Australia invented the solar power cell in 1983 then waved goodbye to it in 2001 as it left home for China. Embarrassingly for Australia, China turned that very same technology into an $80 billion-a-year export by 2022, dominating world supply, and still growing apace.

Now Australia wants the industry back. That’s why Anthony Albanese this week announced a new $1 billion program of government support for companies to make solar cells in Australia. He’s calling it SunShot.

Illustration: John Shakespeare. Credit:

Australia, said the prime minister, “has seen the breakthroughs that have led the world. But we have not been good at commercialising those opportunities ... We missed the opportunities. We are not going to miss the opportunities of this generation.”

He was speaking on the site of the once-mighty Liddell power station in NSW’s Hunter Valley, a coal-fired chugger that was decommissioned last year by its owner, AGL Energy.

Why there? Because AGL plans to turn the vast site into a clean industrial hub. Starting with Manuka honey and a big battery. The company is hoping that it will one day include a factory making solar cells.

The federal and state Labor governments would love nothing more, encouraging new investment and new jobs in the old coal-mining, Labor-voting heartland. But isn’t this exactly the sort of real estate where Peter Dutton wants to build big nuclear power plants?

Yes it is. The opposition leader has said that a Coalition government would favour large-scale nuclear plants on about half a dozen sites once occupied by coal-fired power stations.

There’s a physical logic and a political logic to this. The physical logic is that these sites are already wired into the electricity grid; no need to build disruptive new transmission lines across farmland or through communities.

QOSHE - Labor has a broken energy fix. The Libs don’t have one at all – yet - Peter Hartcher
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Labor has a broken energy fix. The Libs don’t have one at all – yet

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29.03.2024

Australia invented the solar power cell in 1983 then waved goodbye to it in 2001 as it left home for China. Embarrassingly for Australia, China turned that very same technology into an $80 billion-a-year export by 2022, dominating world supply, and still growing apace.

Now Australia wants the industry back. That’s why Anthony Albanese this week announced a new $1 billion program of government support for companies to make solar cells in Australia.........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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