A new analysis by Tim Buckley from Climate Energy Finance reveals that a proposed nuclear energy plan in Australia could cost at least $4.3 trillion by 2050. This figure contrasts sharply with the $331 billion estimated by Frontier Economics for the opposition’s broader energy plan. Buckley argues that the original modeling excluded key costs and underestimated economic impacts, leading to flawed comparisons. He emphasizes that Australia risks $3.5 trillion in lost GDP if it follows the lower-growth trajectory assumed. Read more

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) published a report on Thursday examining the economic implications of the nuclear pathway modelled by Frontier Economics for Australia’s energy transition. Frontier concludes its $A331 billion costed nuclear scenario is somehow better than the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan’s (ISP) Step Change scenario cost, which they calculate at $594 billion by bizarrely ignoring the massive cost of the resulting cumulative $3.5 trillion reduction in Australian gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050. Read more

The CEF report says both the Coalition’s and the Government’s estimates of the price tag of building a nuclear industry in Australia restrict their analyses largely to costs incurred in the energy system itself. Moreover, Frontier Economics’ modelling is “predicated on advocating for an energy pathway (“Progressive Change”) that differs dramatically to the energy pathway (“Step Change”) deemed most likely by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Integrated System Plan (ISP) and consistently advocated by the Labor Government.” Read more

The CEF analysis exposes damaging flow-on costs to the economy for which the Frontier modelling fails to account. Combined with Frontier’s extreme underestimation of the capital costs of building nuclear reactors, these costs accumulate to $4.3 – 5.2 trillion by 2050, 13-16 times the $331bn price tag for a nuclear Australia assumed by Frontier Economics. Read more

The context: CEF director Tim Buckley said Frontier’s nuclear report is “riddled with shortcomings” which “completely undermine its credibility as a serious energy transition analysis”. What they said: “This is as weak as the opposition leader recently declining to accept the settled climate science because he is ‘not a scientist’,” said Buckley. Read more

Three out of Australia’s four aluminium smelters would be “at severe risk of closure” under the change in energy policy which could affect thousands of jobs, a study warns. A group of more than 70 organisations under the banner of Renew Australia for All released the report on Tuesday, analysing modelling conducted by Frontier Economics for the coalition. Read more

Climate Energy Finance founder Tim Buckley said adopting nuclear power would also force Australian industries to rely on coal-powered electricity and gas for longer and could undermine existing investments in renewable energy projects. “This will further erode our manufacturing sector’s competitiveness,” he said. Read more

The analysis in this report is clear: nuclear reactors risk our vital regional manufacturing hubs and the thousands of livelihoods that depend on them. These are risks we don’t have to make. Read more

In the wake of the Government’s announcement of its Cheaper Home Batteries Program, 60 Australian economists, energy analysts and policy specialists have signed a letter comparing the economic consequences of pursuing nuclear energy against those of subsidising distributed clean energy technologies, including batteries. Read more

Residential battery prices are yet to fall like industrial ones, Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley says, but they are becoming more reliable and long-lasting, making them better value. Read more

“The Australian Energy Market Operator report for the December quarter of 2024 shows domestic gas use accounted for only about 16% of total gas produced in eastern Australia,” says Buckley. “We exported the other 84% of all the gas produced in eastern Australia. That’s the most important point: we don’t have a shortage. Read more

This damaging policy reversal undermines what was formerly Queensland’s national leadership in building out large-scale renewable energy and storage, and its record uptake of rooftop solar, just as the climate emergency escalates and in the context of a national cost of living crisis driven by skyrocketing fossil fuel energy bills. Read more