Energy — Australian Renaissance Party

The Challenge

Australia has some of the best energy endowments on earth — solar irradiance among the highest globally, wind corridors along the southern and western coasts, vast tidal resources, significant natural gas reserves, and the world's largest known uranium deposits. A rational observer would expect Australia to have cheap, reliable, abundant energy. It does not.

Electricity prices for Australian households and businesses are among the highest in the OECD. The National Electricity Market has experienced repeated reliability failures during peak demand. Industrial energy users — smelters, manufacturers, processors — have closed or relocated because energy costs destroyed their competitiveness. Gas extracted from Australian soil is sold to Australian industry at prices above what export customers pay.

Geography compounds the cost. Australia is the sixth-largest country by landmass with a population of 28 million, most of it concentrated in coastal cities separated by thousands of kilometres. The transmission infrastructure required to connect generation to demand across these distances is vast, expensive, and ageing. Remote and regional communities face energy costs far above the national average because the economics of delivery to small, dispersed populations are inherently unfavourable. Australia’s per capita energy consumption is approximately 4.8 tonnes of oil equivalent — roughly 25% above the OECD average of 3.8 — driven by distance, an energy-intensive mining and resources sector, and climate extremes that demand both heating and cooling. Any energy policy that ignores the physical reality of the Australian continent — its scale, its distances, its climate — will fail.

Climate change is real. Australia is one of the most climate-exposed developed nations on earth. Carbon emissions must be reduced. ARP accepts the science and supports the objective. Context matters: Australia's per capita emissions are high, but its total national emissions — approximately 1.1% of the global total — are modest. Australia cannot solve climate change alone. What it can do is build an economy strong enough to survive the consequences and help others survive them too.

The greater strategic risk is that major emitters — the United States chief among them — refuse to act on the science. If large nations pursue climate denialism as economic policy, the damage falls on everyone, including Australia. ARP's response is not to cripple the Australian economy with unilateral emission reduction targets that have no material effect on global outcomes. The response is to build resilience: cheap, clean, reliable energy that strengthens Australian industry; agricultural capacity that feeds a world under increasing climate stress; processed materials and critical minerals that other nations will need and buy as they adapt. Australia grows the food, holds the minerals, and has the land and solar resource to produce clean energy at scale. Climate-induced disruption to global food systems, water supplies, and supply chains will make these capabilities more valuable, not less. Energy policy must ensure Australia is positioned to produce, process, and export — not merely to meet a percentage target while the largest emitters ignore theirs.

The question of how to reduce emissions must be grounded in engineering and economics rather than ideology. A transition that delivers expensive, unreliable energy while claiming moral superiority is a transition that will be rejected by the public and reversed by the next government. A transition that delivers cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy will sustain itself because it works.

The cause of the current crisis, layered on top of this geography, is two decades of policy paralysis. The energy debate in Australia has been captured by ideology. One side treats renewables as a moral imperative regardless of cost or reliability. The other treats fossil fuels as a cultural identity regardless of emissions or economics. Neither side is engineering the system. Both sides are performing for their base.

The result is an energy transition happening by default rather than by design. Ageing coal plants are closing on engineering timelines, not policy timelines. Renewable capacity is being added without adequate storage, transmission, or firming. Gas is being exported under long-term contracts while domestic users face spot market volatility. Nuclear remains prohibited by legislation — not assessed and rejected on merit, but prevented from being assessed at all.

The machine age makes energy policy more urgent, not less. AI data centres, battery manufacturing, electric vehicle fleets, hydrogen electrolysis, and advanced manufacturing are all energy-intensive. The nations that secure cheap, reliable, abundant energy will host these industries. The nations that do not will import their products.

Large-scale energy infrastructure is also a significant source of employment — and employment matters more now than at any point since the postwar period. The Snowy Mountains Scheme employed 100,000 workers over 25 years, built critical national infrastructure, and integrated a generation of migrants into the Australian workforce and community. Australia faces a parallel moment: automation and AI are displacing cognitive and routine work across the economy, and the nation needs large, long-duration physical projects that employ people in dignified, skilled work that machines cannot yet do. Building transmission networks, storage facilities, renewable generation at scale, and thorium reactor research infrastructure is not only energy policy — it is employment policy as we enter the machine age.

ARP Position

Energy policy must be governed by engineering and economics. The Australian Renaissance Party holds that:

Reliability is the first requirement. An energy system that cannot deliver power when it is needed has failed, regardless of how it generates that power. Grid reliability must be measured, reported, and enforced — with consequences for operators and regulators when the system falls short.

Technology neutrality is a governing principle. Solar, wind, battery storage, pumped hydro, gas, hydrogen, and nuclear must all be assessed on their engineering performance, economic cost, emissions profile, and contribution to grid stability. Policy should set the outcomes — reliability, affordability, emissions reduction — and let technology compete to deliver them. Picking winners by legislation is how Australia arrived at an energy system that is simultaneously expensive, unreliable, and emissions-intensive.

The nuclear prohibition must be amended to permit thorium reactors. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Section 140A) prohibits the construction of nuclear power plants. This prohibition makes no distinction between fuel types — it blocks thorium molten salt reactors alongside conventional uranium reactors, despite thorium addressing many of the safety and waste concerns that motivated the original ban. Thorium reactors operate at atmospheric pressure, generate substantially less long-lived waste, and are less conducive to weapons proliferation. ARP supports amending the prohibition specifically to permit thorium-based reactor development, research, and deployment. The case for thorium stands on its own engineering merits. Assessment is not commitment. Prohibition is not policy.

Domestic gas must serve Australia first. Australian gas reserves exist to serve Australian interests. A domestic gas reservation policy — modelled on Western Australia's existing framework, which has delivered lower gas prices for WA industry and households than the east coast market — must apply nationally. A defined percentage of production is reserved for the domestic market at regulated prices before export commitments are fulfilled.

Storage and transmission are the binding constraints. Renewable generation capacity is growing. The infrastructure to store and move that energy is not keeping pace. Grid-scale battery storage, pumped hydro, flywheel and kinetic storage systems, and transmission interconnectors between generation zones and demand centres must be built at the pace required by the transition — not at the pace permitted by planning disputes, regulatory delays, and underinvestment. Different storage technologies serve different functions: batteries and pumped hydro for bulk energy shifting, flywheels for fast-response frequency regulation that keeps the grid stable as intermittent generation grows. A diversified storage portfolio is more resilient than dependence on any single technology. ARP supports a national transmission and storage infrastructure authority with the planning powers and capital mandate to close the gap.

Energy sovereignty is national security. Energy policy must ensure that Australia can meet its own energy requirements from domestic sources under all foreseeable scenarios — including disruption to international supply chains, conflict in the region, or natural disaster. Dependence on imported refined fuels, with reserves measured in weeks rather than months, is a strategic vulnerability that current policy has failed to address.

Households and industry must benefit from the transition. The purpose of energy transition is to deliver cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy to Australians. If the transition results in higher prices, less reliability, and energy poverty for low-income households, it has failed on its own terms. Energy affordability must be measured and reported as rigorously as emissions reduction. Rooftop solar, household batteries, and community energy schemes should continue to be supported as mechanisms that reduce household costs and grid dependency simultaneously. Feed-in tariffs and power buy-back schemes must reflect the genuine value that household generation provides to the grid. Energy retailers have progressively devalued household solar contributions — buy-back rates that once incentivised rooftop investment have been cut to a fraction of the retail price, even as the grid depends increasingly on distributed generation to meet peak demand. ARP supports a regulated minimum feed-in tariff that reflects the network value of household generation, not the commercial preference of retailers to buy cheap and sell dear.

Hydrogen is an opportunity that requires honest assessment. Green hydrogen — produced by electrolysis using renewable energy — has genuine potential as an export commodity, an industrial feedstock, and a storage medium. It also has genuine limitations: storage difficulties, round-trip energy losses, infrastructure costs, and the vast quantities of renewable generation required to produce it at scale. ARP supports hydrogen investment where the economics are demonstrated, not where they are assumed. Pilot projects and industrial-scale trials should proceed. Billion-dollar bets on unproven export markets should not.

Australia should develop thorium molten salt reactor technology. Geoscience Australia estimates Australia holds approximately 1.265 million tonnes of thorium — one of the largest reserves on earth. Roughly 80% is contained in heavy mineral sand deposits already being mined for other minerals. None of it is recovered because there is no market. Thorium is three to five times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust, less conducive to weapons proliferation, and generates substantially less long-lived radioactive waste. Molten salt reactors using thorium fuel operate at atmospheric pressure (eliminating the high-pressure containment risk of conventional reactors), use liquid fuel that circulates with the coolant (allowing refuelling without shutdown), achieve higher fuel utilisation than solid-fuel designs, and do not require water for cooling — unlike conventional nuclear plants, which depend on large volumes of water for their steam cycle and cooling towers. For a continent as arid as Australia, a reactor technology that can operate in the dry interior without competing for scarce water resources is a significant practical advantage. China is already building this future. The Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics completed the 2 MWt TMSR-LF1 experimental reactor at Wuwei, Gansu Province, in 2021. It achieved first criticality in October 2023. In October 2024 it became the first reactor in the world to incorporate thorium fuel into a molten salt system. In November 2024 it achieved the first successful conversion of thorium-uranium nuclear fuel — a breakthrough that establishes the technical viability of the thorium fuel cycle. China is now building a 100 MWt demonstration reactor targeting completion by 2035. Australia sits on the fuel, has the engineering talent, and has no program. ARP supports a national thorium molten salt reactor research and development program, beginning with an experimental reactor and targeting a grid-connected demonstration plant within 15 years. Thorium development is a domain where international collaboration serves everyone. China has the operational reactor. India — which holds the world's largest thorium reserves and has pursued thorium energy for decades — has deep fuel cycle expertise. Australia has the reserves and the engineering base. A trilateral research partnership on thorium MSR technology would advance the science faster than any nation working alone, reduce development costs, and build strategic relationships grounded in shared technical interest rather than rivalry.

Policy Mechanisms

National Energy Reliability Standard: A legislated reliability standard for the National Electricity Market, with mandatory reporting, public accountability, and financial penalties for operators and market bodies that fail to meet defined performance thresholds.
Thorium Reactor Legislative Amendment: Amendment of the EPBC Act 1999 (Section 140A) to create a specific exemption for thorium-based reactor technologies. Establishment of a regulatory pathway for the assessment, licensing, and construction of thorium reactor facilities under the existing ARPANSA framework.
Thorium MSR Research Program: A nationally funded research and development program for thorium molten salt reactor technology, housed in an existing nuclear research institution (ANSTO) or a purpose-built facility. Initial phase: experimental reactor and thorium fuel cycle research. Target: grid-connected demonstration plant within 15 years. Pursue trilateral research collaboration with China (SINAP) and India (BARC/IGCAR) where strategically appropriate — thorium development is a shared interest that benefits from shared effort.
National Domestic Gas Reservation: Extension of the Western Australian domestic gas reservation model to all Australian gas production. A defined percentage of production reserved for domestic supply at regulated prices before export commitments are met.
National Transmission and Storage Authority: A statutory authority with planning powers and a capital mandate to deliver grid-scale battery storage, pumped hydro, and transmission interconnectors at the pace required by the energy transition. Empowered to override state planning delays where national energy security is at stake.
Strategic Fuel Reserve: Expansion of Australia's liquid fuel reserves from the current critically low levels to a minimum 90-day supply, consistent with International Energy Agency requirements that Australia has failed to meet for over a decade.
Household Energy Support: Continued and expanded support for rooftop solar, household battery installation, and community energy cooperatives — targeted at low-income households and regional communities where energy costs represent the highest proportion of household income.
Hydrogen Development Program: Staged investment in hydrogen production trials, infrastructure, and industrial applications — with clear performance milestones and public reporting of costs, output, and commercial viability before further public capital is committed.

What This Is Not

ARP is pro-energy. The objective is cheap, reliable, clean energy and energy independence for Australian households and industry. The means are determined by engineering and economics.
ARP accepts climate science and supports emissions reductions where possible. A nation with Australia’s per capita emissions has a responsibility to reduce them. The dispute is over method, not objective.
ARP supports renewable energy. Solar and wind are already the cheapest sources of new generation in Australia. The challenge is storage, transmission, and firming — the infrastructure that turns intermittent generation into reliable supply. Solving that challenge is the work. Pretending it does not exist is not.

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