and financially viable in the long-term, she says.

“As far as I know, we are the only farm to do solar with cattle,” McConnel says. “It’s good land, so why would we just lock it up just for solar panels?”

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Germany’s top climate envoy says ‘this is the critical decade’ after Dutton ditches 2030 target

Germany’s climate envoy has dismissed claims the Paris agreement is only about reaching net zero emissions by 2050, warning that deep cuts by 2030 are “essential” and scientific evidence shows “this is the critical decade” to act on global heating.

Australia’s opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has refused to commit to a 2030 emissions reduction target prior to the next national election, prompting claims from Labor, the Greens and independents that the Coalition isn’t serious about acting on the climate crisis.

Dutton raised the prospect of watering down the target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – that Australia has already enshrined in law and committed to under the Paris agreement.

“Well, the Paris agreement is predominantly about net zero by 2050, and that’s what we’ve signed up to,” Dutton told 2GB radio on Tuesday, adding there was no need to cut emissions in a “linear way”.

But the German government’s special envoy for climate action, Jennifer Morgan, stressed the need for all countries to have strong 2030 targets as part of international attempts to hold global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is an important player in international climate negotiations and is working with Australia on a clean energy transition and the development of green hydrogen. Germany hosted talks in Bonn this week as part of international preparations for the Cop29 summit in November in Baku in Azerbaijan.

While being careful to avoid wading directly into the Australian political debate, Morgan told Guardian Australia that “science-based 2030 targets are essential” to keep the 1.5C limit “intact”.

“Therefore all countries agreed already in 2021 to strengthen their targets within their national climate plans for 2030,” Morgan said.

“This is the critical decade.”

The comments add to Morgan’s previous remarks, made during a visit to the Pacific late last year, that “all countries have to scale up their ambition for 2030” because the 1.5C goal is “a matter of life and death for many people here in this region”.

Morgan, a former Greenpeace co-executive director, has been involved in international climate negotiations for many years. Since 2022, she has served as a state secretary at Germany’s Foreign Office with responsibility for climate action.

The Paris agreement was adopted by more than 190 countries, including Australia’s then Coalition government, in 2015.

The agreement aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above preindustrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels”.

Countries including Australia agreed that such action “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.

The Coalition says its nuclear plants will run for 100 years. What does the international experience tell us?

The federal Coalition’s pledge to build nuclear reactors on seven sites in five states if elected has continued to raise questions this week.

Ted O’Brien, the shadow energy minister, says the plants can operate for between 80 and 100 years, providing “cheaper, cleaner and consistent 24/7 electricity” compared with renewables.

That claim comes despite the CSIRO’s Gencost report estimating each 1-gigawatt nuclear plant could take 15-20 years to build and cost $8.4bn. The first may be double that given the high start-up costs.

But what does the state of the nuclear energy internationally tell us about the Coalition’s proposal?

What is the state of the global nuclear industry?

The world opened five nuclear reactors last year and shut the same number, trimming 1GW of capacity in the process, says Mycle Schneider, an independent analyst who coordinates the annual world nuclear industry status report.

During the past two decades, it’s a similar story of 102 reactors opened and 104 shutting. As with most energy sources, China has been the biggest mover, adding 49 during that time and closing none. Despite that burst, nuclear provides only about 5% of China’s electricity.

Last year, China added 1GW of nuclear energy but more than 200GW of solar alone. Solar passed nuclear for total power production in 2022 while wind overtook it a decade ago.

“In industrial terms, nuclear power is irrelevant in the overall global market for electricity generating technology,” he says.

As for small modular reactors, or SMRs,nobody has built one commercially. Not even billionaire Bill Gates, whose company has been trying for 18 years.

The CSIRO report examined the “contentious issue” of SMRs, and noted that one of the main US projects, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, was cancelled last November. Even then, its estimated costs in 2o2o of $18,200/kiloWatt, or more than double that of large-scale plants at $8,655/kW (in 2023 dollars).

Can these plants really run 80-100 years?

Of the active 416 nuclear reactors, the mean age is about 32 years. Among the 29 reactors that have shut over the past five years, the average age was less than 43 years, Schneider says.

There are 16 reactors that have been operating for 51 years or more. “There is zero experience of a 60-year-old operating reactor, zero. It never happened. Leave alone 80 years or beyond,” he says. (The world’s oldest, Switzerland’s Beznau, has clocked up 55 years with periods of outages.)

CSIRO’s report looked at a 30- or 40-year life for a large nuclear plant as there was “little evidence presented that private financing would be comfortable” with risk for any longer.

As plants age, maintenance costs should increase, as they have in France. That’s not the case in the US, though, with declining investment in the past decade even as the average reactor age has jumped from 32 to 42 years.

“You have two options as to the outcome: either you hit an investment wall, so you have to have massive investments all over the place at the same time, or you get a very serious safety or security problem somewhere,” Schneider says.

US plants have been running an “incredible” 90% of the time over the past decade. Compare that with France’s load factor in 2022 of just 52%, he says.

“The best offshore wind farms in Scotland have a five-year average load factor of 54%.”

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'Duttonheimer': Qld protesters lash LNP's nuclear plan

Protesters have rallied outside a major Liberal National Party office to slam the federal opposition's nuclear energy plan.

More than 50 people gathered at Queensland's LNP headquarters in Brisbane on Monday as the fallout over Peter Dutton's controversial policy continues.

Environmental groups and union members joined concerned citizens at the Albion office to lash the nuclear plan, dubbing the federal opposition leader "Duttonheimer".

It marked one of the biggest protests since Mr Dutton pledged on June 19 to build seven nuclear plants across five states on the sites of coal-fired power stations if elected.

Two of the proposed sites are located in the Sunshine State - at Callide in central Queensland and Tarong, northwest of Brisbane.

Queensland Conservation Council's Paul Spearim said First Nations communities had not been consulted on the nuclear energy plan, sparking fears about its impact on the environment and people.

"We had Maralinga," Mr Spearim said of the 1956 nuclear testing by Britain in South Australia.

"I was proud and fortunate enough to meet a lot of old people that were affected by those blasts in Australia, and a lot of the following generations after these old people are still suffering from nuclear damage."

Electrical Trades Union workers said voters are being blindly led with a policy not backed by experts or current state and federal legislation.

"We have a longstanding vote in the national office that takes an anti-nuclear stance ... it's not good for workers, it's not good for communities or environment," union member Hayden van der Kruk told AAP.

"It's just a smokescreen (to continue fossil fuels) and doesn't stack up economically."

Stuart Traill, also from the union, called the opposition leader "Duttonheimer" and queried why nuclear was now suddenly a priority.

"If they wanted nuclear power they could've done it when they were in power for 10 years," he told the group of protesters.

Miles Launches Townsville Renewable Energy Zone Pilot

More Townsville households than ever before will soon be able to get back the energy they generate throughout the day, for use at night, bringing down energy bills and emissions.

A Local Renewable Energy Zone (LREZ) will be established in Townsville, to help the community generate more renewable energy, store it and share it locally across the electricity infrastructure that already exists.

Working hand-in-hand with Energy Queensland's local network-connected batteries, LREZs will allow the benefits of renewable energy to be shared amongst all customers, especially those who haven't been able to invest in solar power, for one reason or another.

That includes renters, vulnerable customers and those who live in unit complexes.

The LREZ will work by allowing households with rooftop solar to transfer the energy they generate during the day into local batteries, to be transferred back to additional households during the night time, when the sun isn't shining, but energy usage is at its peak.

That means households that have not previously had access to cheaper electricity generated through rooftop solar will now be able to access the benefits.

The Miles Government will fund $40 million for the Townsville LREZ pilot project which will see the deployment of up to 8.4MW/18.8MWh of battery storage and support up to an additional 2.8MW of solar PV, and 0.9MW of demand management.

The benefits will be shared across residential and commercial customer sites in Townsville, starting from January 2025.

This is one of two LREZ projects funded in the Miles Government State Budget, following the announcement of the Caloundra LREZ last week.

The Government funding includes $3 million to optimise the size of behind the meter customer assets such as solar PV, batteries, home energy management systems and dynamic connections for the Townsville LREZ pilot project.

Energy Queensland has also received the go-ahead for another 18 local network-connected batteries which will play a major role in the transition to help deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy for future generations.

The Miles Government committed $240 million in the Budget to build the 18 new local network-connected batteries across the state.

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Climate 200 names nine new Coalition seats where it hopes to replicate teal wave at next election

Climate 200, the fundraising giant that bankrolled the teal independent wave at the last election, has thrown its support behind independent campaigns in nine more Coalition-held seats.

After months of speculation, the group said it would support independent campaigns in the Queensland electorates of McPherson, Moncrief, Fisher and Fairfax as well as the New South Wales electorates Cowper and Bradfield, and Casey, Monash and Wannon in Victoria.

Each of the selected campaigns met Climate 200’s initial criteria for support, which includes support for climate action and restoring integrity in politics. The candidates will receive grants of up to $50,000 to help them further their campaigns.

Despite speculation a community independent campaign would target Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson, it was not among the initial rounds of funding announced by Climate 200. But the group is still considering applications and is expected to make more announcements soon.

At the last election the independent candidate Nicolette Boele helped turn Paul Fletcher’s seat of Bradfield into a marginal electorate.

It’s seen as a strong chance for the independent movement at the coming election, especially after a draft redistribution moved North Sydney voters, who went independent in 2022, into Bradfield’s boundaries. While Boele has been campaigning in the seat, it is understood that the North Sydney independent MP, Kylea Tink, is considering her options. The Australian Electoral Commission has recommended that her electorate be abolished.

The Gold Coast seat of McPherson, where the sitting Liberal MP Karen Andrews has announced her retirement, is also considered ripe for an independent campaign. Community groups in the Sunshine Coast seats of Fisher and Fairfax, where local Liberal members are vocal supporters of the Coalition’s nuclear gambit, are also considered winnable. The long-term Monash MP, Russell Broadbent, quit the Liberal party after losing pre-selection for the coming election.

Climate 200’s executive director, Byron Fay, said the group had raised more than $1m in the last two months, from more than 1,300 donors in 146 electorates who contributed to its community accelerator fund, which aims to support new grassroots independent campaigns.

The group aims to support 30 campaigns at the coming election, including the 11 independents it backed at the last election.

“There is no doubt Peter Dutton’s re-ignition of the climate wars has re-energised support for community independents.” Fay said. “Last weekend, we saw a 20-fold bump in donations and the pace hasn’t let up.”

Fay and Climate 200’s founder, Simon Holmes à Court, have been travelling across the country meeting and speaking with community groups looking to establish their own independent member campaigns.

“There are new groups active in every single state and territory,” Fay said.

“The dissatisfaction with the major party duopoly is palpable. We see it in the declining primary vote of Labor and the Coalition, both nationally and in the seats where community independent groups are active.

“Voters are yearning for a different way of doing politics, and the community independent model it is.”

In 2022 independent candidates backed by Climate 200 donations won six electorates previously held by Liberal MPs. Climate 200 does not start the campaigns – instead, community-driven campaigns which align with the fundraising groups’ values and who which prove a pathway to victory can apply to receive support, either financially, or with strategic advice.

At the last election the so-called “teal independent” campaigns, named for their green views on climate in traditional blue Liberal seats, were successful in North Sydney, Wentworth, Goldstein, Kooyong, Curtin and Mackellar. Four existing independents were re-elected and David Pocock was elected as an independent senator for the Australian Capital Territory. All up, Climate 200 supported 23 independent campaigns and were successful in 11.

Labor helped those campaigns along by running ‘dead’ in the seats, a strategy where a candidate is chosen but runs a quiet campaign. Labor has not yet finalised its own campaign plans for the next election.