Nuclear lobby concedes rooftop solar will have to make way for reactors
Giles Parkinson, Jun 24, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-lobby-concedes-rooftop-solar-will-have-to-make-way-for-reactors/
The nuclear lobby in Australia has conceded one aspect of the nuclear power plan that the federal Coalition does not like talking about – that the rooftop solar embraced by households and businesses will have to make way for the Opposition’s planned reactors.
This is not actually a surprise to anyone associated with the energy industry, because it is quite clear that there is no room for an “always on” generator of any type – be it coal, gas or nuclear – in a grid dominated by variable wind and solar.
In Australia, this is particularly the case because of the continent’s magnificent solar resources, and the huge uptake of rooftop PV by consumers, which already stands at more than 20 gigawatts (GW) and is forecast to quadruple to more than 80 GW in coming decades.
In South Australia, rooftop solar has already met all local demand on occasions. The market operator predicts that this will occur in Western Australia within a few years, and in other bigger states on the eastern seaboard within a decade.
How do you jam nuclear reactors into this energy mix? Renew Economy has asked this question on several occasions – here and here in particular – and it now seems the nuclear lobby has finally fessed up to the solution: Switch off rooftop solar.
“I think what will happen is that nuclear will just tend to push out solar,” Robert Barr, a member of the lobby group Nuclear for Climate told the ABC in a story that addresses the issue.
Barr admitted that nuclear power plants have some flexibility, but not a lot. They could ramp down to around 60 per cent of their capacity, he says. But the reality is that the their economics – already hugely expensive – blow out even further if not running all the time. Solar panels would have to make way, he said.
“There’ll be an incentive for customers to back off,” he said. “And I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to build control systems to stop export of power at the domestic level. It’d be difficult for all the existing ones but for new ones, it just might require a little bit of smarts in them to achieve that particular end — it can be managed.”
Almost everyone involved in the Australian grid – be they developers, generators, network operators, investors, advisors or regulators – recognises that the system design is moving on from “base-load” and always on power to variable renewables and dispatchable power (mostly storage).
But this new reality this does not support the fossil fuel industry’s view of the world, not their economic and business models, and while the Coalition has made its position against large scale wind and solar clear, it hasn’t talked about the impact on rooftop solar, apart from saying it supports it in principle.
But how?
Some insight into what is shaping the Coalition’s thinking comes from testimony to parliamentary committee in 2021 by James Fleay, a former oil and gas executive and founder of the advocacy group Down Under Nuclear Energy (Dune), who serves as an advisor to Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien.
Fleay told the parliamentary committee looking into future energy choices that “baseload” architecture had served Australia well for a century and should not be changed. “We have to make a decision about grid architecture,” he said.
“We cannot adapt our energy usage to accommodate the rising and setting of the sun or seasonal weather uncertainties without enormous human and economic costs,” Fleay said, before adding later: “I think that is possible and true only at the margins, but not in bulk.”
Basically Fleay admitted that it is a choice between models – baseload or renewable, and in various interviews has said Australia’s isolated grid as a reason not to go the wind and solar route because of the inability to export.
But that same isolation has an equal, or arguably greater impact on nuclear because of its dependence on high production rates, known as capacity factors. The French nuclear generators wouldn’t survive without the connection to other European grids and the ability to export to other countries.
To be sure, the Australian market operator is pushing hard to be able to “orchestrate” rooftop solar and other consumer energy resources as a way of managing the grid. But the extent it would need to do so with multiple gigawatts of “always on” nuclear would dramatically increase.
The energy industry knows this. The two – nuclear and rooftop solar – simply can’t go out on the same date. The Coalition, or at least its advisors, also appear to know this. But when will it be honest about this situation with the general public and the households and businesses with solar on their rooftops?
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of the EV-focused The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
The insane amount it could cost to turn Australia nuclear – as new detail in Peter Dutton’s bold plan is revealed
The large-scale and small modular generators would be Commonwealth-owned, similar to arrangements governing the Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme, requiring a multibillion-dollar funding commitment from taxpayers.
- Peter Dutton nuclear plan slammed
- Proposal could cost $600billion
By JACK QUAIL FOR NCA NEWSWIRE and AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 23 June 2024, more https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13559019/The-insane-cost-turn-Australia-nuclear-Peter-Dutton-slammed-completely-irrational-plan.html
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek has added her voice to the tirade of criticism against the Opposition’s nuclear energy push, labelling the proposal as ‘completely irrational’ and ‘designed to be a distraction’.
Speaking on Sunday, the environment and water minister criticised the Coalition for its refusal to detail the estimated cost to add nuclear generation to the national electricity market in the biggest overhaul of energy policy in decades.
‘He’s saying to Australians: ‘I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you with the costing we’ve done,’ if he’s got costings,’ Ms Plibersek told Sky News.
According to analysis released by the Smart Energy Council using data from the latest GenCost report, Labor’s non-nuclear energy plan is estimated to cost $117bn through to 2050, while the Coalition’s pledge would cost upwards of $600bn.
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien has flagged an evolution in the Coalition’s nuclear power policy, revealing that each of the seven sites could host multiple reactors.
But in a major concession, Mr O’Brien said on Sunday the Coalition would not go to the election announcing the estimated generation capacity of its nuclear power plan, leaving this decision to an independent body until after the election.
‘One of the lessons we learned from overseas, in order to get prices down, you need multi-unit sites,’ Mr O’Brien told the ABC’s Insiders program.
‘Let’s say the small modular reactors … When you talk about a nuclear plant, these are modularised compartments. You can add another 300, add another 300.
‘You’re talking about multi-unit plants.’
An independent nuclear energy coordinating authority would make recommendations on the number and type of reactors per site, Mr O’Brien said, which would then determine the final generation capacity.
‘The independent body would look at each plant, and come up with a recommendation as to what sort of technology should be used,’ he said.
‘From there, it would be exactly what capacity based on that technology.
‘Only from there can you come down to a specific number of gigawatts’.
Last week Coalition unveiled plans to build seven nuclear power plants by 2050 with the first reactor slated to be operational in just over a decade in a move designed to deliver cheaper, zero-emissions and reliable power supply.
The large-scale and small modular generators would be Commonwealth-owned, similar to arrangements governing the Snowy Hydro 2.0 scheme, requiring a multibillion-dollar funding commitment from taxpayers.
The Coalition has proposed to locate the reactors in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia on the sites of former coal fired power stations, adding no more than 10GW to the power grid, meaning renewables will remain the vast majority of the energy mix.
Smart Energy Council chief executive John Grimes said Mr Dutton’s nuclear proposal would deliver ‘at best’ 3.7 per cent of the energy required at the same cost as the government’s current strategy.
‘In reality, current cost overruns happening right now in the UK could mean a $600 billion bill to Australian taxpayers, whilst delivering a small proportion of the energy that is actually required,’ he said.
Nuclear had no place in a country with cheap, reliable energy powered by the sun and wind and backed up by renewable energy storage, Mr Grimes said.
‘The most optimistic assessment of Peter Dutton’s nuclear proposal indicates it is a pale shadow of the reliable renewables plan outlined and costed by the Australian Energy Market Operator,’ he said.
The council has called on the opposition to release its analysis of the costings and generation capacity from the seven proposed nuclear reactor sites.
‘They need to explain how their forecasts contradict the experts at the CSIRO and AEMO,’ Mr Grimes said.
‘It is extraordinary that the details are being hidden from the Australian public.’
Separate analysis released by CSIRO put the cost of building a large-scale nuclear reactor at $8.6bn, bringing the total cost to approximately $60bn, however nuclear projects are often subject to hefty delays and soaring cost overruns.
Asked why Australia had eschewed nuclear power when many other advanced economies had adopted the technology, Ms Plibersek pointed to Australia’s comparative advantage in renewable power generation.
‘We’ve got the room, we’ve got the resources, we’ve got the critical minerals we need, battery manufacturing, we’re investing in green hydrogen,’ Ms Plibersek said.
‘We can be a renewable energy superpower and instead Peter Dutton wants to slam the brakes on, instead of leading the world with renewable energy investment.
‘He wants to fast track nuclear, and put us on the slow lane when it comes to renewables. It’s just mad.’
Coalition won’t say how much nuclear power its plan will generate until after an election
By political reporter Tom Crowley, 2024, ABC
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-23/coalition-wont-reveal-nuclear-power-generation-before-election/104012212
- In short: The Coalition is unable to provide details about the amount of power to be generated by its proposed nuclear reactors.
- Coalition energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien told the ABC’s Insiders that would be determined after the election, despite industry groups calling for more information to inform investments.
- What’s next? The Coalition says it will release information about the cost of its plans in future.
The Coalition is unable to say how much nuclear energy it plans to generate, its energy spokesperson says.
The amount of power is one of many details the opposition did not provide on Wednesday when it said it wanted to build seven nuclear plants across five states between 2035 and 2050. Other details include cost and precise timing.
But business and experts say the power generation figure is essential for energy investors to understand what balance of nuclear, renewables and gas the Coalition proposes for Australia, and plan their investments accordingly.
Energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien, who designed the plan, told the ABC’s Insiders the amount of energy generated would depend on the type and number of reactors built at each site, and that neither of those things could be known until a Coalition government could establish a nuclear expert agency to undertake studies.
“We would be leaving that to the nuclear energy co-ordinating authority,” he said.
“That independent body is to work out at each site what is the feasibility of certain technologies and only from there can you come down to a specific number of gigawatts.”
That is unlikely to satisfy the concerns of industry groups who point to Labor’s annually updated Integrated System Plan, which lays out its proposed energy mix in gigawatts.
Australian Industry Group chief Innes Willox said this was important for “certainty” and investor confidence.
But Mr O’Brien said gigawatts were “very specific” and the Coalition would instead offer its “assumptions” and provide a broad figure for “how much we believe there will be come 2050”.
“I’m a Liberal and I appreciate and respect that investors want to make money, but to be really clear our focus is on the Australian people that want to save money,” he said.
Mr O’Brien also revealed the Coalition planned to have multiple reactors on some sites, which would increase the amount of energy produced.
Estimates from experts have put the amount of power able to be generated by seven nuclear sites at about 10 gigawatts, or less than 4 per cent of Australia’s energy needs.
Mixed signals on renewables
The proposed energy contribution of nuclear is also relevant to the status of the renewables rollout and the extent to which the Coalition would seek to continue it in government.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has consistently framed the nuclear policy as an alternative to renewables and even suggested there would be a renewables “cap”.
But Mr O’Brien said on Sunday that was not the Coalition’s policy and the Coalition was “united around the idea by 2050 of a net zero power grid”.
Mr O’Brien added he did not believe renewable energy could be used as Australia’s “baseload” power source, labelling the government’s 85 per cent renewables target as unrealistic.
Asked what the Coalition would do about the looming short-term energy shortfall, given 90 per cent of coal power is set to exit the National Electricity Market within the next decade and before the first proposed nuclear plant would be built, Mr O’Brien said the answer was to “pour more gas into the market” but also said he would “welcome all renewables”.
“The government believes the aim of the game is to maximise the amount of renewables. We want the optimum amount.”
The government supports renewables through its Capacity Investment Scheme, which underwrites approved renewables projects to give investors a “revenue safety net”. The Coalition’s plans for that scheme in government are not clear, but Mr O’Brien promised renewable and gas projects would be forthcoming.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Coalition’s plan threatened the progress of renewables in the short-term.
“You’re not going to see [a nuclear plant] for a decade at least. Australians want relief from their energy bills now,” she told Sky News on Sunday.
“We’re seeing renewables entering our energy market, bringing down the cost of energy. It’s already happening, and instead Peter Dutton’s got some plan he won’t tell you the cost of that might help in a decade’s time.
“We can be a renewable energy superpower and instead Peter Dutton wants to slam the breaks on, instead of us leading the world with renewable energy he wants to put us on the slow lane. It’s just mad.”
John Grimes, chief executive of the Smart Energy Council, said the Coalition policy was “a spoke in the wheel of progress” and was actively undermining renewables.
Mr Littleproud again on Sunday morning said the explicit intention of the nuclear policy was less renewables.
“That’s just math,” he told Sky News, saying there would be fewer transmission lines and less “tearing up [of] prime agricultural ground” under the Coalition.
While the Coalition has not yet revealed the cost, Mr Littleproud said the construction costs were “in the ballpark” of $8 billion per unit.
Asked about the higher cost of nuclear in most expert analysis, he said the government would “control” the plants and could run them in a way that would “drive down the cost”.
Mr O’Brien also flagged a plan for “market reform” to reduce prices, but did not elaborate.
Two years of community consultation to ‘make sure they understand’
Mr Littleproud and Mr O’Brien both flagged two and a half years of local community consultation would be needed before site details could be finalised, but that communities would not be given the opportunity to veto.
“That is not international best practice,” Mr O’Brien said.
“We are taking this to the Australian people, we are seeking a mandate.”
He added he did not expect that communities were likely to oppose the plants.
Mr Littleproud said he planned to “take the Australian people on a journey … [we would] start the two and a half year consultation process with those communities to make sure they understood”.
Dutton’s nuclear plan can only exist in a broken democratic system
By Klaas Woldring | 24 June 2024
Dutton’s nonsensical foray into nuclear energy reminds Australian voters again of the issues prevalent within this country’s Constitution and democratic institutions, Dr Klaas Woldring writes.
WE HAVE RECENTLY experienced the nonsense of the “No” vote by the official Opposition against the highly sensible proposal by the Albanese Government to introduce an Indigenous Voice in the archaic Australian Constitution.
The Dutton Opposition then made use of the staggering ignorance of the voters about the white Australian Constitution. Now it is preparing to drag Australia into the creation of unnecessary nuclear energy plants which would be developed in seven safe conservative electoral seats.
The use of the single-member electoral system is now planned for an energy system that is not supported by the majority and is indeed widely rejected for several important reasons. It should be noted now that the planned use of single-member districts for this purpose is, in fact, a further negative of that system.
The role of the Opposition Leader to develop opposing policies – the Westminster function of an Opposition leader – has now resulted in quite unnecessary threats to endanger society.
David Crowe in the Sydney Morning Herald has already pointed out ‘two black holes before getting to countless questions about secondary details’ — the cost to build them and to run them for decades, as well as design.
Above all, Australians surely can generate plenty of solar and wind energy. The need for nuclear power simply does not exist in Australia at all.
To try to use safe conservative seats for that negative purpose is to further abuse that electoral system. That two-party system is altogether no longer providing an effective democracy.
We have had a gut full of pork barrelling, of neglected safe seats and of the fact that only a handful of seats are decided on the first count, the rest on compulsory preferences. Let’s stop pretending that this is a fair system, nothing could be further from the truth.
Australian voters have already turned their back on the Liberal Party, voted strongly for Independent women and the Greens in 2022 and, by doing so, essentially said goodbye to the two-party system.
However, further reflection is needed as to what that means and what will replace it.
The major parties may be reluctant to replace the single-member electoral district system with a much more democratic system.
Although it had a marginally positive election outcome for the ALP in 2022, as it still delivered its majority government despite a very low primary vote of 32.6%, it is further proof that major electoral system change is in fact long overdue.
The single-member district system with compulsory preferencing has strongly, but quite unfairly, favoured the major parties. The outcome also still resulted in severe under-representation of the Greens in the House of Representatives even though they ended up with four seats.
Proportionally, they should have gained around 18 seats. A Proportional system naturally is based on multi-member seats. Still, the somewhat unusual 2022 Election outcome does not mean that the electoral system has changed at all.
The Oppositionist culture will continue — clearly a potential threat to unity and progress in Australia. However, this may not be the preferred way of Prime Minister Albanese either.
His stated preference is for cooperation — also for fairness and democratic representation. Really, here is his opportunity. The Westminster legacy of Australia’s inherited parliamentary and electoral systems is no longer really fit for the purpose intended.
Even in the UK and U.S., this is widely recognised. Certainly, the Greens and most – perhaps all of the Independents as well – will now reflect on campaigning for a more democratic electoral system.
For nearly half the voters – culturally diverse – the system is altogether of questionable value. Therefore, it is high time to move away from the two-party system and the single-member district electoral system that produces it.
Governance and political education have to be a much more prominent part of the longer-term reforms, but the electoral system can be changed straight away. A new electoral law can be developed right now. The Parliament has the constitutional power to make electoral reforms. That is stated in several clauses.
Multi-member electoral systems (MMP) could be 15 of, say, 10 MPs for the Federal House of Representatives. This would yield a national multi-party system and more Independents.
The nonsensical need for Opposition leaders to dream up unhelpful alternatives against the government party would disappear forever. The emphasis would be on cooperation rather than Opposition, a major step forward in the nation.
The recent political history in Australia demonstrates that the need for system change is urgent. The new electoral system should be national, not based on based on federal-state boundaries.
Of course, similar system changes should follow in the federal states as well.
Here’s how bad the climate crisis will get before Dutton builds his first nuclear reactor
Fires, droughts, dead reefs, rising sea levels and 1.5 degrees of global warming. It’ll all happen before Dutton’s first nuclear plant is even opened.
CAM WILSON, JUN 20, 2024
Setting aside the numerous other criticisms of Peter Dutton’s one-page, uncosted nuclear plan, it’s worth pointing out that it completely relies on a crucial, non-renewable resource: time.
The Coalition’s plan is to get one nuclear power plant up and running by 2035, with more to come soon after. Experts say this timeline is implausible. But even if we take the word of a politician promising to deliver an enormous and technically challenging project far in the future over the expertise of subject matter authorities, 2035 is still more than a decade away……………………………… (Subscribers only) https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/06/20/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-climate-change-timeline/
Is rooftop solar a fatal flaw in the Coalition’s grand nuclear plans?
Unlike nuclear, solar is also extraordinarily cheap, at least up-front, and large-scale projects can be delivered for comparative peanuts — and with blinding speed.
There are now almost 4 million homes spread across the country with solar installations, and the electricity they generate accounted for about 12 per cent of Australia’s needs last year.
It’s a constituency that politicians would tackle at their peril.
By energy reporter Daniel Mercer, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-24/rooftop-solar-potentially-lethal-flaw-in-coalition-nuclear-plans/104008864—
Earlier this year, the Coalition made a curious, significant move.
David Littleproud, the leader of the National Party, broke cover and wholeheartedly threw his support behind rooftop solar and household batteries.
The Nationals, he said, were not against renewable energy, only large-scale projects such as wind farms and transmission lines that were “tearing up the environment”.
Quite the opposite — the National Party wanted as many Australian households to get solar and batteries as would have them.
The pitch, which was quickly backed by opposition leader Peter Dutton, evidently had a few purposes.
For starters, it clearly distinguished the opposition from the Labor government, whose plan to decarbonise the power system rests largely on big-ticket renewable energy and transmission items.
In one fell swoop, the Coalition was able to say it was pro-renewable energy while being able to attack the government’s own green plans as environmentally and economically dangerous.
What’s more, the shift was a clear nod — or a sop, depending on who you ask — to the enormous and growing political clout of Australia’s solar-owning class.
Lastly, as both Mr Littleproud and Mr Dutton have repeatedly since pointed out, rooftop solar was an ideal complement for the central plank of the Coalition’s energy plans — nuclear.
Dangers in the detail?
The thinking behind that pivot has been on full display in recent days after the Coalition finally unveiled the major details of its energy policy for the upcoming federal election.
Under the plans, Australia would get seven nuclear power plants by the middle of the century — five large-scale ones across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria and two small ones across South Australia and Western Australia.
No longer would the renewable emphasis be on scores of new wind and solar farms in regional areas and the high-voltage power lines needed to plug them into the grid.
It would instead be directed towards people’s rooftops, “an environment that you can’t destroy”, according to Mr Littleproud.
But hiding behind this veil of logic from the Coalition, energy experts reckon, is a potentially fatal flaw.
Solar power and nuclear power don’t play nicely together.
“That’s another untested and questionable part of this whole strategy,” said Dylan McConnell, a senior researcher and energy analyst at the University of NSW.
“What happens if we look into a system that is largely dominated by … a significant proportion of … behind-the-meter solar?
“People are going to continue to install rooftop solar and, in fact, the Coalition is supportive of that.
At the heart of this tension are the differing — and some argue incompatible — characteristics of nuclear and solar power.
On the one hand, nuclear reactors are the quintessential base-load generators that can — and want to — run at or near full capacity all the time.
Not only are they well-suited to the task technically, nuclear plants also have an economic imperative to operate flat-out given their monumental development costs.
These development costs are typically exacerbated by very long lead times — lead times subject to significant blowouts — in which debts are incurred and eye-watering amounts of interest can accrue.
The hare and the tortoise
Paying off those debts is paramount for the owner of a nuclear plant.
Failure to do so can be financially ruinous.
And the way to do that is to produce and sell as much electricity as is technically possible.
By contrast, solar power — specifically from photovoltaic cells typical of suburban rooftops — are the archetypal source of variable renewable energy.
They produce the most power when the sun is shining during the day, none when it’s not, and their output can be highly variable depending on the conditions.
Unlike nuclear, solar is also extraordinarily cheap, at least up-front, and large-scale projects can be delivered for comparative peanuts — and with blinding speed.
For a household, the cost of a 10-kilowatt system — an installation capable of meeting much of an average customer’s needs — can be done for a few thousand dollars.
In other words, if nuclear power is the proverbial tortoise, solar is the hare.
None of which is to dismiss the technical and economic challenges that solar presents, namely, how to back it up when it’s not producing — a very big task indeed.
But there is another crucial way in which solar and nuclear — or any base-load power such as coal, for that matter — clash.
Solar generation, by its very nature, peaks in the middle of the day.
As ever-more Australians install seemingly ever-more solar panels on their roofs, that peak in solar output is becoming truly epic in its proportions.
Rooftop solar is a beast
or example, there are times in South Australia when rooftop solar alone can account for more than the entire demand for electricity in the state.
To ensure South Australia’s electricity system doesn’t blow up, virtually all other generators have to pare back their output to a bare minimum or switch off entirely.
And even then, South Australia’s surplus rooftop solar generation has to be exported to other states or wasted.
Rooftop solar can do this because it’s largely uncontrolled and flows simply by dint of the sun shining.
It was partly for this reason that South Australia’s only base-load coal plant retired in 2016.
Of course, there are many more times when rooftop solar provides precisely 0 per cent of South Australia’s power needs.
But it all goes to illustrate the very real challenges that base-load nuclear would face, and the very real trends that are unlikely to grind to a halt between now and 2035, by when the Coalition hopes to have the first of its nuclear reactors up and running.
A quick glance at the numbers will tell you all you need to know about the popularity — and power — of rooftop solar in Australia.
There are now almost 4 million homes spread across the country with solar installations, and the electricity they generate accounted for about 12 per cent of Australia’s needs last year.
Bruce Mountain, the director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, summed it up this way: “Rooftop solar has few opponents.”
“It’s the one thing that keeps on growing despite the impasse at a national level,” Professor Mountain said.
“And I think there’s much more to go to realise the potential for that, most notably on factory roofs.”
Something has to give
Professor Mountain said “I’m kind of open to the idea of nuclear”, noting that it was being taken seriously by many other developed countries seeking to decarbonise their electricity supply.
He also pointed out that Australia’s development of large-scale renewable energy projects and, particularly, the transmission lines needed to support them, had hardly been a glowing success to date.
In any case, Professor Mountain suggested the fact the Coalition was proposing to own and operate any nuclear power stations was an acknowledgement that there was no commercial case for the technology in Australia.
On that point, Dr McConnell from the University of NSW agreed.
Dr McConnell said the economic obstacles in front of nuclear in Australia were enormous, and a big one was rooftop solar.
He said that in the almost inevitable event that nuclear and solar power clashed, something would have to give.
“The way you might achieve that in a system with lots of rooftop solar is by curtailing [switching off] rooftop solar,” Dr McConnell said.
“And that may not be politically popular either.”
Robert Barr, a power industry veteran and a member of the lobby group Nuclear for Climate, did not shy away from the potential for future tensions, noting that coal was already getting squeezed out of the system by solar.
But Dr Barr said any clash could be easily managed through a combination of price signals that encouraged householders to use more of their solar power and export less, and new reactor technology that could ramp up and down more effectively.
You could probably drop down from 100 per cent down comfortably to like 60 per cent output and on a daily basis,” Dr Barr said of new nuclear technology.
Ultimately, however, Dr Barr argued it may need to be households with solar panels that gave way to nuclear energy for the greater benefit of the electricity system.
Don’t mention the solar wars
Right now, he said, renewable energy was benefiting from taxpayer-funded subsidies that allowed wind and solar projects to make money even when the price of power was below $0.
These subsidies applied to both utility-scale projects and rooftop solar panels, through the large- and small-scale green energy targets introduced by the Rudd Labor government.
They effectively allow such projects to sell their electricity for less than zero — up to a point — and still be in the money.
In the future, Dr Barr said, those subsidies would no longer exist and renewable energy projects would start to be penalised each time the price of electricity went negative.
“I think what will happen is that nuclear will just tend to push out solar,” he said.
“There’ll be an incentive for customers to back off.
“And I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to build control systems to stop export of power at the domestic level.
“It’d be difficult for all the existing ones but for new ones, it just might require a little bit of smarts in them to achieve that particular end — it can be managed.”
Much like the Coalition’s grand policy pitch, those comments might be considered bold given the political heft wielded by millions of solar households.
Last decade, politicians of all stripes got into all manner of trouble when they tried to wind back subsidies known as feed-in-tariffs, which paid customers for their surplus solar power generation.
Solar households, egged on by the industry, mobilised, went on the attack and in many cases forced governments to bend to their will.
And that was at a time when the number of households with solar was a fraction of what it is now.
It’s a constituency that politicians would tackle at their peril.
Nuclear industry workers face significant, inevitable and unavoidable radiation health risks
By Tony Webb, 24 June 24, https://johnmenadue.com/nuclear-industry-workers-face-significant-inevitable-and-unavoidable-radiation-health-risks/
Nuclear industry workers face significant, inevitable and largely unavoidable radiation health risks which have so far not been addressed in the debate about Australia possibly buying into this industry.
In addition to the important arguments against the coalition policy that currently proposes building seven nuclear power plants to replace closing coal fired generators, notably that such:
will be likely cost about twice that of firmed renewable generation and take at least 15 years to build – and this in the context where most nuclear plant construction worldwide appears to routinely involve a doubling of both cost and time to build
– and so are dangerously irrelevant to meeting the existential challenge to reduce carbon and methane emissions that are driving climate change;
will require legislative changes at state and federal levels that are to say the least unlikely to be achieved;ignores the challenge of developing workforce skills to manage this technology;
ignores the as yet intractable if not insoluble problem of managing long lived nuclear wastes;
and poses significant risks to the public in the event of nuclear accidents as witnessed in the USA, Ukraine/former USSR, and Japan;
There is also an inevitable and unavoidable risk to workers in the industry and public ‘downwind’ from such reactors from routine exposure to ionising radiation.
This last has to date received little attention and whenever raised results in dismissive but misleading arguments from the nuclear industry advocates, notably that any such exposures to individuals are small and pose little, indeed ‘acceptable’ health risks compared to other risks faced in day to day living and working. Tackling this misinformation as part of the campaign has much to offer in convincing the nuclear target communities and the workers in these that might be seduced by prospects of employment in these facilities that the risks they face are far from insignificant – that, as a community they will face an increase in the incidence of fatal and ‘treatable / curable’ cancers, an increase in other, notably cardio vascular diseases and increased risk of genetic damage affecting children and future generations.
Allow me to introduce myself. I have been an active campaigner on the health effects of ionising radiation since the late 1970s. With two colleagues in 1978 I founded the UK based Radiation and Health Information Service that highlighted the evidence showing the risk estimates from radiation exposure, on which the national and international occupational and public exposure limits were based, grossly under-represented the actual risk.
This radiation-health argument was developed as part of a national campaign that resulted in a significant change of the, until then, pro-nuclear policies of UK unions with members in the industry and a review of Trade Union Congress policy in 1979. It was also an integral part of the union-led national Anti-Nuclear Campaign opposing the Thatcher government’s nuclear expansion – revealed in leaked cabinet minutes as part of the government strategy for undermining the power of the unions, particularly the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the Transport and General Workers Union, (T&GWU) and the General and Municipal, Boilermakers’ and Allied Trades union (GMBATU). In late 1980 I took this work on Occupational Radiation risks to the USA establishing the US Radiation and Health Labor Project, auspiced by the Foundation for National Progress / Mother Jones Magazine, that built union support across the country for AFL-CIO policy calling for a reduction in the occupational exposure limit.
Subsequently I worked as a consultant to the Canadian union (CPSU – local 2000) representing workers in the nuclear power industry and built a Canadian coalition of five Unions representing workers exposed to radiation on the job. Linking these North American union demands with those of UK and European unions (also similar concerns from unions in Australia following a 1988 organising tour) reinforced pressures from within the scientific community – notably the US Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) committee.
These sustained pressures led eventually to the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) reducing the recommended limits for permissible occupational (and public) exposures in 1991. Despite evidence that would have justified a ten-fold reduction (from the 50 mSv annual occupational limit to a limit of 5 mSv) the ICRP limit was only reduced by 40% (to 20 mSv a year but with individual exposures still permitted to 50 mSv in any year so long as the average over 5 years was no higher than 20 mSv).
Since then, a large-scale study of UK, EU, and US nuclear industry workers has shown radiation-induced cancer risks to be on average 2.6 times higher than the estimates used to set the ICRP limits. To put it in simple if statistical terms, the lifetime cancer risk for a worker exposed to the permissible annual dose of radiation over say a 25-year career would be of the order of 6.5% higher than normal. To this should be added the significant health effects of non-fatal cancers, an approximate doubling of the normal rate of cardio-vascular disease and a not insignificant increase in genetic damage to workers children and future generations. Nuclear industry workers face significant, inevitable and largely unavoidable radiation health risks which have so far not been addressed in the debate about Australia possibly buying into this industry.
What needs to be more clearly understood however is that the concern is not just in relation to risks faced by individuals exposed on the job, or from relatively small amounts of radiation released from routine operations of nuclear plants. What is of far greater public concern is the impact of the collective exposure. What is not fully appreciated is that there is simply no safe level of exposure – any dose however small may be the one that causes damage at cellular level in the human body that may show up years later as cancer, genetic damage or some other health effect. it is the total/collective dose that will determine the number of such health effects. Spreading the dose over a larger population will reduce the risk to any individual but not the total health effects. Indeed, it may increase it. An individual affected by cancer can only die once.
These arguments carry weight. They formed a significant part if the discussions within the 2016 South Australian government’s ‘Citizens Jury’ convened to consider proposals to import and store around a third of the world’s nuclear wastes. The concern about radiation and health received special note in the report of this jury to the SA Premier that a two-thirds majority said ‘no – under any circumstances’ to the radioactive waste proposal. The issues can also form the basis for increased collaboration between the trade union, environment, medical reform and public health movements as was the case in the mid 1990s when UK, Labour MP Frank Cook convened a Radiation Roundtable that brought together representatives of these constituencies.
So, within the current debate about a possible Australian Nuclear Power program – alongside the arguments already made about its excessive cost, extended construction time frame, ill-fit within an essential decentralised renewable energy program, risks of major accidents, and the intractable problems of multi-generation waste management, can we please add this concern over health effects that will inevitably result from occupational and public exposures to radiation. Can we particularly focus the attention of trade unions and their members in the seven former coal-fired generation-dependent communities on the effect of these exposures on health of workers who might seek to be employed in operating these facilities and on the health of their families, neighbours, and future generations.
A key demand from unions should be that the occupational limit for annual radiation exposures cbe reduced from the current ICRP level of 20 mSv to a maximum of 5 mSv a year with a lifetime limit of 50 mSV. This revision of standards would put real pressure on the nuclear industry – the current uranium mining and any future enrichment, fuel fabrication, nuclear generation, fuel reprocessing, and waste management – to keep such exposures as low as possible. In the unlikely event of any of the reactor proposals getting the go-ahead there should be baseline monitoring of the health of the community and any workers employed so that any detrimental increase in health effects can be detected early and possibly remediated in the future.
Peter Dutton’s flimsy charade is first and foremost a gas plan not a nuclear power plan
Dutton’s nuclear castle is made of cardboard. Close questioning over the many months until election day will show that behind the costly facade, it’s not so much a nuclear plan, as a plan to give up on our climate targets, turn our back on a clean energy future and burn a lot more gas (and money).
Simon Holmes à Court, 21 June 24, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/21/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-plan-gas-energy
Straight from the Donald Trump playbook the opposition leader left Australia with more questions than answers.
Finally, on Wednesday morning Peter Dutton announced his nuclear plan … well, it’s more a vibe than a plan – a flimsy announcement leaving us with more questions than answers.
If there’s any doubt that Dutton has internalised the Trump playbook, here’s an example of how he’s deployed the infamous Steve Bannon technique: “flood the zone with shit”.
The media conference was a stream of falsehoods, empty rhetoric and veiled swipes, deftly delivered with unwavering confidence.
As an energy nerd, there’s a lot I like about nuclear technology, and my long-held interest has led me to visit reactors in three countries. Last year I took a nuclear course at MIT and met nuclear developers, potential customers, innovators and investors, tracing many footsteps of the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien.
I strongly believe nuclear power is an important technology – but it has to make sense where it’s used and that requires close questioning. Here are some important questions, and what we know so far.
How to remove the current bans?
Nuclear is banned in Australia by two acts of parliament. Naturally, to repeal the ban the Coalition would need to win back control of the house – a daunting task when they are 21 seats shy of a majority – and control of the Senate, power it hasn’t held since the end of the Howard era.
Once the federal ban is lifted, Dutton needs a plan for lifting state bans in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
The leaders of the Labor governments and their Coalition oppositions in each of these key states have expressed their clear opposition. Dutton rehashed the old quip that you wouldn’t want to stand between a state premier and a bucket of money, indicating that he thinks dangling commonwealth carrots will solve the issue.
They will not be cheap carrots!
Where will the reactors go?
The Coalition has named seven specific locations, two in Queensland, two in New South Wales and one each in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, all on sites of retired or soon-to-be-retired coal power stations.
One big problem – the commonwealth doesn’t own any of these sites, and in many cases the owners of the sites have plans to redevelop the sites, such as a $750m battery on the site of the old Liddell power station being built by AGL.
On Wednesday Dutton hinted that if the owners wouldn’t sell the sites, he had legal advice that the commonwealth could compulsorily acquire them. That’ll go down well.
How do we keep the lights on?
Australia’s 19 coal power stations generated 125 TWh of electricity last year. The Australian Energy Market Operator expects all will be retired by 2037. On top of that, our energy demand is expected to increase by more than 230 TWh by 2050. Over the next 25 years we need to build facilities that generate at least 355 TWh every year.
Dutton announced that the Coalition would build five large reactors and two small modular reactors by 2050. This would be about 6.5 GW of new capacity, which at best could be expected to generate 50 TWh a year – less than 15% of the new generation needed.
The Coalition has been quite clear that it wants to see renewable energy development slowed to a crawl. This would leave a massive hole in our energy supply, which could only be filled by extending the life of coal and a massive increase in gas power generation.
This is first and foremost a gas plan, not a nuclear plan.
What will it cost?
Gas is the most expensive form of bulk energy supply in the electricity market … at least until nuclear is available.
Replacing the cheapest form of energy – wind and solar, even including integration costs – with the two most expensive forms can only send energy prices higher.
The Coalition’s announcement is too vague to cost precisely and nobody really knows what SMRs will cost, but a reasonable estimate using assumptions from CSIRO’s GenCost would be in the order of $120bn, or to coin a new unit of money, one-third of an Aukus.
What does this mean for emissions?
An analysis by Solutions for Climate Australia, released before Wednesday’s announcement and which assumes a much more aggressive nuclear build, shows an aggregate increase in emissions by 3.2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050 – the emissions equivalent of extending the life of our entire coal fleet by 25 years.
While the Coalition has turned its back on Australia’s legislated 2030 target, their talking points say they’re still committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This does not compute. Dutton’s proposal would see high emissions in the electricity sector all the way to 2050 and beyond, blowing our carbon budget and every emissions target along the way.
What if locals object?
For years Coalition members have been running around the country fomenting then amplifying community concern around wind and solar farms. Genuine community consultation, which has sometimes been lacking, is the best antidote to opposition.
Yet the Coalition has made a massive blunder in telling communities exactly where they’ll go before any consultation. Worse, it has adopted a strong-man posture that communities will have to accept that the reactors are in the national interest. It will be fascinating to watch how the Coalition handles local opposition over the coming months.
How will they be built?
With a combination of astronomical costs and zero interest by energy companies, there only ever was one possible owner of a nuclear power station in Australia: the commonwealth government.
One of the biggest challenges will be locking in major contractors. With the high likelihood that a future Labor government would cancel any contracts, no contractor would proceed without very expensive cancellation protection.
When will the reactors come online?
We often hear that a nuclear reactor can be built in eight years. In reality it takes three to four years from signing the contract to completing the civil works to begin ‘construction’, and it would very optimistically take four years to complete site selection, planning, licensing, vendor selection and contracting. Add in the inevitable legal challenges and it’s highly unlikely a reactor could be delivered by 2035 – as Dutton claimed – let alone before the early 2040s.
The newest reactors in the United States took 18 years from announcement to commercial operation, while in the UAE, it took 13 years under an authoritarian regime … and I’m being kind by not mentioning contemporary projects in France, the UK, Finland and Argentina.
Dutton has said he favours the Rolls-Royce SMR, tweeting an artist’s rendering on Wednesday.
These SMRs exist only on paper, yet Dutton wants us to believe he can provide one by 2035. Remember, this is the mob that brought us the NBN and the Snowy 2.0 disaster. This is the team that couldn’t even build commuter car parks.
What about the water and the waste?
I think we can relax a little about water and waste. Yes, nuclear power stations generally require large volumes of water for cooling, but so do coal power stations. By choosing sites with existing access to cooling water, the Coalition has sidestepped this concern.
Public concern around nuclear waste is high, but ultimately the problem is manageable. The waste will be kept on site, likely in dry casks and eventually moved to wherever Australia decides to store its waste from the Aukus program. Nobody has ever been harmed by spent nuclear fuel.
Who will provide disaster insurance?
While serious nuclear accidents are very rare, their costs can be astronomical. The Japan Centre for Economic Research has estimated that total costs related to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident may reach $350 to 750bn. The only viable solution is for the commonwealth to accept liability.
For a long time the Coalition’s nuclear plan sat beyond the horizon, to be unveiled before the election. But now Dutton’s built a castle and he has to defend it.
Dutton is still learning about nuclear. On Wednesday he said that an SMR would emit only a “coke can” of nuclear waste a year. In reality it would probably produce more than 2,000 times that.
Nuclear energy is complex. He and his team will keep making mistakes. Keith Pitt, a Nationals backbencher told RN Breakfast on the same day that the grid couldn’t handle more than 10% wind and solar power combined. Over the past year the grid has averaged 31% wind and solar.
Some people want to believe there are simple solutions to the complex solutions behind the cost of living crisis, and like his political forebear Tony Abbott, Dutton has a knack for delivering simple messages with cold competence.
But Dutton’s nuclear castle is made of cardboard. Close questioning over the many months until election day will show that behind the costly facade, it’s not so much a nuclear plan, as a plan to give up on our climate targets, turn our back on a clean energy future and burn a lot more gas (and money).
- Simon Holmes à Court is a Director of The Superpower Institute, the Smart Energy Council and convener of Climate 200. Contrary to Coalition belief, he is not a large investor in renewable energy.
Nuclear power exits Australia’s energy debate, enters culture wars
Jim Green, Jun 13, 2019, https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-power-exits-australias-energy-debate-enters-culture-wars-47702/
What do these politicians and ex-politicians have in common: Clive Palmer, Tony Abbott, Cory Bernardi, Barnaby Joyce, Mark Latham, Jim Molan, Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, and David Leyonhjelm?
Yes, they’re all men, and all so far to the right of the political spectrum that right-wing ideologues think they are right-wing ideologues.
And they all support nuclear power.
To the far-right, pro-nuclear luminaries listed above we could add the right-wing of the right-wing National Party (pretty much all of them), the Minerals Council of Australia (who lobby furiously for clean nuclear and clean coal), the Business Council of Australia ,media shock-jocks Alan Jones and Peta Credlin (and others), the Murdoch media (especially The Australian newspaper), the Citizens Electoral Council, and the Institute of Public Affairs and its front group the Australian Environment Foundation.
It’s no surprise that the far-right supports nuclear power (if only because the ‘green left’ opposes it).
But in Australia, support for nuclear power is increasingly marginalised to the far-right. Indeed support for nuclear power has become a sign of tribal loyalty: you support nuclear power (and coal) or you’re a cultural Marxist, and you oppose renewables and climate change action or you’re a cultural Marxist.
Support for nuclear power in Australia has ebbed in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, catastrophic costs overruns on reactor projects, and the falling costs of renewables.
Dr Ziggy Switkowski used to be nuclear power’s head cheerleader in Australia and he led the Howard government’s review of nuclear power in 2006. But he said last year that “the window for gigawatt-scale nuclear has closed” and that nuclear power is no longer cheaper than renewables with costs rapidly shifting in favour of renewables.
Peter Farley, a fellow of the Australian Institution of Engineers, wrote in RenewEconomy earlier this year:
“As for nuclear the 2,200 MW Plant Vogtle [in the US] is costing US$25 billion plus financing costs, insurance and long term waste storage. … For the full cost of US$30 billion, we could build 7,000 MW of wind, 7,000 MW of tracking solar, 10,000 MW of rooftop solar, 5,000MW of pumped hydro and 5,000 MW of batteries. … That is why nuclear is irrelevant in Australia. It has nothing to do with greenies, it’s just about cost and reliability.”
In January, the Climate Council ‒ comprising Australia’s leading climate scientists and other policy experts ‒ issued a policy statement concluding that nuclear power plants “are not appropriate for Australia – and probably never will be”.
The statement continued: “Nuclear power stations are highly controversial, can’t be built under existing law in any Australian state or territory, are a more expensive source of power than renewable energy, and present significant challenges in terms of the storage and transport of nuclear waste, and use of water”.
NUCLEAR COSTS INCREASE FOUR-FOLD, SEVEN-FOLD, TEN-FOLD
The 2006 Switkowski report estimated the cost of electricity from new reactors at A$40–65 per megawatt-hour (MWh). That’s roughly one-quarter of current estimates. Lazard’s November 2018 report on levelized costs of electricity gives these figures:
- New nuclear: A$161‒271 / MWh(US$112‒189)
- Wind: A$42‒80 / MWh(US$29‒56)
- Utility-scale solar: A$52‒66 / MWh(US$36‒46)
- Natural-gas combined-cycle: A$59‒106 / MWh(US$41‒74)
In 2009, Switkowski said that the construction cost of a 1,000 MW power reactor Australia would be A$4‒6 billion.
Again, that’s about one-quarter of all the real-world experience over the past decade in western Europe (and Scandinavia) and north America, with cost estimates of reactors under construction ranging from A$14‒24 billion.
The V.C. Summer project in South Carolina (two AP1000 reactors) was abandoned after expenditure of at least A$12.9 billion. The project was initially estimated to cost A$14.1 billion; when it was abandoned, the estimate was around A$36 billion. Largely as a result of the V.C.
Summer disaster, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy and its parent company Toshiba almost went bankrupt as well.
The cost estimate for the Vogtle project in US state of Georgia (two AP1000 reactors) has doubled to A$38.8‒43.2+ billion and will increase further, and the project only survives because of multi-billion-dollar government bailouts.
In 2006, Westinghouse said it could build an AP1000 reactor for as little as A$2.0 billion ‒ that’s 10 times lower than the current estimate for Vogtle.
In the UK, three of six proposed reactor projects have been abandoned (Moorside, Wylfa, Oldbury), two remain in limbo (Sizewell and Bradwell) and Hinkley Point C is at the early stages of construction.
The estimated combined cost of the two EPR reactors at Hinkley Point, including finance costs, is A$48.7 billion (£26.7 billion ‒the EU’s 2014 estimate of £24.5 billion plus a £2.2 billion increase announced in July 2017).
A decade ago, the estimated construction cost for one EPR reactor in the UK was almost seven times lower at A$3.7 billion.
The UK National Audit Office estimates that taxpayer subsidies for Hinkley Point ‒ primarily in the form of a guaranteed payment of A$169 / MWh, indexed for inflation, for 35 years ‒ will amount to A$55 billion, while other credible estimates put the figure as high as A$91 billion.
Hitachi abandoned the Wylfa project in Wales after the estimated cost of the twin-reactor project had risen from A$26.4 billion to A$39.7 billion.
Hitachi abandoned the project despite offers from theUK government to take a one third equity stake in the project; to consider providing all of the required debt financing; and to consider providing a guarantee of a minimum payment per unit of electricity (expected to be about A$137 / MWh).
In France, one EPR reactor is under construction at Flamanville. It is seven years behind schedule (and counting) and the estimated cost of A$17.7 billion is more than three times the original estimate of A$5.4 billion.
In Finland, one EPR reactor is under construction. It is 10 years behind schedule (and counting) and the estimated cost of A$13.8 billion is nearly three times the original A$4.9 billion estimate.The A$13.8 billion figure was Areva’s estimate in 2012; true costs have likely increased
NUCLEAR EXITS AUSTRALIA’S ENERGY DEBATE, ENTERS CULTURE WARS
The far-right won’t let facts get in the way of their promotion of nuclear power. NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro claims that nuclear power would probably be the cheapest power source for the average Australian household and is “guaranteed” to lower power bills.
The claim by the Institute of Public Affairs that 10 power reactors could be built for A$60 billion is out by A$100 billion or so. Jim Molan claims nuclear power is cheap and the cost is comparable to coal.
Clive Palmer claims that nuclear power is cheap and that the federal government should fund the construction of a nuclear power plant.
The far-right repeatedly claim that ‘small modular reactors’ (SMRs) will come to the nuclear industry’s rescue. But real-world experience with SMRs under construction suggests they will be hideously expensive.
According to a December 2018 report by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator, the cost of power from SMRs would need to more than halve to be competitive with wind and solar PV even with some storage costs included (two hours of battery storage or six hours of pumped hydro storage).
Tony Abbott’s rationale for supporting nuclear power ‒ and repealing Howard-era legislation banning nuclear power plants ‒ is to “create a contest” with the unions, GetUp, the Greens and the Labor Party. Likewise, he said last year that promoting nuclear power “would generate another fight with Labor and the green left.”
Abbott ‒ and some others on the far-right ‒ would undoubtedly oppose nuclear power if Labor and the ‘green left’ supported it and they would be pointing to the A$14‒24 billion price-tags for new reactors in western Europe and north America.
Abbott seems to have forgotten the experience in John Howard’s last term as Prime Minister. Howard became a nuclear power enthusiast in 2005 and the issue was alive in the 2007 election contest.
Howard’s nuclear promotion did nothing to divide the Labor Party. On the contrary, it divided the Coalition, with at least 22 Coalition candidates publicly distancing themselves from the government’s policy during the election campaign.
The policy of promoting nuclear power was seen to be a liability and it was ditched immediately after the election.
LUNATICS IN CHARGE OF THE ASYLUM
Those of us opposed to nuclear power can take some comfort in its increasing marginalisation to the far-right. But there are far-right-wingers highly placed in the federal government and a number of state governments.
Right-wing National Party MPs are lobbying for a Senate inquiry and for a repeal of the legislation banning nuclear power. According to Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young:
“Talk of overturning the ban on nuclear power in Australia is crackpot stuff. Aside from being a dangerous technology, nuclear power is wildly expensive and would take a decade or more to build. It would be a funny joke if it wasn’t so embarrassing to have the Nationals, who are in government and who sit around the cabinet table, pushing for this. These people are meant to be in charge, and they’re running around like a bunch of lunatic cowboys.”
Senator James McGrath claims that many Nationals support nuclear power, hence the push for a Senate inquiry “to make informed decisions rather than allow the loons of Twitter to shout down this important discussion.”
On the subject of “loons”, as he describes them, McGrath’s pown erformance on ABC’s Q&A program in April was likened to a “one way trip to crazy town“.
It has the sense of a political set-piece: the far-right wins control of the numbers on a Senate inquiry and the government agrees with its pro-nuclear findings and repeals the legislation banning nuclear power.
But would Prime Minister Scott Morrison agree to repeal the ban given that there is no prospect of nuclear power being a viable option for Australia in the foreseeable future? Surely that would be an own goal, providing ammunition to political opponents and opening up divisions within the Coalition.
If Morrison agreed to repeal the ban ‒ and he says the government has no plans to do so ‒ it would presumably only be because he felt constrained to do so by far-right Coalition MPs and by non-government far-right Senators such as Pauline Hanson. (He is also dealing with the far-right push for government funding for a new coal-fired power plant.)
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has the same calculation to make in response to the nuclear power push driven by right-wing Nationals (including Deputy Premier John Barilaro) and by One Nation’s Mark Latham (who introduced the Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Repeal Bill 2019 to the NSW Parliament in May 2019).
ECOMODERNISTS
Of course, support for nuclear power in Australia isn’t exclusively limited to the far-right, although it is heading that way.
A tiny number of self-styled ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ or ‘ecomodernists’ continue to bang the drum. Ben Heard, for example, continues to voice his support for nuclear power ‒ his advocacy lubricated by donations and amplified by the right-wing media and by invitations to any number of nuclear-industry talk-fests.
Heard continues undeterred by the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission’s clear acknowledgement that nuclear power is not economically viable in Australia or by its complete rejection of his ‘next generation’ nuclear fantasies.
But what impact could Heard’s nuclear advocacy possibly have in the current context, with fossil fuel interests fighting to protest their patch and to curb the growth of renewables, and with nuclear power being so exorbitantly expensive that isn’t part of any serious debate about Australia’s energy options?
Surely the only effect of nuclear advocacy in the current context is to muddy the debate about transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables and thus to shore up incumbent fossil fuel interests.
Australian economist John Quiggin discussed these issues last year:
“The problem is that nuclear fans like Ben Heard are, in effect, advocates for coal. Their line of argument runs as follows:
(1) A power source with the characteristics of coal-fired electricity (always on) is essential if we are to decarbonise the electricity supply
(2) Renewables can’t meet this need
(3) Nuclear power can
“Hence, we must find a way to support nuclear. The problem is that, on any realistic analysis, there’s no chance of getting a nuclear plant going in Australia before about 2040.
So, the nuclear fans end up supporting the Abbott crew saying that we will have to rely on coal until then. And to make this case, it is necessary to ignore or denounce the many options for an all-renewable electricity supply, including concentrated solar power, large-scale battery storage and vehicle-to-grid options.
As a result, would-be green advocates of nuclear power end up reinforcing the arguments of the coal lobby. … In practice, support for nuclear power in Australia is support for coal. Tony Abbott understands this. It’s a pity that Ben Heard and others don’t.”
Dr Jim Green is the editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter and national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia
Dutton’s plan to nuke Australia’s renewable energy transition explained in full
Giles Parkinson, Jun 21, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-plan-to-nuke-australias-renewable-energy-transition-explained-in-full/
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has outlined his plan to bring the renewable energy transition in Australia to a halt, keep coal fired power stations open, build more gas and use taxpayer funds to build nuclear power plants in the 2030s and 2040s – if the Coalition wins the next election.
Here is an explanation of the plan as far as we know it.
What are the details?
There are not many, because the nuclear “policy” has been released in a one page press release. The Coalition says it wants to build seven nuclear power plants – all at the site of current or former coal fired power stations – in five states. It favours a mix of small modular reactors and large-scale nuclear. It wants the first reactor built by 2035.
Where exactly will they be built?
Two sites in NSW (Liddell in the Hunter and Mt Piper near Lithgow), two in Queensland (at the Tarong and Callide power plants), one in Victoria (Loy Yang in the Latrobe Valley), one in South Australia (Port Augusta), and one in Western Australia (Collie).
Are the site owners OK with that?
No, they say they haven’t been consulted and they say they have their own multi-billion dollar plans to build clean energy and industrial hubs. AGL CEO Damien Nicks says: “There is no viable schedule for the regulation or development of nuclear energy in Australia, and the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive. ” However, the Coalition says if the site owners do not co-operate they will compulsory acquire the land needed.
Which technology will the Coalition use?
It’s not clear. Dutton wants to build small nuclear reactors at two sites, in South Australia and W.A. But SMRs do not exist yet, none have planning approval, and none even have licences to be built anywhere in the western world. Of the two large scale nuclear technologies cited, one (APR1400) has not been ordered anywhere in the world outside South Korea for 15 years. The other, the AP1000, sent its maker Westinghouse bankrupt in 2017 and was the technology used in the Vogtle reactor in the US whose massive delays and cost overruns might make it the last ever built in that country.
When is the timeline for the Coalition nuclear build?
The Coalition wants the first SMR up and running by 2035, and the first large-scale nuclear plant by 2037, with the rest in the 2040s.
Is that realistic?
No. SMRs – for all intents and purposes – haven’t been invented yet. There is no design in any western country that has even been licensed, let alone been given approvals or started construction. Globally, the industry is hopeful of getting the first up by the end of the decade. Even Canada, with a well established nuclear industry and an available site, says it is unlikely to have the second SMR up and running by 2035.
The timelines for large-scale nuclear are even longer. All four projects built or under construction in the last three decades in the US, France, Finland and the UK have suffered massive delays and cost over-runs. Australia has no regulatory platform, and no existing industry, apart from the small reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. Even pro-nuclear advocates like former chief scientist Alan Finkel say nuclear cannot realistically be delivered in Australia until the 2040s.
What are the costs?
The Coalition hasn’t said anything about costs, which is not surprising. SMRs have not been built and the only one that got close was cancelled by its would-be customers because it would have been hideously expensive. The Coalition’s timeline of 2035 means it wants to be an early adopter. The CSIRO puts the costs at more than $600/MWh, which might be palatable for a technology used only rarely for evening peaks, but such a price for “always on” power would be insane.
Would it lead to lower bills?
All Australian and international studies show that the Coalition’s choice of technologies – nuclear, gas and carbon capture – are by far the most expensive. See CSIRO, AEMO, Lazard, and BloombergNEF. Energy analysts say the growing reliance on gas power while renewables are stopped and coal kept on line would lead to soaring prices and an extra $1,000 on annual bills for the average household. The nuclear rollout will be entirely funded and subsidised by the taxpayer, which means that – as in France, Ontario and elsewhere – the costs of nuclear would be borne by the government and hidden from consumer bills.
What would happen to emissions?
Emissions will rise significantly if the Coalition puts its plan into action. One study suggests it would result in some 2.3 billion tonnes of additional carbon emissions over the Australian Energy Market Operator’s step change scenario.
What about Australia’s obligations to the Paris climate treaty?
The Coalition has made clear it will not seek to meet the current interim target of a 43 per cent cut in emissions. That means it is effectively ignoring the climate treaty, which requires no back-tracking on committed targets.
What about the net zero by 2050 target?
The Coalition says it still intends to meet that – but, by stopping wind and solar and building more gas, that target looks impossible under their plan.
The Coalition says the sites were chosen because they will not need new transmission. Is that true?
No. The site owners have their own plans. In Port Augusta, for instance, the grid capacity has already been mostly taken up by new wind, solar and batteries. “The myth that a nuclear reactor could just plug into the old Pt Augusta coal power station transmission lines is not true,” says South Australia energy minister Tom Koutsanstonis. “The transmission lines are already nearly full from new renewables. In truth, a nuclear reactor at Pt Augusta would need new transmission lines, the exact thing the LNP are complaining about.” And the large-scale nuclear reactors cited by Dutton will be twice the size of any existing unit in Australia, so it will need more grid infrastructure, and also more “back-up” in case those units fail.
The Coalition says the market operator has warned that the reliance on wind and solar will mean the lights will go out. Is that true?
No. The Australian Energy Market Operator says the biggest threat to energy reliability and security is the failure of ageing and increasingly unreliable coal fired generators.
The Coalition says wind and solar cannot power modern economies and businesses. Is that true?
No. The owners of Australia’s biggest smelters and refineries, including Rio Tinto and Ark Energy, are contracting multiple gigawatts of wind and solar to power their assets. South Australia says it has been flooded with inquiries from business with more than 2 GW of energy demand seeking to move to the state to access cheap wind and solar.
The Coalition says wind and solar cannot provide more than 10 per cent of the energy mix without causing problems. Is that true?
No. South Australia already enjoys a 75 per cent share of wind and solar, and the isolated W.A. grid has had 36 per cent wind and solar over the past year. The market operator says instantaneous levels of 100 per cent should be achieved in coming years.
The Coalition says the Labor government wants to build 28,000 km of new transmission lines by 2030. Is that true?
No. The market operator’s system plan envisages just over 5,000 km by 2030, one third of which have already been built, and some of the rest needed by growth in population and industry. The 28,000 km number comes from the “green export superpower” scenario and is for 2050. That assumes a switch from fossil fuel exports to green industries (steel, power, ammonia), and would likely be required whatever the technology.
Isn’t nuclear banned in Australia?
Yes, at federal and state levels. If the Coalition wants to repeal the laws it will need to get it through both houses of parliament, and who knows where the numbers will be after the next election, with the two-party preferred polls even stevens and any number of independents and minor parties also likely to emerge.
Do the states want nuclear?
No. The Labor governments in Queensland, NSW and Victoria have state laws against nuclear and intend to keep them. LNP Opposition leader David Crusafulli, favoured to take power in Queensland’s election in October, is also against nuclear. State governments in Western Australia, South Australia and even the Liberals in Tasmania are also opposed to nuclear, but legal experts say if the Commonwealth pulls rank, it is heading for the courts.
What if local communities object?
Nationals leader David Littleproud has spent the last few years defending the right of communities to oppose wind, solar, battery and transmission projects, and has demanded a pause and a “re-set.” But he says the Coalition will brook no opposition to its nuclear plans. If local communities don’t like it, tough luck. “We need strong leadership in this country, to have the courage of its convictions, to follow through and to make the tough calls in the national interest,” he told the ABC.
What will be the future of large-scale renewables under a Coalition government?
If the Coalition wins power, it won’t be good. Littleproud wants them stopped, and has vowed to rip up contracts written by the Commonwealth under the Capacity Investment Scheme, which could have 12 GW of capacity lined up over the next 12 months. States may plough on, but will face roadblocks and vetoes on projects. Investors say they need certainty.
So what is the real strategy here?
It’s pretty clear that the strategy is less about building nuclear and more about stopping renewables and protecting the fossil fuel industry, something that the Coalition has not been shy about for the last two decades. It will lead to higher costs, more emissions, squandered industry opportunities, and make the grid less reliable.
Will the strategy work?
Quite possibly. To people in the industry, pushing nuclear and walking away from Australia’s low cost wind and solar resources is nuts – from an engineering, economic and environmental point of view. But 95 per cent of people do not know, and are not interested in, the fine details of the complex energy system. They just want cheap power and the lights to stay on.
And to many of them the Coalition’s fear mongering may sound entirely plausible, particularly when the obvious misinformation is not contradicted by mainstream media – with a few notable exceptions such as The Guardian. See Trump, see Aboriginal voice referendum.
The fossil fuel industry is funding a massive campaign on social media to share simple and effective stories that make nuclear sound sensible and wind and solar as madness. They didn’t just think of this yesterday. If the renewable energy industry and Labor are not careful, they will lose this battle for hearts and minds.
Wow, that was exhausting. Do you need a lie down?
Yes.
Peter Dutton launches highly personal attack on Anthony Albanese, calling him ‘a child in a man’s body’ while spruiking his new nuclear direction
- Peter Dutton addressed party faithful in Sydney
- Painted PM Albanese as weak leader
By MICHAEL PICKERING FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and WILLIAM TON and ANDREW BROWN FOR AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS, 22 June 2024
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told Liberal Party faithful Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was ‘a child in a man’s body’ in a highly personal attack on Saturday.
Mr Dutton spoke to a federal council meeting of Liberal Party politicians, administrators and members in Sydney in which he painted Mr Albanese as ‘weak’ and a leader who told people ‘what they want to hear, not what needs to be said’.
‘He’s a man with a mind still captured in his university years; he’s a child in a man’s body,’ Mr Dutton said………. The opposition leader has cast the next federal election as defining Australia’s ‘future and fate’ with voters to decide the nation’s path forward on energy.
Australians will decide their energy future at the next election, says the opposition leader while slamming the government’s ‘reckless’ renewables policy and spruiking his nuclear pledge.
‘The next election will not only define the next political term, it will define the future and fate of this nation,’ he said.
Voters will have to choose the path they want to take including the nation’s energy future amid soaring power costs, Mr Dutton said.
‘A choice between Labor’s reckless renewables-only policy that will see the energy bills of Australians soar even more,’ he said.
‘Or the coalition’s plan for cheaper, cleaner and consistent energy, which includes our visionary plan to become a nuclear-powered nation and to do the right thing by the environment.’
It follows the coalition on Wednesday unveiling plans for seven nuclear reactors across five states on the sites of coal-fired power stations, should it win government.
The plan prompted safety concerns in regional areas where the reactors are due to be built, as well as criticism over the coalition not releasing any costings.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was panned for adhering to ‘unachievable’ renewable emissions targets, which the opposition said are blowing the budgets of Australians.
‘He’s more interested in appeasing the international climate lobby than sticking up for the interests of everyday Australians,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘I will be someone who doesn’t shirk the hard and necessary decisions which must be made in our national interest in these tough and precarious times.’
Opposition frontbencher Paul Fletcher dismissed fears the nuclear policy could make metropolitan electorates harder to win at the next election, saying it demonstrated the party’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050.
The coalition faced significant challenges at the 2022 federal election in blue-ribbon, inner-city seats from teal independents, who pledged greater action on climate change.
While the reactors would be built in regional locations, Mr Fletcher said those in inner city areas would also embrace the idea of nuclear.
Under the plan, it would take until 2035 to 2037 at the earliest for the first facility to be built.
Assistant Climate Change and Energy Minister Jenny McAllister hit out at the nuclear policy which she said was expensive and risky.
‘Today Peter Dutton could’ve answered the many questions Australians have about his risky nuclear plan but all they got was more of the same nasty negativity and politics,’ she said.
‘Peter Dutton demands a mature debate but instead launches personal attacks. Peter Dutton demands lower power prices but opposes energy price relief and is unable or unwilling to say how much his nuclear plans will cost Australian taxpayers.
‘Australians deserve better.’
How a British nuclear testing program ‘forced poison’ onto Maralinga Traditional Owners
Indigenous Elders say they are once again being threatened by nuclear technology on their lands
SBS Sydney Lang, 20 June 24
Indigenous Elders are warning that their communities’ connections to sacred sites may be severed by nuclear power plants proposed by the Opposition.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton revealed earlier this week seven sites where the Coalition would seek to build nuclear power plants if elected.
One of the proposed sites is on Indigenous elder Aunty Janine Smith’s Country in Tarong, Queensland.
According to Smith, the proposal is a “death sentence to the land”.
Also responding to Dutton’s proposal, the Queensland Conservation Council’s Paul Spearim said: “White Australia has a shortsighted approach to Country”.
“You have forced poison onto the lands of Traditional Owners, and now Peter Dutton is proposing to create poisons that would last [hundreds of thousands] of years,” Spearim said.
First Nations and nuclear: A troubled history
Indigenous Australians’ fears about nuclear technology threatening their land and livelihoods are not occurring in a vacuum.
During the 1950s and 1960s,
the British government used the South Australian outback as a site for atomic bomb testing.
Keen to develop nuclear weapons of its own during the Cold War, the British government decided the remoteness of Maralinga and Emu Field made them ideal sites for nuclear weapon testing.
With agreement from the Australian government, the people living on Maralinga Tjarutja lands were relocated and told they could not return to their land. Many were rounded up and relocated to the Lutheran mission in Yalata, around 200km away.
The nuclear tests saw the wide-scale dispersion of radioactive material into the local environment.
Indigenous people living in and around the area, as well as British and Australian soldiers, were all exposed to radiation.
In the wake of the tests, there were many reports of cancer, blood diseases, eye problems, skin rashes, blindness, and vomiting — all of which are symptoms of radioactive poisoning.
It was not until 2009 that the land used for weapons testing was handed back to Traditional Owners…………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/maralinga-how-australias-nuclear-testing-program-forced-poison-onto-the-lands-of-traditional-owners/zcuxce8o6
Israeli ‘extremist’ tells Australian audience Gaza should have been reduced to ashes
The Age, By Chip Le Grand, June 21, 2024
A former Israeli parliamentarian who once held a position in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government told an online gathering of Australian Jews this week that Israel should have abandoned adherence to international law and reduced Gaza to ashes.
In a series of incendiary claims, Moshe Feiglin, the leader of Israel’s far-right Zehut party, said there was no such thing as Palestinians, Palestinian statehood was the biggest lie of the 20th century and that Gaza should be resettled by Jewish Israelis and Arab families encouraged to leave.
“What Israel should have done to Gaza, on the 8th of October, was exactly what the British people did in Hamburg and Dresden, and exactly what the American people did in every Japanese city they could reach,” he told a Zoom meeting hosted by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA).
“They burnt them to ashes. No ridiculous humanitarian aid. They burnt those cities.
“If we had done that, we would have won the war in a few days and many of the hostages would be free today.”
The association’s invitation for Feiglin to speak, at a time when the war has bitterly divided Australian communities and unleashed antisemitic attacks on Jewish people, businesses and politicians, was condemned by Palestinian and Jewish community organisations……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.theage.com.au/national/israeli-extremist-says-gaza-should-have-been-reduced-to-ashes-20240620-p5jnac.html
Does the Coalition’s case for nuclear power stack up? We factcheck seven key claims
Will the Coalition’s plan be ‘cleaner’, as it claims?
No. Using more gas, less renewable energy and extending the life of coal-fired power plants will increase Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The Coalition admits this. It wants to abandon the country’s 2030 emissions target and allow significantly more heat-trapping pollution while arguing it is still committed to net zero by 2050.
Will the Coalition’s plan be ‘cleaner’, as it claims?
Cheaper electricity, less emissions and ready by 2035 are some of the Coalition’s core promises on nuclear energy, but are they backed by evidence?
Adam Morton Climate and environment editorThu 20 Jun 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/20/does-the-coalitions-case-for-nuclear-power-stack-up-we-factcheck-seven-key-claims
The Coalition has made a range of claims about what nuclear energy could do for Australia, and why it is better than building solar and wind.
What is the reality? We factcheck the key claims.
Would nuclear power provide cheaper electricity?
No evidence – such as economic modelling – has been produced to back up opposition leader Peter Dutton’s main argument about nuclear energy: that it would make Australians’ electricity bills cheaper than under a renewable energy-run grid and bring down other costs. As things stand, it is a baseless claim.
The CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) have assessed the cost of different electricity sources and found that solar and wind backed by storage energy, new transmission lines and other “firming” – what the country is building now, in other words – were the cheapest option.
They found nuclear generation would be significantly more expensive – the most expensive technology available – for consumers. They suggested Australia’s first large-scale nuclear power plant (1GW capacity) could cost about $17bn, not counting finance costs. If a nuclear industry was established, that might eventually drop to $8.6bn.
Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a developing technology that the Coalition has suggested could be used in South Australia and Western Australia, are likely to be far more expensive again. They do not exist anywhere on a commercial basis. The leading proposal for an SMR in the US was last year cancelled due to rising cost.
Confronted with this, the Coalition argues the nuclear experience in Ontario, Canada, demonstrates that nuclear energy is cheaper than Australian renewable energy.
This is not a relevant comparison. Like France, Ontario runs on nuclear plants built decades ago. Construction costs in the 1980s tell us nothing about the costs in the 2030s and 2040s.
Even then, the claim electricity is cheaper in Ontario is misleading. Wholesale electricity prices – the only part of the bill that is affected by the cost of generation – in Ontario are actually higher than the cost of new firmed renewable energy in Victoria and Queensland.
A more relevant comparison may be the ongoing construction of the large Hinkley C generator in the UK. It was initially expected to open in 2017 and cost about A$34bn. That has now been pushed out to 2031, and up to A$89bn.
Will using more gas until nuclear comes online cut costs?
There is no evidence it will.
Gas is the most expensive form of electricity generation currently used in the National Electricity Market, connecting the five eastern states and the ACT.
The price of gas is set on the international market – what fossil fuel companies can get by selling the gas in Asia. Nearly all Australian gas is exported. Opening a couple of new gas fields is not likely to materially change this.
Currently, gas is used in “peaking” plants that are turned on only when needed, at times of high demand. This is expected to continue for at least the next couple of decades. Gas-fired power provided less than 5% of total generation last year.
The Coalition has not explained how it would get more gas into the electricity grid. Would taxpayers pay to build several new gas power plants? It has also not explained how the resulting power could be as cheap as renewable energy.
Will the Coalition’s plan be ‘cleaner’, as it claims?
No. Using more gas, less renewable energy and extending the life of coal-fired power plants will increase Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The Coalition admits this. It wants to abandon the country’s 2030 emissions target and allow significantly more heat-trapping pollution while arguing it is still committed to net zero by 2050.
Could Australia have nuclear energy by 2035?
Again, no evidence has been released to explain how this would be possible. The experience in developed democracies internationally is that it would take much longer.
The Coalition says if it decided to build SMRs there could be “two establishment projects” in place by 2035. If it opts for large-scale plants it says first power would be in 2037.
CSIRO found an initial nuclear power plant of any size would not be possible until after 2040. Other analysts, including the pro-nuclear Blueprint Institute, agree.
That’s just the technology challenge. The Coalition would also have to get legislation through both houses of federal parliament to overturn a nuclear energy ban. Labor and most of the crossbench oppose lifting the ban, and the Coalition is 20 seats short of a majority in the lower house and hasn’t had a majority in the Senate since 2007.
It would also need to persuade three states that ban nuclear energy – and remain strongly committed to their current position – to change their laws.
Have renewables caused a big increase in power bills?
No. It has a much smaller effect than factors related to fossil fuels.
Tony Wood, the energy and climate change program director for the Grattan Institute, says there was a 20% jump in wholesale electricity costs last year for four reasons: the war in Ukraine pushing up the price of gas; gas shortages; outages at ageing coal power plants reducing competition; and extreme weather causing flooding at coalmines. Prices have since started to come back down.
The renewable energy in the system has a smaller effect on price as the cost of incentive schemes is passed on, but it also helps reduce costs by increasing capacity and competition in the power grid
The coal-fired power plants in the grid are ageing, increasingly have units offline and need to be replaced. Evidence from government agencies and most independent experts is that renewable energy plus firming is the best path to an affordable, reliable, clean grid.
Is it true that “Labor can’t keep the lights on today”?
No. The lights are still on.
Coalition MPs making this claim were referring to the findings of Aemo’s “electricity statement of opportunities” report, which was portrayed as warning blackouts were imminent.
This misrepresents what the statement does. It is a message to the industry about how much more generation will be needed over time. This year’s statement found there could be reliability gaps in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria unless there was faster deployment of renewable energy and batteries.
This is consistent with other warnings that investment has slowed and needs to accelerate. But Aemo did not say blackouts were inevitable, or that renewable energy would cause them.
Is it true that you can’t run an industrial economy on renewables?
No – again, based on evidence from experts and industry.
The energy and economic transformation is challenging whatever technology is used. But the electrons are the same, regardless of the source.
Industry leaders have repeatedly welcomed renewable energy investment. Rio Tinto this year signed what it called Australia’s largest renewable energy power purchase agreement to run its operations in Gladstone.
BlueScope Steel applauded the creation of an offshore windfarm zone in the Illawarra, saying it had the “potential to supply significant quantities of renewable energy to help underpin BlueScope’s decarbonisation of iron and steelmaking in Australia”.
Aemo has repeatedly found an optimal future power grid, including one that would power new green industries, would run on more than 90% renewable energy.
Other countries, including those with some nuclear power, have similar goals. Both the US and Germany are targeting 80% renewable energy by 2030.
Nuclear engineer dismisses Peter Dutton’s claim that small modular reactors could be commercially viable soon
Hugh Durrant-Whyte says 2045 is a realistic timeframe, adding it was likely to be ‘more expensive than anything else you could possibly think of’
Peter Hannam, Fri 21 Jun 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/21/peter-dutton-coalition-nuclear-policy-engineer-small-modular-reactors-no-commercially-viable
Australia would need “many decades” to develop the regulations and skills to operate a nuclear power plant, and the experience gained at the existing Lucas Heights facility won’t help much, according to New South Wales’ chief scientist and engineer.
Hugh Durrant-Whyte said he stood by comments made to a 2019 NSW upper house inquiry into uranium mining and nuclear facilities that running a plant and its fuel supply chain would require skills “built up over many decades”.
Stressing he spoke in the capacity of a trained nuclear engineer rather than as the state’s chief scientist, Durrant-Whyte said the industry demanded regulations and monitoring for all stages of fuel handling, power generation and waste management.
He told Guardian Australia that 2040 or even 2045 was the “realistic” timeframe.
“We would need people who were trained [on] how to measure radioactivity, how to measure containment vessel strengths, how to [manage] everything we do.”
The federal opposition on Wednesday revealed plans to build seven nuclear power stations in five states at existing coal plant sites, promising the first could be operating by the mid-2030s.
The government would own the plants and compulsorily acquire the sites if the owners – private companies as well as the Queensland and Western Australian governments – declined to sell them.
The shadow energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has cited France and Canada as examples Australia could follow. He also offered the example of Lucas Heights, located in Sydney’s south, where a small reactor has been used for medical research for decades.
Durrant-Whyte said Canada’s nuclear industry employed about 30,000 people while France’s employed 125,000 – “not a trivial number of people”.
The UK, which operated nuclear plants for many years, has just one nuclear engineering program at an undergraduate level, limiting the supply of talent that could be imported from there.
He was also dismissive of the prospect that small modular reactors – which the opposition proposes to start its nuclear program with – were likely to be commercially viable soon.
“When I was [at Rolls-Royce] in 1979 my colleagues in the couple of desks next to me were designing SMRs,” he said. “It’s always the issue with anything big and complex. Whether it’s an aeroplane or a nuclear reactor, the first one is always the hardest.”
The capabilities learned at the Lucas Heights Ansto (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation) facility would make “little contribution” to supporting a nuclear power industry in the country, he wrote in his 2019 report.
“It must be recognised that this is a ‘zero-power’ pool reactor where the complexities of high pressure, high power, high radiation environments do not exist.”
Similarly, the capabilities needed to manage nuclear-powered submarines as part of the Aukus program also offered few transferrable skills. The pressurised water reactors on the submarines would be, in effect, SMRs of a 100-200 megawatt capacity size.
“My suspicion is we will buy the reactors in a piece of submarine and assemble that piece into submarines here,” Durrant-Whyte said. “But even then, let’s be clear, we’re not going to be doing that until the mid-2040s.”
As for safety, he said nuclear reactors were designed to be “very, very safe”. But there “have been a lot of accidents because of fuel handling and things like that” as a result of human error.
“It’s not like we haven’t had this [nuclear] conversation many times over the last 20 years in Australia,” Durrant-Whyte said. “It would be expensive, and likely more expensive than anything else you could possibly think of.”
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 