Antinuclear

Nuclear debate stalls as detail goes missing in action

Angela Macdonald-Smith, https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/nuclear-debate-stalls-as-detail-goes-missing-in-action-20240920-p5kc56 21 Sept 24

Australia’s debate over nuclear power is going nowhere. Politicians are happy to roll out any argument that suits them, but the credible and comprehensive analysis and modelling needed is completely missing.

The upshot is that the energy industry – the people who need to make the transition happen – are disengaged, and consumers who will have to vote on these “policies” are confused.

The vacuum of information includes both the costings and details behind the Coalition’s seven-site nuclear power vision, but also a realistic assessment from the Albanese government about the difficulties in reaching its 2030 climate targets.

Federal Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen on Friday released energy department findings on the huge reliability gaps that the Coalition’s nuclear plan would cause.

Two scenarios were studied: one that assumed coal plant owners close their plants as projected by the Australian Energy Market Operator between now and 2035, and the Coalition caps investment in large-scale renewables and does not support new transmission builds; a second assumed all coal power stations set to close before 2035 are extended beyond 2040 to try to tide the power system over until nuclear reactors could come online.

According to the results released by Bowen’s office, the first would lead to a huge 49 per cent gap between the demand for energy of about 316 terawatt-hours and available supply – of about 160 TWh – by 2035. The second, an 18 per cent gap of “unmet energy”.

The minister’s office compared those numbers with AEMO’s current tolerance gap for an effectively operating electricity system of just 0.002 per cent of “unmet energy”.

Bowen says the analysis shows how the Coalition’s plan “will result in massive supply shortages over the next decade”. However, the full work carried out by the department was not made available.

Analysis released on Friday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which advocates a faster shift to clean energy, also played into Labor’s hands. The analysis sought to estimate the potential impact on household electricity bills using six scenarios that were based on international examples of nuclear power construction projects.

The results suggested that the median household bill would rise, on average, by about $665 a year. The work was based on six recent real-world examples of new nuclear plant builds, ranging from the cheapest location in the Czech Republic through to the most expensive, the Hinkley Point C reactor under construction in the UK at a cost that may top £46 billion ($90 billion).

“The cost of electricity generated from nuclear plants would likely be 1.5 to 3.8 times the current cost of electricity generation in eastern Australia,” IEEFA found.

The analysis was dismissed as “complete nonsense” by shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton also questioned its credibility. He cited Labor’s failed pre-election promise to deliver $275 bill reductions by 2025 as evidence it can’t be trusted.

But the Coalition’s own arguments are just as flimsy, weakened by the continuing absence of the full costings and details of its energy plan.

Dutton is scheduled to speak on nuclear power at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on Monday. It will not, however, include the much anticipated business case for nuclear. Coalition sources say that will have to wait until some time before the election, due by May next year.

A Coalition source said Monday’s speech would instead be “values”-based. That means a reaffirmation of the seven potential nuclear sites, and more words about why nuclear is better than Labor’s “renewables-only” approach.

The energy industry, meanwhile, is disengaged as the politics play out. While not writing the nuclear option off as impossible, the starting point for real action is much too far off for it to register.

Continuing delays in the build-out of the energy grid – caused by slow project approvals and rising costs, among many other issues – mean these companies have much more immediate challenges to worry about.

September 22, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics