Conservative economists, lobbyists, commentators and energy boffins have descended on regional communities nominated by the Coalition for nuclear sites, in a raft of events aimed at changing hearts and minds in the bush.

Organisers hope the events will create grassroots support for nuclear energy and stoke scepticism about renewables, particularly wind farms. The events, which organisers say aren’t linked, have featured climate science denier Ian Plimer, who recently wrote a treatise mocking the “blackbirding” slave trade, anti-wind farm activist Grant Piper, and others.

Dutton is yet to offer detailed costings for his nuclear policy, but CSIRO’s latest energy cost report card, compiled with Australia’s energy market regulator AEMO, estimates a large-scale nuclear reactor could cost $16 billion and take nearly two decades to build.

BIANCA HALL, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Read the whole story at the Sydney Morning Herald