(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, acolumnist for Reuters.)
By Clyde Russell
LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 5 (Reuters) - If another sign wasneeded that Australia's energy policy is dysfunctional, thegovernment provided it in the form of launching a parliamentaryinquiry to consider nuclear power.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor last week requested aparliamentary committee examine requirements for developing anuclear power industry in Australia.
The country currently has a moratorium on nuclear power andhas no reactors, other than a small unit used for medicalpurposes located near the main city of Sydney.
However, Australia is the world's third-largest miner ofuranium, accounting for about 10% of global output of thenuclear fuel.
Taylor's decision to have parliament investigate nuclearpower has been broadly viewed in Australia as a sop to theright-wing of his ruling conservative Liberal-National coalitiongovernment.
Several prominent members of the coalition have beenpromoting nuclear power as a solution to Australia's highelectricity costs, the ageing of the existing coal-fired fleetand the need to lower the country's emissions, which are thehighest in the developed world on a per capita basis.
Whatever the government's reasoning for pursuing an inquiryinto nuclear power, if conducted without bias, it's unlikely toshow what the proponents of atomic generation are probablyhoping for.
While nuclear power, once built and operating, is emissionsfree and reliable, the massive capital costs, the need forreliable and large water reserves and the problem of safelydisposing of waste will likely make it a non-starter forAustralia.
Throw in the difficulty in winning over much of the publicgiven nuclear's poor image in the wake of 2011 Fukushimadisaster in Japan, and the chances of a nuclear industry gettingoff the ground in Australia seems very remote.
There is also the lack of expertise in the industry inAustralia, meaning skills would have to be imported at a costhigh enough to incentivise people to move.
NUCLEAR'S POOR RECORD
The recent experience of building nuclear plants indeveloped countries has also been a litany of woes, with twoplants under construction being abandoned before completion inthe U.S. state of South Carolina, and huge cost overruns atplants in the United Kingdom and Finland.
There is also virtually no chance that nuclear power can beas cost efficient as virtually any other source, but especiallyrenewables such as wind and solar, even if they have theadditional cost of battery storage.
While nuclear power proponents point to the relatively lowoperating costs of a generating unit, what they usually fail totake into account is the upfront capital costs and therehabilitation costs at the end of the plant's life.
These are considerably lower for renewables, and even fornatural gas and coal-fired power plants.
The other factor with modern nuclear power plants is that toachieve economies of scale they tend to be very large, oftenwith several thousand megawatts (MW) of generating capability,far in excess of a typical gas- or coal-fired unit, which ismore typically between 200 and 600 MW.
Building a large-scale nuclear plant would cost so much thatit's unlikely any private utility, or even a consortium, inAustralia would be keen to take on the project.
For instance, the 3,200 MW Hinkley Point C plant underconstruction in Britain has an estimated cost of about $25billion, and that doesn't include the generous guaranteed amountto be paid for the electricity it will produce.
Any nuclear power industry in Australia would likely have tobe either government-owned or heavily subsidised to make itviable.
It's also likely that the nuclear fuel would have to beimported as Australia doesn't have an industry able to enrichuranium ore into nuclear fuel rods, and building the capabilitywould be massively expensive and inefficient.
Overall, it's hard to imagine why the government would wishto look at developing a nuclear industry, unless the inquiry isplanned as some sort of stalking horse to show that coal remainsa good option for Australia's future.
The same conservative politicians pushing for nuclear arealso backers of coal, and have been frustrated by theunwillingness of the utility sector to consider new coal-firedstations as a solution to Australia's high electricity costs.
Despite Australia being the world's second-biggest exporterof thermal coal used in power plants, utilities have beenincreasingly switching to renewables for generating needs, alongwith gas-fired units to meet peak demand.
The problem for Australia's energy sector is that there istoo much politics and not enough non-partisan expertise beingused to develop workable, and affordable solutions.
(Editing by Joseph Radford)