Antinuclear

How would a switch to nuclear affect electricity prices?

 The Conversation, 10 July 2024, Roger Dargaville, Monash University

Peter Dutton has announced that under a Coalition government, seven nuclear power stations would be built around the country over the next 15 years.

Experts have declared nuclear power would be expensive and slow to build.

But what might happen to energy prices if the Coalition were to win government and implement this plan?

How might we estimate the cost of nuclear?

By 2035, 50–60% of the existing coal-fired fleet will very likely have been retired, including Vales Point B, Gladstone, Yallourn, Bayswater and Eraring – all of which will have passed 50 years old.

These five generators contribute just over 10 gigawatts of capacity. It’s probably not a coincidence that the seven nuclear plants proposed by Dutton would also contribute roughly 10 gigawatts in total if built.

Neither my team at Monash University nor the Australian Energy Market Operator has run modelling scenarios to delve into the details of what might happen to electricity prices under a high-uptake nuclear scenario such as the one proposed by the Coalition. That said, we can make some broad assumptions based on a metric known as the “levelised cost of electricity”.

This value takes into account:

• how much it costs to build a particular technology
• how long it takes to build
• the cost to operate the plant
• its lifetime
• and very importantly, its capacity factor.

Capacity factor is how much electricity a technology produces in real life, compared with its theoretical maximum output.

……………………………………………………….CSIRO’s GenCost report assumed a value of $8,655 per kilowatt for nuclear, so the true levelised cost of electricity of nuclear power in Australia may end up being twice as expensive as CSIRO has calculated.

………….Other factors play a role, too

Another factor not accounted for in the GenCost assumptions is that Australia does not have a nuclear industry. Virtually all the niche expertise would need to be imported.

And very large infrastructure projects have a nasty habit of blowing out in cost –

……………………………………………………………………………………………. A likely increase in energy costs

In summary, in a free market, it is very unlikely nuclear could be competitive.

But if a future Coalition government were to bring nuclear into the mix, energy costs for residential and especially industrial customers would very likely increase.  https://www.firstlinks.com.au/switch-nuclear-affect-electricity-prices

July 12, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized