Antinuclear

Nuclear is a toxic idea … here’s why

By Environment Victoria

Clean energy is already here, generating 40% of our electricity in 2023! It’s on our rooftops, co-existing on farms, embraced by local businesses, and stored for later use by battery technology.

It’s the most affordable form of energy, and it’s growing fast. Which is great news, because the more clean energy we use, the less dirty coal and gas we burn, and the less damage we do to our climate.

But nuclear energy could threaten this progress. Nuclear is horribly costly (both to produce and for energy bills), would take decades to build, and is totally unnecessary.

Waiting for nuclear would mean over TWO BILLION additional tons of climate pollution between now and 2050 …

Nuclear is just a new distraction designed to undo Australia’s hard work and stall the renewable energy.

Here are 4 reasons nuclear energy in Australia is a toxic idea.

Nuclear advocates claim to want mature discussion on nuclear, but we’ve been here before! Like ‘clean coal’, carbon capture & storage (CCS), and the ‘gas fired recovery’ that came before it, nuclear energy is just a new distraction to keep us burning dirty coal for as long as possible.

In 2015 a South Australian Royal Commission found Nuclear in Australia made no economic sense. [1]

In 2020 a Victorian inquiry into nuclear found “substantial evidence that nuclear power is significantly more expensive than other forms of power generation …” [2]

And this year the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) released a report suggesting that if Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) ever make it off the drawing-board, it’s unlikely they would be cost-effective until the mid to late late 2040s. That’s 20 years away! [3]

2. Nukes would be a nightmare for our energy bills!

As you can see from the below graph,[on original] nuclear is by far the most expensive way to power our homes. [4]

The cost of building large scale nuclear is eye-watering. Best case scenario, constructing just one nuclear plant would cost $8.65 billion. But Australia has never built a nuclear power station before, so it’s very likely this price would be much higher, possibly as much as $17 billion or more. [5]

Nuclear energy projects have a long history of delays and massive cost blowouts. In the UK, the Hinkley Point C reactor was originally budgeted to cost $35 billion (AUD) but will now cost up to $94 billion (AUD). And this is in a country that already has an established nuclear industry! [6]

For this reason, superannuation funds and banks have refused to back nuclear as it doesn’t stack up economically, so the Coalition has conceded taxpayers would need to pay the full amount.

It’s a different story for clean energy. The Federal Government’s Capital Investment Scheme (CIS) is driving billions of dollars in private investment in wind, solar and batteries (which means taxpayers don’t have to oot all the costs).

In fact, the first large scale auction for battery storage was massively oversubscribed, showing huge investor interest in Australian renewable energy projects. [7]

3. It will take too long

Australia has no nuclear energy industry, so developing the required infrastructure, regulations and training programs needed would be a long process. The most credible estimates show nukes wouldn’t be producing any energy in Australia until at least 2040. [8]

If we were to stop building clean energy and wait for nuclear, we would need to extend the lives of coal power plants that are already old, unreliable and expensive to operate. That would mean more than two BILLION additional tons of climate pollution between now and 2050, compared to the Australian energy market operators’ latest energy transition plan. [9]

Alternatively, wind and solar projects can be up and operational within a couple of years. [10]

4. We don’t need it!

In 2010 just 10% of our electricity production came from clean energy, but by 2023 that number had soared to almost 40%. [11]

Rapid advances in energy technology, including large scale batteries, means we no longer require energy grids to be designed around the old ‘baseload’ model, where large, centralised power stations operated at a constant rate and can’t quickly or efficiently vary their output. Clean energy grids are being designed around a combination of variable but predictable solar and wind, and dispatchable sources. ‘Dispatchable’ means they can quickly ramp up and down their output like batteries and pumped hydro.

This is a new way of designing an energy grid. But we have study upon study showing exactly how it is possible using the technology we already have. See here, here and here.

This new model works for a number of reasons. Solar and wind output can be predicted in advance, allowing grid operators to plan and engage the required dispatchable output. You can also use ‘demand response’ mechanisms, where large industrial energy users are paid to reduce consumption at rare times of very high demand. This is much more cost effective than building generation capacity that might only be needed a few hours each year – which occurs in baseload systems. As nuclear generation is not flexible, introducing it to the energy mix would require rooftop solar system to be disconnected from the grid during the day! [12]

As you can see from the graph below, [on original] even if the Coalition’s proposed nuclear plants were built, they would only be a small, but very expensive, fraction of our energy grid. We would still need to move full steam ahead with renewable energy.

Nuclear is costly, time intensive and unnecessary. We need to cut climate pollution now, not in 25 years’ time, and clean energy sources like wind and solar with battery storage are the fastest and lowest-cost way to achieve this.

July 30, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Greasing Palms: The Thales Blueprint for Corruption

July 30, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/greasing-palms-the-thales-blueprint-for-corruption/

It is a point verging on the trite: an arms corporation suspected of engaging in corrupt practices, spoiling dignitaries and officials and undermining the body politic. But one such corporation is France’s Thales defence group, which saw raids on their offices in France, the Netherlands and Spain on June 26 and June 28. The prosecutors are keen to pursue charges ranging from standard corruption and attempts to influence foreign officials to instances of criminal association and money laundering.

It is clear in this that even the French republic, despite having a narcotics grade addiction to the international arms industry, thought that Thales might have gone just that bit far. Some 65 investigators from the Nanterre-based office responsible for battling corruption, financial and fiscal offences have been thrown into the operation. A further twelve magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), with the assistance of the European agency Eurojust, aided by Dutch and Spanish officials, have all been involved in this sprawling enterprise.

The police raids arise from two separate investigations. The first, starting at the end of 2016, involved suspicions of corruption pertaining to a foreign official, criminal association and money laundering. The topics of interest: the sale of submarines to Brazil, along with the construction of a naval base.

The second commenced in June 2023, with claims of suspected corruption and influence peddling, criminal conspiracy and money laundering connected with the supply of military and civilian equipment to overseas clients.

Giving little by way of details, a spokesperson for Thales insisted that the corporation “strictly complies with national and international regulations.” It had “developed and implemented a global compliance program that meets with the highest industry standards.” That, it may well turn out, is precisely the problem.

The company propaganda on such compliance with national and international regulations is plentiful and fabulously cynical. After a time perusing such material, one forgets that this is a defence outfit much dedicated to sowing the seeds of death, a far from benign purpose. Group Secretary and General Counsel Isabelle Simon, for instance, is quoted as saying that the company, over the course of two decades “has developed a robust policy on ethics, integrity and compliance, which are the foundations of our social responsibility and the key to building a world we can all trust.”

The anti-corruption policy, so it is claimed, is also “regularly reviewed and updated to reflect increasingly strict international rules and requirements on corruption and influence peddling,” a point “further strengthened by Thales’s progress towards ISO 37001 certification.”

Typical of the guff surrounding modern organisational behaviour, the company wonks assume that workshops and training sessions are the way to go when inspiring a spirit of compliance. The more sessions you run, and the more do you do, the more enlightened you become. In boasting about its “zero tolerance on corruption,” we are told that 11,270 “training sessions on corruption and influence peddling were delivered in 2019-2020.”

Other features are also mentioned to ward off any suspicions, among them a code of conduct intended to stomp on any corrupt practices, a “corruption and influence peddling risk map,” a disciplinary system, an anti-bribery management system and an internal whistleblowing program.

Thales also got what it wanted, effectively bypassing, with the blessing of the defence department, a competitive tender process. This took place despite a 2017 offer from the global munitions company, NIOA, and the ANAO’s own recommendation to pursue an appropriate tender option. All in all, the audit found that “Defence’s management of probity was not effective and there was evidence of unethical conduct.”

This is putting it mildly, given that Thales had not only been involved in drafting the criteria for the request for tender (RTF) documents (some 28 workshops were held for that purpose between October 2018 and August 2019), but did so deficiently. In October 2019, this very point was made by the Defence Department, which noted no fewer than 199 “non-compliances” by the company against the RTF.

Apart from giving officialdom their time in the sun of oversight and regulation, chastening investigations into corruption do little to alter the spoliation that arises from the defence industry. Defence contractors are regularly feted by government authorities, often with the connivance of the revolving door. Yesterday’s officials are today’s arms sales consultants. The defence sector, notably for such countries as France, is simply too lucrative and important to be cleansed of its unscrupulousness. Even as these investigations are taking place to ruffle Thales, the Brazilian military establishment, by way of example, has happily continued doing business with the French weapons giant.

In February last year, the defence group trumpeted securing a contract with the Brazilian Airspace Control Department (DECEA) for the supply and installation of ADS-B ground surveillance stations to improve the safety of commercial civil aviation. The effort is not negligible: 66 stations to be installed in over 20 Brazilian states.

On June 17, the company announced the acquisition by the Brazilian Air Force of the Ground Master 200 Multi-mission All-in-one (GM 200 MM/A) tactical air surveillance radars. With much bluster, the announcement goes on to describe such radars as giving the user “superior situational awareness for air surveillance, as well as ground-based air defence (GBAD) operations up to Mid-Range Air-Defence (MRAD).” Some gloating follows: “The contract signed with the FAB consolidates Thales’ position as a leader in the radar market in Brazil.” One can only wonder how many palms were greased, and local regulations breached, for that to happen.

July 30, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Australians blame wind, solar for high power bills as media campaigns take hold

Misinformation fueling bizarre beliefs

Putting out conflicting information about the energy transition suits anti-renewables groups for that myth to persist as it supports the status quo,

Rachel Williamson, Jul 29, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/australians-blame-wind-solar-for-high-power-bills-as-media-campaigns-take-hold/
Australians have forgotten why their power bills are going up, with more than a third now blaming renewables, and not rising fossil fuel prices for their monthly or quarterly pain, according to an Ipsos survey released on Monday.

Everyday Australians are also struggling to understand the transition at all as misleading statements, such as the National Party favourite that offshore wind turbines kill whales, make it harder to sort fact from fiction. 

Based on misinformation shared on social media, by word-of-mouth, and in mainstream media, 68 per cent of Australians believe transitioning to renewable energy generally will result in higher power prices. 

Some 37 per cent of Australians think that closing coal power stations, specifically, and replacing them with wind and solar farms, are already lifting power prices.

That figure is 10 per cent higher than it was in 2022, when the start of the Russian war in Ukraine sent coal prices sky-high and consumer power bills rocketing. 

The Ipsos survey showed increases in negative perceptions around closing coal power stations and replacing them with wind and solar farms across seven different metrics. 

These covered fewer people believing that renewables will help air quality, to more people believing the shift will damage job prospects, economic growth, energy reliability, and cost of living generally. 

It recorded a sharp hike of 13 per cent in the number of people who want the government to make energy bills a policy priority, and sharp decrease in those wanting Australia to be a climate leader. 

Two plus two still equals four

But it’s not difficult to see why more Australians are now associating wind and solar farms with higher power bills and cost of living more generally, says the Grattan Institute’s Allison Reeve. 

“It’s only very recently that we’ve come to this point where renewables have become the cheapest form of energy, so people who don’t think about energy all the time for a living will have a shortcut in their brain and say ‘oh renewables are more expensive’,” she says.

“Rewiring that shortcut will take that time.”

The news cycle is full of articles about renewables, or Liberal and National MPs’ nuclear red herrings, whereas two years ago political leaders were reminding consumers that coal prices were the cause of rocketing wholesale energy prices. 

Furthermore, Reeve says Australians may still be paying for those high 2022 wholesale power prices in their Default Market Offers, because retailers contract for energy years in advance. 

Re-Alliance national director Andrew Bray says delays in delays in upgrades to transmission infrastructure and requirements to burn gas are also driving prices up.

Today, what energy consumers are being told is that renewables are delivering massive wholesale price drops while at the same time being gifted marginal discounts to their bills.

Add in the fact that electricity retailers are surprising consumers across the country – and not just in New South Wales (NSW) as happened to Renew Economy editor Giles Parkinson – with radically higher time-of-use tariffs when electricity meter settings are changed, and consumers have a reason to associate high power bills with the energy transition. 

Misinformation fueling bizarre beliefs

Putting out conflicting information about the energy transition suits anti-renewables groups for that myth to persist as it supports the status quo, Reeve says. 

Despite a third of Ipsos’ respondents saying they want to know more about what Australia is doing to meet its climate goals, misinformation is getting in the way. 

Nearly two-thirds of the respondents believed statements such as that electric vehicles are as bad for the planet as petrol cars, based on word-of-mouth rumour, social media, and articles in mainstream media. 

Other “somewhat and very believable” statements believed by 50 per cent of the Ipsos survey respondents include that offshore wind farms will hurt whales, building more renewable energy generation will lead to more blackouts and brownouts, and that wind farms take more energy to build than they provide to the grid over their lifetime.

No one knows what is really happening

Australians still love the idea of living in a clean, green land, but a lack of awareness about how close the country is is causing widespread pessimism. 

There is still strong support for the energy transition generally, with nearly two thirds of Australians still wanting the country to move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. 

But few people know what is actually happening. 

Half think the transition won’t happen at all or that Australia has no plans to make it happen, 45 per cent believe the country will miss its emissions target in 2030. 

And more than half don’t understand the actions Australia is taking to meet its net zero commitments. 

July 30, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment