A senior Queensland politician has shot down a push by a handful of federal politicians to reconsider nuclear power.
The state’s energy and farming sectors would be gutted if Queensland played host to a nuclear power plant, State Development Minister Cameron Dick told a budget estimates hearing on Wednesday.
Mr Dick was responding to several coalition MPs who want to explore the viability of nuclear power, which is banned under federal law.
“A nuclear power plant would be a disaster for industry, for jobs and for growth in our state,” Mr Dick said.
“We’ve got new energy industries, industries that will create jobs for our children, that will be completely gutted by this proposal.” Mr Dick said nuclear power would run renewable energy sources out of town at a time of significant investment, strangle efforts to build a hydrogen industry and require massive government subsidies to get off the ground.
The nuclear push is being led by Hinkler MP Keith Pitt with the backing of Senator James McGrath, while other MPs within the ranks of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government have failed to dismiss it when probed.
Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor noted the ban when asked to rule it out in federal parliament on Tuesday.
“We’re not focused on the fuel source, we are focused on the outcome,” he said.
Mr Taylor said there were no plans to overturn the ban.
notes that recent reports that the proposed nuclear waste dump site in South Australia will be expanded, covering at least 160 hectares, an increase of 60%, are deeply troubling given the lack of consultation; and
calls on the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Senator Canavan, to provide a full explanation of the current plans for the nuclear waste dump site, and to clarify exactly how large it will be and what level of waste it will hold.
Is nuclear power an energy solution that could come to the South Coast? Bega District News , Albert McKnight ,23 July19,
Nuclear power has again become part of the national conversation and South East NSW is still being touted as a potential location to install a plant.
Earlier this year Nuclear for Climate Australia said NSW could host 10 nuclear power plants and reiterated how the South Coast was a place of interest as a construction site.
Under its proposal it states the South Coast has potential if included with other power plants that could be built at East Gippsland, the Snowy Mountains or Jervis Bay.
While it states the coast has many sites with “good access to once through sea water cooling” – running a large amount of water through a power plant’s condensers then discharging it into a waterway with only a small amount of evaporation – an extensive grid upgrade would be required for a 2.2GW plant. ……
While federal and state laws do not allow the development of a nuclear power industry, several MPs want this changed according the Sydney Morning Herald, and at a recent conference the NSW Nationals passed a motion stating the party’s support for nuclear energy in Australia.
Deputy Premier and Member for Monaro John Barilaro has been vocal about the need for a conversation around the technology for years, last month saying it was “guaranteed baseload energy with zero emissions, no fossil fuels and probably the cheapest cost to the average Australian household”.
He said last year he attended a global seminar in the US on the next generation of nuclear energy systems called small modular reactors (SMRs), which are are smaller in size than conventional reactors and can be placed in remote areas without the need to feed directly to the grid.
“Given their size and efficiency, their waste is minimal (new advancements in technology continues to address the waste issue) and compared to reactors of bygone eras, they are becoming very affordable,” he said.
But Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks said there were significant safety risks associated with nuclear power and the cost to construct, maintain and dispose of nuclear waste far outweighed any perceived benefits.
“If Barilaro was being honest, he would tell people that nuclear is not a viable option without massive taxpayer subsidies which would see Australians’ good money thrown after bad,” he said.
By Michelle Brown A proposal to end a decades-long stoush over radioactive contamination of waterfront properties on Sydney’s north shore has been rejected by residents and local council.
Key points:
The area on Sydney’s north shore was the former site of the Radium Hill refinery, which closed in 1915
Residents have fought for decades to have the Government remove the contaminated soil
A plan to keep the waste in “cells” on site has been rejected and labelled a “temporary” fix
Several properties on Nelson Parade at Hunters Hill have been built on land contaminated by the former Radium Hill uranium processing plant in the 1900s.
Residents have spent decades urging the government to remove the affected soil, which the NSW Environment Protection Authority found was contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, coal tar pitch, arsenic and lead.
The Council has now voted against a recommendation by its own consultants to “encapsulate” the low-level radioactive material in cement “cells” and store it onsite.
Philippa Clark from the Nelson Parade Action Group said residents felt the plan would make their lives worse.
“The cells will make the stigma permanent, our anxiety increased, trapped in unsaleable homes.
“The proposal is silent on all of those impacts.
She said most Hunters Hill residents knew nothing of the latest plan by Property NSW as few residents were formally notified and it was on exhibition over the school holidays.
The existence of the radioactive material, in the soil for over a century, was discovered 53 years ago and remains unmanaged.
The Council and residents want the soil removed altogether but an earlier proposal to send it to a waste facility at Kemp’s Creek in Sydney’s West was abandoned after a backlash from the local community.
There is no other waste facility in the state licenced to handle the material and a national radioactive waste management facility is yet to be established by the Federal Government.
Ms Clarke told Monday night’s council meeting that if the radioactive material was stored onsite at Hunters Hill, there was no guarantee it would be moved later when suitable off-site storage becomes available.
Former Hunters Hill mayor Richard Quinn also urged the Council to reject the proposal.
“Whilst we might wish to see progress at last and endorse this [proposal], the onsite encapsulation component of this report I believe cannot be accepted,” he said.
“It’s contrary to the best practice in sustainable remediation, and it’s not unreasonable for this community to expect anything less than best practice.”
Resident John Akin thought the Council had no choice but to accept the proposal, saying those pushing for outright rejection “overlook the health risk from the waste being left in its current uncontrolled state”.
But Mayor Mark Bennett said Property NSW told the Council during a meeting that the majority of Hunters Hill ratepayers were against the encapsulation option.
“It will be interesting to see what the Government decides to do as a result of this … it’s a decision of the Government at the end of the day.
“My opinion is we should not vote for encapsulation because I think it could be a permanent solution without any guarantees that it’s an interim solution — I can’t support it.”
Today the Senate voted for an inquiry into press freedom and whistle-blower protection showing that there are some in our Parliament who care about a frank and fearless media.
This week’s arrest of four French journalists highlights how badly we need to rethink press freedom in Australia.
This inquiry will get to the bottom of what has gone on and ensure a future for a free press in Australia.”
Taylor recieves repeated warnings to provide answers as the minister for reducing emissions attempts to avoid conceding he is failing his own job title. The post Taylor grilled by Labor on emissions, says no to Barnaby’s “free” nuclear fantasy appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Taylor downplayed any chance that the current prohibition on nuclear power developments would be relaxed
Michael MazengarbFederal minster for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor was the focus of questioning during parliamentary Question Time on Tuesday, as the Labor opposition sought to underscore the minister’s poor track record of putting in place effective policies to actually reduce emissions.
Taylor faced a barrage of questions from the Labor opposition, pushing Taylor to concede that Australia’s greenhouse gas
Taylor faced a barrage of questions from the Labor opposition, pushing Taylor to concede that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have been rising, and seeking responses to suggestions coming from his own coalition ranks that Australia should pursue plans for nuclear power.
As has come to be expected, Taylor relied on his usual spin and obfuscation on Australia’s emissions figures, citing falls in Australian per capita emissions, and highlighting the contribution that the rapid increases in Australia’s natural gas production have had on emissions figures. ……
Taylor was repeatedly warned by the speaker, Tony Smith, to provide answers relevant to the questions posed by Labor MPs, as the minister attempted to answer direct questions about Australia’s rising emissions by relying on his usual repertoire of spin and misinformation.
Angus Taylor told parliament on Tuesday the government approached power generation with an open mind and a desire for lower electricity bills.
Several coalition MPs have over recent weeks raised the possibility of nuclear power being introduced to Australia.
Asked in parliament to rule it out, Mr Taylor noted there was a moratorium on nuclear power generation in Australia.
“We’re not focused on the fuel source, we are focused on the outcome,” he said. “Now we always approach these things with an open mind, but we do not have … a plan to change the moratorium.”
But he rejected former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce’s suggestion to make it free or cheap for people living close to a reactor, as a means to build public support for nuclear power.
23 July 2019byPeter Boyer Australia’s big dry is now its worst drought on record. Which is pretty much the way it is everywhere. Following a lead from our state and federal governments, today I’m going to avoid the delicate matter of future climate. Instead I’ll focus on what’s happening around us now.
Weather records tell us that June in Australia was 0.26C warmer than average and 31 per cent drier. The first half of 2019 produced the continent’s second warmest and seventh driest conditions in 120 years of records.
In those six months the Murray-Darling Basin had about half its normal rainfall. Basin residents might have coped with this in normal times, but these are not normal times. Dry, warm, high-evaporation weather since January 2017 has left them with conditions they’ve not seen before.
Now it’s official. Rainfall records reveal that today’s Murray-Darling experience is Australia’s worst drought on record – more severe than the Federation, the World War II, the Millennium or any other drought in our recorded history.
Bureau of Meteorology climatologist David Jones told a BOM seminar last week that proxy evidence indicates Australia hasn’t been as dry as this for two or three million years, long before humans existed. This puts the current state of our weather in a completely new place.
Numerous NSW and southern Queensland towns now have emergency water restrictions in place. Many towns in upper Darling catchments calculate their water storage as a few months at most. In Tenterfield they’re pumping already-depleted groundwater to try to keep storage levels stable.
Water is now being carted to the small town of Guyra, 150 km away, but for Tenterfield that’s not an option – at least not a sustainable one. Its businesses and 4000 residents would need 1400 B-double truckloads a month, or nearly 50 each day, to sustain even minimal water use.
The list of towns threatened with losing their water supply is growing, including Warwick and Stanthorpe in Queensland. The larger centres of Tamworth, Armidale, Orange and Dubbo are lining up to join them if good rain doesn’t come this year. The Bureau is not hopeful of that happening.
Running out of water is a nightmare for any community. Cape Town almost ran out a year ago and is still in a tenuous position. In much-larger Chennai on India’s southeast coast, where it hasn’t rained for six months, the situation is dire. Monsoon rain is not expected for another month or two.
This city of 10 million people consumes over 500 million litres a day. The provincial government is now using trains to transport water every day from a half-full storage over 300 km away, but if the city were to run out completely that supply would have to increase 50-fold. That won’t happen.
Early monsoonal downpours in India’s Assam along with Nepal and Bangladesh have brought the opposite problem: too much water, displacing millions of people and killing over 100. Not far away in the high Himalayas, the rate of glacier melt has been found to have doubled in less than 20 years to more than eight billion tonnes a year. A scientific assessment published in June is a very bad omen for downstream communities depending on glacial meltwater.
Meanwhile America’s Pacific north-west is preparing for another nasty fire season. A scientific wildfire survey has just informed Californians, after their worst season ever last year, that the state’s summer fires have increased five-fold since the 1970s, with rising temperature the key cause.
Wildfire anxiety has spread northward, to the dark, dank forests of British Columbia. The Canadian province’s wildfire service has warned that abnormally high fire conditions will be experienced in coastal regions including Vancouver Island at least till the end of summer.
This comes after several summers of intense wildfires up and down the Canadian west coast, mostly started by lightning strikes. They have been especially devastating in new-growth forests, where less genetic diversity and lower tree density allows higher moisture loss.
Things are hotting up in the far north. Alert, a Canadian military base on Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic, normally has a daytime maximum around 7C in July, but it’s currently experiencing an unprecedented heatwave that has seen temperatures climb above 20C.
Canada’s chief climatologist, David Phillips, says this heatwave is just the latest indicator of what will be a long, hot Arctic summer. The main trigger, say scientists, was a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice over the past decade that allowed the ocean to absorb much more heat from the sun.
Smoke has become a regular contributor to Arctic weather, and this year is no exception. These are not forest fires so much as peat fires. The dried-out tundra itself is now burning in Alaska and across wide Siberian expanses, sending choking black smoke into the air.
Among the many things I’ve left out are Darwin’s groundwater crisis, depleted Great Barrier Reef coral, Europe’s unprecedented June heat, vanishing Antarctic sea ice, chronic drought in Africa and the Americas and floods in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Did I mention climate change?
VICTIM of a chronic decline in government support, Hobart’s venerable environment and sustainability body, Sustainable Living Tasmania, has been forced to close its doors after nearly 50 years of quiet achievement. It will continue as a volunteer-run organisation with no office
But the pro-nuclear push by Coalition backbenchers may be losing momentum after one colleague dismissed it as a “distraction” and a senior minister said the government had “no desire to go down that path”.
Federal and state laws prohibit the development of a domestic nuclear power industry. However, federal MPs Keith Pitt and James McGrath are pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into the technology’s feasibility in Australia and the NSW Nationals last month passed a motion supporting nuclear energy.
A leading lobby group for the technology, the Australian Nuclear Association, has identified dozens of potential sites for nuclear reactors – those with stable geology and proximity to the existing grid, transport and water. The locations include those in Mr Joyce’s New England electorate in northern NSW and Liberal Ken O’Dowd’s Queensland seat of Flynn. Both MPs have backed a nuclear inquiry.
Mr Joyce said nuclear technology had come a long way in the past few decades and rejected claims that even if Australia’s nuclear ban was overturned, communities would refuse to host reactors over safety and environmental concerns.
“You just have to come up with the right policy settings and they will accept it … People will think with their wallets,” he said.
Mr Joyce floated a potential policy whereby “if you can see the reactor [from your house], your power is for free. If you are within 50 kilometres of a reactor, you get power for half price.” Discounts would scale down to 25 per cent for those living 75 kilometres from a nuclear facility.
Such a policy would trigger a rush of proposals for “hills in the middle of towns that people want a reactor on”, Mr Joyce said.
In NSW, the association also identified sites in Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s seat of Hume and Environment Minister Sussan Ley’s seat of Farrer. Proposed Victorian sites include those in the seats of Wannon and Gippsland, held by ministers Dan Tehan and Darren Chester.
Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien, whose Queensland electorate is also on the list, said he was “not enthusiastic” about the prospect of a parliamentary probe into nuclear power.
“We need to focus on bringing down power prices and bringing more supply into the market … which can be done a lot quicker than legalising nuclear energy and then building the infrastructure needed,” he said.
“It seems to be a distraction from the very real issues at hand.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said during the election campaign that his party had “no plans” to change its nuclear power stance and Mr Taylor told this publication on Sunday “the business case has got to stack up”.
A government minister told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that “there’s no desire to go down this path” in the broader Coalition.
“Financially it doesn’t stack up and … there’s also the not-in-my-backyard issue, which is a very difficult one,” the minister said.
Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman Mark Butler said Mr Morrison had allowed Mr Taylor and backbenchers to “pursue their nuclear power fantasy” as power prices rose.
Consultancy SMR Nuclear Technology promotes the benefits of small, modular nuclear reactors. Technical director Tony Irwin said about ten community groups and others had expressed interest to his firm in hosting such a reactor, should the ban in Australia be lifted.
“People are now concerned about climate change and they can see that renewables aren’t the total answer and we need everything that we’ve got,” he said.
Greens seek ‘climate emergency’ this year, SBS News 20 July 19
The Australian Greens are focusing on climate change and the need to transition to renewable energy at its annual conference in Adelaide. The Australian Greens are demanding the country declare a “climate emergency” while calling for a royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
Aside from those core messages at the party’s annual conference, Greens leader Richard Di Natale also had a crack at the Labor Party for capitulating on the Morrison government’s personal income tax cuts.
And he urged Australia to forge an independent, non-aligned foreign policy rather being tied to a “dangerous and unhinged” US President in Donald Trump.
It’s now clearer than ever that the Greens are the real opposition,” Senator Di Natale declared at the Greens national conference in Adelaide on Saturday in response to the actions of Labor since the May election.
“We don’t believe one thing before an election and another thing after it.”
Addressing reporters after his speech, Senator Di Natale said a key focus for the conference will be the transition from coal and fossil fuels to renewable energy.
“There needs to be a transition that brings tens of thousands of new jobs and that looks after people so that we are better off as a result of making this transition,” he said.
“Unless you accept that there is a serous problem you’re not going to come up with the solutions that are necessary to deal with it.”
Greens federal spokesman on climate change, Adam Bandt said he hopes to bring a motion to have the parliament declare a climate emergency before the end of the year.
He said the UK, France and Canada have already made such declarations, as has the ACT government. Labor and the crossbench also took climate change policies to the election.
Barnaby Joyce’s thwarted ambitions glow like a nuclear meltdown, “………. Mr Joyce’s commentary this week on nuclear energy, raising Newstart, and an Indigenous voice to Parliament is also a transparent re-branding exercise – the type favoured by disgraced politicians when they’re trying to rebuild their leadership credentials.
You might recall that Mr Joyce was doing a lot of leadership posturing in the lead-up to the May federal election. Some political observers even reported that the former Deputy PM’s return to the Nationals leadership was such an inevitability that it could possibly happen even before the election…….
the backbencher missed out on a seat in Scott Morrison’s new ministry and also lost his special drought envoy role, although Mr Joyce did retain a gig as chair of a parliamentary committee.
Using what was left available to him, namely the chairman’s role, Mr Joyce kicked off a campaign to become relevant again by claiming his committee should hold an inquiry into establishing nuclear power in Australia.
Yet again demonstrating his expertise in energy policy, the former accountant claimed in a radio interview last weekend that technological advances had essentially made nuclear energy “safe” – and that impoverished Australians living in regional Australia would vie to live near a nuclear power plant if it meant they would receive lower-cost or free electricity in return. To be fair, this is how the French established their nuclear power stations with minimal community dissent.
These reassuring words may well be what mining magnate Gina Rinehart and other investors with uranium interests told Mr Joyce, but the vested interests omitted to explain how expensive it is to build a safe nuclear power station, and how long it takes.
Meanwhile, solar and wind farms with battery storage can be built in remote locations too, but at less cost and in less time, with no need to worry about long-term radioactive waste. Yet pesky details are not what the Barnaby 2.0 campaign is all about……… https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/07/19/barnaby-joyce-leadership-ideas/
Adani has set a dangerous precedent in requesting scientists’ names, The Conversation Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University
July 17, 2019 A freedom of information request has revealed Adani sought the names of CSIRO and Geoscience Australia scientists involved in reviewing groundwater management plans related to its proposed Carmichael mine.
Adani argued it required a list of people involved in the review so as to have “peace of mind” that it was being treated fairly and impartially on a scientific rather than a political basis.
Ten days before Adani’s request, Geoscience Australia’s acting director of groundwater advice and data reportedly raised concerns that Adani had “actively searched/viewed” his LinkedIn profile and that of a colleague.
Significantly, Adani’s request to the government was made before CSIRO and Geoscience Australia had reported their review findings back to the Queensland government.
While the federal Department of the Environment and Energy reportedly declined to hand over the names, the fact the letter was sent in the first place is concerning. It fundamentally interferes with the capacity of individual scientists to provide clear and informed evaluation………..
The letter sent by Adani requesting the names of scientists was allegedly grounded in concerns about the possibility of anti-Adani activism by expert reviewers. Despite this, Adani made it clear that it was not explicitly alleging bias. Its objective, the letter said, was a desire to be “treated fairly and in a manner consistent with other industry participants”.
The real purpose of the letter
If Adani was seriously concerned about a breach of procedural fairness in the review of their groundwater management plan, it would have sought a judicial review. It did not – because there was no breach.
The scientists working at CSIRO and Geoscience Australia are all experts in their disciplines. They were engaged in the important process of determining whether Adani’s plan for managing groundwater around their mine would meet the environmental conditions of their mining licence. In other words, the scientists were doing their job…….
As Adani has not brought an action for judicial review, the substantive purpose of the letter appears to be, as suggested by CSIRO representatives, to pressure scientists and potentially seek to discredit their work. The potentially chilling effect is clear.
Concern about climate change is not bias
The profound concerns raised by climate change and fossil fuel emissions are shared by many scientists around the world. The reports prepared for the International Panel on Climate Change make it clear that coal fired electricity must drop to nearly zero by 2050 to keep warming within 1.5℃.
This shared concern does not make scientists political activists. Nor does it prevent scientists from acting fairly and impartially when reviewing a groundwater management plan.
An acceptance of climate science and even a belief that coal-fired energy should be decommissioned does not constitute bias. A reasonable bystander would expect most environmental scientists to be concerned about climate change…….
John Quiggin There is no chance of deploying it in the required timeframe. Fortunately, there are alternatives. The debate about nuclear power in Australia flickered to life with the suggestion by the New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, that small modular reactors could be constructed in regional centres. Prominent backbencher Barnaby Joyce followed up with a call for a parliamentary inquiry.
Joyce and Barilaro revived this idea after the release of a report by Industry Super Australia, which took as the starting point the need to replace most of Australia’s coal-fired power stations by 2040. The report concluded: “It is difficult to see how the the problem can be resolved without some nuclear in the mix.”
It would perhaps be churlish to observe that the small reactors advocated by Barilaro exist only as designs and may never be built. There is a much bigger obstacle which is essentially impossible to overcome.
To make the central point as bluntly as possible: even with a crash program there is no chance of deploying nuclear power in Australia in the required timeframe. I looked at this question in a submission to the South Australian royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle and concluded that “there is no serious prospect of Australia producing nuclear energy before 2040”.
That was in 2015, and the news for nuclear power since then has all been bad. All of the nuclear power plant construction projects under way in the developed world have experienced substantial delays (the VC Summer plant in the US has been cancelled with a loss of billions of dollars).
Most of these projects (Flamanville in France, Olkiluoto in Finland and Vogtle in Georgia) received their initial approval around 2005, and none is now likely to start before 2020. So, to be sure of getting nuclear power going by 2040, we’d need to have projects in their initial stages before 2025, in the term of the next parliament.
To see how absurd this is, consider some of the steps that will be needed before a project could begin.
First, both major parties need to be convinced of the case for nuclear power. That’s highly unlikely but let’s suppose it can somehow be done by 2020. Next, the current ban on nuclear power needs to be repealed. This ban looms large in the minds of nuclear advocates but actually it’s such a minor problem we can ignore it.
The first big problem is the need to set up, from scratch, a legislative and regulatory framework for nuclear power. That would require adapting an overseas model such as that of the US, where the nuclear industry is regulated by at least eight different acts, covering more than 500 pages. Back in the 1970s the French government could do this kind of thing by fiat, without parliamentary debate, but that’s not a feasible option for Australia.
Having passed the necessary legislation, the next task would be to establish and staff a regulator similar to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation. The only Australian body with any relevant expertise is the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation which operates a 20 megawatt (research reactor at Lucas Heights. Ansto has little or no capacity to deal with the problem of licensing and regulating commercial reactors of 1,000MW.
Even with a massive effort, and assuming no political obstacles, it’s hard to see these tasks being accomplished within five years, which would already take us to 2025. But there are many more remaining difficulties.
Most obviously, as the Industry Super report states, we would need a carbon price or a market mechanism with similar effects, such as an emissions trading scheme. On any realistic political analysis, that’s impossible – the overlap between supporters of nuclear power and advocates of carbon pricing in Australia is virtually zero. At a minimum, the adoption of a carbon price would require a change of government at the next election, which may happen though it doesn’t seem likely at the moment. Even if it would occur (and assuming, improbably, that a Labor government relying on Green support could be persuaded to back nuclear power), there would be further delays before the carbon price could be put in place.
But that’s just the beginning. Before any project could be considered, it would be necessary to license designs that could be built and operated here. The processes of the NRC in the US, which were expedited in the hope of spurring a “nuclear renaissance” typically take three to four years.
We could simply accept the judgement of overseas regulators, but even then we would have a problem – there may be no designs available.
In my submission to the SA royal commission, I argued that the only serious contender for Australia was the Westinghouse AP1000. Since then, however, cost overruns and cancellation have sent Westinghouse bankrupt, almost taking its owner, Toshiba, with it. There is no serious prospect of any more plants of this design being built. Areva, which is building its EPR model in Europe, is in similar difficulty. There’s a serious risk that the only contenders would be Chinese or Russian designs, which would pose some obvious problems.
The most difficult step would be the need to identify greenfield sites for multiple nuclear power plants, almost certainly on the east coast, and go through the relevant environmental processes. Reliance on overseas models won’t be of much use here. All the plants under construction in western countries are “brownfield”, that is, situated next to existing plants, built last century, and approved as far back as the 1970s.
In summary, it would be a heroic endeavour to get construction started on a nuclear plant even by 2030. Getting it finished and generating electricity by 2040 is virtually impossible.
Fortunately, there are alternatives, though the Industry Super report dismisses them. The combination of solar photovoltaics and battery storage is already cheaper than new coal-fired power. As a backup, Australia has huge potential for storage using pumped hydroelectricity. We don’t need to call on the phantom of nuclear power to secure a reliable, carbon-free electricity supply for the future.
• John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland
These areas include Joyce’s New England electorate, Barilaro’s state electorate of Monaro in southern NSW, and fellow booster Ken O’Dowd’s federal electorate of Flynn in central Queensland. Won’t their constituents be pleased!
Other towns and regions identified include the Latrobe Valley, the Gippsland region of Victoria, Albury, Whyalla and Port Augusta in South Australia, the mid-north coast of NSW, and a whole bunch of sites in south-east Queensland.The Australian Nuclear Association last week gave a presentation to the Australian Institute of Energy in Victoria, in which ANA vice president Robert Parker outlined his hopes for the country to adopt nuclear and for the renewable energy industry to be stopped, quite literally, in its tracks.
Parker included this map of Victoria and his idea that nukes should be located in and around the Latrobe Valley that currently hosts the main brown coal generators, and also Portland on the west coast, south and west Gippsland, and in northern Victoria at the Eildon and Dartmouth reservoirs, and near Albury-Wodonga.
The organisation’s website includes this map and others that outline preferred sites for nuclear plants in NSW, Queensland and South Australia. (See below.)
It comes as the Coalition faces intense pressure from its own MPs and Senators, and One Nation, and, of course, the conservative media, to allow nuclear to be built in Australia.
Most of the MPs behind this push – like Joyce, Barilaro, Keith Pitt and Mark Latham – either reject climate science outright, mock any moves to address it, and/or at the same time are pushing for the construction of new coal-fired generators. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. At an industry level, the push for nuclear also comes from the main coal lobby, the Minerals Council of Australia, whose former CEO and deputy CEO are key advisors in prime minister’s Scott Morrison’s office, and who, of course, also want the government to underwrite new coal-fired generators, and are ensuring the current government has no long-term policy or plan for renewables.The reason for this symbiotic relationship is that the coal and nuclear industries share a common enemy – wind and solar and distributed renewables plus storage that undermine the traditional energy system of centralised power generation and “base-load” power.
So, the nuclear lobby had dusted off its plans and ramped up its campaign to demonise the competition. Seminars are being held, reports are being released, and the trolls have been let loose on social media.
Parker’s presentation is interesting only because it gives warning to residents of where the nuclear proponents think they could build a nuclear power plant.
Of course, how and why Australia would build the 20 gigawatts of nuclear plants he suggests – and in the time-frames offered and at a cheap enough price – is not addressed by Parker, who often refers to renewables as “pixie dust”. Dylan McConnell, from the Climate and Energy College, attended the presentation and tweeted his observation that neither cost nor social licence were addressed in the seminar. He said it “defied credulity” and further comments can be found here.
That the nuclear boosters don’t address this issue is not surprising, because these are the impossible questions for the nuclear industry.
Parker suggests – the EIA has published the slideshow – that a nuclear grid providing 82 per cent of Australia’s annual demand would deliver output that looks something like this:
It’s a fantasy, of course, and deliberately misleading, like much of what is said by the coal and nuclear lobbies and climate deniers.
Apart from not mentioning the enormous cost of nuclear, Parker simply wishes away wind energy, ignores the more than 10GW of large-scale wind and solar currently installed or committed to the main grid, not to mention the 9GW of rooftop solar, which is likely to total close to 30GW by 2030, when Parker heroically suggests the first nuclear plant could be completed.
Even South Australia is suggested for one or more nuclear plants, despite the fact that even the state’s conservative government suggests that the local grid will be “100 per cent net renewables” by that time, and the idea of trying to jam a nuclear plant into the local grid was rejected by the Nuclear Royal Commission.
That 10-year time-line for the first nuke in Australia, apparently based on approval being given last year, isn’t remotely realistic given the huge delays in every new reactor currently being built in the UK, Europe and north America, not to mention the huge cost blowouts.
At best, Australia is looking at a 20-year timeframe for its first nuclear reactor, should approval be given now. But by then, like South Australia, the rest of the main grid will be largely renewable, with close to 50 per cent delivered by distributed energy.
The centralised system will be rapidly becoming a thing of the past, as market operators around the world readily acknowledge.
So, in reality, the regions identified by the nuclear lobby should have nothing to worry about at all, apart from their elected representatives doing all they can to deprive them of the opportunities that might be presented in wind, solar and storage.
Giles ParkinsonGiles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
New light on WA uranium mine approval sparks call to put environment before economics, WA Today. By Cameron Myles, July 10, 2019 — New light shed on the “clandestine” approval of a uranium mine in Western Australia’s outback has sparked calls to beef up the country’s environmental laws, amid concerns the minister responsible prioritised the economy over the environment.Then-environment minister Melissa Price signed off on Cameco’s Yeelirrie project near Wiluna on April 10 this year, the day before the federal government called the May 18 election.
News of the project’s approval did not emerge until around Anzac Day later that month, with no releases announcing the minister’s decision, prompting Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) nuclear free campaigner Dave Sweeney’s call that it was a “clandestine approval under the cover of a national election”.
Yeelirrie, which sits within the boundaries of Ms Price’s vast federal electorate of Durack, had a long history of resistance.
It was previously rejected by the WA Environmental Protection Authority which flagged, among others, concerns about the project’s impact on 12 species living underground and in the water table.
Some species were only found in the area covered by the project and there were fears they could go extinct as the miner dug through groundwater to get to the uranium below.
It was later approved at a state level by the then-Barnett government, and several options on how to proceed were presented to Ms Price by the federal Department of the Environment and Energy on April 5 this year.
But the release last week of a statement of reasons from Ms Price – secured by the ACF – has revealed she signed off on the project with a less stringent set of environmental conditions than those recommended by the department, noting that if she attached the more onerous conditions “there is a real chance that the project could not go ahead”.
“I was satisfied that if the project did not go ahead and the social and economic benefits would not be realised, this would have an adverse effect on the region and the State as a whole,” Ms Price wrote.
The Wilderness Society WA state director Kit Sainsbury said the revelation meant the minister put economic and social conditions ahead of what should be her primary consideration – the environment.
“To see both at the state and federal level such contempt for the scientific evidence suggesting that this project is environmentally unsustainable – yet receiving approval – is galling and highly contentious,” he said.
“As the Yeelirrie decision proves, too often decisions affecting the environment are made behind closed doors … a national body with teeth can stand up for the communities which need it and their country they honour.”……….
Antinuclear 