Coalition’s brave nuke world a much harder sell after new CSIRO report

In the UK, which has been building reactors intermittently, costs for the under construction Hinkley C reactor, pictured, started at $34bn and could be as high as $89bn. Photograph: Reuters

The Coalition’s pitch on nuclear energy for Australia has had two recurring themes: the electricity will be cheap and it could be deployed within a decade.

CSIRO’s latest GenCost report – a document that analyses the costs of a range of electricity generation technologies – contradicts both of these points. It makes the Coalition’s job of selling nuclear power plants to Australians ever more challenging.