WA’s nuclear past lives on, particularly in a federal election year.
TODAY, the sleepy seaside hamlets of Guilderton and Ledge Point, just an hour’s drive north of the city, are a favourite weekend getaway for Perth families seeking a reprieve from the summer heat.
But 30 years ago, they were poised to become the capital of Australia’s emerging but controversial nuclear power industry.
A remnant of that history survives to this day and, surprisingly, has left open a tiny window of opportunity for future nuclear development.
The state government retains 234 hectares of land at Breton Bay, eight kilometres south of Ledge Point, which was bought specifically to house Western Australia’s first nuclear power station.
WA Business News has confirmed that the site can still only be developed to house a power station and that a nuclear facility cannot be totally ruled out in the long term.
All of which has fresh relevance in an election year, with the future of nuclear power in a carbon-conscious world shaping as a key battleground between the Rudd government and the Tony Abbott-led coalition.
It also continues decades of debate over where nuclear power might be most appropriate.
In the late 1970s, WA’s avowed champion of resources development, premier Charles Court, was pushing hard to build Australia’s first commercial nuclear power station in the state.
Fearing WA could not supply sufficient competitive power to support the expansion of Alcoa’s south-west alumina operations, he declared in 1978 that there was “no practical alternative” to nuclear power if WA was to meet its long-term energy demands.
He subsequently commissioned the State Energy Commission of WA to identify the best potential site for a nuclear power plant capable of producing 600-800 megawatts by 1995.
On June 15 1979, the government announced that SECWA had identified Breton Bay and Wilbinga, near Guilderton, as its preferred locations for the plant.
Breton Bay had already previously been named as the possible site for a new heavy industry zone to ease pressure at Kwinana, given its proximity to Perth and suitability for a deepwater port.
The government immediately gazetted 234ha of land at Breton Bay as a future plant site and committed $400,000 for development studies over the next two years.
Amazingly, given that the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown had occurred in the US only three months earlier, the announcement of the two sites was not even the top story of the day due to imminent threats of a national strike.
That’s not to say opposition was lacking, with the Conservation Council of WA and Friends of the Earth society leading environmental campaigns against the plan.
The state Labor opposition was also opposed, though primarily on cost and the threat it would pose to the viability of newly discovered coal reserves at Collie and the North West Shelf gas project being developed off Karratha.
The local shire, too, voted against the proposed power plant while landowners affected by the proposed plant and associated industry zone threatened to fight any compulsory acquisition order.
Nonetheless, the site at Breton Bay was formally acquired by SECWA in 1981 and evaluation continued until Brian Burke and Bob Hawke were swept to power in state and federal elections in 1983.
But while plans for a nuclear power station may have died with Labor’s electoral success, plans to turn Breton Bay into a new Kwinana lived on, with repeated studies carried out over the ensuing two decades despite strong local opposition.
It was not until the Gallop government released its final Gingin Coast Structure Plan in 2006 that the proposal was permanently shelved.
Still, the renamed Western Power retained the land with a view to future power station development until March 2006, when ownership was transferred to the state government following the power utility’s disaggregation.
Now under the control of the Department of Regional Development and Lands, the site may still only be developed as the location of a future power station.
“The site was acquired and is reserved for the purpose of ‘power station site’ (hence) the land can only be used for its designated purpose – as a power station,” WA Nationals leader and Regional Development Minister Brendon Grylls told WA Business News.
Asked if Breton Bay could be definitively ruled out as the site of a future nuclear power plant “in the next 20-50 years”, Mr Grylls simply replied “No”.
That may shock Ledge Point residents, but in reality, the chance remains extremely slim.
In its Strategic Energy Initiative for the next 20 years announced last month, the Barnett government explicitly stated it did not consider nuclear power ‘‘to be a viable component of the state’s energy mix”; at least until 2030.
The Labor Party, at both federal and state levels, has also ruled out nuclear power as a future option.
But pro-nuclear WA Liberal Senator Mathias Cormann said nuclear power was the only proven technology capable of generating low-cost, low emissions base load electricity, and must form part of the future energy mix.
That made serious and rational public debate a matter of priority.
“There needs to be some serious work done so that people properly understand the potential of nuclear energy and that some of their perceptions of the risk, which I think are misguided, are properly addressed,” he said.
Senator Cormann, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy due to hand down its final report in March, said there was no point even thinking about potential sites until all necessary preconditions, such as public support and regulatory certainty, had been achieved.
However, he believed it was realistic to expect that Australia would have its first operational nuclear power station between 2030 and 2040.
South West activist Neil Bartholomaeaus, who led the WA Conservation Council’s fight against the Breton Bay nuclear proposal in 1979, said a nuclear power plant made no more sense today than it did 30 years ago, notwithstanding climate change concerns.
“Apart from the environmental arguments, the economics just don’t stack up,” he said. “I think some people are entertaining the thought to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but very few people want a nuclear power station in their own backyard.”
Instead, the government would do better to ensure more of WA’s vast gas reserves are reserved for local use rather than exported – just as he had argued in 1979, Mr Bartholomaeaus said.
Gingin shire president George Gifford said any attempt to revive plans for heavy industry or nuclear power at Breton Bay would draw strong opposition, but could not be automatically ruled out.
“Forever is a long time … so I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “But it would be the subject of some debate … nuclear power plants are a very emotional issue.”
Fellow Gingin shire councilor Frank Hough, who represents the Ledge Point ward, said heavy industry was simply incompatible with the Breton Bay region and the views of local people.
“It’s a holiday and retirement area and I guess the view of the broader public wouldn’t change,” he said.
While not opposing nuclear power in general, neither Mr Hough nor Mr Gifford believes Breton Bay is a suitable location for a nuclear power plant.
“I think they are a great thing – but not for Breton Bay,” Mr Hough said.
