No place for nuclear power in Australia – economist warns
Nuclear power is an expensive, inferior resource that has no place in Australia’s future energy mix, a US economist has warned.http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/nuclear-power-a-costly-relic-us-economist-warns-commission/story-e6frgczx-1227500265740?sv=f70611a9445ad64e9d33b11dcffd7050 27 Aug 15
Vermont Law School senior fellow for economic analysis Mark Cooper has called on South Australia’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission to reject nuclear power on the grounds that natural gas-fired generation is more cost-competitive.
The former Fulbright fellow’s submission to the royal commission argues that the rapid development of renewable energy technology renders nuclear power a 20th-century “relic” that will be outdated before a reactor can be built in Australia.
“Nuclear power is an inferior resource that has no place in a least-cost portfolio to meet the need for electricity in a low-carbon environment,” he says. “Before a new nuclear reactor could be brought online, efficiency, renewables, other distributed resources and the deployment of the physical and institutional infrastructure to build an intelligent electricity system should well be on their way towards creating a new 21st-century system.”
Nuclear reactors can take up to 15 years to build before becoming operational. Dr Cooper said the huge capital investment required over a long period of time to build a nuclear power plant meant investors would be exposed to “significant risk”.
Royal commissioner Kevin Scarce has acknowledged the rapid development of renewable energy technology could quickly change the goalposts for assessing the economic viability of nuclear energy. Because of this, “heavy assumptions” were being built into the royal commission’s report to government, he said.
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