Australia will get American made nuclear powered submarines within years. Just years ago it would have been unthinkable to write that sentence. But a week is a long time in politics especially when the threat of war looms.
Both sides of politics have done a u-turn on nuclear powered submarines because of the threat of war. This week the newly installed Chinese dictator for life, Xi Jinping, repeated his call for the communist takeover of Taiwan. We can see in Eastern Europe how quickly peace can dissolve. The old saying is true, the best way to prevent a war is to prepare for one.
No one wants conflict but weakness will only encourage aggressive actors like China to think they may get away with one.
The purchase of the new submarines is supported by almost all political parties, except for the Greens. And, by implication, all take the risk of conflict as a real one.
What is astounding then is that while we are willing to take a brave decision on submarines we are not similarly taking bold action to improve the industrial readiness of our country.
While we rush to purchase nuclear submarines, new threats to our energy supplies emerged. Two coal fired power units at Callide will now not be back online until after winter – they had been due back in service in May. And, the Liddell coal fired power station is due to shut next month.
This means that compared to last winter, we will be almost 2500 megawatts of reliable power short. That is enough power to supply energy to roughly 10 per cent of households in eastern Australia.
Last winter we only got by on the skin of our teeth. People were asked to turn off their dishwashers. The whole of Sydney was extremely lucky to avoid a complete blackout. Given the reduced amount of coal power this winter we might want to start praying that global warming hits us soon.
If we are serious about the risk of war why have we let our electricity system deteriorate to such a fragile state? Submarines are good but we have no chance of defending ourselves without a functioning industrial economy.
Our argument against building a new coal fired power station to shore up our electricity supplies is that this would somehow cause the planet to blow up. This is despite the very country who is increasing the risk of war, China, building over 100,000 megawatts of coal fired power this year!
We are not going to win the climate war without the cooperation of China. If we do not trust China to keep the peace, why do we trust them to act on climate?
Perhaps though there is one way the nuclear submarines can help. After all if we acquire five submarines over the next decade, that would be more than 1000 megawatts of reliable power. We could park the submarines in Sydney Harbour and run a giant extension cord to the mainland to keep the lights on.
More seriously, now that we will have multiple nuclear reactors sailing around our coastline, it is time to build some nuclear reactors onshore to maintain reliable and affordable electricity. It is one thing to buy the arms, it is another to maintain a manufacturing system capable of making them so that we can continue to defend Australia.
