Labor said CSIRO paid $60 billion for the coalition's nuclear dream. This is not very correct | Australian Election 2025

Labour's campaign spokesman front desk Jason Clare claimed on Monday that CSIRO had priced $60 billion in the alliance's plan to build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven locations.

“Looking at the work CSIRO has done, it proves that it will cost $60 billion. It will open in 20 years. It will only produce about 4% of the energy required for Australian energy,” Clare told ABC Radio National.

Ted O'Brien, an energy spokesman for the alliance, said Claire's claim was a “lie” and CSIRO's work made the cost one fifth of the $60 billion.

Where does the $60 billion figure come from?

Labor has repeatedly used the $60 billion figure in its campaign, but that figure is not from the Australian National Science Agency CSIRO, which Clare says is indeed incorrect.

The figure comes from Smart Energy Council (SEC), a renewable energy industry group that used $60 billion in analytical figures as a press release last June.

The analysis was released nearly six months before the release of modeling for the use of the alliance conducted by Frontier Economics to facilitate its nuclear policy. The modeling believes that 13GW of large-scale nuclear generation capacity will be available by 2050.

SEC analysis believes that there is only 11GW of cores. This includes 1 GW capacity from so-called small module reactors not yet available for commercial use.

How are the fees calculated?

The SEC analysis sets the cost of building a reactor at $116 billion to $600 billion — the lower figure matches O'Brien's claim that the estimated cost of CSIRO's work is one-fifth of the $60 billion.

The lower SEC figures are based on the estimated cost of nuclear buildings calculated in CSIRO's Gencost report.

But importantly, the cost of CSIRO is based on the assumption that the reactor will be built as part of the establishment and rolling nuclear program, which is not something Australia would not have had in the beginning.

CSIRO experts warn that the estimated cost of the first few reactors built in Australia (if the alliance can lift the national ban) is twice as high as the premium “first”.

CSIRO believes that for each Gigawatt, SMR will be more than three times the cost of a conventional core – these plants are not part of border modeling, but part of SEC analysis.

The SEC believes that the first 2GW of nuclear power to be built will be twice the cost of CSIRO, and the rest will be 25% higher.

Frontier estimates the cost of building nuclear power plants per thousand thousand nuclear power plants in 2025 to $1 billion, but also believes that these costs will drop by 1% per year.

What about other fees?

The SEC also said it added estimated costs of renovation and maintenance of coal-fired power plants to make them run longer, but did not say how much that would be.

The coalition said it is necessary to keep coal-fired power plants for longer while building nuclear reactors.

The SEC also pointed to the UK's Hinkley C core project, which faces ongoing delays, doubles the initial cost estimate, which is a realistic example of the cost, which is much more expensive.

Green energy market analyst Tristan Edis said if the entire cost of Hinkley C, including interest expenses for long-term construction of nuclear power, was converted to Australia, the alliance's reactor would cost about $53.2 billion.

Other experts suggest that CSIRO's large-scale nuclear costs are too conservative because they are standardized in South Korea, a country that builds some of the cheapest reactors anywhere.

While the modeling used by the alliance assumes that the first nuclear power plant may generate momentum in 2035, CSIRO says it may be until the early 2040s. Others suggest longer time frames.

One analysis warns that keeping coal-fired power plants running longer can lead to a huge gap in power generation, and if nuclear power plants face delays, the supply divide is even larger (as usual).