Matt Kean is the chair of the Climate Change Authority in Australia and a former New South Wales Liberal energy minister. He told a parliamentary estimates hearing that there is “no bigger rent-seeking parasite than the nuclear industry” during a heated exchange with senators supporting nuclear power.
    Appearing at an estimates hearing for the first time since his appointment in June, Kean argued with the independent senator Gerard Rennick about the cost of nuclear power. He told the hearing, “If you want to see who are needing rent-seeking [and] trying to pull one over on the Australian public, it is the nuclear industry.”
    Kean said that the nuclear industry was “there propping up the coal industry, who want to extend their business models, squeeze out the last bits of profit at the expense of Australian consumers”.
     He also clashed with the Nationals party senator Ross Cadell over an analysis by Australia’s science agency CSIRO. The agency found that nuclear power was the most expensive form of large-scale energy available. He estimated that an initial nuclear power plant could cost more than ten billion U.S. dollars.
     Kean told Cadell that “most rational people do trust the CSIRO, this is the body that developed wifi” and that their advice “is good enough for me and it should be good enough for our political leaders”.
     Cadell responded by accusing the authority chair of not being willing to question things or actually looking for the truth.
    Kean told the senator, “I know you’re trying to get your grabs up on Sky at the moment”.
    Later he told Rennick that advice from CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator indicated that the least expensive way to replace Australia’s ageing electricity infrastructure was with renewable sources of power.
     The Coalition has proposed seven sites where it says it would eventually replace coal-fired power plants with nuclear power plants but not how much this action would cost.
     Multiple energy analysts have argued that nuclear energy would be more expensive than any other source of electricity and that a nuclear industry would not be possible in Australia until after 2040. The bulk of the Australia’s coal plants are scheduled to close in the 2030s.
     The opposition has criticized Labor’s goal of 82% renewable energy by 2030. The opposition went on to say that it would limit the rollout of large-scale renewable energy. It added that it would bridge between closing the coal fired plants and bringing new sources of electricity online by keeping ageing coal plants running longer and using more gas-fired power.
     With nuclear banned, natural gas is the most expensive form of electricity in the national electricity market and its use is largely restricted to “peaking” power turned on only when required. Natural gas provided less than three percent of electricity in the Australian national grid over the past month.
     Clare Savage is the chair of the Australian Energy Regulator. She told a parliamentary inquiry that she did not believe nuclear plants could be built in time to cover the closure of coal-fired power plants.

Climate Change Authority