Leading British nuclear scientist Sir Robin Grimes says Australia will face consequences if it rejects nuclear energy

A leading British nuclear scientist has issued a warning to Australia that “there are consequences” in rejecting nuclear energy as an energy source. Former chief scientific adviser to the UK Ministry of Defence Sir Robin Grimes said such a stance would likely put Australia in a weaker position to take advantage of the AI boom and invest in data centres. Sir Robin said the issue of nuclear energy was something Australia needed to “debate”, with the Coalition vowing to pursue it as part of its energy policy. “Yes, you don’t have to go nuclear, but there are consequences of deciding to use it and not use it,” he told NewsWire. “It means that Australia will not be in as strong a position to do certain types of industrial processes. As a consequence, data centres, (AI and robotics) are much more difficult to have if you don’t have that base-load capacity available to you.” Sir Robin said while Australia was “blessed with fantastic sunshine”, nuclear should be considered as an alternative to costly batteries. In comparison, the UK generates about 15 per cent of its electricity from nuclear sources, with wind and gas also key players in its grid, accounting for 30 per cent of energy input. “If you want energy security, and if you want a really robust system, then you’re going to have to invest in phenomenal amounts of storage if you don’t go nuclear,” Sir Robin said. “Batteries don’t generate energy. They’re a tax on the energy that you’re produced because you’ve having to store it … and the more energy you produce from intermittent renewables, the more storage you need and the greater the cost.” Australia’s abundant supplies of uranium, which make up about 8 per cent of global production and are estimated to be about one-third of the world’s uranium supply, could also be refined onshore, leading to new job markets, Sir Robin added. This could involve processing the uranium ore, refining it into yellowcake and converting it to uranium hexafluoride, steps that come before the compounds are enriched to create nuclear fuel. “The question is, do you just dig the ore out the ground and shove it on a train and export it to somewhere that’s going to do something with it, or do you go through some of the processes and retain more of the jobs associated with that in Australia,” Sir Robin said. Sir Robin’s comments follow an Australia-first conference on nuclear energy hosted by the University of NSW in Sydney this week. The event featured talks from world-leading nuclear scientists, including Nuclear Energy Agency director-general William Magwood, US Department of Energy deputy assistant secretary Aleshia Duncan and Sir Robin. It follows the launch of Australia’s first undergraduate honours degree in nuclear engineering, slated to start in 2026. UNSW’s Nuclear Innovation Centre director Ed Obbard said he believed the nuclear debate would likely grow as Australia developed a domestic nuclear engineering workforce and through existing initiatives like the AUKUS submarine program and Sydney’s OPAL reactor, which produces radioisotopes for medical imaging, cancer treatment and research. “As the nuclear sector grows, both in Australia and worldwide, discussions on civilian nuclear energy will become increasingly realistic,” Dr Obbard said. “Assuming that we still care about decarbonisation, nuclear is never going to go away.” However, Dr Obbard said Australia having a nuclear workforce was welcomed by both sides of politics. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re Liberal and you think we need a workforce for a future nuclear workforce, or if you’re Labor and you’re desperate to find a workforce to show the Americans that we’re doing OK with AUKUS,” he said. “Or if you’re a university where you have international students coming from around the world to study engineering at UNSW. “You’ve got this tripling of capacity happening everywhere, and there’s a huge nuclear skills shortage wherever you go, and everyone agrees on that.” The Coalition’s energy spokesman Dan Tehan welcomed the conference and said “having a conversation about zero emissions nuclear energy continues to be incredibly important for Australia and the world”. “More and more countries are adopting nuclear energy as they seek energy abundance and to reduce their emissions, and this is something that should be on the agenda for discussion here in Australia,” he said. “We’ve committed to the removal of the moratorium (on nuclear energy) and further policy is under review.”