Spinbusting the propaganda of SMR Nuclear Technology’s Tony Irwin as he spruiks for Small Nuclear Reactors for Australia

First to nuclear power, which, we should remember, has been effectively banned in Australia since the late 1990s.

On page three of the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney, columnist Piers Akerman wrote an “exclusive” news
story showing “nuclear energy is cheaper” than coal, gas, solar or wind. Such a claim would overturn pretty much all serious analysis of electricity costs around the globe. So where did it come from? The
International Energy Agency maybe, or perhaps the CSIRO?

No. Akerman quoted “new data” from Tony Irwin, who is a nuclear industry veteran and a technical director at a consultancy company with “specialist industry knowledge on the procurement and development of nuclear technologies” with a focus on small modular reactors (SMR).

But one problem with using Irwin’s numbers is they are based on an estimate of the cost of one
particular SMR design which has not yet been built and won’t produce power until at least 2029.

Guardian 30th June 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/30/net-zero-nuance-commentary-on-decarbonising-the-grid-misses-the-mark-on-batteries-and-nuclear