Antinuclear

Coalition to fast-track nuclear power.

Pearls and Irritations, By Ian McAuley, Jul 27, 2024

The Coalition’s nuclear power idea is based on an obsolete model of electricity supply

Circulating in the media are three arguments against nuclear power in Australia. One is based on safety, an emotive issue, involving unresolved questions about future costs, and the dangers are probably overstated. The danger issue doesn’t need to be argued, however, because the main problems with the Coalition’s nuclear power plans have to do with cost and the long time before the first kWh would be generated.

Those impediments were confirmed in a speech earlier this month by AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman: Australia’s energy transition: What’s needed to keep the momentum going. He said:

Our ISP [Integrated System Plan] does not model nuclear power because it is not permitted by Australian law, and development of nuclear power generation is not a policy of any government. But we know from our work with the CSIRO on the GenCost report that nuclear is comparatively expensive, and has a long lead time. Even on the most optimistic outlook, nuclear power won’t be ready in time for the exit of Australia’s coal-fired power stations.

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has just released an assessment of the viability of small modular nuclear reactors, which feature strongly in the Coalition’s proposals. These reactors are still at an early development stage: it will be many years before they become established. Although the study does not explicitly address costs, it does point out that early adopters are likely to face much higher costs than those who wait for SMRs s to become a mature product. As ATSE President Katherine Woodthorpe explains on ABC Breakfast, small modular reactors are unlikely to become a realistic energy source in Australia for decades, and our large coal-fired generators are closing in the next few years.

Writing in The Conversation Asma Aziz of Edith Cowan University reminds us of another cost component not covered in the Coalition’s plans: Without a massive grid upgrade, the Coalition’s nuclear plan faces a high-voltage hurdle. The Coalition’s idea is about replacing retiring coal-fired generators with nuclear plants, plugged into the existing transmission infrastructure. But as she points out, demand for electricity is growing rapidly, which means the cost of upgrading the transmission network should be included in the Coalition’s plans. (It is already included in the costings for renewable energy.) The other point she stresses is that all power plants, whatever their technologies, are subject to outages, planned and unplanned. A distributed set of comparatively small solar and wind plants therefore need less transmission redundancy than large centralized nuclear plants.

There is a fourth, and more basic problem with the Coalition’s nuclear proposal. It’s based on an old and inflexible “base load” model, which was determined by the technology of coal-fired generation. There has to be enough capacity in the system to cope with demand peaks, and that was achieved by keeping the boilers hot, keeping the generators spinning, and shovelling in heaps of coal as demand rose. Nuclear is a little different, in that shovels aren’t involved, but the principle is the same.

There are now more flexible and lower-cost ways to meet peaks……………………………………………………………

All the above is in the context of a debate about the comparative cost of nuclear energy and renewables. The Australian community is being distracted from that debate, because the Murdoch media and Coalition-aligned think tanks are spreading absurd misinformation and disinformation about the cost of renewable energy. ……

Even if nuclear power plants were cheaper than renewables (they’re certainly not), there is no way they could replace coal-fired stations as they come to the end of their lives. The lead time for nuclear power is just too long. As Michael West explains, there is a constellation of forces, including the Institute of Public Affairs, Putin’s mate Tucker Carlson, and the Murdoch media, pushing to keep oil and gas burning. That would have to involve new “base-load” coal-fired stations: there is no way to extend the life of our old stations for twenty or more years while nuclear power gets developed.

The other driver of the Coalition’s policy is an intention to cripple the renewable industry through creating uncertainty. That way they can confirm their claim that the government’s renewable plans are failing. It’s doubtful that any seriously cashed-up investor is convinced by the Coalition’s nuclear argument, but the belief that next year’s election could see the election of a government of Trumpian crazies is enough to make investors cautious. ………………more https://johnmenadue.com/coalition-to-fast-track-nuclear-power-north-korean-style-weekly-roundup/

July 28, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics