Which is cheaper: nuclear or renewables?

CSIRO also has a "Low Assumption" which is $14,586 per kW with an 89 percent capacity factor.

One of the best sources of information on electric power generation is the Energy Information Agency (EIA) in the U.S. which, at the current exchange rate, has a capital cost of $9,525 per kW for small modular reactors (pdf), or just over half what the minister is using, and well-outside CSIRO's range.

The EIA figures are derived from detailed costings, which they list, and include a substantial figure for the construction of powerlines which would not be required if the reactor were replacing an already existing power station, making Australian SMRs potentially even cheaper again.

EIA also expects costs to come down, acknowledging that an SMR built now would be a first-of-a-kind.

Added to that, the minister's capacity factors are all lower than that for conventional nuclear which is around 93 percent. Because of their modular design, the manufacturers of SMRs expect to achieve 96 percent capacity utilisation.

This matters, because the lower capacity factor will be feeding into the CSIRO estimate of the cost of the electricity nuclear reactors will produce.

If you reduce the capital cost by 35 percent, as per the EIA figures, and increase the utilisation factor, it gets cheaper.

Climate groups says a renewable transition will cost $1.5 trillion

Things get worse for the energy minister's argument.

There is an organisation called Net Zero Australia, which is a consortium of researchers from Melbourne, Queensland, and Princeton universities along with consultancy firms NOUS and Evolved Energy Research.

It is also advised by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Climate Council.

So this is a government climate-agenda-friendly organisation with good left-wing cred. Yet it predicts that the capital cost to meet net zero will be $9 trillion by 2050, and $1.5 trillion by the end of the decade.

That $1.5 trillion is essentially to hit the government's 82 percent by 2030 goal, and it excludes the use of nuclear.