Antinuclear

Continuation of Philip White exposes the bullying and dirty tactics of the Liberal Coalition’s nuclear-spin charlatan, Ted O’Brien.

After this, at 1.28.25, Sarah Elliot (nursing academic and member of NSW Nurses and Midwives Association) called O’Brien out:

“I will say that I have read transcripts Mr O’Brien where you have misled …[interrupted by bickering between Chair Repacholi and Deputy Chair O’Brien]… Mr O’Brien can I ask you to afford this panel the respect you gave to the last ones. We may not be in agreeance with your views, but can you please respect this panel that is before you right now … I’m disgusted with your behaviour as a representative of…”

The dishonesty of O’Brien’s line of questioning is exposed when you read the latest CSIRO GenCost draft report. That report makes the following comment about the IAEA’s timing estimates:

“Nuclear development lead time

“The development lead time includes the construction period plus all of the preconstruction activities such as planning, permitting and financing. Many stakeholders have agreed with the GenCost estimate of at least 15 years lead time for nuclear generation. Those stakeholders that are more optimistic cite two alternative sources, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who have an estimate of 10 to 15 years and the recent completion of a nuclear project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had a 12 year lead time. Both estimates are in relation to building nuclear for the first time. This consultation draft provides additional analysis of nuclear lead times to examine this issue more closely. We examine recent construction times and their relationship with the level of democracy in that country.

So the IAEA’s estimate is a 2015 estimate. In the 9 years since then we’ve seen massive blowouts in construction times in the US, UK, France and Finland. Those projects were already in trouble in 2015, but since then they’ve blown out much more, while the VC Summer plant in South Carolina was abandoned part way through construction. But O’Brien still uses the 2015 IAEA estimate to put witnesses on the spot. As for ANSTO, their credibility was demolished by John Quiggen in the following article. https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/03/20/coalition-nuclear-power-ansto-csiro-small-modular-reactors/

If you can’t access Crickey’s article, please read the quote on pages 15 and 16 of the submission by FoE Adelaide https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Select_Committee_on_Nuclear_Energy/Nuclearpower/Submissions

Another example was when O’Brien used the first Frontier Economics report (the second can be expected any day) to say the total system cost of the electricity grid in 2050 will be five times what the ALP Government has claimed (AEMO’s ISP report). He also completely misrepresented Minister Bown’s response to that report. However, on this occasion, Tennant Reed (Australian Industry Group), who had actually read the Frontier Economics report, interrupted him (5.55.50). This caused a problem for O’Brien, because his brazen dishonesty was exposed by a real expert. Unfortunately, Reed was too polite. He didn’t call out O’Brien’s dishonesty. He just explained the source of the difference between AMEO’s ISP figure and the figure in Frontier Economics report. “The two numbers are different sorts of number, rather than greatly in disagreement with each other.”

See the following YouTube link from 5.53.50:

See the following YouTube link from 5.53.50:

Inquiry Into Nuclear Power Generation In Australia, Melbourne, 04/12/2024

The above two examples are examples of where O’Brien was actually challenged, but, unfortunately, not exposed for the charlatan that he is. I am hopeful that if witnesses are forewarned of his tactics, they might be in a better position to stand up to him, ideally to expose him, but definitely not to be intimidated by his dirty tactics.

December 15, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics