Buyer beware as Bowen ‘models’ energy bills again

Michael de Percy

Anyone following Energy Minister Chris Bowen on X would know that Peter Dutton is living rent-free in the minister’s head. Now the Australia Institute and the Teals have joined the fray, all providing opinions on the efficacy of Mr Dutton’s nuclear energy plan.

The trouble is, voters still have no idea how much Mr Bowen’s controversial energy policy will cost or indeed whether it will keep the lights on.

Remember the infamous ‘modelling’ that was to bring consumers a $275 saving on their power bills?

Well, more ‘modelling’ is being used by Labor and the Teals (and their leftist thinktanks and media) in a choreographed campaign to hijack Mr Dutton’s nuclear energy policy.

One report, produced by US thinktank the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, was co-authored by a former CSIRO researcher with an honours degree in photovoltaics and solar energy engineering and a green energy analyst who previously worked at the left-leaning Grattan Institute, the Australian government’s Greenhouse Office, and the Clean Energy Council.

According to the Guardian:

‘The Ieefa findings built on the CSIRO’s GenCost studies that have shown nuclear energy to be the most expensive form of new power generation.’

The findings of the GenCost studies, which include the costs relating to ‘renewables’, have been critiqued by some of Australia’s most eminent energy experts.

The GenCost report was co-authored by the CSIRO chief economist (who has an honours degree in economics) who admitted to the Australian newspaper that:

‘…the CSIRO’s GenCost report has some serious limitations.’

Left-leaning thinktank the Australia Institute was quick to jump on the bandwagon while claiming that:

‘…the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), and the CSIRO all make it abundantly clear that renewables are the cheapest form of electricity.’

The only problem is that this is all based on modelling, not real life.

In real life, our energy bills are spiralling, and the cost of deploying ‘renewables’ infrastructure is rising amid delays in the rollout as people’s property rights are being steamrolled by the government.

There is also ongoing doubt about the ability of Mr Bowen’s policy to keep the lights on. One major approach to ensure this doesn’t happen is to draw down power from EVs during a blackout, which means you won’t really own your own car. Such socialist aspects of Mr Bowen’s policy hardly rate a mention.

Mr Dutton is up against it. There is a choreographed effort by leftists to talk down nuclear while talking up renewables. This includes thinktanks, left-leaning mainstream media, Labor, and the Teals.

Anyone who gets in the way is simply collateral damage.

Even Electrical Trades Union workers are ‘infuriated’ by alleged safety breaches on work sites in the rush to rollout the extra transmission infrastructure required to bring renewables-generated electricity to the grid.

Nuclear doesn’t need all the additional wires and it won’t have the negative environmental impact on native habitats that land-hungry wind and solar installations require. The externalities that affect those in the regions to supply such energy to the major cities are also ignored in the ideological drive that favours wind, solar, and the many limitations relating to battery storage duration.

Most disingenuous, however, is the method used to cost Mr Dutton’s nuclear plan.

The predicted costings compare how much electricity might cost consumers in the future compared to what they pay now. This assumes that the cost of electricity generated by renewables will be capable of meeting demand while remaining the same price or less as renewables generation increases.

The only real-life case study we have to go off is Germany, which shut down its nuclear generators in a rush to move to renewables. Germany is currently generating around 57 per cent of its electricity using renewables.

Not counting the massive spike in prices resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany’s wholesale electricity prices, despite an increase of some 7 per cent renewables generation from 2022-23, are currently higher than wholesale prices before the Russian invasion. These prices rose again in August 2024.

Germany also has higher household electricity prices than Australia.

To really test the costings of the Coalition’s policy provided by left-leaning pundits, we would need to see the costings of Mr Bowen’s policy side by side and using the same assumptions. But that won’t happen because nobody knows how much Labor’s renewables plan will cost or whether it can provide for our future energy needs.

Instead, all we hear is a stream of daily tweets from the energy minister that focus entirely on Mr Dutton’s nuclear energy policy.

In pre-empting Mr Dutton’s speech on his energy policy, Mr Bowen wrote an opinion piece in the Australian newspaper, citing AEMO’s report into the efficacy of Labor’s policy.

This is a disingenuous ploy by the left because AEMO recently stated that it:

‘…does not model nuclear power because it is not permitted by Australian law, and development of nuclear power generation is not a policy of any government.

‘But we know from our work with the CSIRO on the GenCost report that nuclear is comparatively expensive, and has a long lead time.’

One former Treasury economist noted the ‘apples versus oranges approach is very misleading’ when it comes to reports comparing nuclear with renewables. Yet various anti-nuclear reports and opinions, all based on assumptions that come from the same source, are packaging anti-nuclear sentiment as fact.

As Einstein supposedly said, to defeat his theory of relativity ‘one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact’.

The simple fact is that most of the noise about the cost of nuclear energy in Australia is ideologically generated and created by people jumping on the leftist bandwagon.

Given there are no comparable, like-for-like reports into Mr Bowen’s policy, and there are at least 100 leftists claiming further ‘modelling’ is correct (this time), then buyer beware.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is National Vice President of the Telecommunications Association, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own and are not intended to reflect the views of any other person or organisation.