Fair warning before we kick off this weekend. Increasingly, I’m reaching that stage of my professional life where I can be heard muttering, and sometimes shouting, I’m too bloody old for this.

My long-suffering colleagues in the Canberra bureau of Guardian Australia have absorbed bouts of muttering and shouting over the past few weeks as various Nationals and some Liberals have lined up post-election to support a new inquiry into nuclear energy, as if this might be a light bulb moment.

Just for the record, “I know, let’s look at nuclear” isn’t a new thought.

Way back in the mists of time, when John Howard was the prime minister, and the same corporate and security interests that have been pushing governments to establish a nuclear industry in Australia for decades prevailed upon him to open the door, we had a nuclear inquiry. It was led by Ziggy Switkowski, the urbane former managing director of Telstra, and a well regarded nuclear physicist.

The Switkowski inquiry was a really fascinating process, which I followed avidly. (I have no intention of apologising for that. Most of you already know that I am, and will always be, That Nerd.)

I followed it with an open mind, because at the time it was being considered, nuclear energy was a technology worth countenancing for a couple of reasons. Renewables were yet to hit the point where firming was a viable thing, and nuclear power plants don’t produce carbon emissions. The climate science tells us emissions need to come down, and quickly, if we are to have any chance of avoiding the worst-case scenarios. Nuclear energy has several downsides, which we’ll certainly come to, but not producing carbon pollution is an upside.

Apart from the abatement imperative, there was also a broader economic rationale for Australia looking at a nuclear industry. I’ll hand the microphone to John Howard now, because he laid out the main arguments more than a decade ago. “I’ve always maintained that holding the reserves of uranium that we do, it is foolish to see ourselves as simply an exporter of uranium,” Howard said when he set up the Switkowski process. “I think we should also look at the value-added process, which is principally enrichment, and we should also look at whether a nuclear power station in Australia would become economically feasible”.

Having set up the valid reasons to look, here are the downsides. Anybody watching Chernobyl at present on their favoured streaming service doesn’t really need me to spell the worst scenario out. I’ll assume the risk of catastrophe is already well understood by most people.

Inching back from the catastrophic to just plain difficult, there is also the problem of the radioactive waste nuclear generates, waste that has to be stored securely for thousands of years.

Previous deliberative processes suggest Australians aren’t that keen on nuclear waste despite us having lots of open geologically stable territory to store it well away from human habitation. If you don’t believe me, ask Jay Weatherill.

One more thing. If we are talking about the benefits associated with emissions reduction, we also need to factor in the energy-intensive processes associated with mining and processing uranium, and well as the carbon-intensive business of building power plants, although nuclear technologies, like all energy technologies, are evolving.

So, to cut a long story short, nuclear is like most energy technologies. There are benefits and costs. Whether the technologies are deployed or not is an on-balance judgment for policymakers, and we the voters get to hold them accountable.

When Switkowski was asked by Howard to weigh the evidence and report back, he concluded that Australia could establish a nuclear industry, and nuclear power plants could make a useful contribution to the country’s abatement task, but he said setting them up would take between 10 and 15 years.

There was another clear finding. If nuclear power was to be economical compared with the alternatives, the government would need to implement a carbon price. Yes, that’s right, a price on pollution.

It was that particular epiphany that led Howard to embrace emissions trading in the run-up to the 2007 election: the preceding Switkowski process, and the political pressure from Kevin Rudd declaring climate change the great moral challenge of our generation.

Obviously that Switkowski advice is now more than a decade old, and things may have changed given there has been a revolution in the economics of energy. But the Australian Nuclear Association, a lobby group that advocates for nuclear science and technology, says the finding remains broadly current. It says nuclear power can provide cheap, reliable, carbon-free energy in Australia, but it would be cost-competitive with gas and coal generation only if pollution was priced.

So now that we’ve put this picture together, what does it tell us?

It tells us that members of the Coalition want to open the door to nuclear energy, which isn’t actually economical unless the Coalition implements the carbon price it has spent the entire post-Howard era resisting.

You all remember that resistance, right? Malcolm Turnbull being thrown out of the Liberal leadership twice. Tony Abbott repealing the carbon price after the 2013 election. The resources minister Matt Canavan five minutes ago having a public swing at resources companies that advocate carbon pricing – they were thought criminals, one and all.

All pretty strange.

Perhaps “I know, let’s look at nuclear” reflects the fact that when it comes to climate and energy, the Coalition has now lost the ability to think in consecutive sentences.

Perhaps when you’ve spent 10 years punching yourself and the country repeatedly in the head, eventually you succumb to disorientation.

Perhaps this is just more time wasting.

Perhaps there are some in the government who think pesky fine print, such as the need for a carbon price, can be bypassed by Scott Morrison building a nuclear power plant with his bare hands and several billions of taxpayer dollars. (How good is it?)

Don’t laugh. This is entirely possible, given there are some in the show who think governments should build coal plants. The self-build approach would bypass the need to ruminate on whether the economics of a particular proposal stack up. George Christensen also strikes me as a bloke handy with a power drill and a nail gun.

There’s one more perhaps – a happier perhaps in three parts.

Perhaps this is the Coalition’s plan to execute a pivot on carbon pricing, just as Howard did in 2007.

Perhaps an examination of nuclear energy will be the catalyst for the Coalition of 2019 to reconnect itself with the position it adopted in 2007 for entirely sensible reasons.

Perhaps we should all cross our fingers on that one and not waste time fretting about the decade that has already been lost, or worry that the Coalition could stumble back to carbon pricing just at the moment Labor has chosen to abandon it.

In any case, I’ll be watching with interest.

• Katharine Murphy is Guardian Australia’s political editor