Antinuclear

The South Australian government is conducting a royal commission into expanding the nuclear industry in the state. If the pro-nuclear positions taken by the majority of the commission’s advisory committee are anything to go by, this would mean two things: expensive nuclear power, and expensive nuclear waste.

The economic case for nuclear power is already shaky.Respected financial advisory firm Lazard recently gave their assessment of the unsubsidised cost of energy. They found that existing renewable and gas technologies are already cheaper than nuclear power.

And while renewables are getting cheaper, new nuclear builds are getting more expensive. Flagship projects in the US and Europe are suffering from chronic cost overruns, while the UK’s Hinkley Point C project is in doubt, despite the UK government signing a 35-year deal to buy electricity at nearly twice the current market rate.

Some, like Senator Sean Edwards, hope that other countries will pay Australia to take their waste. They then hope to build so-called “fourth generation” reactors which can burn other countries’ waste as fuel. In effect, Senator Edwards thinks we could get fuel for less than nothing.

Fourth generation reactors look great on paper, but on paper is the only place you will see them. Despite industry hopes of greater safety and the ability to reduce waste to more manageable levels, none have been built.

Should Australia be the first? For one of those lucky countries without high level nuclear waste, this seems like an extraordinary step to make. We would give ourselves a waste problem in the hope that we, unlike everyone else, could solve it – like a person who takes up smoking just to prove they can quit.

While fourth generation reactors, if they work, could take existing stockpiles requiring 10,000 years of safe storage, and reduce it to waste requiring only 500 years, this does not eliminate the problem. A solution would still need to be found that lasted 500 years.

Unlike existing nuclear nations, Australia would not be reducing an existing problem. We would be creating a new one.

Can we safely secure waste for centuries? Unfortunately international experience suggests not. Multiple facilities designed to last thousands of years have already failed in mere decades. How certain are we that we can do it better than, for example, Germany and the US?

The spruikers of the idea that the brightest future for South Australia is a nuclear waste dump have suggested it will provide “free electricity”. Like all magic pudding solutions to complicated problems, the idea simply doesn’t stack up.

After 50 years of nuclear power there is no shortage of nuclear waste in the world. Countries with that waste currently spend a lot of money storing it and the magic pudding merchants argue that South Australia could get rich from it. But let’s think this through.

If nuclear waste is actually a “resource” then why would the countries that have piles of the stuff pay us to take it away?

If fourth generation reactors are really so cheap and easy to build then why don’t the people with established nuclear industries and “waste resources” build one themselves?

And if South Australia could succeed from scratch where experienced hands have failed then why wouldn’t the countries with all of the waste build one after South Australia spent a fortune finding out how it is done?

Surely even Senator Edwards can understand that if fourth generation reactors could be built then the obvious place to build them would be right next to existing waste stockpiles. Exporting nuclear waste from most counties is illegal, as well as extremely dangerous and expensive.

The cost of renewable energy is falling as fast today as the cost of mobile phone fell a decade ago. As demand for renewables increases so too does the rate of innovation. But just as the world is reaching a tipping point in which the costs of renewables with storage is lower than the cost of coal some techno-optimists have managed to convince South Australians to instead bet on nuclear technology even as the rest of the world is walking away from its risk and cost.

No one set out to cause climate change. But 100 years ago no one could have imagined that we would build enough coal fired power stations to heat the globe. Giving the fossil fuel industry free “waste disposal” services was the same as giving them a big subsidy. It wasn’t deliberate but it was a mistake.

Today the South Australian government is seriously considering jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. While people a century ago didn’t know about the risks of polluting the atmosphere when burning coal, policy makers today know exactly the risks of storing nuclear waste.

The idea that the South Australian taxpayer should underwrite the cost of a nuclear waste dump, underwrite the cost of a nuclear power station, and then provide both with “free” insurance is as bizarre as it is expensive. Unlike building coal fired power stations in the past, it would be a deliberate mistake.

The Australia Institute’s full submission to the South Australian nuclear fuel cycle royal commission is available here.