Dutton’s blast of radioactive rhetoric on nuclear power leaves facts in the dust

A security officer stands in front of the third reactor of the nuclear power plant Olkiluoto, in western Finland. In 2002 the country’s parliament voted to add a fifth nuclear reactor, but it did not come online until 20 years later. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images

We may not yet be entering a nuclear age in Australia, but we would all be best advised to handle the rhetoric around the issue as carefully as we would radioactive waste.

This week opposition leader Peter Dutton said an annual CSIRO report that had included estimates of costs for small modular reactors – which are not yet available commercially – was “discredited” because it “doesn’t take into account some of the transmission costs, the costs around subsidies for the renewables”.