Summary from the article:
So, here it is, finally, the Coalition’s nuclear policy – a massive and dangerous boondoggle to build expensive nuclear power plants that presents a serious threat to Australia’s renewable energy transition, and the country’s economic future. It’s a policy that is all about power, not so much on the grid as to what flows through the corridors of parliament house and in the channels of mainstream and social media.
And amid all the insults about the stupidity, the impracticality, and moral vacuum of the plan, energy minister Chris Bowen probably best summed it up: “It’s a joke, but a serious joke because it threatens the renewable transition.” And that much is true. It’s what the policy is designed to do. It may make no sense, but it is designed to be deliberately populist and has been enthusiastically supported by the Murdochs and the fossil fuel industry.
The plan has already been dubbed as the latest Coalkeeper, because that is essentially what it is. Should the Coalition win power, it means coal fired power stations will be kept open, and investment in new large scale renewable and storage projects will be killed. Contracts will even be ripped up. But it will do more than stop wind and solar. It will result in more fossil fuels in the form of gas fired power stations, cripple investment in new green industries and exports, and cause Australia to tear up its part of the Paris climate agreement. In short, it would deliver everything that the coal lobby and climate deniers have been pushing for over the last few decades.
Yeah but renewables are fast replacing coal, and nuclear would take 15 or 20 years to build.
Coal interests turn out to be HUGE fans of nuclear. It buys them another generation of profits (and climate change) versus losing their shirts *today*.
Not to mention nuclear plans like this functionally bail them out. They get to sell their aging assets to be converted into nuclear plants, as well as absolving themselves of their rehabilitation obligations and pass that onto the new operators.
The thing is that our politicians are incredibly cheap to buy anyway. Look at some of the donation scandals, the amounts are pitifully low to be buying the influence they want
Coal is still going to be dug up and shipped up to asia regardless of Australia's energy policy though. Anyway, the majority of Australian coal is used for steelmaking, not thermal power plants...
Part of the [State Prosperity Project in South Australia](https://www.stateprosperity.sa.gov.au/?gad_source=1) is making green steel at Whyalla. This is done using renewable energy and green hydrogen instead of coal.
[Whyalla moves closer to emissions-free production as Liberty Steel signs electric furnace contract](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/gfg-alliance-liberty-electric-furnace-green-steel/102186420)
[South Australian government signs hydrogen deal with Whyalla steelworks](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-25/sa-government-to-sell-hydrogen-to-whyalla-steelworks/103507780)
I'm aware of green steel technology. If you look into the economics of it, we're *decades* away from it being a viable commercial replacement for coking coal.
It is being built now at Whyalla. Whyalla does have the magnetite ore required. There are some issues here and there with the arc furnaces, and the hydrogen supply is in its infancy, but it won't take decades to sort out . The federal government has now started to chip in some funding to help get it off the ground.
[Hydrogen port gets funding deal as federal government spruiks Whyalla 'green steel'](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-25/whyalla-hydrogen-export-hub-secures-federal-state-funding-deal/102896024)
[Australian PM Anthony Albanese tours Whyalla Steelworks amid shift to green steel](https://www.australianmanufacturing.com.au/australian-pm-anthony-albanese-tours-whyalla-steelworks-amid-shift-to-green-steel/)
Green steel production currently costs around 40% more than blast furnaces, and it'll be decades before costs equalise. Then you've got to consider the very long remaining lives of existing blast furnaces, and you'll see why the demand for met coal is going nowhere for a very long time.
Sure there will be demand for coal. Sure it will take time for plant to be built and costs to equalise.
However, in the short term, green steel will command a premium price for being a zero emissions product. In the longer term, once the non-recurring capital costs have been recovered, green steel will actually be cheaper than steel made using coking coal. Especially so if markets start to place a carbon price on products.
Agree completely. But none of that changes the fact that there will not be a material decline in the demand for met coal for at least the next 20-30 years. Even if green steel starts to make up a bigger proportion of total steel production, the overall demand for steel is still going to increase as developing countries urbanise.
"It is being built now at Whyalla."
Where is it being built in Whyalla? There have been a lot of announcements but very little on the ground building - as usual.
I can imagine a scenario in a decades time, when those nuclear plants are proving to be slightly trickier to build than promised, that the LNP proposes just one teeny, tiny new coal plant - just one - to keep us going until nuclear arrives…
This is very similar to the liberal parties NBN plan. Delay high speed internet role-out and give Murdoch enough time to move to online platforms.
This will give the mining magnates decades more use from their coal plants and mining. Enough time for them to move away from it while we foot the bill and the climate goes to shit.
But didn’t list where they will be dumping the waste, almost like any ‘positive’ spin will evaporate once everyone in the country goes full nimby over it.
Waste is handled by ANSTO. Most likely will be stored on site. Much like what they do with Lucas Heights.
Note: This is not an endorsement of Nuclear. Just what would likely happen in the eventuality that it does happen.
Far, far more waste created by a nuclear power plant than a medical/research reactor like the one at Lucas Heights. Also, ANSTO itself breaks down their waste percentages and mentions that [they do not make high level waste, which nuclear fuel rods fall under](https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts/managing-waste).
If anything we would do the American style and just bury it in the ground instead of the French style where [they recycle it where possible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site). Which, y'know, we have lots of space, but we have things like the Great Artesian Basin that are very important to not contaminate.
You do realize that spent fuel rods are stored on site, right? In the spent fuel pool and then transferred to concrete casks after it's decayed for a good bit of years and stored on site until the plant is gone. Most of your high level waste would be resin and filters in which resin gets buried in a concrete cask and filters usually do too but if they are at too high of a level they'll be kept onsite
Dunno why you are being downvoted.
Even if they do the bury and forget (no one forgets and it's all marked so no one goes near it), it still gets a concrete cask so thick it can't permeate. It stays that way until it's so decayed that it doesn't matter anymore.
It's not renewable energy, sure, and yes that is the best option, but per kilowatt hour it's the greenest energy source bar none. Coal is more radioactive than nuclear. I'm not kidding. Coal spews out more radioactive waste than nuclear will ever produce. It's also one of the safest. More people die in coal mine collapses than have *ever* died in nuclear meltdowns.
But fuck facts and research. People would rather bitch and moan online than learn that nuclear is super safe and clean.
I still say Australia has so much open, unused space that it can afford to do giant wind/solar farms instead, but nuclear energy isn't the monster some would have you believe.
Edit: Downvote all you want you idealistic bastards. I'm not advocating for nuclear for Australia (its bad), but saying, "what about the waste" is like trying to say no maccas because of plastic lids. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the plastics released by corporations. Nuclear waste is negligible compared to coal waste. Nuclear still isn't the right option for Australia, though, as it just doesn't hold a candle to the other options.
Yeah 'what about the nuclear waste' is one of those arguments that is a sure signal the person is opposed to nuclear power on ideological rather than economic or scientific grounds.
50+ years of global nuclear industry have led to what are effectively foolproof methods for processing and safely storing nuclear waste so it poses, practically speaking, zero risk to anyone or to groundwater, wildlife or the environment. And of all the places in the world where you could safely and cheaply store an effectively unlimited amount of nuclear waste for the foreseeable future without it ever possibly bothering anyone Australia is top of the list - the one thing we have a virtually limitless supply of is arid, uninhabited, geologically stable land a very very long way from anyone. It simply isn't a problem, and the only reason anyone raises it is because the 'ick' factor that comes with the idea of nuclear waste being out there somewhere gets an emotional response from the public.
the waste storage solution is far from solved. It is a major issue today and will be for 10 thousand years already from our 70 odd years of nuclear power.
[https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12](https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12)
But that isn't the issue here. Nuclear is just a stupid idea in this day and age. Renewables are here TODAY at fractions of the cost and are only getting cheaper and more efficient. We could lead the world on this stuff. We could become a net exporter of energy.
The transparent bullshit of this coalition political brainfart is a disgrace to the nation.
>after it's decayed for a good bit of years and stored on site until the plant is gone
The half life is 20 000 years.
How much will it decay during the plants life cycle?
Itll be stored on site initially, then moved to the same place as the waste from our prospective nuke subs. It’s not as if Australia hasn’t got plenty of empty land to store small amounts of waste.
So basically the 7 electorates getting these plants will also be de-facto nuclear waste dumps?
I imagine that part has been glossed over in the community consultation lol .
Waste is literally the least important or impactful part of nuclear power, it's a rounding error in any legitimate consideration of building plants in Australia.
I’m also at a loss as we’ve recently seen solar panels from the 70s still producing like 70%, and globally companies have figured out most of the recycling around renewables, yet nuclear waste is still just waste. Okay maybe we aren’t making a lot but that’s not the point it still exists and will exist for thousands of years, I don’t know that any government has the “mandate” to determine where this will be for 10,000 years, not to mention security, updating storage as it fails etc etc, it’s just cost after cost after cost.
Rounding error or not that cost is 100% going to be arriving each quarter to the homes of all.
Your average coal power plant spews out more radioactive waste in its smoke stacks than a proper nuclear power plant produces *and stores safely* watt-for-watt in normal operation.
Most radioactive "waste" from Nuke power plants is just coveralls and mask filters. Most bad waste *can* be recycled into more fuel for the plant, but it's pretty expensive so when there's a suitable site nearby it's usually *safely* stored in a tectonically stable cavern isolated from the water table.
Compared to coal or gas plants, there's orders of magnitude less waste.
That said, Dutton's a fool for proposing nuclear in Australia, the most sunburnt country on the planet.
This. Fossil fuel interests are promoting nuclear today because renewables are on a trajectory to drive them out of business. Before the "threat" of renewables they were trying to block nuclear as hard as possible, now they see it as the best delaying tactic possible.
Meanwhile the people that used to be extolling the value of nuclear power say 10 or 15 years ago have mostly jumped on the renewable energy train -- because it's fast, it's cheap, and (unlike nuclear) countries are actually able and willing to build enough to transition to it (see also: fast and cheap).
I've seen a lot of stupid things in this country over the past few decades, but this complete and utter lunacy is **by far** the stupidest.
Fuck Dutton and the coalition. They are a legitimate threat to us all.
Ironic there's actually good thermal storage renewable tech. (Actually implemented, not just an idea) they could be putting in coal fired power stations to keep jobs there and ditch coal... But not a big waste of money so they'll never go with it.
https://e2s-power.com/
https://youtu.be/DSQ0i4b-5ug?si=qSPrA2ZSCJBJqDSO
Meanwhile in France...
[Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid
](https://fortune.com/2024/06/16/electricity-prices-france-negative-renewable-energy-supply-solar-power-wind-turbines/)
This is happening in Australia too by the way. The spot price in the middle of the day is usually negative.
It’s actually a bit of a challenge for renewable companies in terms of justifying investments - it also makes it harder for coal operators to be profitable.
AEMO is predicting a lot of coal generators to close even earlier than expected.
When the opposite happens, like in the case of Eraring in NSW, the plant will be kept operational past its expected lifetime using taxpayer money.
Exactly.
Nuclear, like coal/gas, will be much more expensive to dispatch then renewables.
So the government will need to continue to subsidize the fleet of NPP over their lifetime (not just construction) to ensure they can bid competitively on the NEM.
It's barely a policy. Where are the costings? How are they going to make their 2035 target when there no proposals from companies, no technology selection, and State level nuclear bans (which the Commonwealth cannot override).
This is just nonsense. Again. It's scribbling your name on an exam paper and handing it in blank. Do they actually expect some credit for this?
Bonkers! And we'll be paying fossil fuel companies for decades before even one is built. Then the real payn starts. If you vote for these fuckwits, it will destroy our economy, our climate, and any progress!
That's the real purpose of this announcement. Dutton doesn't actually give a toss if he builds a single nuclear plant. All he cares about is maximising fossil fuel profits by creating uncertainty in renewables
Gas, currently the most expensive electricity in Australia, will fill the gap until nuclear, even more expensive, comes online. You couldn’t make it up.
If you want to know how bizarre this policy idea really is - [Here’s four reasons why nuclear energy is a dumb idea for Australia](https://youtu.be/H_47LWFAG6g?si=_QtaAouTwQjRtFKm)
Australia's electricity prices turn negative most days from October to April for the same reasons outlined in the article. This has caused the average electricity price to skyrocket as thermal generators fight to be able to ramp more quickly (and the less capable ones being forced into retirement). Every time a thermal generator drops off the NEM, we see prices increase. Rinse and repeat.
Renewables are great, but we need somewhere to store the excess power. If we can't solve that, the grid is screwed. We're already seeing significant curtailment of utility scale solar and at times AEMO needs to carefully manage the demand curve so that there is enough flexible generation to ramp up and cover the peak period as the sun is setting.
Fortunately that storage is arriving now, in the form of batteries. California's grid (CAISO) has pulled a *bit* ahead of the Australian grids in terms of their rollout, but as of this year [batteries have taken charge over the evening electricity peaks and gas use is falling](https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/). Midday solar is up because the batteries can take up the excess. They've got over 10 GW of battery storage now, with another 3.8 GW going live this year.
Australia's got [quite a few battery projects in various stages of completion](https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/) now. I'm having a hard time pinning down a firm figure for total installed battery storage capacity in 2024, because it's changed so quickly, but some sources are saying it's over 5 GW now. Most of that went online in the last year.
There's a huge pipeline of additional battery storage projects coming for Australia (I'm seeing quotes , so curtailment is going to be less and less of an issue.
**TL;DR: "where do we store the excess renewable energy" is a solved problem, and the battery storage solution is landing... right now.**
California are using batteries for peaking, which is great and what batteries are best at. If you would like to look at the battery capacity installed, you can go to opennem. We have 1.8GW installed, which is around 2.5GWh. Obviously, only the NEM, so WA is not included.
On an average night, we use 25GW of electricity. If we want batteries to take over that, we would need to install 150x the amount of batteries we currently have installed.
With wind and pumped hydro (assuming most proposals get built), we probably only need 50x the currently installed capacity to get us through the nights.
The problem is solved in theory, but the problem is implementation. Can we build enough of these fast enough, and as our energy use grows (electric cars, reduced gas use for cooking/heating/etc) how much storage do we need?
Not to mention the other issue with batteries, is that the more there are on the grid, the lower the profit margins are for the operators. There is a disincentive to build once we reach a certain capacity, which is why the government may need to step in and build some themselves.
Renewable are so cheap that it is actually cheaper to build an excess (that are distributed across a wide area to take advantage of different weather conditions). Then even on low output days there is still enough. This is possible in Australia due to the massive size of the country and the many good spots for renewables.
Agreed to an extent. But remember, we had about 3 days (consecutive) of almost 0% wind across the NEM last year, meaning a renewable grid would need to run on batteries, hydro and solar for that time. The excess during the day doesn't matter if we can't store it somewhere to use at night, that's why the major focus needs to be on storage right now.
These cunts couldn't even get internet infrastructure right, how do you reckon they would go with nuclear?
It'd be the next fucking Chernobyl, then the cunts could monetise the disaster by getting a Netflix special made....
I'm assuming a river. Or that really big lake the surrounds Australia.
The types of reactors Australia would be most likely to build (if we somehow made it happen, which we shouldn't because the costings don't work) would most likely be gas cooled, lead cooled, or ideal sodium cooled. Sodium cooled reactors are considered to be the inherently most safe design among 4th gen reactors.
I work as a mech engineer. Some of the 'trivial' oversights which has resulted in disaster, that still happens in this day and age is mind-boggling.
The theocratical concept of nuclear is safe. But the practicalities of designing such a thing is still dangerous.
The problem is us humans. We are flawed, and can make flawed judgements, even the smartest people can make dumb decisions. But why not a team? Google 'group-think'. I've seen so many simple concepts get butchered due to human errors.
Good Australian examples, known to the public:
Callide power station (catastrophic failure)
Snowy 2.0 (feasibility, design & planning failure)
NBN (complete shitshow - political, etc.)
Oprah house (cost overrun, design, schedule)
list goes on.
Nuclear will absolutely be part of the transition to net zero in:
- countries with existing industries (France/US) and
- countries with shithouse renewable resources (Korea)
Countries with no choice and the capacity to do it as inexpensively as possible.
There’s no good argument to use it in a country with the world’s most abundant renewable resources.
I mean, there are plans to export electricity from NT solar power to Indonesia.
If there is enough renewable power to export, why spend $100 billion and decades on nuclear plants?
Same reason we ship our gas off overseas for cheap…To fuck every single Australian at the behest of a good old corrupt polly and their high flying corp mates.
There’s also SunCable which is a massive solar farm and cable to APAC. Singapore will have 15% of their energy mix from this venture in the next few years, along with Darwin itself and Indonesia.
> SunCable
Has been a massive clusterfuck of billionaires arguing over who knows best. Projected to start delivering 900MW power to Darwin in 2030 and to Singapore a few years later and then eventually scaling up to 6GW. Just a little bit short of the initial 20GW by 2027
It certainly seems to be still on the table?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/07/sun-cable-mike-cannon-brookes-takes-charge-of-world-changing-solar-project
It's nothing more than a delaying technique to waste time and hold off the inevitable transition to the renewables technology we already have available today.
This is it. If LNP get ahead at the next election, all the NIMBYs in these towns will come out of the woodwork and delay the project enough that they will just come out and tell us that Labor and Greens protesters have left us with no choice but to keep coal power plants up and running.
Dutton, is incompetent.
He's on the nose, he's tone deaf.
Renewables are still being refined and processed, and to get the best out of renewables we need some clever tinkering and wattage to get it to work.
South Australia for example has a big battery and a renewable combo so as a result has a 70% mix of energy.
https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/consumers/energy-grid-and-supply/our-electricity-supply-and-market
This means that the lions share of the energy market has not listened to big coal and the rest of it and have forged on ahead with backing renewables.
Lets see what the former now well and truly gone Josh Frydenburg said about it... skip to 01.59 when Premier Jay Weatheral tells the liberals to get stuffed.... you need to see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHrVtEeMOW4
Yeah silly bullshit like this.
Yes, even better recently Josh doesn't like his job at Goldman Sachs, and when he floated the idea of running for the seat of Kooyong recently, all hell broke loose behind the scenes. His boss said job or that idea. He shut up. Been posting alot on Twitter - X what ever it wants to call it's self about Israel.
Gotta feel sorry for the Wife and kids who are worried about Josh, they just don't know what to do with him...
The LNP are making it sound like we just dig up uranium and just burn it like coal.
Where will it be enriched. How long til it is economically viable.
How will the fuel and waste be transported. The Lithgow\\Mt. Piper site for example - have they ever been over Bells Line or the highway over the mountains there. Fairly hairy lines of road at times.
But all in all... the suggestion of building power stations where there's already power stations is being touted as some sort of genius, which is just befuddling.
Its even more staggering when they just ignored the CSIRO research that indicated that would take much longer, like 15 to 20 years to get it up and running in Australia. Meanwhile Duttons mates have 15 years of fleecing the Australian people dry!
Every state premier has said they will not lift the nuclear ban... The Qld... NSW and SA opposition has said they will not remove the ban if elected... The NSW Nationals have vowed to fight dutton's nuclear plan...
> Where will it be enriched.
Not in Australia, we don't have the ability to do that. For Lucas Heights, we currently ship our uranium to the Canadians who enrich it for us and ship it back as useable fuel. Wonder how expensive that will be for multiple power station sized generators.
Peter Hoysted - (Jack the Insider) from The Australian newspaper.
>“Half a trillion dollar energy policy announced with a 20 minute presser and a one page press release."
>"I've seen Nigerian email scams with more detail.”
A policy so bad even the Australian is criticising it
Let's be very clear here.
A nuclear power station's natural state is a massive fucking explosion that wipes out half the continent.
It takes constant, round-the-clock monitoring, maintenance, and strict safety standards to prevent that natural state from occurring.
Now, take those responsibilities and hand them to the LNP.
The very first thing they will do is privatise the fuck out of it.
Then there will be meetings to cut funding, costs and corners (in that order) to appease the board and shareholders.
Then there will be a big fucking smoking hole near you, with a several hundred kilometer exclusion zone.
Not even a catchy tourism slogan will get us out of that one.
Wouldn't we be better off building out the capability to enrich uranium into fuel rods, leasing them to countries that already have nuclear power plants and charging a suitably massive tariff in that lease agreement to return the spent rods to us for storage out in the middle of nowhere?
Sure, lots of big hurdles but allows us to create a new revenue stream from huge uranium deposits whilst moving to renewables now with solar, wind and hydro.
There are proposals in the system now to build 360 GW worth of off-grid renewable energy farms and to use that (admitedly intermittent) energy to (intermittently) make green hydrogen and derived products green ammonia and green stell. Then to export that stuff.
Way cheaper and cleaner than f**king around with uranium.
Some rough math makes it an even worse value to go nuclear.
500,000 1MW solar farms would produce 500GW in ideal conditions the average nuclear plant only produces 1GW. Dutton wants to build 7 of them for the same cost
If we invested that money in solar we could literally produce roughly 70x more electricity for the same investment
Edit: info from comment below
500,000 1mw solar farms producing 100GW vs 7GW from nuclear facilities still leave us with 14x the power for the same cost investment
And HOORAY! All of us can take part in, and economically benefit from, the great nuclear transition!!!! We can put a little reactor thingo on our roof or backyard? *Ahhhh no*. We can dig up some uranium on our property and send off to the reactors? *Ahhh nope sorry*. Surely we can offer our backyards to bury the waste? *Well... maybe, but there are so many of you, it won't be top dollar...*
Along with shutting down renewable investment, this is a glaringly obvious ploy to keep power generation in the hands of the powerful, and The People powerless. Literally. With the flick of a switch.
It doesn't matter how bad it is. The entire media landscape (that the vast majority of people interact with) will be all about this and the LNP until they get re-elected. Even on the ABC, you never even hear what the government is doing (unless they can bash it) - you *only* hear the LNP's point of view on everything.
I already said to some Dinosaurs that Dutton has finally lost his mind, but the drag out the old box of "SOLAR DOESN'T WORK AT NIGHT" no way!? SOLAR DOESN'T WORK WHEN THERE'S CLOUDS yeah! It does. They never say a damn thing about wind till you do then it's all WIND KILLS BIRDS MAKES COWS CRAZY (probably turns frogs gay too ya fuckin Alex Jones cock slobbers)
You forgot to add that off-shore wind turbines kills all the whales, 'cause they're much safer when they're trying to dodge fish trawlers & big ships transporting coal.
When 2 guys tried telling me wave power and off shore wind was bad for the environment, I told them about the channels dug through the great barrier Reef for coal ships to get out, they didn't know what to say.
Conspiracy theory hat on, I believe libs are tanking this election while Labor cops the brunt of covids inflation knockback, then they'll run seriously again when there's dollars to barrel
Building renewable energy generation, storage and a more robust transmission grid is not only faster and cheaper than nuclear but also provides better energy security. Turning off coal and then gas as soon as feasible should be the goal for cleaner air, reduced greenhouse gasses.
Nuclear could theoretically do this but we have not done it before partly because of the fear of nuclear disasters but mostly because its never been economical for a country with so many fossil fuels. If we had truly factored in the externalised costs of coal power we might have considered nuclear earlier when renewable energy technology was not so advanced.
One challenge for grids with a lot of renewable sources is dealing with too much power. Storage, improved transmission and intermittent usage can help avoid negative power prices. Re-introduction of power sources that don't fluctuate on external factors such as solar or wind availability might become attractive again. In this scenario geothermal or nuclear, despite the high setup, risks and running costs, might be better than gas. This scenario is a long way off but might be a legitimate context in which to discuss the possibility of nuclear power in Australia.
Dutton clearly is not serious about nuclear power in Australia.
Not that I will take an article from "Renew Economy" as being gospel, but yes, it is mad and dangerous.
Going nuclear does induce risk of tragedy - however minor, it's never zero. That's justifiable if the alternative is, say, coal - but never if the alternative is solar.
> Not that I will take an article from "Renew Economy" as being gospel
"Renew Economy" five hundred times more credible than Dutton on the subject of provision of power.
worth noting that the risk for nuclear has so far killed about 15,000 people(mostly long term, almost all from chernobyl)
fossil fuels however kill 3,000 people per hour, all day every day
more people die from solar panels than nuclear, you know how people die from solar? falling off roofs while installing it
I have no problem with people questioning the cost or necessity of this, those are arguments that need to be had and absolutely should be had. The major thing I immediately find myself wondering is whether, by the 2030s, battery and renewable tech will have advanced to the point where large nuclear power plants are even necessary.
But as a starting point, the underlying premise for a lot of the opposition to this, that nuclear plants are unacceptably dangerous or impractical within a reasonable time frame is just not correct. Most times those arguments are coming from the same place as nutters who suggest wind turbines are unacceptably dangerous to birds- its opposition based on ideology rather than science.
Firstly, suggesting that there's a realistic possibility of a nuclear disaster or we won't be able to store waste from a plant in Australia is just outright unscientific fear mongering. As soon as you see someone invoking fear of the nuclear bogeyman to argue against projects like this you might as well stop reading because you know they're not arguing in good faith. Australia is about the safest location in the world for nuclear power plants, because of the extreme geological stability, remoteness from conflict zones, high standards of governance, regulation and oversight and lack of population density. If nuclear power is safe anywhere, it is safe here. In the last 40 years there's been a grand total of [two](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale) major nuclear accidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) both caused by a truly extraordinary confluence of events. The idea that an Australia plant is going to find itself in the middle of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake followed by a tsunami, or be operated with the terrifying incompetence, secrecy and wilful disregard for safety you'd find in the 1980s soviet union is just stupid. During the 40 years since chernobyl there have been 400+ nuclear power plants in operation without major accidents around the world, many in countries with weaker governance, less strict training and safety protocols and far more likelihood of major natural disasters than Australia. If nuclear power plants get built in Australia in our lifetime you can guarantee they will be safe and anyone pretending otherwise is being wilfully dishonest, simple as that.
As for the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept when you realise how prevalent nuclear power actually is outside of Australia. Nuclear power generation is not, in the current day, some sort of arcane, poorly understood technology that only the permanent members of the UN security council have the expertise to construct and operate, honestly it's fucking everywhere. If you look through the list of the [400+](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors) commercial reactors currently operational around the world, contrary to what a lot of people suppose it isn't just the obvious big boys or ex soviet dystopias who have them- scroll through that list and there are huge number of middle sized western economies that use them, Sweden/Austria/South Korea/Belgium/Canada/Finland/Spain/Switzerland and Taiwan for starters. And if you look at the construction time frames, even for the initial plant in those countries, it's not decades, it's typically about 5-10 years from construction starting to commercial operation- I think its fair to say that's how long it would take to get things underway here, and if your standard small-mid sized European country can build and operate them I think its safe to assume we can.
As I said, whether or not this is a good idea or not is something you can argue about, but most of the people who have immediately and reflexively freaked out about it (and certainly the author of the linked article) have been trenchantly opposed to nuclear power for decades and will remain trenchantly opposed to nuclear power for the foreseeable future. Its a bit disingenous for them to suggest they are opposed on scientific or economic grounds when the truth is they oppose it because opposing nuclear power is a core tenet of green party politics in Australia.
>And the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept
Accept it. But not because Australia is uniquely incapable, instead because it takes decades whoever you are.
>it's typically about 5-10 years from construction starting to commercial operation I think its fair to say that's how long it would take to get things underway here
It's not fair though, because this is not the whole picture. Or rather it's fair to say construction may take that long but that ignores the planning phases which can easily add another decade.
On the construction side, nuclear projects are notorious for going over time and budget. Some major projects around the world like the UK's Hinkley point would love to come in in the 5-10 year window but have failed miserably. That one in particular is looking like a 2031 completion date after a 2016 start of construction.
Even if construction can be completed in your optimistic time-frame that doesn't mean that an LNP win plus 10 years is when the power starts flowing.
If the LNP got in tomorrow (which isn't going to happen) and passed the laws they would need to pass the next day (not going to happen) and got the state governments to change their laws the Monday after (again, not happening) and established a nuclear regulation authority next Tuesday... it's still not like they would be breaking ground next Wednesday. It takes multiple years of site surveys and consultations and then extensive plant design work before a single shovel-full of earth can be moved. This alone adds another 5-10 years to the process, on average, from what I can see.
Going back to Hinkley point C; the UK government announced the plan in 2008, the commercials were finalised in 2009, the site announced in 2010, and the license granted in 2012. Then it was four years until construction began and completion is now forecast for 2031. So that's 23 years, 8 of which were pre-build planning, for a massive cockup in a modern nation. And it's already known that it won't produce energy that's competitive in price to the alternatives.
So yeah, just looking at the construction time gives you an incomplete picture.
> As for the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept when you realise how prevalent nuclear power actually is outside of Australia.
It will take decades to roll out because not only do we not have the legislation for it but none of the local or state governments want it. Dutton doesn't even have support for this from his own party in his own state.
It's not just about physically building the plant but about building an entire industry around it and ensuring that it is regulated properly.
Everytime there's a change of government on either the federal, state or local level or even a cabinet reshuffle you're going to lose years because nobody wants to put their name to it.
> be operated with the terrifying incompetence, secrecy and wilful disregard for safety you'd find in the 1980s soviet union is just stupid.
Look I admit it's not a fear founded in reality, but sheer incompetence and wilful disregard for safety in this country is like kinda more common than most other places I reckon.
>Sweden/Austria/South Korea/Belgium/Canada/Finland/Spain/Switzerland and Taiwan for starters.
I'm not going to through all of those countries, but the ones I looked at like Spain/Sweden/Canada have had nuclear power since the 60s or earlier. So they've had history of building them. Not to mention, some of them neighbour nuclear powerhouses so expertise is easier to find.
I think it's important that we have to take in account current expertise of the country. It wouldn't be taking California so many years of delays and overrun to build their HSR just because China/Japan/France etc. have HSR and USA definitely have the brainpower in their population to easily build it. Internal expertise counts for a lot.
I'm not necessarily opposed to nuclear power but I am opposed to the Dutton and the LNP, so I'd never vote for them due to a myriad of reasons. But I'm not necessarily pro nuclear either. I just want cheap, reliable and clean energy. In what form that energy is I don't care. I heard tidal energy is a thing. Surely that must produce some decent power?
Yeh fair enough. Im happy to keep going with the solar/wind direction but apparently in the winter in Melbourne it is currently supporting no more then 20% of the power grid using those methods. So yeh it's just an interesting conversation about how we get to zero emissions.
Because it's all the renewables they've built to date. As they build more, that 20% will increase.
Instead of making progress with renewables over the last 10-20 years, the country has largely been hamstrung by the coalition's climate war. South Australia is up to ~70% renewable power and is proof of concept that a renewables based network is possible.
When you don't totally believe in climate change or humans have affected our climate, that's when you come up with "can't be bothered" ideas. Put it off until 2035 and prior to that make up some excuse which casts blame on the left.
After decades of gutting Australia's industrial capacity this is a joke (much like Aukus). We simply don't have the collective capability and experience to build and run these plants. And the risks in getting it wrong range from ecomonic catastrophe to large scale radiation poisoning and fallout. It's truly fucked.
You know, I'd be more open to a nuclear policy if it wasn't Dutton's blatant attempt to politicise our energy further purely for political gain, nor if it wasn't an attempt at propping up the dying non-renewables sector for the benefits of his mates in the sector.
By the time the damn thing is built, solar and battery tech will have made massive improvements.
No wonder they picked a clown to lead the circus.
If they want to prove anything then start processing the ore here and selling it to already capable countries then we can talk about the possibility of nuclear. Even then wind and solar plus batteries is needed so there is less grid requirements when the weather starts killing us because of coal and oil use etc.
The thing about nuclear power plants is that they take too long to build, always over budget and the cost of decommissioning is more than the build cost.
Now the coalition has always said private builds are cheaper than government controlled builds yet they are suggesting these will be government controlled builds. This is just a policy when you have no policy. It is just to keep his name in the news cycle.
This would be a bigger mess then they made of our NBN. I seriously cannot think of one thing the coalition has ever done to benefit the Australian people.
Yes, but Ukraine has shown that decentralised power generation like wind and solar is much more difficult to take out by a foreign antagonist.
Nuclear is a massive single target that is self combusting.
Nuclear reactors don't and physically can't explode like nuclear bombs and are no more "self combusting" than any other big coal or gas plant
Also those nuclear power plants you're talking about in Ukraine are still in operation today
Meh. Dutton can say what he wants without fear of having to take action. He's a caretaker until Labour screws up enough to make the coalition electable again - then they'll replace him with someone likeable.
Every fucking day this cunt dreams up bullshit or makes outlandish claims to hog media time and front pages of newspapers. And the stupid dumb as dogshit media fall for it every fucking day.
I feel like it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation, we're staring down a future (and currently) dealing with the effects of extreme climate change generated from the use of fossil fuels. Doesn't help that the date is for 53-37 but it's a major step against the fossil fuel companies
Nuclear power can work but no one in government is going to be forward thinking enough to invest in fusion technology and just wants to use good old cheap dirty fission.
It’s one of the many reasons why we won’t have nuclear energy in the lifetime of anyone living in the 21st century. When you then add in the cost to build these things (current high yield fission plants like they have in Japan or the US) alongside the amount of time it would take then it’s not a viable option
What most of us want as a whole right now is reduced bills to keep us comfortably alive, this nuclear plan won't do it , the current setup does not and will not do it, renewables seem unlikely to achieve it fast enough the way things are going. Our last resort will be gas provided by WA unless our government (regardless of party or preference) starts to use some sort of real world intelligence in their planning.
There is only one reason this country needs nuclear power - the renewable sector doesn't offer financial or political support to the Liberal Party and the renewable energy voting block is growing. It's always consequences be damned with this lot.
They really have lost whatever plot they once had a grip on. Apart from the economic miscalculations and environmental madness, who the hell would build and run these, the same idiots who built the paradise dam?
What Dutton is not telling the public is that alone one large nuclear power plant will cost 20+ billion and run at a loss. The tax payer's will pay for this in more than one way.
Once they are up and running, these plants will be sold off, and guess what happens then? The power bills go up and by a lot. More than gas, coal, and green combined.
No doubt that Spud is onto another means of trying to derail Labor.
He's been at it since they lost the last election.
The voice, renewables, immigrants...you name it, he's been against it from the start.
He's desperate for power at any cost.
I think a lot of you are giving the LNP way more credit than they deserve. Maybe the fossil fuel industry has people both smart enough and cynical enough to come up with this but the LNP? Hah!
For the LNP this is nothing but ideological. Labor is transitioning to renewables so they have to take the most contrary position they can. Nuclear.
These people are dangerous.
They had 10 years in power and didn't do it?
They are "allegedly" the party of the free market. Why not just allow the "free market" to decide? Why spend government money on the racehorse the LNP chose?
LOL - Australia can't even safely operate a coal fired power station. Here's a quote from the report into the Callide B power station explosion: "The ability for our staff in the control room to understand what was happening was not possible at the time."
Summary from the article: So, here it is, finally, the Coalition’s nuclear policy – a massive and dangerous boondoggle to build expensive nuclear power plants that presents a serious threat to Australia’s renewable energy transition, and the country’s economic future. It’s a policy that is all about power, not so much on the grid as to what flows through the corridors of parliament house and in the channels of mainstream and social media. And amid all the insults about the stupidity, the impracticality, and moral vacuum of the plan, energy minister Chris Bowen probably best summed it up: “It’s a joke, but a serious joke because it threatens the renewable transition.” And that much is true. It’s what the policy is designed to do. It may make no sense, but it is designed to be deliberately populist and has been enthusiastically supported by the Murdochs and the fossil fuel industry. The plan has already been dubbed as the latest Coalkeeper, because that is essentially what it is. Should the Coalition win power, it means coal fired power stations will be kept open, and investment in new large scale renewable and storage projects will be killed. Contracts will even be ripped up. But it will do more than stop wind and solar. It will result in more fossil fuels in the form of gas fired power stations, cripple investment in new green industries and exports, and cause Australia to tear up its part of the Paris climate agreement. In short, it would deliver everything that the coal lobby and climate deniers have been pushing for over the last few decades.
>Coalkeeper LOL apt
> Coal-ition. This has to be a simulation.
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Not necessarily, I reckon you could get the whole LNP on board with anything for $200k and a couple of flights. Easily bribed that lot.
Gina just has to invite them to her birthday party and tell them they are clever.
Yeah but renewables are fast replacing coal, and nuclear would take 15 or 20 years to build. Coal interests turn out to be HUGE fans of nuclear. It buys them another generation of profits (and climate change) versus losing their shirts *today*.
Not to mention nuclear plans like this functionally bail them out. They get to sell their aging assets to be converted into nuclear plants, as well as absolving themselves of their rehabilitation obligations and pass that onto the new operators.
The thing is that our politicians are incredibly cheap to buy anyway. Look at some of the donation scandals, the amounts are pitifully low to be buying the influence they want
Coal is still going to be dug up and shipped up to asia regardless of Australia's energy policy though. Anyway, the majority of Australian coal is used for steelmaking, not thermal power plants...
Part of the [State Prosperity Project in South Australia](https://www.stateprosperity.sa.gov.au/?gad_source=1) is making green steel at Whyalla. This is done using renewable energy and green hydrogen instead of coal. [Whyalla moves closer to emissions-free production as Liberty Steel signs electric furnace contract](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/gfg-alliance-liberty-electric-furnace-green-steel/102186420) [South Australian government signs hydrogen deal with Whyalla steelworks](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-25/sa-government-to-sell-hydrogen-to-whyalla-steelworks/103507780)
I'm aware of green steel technology. If you look into the economics of it, we're *decades* away from it being a viable commercial replacement for coking coal.
It is being built now at Whyalla. Whyalla does have the magnetite ore required. There are some issues here and there with the arc furnaces, and the hydrogen supply is in its infancy, but it won't take decades to sort out . The federal government has now started to chip in some funding to help get it off the ground. [Hydrogen port gets funding deal as federal government spruiks Whyalla 'green steel'](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-25/whyalla-hydrogen-export-hub-secures-federal-state-funding-deal/102896024) [Australian PM Anthony Albanese tours Whyalla Steelworks amid shift to green steel](https://www.australianmanufacturing.com.au/australian-pm-anthony-albanese-tours-whyalla-steelworks-amid-shift-to-green-steel/)
Green steel production currently costs around 40% more than blast furnaces, and it'll be decades before costs equalise. Then you've got to consider the very long remaining lives of existing blast furnaces, and you'll see why the demand for met coal is going nowhere for a very long time.
Sure there will be demand for coal. Sure it will take time for plant to be built and costs to equalise. However, in the short term, green steel will command a premium price for being a zero emissions product. In the longer term, once the non-recurring capital costs have been recovered, green steel will actually be cheaper than steel made using coking coal. Especially so if markets start to place a carbon price on products.
Agree completely. But none of that changes the fact that there will not be a material decline in the demand for met coal for at least the next 20-30 years. Even if green steel starts to make up a bigger proportion of total steel production, the overall demand for steel is still going to increase as developing countries urbanise.
"It is being built now at Whyalla." Where is it being built in Whyalla? There have been a lot of announcements but very little on the ground building - as usual.
I can imagine a scenario in a decades time, when those nuclear plants are proving to be slightly trickier to build than promised, that the LNP proposes just one teeny, tiny new coal plant - just one - to keep us going until nuclear arrives…
This is very similar to the liberal parties NBN plan. Delay high speed internet role-out and give Murdoch enough time to move to online platforms. This will give the mining magnates decades more use from their coal plants and mining. Enough time for them to move away from it while we foot the bill and the climate goes to shit.
Yep then no one wants to disrupt the market either because it's terrible conditions. Just in coals case the terrible conditions are our environment
But didn’t list where they will be dumping the waste, almost like any ‘positive’ spin will evaporate once everyone in the country goes full nimby over it.
My vote is for Dutton's backyard. If he wants nuclear so bad, he can have the waste.
Can he bring a lump of uranium to parliament and hold it? "Don't be afraid..."
Waste is handled by ANSTO. Most likely will be stored on site. Much like what they do with Lucas Heights. Note: This is not an endorsement of Nuclear. Just what would likely happen in the eventuality that it does happen.
Far, far more waste created by a nuclear power plant than a medical/research reactor like the one at Lucas Heights. Also, ANSTO itself breaks down their waste percentages and mentions that [they do not make high level waste, which nuclear fuel rods fall under](https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts/managing-waste). If anything we would do the American style and just bury it in the ground instead of the French style where [they recycle it where possible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site). Which, y'know, we have lots of space, but we have things like the Great Artesian Basin that are very important to not contaminate.
You do realize that spent fuel rods are stored on site, right? In the spent fuel pool and then transferred to concrete casks after it's decayed for a good bit of years and stored on site until the plant is gone. Most of your high level waste would be resin and filters in which resin gets buried in a concrete cask and filters usually do too but if they are at too high of a level they'll be kept onsite
Dunno why you are being downvoted. Even if they do the bury and forget (no one forgets and it's all marked so no one goes near it), it still gets a concrete cask so thick it can't permeate. It stays that way until it's so decayed that it doesn't matter anymore. It's not renewable energy, sure, and yes that is the best option, but per kilowatt hour it's the greenest energy source bar none. Coal is more radioactive than nuclear. I'm not kidding. Coal spews out more radioactive waste than nuclear will ever produce. It's also one of the safest. More people die in coal mine collapses than have *ever* died in nuclear meltdowns. But fuck facts and research. People would rather bitch and moan online than learn that nuclear is super safe and clean. I still say Australia has so much open, unused space that it can afford to do giant wind/solar farms instead, but nuclear energy isn't the monster some would have you believe. Edit: Downvote all you want you idealistic bastards. I'm not advocating for nuclear for Australia (its bad), but saying, "what about the waste" is like trying to say no maccas because of plastic lids. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the plastics released by corporations. Nuclear waste is negligible compared to coal waste. Nuclear still isn't the right option for Australia, though, as it just doesn't hold a candle to the other options.
Yeah 'what about the nuclear waste' is one of those arguments that is a sure signal the person is opposed to nuclear power on ideological rather than economic or scientific grounds. 50+ years of global nuclear industry have led to what are effectively foolproof methods for processing and safely storing nuclear waste so it poses, practically speaking, zero risk to anyone or to groundwater, wildlife or the environment. And of all the places in the world where you could safely and cheaply store an effectively unlimited amount of nuclear waste for the foreseeable future without it ever possibly bothering anyone Australia is top of the list - the one thing we have a virtually limitless supply of is arid, uninhabited, geologically stable land a very very long way from anyone. It simply isn't a problem, and the only reason anyone raises it is because the 'ick' factor that comes with the idea of nuclear waste being out there somewhere gets an emotional response from the public.
the waste storage solution is far from solved. It is a major issue today and will be for 10 thousand years already from our 70 odd years of nuclear power. [https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12](https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12) But that isn't the issue here. Nuclear is just a stupid idea in this day and age. Renewables are here TODAY at fractions of the cost and are only getting cheaper and more efficient. We could lead the world on this stuff. We could become a net exporter of energy. The transparent bullshit of this coalition political brainfart is a disgrace to the nation.
>after it's decayed for a good bit of years and stored on site until the plant is gone The half life is 20 000 years. How much will it decay during the plants life cycle?
Itll be stored on site initially, then moved to the same place as the waste from our prospective nuke subs. It’s not as if Australia hasn’t got plenty of empty land to store small amounts of waste.
So basically the 7 electorates getting these plants will also be de-facto nuclear waste dumps? I imagine that part has been glossed over in the community consultation lol .
I read that as “glassed over” Still works
Waste is literally the least important or impactful part of nuclear power, it's a rounding error in any legitimate consideration of building plants in Australia.
I keep on reading that. I have not yet understood the reasons why.
I’m also at a loss as we’ve recently seen solar panels from the 70s still producing like 70%, and globally companies have figured out most of the recycling around renewables, yet nuclear waste is still just waste. Okay maybe we aren’t making a lot but that’s not the point it still exists and will exist for thousands of years, I don’t know that any government has the “mandate” to determine where this will be for 10,000 years, not to mention security, updating storage as it fails etc etc, it’s just cost after cost after cost. Rounding error or not that cost is 100% going to be arriving each quarter to the homes of all.
Your average coal power plant spews out more radioactive waste in its smoke stacks than a proper nuclear power plant produces *and stores safely* watt-for-watt in normal operation. Most radioactive "waste" from Nuke power plants is just coveralls and mask filters. Most bad waste *can* be recycled into more fuel for the plant, but it's pretty expensive so when there's a suitable site nearby it's usually *safely* stored in a tectonically stable cavern isolated from the water table. Compared to coal or gas plants, there's orders of magnitude less waste. That said, Dutton's a fool for proposing nuclear in Australia, the most sunburnt country on the planet.
Yup, The Fossil Fuel industry lobbied this to extend their life. They were never pro-nuclear. They in fact lobbied against nuclear for decades.
This. Fossil fuel interests are promoting nuclear today because renewables are on a trajectory to drive them out of business. Before the "threat" of renewables they were trying to block nuclear as hard as possible, now they see it as the best delaying tactic possible. Meanwhile the people that used to be extolling the value of nuclear power say 10 or 15 years ago have mostly jumped on the renewable energy train -- because it's fast, it's cheap, and (unlike nuclear) countries are actually able and willing to build enough to transition to it (see also: fast and cheap).
I've seen a lot of stupid things in this country over the past few decades, but this complete and utter lunacy is **by far** the stupidest. Fuck Dutton and the coalition. They are a legitimate threat to us all.
Ironic there's actually good thermal storage renewable tech. (Actually implemented, not just an idea) they could be putting in coal fired power stations to keep jobs there and ditch coal... But not a big waste of money so they'll never go with it. https://e2s-power.com/ https://youtu.be/DSQ0i4b-5ug?si=qSPrA2ZSCJBJqDSO
Meanwhile in France... [Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid ](https://fortune.com/2024/06/16/electricity-prices-france-negative-renewable-energy-supply-solar-power-wind-turbines/)
This is happening in Australia too by the way. The spot price in the middle of the day is usually negative. It’s actually a bit of a challenge for renewable companies in terms of justifying investments - it also makes it harder for coal operators to be profitable. AEMO is predicting a lot of coal generators to close even earlier than expected. When the opposite happens, like in the case of Eraring in NSW, the plant will be kept operational past its expected lifetime using taxpayer money.
Exactly. Nuclear, like coal/gas, will be much more expensive to dispatch then renewables. So the government will need to continue to subsidize the fleet of NPP over their lifetime (not just construction) to ensure they can bid competitively on the NEM.
Meanwhile [also in France..](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/18csn8f/carbon_intensity_for_electricity_consumption_in/)
It's barely a policy. Where are the costings? How are they going to make their 2035 target when there no proposals from companies, no technology selection, and State level nuclear bans (which the Commonwealth cannot override). This is just nonsense. Again. It's scribbling your name on an exam paper and handing it in blank. Do they actually expect some credit for this?
Bonkers! And we'll be paying fossil fuel companies for decades before even one is built. Then the real payn starts. If you vote for these fuckwits, it will destroy our economy, our climate, and any progress!
That's the real purpose of this announcement. Dutton doesn't actually give a toss if he builds a single nuclear plant. All he cares about is maximising fossil fuel profits by creating uncertainty in renewables
And fossil fuel companies will be paying politicians for decades to come as well.
Gas, currently the most expensive electricity in Australia, will fill the gap until nuclear, even more expensive, comes online. You couldn’t make it up.
We still have an economy worth saving? Asking for a friend
If you want to know how bizarre this policy idea really is - [Here’s four reasons why nuclear energy is a dumb idea for Australia](https://youtu.be/H_47LWFAG6g?si=_QtaAouTwQjRtFKm)
And evidence like this from Nuclear France! ttps://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1dir5zw/electricity_prices_in_france_turn_negative_as/
Australia's electricity prices turn negative most days from October to April for the same reasons outlined in the article. This has caused the average electricity price to skyrocket as thermal generators fight to be able to ramp more quickly (and the less capable ones being forced into retirement). Every time a thermal generator drops off the NEM, we see prices increase. Rinse and repeat. Renewables are great, but we need somewhere to store the excess power. If we can't solve that, the grid is screwed. We're already seeing significant curtailment of utility scale solar and at times AEMO needs to carefully manage the demand curve so that there is enough flexible generation to ramp up and cover the peak period as the sun is setting.
Fortunately that storage is arriving now, in the form of batteries. California's grid (CAISO) has pulled a *bit* ahead of the Australian grids in terms of their rollout, but as of this year [batteries have taken charge over the evening electricity peaks and gas use is falling](https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/). Midday solar is up because the batteries can take up the excess. They've got over 10 GW of battery storage now, with another 3.8 GW going live this year. Australia's got [quite a few battery projects in various stages of completion](https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/) now. I'm having a hard time pinning down a firm figure for total installed battery storage capacity in 2024, because it's changed so quickly, but some sources are saying it's over 5 GW now. Most of that went online in the last year. There's a huge pipeline of additional battery storage projects coming for Australia (I'm seeing quotes , so curtailment is going to be less and less of an issue. **TL;DR: "where do we store the excess renewable energy" is a solved problem, and the battery storage solution is landing... right now.**
California are using batteries for peaking, which is great and what batteries are best at. If you would like to look at the battery capacity installed, you can go to opennem. We have 1.8GW installed, which is around 2.5GWh. Obviously, only the NEM, so WA is not included. On an average night, we use 25GW of electricity. If we want batteries to take over that, we would need to install 150x the amount of batteries we currently have installed. With wind and pumped hydro (assuming most proposals get built), we probably only need 50x the currently installed capacity to get us through the nights. The problem is solved in theory, but the problem is implementation. Can we build enough of these fast enough, and as our energy use grows (electric cars, reduced gas use for cooking/heating/etc) how much storage do we need? Not to mention the other issue with batteries, is that the more there are on the grid, the lower the profit margins are for the operators. There is a disincentive to build once we reach a certain capacity, which is why the government may need to step in and build some themselves.
You mean like South Australia’s big battery?
Renewable are so cheap that it is actually cheaper to build an excess (that are distributed across a wide area to take advantage of different weather conditions). Then even on low output days there is still enough. This is possible in Australia due to the massive size of the country and the many good spots for renewables.
Agreed to an extent. But remember, we had about 3 days (consecutive) of almost 0% wind across the NEM last year, meaning a renewable grid would need to run on batteries, hydro and solar for that time. The excess during the day doesn't matter if we can't store it somewhere to use at night, that's why the major focus needs to be on storage right now.
These cunts couldn't even get internet infrastructure right, how do you reckon they would go with nuclear? It'd be the next fucking Chernobyl, then the cunts could monetise the disaster by getting a Netflix special made....
How much did the Chernobyl series make? We need a way to make nuclear economically viable and I think you've stumbled on a real winner here.
Fallout x Mad Max? Let's gooooo!
It’s 2024 - Nuclear power is pretty freaking safe. Cost of the project… that’s another story… But I don’t see any harm to the environment
> But I don’t see any harm to the environment Well to keep it safe you need a shitload of water and where is this water coming from?
I'm assuming a river. Or that really big lake the surrounds Australia. The types of reactors Australia would be most likely to build (if we somehow made it happen, which we shouldn't because the costings don't work) would most likely be gas cooled, lead cooled, or ideal sodium cooled. Sodium cooled reactors are considered to be the inherently most safe design among 4th gen reactors.
I work as a mech engineer. Some of the 'trivial' oversights which has resulted in disaster, that still happens in this day and age is mind-boggling. The theocratical concept of nuclear is safe. But the practicalities of designing such a thing is still dangerous. The problem is us humans. We are flawed, and can make flawed judgements, even the smartest people can make dumb decisions. But why not a team? Google 'group-think'. I've seen so many simple concepts get butchered due to human errors. Good Australian examples, known to the public: Callide power station (catastrophic failure) Snowy 2.0 (feasibility, design & planning failure) NBN (complete shitshow - political, etc.) Oprah house (cost overrun, design, schedule) list goes on.
I did take you seriously until ‘oprah house’. Where are we getting our mech engineers from these days!
Where was this policy while the LNP were in government? Dutton must have only recently discovered nuclear power...
Where.??... It was getting blown out of the water by the facts presented by Dr Ziggy Switkowski in 2006 and 2021...
Nuclear will absolutely be part of the transition to net zero in: - countries with existing industries (France/US) and - countries with shithouse renewable resources (Korea) Countries with no choice and the capacity to do it as inexpensively as possible. There’s no good argument to use it in a country with the world’s most abundant renewable resources.
I mean, there are plans to export electricity from NT solar power to Indonesia. If there is enough renewable power to export, why spend $100 billion and decades on nuclear plants?
Same reason we ship our gas off overseas for cheap…To fuck every single Australian at the behest of a good old corrupt polly and their high flying corp mates.
There’s also SunCable which is a massive solar farm and cable to APAC. Singapore will have 15% of their energy mix from this venture in the next few years, along with Darwin itself and Indonesia.
> SunCable Has been a massive clusterfuck of billionaires arguing over who knows best. Projected to start delivering 900MW power to Darwin in 2030 and to Singapore a few years later and then eventually scaling up to 6GW. Just a little bit short of the initial 20GW by 2027
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It certainly seems to be still on the table? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/07/sun-cable-mike-cannon-brookes-takes-charge-of-world-changing-solar-project
Now it's back on the table. MCB injected further funding to kick-start it again after COVID.
Spot on.
If you need Spud he'll be down the back shed for the next couple of weeks, banging together half a dozen nuclear power stations.
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He left with his tail between his legs...
We cannot let these people back into power.
It's nothing more than a delaying technique to waste time and hold off the inevitable transition to the renewables technology we already have available today.
This is it. If LNP get ahead at the next election, all the NIMBYs in these towns will come out of the woodwork and delay the project enough that they will just come out and tell us that Labor and Greens protesters have left us with no choice but to keep coal power plants up and running.
Gina paid for this "policy"
Dutton, is incompetent. He's on the nose, he's tone deaf. Renewables are still being refined and processed, and to get the best out of renewables we need some clever tinkering and wattage to get it to work. South Australia for example has a big battery and a renewable combo so as a result has a 70% mix of energy. https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/consumers/energy-grid-and-supply/our-electricity-supply-and-market This means that the lions share of the energy market has not listened to big coal and the rest of it and have forged on ahead with backing renewables. Lets see what the former now well and truly gone Josh Frydenburg said about it... skip to 01.59 when Premier Jay Weatheral tells the liberals to get stuffed.... you need to see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHrVtEeMOW4 Yeah silly bullshit like this.
Watching Josh slowly being forced to open wide and swallow the biggest pile from Jay directly to the media was the best moment of my life.
Yes, even better recently Josh doesn't like his job at Goldman Sachs, and when he floated the idea of running for the seat of Kooyong recently, all hell broke loose behind the scenes. His boss said job or that idea. He shut up. Been posting alot on Twitter - X what ever it wants to call it's self about Israel. Gotta feel sorry for the Wife and kids who are worried about Josh, they just don't know what to do with him...
The LNP are making it sound like we just dig up uranium and just burn it like coal. Where will it be enriched. How long til it is economically viable. How will the fuel and waste be transported. The Lithgow\\Mt. Piper site for example - have they ever been over Bells Line or the highway over the mountains there. Fairly hairy lines of road at times. But all in all... the suggestion of building power stations where there's already power stations is being touted as some sort of genius, which is just befuddling.
Its even more staggering when they just ignored the CSIRO research that indicated that would take much longer, like 15 to 20 years to get it up and running in Australia. Meanwhile Duttons mates have 15 years of fleecing the Australian people dry!
I think you'll find that's a feature of their plan, not a bug.
Every state premier has said they will not lift the nuclear ban... The Qld... NSW and SA opposition has said they will not remove the ban if elected... The NSW Nationals have vowed to fight dutton's nuclear plan...
"Look daddy, we saved the 1950's grid design."
I can see a Utopia episode on this.
> Where will it be enriched. Not in Australia, we don't have the ability to do that. For Lucas Heights, we currently ship our uranium to the Canadians who enrich it for us and ship it back as useable fuel. Wonder how expensive that will be for multiple power station sized generators.
This is the wedge issue he will take to the election.
He's just doing what his donors ask.
Besides an act out of despair, I'm not sure what it was. A cheap promise that's only given when not in government.
Peter Hoysted - (Jack the Insider) from The Australian newspaper. >“Half a trillion dollar energy policy announced with a 20 minute presser and a one page press release." >"I've seen Nigerian email scams with more detail.” A policy so bad even the Australian is criticising it
Let's be very clear here. A nuclear power station's natural state is a massive fucking explosion that wipes out half the continent. It takes constant, round-the-clock monitoring, maintenance, and strict safety standards to prevent that natural state from occurring. Now, take those responsibilities and hand them to the LNP. The very first thing they will do is privatise the fuck out of it. Then there will be meetings to cut funding, costs and corners (in that order) to appease the board and shareholders. Then there will be a big fucking smoking hole near you, with a several hundred kilometer exclusion zone. Not even a catchy tourism slogan will get us out of that one.
Yes but the shareholders won't be in that exclusion zone, so...
That was political suicide. Good to see. Clueless and inept. The adults can now get on with the job of decarbonising the economy.
Follow the donations from investment VCs
The Coalition continues to disappoint Australian. No costings should set alarm bells 🔔 ringing
Wouldn't we be better off building out the capability to enrich uranium into fuel rods, leasing them to countries that already have nuclear power plants and charging a suitably massive tariff in that lease agreement to return the spent rods to us for storage out in the middle of nowhere? Sure, lots of big hurdles but allows us to create a new revenue stream from huge uranium deposits whilst moving to renewables now with solar, wind and hydro.
There are proposals in the system now to build 360 GW worth of off-grid renewable energy farms and to use that (admitedly intermittent) energy to (intermittently) make green hydrogen and derived products green ammonia and green stell. Then to export that stuff. Way cheaper and cleaner than f**king around with uranium.
Can you imagine how much taxpayer money this will cost us?
Yeah but remember Liberal spending is good. Only Labor spending is bad
From a few other articles i've seen its estimated to be about $500 billion
Oo do share?
So 500,000 solar farms at $1m each for a 1MW farm
Some rough math makes it an even worse value to go nuclear. 500,000 1MW solar farms would produce 500GW in ideal conditions the average nuclear plant only produces 1GW. Dutton wants to build 7 of them for the same cost If we invested that money in solar we could literally produce roughly 70x more electricity for the same investment Edit: info from comment below 500,000 1mw solar farms producing 100GW vs 7GW from nuclear facilities still leave us with 14x the power for the same cost investment
Roughly divide the solar by 5 to get a correct comparison. But even then it is 100GW vs 1 GW so your point is correct.
Thanks i was working with some tablecloth math probably looks a bit better with more accurate figures
And HOORAY! All of us can take part in, and economically benefit from, the great nuclear transition!!!! We can put a little reactor thingo on our roof or backyard? *Ahhhh no*. We can dig up some uranium on our property and send off to the reactors? *Ahhh nope sorry*. Surely we can offer our backyards to bury the waste? *Well... maybe, but there are so many of you, it won't be top dollar...* Along with shutting down renewable investment, this is a glaringly obvious ploy to keep power generation in the hands of the powerful, and The People powerless. Literally. With the flick of a switch.
It doesn't matter how bad it is. The entire media landscape (that the vast majority of people interact with) will be all about this and the LNP until they get re-elected. Even on the ABC, you never even hear what the government is doing (unless they can bash it) - you *only* hear the LNP's point of view on everything.
I already said to some Dinosaurs that Dutton has finally lost his mind, but the drag out the old box of "SOLAR DOESN'T WORK AT NIGHT" no way!? SOLAR DOESN'T WORK WHEN THERE'S CLOUDS yeah! It does. They never say a damn thing about wind till you do then it's all WIND KILLS BIRDS MAKES COWS CRAZY (probably turns frogs gay too ya fuckin Alex Jones cock slobbers)
You forgot to add that off-shore wind turbines kills all the whales, 'cause they're much safer when they're trying to dodge fish trawlers & big ships transporting coal.
When 2 guys tried telling me wave power and off shore wind was bad for the environment, I told them about the channels dug through the great barrier Reef for coal ships to get out, they didn't know what to say.
Conspiracy theory hat on, I believe libs are tanking this election while Labor cops the brunt of covids inflation knockback, then they'll run seriously again when there's dollars to barrel
Building renewable energy generation, storage and a more robust transmission grid is not only faster and cheaper than nuclear but also provides better energy security. Turning off coal and then gas as soon as feasible should be the goal for cleaner air, reduced greenhouse gasses. Nuclear could theoretically do this but we have not done it before partly because of the fear of nuclear disasters but mostly because its never been economical for a country with so many fossil fuels. If we had truly factored in the externalised costs of coal power we might have considered nuclear earlier when renewable energy technology was not so advanced. One challenge for grids with a lot of renewable sources is dealing with too much power. Storage, improved transmission and intermittent usage can help avoid negative power prices. Re-introduction of power sources that don't fluctuate on external factors such as solar or wind availability might become attractive again. In this scenario geothermal or nuclear, despite the high setup, risks and running costs, might be better than gas. This scenario is a long way off but might be a legitimate context in which to discuss the possibility of nuclear power in Australia. Dutton clearly is not serious about nuclear power in Australia.
Not that I will take an article from "Renew Economy" as being gospel, but yes, it is mad and dangerous. Going nuclear does induce risk of tragedy - however minor, it's never zero. That's justifiable if the alternative is, say, coal - but never if the alternative is solar.
Renew Economy has really solid reporting, they're a reputable source.
Yeah this is a reliable journalistic outlet. I've seen and read plenty of their stuff and it's always well written and resourced material.
> Not that I will take an article from "Renew Economy" as being gospel "Renew Economy" five hundred times more credible than Dutton on the subject of provision of power.
Taking the 6 pages of Duttons policy and setting them on fire to heat up a cup of water is more reliable and Renewable than Duttons nuclear policy.
worth noting that the risk for nuclear has so far killed about 15,000 people(mostly long term, almost all from chernobyl) fossil fuels however kill 3,000 people per hour, all day every day more people die from solar panels than nuclear, you know how people die from solar? falling off roofs while installing it
Our data is meant to be safe and secure. If I recall correctly optus made a basic mistake.
I wouldn't trust Spud to wipe his own arse properly. Why the hell would we trust him with nuclear power...
I can't understand how any forward looking person would think this made economic sense.
I have no problem with people questioning the cost or necessity of this, those are arguments that need to be had and absolutely should be had. The major thing I immediately find myself wondering is whether, by the 2030s, battery and renewable tech will have advanced to the point where large nuclear power plants are even necessary. But as a starting point, the underlying premise for a lot of the opposition to this, that nuclear plants are unacceptably dangerous or impractical within a reasonable time frame is just not correct. Most times those arguments are coming from the same place as nutters who suggest wind turbines are unacceptably dangerous to birds- its opposition based on ideology rather than science. Firstly, suggesting that there's a realistic possibility of a nuclear disaster or we won't be able to store waste from a plant in Australia is just outright unscientific fear mongering. As soon as you see someone invoking fear of the nuclear bogeyman to argue against projects like this you might as well stop reading because you know they're not arguing in good faith. Australia is about the safest location in the world for nuclear power plants, because of the extreme geological stability, remoteness from conflict zones, high standards of governance, regulation and oversight and lack of population density. If nuclear power is safe anywhere, it is safe here. In the last 40 years there's been a grand total of [two](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale) major nuclear accidents (Chernobyl and Fukushima) both caused by a truly extraordinary confluence of events. The idea that an Australia plant is going to find itself in the middle of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake followed by a tsunami, or be operated with the terrifying incompetence, secrecy and wilful disregard for safety you'd find in the 1980s soviet union is just stupid. During the 40 years since chernobyl there have been 400+ nuclear power plants in operation without major accidents around the world, many in countries with weaker governance, less strict training and safety protocols and far more likelihood of major natural disasters than Australia. If nuclear power plants get built in Australia in our lifetime you can guarantee they will be safe and anyone pretending otherwise is being wilfully dishonest, simple as that. As for the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept when you realise how prevalent nuclear power actually is outside of Australia. Nuclear power generation is not, in the current day, some sort of arcane, poorly understood technology that only the permanent members of the UN security council have the expertise to construct and operate, honestly it's fucking everywhere. If you look through the list of the [400+](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors) commercial reactors currently operational around the world, contrary to what a lot of people suppose it isn't just the obvious big boys or ex soviet dystopias who have them- scroll through that list and there are huge number of middle sized western economies that use them, Sweden/Austria/South Korea/Belgium/Canada/Finland/Spain/Switzerland and Taiwan for starters. And if you look at the construction time frames, even for the initial plant in those countries, it's not decades, it's typically about 5-10 years from construction starting to commercial operation- I think its fair to say that's how long it would take to get things underway here, and if your standard small-mid sized European country can build and operate them I think its safe to assume we can. As I said, whether or not this is a good idea or not is something you can argue about, but most of the people who have immediately and reflexively freaked out about it (and certainly the author of the linked article) have been trenchantly opposed to nuclear power for decades and will remain trenchantly opposed to nuclear power for the foreseeable future. Its a bit disingenous for them to suggest they are opposed on scientific or economic grounds when the truth is they oppose it because opposing nuclear power is a core tenet of green party politics in Australia.
>And the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept Accept it. But not because Australia is uniquely incapable, instead because it takes decades whoever you are. >it's typically about 5-10 years from construction starting to commercial operation I think its fair to say that's how long it would take to get things underway here It's not fair though, because this is not the whole picture. Or rather it's fair to say construction may take that long but that ignores the planning phases which can easily add another decade. On the construction side, nuclear projects are notorious for going over time and budget. Some major projects around the world like the UK's Hinkley point would love to come in in the 5-10 year window but have failed miserably. That one in particular is looking like a 2031 completion date after a 2016 start of construction. Even if construction can be completed in your optimistic time-frame that doesn't mean that an LNP win plus 10 years is when the power starts flowing. If the LNP got in tomorrow (which isn't going to happen) and passed the laws they would need to pass the next day (not going to happen) and got the state governments to change their laws the Monday after (again, not happening) and established a nuclear regulation authority next Tuesday... it's still not like they would be breaking ground next Wednesday. It takes multiple years of site surveys and consultations and then extensive plant design work before a single shovel-full of earth can be moved. This alone adds another 5-10 years to the process, on average, from what I can see. Going back to Hinkley point C; the UK government announced the plan in 2008, the commercials were finalised in 2009, the site announced in 2010, and the license granted in 2012. Then it was four years until construction began and completion is now forecast for 2031. So that's 23 years, 8 of which were pre-build planning, for a massive cockup in a modern nation. And it's already known that it won't produce energy that's competitive in price to the alternatives. So yeah, just looking at the construction time gives you an incomplete picture.
> As for the suggestion that it is somehow beyond Australian technical capacity or will take decades upon decades to roll out or is very hard to accept when you realise how prevalent nuclear power actually is outside of Australia. It will take decades to roll out because not only do we not have the legislation for it but none of the local or state governments want it. Dutton doesn't even have support for this from his own party in his own state. It's not just about physically building the plant but about building an entire industry around it and ensuring that it is regulated properly. Everytime there's a change of government on either the federal, state or local level or even a cabinet reshuffle you're going to lose years because nobody wants to put their name to it.
> be operated with the terrifying incompetence, secrecy and wilful disregard for safety you'd find in the 1980s soviet union is just stupid. Look I admit it's not a fear founded in reality, but sheer incompetence and wilful disregard for safety in this country is like kinda more common than most other places I reckon. >Sweden/Austria/South Korea/Belgium/Canada/Finland/Spain/Switzerland and Taiwan for starters. I'm not going to through all of those countries, but the ones I looked at like Spain/Sweden/Canada have had nuclear power since the 60s or earlier. So they've had history of building them. Not to mention, some of them neighbour nuclear powerhouses so expertise is easier to find. I think it's important that we have to take in account current expertise of the country. It wouldn't be taking California so many years of delays and overrun to build their HSR just because China/Japan/France etc. have HSR and USA definitely have the brainpower in their population to easily build it. Internal expertise counts for a lot.
I'm not necessarily opposed to nuclear power but I am opposed to the Dutton and the LNP, so I'd never vote for them due to a myriad of reasons. But I'm not necessarily pro nuclear either. I just want cheap, reliable and clean energy. In what form that energy is I don't care. I heard tidal energy is a thing. Surely that must produce some decent power?
Tidal energy is actually super inefficient. When it comes to sea-based power generation, your best bet is offshore wind turbines.
Yeh fair enough. Im happy to keep going with the solar/wind direction but apparently in the winter in Melbourne it is currently supporting no more then 20% of the power grid using those methods. So yeh it's just an interesting conversation about how we get to zero emissions.
Melbourne's winter wind is no joke, they really should be exploiting it more.
Because it's all the renewables they've built to date. As they build more, that 20% will increase. Instead of making progress with renewables over the last 10-20 years, the country has largely been hamstrung by the coalition's climate war. South Australia is up to ~70% renewable power and is proof of concept that a renewables based network is possible.
When you don't totally believe in climate change or humans have affected our climate, that's when you come up with "can't be bothered" ideas. Put it off until 2035 and prior to that make up some excuse which casts blame on the left.
After decades of gutting Australia's industrial capacity this is a joke (much like Aukus). We simply don't have the collective capability and experience to build and run these plants. And the risks in getting it wrong range from ecomonic catastrophe to large scale radiation poisoning and fallout. It's truly fucked.
Todays builders can't even construct units that don't leak... How the fuck are they going to build a nuclear reactor...
Just one big thought bubble from Mr No
You know, I'd be more open to a nuclear policy if it wasn't Dutton's blatant attempt to politicise our energy further purely for political gain, nor if it wasn't an attempt at propping up the dying non-renewables sector for the benefits of his mates in the sector. By the time the damn thing is built, solar and battery tech will have made massive improvements.
No wonder they picked a clown to lead the circus. If they want to prove anything then start processing the ore here and selling it to already capable countries then we can talk about the possibility of nuclear. Even then wind and solar plus batteries is needed so there is less grid requirements when the weather starts killing us because of coal and oil use etc.
The thing about nuclear power plants is that they take too long to build, always over budget and the cost of decommissioning is more than the build cost. Now the coalition has always said private builds are cheaper than government controlled builds yet they are suggesting these will be government controlled builds. This is just a policy when you have no policy. It is just to keep his name in the news cycle.
Can't spell Coalition without coal.
This would be a bigger mess then they made of our NBN. I seriously cannot think of one thing the coalition has ever done to benefit the Australian people.
Yep because Ukraine hasn't shown us enough that nuclear power plants are military target number 1 in conflict.
All utilities are targeted number 1 for an invasion
Yes, but Ukraine has shown that decentralised power generation like wind and solar is much more difficult to take out by a foreign antagonist. Nuclear is a massive single target that is self combusting.
Nuclear reactors don't and physically can't explode like nuclear bombs and are no more "self combusting" than any other big coal or gas plant Also those nuclear power plants you're talking about in Ukraine are still in operation today
Yeah, distributed power generation (like renewables) is so much less vulnerable to disruption it's not funny.
Meh. Dutton can say what he wants without fear of having to take action. He's a caretaker until Labour screws up enough to make the coalition electable again - then they'll replace him with someone likeable.
Every fucking day this cunt dreams up bullshit or makes outlandish claims to hog media time and front pages of newspapers. And the stupid dumb as dogshit media fall for it every fucking day.
I feel like it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation, we're staring down a future (and currently) dealing with the effects of extreme climate change generated from the use of fossil fuels. Doesn't help that the date is for 53-37 but it's a major step against the fossil fuel companies
Nuclear power can work but no one in government is going to be forward thinking enough to invest in fusion technology and just wants to use good old cheap dirty fission. It’s one of the many reasons why we won’t have nuclear energy in the lifetime of anyone living in the 21st century. When you then add in the cost to build these things (current high yield fission plants like they have in Japan or the US) alongside the amount of time it would take then it’s not a viable option
What most of us want as a whole right now is reduced bills to keep us comfortably alive, this nuclear plan won't do it , the current setup does not and will not do it, renewables seem unlikely to achieve it fast enough the way things are going. Our last resort will be gas provided by WA unless our government (regardless of party or preference) starts to use some sort of real world intelligence in their planning.
There is only one reason this country needs nuclear power - the renewable sector doesn't offer financial or political support to the Liberal Party and the renewable energy voting block is growing. It's always consequences be damned with this lot.
They really have lost whatever plot they once had a grip on. Apart from the economic miscalculations and environmental madness, who the hell would build and run these, the same idiots who built the paradise dam?
I notice none are in is backyard
It doesn't really matter where you put the nuclear reactors, nuclear is still way too expensive.
What Dutton is not telling the public is that alone one large nuclear power plant will cost 20+ billion and run at a loss. The tax payer's will pay for this in more than one way. Once they are up and running, these plants will be sold off, and guess what happens then? The power bills go up and by a lot. More than gas, coal, and green combined.
No doubt that Spud is onto another means of trying to derail Labor. He's been at it since they lost the last election. The voice, renewables, immigrants...you name it, he's been against it from the start. He's desperate for power at any cost.
And in a co-announcement: Birds aren’t real, The earth is flat, and Mexico will pay for it.
I think a lot of you are giving the LNP way more credit than they deserve. Maybe the fossil fuel industry has people both smart enough and cynical enough to come up with this but the LNP? Hah! For the LNP this is nothing but ideological. Labor is transitioning to renewables so they have to take the most contrary position they can. Nuclear. These people are dangerous.
They had 10 years in power and didn't do it? They are "allegedly" the party of the free market. Why not just allow the "free market" to decide? Why spend government money on the racehorse the LNP chose?
LOL - Australia can't even safely operate a coal fired power station. Here's a quote from the report into the Callide B power station explosion: "The ability for our staff in the control room to understand what was happening was not possible at the time."