At the Queensland Futures Institute breakfast on the theme of ESG, Brighter Super chief executive Kate Farrar said the United States government recently gave approval for the use of small, or modular, nuclear reactors.

Farrer said Queensland had a history of producing uranium and up until 1982 when the Mary Kathleen mine closed. Not long after, a three mines policy was adopted by the Hawke Government. That restricted mining to three projects: Ranger, Nabarlek and Olympic Dam.

The only existing mines now were Olympic Dam and the Beverley mine.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has previously ridiculed nuclear as an option on the basis that it was the most expensive of all generation classes and was not viable.

Farrar said the issue was a controversial one but the new modular reactors had changed the discussion.

“We have to have some reasonable discussions about modular nuclear to play a part in contributing to decarbonisation,” Farrar said.

Reports from the US suggested that modular reactors had the capacity to replace the aging coal fleet in NSW within a relatively short time.

He said nuclear was not emission free because the mining, fabricating and transportation of the fuel was carbon heavy.

“Let’s remember, nuclear has direct links with radioactive waste and nuclear weapons proliferation and lacks social licence,” he said.

Sweeney said the Ranger mine, which closed in 2021, has a $2.2 billion clean up cost.The QFI function was also told that Isaac Regional Council’s mayor Anne Baker would take a motion to the Local Government Association Conference, in Cairns, next month for a regional transition authority to be funded by the State and oversee the transition to net zero.

Baker said it was vital for a coal-producing region like Isaac to have a voice in the transition and the opportunities that would bring as well as problems.

“There is a lot of activity. It is not lost on me or the council that we need to plan for the future,” Baker said.

Farrar added that it was important for a transition authority to consider “what we do with Isaac”.

She said many of the people could use their skills in clean energy and some would have to reskill.

“I do think there will be people displaced,” Farrar said.

“An authority would own a plan.”

CleanCo chief executive Tom Metcalfe said there was a massive job ahead of Queensland to meet emission targets because the state had only 7 gigawatts of renewable capacity and 4 Gw of that was rooftop solar.

“If we are going to get to 50 per cent (emissions reduction) we need 10 Gw of generation,” he said.

On top of that there was likely to be a massive increase in demand which would need huge investment in transmission.

There would also need to be considerable investment in communities, particularly indigenous communities, as the development occurs.