The answer is likely to be the opposite of whatever Blackout Bowen says the cost is.

Dutton is on the right track, as was a 17 year old kid who made a fool of Bowen on Q&A, and advised that the best way to go was to lift restrictions on nuclear, and let the market decide the cost.

In my opinion, we should just go back to coal, the cheapest of the lot.

Curb the worst emission, stupidity !
After that there'll be no more environment threatening pollution !

The first hint that the 80% renewables scenario was wishful thinking was when power prices shot up, contrary to election promises. Then they went up again the next year. Enthusiasts say wind and solar can get down to $50 per MWh, omitting to mention there are substantial add-on costs for frequency correction, gas backup, new transmission and subsidies as well as generous retail margins. As for storage Snowy 2 went from $2bn to over $10bn now some say we need 10 such schemes. We're not told but battery energy seems likely to cost $150 or more per MWh, that's opex not capex. Combine that with supposedly cheap wind and solar costs plus add-ons to get a more realistic figure for 24/7 electricity.

Notice how there are no commercial hydrogen plants yet despite being a fave of Bowen, AEMO, CSIRO etc. Perhaps they won't go prime time after all. I suspect SMRs after a few have been made will have a capex closer to $10 per installed watt. I paid $8/w for PV in 2005. Wholesale power will more like $100 per MWh but available 90% of the time when needed not 20% or 40% at random times like wind and solar. SMRs built at former coal sites won't require new transmission, frequency correction or newly impose themselves on the landscape. They will also provide comparable jobs to coal. I reckon Australia needs a dozen or more SMRs to replace the grid stability of coal and underpin heavy industry like smelting.

I was sitting out the cyclone season in Gladstone in 1974, as were many other yachties. Quite a few found work on the then under construction Gladstone power house, built mainly to supply power to the alumina works on the harbor.

It was recognised that our coal reserves were our natural advantage for metal production, with fuel from our near by 400 year coal reserves. It takes an idiot to ignore this happy fact.

So is Bowen an idiot, or an idiot who along with Albo wants to destroy our industry. Anyone other than another idiot knows the answer to that. They have to destroy our prosperity to enable full communism to take over the country.

Now for the useful idiots.

Indeed Graham, the whole situation is in a complate shambles and Bowen
should be out of cabinet immediately.
I have had an idea that in a large power station there is room to
remove the boiler and coal handling equipment and then in its physical place install an SMR reactor and equipment up to the point where it produces the heat, perhaps hot water to a heat exchanger that
produces the steam to be fed into the turbine.
Then each turbine system could be converted one at a time so a lot
less that a complete power station is lost.
BTW, Renewables does not mean what people seem to assume;
It means you renew them every twenty years !
BTW, Telstra says I should be receiving notifications !

I forgot to add, the quickest way to get a handle on the price of
nuclear is to call for tenders.
They would come in with provisos that the price could change as they
work through the approval process of their respective countries.
At least four of them are building SMAs for nuclear submarines so
there is already considerable experience.
Oh yes, the Raindow serpent has probably never heard of a nuclear reactor.