Australia is providing two years of support for the largest coal-fired power plant

“The best way to stop the transition to renewable energy is to turn off the lights in 2025. I won’t let that happen,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said on Thursday.

His backflip highlighted the gap between Australia’s reality and its goal of having an 82 per cent renewable energy supply by 2030.

This move was deeply unpopular among environmentalists.

“Summers in New South Wales are currently characterized by unprecedented floods, heatwaves and deadly wildfires, and this extreme weather is being made worse by the extension of the life of fossil fuels such as coal,” the Australian Environment Foundation said.

At the center of the Australian government’s latest budget was a broad set of policies aimed at making the country a global “renewable energy superpower”.

Australia has had some success in increasing the use of renewable energy, and its people are among the most enthusiastic supporters of home solar panels in the world.

According to the latest government data, renewables accounted for 32% of Australia’s total electricity generation in 2022, compared to coal which accounted for 47%.

“Coal is leaving our energy system at a record pace,” said Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton, who believes only renewable energy sources can replace the existing system while avoiding blackouts and energy price increases.

But slower-than-expected rollouts of renewable energy projects have prompted Australia’s energy regulator to warn of likely power shortages and blackouts in the coming years.

One of the proposed solutions was to extend the life of coal-fired power plants – some are over 40 years old.

But industry and a handful of conservative politicians are also calling on Australia to reconsider its decades-old ban on nuclear energy.

Although Australia has 33 percent of the world’s uranium deposits, nuclear energy production has been banned since 1998.

Advocates like Jaz Diab, managing director of Global Nuclear Security Partners, say advances in small-scale and non-water-cooled reactors should prompt a rethink.

“I actually think in Australia the first movers and shakers will be the industry offering, for example, small modular reactors,” she told AFP, pointing to a possible first use in remote mines.

“Unfortunately politicians are seizing on this and making it a political decision rather than allowing (Australians) to engage with their energy policy.”

However, Australia’s national science agency CSIRO has determined that the cost of a large-scale nuclear reactor in Australia could exceed $10 billion and could take 15 years to build.

CSIRO’s chief energy economist, Paul Graham, told AFP that nuclear power was not “economically competitive with renewable energy sources”.

His agency recently conducted a study that found solar, wind and batteries will be cheaper and more reliable sources of renewable energy.

In many cases, nuclear power makes sense for energy-stressed countries that have not had domestic capacity to harness renewable energy sources, such as Japan, energy analyst Tim Buckley told AFP.

“Nuclear energy has no future in Australia,” he said. “Australia has not built it continuously, we have no skill set, no engineering and no nuclear capability.”

Buckley warned that if Australia opted for nuclear power, it would be years before it could be used safely.

“That would mean 15 years of power outages,” he said.

Renewable energy advocates say faster implementation and less political subversion are needed.

Nicki Hutley, an economist at the Climate Council, said four years of consecutive natural disasters – drought, bushfires and floods – had increased demand for renewable energy.

“We finally got to the point where science triumphed, but it took a long time,” she told AFP.

“It’s not a choice between climate and the economy, it could be the climate and the economy.”

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