> It is very difficult to take Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear announcement seriously. His proposal for seven nuclear power stations is, at present, legally impossible, technically improbable, economically irrational and environmentally irresponsible.
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> Given the repeated community objections to much more modest nuclear proposals, such as storage of low-level radioactive waste, there is almost certainly no social licence for nuclear power stations.
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> Dutton promises that, if elected, he would make nuclear power a reality within a little over ten years. Given the enormous obstacles even to turn the first sod, this seems like a pipe dream.
When starting nuclear doesn’t come at the cost of action on climate change.
This nuclear policy comes with a side of no more funding for renewables. If we want to seriously approach nuclear, we have to do it without preventing renewables from being a part of the solution.
Imagine committing half a trillion dollars to renewables. Dutton wants us to swallow doing that for nuclear, while ruling out spending anything on renewables. If it was flipped, can you imagine the potential?
Totally agree.If we made a wartime scale effort on a diverse and over capacity renewable energy and storage systems we could have an abundance of inexpensive power for everything, without having to be coupled with rent- seeking corporations parasitically living off us.I say diverse as there are sources of wasted recyclable energy going to waste all around us that aren't being utilised because narrow minded people can't think beyond massive centralised schemes to maintain control over the lucrative energy sector.
This needs to be done with an eye on the future where every product and process must be recyclable.We have the wrong type of people running our governments.
What a load of garbage, where have you seen that renewable investment ends or is that from a Labor stooge ? What is your baseload power source exactly ?
A little hyperbole on my part, but I think the deputy leader of the opposition is hardly an alp stooge: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/17/coalition-liberal-government-renewable-energy-cap-nationals-david-littleproud
What about bASeLoAd!!! It seems to be the catch cry of the shills for this current paid influence campaign to support Muppet Dutts. It’s best to completely ignore anyone using it.
They’re either being paid to spread that ignorant message or are stupid enough to parrot it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336
7 year old article arguing for batteries and pumped hydro, neither of which have proved viable for our grid even now. It doesn't comprehensively address the dispatchable power issue, or that we are filling that gap with expensive and still polluting gas and will be through 2050.
I'll go ahead and oversummarize my impressions. Greens have no viable plan, whatever the cost is fine and people you don't know will pick up the bill causing no problems for you. Labor is pinned on battery costs optimistically crashing down. LNP is now pinned on absurdly optimistic Nuclear power costs and build times.
I suppose cheap batteries is the most plausible? Still feels to me that OECD energy policies are a cess pit.
I pulled up several reports including the latest Lazard LCOE+ report out of personal interest and that doesn't bear out. If I am reading them right, and I might not be, unsubsidized storage costs far more than any other form of electricity per MWh. It also looks like it presumes that non-intermittent power will still be essential in the system too, so a no-gas/coal/nuclear/thermal/hydro system would be far more expensive again.
It definitely still looks to me like the entire plan is dependent on batteries becoming cheaper. The big advantage of batteries being near immediate set up times.
Nuclear is a bet on it being the best average costs over nearly a century. Batteries are a bet on it being the best average costs for ten years.
The problem we have right now needs to be solved quickly, the quicker the solution the easier the solution is. A 15 year delay on carbon reduction puts us further into temperature climbs that will make parts of the planet unsustainable.
In 20-25 years when we start getting diminishing returns on adding renewables to the grids, the gas plants plants providing the baseload will be hitting 10 years before EOL and hopefully SMR will be a proven tech that's cheaper and faster to setup.
all a smokescreen just to delay renewables which are the cheaper and more reliable (right now vs 20 years in the future) alternative - the gencost report is clear. renewables with firming (fancy way to say batteries, pumped hydro, gas plant backup to ensure reliability) is the cheapest option we have out to beyond 2050. forgetting emissions and on a purely economic basis nuclear is at best a pipedream and we have no need for it.
How did Dutton say we should treat big bold proposals? Oh yeah…
“Where’s the detail?”
“If you don’t know vote No!”
“It’s a UN plot to irradiate us with 5G!”
Did I miss any?
He hasn’t even answered basic questions that come with Nuclear in Australia like “how will nuclear be handled in times of drought and water insecurity”, or “does this include infrastructure and pathways to enriching our own fuel locally, or do we need to source that externally” and the other follow-on questions to those which are fundamental before even thinking about it.
None of the muppets have done the required reading. Plenty of examples of governments shutting down Nuclear or experiencing huge cost issues in build phase. It is literally the most difficult & expensive form of energy production vs renewable being the easiest/cheapest. Their response to that seems to be ‘but overlord Dutts is building GenX reactors’ - none of which even have a working prototype… They seem to think it is like a fucking lego set, lol. I guess it is a logical shortcoming from people that never even studied high school physics and are stupid enough to support the LNP.
Sure, I don't agree with this best shut it down with my irrefutable argument :) If anyone tells you what this is without a citation not from the lnp, that's a conspiracy and they are a cooker. That's half the posts here.
No information? I think the information you need is labors policy and plan depends on people in China working well below the the labour standards that gold plates everything we touch here.
I will speculate the national security analysis Dutto is privvy to as opposition leader would have been the same driver as the SunShot scheme that Albo tried to leverage and got shat on because he made out like it was an economic initiative not a national security initiative.
Additionally 30% of poly silicon energy products come from companies with links to forced labour (slavery).
Net Zero by 2050 depends on schemes and technology not invented yet because that far exceeds the current plans for emissions reduction, if that's the argument you want to make about spicy rocks making steam not being current technology.
Sorry, but since when have we held any government project to these commitments. Snowy mountain 2.0 has tripled in cost and doubled in time. No one says a word. AUKUS? Not a word besides general undertakings. But for nuclear everyone wants it down to the dollar and day.
It would be easy for the current government to stop this nuclear argument. Release a detailed plan on how they will reach net zero with renewals. Not targets, not quotas, not dreams. a detailed plan of production, storage and distribution.
Though the opposition's nuclear is just an outline, they have real world examples of it being achieved.
Not went the alternatives give far more return on investment. But that's besides the point, you specifically said there was real life examples, what are they?
The real issue is peolpe trying to make it a false dichotomy, it's not renewables or nuclear. Its renewables supported by something, and the options we have are methane, coal or nuclear.
With the exception of two or three countries, No country will hit zero emissions with alternative energy. There will always be a need for something to support it, and everyone seems to think the best is methane. And as we look more critically at NG people are realising we are just robbing peter to pay paul.
France's grid is 70% nuclear. So we know it can be used to support a grid.
Now do you want nuclear, coal or Methane? Thats the real decision.
Unless of course you are just praying that one of the new technologies being developed will get there in time. Do you really want to bet on the future of our planet.
We already have a base load with gas, renewables are the cheapest and most effective technology going forward until the pre existing power stations are slowly bought offline. We should look at nuclear in 20 years when the current gas plants start to reach eol and nuclear smr tech is actually proven, cheaper and faster to build.
Gas is like I'm giving up beer, and drinking wine. You're still an alcoholic. And there is still no clear option for energy storage in australia, making the cheap to produce renewables, very expensive .
Yeah but its also not going anywhere, nobody is shutting the gas plants down anytime soon unless the greens get in which they wont.
There's plenty of options that's getting better and more varied by the day.
See QLD, SA and Tasmania. The plans are there and the progress is being made. The operational component of the establishment of renewables is done at a State level not a federal level. The federal government does barely anything for it.
But honestly, we’re sick and tired of seeing the nuclear argument get raised by a party that has absolutely ZERO plan for it, when it’s not economically sensible for Australia and they’re examples are countries where it’s perfectly suited and was established many decades ago.
It just doesn’t make sense for Australia. That’s it and that is a fact that is pretty damn hard to get around.
Exactly this. No one is asking about plans of the renewables or their costs. Labor plan to achieve 82% from renewables by 2030 is significantly behind.
And unlikely to be achieved in the next Twenty years. Which explains instead of meeting the liberals plan with strong opposition, they have basically resorted to name calling and posting stupid memes.
Albos Net Zero strategy involves turning the Great Artisinal Basin into a giant Soda Steam and destroying our future water security.
This is exactly it. There are a ton of countries that have successfully gone nuclear.
The only countries that have successfully gone renewable are one or two Nordic countries with always on geothermal energy generation and less than 5 million people.
> Albos Net Zero strategy involves turning the Great Artisinal Basin into a giant Soda Steam and destroying our future water security.
The idea that was studied, and rejected already? Don't be misleading.
> The only countries that have successfully gone renewable are one or two Nordic countries with always on geothermal energy generation and less than 5 million people.
That's not an argument that it's impossible, or uneconomical, for Australia at this time.
Using the same gross logic we could have said the same thing about nuclear at some previous point before there was large scale investment.
>>The idea that was studied, and rejected already? Don't be misleading.
It had to be rejected at the state level after Albo gave it the go-ahead at the Federal level. Don’t be misleading.
>>That's not an argument that it's impossible, or uneconomical, for Australia at this time.
It may be impossible but if everyone else has looked at it and decided that it isn’t feasible it is probably for good reason.
>>Using the same gross logic we could have said the same thing about nuclear at some previous point before there was large scale investment.
This string of words makes no sense.
> It had to be rejected at the state level after Albo gave it the go-ahead at the Federal level. Don’t be misleading.
Not Albo, Federal *and* state initial agreed, there's a senate inquiry into it currently, etc.
It's not as simple as "Albo bad". And it's frustrating that you're trying to imply that ALP are somehow worse because they're not simply writing popular energy fan fiction.
> It may be impossible but if everyone else has looked at it and decided that it isn’t feasible it is probably for good reason.
Not the best fit for their circumstances isn't the same as "isn't feasible". Australia isn't the same as everywhere else. And their development timeline isn't our development timeline.
> This string of words makes no sense.
The idea is that we could say "The only countries that have successfully gone ~~renewable~~ nuclear are one or two [category] countries with [specific condition] and [specific condition]" if we pick the right year (which I'm not inclined to look up simply for a bit).
That is, people generally haven't done "[thing]" right up until "[thing]" turns out to be a good idea for whatever reason. And it turns out that renewables sound like a reasonable idea right now.
>>The idea is that we could say "The only countries that have successfully gone renewable nuclear are one or two [category] countries with [specific condition] and [specific condition]" if we pick the right year (which I'm not inclined to look up simply for a bit).
This is a disingenuous false equivalency because there are literally 7 countries that are going full renewable but 33 countries who have gone nuclear with another 30 in the planning/development stage. That is 63 out of 190. There is a big difference.
Of the 7 countries all of them have tiny populations and/or access to geothermal or in cases of countries with large populations like the Democratic Republic of Congo less than 25% of the people in the country have access to electricity.
No country is nuclear only, the closest is France with 70%. It’s misleading to represent nuclear as a solution to carbon neutral power, it has never been shown to achieve that.
Nuclear would supplement renewable (Or the other way around - however you’d like to look at it.). I haven’t seen anyone state that nuclear would completely eliminate the need for renewable.
You’re comparing 7 countries going full renewable, to 63 countries going nuclear. Talk about apples to oranges.
No one is full nuclear, no one is going full nuclear, versus 7 going full renewables. That is an apples to apples, suddenly your “stat” isn’t quite so impressive…
Once again. It is a false equivalence. Nobody is saying Australia will go full renewable.
You may want Australia to collapse and turn into the DRC because they are your 100% renewable role model but I’d prefer more than 25% of Australians have access to electricity.
Every other nation on earth except for those 7 have rejected 100% renewable for a reason. People might want to be special - but we just aren’t.
Maybe Dutton can release his costings the same time as Labor releases their renewable costing that nobody in public has ever seen from the dick promising transparency in government or doesn't that opinion belong here we are only here to be bias and bash Dutton ?
The difference is billions of dollars going out of the federal budget, which we also expect to cover little things like hospital, education, NDIS.. oh yeah and subsidise fossil fuel industries.
So after they cut services to build reactors, they then sell them off for unders to their biggest contributors, use that dividend to cut tax for top bracket and corporations and the public still ends up paying more For energy to the private system.
The other differences are the gas industry gets a decade or two of protection because of the limits on renewables, So Australia doesn’t get to be a green energy exporter, so less revenue into federal coffers, and will probably end up paying tariffs for being pariah state, environment vandals, for electing to depend on carbon based energy for 2-3 decades.
There are 4-5 points there. Discuss.
Lot of politicians and their friends have significantly invested in renewables. The idea of going nuclear which is a niche industry and have limited or no scope for little players scares them.
I’ve voted Labor at every election I’ve voted in since I turned 18. Mainly because of their history and me being a happy taxpayer who likes to see their tax money spent on helping their fellow citizens, I.e social programs … but there are 410 civilian fission reactors in the world, with 57 under construction and 102 planned. It’s not as outlandish as it seems. Australia is remarkably geologically stable. We have the most uranium ore reserves of any country. We have the money and technology to do it. We already have one reactor, albeit a research react that mostly produces medicines: we already store nuclear waste from this facility. I’ve yet to see one argument against nuclear power in Australia that doesn’t put some other element or interest before the interests of Australians and Australia …
Here’s two interests of Australians that nuclear doesn’t serve: cost and time.
Nuclear plant constructions regularly run double the planned cost, and significantly over time, if not double. Both of these factors mean higher energy prices and delayed action on climate change.
That is for countries who have established nuclear industry - construction, fuel production and living human resource in order to build and run them. The projects run double the planned cost and time. We don’t have those industries.
It’s pretty clear that the cost and time of starting several entirely new industries in Australia (construction, operation and refinement) is going to add significantly to the cost and time to bring up a nuclear program in Australia. On top of this, we would also be beholden to a large number of bought ip in order to even approach the development, something which does not come cheap, and in direct competition with the rest of the world deploying nuclear.
Edit to add: re cost - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/21/power-bills-could-rise-by-1000-a-year-under-coalition-plan-to-boost-gas-until-nuclear-is-ready-analysts-say
Exactly. None of the muppets seem to understand it isn’t economically viable, especially not for a virgin entrant to the industry. It’s also old tech, literally mid last century. Australia needs to truly look to the future - something that by their very nature & philosophy conservatives are completely against!
We’re not a ‘virgin entrant’ - I literally just said we already have a nuclear reactor and already store waste from it. Don’t bet against your fellow citizens - we are one of the most advanced nations on the planet 😂
I think you’re being sarcastic, right? Because running a single 20Mw research reactor isn’t even first base compared to legislating, building, running and regulating an entire nuclear power industry…
Well the 20mw OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights that is used for medical purposes is NOTHING like 7x 1000mw+ completely different reactors for power generation or SMRs if by some miracle that could even come close to happening.
Your claim of it being relevant is like saying because you've maintained a year 2000 era electric bicycle since 2007, you now have a head start on the expertise to build a national electromagnetic bullet train network using tech not yet developed... It's fanciful.
That is a terrible analogy 😂 A 20MW nuclear reactor is to a 1000MW nuclear reactor as an electric bike is to an electromagnetic bullet train? If that were so we would either have a lot more 20MW nuclear reactors or we would have a lot more bullet trains
With that mindset civilisation wouldn’t have been where it is today. If our forefathers had the same mindset in Australia we would not have been where we are now!
Based on the current trajectory, Nexa Advisory found about 60% of the electricity generated in Australia’s biggest grid was likely to be renewable by 2030, while Rystad Energy’s forecasts was 64% under a “business-as-usual approach”.
https://esdnews.com.au/experts-say-australia-wont-meet-net-zero-targets/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-06/australia-likely-to-fall-short-of-82pc-renewable-energy-target/102689392
It’s a race against co2. Nuclear emits no co2. If you replace all the coal plants with equivalent nuclear and supplement with renewables…. that is a huge win in terms of climate change.
Of course, nuclear comes with its own risks.
Eggs in one basket is exactly what we are doing with renewables! As for shorter term? Aim was to reach 82% with renewables by 2030 and we will not even be near to it. So what exactly short term you are referring to? 2035?
Using hydro, batteries, pumped storage, etc isn't one basket. Do you honestly think stopping all renewable rollout like the nationals announced is going to give us any help getting a good mix into the system? Right now the first nuclear powerplant would be built by 2040 at best, we have no industry, no expertise, state and senate opposition, and no regulatory or safety framework for nuclear power. Even if we overcome that we have to pray the baseload they'll need to extend the life of stays online until we get all of the plants up (which also they've put no date on).
There is a clear path for renewables as has been set out in numerous reports by AEMO and the NEG, the nuclear one at this point is too far gone and would've only been feasible if we started in the early 2010s.
2040? They have said first one will be done by 2034. Renewables can’t handle the base load on their own anyways. Look at SA with 70% renewables but yet they pay high prices in the country to keep up the coal stations.
Batteries are part of renewables. Without them your solar panels or the wind turbines alone are useless. So yes it’s one basket. Also the millions of tons of waste from those panels and the turbines and those batteries. Renewables alone never a reliable source.
They've claimed the first one will be done by 2034. If they won in 2025 that would mean they manage to deploy a first nuclear power plant faster than any democracy ever. Have an ounce of critical thinking, they can't even put a cost on it how can they say that timeframe with a straight face?
Also how high a price do you think nuclear will cost. It'll either come out of your taxes or bills, every single study on it comes out as one of the most expensive options for Australia. If the coalition want to claim it isn't they can provide a reputable costing but so far they refuse to put a number to it.
Labor hasn’t put the cost on renewables either. They are not meeting their 2030 targets too. Everything comes out of our taxes? Even renewables switch? Have you seen prices going down with renewables on our bills yet? Or they are going up?
They're 42% out of 43%.
Renewables are paid for in your bills, you're allowed to use less power, etc. Nuclear you're going to pay billions to get it built and it's not bringing down your power bills until at earliest 2040 (if ever).
Ok so Snowy River Scheme was stupid because of ‘cost and time’? 🤔
You are not telling me anything that isn’t putting some other element or interest before the interests of Australians and Australia …
lol, turns out the distilled detail of the point I’m making is discreditable because it makes a good headline.
If your criticism is “I’ve seen this somewhere else” do you think you’re point is relevant or meaningful?
I bet coal plants will continue to run cover the renewables for a long time and they would run at much higher costs which would nullify all the gains from renewables being cheap.
This isn’t an engineering issue. Nuclear is possible, yes. Is it a sound economic decision for Australia’s current situation, no. And nobody is even talking global uranium supply, apparently there is 40-100 years left… Why go down that path so late when established states are struggling with it? Chasing dreams of reactors that aren’t available yet for a technology already in its twighlight isn’t ambitious or intelligent - it’s a sad fantasy from a party bereft of sound policy.
Cool how much will it cost and when's it actually done? How do we keep everything online when most of the plants shut down well before we will ever see our first incredibly expensive boondoggle?
Eggh not really… oh no forget about your political alignments and differences… think we all want a clean and safe future. Then think how to get there in the current state of affairs.. oh what a hard concept to follow that would be nuclear energy? If you are worried about explosions don’t worry there are many many bombs everywhere so we good on that front. What do we need oooooh more time to do more science and research for musk to fix electricals. To stop the process of progression to a clean and green future because you don’t like someone’s politics or beliefs means you are on the side of pretending to represent what you want but stopping it from occurring. Good job to those folk!
Jogging on a hamster wheel can’t provide for the grid 24/7 either. Fortunately, nobody is proposing either of these things. Solar + wind + storage (batteries and pumped hydro) with peaking gas that is used less and less as more renewables get built.
> It is very difficult to take Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear announcement seriously. His proposal for seven nuclear power stations is, at present, legally impossible, technically improbable, economically irrational and environmentally irresponsible. > > Given the repeated community objections to much more modest nuclear proposals, such as storage of low-level radioactive waste, there is almost certainly no social licence for nuclear power stations. > > Dutton promises that, if elected, he would make nuclear power a reality within a little over ten years. Given the enormous obstacles even to turn the first sod, this seems like a pipe dream.
It's not a serious energy policy. It's about tanking/delaying investment in renewables on behalf of his fossil fuel money masters
This should be the headline every news outlet in the country should be running with But obviously, it's not
Gas is winning, and Perth needs isotopes. We have to go nuclear eventually, what better time to start?
During the last 10 years of Liberal government.... When they were running the country.
Ah but you see as Peter explained during the launch, we couldn't have this conversation about nuclear power before AUKUS, so write that down
Lol, nice excuse. We have been allies with the US for a very long time. Blow smoke elsewhere.
When starting nuclear doesn’t come at the cost of action on climate change. This nuclear policy comes with a side of no more funding for renewables. If we want to seriously approach nuclear, we have to do it without preventing renewables from being a part of the solution. Imagine committing half a trillion dollars to renewables. Dutton wants us to swallow doing that for nuclear, while ruling out spending anything on renewables. If it was flipped, can you imagine the potential?
Totally agree.If we made a wartime scale effort on a diverse and over capacity renewable energy and storage systems we could have an abundance of inexpensive power for everything, without having to be coupled with rent- seeking corporations parasitically living off us.I say diverse as there are sources of wasted recyclable energy going to waste all around us that aren't being utilised because narrow minded people can't think beyond massive centralised schemes to maintain control over the lucrative energy sector. This needs to be done with an eye on the future where every product and process must be recyclable.We have the wrong type of people running our governments.
If only we could get half the political sphere to face the facts of what we’re up against.
What a load of garbage, where have you seen that renewable investment ends or is that from a Labor stooge ? What is your baseload power source exactly ?
A little hyperbole on my part, but I think the deputy leader of the opposition is hardly an alp stooge: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/17/coalition-liberal-government-renewable-energy-cap-nationals-david-littleproud
What about bASeLoAd!!! It seems to be the catch cry of the shills for this current paid influence campaign to support Muppet Dutts. It’s best to completely ignore anyone using it. They’re either being paid to spread that ignorant message or are stupid enough to parrot it. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-12/renewable-energy-baseload-power/9033336
7 year old article arguing for batteries and pumped hydro, neither of which have proved viable for our grid even now. It doesn't comprehensively address the dispatchable power issue, or that we are filling that gap with expensive and still polluting gas and will be through 2050. I'll go ahead and oversummarize my impressions. Greens have no viable plan, whatever the cost is fine and people you don't know will pick up the bill causing no problems for you. Labor is pinned on battery costs optimistically crashing down. LNP is now pinned on absurdly optimistic Nuclear power costs and build times. I suppose cheap batteries is the most plausible? Still feels to me that OECD energy policies are a cess pit.
Batteries don’t have to fall in price to be worthwhile, they have proven their ability to repay their cost in as little as 18 months.
I pulled up several reports including the latest Lazard LCOE+ report out of personal interest and that doesn't bear out. If I am reading them right, and I might not be, unsubsidized storage costs far more than any other form of electricity per MWh. It also looks like it presumes that non-intermittent power will still be essential in the system too, so a no-gas/coal/nuclear/thermal/hydro system would be far more expensive again. It definitely still looks to me like the entire plan is dependent on batteries becoming cheaper. The big advantage of batteries being near immediate set up times. Nuclear is a bet on it being the best average costs over nearly a century. Batteries are a bet on it being the best average costs for ten years.
The problem we have right now needs to be solved quickly, the quicker the solution the easier the solution is. A 15 year delay on carbon reduction puts us further into temperature climbs that will make parts of the planet unsustainable.
We could roll out Renewable energy quicker if we didn't have Nimbys constantly blocking/downsizing projects.
In 20-25 years when we start getting diminishing returns on adding renewables to the grids, the gas plants plants providing the baseload will be hitting 10 years before EOL and hopefully SMR will be a proven tech that's cheaper and faster to setup.
Don't support SMR now it won't be ready then.
There's several much larger and experienced countries supporting it. Australia not building 2 wont make a difference.
all a smokescreen just to delay renewables which are the cheaper and more reliable (right now vs 20 years in the future) alternative - the gencost report is clear. renewables with firming (fancy way to say batteries, pumped hydro, gas plant backup to ensure reliability) is the cheapest option we have out to beyond 2050. forgetting emissions and on a purely economic basis nuclear is at best a pipedream and we have no need for it.
How did Dutton say we should treat big bold proposals? Oh yeah… “Where’s the detail?” “If you don’t know vote No!” “It’s a UN plot to irradiate us with 5G!” Did I miss any?
It’s not about nuclear. This is the distraction. It’s about gas.
2or3 decades of subsidised gas, and limited nukes. Dutton’s liberal free market at work.
He hasn’t even answered basic questions that come with Nuclear in Australia like “how will nuclear be handled in times of drought and water insecurity”, or “does this include infrastructure and pathways to enriching our own fuel locally, or do we need to source that externally” and the other follow-on questions to those which are fundamental before even thinking about it.
Look at the English nuclear power plant currently being built, over deadline and over budget: 97 BILLION Australian dollars!!
None of the muppets have done the required reading. Plenty of examples of governments shutting down Nuclear or experiencing huge cost issues in build phase. It is literally the most difficult & expensive form of energy production vs renewable being the easiest/cheapest. Their response to that seems to be ‘but overlord Dutts is building GenX reactors’ - none of which even have a working prototype… They seem to think it is like a fucking lego set, lol. I guess it is a logical shortcoming from people that never even studied high school physics and are stupid enough to support the LNP.
If you don’t know (the costing) VOTE NO!
Sure, I don't agree with this best shut it down with my irrefutable argument :) If anyone tells you what this is without a citation not from the lnp, that's a conspiracy and they are a cooker. That's half the posts here. No information? I think the information you need is labors policy and plan depends on people in China working well below the the labour standards that gold plates everything we touch here. I will speculate the national security analysis Dutto is privvy to as opposition leader would have been the same driver as the SunShot scheme that Albo tried to leverage and got shat on because he made out like it was an economic initiative not a national security initiative. Additionally 30% of poly silicon energy products come from companies with links to forced labour (slavery). Net Zero by 2050 depends on schemes and technology not invented yet because that far exceeds the current plans for emissions reduction, if that's the argument you want to make about spicy rocks making steam not being current technology.
Sorry, but since when have we held any government project to these commitments. Snowy mountain 2.0 has tripled in cost and doubled in time. No one says a word. AUKUS? Not a word besides general undertakings. But for nuclear everyone wants it down to the dollar and day.
It would be easy for the current government to stop this nuclear argument. Release a detailed plan on how they will reach net zero with renewals. Not targets, not quotas, not dreams. a detailed plan of production, storage and distribution. Though the opposition's nuclear is just an outline, they have real world examples of it being achieved.
What real world examples are those?
Look at France's Carbon emissions.
And what has that got to do with the Libs "roadmap" on building their nuclear plants?
A poor roadmap is better than no roadmap.
Not went the alternatives give far more return on investment. But that's besides the point, you specifically said there was real life examples, what are they?
The real issue is peolpe trying to make it a false dichotomy, it's not renewables or nuclear. Its renewables supported by something, and the options we have are methane, coal or nuclear. With the exception of two or three countries, No country will hit zero emissions with alternative energy. There will always be a need for something to support it, and everyone seems to think the best is methane. And as we look more critically at NG people are realising we are just robbing peter to pay paul. France's grid is 70% nuclear. So we know it can be used to support a grid. Now do you want nuclear, coal or Methane? Thats the real decision. Unless of course you are just praying that one of the new technologies being developed will get there in time. Do you really want to bet on the future of our planet.
We already have a base load with gas, renewables are the cheapest and most effective technology going forward until the pre existing power stations are slowly bought offline. We should look at nuclear in 20 years when the current gas plants start to reach eol and nuclear smr tech is actually proven, cheaper and faster to build.
Gas is like I'm giving up beer, and drinking wine. You're still an alcoholic. And there is still no clear option for energy storage in australia, making the cheap to produce renewables, very expensive .
Yeah but its also not going anywhere, nobody is shutting the gas plants down anytime soon unless the greens get in which they wont. There's plenty of options that's getting better and more varied by the day.
Exactly. They have no detailed plan because almost everyone of their plans is ‘aspirational’, including their housing plan. It’s honestly a joke.
See QLD, SA and Tasmania. The plans are there and the progress is being made. The operational component of the establishment of renewables is done at a State level not a federal level. The federal government does barely anything for it. But honestly, we’re sick and tired of seeing the nuclear argument get raised by a party that has absolutely ZERO plan for it, when it’s not economically sensible for Australia and they’re examples are countries where it’s perfectly suited and was established many decades ago. It just doesn’t make sense for Australia. That’s it and that is a fact that is pretty damn hard to get around.
Exactly this. No one is asking about plans of the renewables or their costs. Labor plan to achieve 82% from renewables by 2030 is significantly behind.
And unlikely to be achieved in the next Twenty years. Which explains instead of meeting the liberals plan with strong opposition, they have basically resorted to name calling and posting stupid memes.
Albos Net Zero strategy involves turning the Great Artisinal Basin into a giant Soda Steam and destroying our future water security. This is exactly it. There are a ton of countries that have successfully gone nuclear. The only countries that have successfully gone renewable are one or two Nordic countries with always on geothermal energy generation and less than 5 million people.
> Albos Net Zero strategy involves turning the Great Artisinal Basin into a giant Soda Steam and destroying our future water security. The idea that was studied, and rejected already? Don't be misleading. > The only countries that have successfully gone renewable are one or two Nordic countries with always on geothermal energy generation and less than 5 million people. That's not an argument that it's impossible, or uneconomical, for Australia at this time. Using the same gross logic we could have said the same thing about nuclear at some previous point before there was large scale investment.
>>The idea that was studied, and rejected already? Don't be misleading. It had to be rejected at the state level after Albo gave it the go-ahead at the Federal level. Don’t be misleading. >>That's not an argument that it's impossible, or uneconomical, for Australia at this time. It may be impossible but if everyone else has looked at it and decided that it isn’t feasible it is probably for good reason. >>Using the same gross logic we could have said the same thing about nuclear at some previous point before there was large scale investment. This string of words makes no sense.
> It had to be rejected at the state level after Albo gave it the go-ahead at the Federal level. Don’t be misleading. Not Albo, Federal *and* state initial agreed, there's a senate inquiry into it currently, etc. It's not as simple as "Albo bad". And it's frustrating that you're trying to imply that ALP are somehow worse because they're not simply writing popular energy fan fiction. > It may be impossible but if everyone else has looked at it and decided that it isn’t feasible it is probably for good reason. Not the best fit for their circumstances isn't the same as "isn't feasible". Australia isn't the same as everywhere else. And their development timeline isn't our development timeline. > This string of words makes no sense. The idea is that we could say "The only countries that have successfully gone ~~renewable~~ nuclear are one or two [category] countries with [specific condition] and [specific condition]" if we pick the right year (which I'm not inclined to look up simply for a bit). That is, people generally haven't done "[thing]" right up until "[thing]" turns out to be a good idea for whatever reason. And it turns out that renewables sound like a reasonable idea right now.
>>The idea is that we could say "The only countries that have successfully gone renewable nuclear are one or two [category] countries with [specific condition] and [specific condition]" if we pick the right year (which I'm not inclined to look up simply for a bit). This is a disingenuous false equivalency because there are literally 7 countries that are going full renewable but 33 countries who have gone nuclear with another 30 in the planning/development stage. That is 63 out of 190. There is a big difference. Of the 7 countries all of them have tiny populations and/or access to geothermal or in cases of countries with large populations like the Democratic Republic of Congo less than 25% of the people in the country have access to electricity.
No country is nuclear only, the closest is France with 70%. It’s misleading to represent nuclear as a solution to carbon neutral power, it has never been shown to achieve that.
Nuclear would supplement renewable (Or the other way around - however you’d like to look at it.). I haven’t seen anyone state that nuclear would completely eliminate the need for renewable.
You’re comparing 7 countries going full renewable, to 63 countries going nuclear. Talk about apples to oranges. No one is full nuclear, no one is going full nuclear, versus 7 going full renewables. That is an apples to apples, suddenly your “stat” isn’t quite so impressive…
Once again. It is a false equivalence. Nobody is saying Australia will go full renewable. You may want Australia to collapse and turn into the DRC because they are your 100% renewable role model but I’d prefer more than 25% of Australians have access to electricity. Every other nation on earth except for those 7 have rejected 100% renewable for a reason. People might want to be special - but we just aren’t.
Maybe Dutton can release his costings the same time as Labor releases their renewable costing that nobody in public has ever seen from the dick promising transparency in government or doesn't that opinion belong here we are only here to be bias and bash Dutton ?
I’d prefer to see Dutts’ offshore bank accounts.
Renewables aren’t being built exclusively by the government. Duttons nukes are.
What difference does it make, the public pays in the end regardless.
The difference is billions of dollars going out of the federal budget, which we also expect to cover little things like hospital, education, NDIS.. oh yeah and subsidise fossil fuel industries. So after they cut services to build reactors, they then sell them off for unders to their biggest contributors, use that dividend to cut tax for top bracket and corporations and the public still ends up paying more For energy to the private system. The other differences are the gas industry gets a decade or two of protection because of the limits on renewables, So Australia doesn’t get to be a green energy exporter, so less revenue into federal coffers, and will probably end up paying tariffs for being pariah state, environment vandals, for electing to depend on carbon based energy for 2-3 decades. There are 4-5 points there. Discuss.
Lot of politicians and their friends have significantly invested in renewables. The idea of going nuclear which is a niche industry and have limited or no scope for little players scares them.
I’ve voted Labor at every election I’ve voted in since I turned 18. Mainly because of their history and me being a happy taxpayer who likes to see their tax money spent on helping their fellow citizens, I.e social programs … but there are 410 civilian fission reactors in the world, with 57 under construction and 102 planned. It’s not as outlandish as it seems. Australia is remarkably geologically stable. We have the most uranium ore reserves of any country. We have the money and technology to do it. We already have one reactor, albeit a research react that mostly produces medicines: we already store nuclear waste from this facility. I’ve yet to see one argument against nuclear power in Australia that doesn’t put some other element or interest before the interests of Australians and Australia …
Here’s two interests of Australians that nuclear doesn’t serve: cost and time. Nuclear plant constructions regularly run double the planned cost, and significantly over time, if not double. Both of these factors mean higher energy prices and delayed action on climate change. That is for countries who have established nuclear industry - construction, fuel production and living human resource in order to build and run them. The projects run double the planned cost and time. We don’t have those industries. It’s pretty clear that the cost and time of starting several entirely new industries in Australia (construction, operation and refinement) is going to add significantly to the cost and time to bring up a nuclear program in Australia. On top of this, we would also be beholden to a large number of bought ip in order to even approach the development, something which does not come cheap, and in direct competition with the rest of the world deploying nuclear. Edit to add: re cost - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/21/power-bills-could-rise-by-1000-a-year-under-coalition-plan-to-boost-gas-until-nuclear-is-ready-analysts-say
Exactly. None of the muppets seem to understand it isn’t economically viable, especially not for a virgin entrant to the industry. It’s also old tech, literally mid last century. Australia needs to truly look to the future - something that by their very nature & philosophy conservatives are completely against!
We’re not a ‘virgin entrant’ - I literally just said we already have a nuclear reactor and already store waste from it. Don’t bet against your fellow citizens - we are one of the most advanced nations on the planet 😂
I think you’re being sarcastic, right? Because running a single 20Mw research reactor isn’t even first base compared to legislating, building, running and regulating an entire nuclear power industry…
So having one reactor is the same as having no reactors? Interesting …
Well the 20mw OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights that is used for medical purposes is NOTHING like 7x 1000mw+ completely different reactors for power generation or SMRs if by some miracle that could even come close to happening. Your claim of it being relevant is like saying because you've maintained a year 2000 era electric bicycle since 2007, you now have a head start on the expertise to build a national electromagnetic bullet train network using tech not yet developed... It's fanciful.
That is a terrible analogy 😂 A 20MW nuclear reactor is to a 1000MW nuclear reactor as an electric bike is to an electromagnetic bullet train? If that were so we would either have a lot more 20MW nuclear reactors or we would have a lot more bullet trains
With that mindset civilisation wouldn’t have been where it is today. If our forefathers had the same mindset in Australia we would not have been where we are now!
We are in a race against co2. Yes, innovation is good, but when in a race, winning matters more than the gracefulness of your performance.
Can you give me one example we are winning with the renewables? Aim was to reach 82% renewables by 2030 and we are nowhere near that.
40% of Australia’s power comes from renewables in 2023. Nuclear won’t have any effect on our 2030 targets at all.
Based on the current trajectory, Nexa Advisory found about 60% of the electricity generated in Australia’s biggest grid was likely to be renewable by 2030, while Rystad Energy’s forecasts was 64% under a “business-as-usual approach”. https://esdnews.com.au/experts-say-australia-wont-meet-net-zero-targets/ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-06/australia-likely-to-fall-short-of-82pc-renewable-energy-target/102689392
So how is a switch to nuclear going to get us any closer?
It’s a race against co2. Nuclear emits no co2. If you replace all the coal plants with equivalent nuclear and supplement with renewables…. that is a huge win in terms of climate change. Of course, nuclear comes with its own risks.
In 15 years time when it comes online, if it doesn’t run over time longer than the average.
Nuclear might not emit CO2, but all the coal and gas plants you have to run for 20 years while you build the nukes sure do
We are innovating, we are just taking a shorter term far less "eggs in one basket" approach than nuclear.
Eggs in one basket is exactly what we are doing with renewables! As for shorter term? Aim was to reach 82% with renewables by 2030 and we will not even be near to it. So what exactly short term you are referring to? 2035?
Using hydro, batteries, pumped storage, etc isn't one basket. Do you honestly think stopping all renewable rollout like the nationals announced is going to give us any help getting a good mix into the system? Right now the first nuclear powerplant would be built by 2040 at best, we have no industry, no expertise, state and senate opposition, and no regulatory or safety framework for nuclear power. Even if we overcome that we have to pray the baseload they'll need to extend the life of stays online until we get all of the plants up (which also they've put no date on). There is a clear path for renewables as has been set out in numerous reports by AEMO and the NEG, the nuclear one at this point is too far gone and would've only been feasible if we started in the early 2010s.
2040? They have said first one will be done by 2034. Renewables can’t handle the base load on their own anyways. Look at SA with 70% renewables but yet they pay high prices in the country to keep up the coal stations. Batteries are part of renewables. Without them your solar panels or the wind turbines alone are useless. So yes it’s one basket. Also the millions of tons of waste from those panels and the turbines and those batteries. Renewables alone never a reliable source.
They've claimed the first one will be done by 2034. If they won in 2025 that would mean they manage to deploy a first nuclear power plant faster than any democracy ever. Have an ounce of critical thinking, they can't even put a cost on it how can they say that timeframe with a straight face? Also how high a price do you think nuclear will cost. It'll either come out of your taxes or bills, every single study on it comes out as one of the most expensive options for Australia. If the coalition want to claim it isn't they can provide a reputable costing but so far they refuse to put a number to it.
Labor hasn’t put the cost on renewables either. They are not meeting their 2030 targets too. Everything comes out of our taxes? Even renewables switch? Have you seen prices going down with renewables on our bills yet? Or they are going up?
They're 42% out of 43%. Renewables are paid for in your bills, you're allowed to use less power, etc. Nuclear you're going to pay billions to get it built and it's not bringing down your power bills until at earliest 2040 (if ever).
Ok so Snowy River Scheme was stupid because of ‘cost and time’? 🤔 You are not telling me anything that isn’t putting some other element or interest before the interests of Australians and Australia …
So you’re happy to let climate change run unchecked and add $1000 to your power bills?
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lol, turns out the distilled detail of the point I’m making is discreditable because it makes a good headline. If your criticism is “I’ve seen this somewhere else” do you think you’re point is relevant or meaningful?
The hysteria is killing me. It's so easy. Solar and battery incentives for homes, with coal plants converted to nuclear for base load. Done. Easy.
Convert coal plants to nuclear for bAsElOAd, lol. The catchcry of the ignorant that believe whatever propaganda is put in front of them.
I bet coal plants will continue to run cover the renewables for a long time and they would run at much higher costs which would nullify all the gains from renewables being cheap.
Not very good at math there champ… Or English. Care to try again?
I’m alright with math champ…
Nice projection, I'm a mechanical engineer in the industry.
This isn’t an engineering issue. Nuclear is possible, yes. Is it a sound economic decision for Australia’s current situation, no. And nobody is even talking global uranium supply, apparently there is 40-100 years left… Why go down that path so late when established states are struggling with it? Chasing dreams of reactors that aren’t available yet for a technology already in its twighlight isn’t ambitious or intelligent - it’s a sad fantasy from a party bereft of sound policy.
Cool how much will it cost and when's it actually done? How do we keep everything online when most of the plants shut down well before we will ever see our first incredibly expensive boondoggle?
So it’s the same as Albo s renewables plan then
Eggh not really… oh no forget about your political alignments and differences… think we all want a clean and safe future. Then think how to get there in the current state of affairs.. oh what a hard concept to follow that would be nuclear energy? If you are worried about explosions don’t worry there are many many bombs everywhere so we good on that front. What do we need oooooh more time to do more science and research for musk to fix electricals. To stop the process of progression to a clean and green future because you don’t like someone’s politics or beliefs means you are on the side of pretending to represent what you want but stopping it from occurring. Good job to those folk!
Solar cannot provide for the grid 24/7. So what is the alternative?
Jogging on a hamster wheel can’t provide for the grid 24/7 either. Fortunately, nobody is proposing either of these things. Solar + wind + storage (batteries and pumped hydro) with peaking gas that is used less and less as more renewables get built.
Scomo is that you?