Nuclear power plants could take up to 15 years to establish in Australia and facilities to dispose of high-level nuclear waste twice as long, an inquiry has heard.
Waste produced by the power plants might have to be stored at the nuclear sites in the meantime, experts said, until “deep geological facilities” could be developed.
The forecasts were revealed at the Nuclear Power Generation inquiry in Canberra on Thursday, which heard government agencies and departments had started to analyse and assess nuclear power proposals for Australia.
The probe comes five months after federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton announced plans to establish seven nuclear power plants across the country if his party won government at the next election.
But the announcement did not reveal the cost or potential delivery date for the energy technology.
International Atomic Energy Agency predicted nuclear power plants would take 10 to 15 years to build in Australia, Department of Energy spokeswoman Clare McLaughlin told the inquiry.
“Their estimation is … if there were to be a removal of the moratorium (on nuclear energy), the soonest that Australia could conceivably be producing nuclear power would be in the late 2030s,” she said.
“You’re talking about a range between 2035 and 2040 and some of that will depend on the period that you take for community consultation, as well as establishing the regulatory and institutional frameworks that you need to do to implement that policy.”
The agency’s timeline mirrored experiences in other parts of the world, Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency chief executive Gillian Hirth said.
“If you look at international case studies of recent rollouts of nuclear power programs, the United Arab Emirates, I think they reached their national position statement in about 2008,” she said.
“They switched on their first of four nuclear power plants in 2020 and they switched on the fourth in 2024, so a 15 (to) 16-year time frame.”
The UAE’s first nuclear power plant was held up by a lack of skilled workers, Dr Hirth said, and Australia could face similar workforce hurdles, particularly because of its nuclear submarine commitments.
“We do have the technical competence … but with the AUKUS program running concurrently, workforce would certainly present some challenges,” she said.
Australia would need to make changes to deal with “high-level waste” from nuclear power plants, Australian Radioactive Waste Agency policy general manager Mark Weaver said, because the nation had no facilities able to deal with the material.
An underground facility to handle high-level waste had been established in Finland, Mr Weaver said, but it had taken 30 years.
“The time frames for developing waste disposal facilities, particularly deep geological facilities, go to the decades,” he said.
In the meantime, nuclear waste would likely be stored at the nuclear plants, Mr Weaver said.
But Liberal MP Ted O’Brien argued the nation would need a “permanent storage solution for military high-level radioactive waste” under its AUKUS plan and Australia already had obligations under international nuclear safety agreements.
Established in October, the inquiry is expected to probe the financial, technical, legal and environmental implications of switching from renewable to nuclear energy.
Labor MP and chair Dan Repacholi said the inquiry would hold public hearings in the seven regional towns near proposed nuclear sites: Mount Piper and Liddell in NSW, Loy Yang in Victoria, Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Port Augusta in South Australia and Collie in Western Australia.
