Among all the political toing and froing last week one story stood out for me. It turns out that, despite the LNP coalition adopting a nuclear powered "path to glory" that many of their MPs are less than eager to welcome a nuclear power plant to their electorate.
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Not so our local MP, former National Party leader and one time Deputy PM, Barnaby Joyce.
Barnaby declared to the Guardian that he would welcome a nuclear reactor in the New England electorate.
Despite LNP leaders and others at state level running as far as they could from this lunatic policy, and federal MPs dodging and weaving about whether they would welcome a nuclear reactor in their electorate Barnaby was happy to jump in at the deep end.
The cost and time frames involved in going nuclear in Australia are horrendous.
Even in the US, which has a very advanced and developed nuclear market and industry the time frames for developing a nuclear reactor from "wo to go" are in the vicinity of 19 years.
Costs are basically unpredictable and generally multiply by a factor of three or more before the project is complete.
Recently a developer in the US cancelled a project because costs had escalated beyond belief.
There are several other aspects of the debate that the LNP under Peter Dutton are trying to ignore.
One of the most impactful, from a political perspective, is that it was their sainted leader, John Howard, who imposed the existing moratorium on development of nuclear energy in Australia.
Unlike the current generation of LNP leadership, he could read the room. He knew that, for a variety of reasons, the Australian people would never accept a nuclear option.
Issues around the development of nuclear power as the supplier of our energy are immense.
What will be the cost? Overseas experience points to massive cost overruns.
Who wants a nuclear reactor in their back yard? Proposing a nuclear reactor development will turn just about every neighbourhood in Australia into a NIMBY one.
How long will it take? Again, overseas actual experience suggest that 20 years is not an unsurprising time frame for the building of just one nuclear power plant.
The LNP want to build 70. Don't forget that the people pushing nuclear are the same people who were part of a government that could not build a two-storey car park in a safe Liberal electorate.
Even if the LNP were capable of developing all these nuclear reactors, where would they find the communities willing to host the reactors?
Another extremely important and relevant question is about waste disposal. Good luck to the LNP finding a community that will accept the nuclear waste dump.
Several former federal governments have tried, unsuccessfully, to find locations for disposal of nuclear waste. I do not believe that a future LNP government will have any better luck.
It will certainly not be any easier for a Dutton led LNP government.
Barnaby is doing his constituents a disservice by signing then up for a project that is doomed to failure.
