Taxpayers short changed in an energy policy debate

The keynote speaker at the Katter Party’s Nuclear Power Forum on October 4 in Mount Isa says any energy debate that excludes coal without considering nuclear as an option is skewed to fail the taxpayer. Mechanical engineer and economist Adjunct Professor Stephen Wilson has spent 30 years in 30 countries developing infrastructure and formulating policy including five years as head of Rio Tinto Industry analysis team. Kogan Creek Power Plant in south-west Queensland: An energy policy debate without coal and nuclear short changes the taxpayer says Adjunct Professor Stephen Wilson. Professor Wilson recently supervised research modelling the national electricity market, with and without nuclear, that included stability issues. He also helped publish a University of Queensland study looking at requirements for nuclear power plants to be operating in Australia by the 2030s. The whole economy was being redesigned to a carbon zero future with inadequate regard to reliable base load power said Professor. “My challenge for people that have got problems (with Nuclear Power) is if you really think you can run an entire power system just with where the generation is dependent on a bit of storage, how confident are you in that view? “Are you confident enough to bet your entire superannuation fund on being right about that? “Because what's happening at the moment is that it's not any one person's superannuation fund that's being gambled on this. It's the whole country's economy that's being gambled on it.” Nuclear power ticked all the boxes, including energy security, economics and the environment said Professor Wilson. “It strengthens your energy security if you the right sort of regulatory approach, you can deliver it at very reasonable cost and with a high degree of predictability over a very long period. “You've got no CO2 emissions, and a tiny use of the whole footprint is small in terms of the amount of materials you need and the amount of land you need to occupy, and all the rest, the amount of so-called waste that comes off the backend is really small as well. “So, it meets everybody's requirements. It doesn't really matter if you're a kind of a business person or an environmentally concerned person or your left, right, centre, green, whatever. “It basically ticks everyone's boxes. And so, ignoring it is crazy and banning it is just completely insane.” Governments had been approaching the future energy issue back to front said Professor Wilson. “Well, I think governments of both political parties to a degree and at state and federal level have made the mistake of starting with the political calculus and working their way back to the economics and then back to the engineering and sort of telling the engineers to go and make it work. “Whereas what you really need to do is understand the engineering fundamentals and then see what the economics looks like and then from there, work out what does this mean for a political point of view in terms of good public policy and then in terms of public communication and community engagement. “I think there's been a completely back to front approach to policy. It's probably been worse at the state level, but you can see it at both state and federal levels.” The forum will be held on October 4 from 10.30am-3.30pm at the John Middlin Centre, Mount Isa. Registration can be completed at: https://robkatter.com.au/mount-isa-nuclear-power-forum-what-if-we-went-nuclear/

Taxpayers short changed in an energy policy debate

Industry Queensland

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