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Tim Buckley, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, said Australia had clearly seen significant uncertainty in the development of offshore wind, where the Coalition’s overt opposition had undermined momentum. But he said the economics of offshore wind had also taken a hit in recent years, which had been a global trend. Buckley has not seen evidence that investors are pulling out of the development of onshore renewables and batteries as a result of the Coalition’s nuclear policy. A report released by his firm this week found that investment activity over the past six months put Australia on track to deliver on the Government’s 2030 target of 82% renewables share in the energy grid. Read more

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) director Tim Buckley slammed the proposal as “disturbing”. “This will make the energy driven cost of living crisis dramatically worse in the short, medium & long term,” he said. “This policy has a clear political agenda. The LNP conflates renewable energy with the Australian energy hyperinflation evident since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with the resulting surge in oil, gas and coal prices due to ongoing sanctions against Russia,” Buckley said. “Australia’s energy prices have surged since 2022 because of fossil fuel hyperinflation. Renewables are the solution.” Read more

Tim Buckley speaks with Jaynie Seal about the newly released bogus costings for the LNP’s nuclear plan, which the CSIRO confirmed last week would cost twice the price of firmed renewables Read more

As John Hewson and Tim Buckley write, i the one-page nuclear policy pamphlet the LNP released in June, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton states that “of the world’s 20 largest economies, Australia is the only one not using nuclear energy, or moving towards using it.” Even this claim lacks credibility and relies on half-truths – so no wonder Dutton and his nuclear-spuiking sidekick Ted O’Brien are failing to get buy-in on their delusion from those in their own party, let alone most experts. Read more

Tim told Alicia Barry on ABC TV’s Close of Business that Peter Dutton’s detail free nuclear power plan is costly, a waste of taxpayer’s money, and will delay Australia’s energy transition by 20 years. Read more

Tim Buckley accurately predicts no new details in costings or any other aspect of the LNP’s nuclear ‘policy’ were revealed in Peter Dutton’s speech to CEDA the day after this interview. The LNP nuclear thought bubble remains unviable – too costly, impractical and decades too late for Australian decabonisation. Read more

As Tim Buckley and AM Jonson write the record high of low-cost wind and solar in the grid comes as we are still waiting for the Coalition’s budget projections on its plan to nationalise the eye-watering cost of seven nuclear plants. Read more

Liddell Power Station in Australia’s Hunter Valley burned through coal for five decades before closing last year. Opposition leader Peter Dutton now wants Liddell to be reborn as something banned in the country for a quarter of a century: a nuclear power plant. Tim Buckley, director of the Climate Energy Finance think-tank, said the opposition’s proposals would displace private capital with a “communist-style policy” requiring more than A$100bn of public funds. “It is not impossible, but it is financially illogical,” said Buckley, who questioned the move’s political motivations ahead of an election. “This is not nuclear versus renewables. This is about extending the climate wars.” Read more

Tim Buckley discusses the LNP’s nuclear furphy with French newspaper Les Echos: The Australian Conservatives’ proposal is nothing more than a political bluff that “conflates higher electricity prices with renewable energy”, said Tim Buckley. Among the weaknesses of the plan in question, he cites the envisaged use of SMRs “which are not even commercially available”. He also notes that, when it comes to nuclear power, “Australia is relying on foreign know-how, because we have no skills, expertise or technology, zero”, which suggests that budgets and delivery times are likely to be exceeded. Read more

[On THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE]: A report by Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) said China was installing renewables so rapidly it would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early. China accounts for about a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. A recent drop in emissions (the first since relaxing COVID-19 restrictions), combined with the decarbonisation of the power grid, may mean the country’s emissions have peaked. “With the power sector going green, emissions are set to plateau and then progressively fall towards 2030 and beyond,” CEF China energy policy analyst Xuyang Dong said. Read more

China is installing record amounts of solar and wind, while scaling back once-ambitious plans for nuclear. “We’ve seen America under President Biden throw a trillion dollars on the table [for clean energy],” CEF director Tim Buckley said. “China’s response to that has been to double down and go twice as fast.” “With the power sector going green, emissions are set to plateau and then progressively fall towards 2030 and beyond,” CEF China energy policy analyst Xuyang Dong said. Read more

EdF, which is now fully government owned after facing potential bankruptcy due to delays and massive cost over-runs at its latest generation large scale nuclear plants, had reportedly been working on a new design for SMRs for the last four years. Tim Buckley, from Climate and Energy Finance, seized on the news and called on Opposition leader Peter Dutton and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien to provide more details of their nuclear plans beyond the one page press release they released last month. “Come’on guys, how naive do you take the average Australian voter for?” Buckley wrote. “In your alternate fact world, who do you think will pay for the permanent around 50% increase in Australian energy prices for consumers? Are you really intent on destroying the international competitiveness of Australian industry purely in the service of your fossil fuel funders?” Read more