Energy transition needs gas, not nuclear

The absolutists also oppose carbon capture and storage as a matter of dogma. The same goes for carbon offsets, regardless of their integrity.

Gas is also used to produce synthetic fibres; the kind Absolutists like to wear in preference to thirsty cotton and the wool of methane-emitting sheep.

The lesson from this story is to let warring tribes slug it out and get on with sound policy in the national interest.

Coking coal is used to produce steel. Absolutists oppose new coking coal mines. People in poor countries are not to have access to steel products, the type that rich-country absolutists use every day.

Denialists, on the other hand, such as former prime minister Tony Abbott, speak of the global warming hoax and describe believers in climate change as members of a cult. Denialists believe that not just absolutists are involved in this conspiracy against the western way of life, but so too are the United Nations, the NASA space agency and the world’s bureaus of meteorology.

Denialists have learned not to speak so loudly of these alleged hoaxes, cults and conspiracies, operating on the assumption that most voters under the age of 40 have been brainwashed into believing climate change is real and will cast their votes accordingly.

To address this electoral quandary, they’ve come up with the perfect strategy to ensure no climate action is taken – advocate the bypassing of renewables in favour of small nuclear modular reactors.

With cost blowouts precipitating the recent collapse of a flagship US project working on a small modular reactor, the prospects of this technology supplying electricity at competitive prices are highly questionable.

In any event, former NSW treasurer Matt Kean, though favourably disposed to small nuclear modular reactors, has pointed out that none would be ready for commercial deployment before 2040.

By that time, Australia’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power stations will be clapped out.

The Peter Dutton-led opposition voted against the Albanese government’s safeguard mechanism, the latest attempt to put a price on carbon for major emitters, despite the Business Council of Australia calling it “a very good policy”.

In an effort to continue the debilitating climate wars that have been raging for more than a decade, Dutton labelled the safeguard mechanism a “carbon tax 2.0”.

With no emissions-reduction strategy, plenty of hostility towards renewables and a promise of small modular reactors from 2040 at the earliest, the denialists have only one remaining option – to use taxpayers’ money to fund the construction of new coal-fired power stations. The private sector certainly won’t risk it.

It’s the old strategy of “why put off until tomorrow what you can put off forever”?

Or, as Malcolm Turnbull put it at the COP28 meeting: “Nuclear’s only utility is as … a means of supporting fossil fuels by delaying and distracting the rollout of renewables”.

There is a middle path between the absolutists and the denialists.

A rational decarbonising energy policy would include the legislated safeguard mechanism, solar and wind energy, and – for firming capacity – the use of gas, big batteries and, where economically viable, pumped hydro.

Where gas producers can make carbon capture and storage feasible, they should be encouraged to do so. Trading in high-integrity carbon offsets should be part of the solution, especially for countries that lack viable renewable energy resources.

In various combinations, these features of a rational climate policy have been adopted by the Rudd, Gillard, Turnbull and Albanese governments. They were opposed by the Abbott government and, largely, by the Dutton-led Coalition.

Between them, absolutists and denialists would oppose most – if not all – of these sensible features.

Finding a demilitarised zone between these warring tribes is as elusive as it was when the Senate voted down a carbon price 14 years ago. Yet, it seems that most of the voting public feels the policy approach now being taken by federal and state governments lies along that narrow path.

The lesson from this story is to let warring tribes slug it out and get on with sound policy in the national interest.