Google and Amazon Back Nuclear While Australia's Ban Holds Firm

Global technology companies including Google, Amazon, and Meta are racing to secure nuclear energy contracts for their rapidly expanding data centres, but Australian businesses face a very different reality — a decade-old federal prohibition prevents the national grid from following the same path, and advocates say the policy gap is becoming increasingly hard to defend.

While Silicon Valley heavyweights sign agreements with small modular reactor (SMR) developers and repurpose ageing nuclear plants to meet soaring electricity demand, Australia remains one of the few developed economies with a blanket legislative ban on nuclear power generation. For supporters of nuclear energy, the divergence is both an economic and a strategic concern.

Will Shackel, founder of Nuclear for Australia, argues the federal prohibition is driven by ideology rather than evidence. Speaking on 4BC Brisbane, Shackel said the case for nuclear grows harder to dismiss when the same technology is powering data centres across the developed world. "Why would we exclude a proven option to meet this hugely rising electricity demand?" he said, warning that unnecessary constraints on the grid ultimately leave everyday Australians with higher power bills and supply pressure.

The tension becomes sharper when set against Australia's AUKUS commitments. The federal government has approved nuclear-powered submarines under the trilateral security pact, meaning small nuclear reactors will one day operate in Australian waters for national defence. Rolls-Royce, the UK manufacturer contracted to supply those submarine reactors, is simultaneously developing a commercial SMR product — raising pointed questions about how open Australian policymakers truly are to the full range of nuclear applications.

Queensland sits at the centre of the debate for a second reason: the state holds significant uranium reserves but bans their extraction. Australia as a whole holds the world's largest uranium reserves, yet ranks only fourth among global exporters. India — which plans to expand its nuclear capacity tenfold by 2047 — is among many nations competing for access to Australian uranium, as are other allies aligned with Australia in trade and security arrangements. Resources minister Dale Last has ruled out uranium mining in Queensland despite advocacy from some quarters, a position critics describe as incoherent given both the export demand and the state's rising debt.

Globally, the momentum runs in one direction. More than 30 countries operate nuclear power plants today, and 38 nations representing around 70 per cent of world GDP — including the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom — have signed a pledge to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has maintained that his opposition to nuclear centres on cost and construction timelines rather than safety, a position Shackel finds difficult to reconcile with cabinet's sign-off on nuclear submarines. Supporters of the current renewables-led transition point to the speed of solar and wind deployment. Critics counter that both technologies require full replacement within 15 to 25 years, while a nuclear plant can run for 50 to 100 years after construction — making it a generational infrastructure investment with a very different long-term cost profile.

For Queensland specifically, the debate is also a question of economic opportunity: a state with world-class uranium reserves, a growing data-centre sector and a widening fiscal gap is, in the view of nuclear advocates, uniquely placed to benefit from a policy rethink — if the political will exists to pursue one.