BILLIONS of dollars from the nuclear industry could deliver free power to all South Australians and the abolition of state taxes, a Government Senator says.

South Australia’s Sean Edwards wants to see SA opened up to store spent fuel rods and install generators, securing a “massive inflow” of external money to kickstart the state’s economy in as soon as five years.

Accessing the tens of billions of dollars in the nuclear industry to store rods would let the state get rid of $4.4 billion in taxes including payroll tax, motor vehicle taxes and the Emergency Services Levy, while generating nuclear power could supply the entire state, he says.

That would effectively create a “special economic zone” attractive to business investment.

“This can take us from having one of the highest power costs in the world to one of the most competitive — indeed no cost apart from the poles and wires,” Senator Edwards said, adding it would make sense to store rods and build reactors where coal-fired plants are.

He has visited other countries involved or hoping to become involved in nuclear and briefed Trade Minister Andrew Robb and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane on the project and introduced them to a country interested in a long-term partnership.

Premier Jay Weatherill recently announced a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.

Last night Senator Edwards spoke to Mr Weatherill about working together to create a world-class nuclear industry that would employ thousands of people.

Senator Edwards said international partners would pay “handsomely” for SA to store their waste and rods, letting the State Government pay down debt, get rid of taxes, and “providing free power to SA households”.

“The science is in. The process is proven and we have a first mover advantage which would see us generate wealth akin to being the Saudis of the South,” he said.

“If we compare all major power sources, nuclear is by far the safest. Nuclear power is safer even when everything is going wrong than coal is when everything is going right.”

Nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski, former chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation who reviewed the industry for the Howard Government in 2006, said the move could “represent billions of dollars of revenue each year”, and that improved technology was convincing people of its safety.

“Public opinion about all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle suffered a major setback with Fukushima … but in the intervening four years as people have realised how different Australia is to that part of Japan — we’re not vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis — the interest of Australians in the fuel cycle is returning,” he said.

New reactors were a tenth the size and a tenth the cost of older versions, Dr Switkowski said.

Nuclear expert Ben Heard, director of ThinkClimate Consulting and doctoral candidate at the University of Adelaide, said everything in Senator Edward’s proposal was “entirely credible”.

“That’s not the same as saying it’s easy or a done deal, but it’s credible,” he said.

“The used fuel rods ... can be converted into a metal form and that can go into a fast reactor that recycles that material over and over again until all of that material has produced energy, and in that process it converts into a much shorter lived waste form (with a half-life of only 30 years).”

The global market was worth hundreds of billions of dollars, which could mean an industry worth tens of billions for SA, he said.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was “very interested” in the Royal Commission.

“I do think it’s important to see how SA can benefit from greater participation in the nuclear cycle,” he said, adding he would work with the State Government “when they’re being sensible”.