Energy in a Changing Climate

The invisible elephant in the room of this Treasury report is the one low-emission technology that has been proven for more than 40 years and is still undergoing significant further improvement: nuclear energy. If it's good enough for most of the rest of the world, why not Australia?

Without nuclear power, we will be taking a gamble on technology development and increasing our electricity costs unnecessarily. The Treasury modelling shows that under the high price scenario described above, the average wholesale electricity price in Australia could rise to almost $200 a megawatt hour in today's dollar terms. The US Department of Energy predicts new advanced nuclear plants will be running at about half that cost by 2016.

We have an electricity plan for 2050 that unnecessarily relies on unproven technology while paying a substantial premium for the pleasure. Other countries, including China, do not. Surely we can do better than this?

Martin Nicholson is the author of Energy in a Changing Climate and The Power Makers' Challenge (to be released next year).