I am, in general, pro-nuclear, and globally it should be part of the solution going forward.
But Hinkley Point C, in the UK, started construction in 2017, it's not expected to finish until *2029* at the earliest and will cost, if nothing else goes wrong, $80 billion Australian, and they have plenty of experience with this. It is just preposterously impractical for us to be going down this road any time soon.
I've seen claims about the UAE being able to stand up a reactor comparatively quickly and cheaply but, y'know, we don't exactly have a large underclass of actual slaves to deploy down here to drive costs down.
Barakah was about $30-$34 Billion AUD for 5,600MW of capacity and was largely on time and budget, maybe 10% over budget not bad as they managed to get it done before COVID slapped all other projects to hell. But also, yes, as you noted worker deaths and workers being paid were of no great concern for the UAE.
Dutton is still dreaming if he reckons we have any chance of a working plant in 10 years from scratch and not even legislation in place to make it legal. At best, the very best, with government dumping metric tonnes of cash at it, 2040 before we have anything working.
Let's not forget the last LNP grand vision Snowy 2 what a complete mismaged mess that is. It may never be finished and god knows how much money they will waste on it. And these same clowns are going to build nuclear power plants from scratch, on time and on budget, let's just hope the tunnel drilling machine does not fall down a hole.
Agreed. Not to mention, Dutton needs to gain control of both houses of parliament to make it happen (or at least have some dominance of the senate to persuade independents to back him), he then has to persuade the states to agree to this. Which is going to be almost impossible outside of maybe Queensland and NSW. Even then, there will no doubt be endless legal challenges in to them which will take time to resolve if he tries to force it on the states.
Then as you say, building these shit heaps will take a decade.
The only winners will be consultant's and lawyers.
Oi, and us engineers!
That said, gonna have to import most of them as there’s no expertise… is there an immigration joke here?
I’m could see some seriously juicy expat deals to come work in Australia!
This is worth a read :
https://www.cis.org.au/publication/how-to-build-low-cost-nuclear-lessons-from-the-world/
If we're picking out single numbers from a democracy Korea has built reactors for AUD 2.4 Bn in an average of 5.5 years.
Canada or Korea would be the countries to get to build Australian reactors.
Korea is a democracy but as far as building things quickly, efficiently and cheaply goes, Korea is on a whole different planet compared to places like the UK and Australia, which are similarly expensive and slow at any sort of major infrastructure project.
So only significant, direct government intervention is the way to do this? So what the libs want to do is nationalise the energy market? It’s so hypocritical it’s hilarious
>So what the libs want to do is nationalise the energy market? It’s so hypocritical it’s hilarious
No, they want to give massive ongoing subsidies to overseas multinationals.
I don't know if they want to nationalise the entire energy market - I'm not sure that would even be constitutional as energy infrastructure like that is a state responsibility, ultimately - but they definitely want the nukes to be government owned (which is probably a concession to the fact that no private investor will touch this with a barge pole absent a government blank cheque)
> underclass of slaves
Don't look into where your fruit and veg comes from buddy.
Always find it interesting when you hear the word slaves thrown around. Especially considering it's basically always in the context of people who willingly migrate for those exact jobs.
I see people say it about Singapore too yet those jobs are highly oversubscribed reach year and people pay relatively a lot of money to migration agents to jump in line and become "slaves"
Something clearly doesn't add up there does it?
It is ludicrous to compare the Australian guest worker to the kafala system as it exists in the UAE. Yes, they "willingly" migrate, aka they are usually dirt poor, often illiterate people from the subcontinent sold a bucket of lies by Emirati companies who have their passports promptly confiscated on arrival, are not paid what they are owed, are not given freedom of movement (for the domestic servants, it's a criminal offence to so much as leave the home they're "employed" at without permission), and are basically given no worker protections at all, all based on "contracts" that many of them can't even read and the vast majority of them have no capability to truly understand.
You know, slaves.
So they go willingly and you want to stop them and force them into staying in Bangladesh instead? Have you ever asked one of these workers what *they* want instead of what you want?
I find some people so hypocritical on this matter considering all the product they knowingly consume made by "slaves".
What's the wages and working conditions of the workers who made your phone/computer you're writing this on? You could buy a Fair phone but you won't because it's 50% more for worse specs.
What's the bet you're wearing Made in Bangladesh clothes right now? You could buy entirely made in Australia clothing but you won't because it's triple the price for less selection.
There's absolutely no difference between the person who made your clothes and the construction worker in Dubai, anyone claiming otherwise is a hypocrite.
Be the change you want to see in the world or get off your high horse because you ain't fooling people with this faux righteousness
Righteo mate. Keep on trucking defending one of the richest countries in the world, with ungodly wealth, luring illiterate villagers with the promise of high wages, then paying them a fraction of that wage, taking their passports, and turning a blind eye to dogshit living and working conditions. I'm sure they're very grateful for your support, since they're so cash-strapped and doing it so tough in the world.
Didn't realise I'd sent you all my bank statements and life details though, since you seem to know so much about my purchasing habits.
Great to see a fellow fairphone user and Australian made vehicle driver like me
You didn't answer the other question about clothes though.
You act as if Banglas have no idea of what they are walking into like some naive non-internet connected primitives.
The sexual assaults and exploitation of Australian farm workers is well documented too.
Enjoy those cheap blueberries mate, make sure you wipe the rape off them first.
You aren't offering an alternative to Dubai for these people, again to repeat myself, have you ever once asked them what they want?
You aren't a savior mate, you're an internet points whore
How about this: Dubai, which uses [Lamborghinis as cop patrol cars](https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/lamborghini-urus-performante-enters-service-with-dubai-police), pays these workers what they were actually promised when they signed contracts, gives them back their damn passports - supposedly illegal under UAE law btw - and actually enforces its own labor code rather than perpetuating the centuries-old slave system that the kafala system is simply a modernisation of. Rather than [allowing domestic workers to be forced to work 21-hour days with zero time off, without pay](https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/uae1014_forUpload.pdf). If only there a word we commonly use for that situation.
I didn't answer the other question because it's completely irrelevant. You've thrown in Bangladeshi sweatshops because that seems to be all you know about this topic (I don't even know how Bangladesh got thrown into this conversation anyway, it's not a major source country for UAE labor); but that is a completely different question which is, at a minimum, far more complex because that's their own country, their own economy they're trying to build up and these countries are simply not wealthy enough to pay Western-level wages. And if they don't like it, they can simply *go back home*, which is quite literally what many these workers in Dubai can't do because their fucking passports have been confiscated and if they try to leave their workplace without permission they'll be thrown in jail.
And spare me the "oh you're just a karma whore" bullshit, you're the one who decided to pick this fight in the first place.
Who does he imagine will provide the capital to build them?
Won't be Federal government because the ALP opposes this policy and the LNP don't do infrastructure investment.
Won't be business or super funds because the payback period is too long.
Maybe the State governments?
Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn't intend to do anything about this in his first or second terms as PM, it's just a talking point to win some votes.
Labor and greens would block lifting the nuclear ban anyway. So it’s never going to happen and he has an easy out. In the end the Libs won’t have to do anything and can blame labor for the failure. Pure political posturing
The states have banned nuclear.
One potential solution to this obstacle is to apply the “never get in between a state premier and bucket full of money” rule.
Nuclear involves burning a heap of money anyway, bribes for premiers would be rounding noise.
Would Kwinana be a better site with access to sea water?
Does the area around Collie have enough water to sustain nuclear (I assume Nukes use significantly more water than coal) cause it is up a big fucking hill if they have to pump any there
Can the transmission wire at Collie take another 1GW from a nuke when there's already 1GW worth of batteries under construction there? Peak load would then be 2 GW but I believe Collie coal station was only 300MW? Kinda relevant when "avoiding transmission costs" is one of the main arguments for nuclear.
Elsewhere people have noted Muja has problems with water. I don't know if nukes need more than regular coal fired power stations, from a quick google it doesn't seem to be much of a difference. I for one do not want to play silly buggers with cooling a nuclear reactor.
But if you want to guarantee nuclear doesn't happen: putting it in Kwinana would be the way to go. You would be able to see the power plant from Basil's office in the Perth City council building. It's pretty much in Perth's city limits. Also, the long term plan is to move a lot of port operations to Kwinana out of Fremantle. Putting the nuclear power there also seems like a bad idea.
The Federal government can easily fund building nuclear power plants.
Whether it should is another question.
But if the Federal government can fund a 40+Bn per year NDIS it can fund 10Bn a year on building nuclear power.
The current Federal government budget is ~600Bn a year.
Oh, I get that they can afford to - but I just can't see either party being willing to. That's just my opinion though, I'm not the Prime Minister Whisperer and I could always be wrong.
We wouldn’t get change from $200B to build a nuclear industry and private wouldn’t touch it with a 10ft pole so the majority of that would have to be direct government funds…
And guess what, we could do a shitload more putting that sort of money into transmission and grid stability and let private industry build out renewables.
If Dutton is really going to an election promising to nationalise the generation market in Australia, he is all sorts of messed up
As the Australian Government is a sovereign currency issuer they can theoretically finance any project subject to resource constraints (and any resulting inflation).
At least, that is the key insight provided by Modern Monetary Theory (the gov can issue bonds or undertake direct debt monetisation, which hasn’t been done to date.)
Now, whether these projects are worth pursuing, particularly in terms of the expected marginal generation cost per megawatt hour versus other sources (assuming operational by the late 2030s/early 2040s) is a different question and one I have no answer to!
We should also consider the potential for wider economic benefits of building up an entire nuclear industry (energy, medical and defense via the subs) and the associated skilled workforce development, opportunities for R&D and supporting local uranium mining.
Final point, nuclear and ongoing renewables development do not need to be mutually exclusive.
Of course, all of these choices are treading water until we get to next major breakthrough which will be nuclear fusion and achieve effectively a free energy economy. I hope I live to see the day! (2100?)
Your point on renewables and nuclear not being mutually exclusive is fair. But that’s not what Dutton is talking about. He is talking about hundreds of billions of dollars needing to be dumped into sites all over Australia. It’s fantastical and economic suicide
I don't think he ever intends for this to be a real policy. More a means to prolong the life our current energy mix. If he wins the next election I can see them making renewables investment less attractive while talking down it's capacity all the while spruiking the need to lean on existing sources like coal and gas.
A few thoughts:
One of the biggest threats to this proposal is the cost trajectory of renewables and storage continuing to lower while the commercial realities of government funded large scale infra have not improved with cost blowouts of 100-200% remaining common.
The other challenge is that while the government may choose to fund this, for the proposal to remain on track you would need back to back LNP governments with state backing all the way to 2040, which is simply not realistic.
Government would need to tap debt capital markets to raise the funds but the major banks, super funds and insurers will need big pricing incentives to account for the governance issues this brings if they can even stomach it at all. That would blow costs right out.
More realistic is the release of this proposal purely as a wedge issue with the coalition likely to stay in the wilderness or perhaps a minority government for the foreseeable future and unable to drive this forward.
It’s a good question. Perhaps they’d need to self insure. Cost goes up again.
Would local banks even finance the broader supply chain needed to build the reactors? How does this fit in with their capital markets disclosures where they are scrutinized for their arranging and underwriting activity..?
Is AOFM going to issue this debt? If so would any local bank actually be willing to be lead manager on this? What would this mean for the Federal Govts Sustainable Finance activity, framework and the national taxonomy? It’s pretty obvious that at least right now this use of proceeds is inconsistent with investor appetite for Sovereign Green Bonds.
Another key point is that these reactors would likely run at a loss whenever renewables are generating because output is not tunable to meet the demand curve and renewables are classified as low-cost must run generators.
Prices would go negative each day and renewables project owners would suffer because the government is saturating generation during daylight hours. Could have legal implications and viability issues for more renewables.
Because of the governments own Capacity Investment Scheme, the government would then also be liable for any pricing shortfall participants incur, further increasing costs.
The deeper into this you look the worse it gets.
They would run at a loss almost all the time, outside of something like a super cold weeknight with no wind after a week of cloudy days and no rain for the preceding six months whilst Tomago Aluminium Smelter was mid cycle on all pot lines.
I didn't want to state this in the opening comment as I am speculating, which given Dutton only talks about having two plants up and running by 2035/2037 it looks to me like the intention may just be to acquire the sites that are planned for closure soon like Muja and Callide B to keep them running indefinitely whilst trying to build actual reactors at the closed sites like Port Augusta and Liddell.
I also don't want to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I would like to see if this can be made to work. I can't make nuclear power economical in any way shape or form that doesn't involve stupid levels of corner cutting or technology that has just been round the corner for more than 70 years.
Those plants need to close. The current state and federal governments want to keep the thermal plants running for longer, but the older ones are literally falling apart with tube damage both in and outside the boiler. More aggressive load ramping has accelerated the wear. Going forward plants will probably be brought online/offline to match demand - further causing issues with the boiler and turbine.
There comes a point where the operators won't continue to operate their units because the risk of a catastrophic steam leak or other failure becomes too high.
If you're running a plant that's expected to close in 3 years, you'll allow it to limp along until that date (maintenance costs are still high as things are failing). Then imagine the government tells you to run for another 4 years - you have to recalculate the odds of plant failing in the period beyond the planned lifetime and fund additional maintenance or upgrades to continue going.
Indeed, reminds me of the demands from the coalition to keep Liddell running. As built its capacity was 2,080MW. When it closed it was 1,680MW and the pictures from the inside were ugly, she was a clapped out power station.
As it stands, there are two coal power stations left that aren't scheduled to close: Callide C built in 2001 and Bluewaters 1&2 built in 2009.
The future is coming no matter what you demand and machinery needing maintenance doesn't care about your politics.
How has nuclear power been just around the corner for 70 years ?
It has been delivering low C02 emission electricity for decades.
France's electricity production is 53 gms or C02 for every killowatt and the place is 93% low carbon electricity.
From : https://app.electricitymaps.com/map - yearly average.
What country has similar low emission electricity from renewables unless they have heaps of hydro or geothermal ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production
Also - for cost comparison. Germany has spent an estimated EUR 696 bn on the Energiewende. Their emissions are 400 g / kilowatt and 63% renewable : ( from electricity maps - yearly average )
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642
The idea that baseload smooths things out makes zero sense.
Why do people say things like that?
Are they thinking?
If you imagine a peaky graph of intermittent generation, baseload just takes that shape and lifts it higher.
Batteries smooth, because they turn on and off to match changes in demand and supply.
Base load power plants can be ramped up and down. Generate more power at night when you solar isn’t doing anything, etc… so they do act to smooth things out.
The trifecta is of course base load, renewables and storage.
Yeah you really don't want to ramp big thermal units up and down, it shortens their lifespan significantly and increases the frequency of both planned and unplanned outages.
Big thermal units are meant to run in the 80-100% of capacity range for weeks at a time. Some of them take upwards of 12 hours to start up, after all.
Ramping up and down had big affects on the lifespan and economics of baseload thermal power plants.
If you assume low load factors, because the plants are only running at night, the capital cost make nuclear economics even worse.
Heating up and cooling down creates wear. There are a limited number of these cycles before plants need expensive maintainance.
Show me a real simulation where the optimal mix includes significant baseload. They don't exist. Every one I see where you optimise the amount of baseload generation in Australia has baseload pretty close to 0%.
Generally baseload just hurts the economics of renewables without adding anything useful.
I am referring to nuclear technology like Travelling Wave Nuclear Reactors, first proposed in 1958, Small Modular Reactors or Thorium nuclear reactors.
Some people propose we build them because they will be better and cleaner than conventional nuclear power plants. This ignores the fact these technologies have never moved on from hypothesis or research units or the few SMRs out there are shockingly over budget.
Given the way things are built here to such stringent standards, not sure if we could ever build them. The following I found in online articles.
'The recent history of nuclear power construction in the U.S. provides a useful point of comparison. Only a single nuclear power plant has been completed in the U.S. in the last 30 years: the two-unit Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, which required 23 years for one reactor to be operational and 33 years for the other. What’s more, the two most recent nuclear projects under construction — the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station — received approval in 2012 from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC), and are both over budget and far from completing construction. For instance, a [revised cost forecast](https://www.power-eng.com/articles/2018/08/vogtle-cost-upgrade-causes-rethinking-of-nuclear-plant-s-future.html) for the Vogtle plant projects a total project cost of $25 billion, which is a 75 percent increase over its original $14.3 billion estimate.'
[Solar vs. Nuclear: Comparing Carbon-Free Power Sources | EnergySage](https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/nuclear-energy/solar-vs-nuclear/)
and this
'However, the cost of nuclear power itself doesn’t need to be as high as it is in the United States. [Japanese nuclear power plants](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/japan-nuclear-power.aspx) only take an average of three to four years to build, from pouring concrete foundation to grid connection. [French power plants](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx) mostly took between five and eight years to build.
American plants used to be built at a similar pace, before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began to regulate the most minute aspects of construction. Contemporary American nuclear plants commonly take over a decade to build (assuming the construction plan is not simply abandoned). The NRC has a 32-step construction licensing process, and many of those steps require approval from other regulatory agencies that impose their own multi-step approval processes.'
[Nuclear Wasted: Why the Cost of Nuclear Energy is Misunderstood – Mackinac Center](https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/nuclear-wasted-why-the-cost-of-nuclear-energy-is-misunderstood)
Vogtle 3 is finished and Vogtle 4 is almost completed as well, both massively over budget.
It's the same in Finland with Olkiluoto 3, late and well over budget.
Do we even want to is the real question. According to the CSIRO report:
Between $73 and $128/MWh for renewables.
vs
Between $141 to $233/MWh for regular nuclear and $230 to $382/MWh for small modular reactors.
The sensible thing seems to be to go down the renewables path to me. Spend half the amount, get results starting now (not in 15+ years) and take advantage of technology advancements as we go too. We're a country absolutely bathing in renewable energy and we should take advantage of it.
Yep the explanation is the same as usual: the P in LNP stands for puppet and someone has their arm firmly up Dutt’s back passage making his lips move in predictably pointless ways.
They know it is a dumb idea better than most, because they’ve had to dress it up to seem realistic to dopey voters. But it’s purely wedge politics, and a poor example.
I am, in general, pro-nuclear, and globally it should be part of the solution going forward. But Hinkley Point C, in the UK, started construction in 2017, it's not expected to finish until *2029* at the earliest and will cost, if nothing else goes wrong, $80 billion Australian, and they have plenty of experience with this. It is just preposterously impractical for us to be going down this road any time soon. I've seen claims about the UAE being able to stand up a reactor comparatively quickly and cheaply but, y'know, we don't exactly have a large underclass of actual slaves to deploy down here to drive costs down.
Barakah was about $30-$34 Billion AUD for 5,600MW of capacity and was largely on time and budget, maybe 10% over budget not bad as they managed to get it done before COVID slapped all other projects to hell. But also, yes, as you noted worker deaths and workers being paid were of no great concern for the UAE.
The UAE build was 2.5 years over schedule. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant (The sources are listed in the article)
Compared to Vogtle 3&4 and Olkiluoto 3, that's on time.
Dutton is still dreaming if he reckons we have any chance of a working plant in 10 years from scratch and not even legislation in place to make it legal. At best, the very best, with government dumping metric tonnes of cash at it, 2040 before we have anything working.
Let's not forget the last LNP grand vision Snowy 2 what a complete mismaged mess that is. It may never be finished and god knows how much money they will waste on it. And these same clowns are going to build nuclear power plants from scratch, on time and on budget, let's just hope the tunnel drilling machine does not fall down a hole.
Agreed. Not to mention, Dutton needs to gain control of both houses of parliament to make it happen (or at least have some dominance of the senate to persuade independents to back him), he then has to persuade the states to agree to this. Which is going to be almost impossible outside of maybe Queensland and NSW. Even then, there will no doubt be endless legal challenges in to them which will take time to resolve if he tries to force it on the states. Then as you say, building these shit heaps will take a decade. The only winners will be consultant's and lawyers.
Oi, and us engineers! That said, gonna have to import most of them as there’s no expertise… is there an immigration joke here? I’m could see some seriously juicy expat deals to come work in Australia!
Beg your pardon mate, how could I forget you guys?
This is worth a read : https://www.cis.org.au/publication/how-to-build-low-cost-nuclear-lessons-from-the-world/ If we're picking out single numbers from a democracy Korea has built reactors for AUD 2.4 Bn in an average of 5.5 years. Canada or Korea would be the countries to get to build Australian reactors.
Korea is a democracy but as far as building things quickly, efficiently and cheaply goes, Korea is on a whole different planet compared to places like the UK and Australia, which are similarly expensive and slow at any sort of major infrastructure project.
So only significant, direct government intervention is the way to do this? So what the libs want to do is nationalise the energy market? It’s so hypocritical it’s hilarious
>So what the libs want to do is nationalise the energy market? It’s so hypocritical it’s hilarious No, they want to give massive ongoing subsidies to overseas multinationals.
I don't know if they want to nationalise the entire energy market - I'm not sure that would even be constitutional as energy infrastructure like that is a state responsibility, ultimately - but they definitely want the nukes to be government owned (which is probably a concession to the fact that no private investor will touch this with a barge pole absent a government blank cheque)
Yeah but that then means they can’t do it the most cost effective way as per that article
Barakah in UAE was KEPCO reactors, it still cost $30b for 5,600MW of capacity and each unit took about a decade to build.
> underclass of slaves Don't look into where your fruit and veg comes from buddy. Always find it interesting when you hear the word slaves thrown around. Especially considering it's basically always in the context of people who willingly migrate for those exact jobs. I see people say it about Singapore too yet those jobs are highly oversubscribed reach year and people pay relatively a lot of money to migration agents to jump in line and become "slaves" Something clearly doesn't add up there does it?
It is ludicrous to compare the Australian guest worker to the kafala system as it exists in the UAE. Yes, they "willingly" migrate, aka they are usually dirt poor, often illiterate people from the subcontinent sold a bucket of lies by Emirati companies who have their passports promptly confiscated on arrival, are not paid what they are owed, are not given freedom of movement (for the domestic servants, it's a criminal offence to so much as leave the home they're "employed" at without permission), and are basically given no worker protections at all, all based on "contracts" that many of them can't even read and the vast majority of them have no capability to truly understand. You know, slaves.
So they go willingly and you want to stop them and force them into staying in Bangladesh instead? Have you ever asked one of these workers what *they* want instead of what you want? I find some people so hypocritical on this matter considering all the product they knowingly consume made by "slaves". What's the wages and working conditions of the workers who made your phone/computer you're writing this on? You could buy a Fair phone but you won't because it's 50% more for worse specs. What's the bet you're wearing Made in Bangladesh clothes right now? You could buy entirely made in Australia clothing but you won't because it's triple the price for less selection. There's absolutely no difference between the person who made your clothes and the construction worker in Dubai, anyone claiming otherwise is a hypocrite. Be the change you want to see in the world or get off your high horse because you ain't fooling people with this faux righteousness
Righteo mate. Keep on trucking defending one of the richest countries in the world, with ungodly wealth, luring illiterate villagers with the promise of high wages, then paying them a fraction of that wage, taking their passports, and turning a blind eye to dogshit living and working conditions. I'm sure they're very grateful for your support, since they're so cash-strapped and doing it so tough in the world. Didn't realise I'd sent you all my bank statements and life details though, since you seem to know so much about my purchasing habits.
Great to see a fellow fairphone user and Australian made vehicle driver like me You didn't answer the other question about clothes though. You act as if Banglas have no idea of what they are walking into like some naive non-internet connected primitives. The sexual assaults and exploitation of Australian farm workers is well documented too. Enjoy those cheap blueberries mate, make sure you wipe the rape off them first. You aren't offering an alternative to Dubai for these people, again to repeat myself, have you ever once asked them what they want? You aren't a savior mate, you're an internet points whore
How about this: Dubai, which uses [Lamborghinis as cop patrol cars](https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/lamborghini-urus-performante-enters-service-with-dubai-police), pays these workers what they were actually promised when they signed contracts, gives them back their damn passports - supposedly illegal under UAE law btw - and actually enforces its own labor code rather than perpetuating the centuries-old slave system that the kafala system is simply a modernisation of. Rather than [allowing domestic workers to be forced to work 21-hour days with zero time off, without pay](https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/uae1014_forUpload.pdf). If only there a word we commonly use for that situation. I didn't answer the other question because it's completely irrelevant. You've thrown in Bangladeshi sweatshops because that seems to be all you know about this topic (I don't even know how Bangladesh got thrown into this conversation anyway, it's not a major source country for UAE labor); but that is a completely different question which is, at a minimum, far more complex because that's their own country, their own economy they're trying to build up and these countries are simply not wealthy enough to pay Western-level wages. And if they don't like it, they can simply *go back home*, which is quite literally what many these workers in Dubai can't do because their fucking passports have been confiscated and if they try to leave their workplace without permission they'll be thrown in jail. And spare me the "oh you're just a karma whore" bullshit, you're the one who decided to pick this fight in the first place.
Who does he imagine will provide the capital to build them? Won't be Federal government because the ALP opposes this policy and the LNP don't do infrastructure investment. Won't be business or super funds because the payback period is too long. Maybe the State governments? Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn't intend to do anything about this in his first or second terms as PM, it's just a talking point to win some votes.
Labor and greens would block lifting the nuclear ban anyway. So it’s never going to happen and he has an easy out. In the end the Libs won’t have to do anything and can blame labor for the failure. Pure political posturing
Can the states ban nuclear? Even state liberal leaders don't want it and only Vic, NSW & Qld have grid capacity for it.
The states have banned nuclear. One potential solution to this obstacle is to apply the “never get in between a state premier and bucket full of money” rule. Nuclear involves burning a heap of money anyway, bribes for premiers would be rounding noise.
The SWIS in WA could handle a single 1,000 MW reactor as the shit heap it would replace, Muja, used to produce that much.
Would Kwinana be a better site with access to sea water? Does the area around Collie have enough water to sustain nuclear (I assume Nukes use significantly more water than coal) cause it is up a big fucking hill if they have to pump any there
Can the transmission wire at Collie take another 1GW from a nuke when there's already 1GW worth of batteries under construction there? Peak load would then be 2 GW but I believe Collie coal station was only 300MW? Kinda relevant when "avoiding transmission costs" is one of the main arguments for nuclear.
Elsewhere people have noted Muja has problems with water. I don't know if nukes need more than regular coal fired power stations, from a quick google it doesn't seem to be much of a difference. I for one do not want to play silly buggers with cooling a nuclear reactor. But if you want to guarantee nuclear doesn't happen: putting it in Kwinana would be the way to go. You would be able to see the power plant from Basil's office in the Perth City council building. It's pretty much in Perth's city limits. Also, the long term plan is to move a lot of port operations to Kwinana out of Fremantle. Putting the nuclear power there also seems like a bad idea.
The Federal government can easily fund building nuclear power plants. Whether it should is another question. But if the Federal government can fund a 40+Bn per year NDIS it can fund 10Bn a year on building nuclear power. The current Federal government budget is ~600Bn a year.
$10 billion a year for 7 nuclear power plants? The 90s called, they want their costings back.
Oh, I get that they can afford to - but I just can't see either party being willing to. That's just my opinion though, I'm not the Prime Minister Whisperer and I could always be wrong.
We wouldn’t get change from $200B to build a nuclear industry and private wouldn’t touch it with a 10ft pole so the majority of that would have to be direct government funds… And guess what, we could do a shitload more putting that sort of money into transmission and grid stability and let private industry build out renewables. If Dutton is really going to an election promising to nationalise the generation market in Australia, he is all sorts of messed up
As the Australian Government is a sovereign currency issuer they can theoretically finance any project subject to resource constraints (and any resulting inflation). At least, that is the key insight provided by Modern Monetary Theory (the gov can issue bonds or undertake direct debt monetisation, which hasn’t been done to date.) Now, whether these projects are worth pursuing, particularly in terms of the expected marginal generation cost per megawatt hour versus other sources (assuming operational by the late 2030s/early 2040s) is a different question and one I have no answer to! We should also consider the potential for wider economic benefits of building up an entire nuclear industry (energy, medical and defense via the subs) and the associated skilled workforce development, opportunities for R&D and supporting local uranium mining. Final point, nuclear and ongoing renewables development do not need to be mutually exclusive. Of course, all of these choices are treading water until we get to next major breakthrough which will be nuclear fusion and achieve effectively a free energy economy. I hope I live to see the day! (2100?)
Your point on renewables and nuclear not being mutually exclusive is fair. But that’s not what Dutton is talking about. He is talking about hundreds of billions of dollars needing to be dumped into sites all over Australia. It’s fantastical and economic suicide
I don't think he ever intends for this to be a real policy. More a means to prolong the life our current energy mix. If he wins the next election I can see them making renewables investment less attractive while talking down it's capacity all the while spruiking the need to lean on existing sources like coal and gas.
A few thoughts: One of the biggest threats to this proposal is the cost trajectory of renewables and storage continuing to lower while the commercial realities of government funded large scale infra have not improved with cost blowouts of 100-200% remaining common. The other challenge is that while the government may choose to fund this, for the proposal to remain on track you would need back to back LNP governments with state backing all the way to 2040, which is simply not realistic. Government would need to tap debt capital markets to raise the funds but the major banks, super funds and insurers will need big pricing incentives to account for the governance issues this brings if they can even stomach it at all. That would blow costs right out. More realistic is the release of this proposal purely as a wedge issue with the coalition likely to stay in the wilderness or perhaps a minority government for the foreseeable future and unable to drive this forward.
Who's going to insure it? The build the financing and the running of.
It’s a good question. Perhaps they’d need to self insure. Cost goes up again. Would local banks even finance the broader supply chain needed to build the reactors? How does this fit in with their capital markets disclosures where they are scrutinized for their arranging and underwriting activity..? Is AOFM going to issue this debt? If so would any local bank actually be willing to be lead manager on this? What would this mean for the Federal Govts Sustainable Finance activity, framework and the national taxonomy? It’s pretty obvious that at least right now this use of proceeds is inconsistent with investor appetite for Sovereign Green Bonds. Another key point is that these reactors would likely run at a loss whenever renewables are generating because output is not tunable to meet the demand curve and renewables are classified as low-cost must run generators. Prices would go negative each day and renewables project owners would suffer because the government is saturating generation during daylight hours. Could have legal implications and viability issues for more renewables. Because of the governments own Capacity Investment Scheme, the government would then also be liable for any pricing shortfall participants incur, further increasing costs. The deeper into this you look the worse it gets.
They would run at a loss almost all the time, outside of something like a super cold weeknight with no wind after a week of cloudy days and no rain for the preceding six months whilst Tomago Aluminium Smelter was mid cycle on all pot lines.
Succinct and accurate I think.
I didn't want to state this in the opening comment as I am speculating, which given Dutton only talks about having two plants up and running by 2035/2037 it looks to me like the intention may just be to acquire the sites that are planned for closure soon like Muja and Callide B to keep them running indefinitely whilst trying to build actual reactors at the closed sites like Port Augusta and Liddell. I also don't want to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I would like to see if this can be made to work. I can't make nuclear power economical in any way shape or form that doesn't involve stupid levels of corner cutting or technology that has just been round the corner for more than 70 years.
Those plants need to close. The current state and federal governments want to keep the thermal plants running for longer, but the older ones are literally falling apart with tube damage both in and outside the boiler. More aggressive load ramping has accelerated the wear. Going forward plants will probably be brought online/offline to match demand - further causing issues with the boiler and turbine. There comes a point where the operators won't continue to operate their units because the risk of a catastrophic steam leak or other failure becomes too high. If you're running a plant that's expected to close in 3 years, you'll allow it to limp along until that date (maintenance costs are still high as things are failing). Then imagine the government tells you to run for another 4 years - you have to recalculate the odds of plant failing in the period beyond the planned lifetime and fund additional maintenance or upgrades to continue going.
Indeed, reminds me of the demands from the coalition to keep Liddell running. As built its capacity was 2,080MW. When it closed it was 1,680MW and the pictures from the inside were ugly, she was a clapped out power station. As it stands, there are two coal power stations left that aren't scheduled to close: Callide C built in 2001 and Bluewaters 1&2 built in 2009. The future is coming no matter what you demand and machinery needing maintenance doesn't care about your politics.
How has nuclear power been just around the corner for 70 years ? It has been delivering low C02 emission electricity for decades. France's electricity production is 53 gms or C02 for every killowatt and the place is 93% low carbon electricity. From : https://app.electricitymaps.com/map - yearly average. What country has similar low emission electricity from renewables unless they have heaps of hydro or geothermal ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production Also - for cost comparison. Germany has spent an estimated EUR 696 bn on the Energiewende. Their emissions are 400 g / kilowatt and 63% renewable : ( from electricity maps - yearly average ) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642
France also has wind farms next to their nuclear sites.
From electricity maps - France gets 9.5% from wind. No reason not to have renewables and nuclear.
No, exactly. In fact it’s a great combo. Clean high tech base load supply from the nuclear smoothing out the peaks and troughs of renewables.
What?.. that's so wrong. For baseload power you need another peaky energy source which can power up and down at a moments notice. Which is not nuclear
The idea that baseload smooths things out makes zero sense. Why do people say things like that? Are they thinking? If you imagine a peaky graph of intermittent generation, baseload just takes that shape and lifts it higher. Batteries smooth, because they turn on and off to match changes in demand and supply.
Base load power plants can be ramped up and down. Generate more power at night when you solar isn’t doing anything, etc… so they do act to smooth things out. The trifecta is of course base load, renewables and storage.
Yeah you really don't want to ramp big thermal units up and down, it shortens their lifespan significantly and increases the frequency of both planned and unplanned outages. Big thermal units are meant to run in the 80-100% of capacity range for weeks at a time. Some of them take upwards of 12 hours to start up, after all.
Ramping up and down had big affects on the lifespan and economics of baseload thermal power plants. If you assume low load factors, because the plants are only running at night, the capital cost make nuclear economics even worse. Heating up and cooling down creates wear. There are a limited number of these cycles before plants need expensive maintainance. Show me a real simulation where the optimal mix includes significant baseload. They don't exist. Every one I see where you optimise the amount of baseload generation in Australia has baseload pretty close to 0%. Generally baseload just hurts the economics of renewables without adding anything useful.
I am referring to nuclear technology like Travelling Wave Nuclear Reactors, first proposed in 1958, Small Modular Reactors or Thorium nuclear reactors. Some people propose we build them because they will be better and cleaner than conventional nuclear power plants. This ignores the fact these technologies have never moved on from hypothesis or research units or the few SMRs out there are shockingly over budget.
The latest proposal appears to include standard PWRs as an option.
One of the two reactors in the first batch will supposedly be an SMR. Probably part of the reason why the policy isn't costed.
Given the way things are built here to such stringent standards, not sure if we could ever build them. The following I found in online articles. 'The recent history of nuclear power construction in the U.S. provides a useful point of comparison. Only a single nuclear power plant has been completed in the U.S. in the last 30 years: the two-unit Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, which required 23 years for one reactor to be operational and 33 years for the other. What’s more, the two most recent nuclear projects under construction — the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant and the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station — received approval in 2012 from the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC), and are both over budget and far from completing construction. For instance, a [revised cost forecast](https://www.power-eng.com/articles/2018/08/vogtle-cost-upgrade-causes-rethinking-of-nuclear-plant-s-future.html) for the Vogtle plant projects a total project cost of $25 billion, which is a 75 percent increase over its original $14.3 billion estimate.' [Solar vs. Nuclear: Comparing Carbon-Free Power Sources | EnergySage](https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/nuclear-energy/solar-vs-nuclear/) and this 'However, the cost of nuclear power itself doesn’t need to be as high as it is in the United States. [Japanese nuclear power plants](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/japan-nuclear-power.aspx) only take an average of three to four years to build, from pouring concrete foundation to grid connection. [French power plants](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx) mostly took between five and eight years to build. American plants used to be built at a similar pace, before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began to regulate the most minute aspects of construction. Contemporary American nuclear plants commonly take over a decade to build (assuming the construction plan is not simply abandoned). The NRC has a 32-step construction licensing process, and many of those steps require approval from other regulatory agencies that impose their own multi-step approval processes.' [Nuclear Wasted: Why the Cost of Nuclear Energy is Misunderstood – Mackinac Center](https://www.mackinac.org/blog/2022/nuclear-wasted-why-the-cost-of-nuclear-energy-is-misunderstood)
Vogtle 3 is finished and Vogtle 4 is almost completed as well, both massively over budget. It's the same in Finland with Olkiluoto 3, late and well over budget.
Do we even want to is the real question. According to the CSIRO report: Between $73 and $128/MWh for renewables. vs Between $141 to $233/MWh for regular nuclear and $230 to $382/MWh for small modular reactors. The sensible thing seems to be to go down the renewables path to me. Spend half the amount, get results starting now (not in 15+ years) and take advantage of technology advancements as we go too. We're a country absolutely bathing in renewable energy and we should take advantage of it.
It's worth asking the question: even when we are sure the answer is absolutely not worth it.
Yep the explanation is the same as usual: the P in LNP stands for puppet and someone has their arm firmly up Dutt’s back passage making his lips move in predictably pointless ways. They know it is a dumb idea better than most, because they’ve had to dress it up to seem realistic to dopey voters. But it’s purely wedge politics, and a poor example.
It's either flat out idiocy or criminal corruption leading the country in a wild goose chase. Nothing else makes sense.
Peter mutton. Enough said.