Antinuclear

What nuclear power in the United States tells us about the Coalition’s controversial energy policy

ABC News, By Eric Campbell, 7 Oct 24

“…………………………………It’s been touted as the start of a new era for the US’s flagging nuclear power industry. Vogtle’s newest reactors are among the first built in the US in decades.

“Thank you for your service to our nation in providing this arsenal of clean power,” Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at the May opening ceremony for Vogtle’s latest reactor.

“Now let’s draw up some battle plans for new reactors. I don’t know about you but I for one am reporting for duty!” she said, saluting.

Peter Dutton is ready to enlist Australia. If he wins next year’s election, he plans to build seven nuclear power stations at retiring coal-fired plants.

Mr Dutton has flagged the AP1000 reactor used at Vogtle could be one of the models used to power homes and businesses in Australia.

“We don’t want to be the purchaser of the first in class or have an Australian-made technology, we want to rely on the Westinghouse AP1000,” he said in June. Beyond this, he’s given little detail about how exactly the plan would work.

Four Corners travelled around the US to examine the Coalition claims that developing nuclear power plants was the best way to replace coal power.

It has cited the US, which remains the world’s largest producer of nuclear energy, as one of the places to see the benefits it could bring Australia. Before launching the policy, Coalition MPs accompanied two groups of engineers and environmentalists around the US and to Ontario in Canada to see the potential first-hand.

In our experience, the reality was more complex.

Cost blowout

The Coalition’s pitch for nuclear is that it’s reliable, clean and cheap. And Vogtle certainly ticks two of those boxes. The plant almost never stops running and it produces no [greenhouse] emissions. But here’s the problem. It was expensive to build.

The giant AP1000 reactors designed by Westinghouse opened seven years late at more than twice the budgeted cost. The final bill of around $US35 billion ($50 billion) makes them among the most expensive nuclear generators ever built.

Now, Georgia residents are paying the price for Vogtle’s overruns in their electricity bills.

Community organiser Kimberley Scott said people have been struggling to keep up.

“Power bills have gone up hundreds of dollars for consumers including myself,” she said.

Georgia ratepayer Anna Hamer said she now has had to ration air conditioning in the Atlanta summer as her bills rise. In July she was hit with her highest power bill ever: $US618 for one month. 

“They were telling us everything was going to be OK with this plant, that it would be on time and it would be on budget. It’s over budget and we are paying for that. That seems wrong to me.”

It’s very different to what the Coalition has been suggesting in media interviews and energy speeches since it launched its nuclear policy over three months ago.

At the nuclear policy launch in June, Mr Dutton said: “Electricity is cheaper where there is a presence of nuclear energy. That is a fact. So we can rely on that international experience.”

The Coalition often cites the Canadian province of Ontario as a model, saying its three nuclear plants contribute to much lower power bills than Australia. The plants are owned and subsidised by the provincial government…………….

Peter Bradford, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licences commercial reactors, told Four Corners building nuclear plants was always the most expensive option.

“It’s an unbroken string of economic disappointment,” he said.

“If nuclear power were a person, it would be weeping with its head in its hands over the Vogtle story. Vogtle is clear proof that large nuclear construction is not an economic way to go.”

………………………….Ted O’Brien said the Coalition’s policy has been shaped by the lessons learned by other countries.

“If you look at the Vogtle example, one of the lessons we need to learn in Australia is we should not be adopting first of a kind technology. We should only be adopting what’s referred to as next-of a kind proven technology.”

He said a Coalition government would spend two-and-a-half years studying the sites and consulting communities before an independent authority chooses the most appropriate reactor design.

The SMR conundrum

The other type of reactor the Coalition wants in its nuclear power arsenal has been promoted as a game changer for the industry…………………………

The Coalition wants SMRs operating in Australia from 2035. There’s just one problem.

They don’t exist yet, at least not commercially.

Billions of dollars are being spent to make them a reality. But so far, all attempts are years from completion or have already failed.

The only project that won approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission was abandoned last November because of rising costs, even after the US Department of Energy pledged more than $US500 million in grants.

Four Corners went to the latest place where there’s a concerted attempt to break this conundrum. It’s a sleepy coal town in south-west Wyoming called Kemmerer, with a population of nearly 3,000.

……Enter Bill Gates. In June the billionaire climate change activist came to town and turned a sod on his project to construct a working SMR, declaring: “This is a big step towards safe, abundant, zero carbon energy.”

He’s putting $US1 billion of his own money into trying to make it a success, with the federal government pledging another $US2 billion.

…………………………………………….. Fortunately for the project, the town administration welcomes the prospect of anything that might bring work.

“Essentially, the town was going to lose a couple of hundred jobs or more,” Mayor Bill Thek said.

“We’re hoping that the people that work for the power plant, the current coal burning power plant will be able to transition, or at least some of them, into the nuclear plant.”

For now, all that’s being constructed are the bits around the reactor, while the project waits for approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Project spokesman Jeff Navin said they still hoped to finish construction by 2030………..

SMRs face a challenge. They’re small, producing far less power. Any power they produce would therefore be more expensive, unless the modules can be mass produced to make them cheaper to construct to offset the generation cost.

But nobody is going to mass produce anything until there is a working model that promises to produce power economically that attracts lots of eager customers. Which takes you back to square one.

Peter Bradford has seen promised breakthroughs like SMRs come and go.

“In this industry, vendor claims about cheaper nuclear costs have a long, well-documented and very sad history — they just don’t come true.

“There is no basis for believing that this utterly unproven technology is going to sweep in and make a success of a field that up to now has been an unmitigated economic failure.”

Even in the Gates-backed project’s most optimistic scenario, it’s unlikely SMRs would be mass produced to bring down costs before Australia plans to install them.

When asked about this, Ted O’Brien did not appear fazed…………..

Getting it done

The uncertainty around SMRs, and the cost blowout in Georgia, point to the practical difficulties Australia would face in trying to build reactors cheaper than countries with decades of experience, when we’ve never built a nuclear energy plant before.

The US is not the only nuclear country struggling to build new plants.

• France’s latest reactor opened 12 years behind schedule and around 10 billion euros over budget.
• Britain’s Hinkley Point plant is running six years late and facing a 20 billion British pound overrun.
• A South Korean consortium was able to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates over 12 years. Even under an authoritarian regime, each reactor was connected to the grid around three years later than expected.

US journalist and nuclear historian Stephanie Cooke has been covering the industry since 1980.

“I have never seen a project come in on time or budget. They’ve come in way, way over budget and way over time. It amazes me that there’s so much hype about something that’s been such an abject failure in my opinion.

“I mean, yeah, it’s produced electricity, but at what cost? I don’t think that we should be wasting our money on it plain and simple.”

……………………………………………. The finer points of how the Coalition plans to overcome the challenges it will confront are still unclear.

It’s yet to reveal how much its plan will cost or how it will overturn federal state bans on nuclear energy.

It says SMR plants could be operating by 2035, or 2037 if it starts with larger reactors. But the timing beyond that is unclear…………………. more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-07/nuclear-power-us-coalition-energy-policy-australia-four-corners/104432870

October 7, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business | Leave a comment