Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Czech nuclear deal shows CSIRO GenCost is too optimistic, and new nukes are hopelessly uneconomic

John Quiggin, Jul 21, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/czech-nuclear-deal-shows-csiro-gencost-is-too-optimistic-and-new-nukes-are-hopelessly-uneconomic/

The big unanswered question about nuclear power in Australia is how much it would cost. The handful of plants completed recently in the US and Europe have run way over time and over budget, but perhaps such failures can be avoided. On the other hand, the relatively successful Barakah project in the United Arab Emirates was undertaken in conditions that aren’t comparable to a democratic high-wage country like Australia. Moreover, the cost of the project, wrapped up in a long-term contract for both construction and maintenance, remains opaque.  Most other projects are being constructed by Chinese or Russian firms, not an option for Australia.

In these circumstances, CSIRO’s Gencost project relied mainly on evidence from Korea, one of the few developed countries to maintain a nuclear construction program. Adjusting for the costs of starting from scratch, CSIRO has come up with an estimated construction cost for a 1000 MW nuclear plant of at least $A8.6 billion, leading to an estimated Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of between $163/MWh-$264/MWh,  for large-scale nuclear. But, given the limited evidence base, critics like Dick Smith have been able to argue that CSIRO has overestimated the capital costs.

Thanks to a recent announcement from Czechia, we now have the basis for a more informed estimate. Ever since the commissioning its last nuclear plant in 2003, Czech governments have sought commercial agreements for the construction of more nuclear power plants, with little success until recently.

Finally, after a process beginning in 2020, the Czech government sought tenders from three firms to build at least two, and possibly four 1000 MW reactors. After Westinghouse was excluded for unspecified failures to meet tender conditions, two contenders remained: EDF and KNHP.  On 17 July it was announced that KNHP had submitted the winning bid, which, coincidentally, set the cost per GW at $8.6 billion. 

Sadly for nuclear advocates, that figure is in $US. Converted to $A, it’s 12.8 billion, around 50 per cent more than the CSIRO Gencost estimate.  At that price, the LCOE, even on the most favorable assumptions, will exceed $225/MWh.  

And unlike the case in Australia, Czechia is offering a brownfield site, at no additional cost. The new plants will replace existing Soviet-era reactors at Dukovany. By contrast, in Australia under Dutton’s proposals, the costs of a nuclear plant would need to include the compulsory acquisition of existing sites, from mostly unwilling vendors. 

The bad news doesn’t stop there. The (inevitably optimistic) target date for electricity generation is 2038, about the time Australia’s last coal plants will be closing. But the Czechs have at least a five year head start on Australia, even assuming that a Dutton government could begin a tender process soon after taking office. In reality, it would be necessary to establish and staff both a publicly owned nuclear generation enterprise and a nuclear regulatory agency with an appropriate legislative framework.

And there’s one more wrinkle.  Westinghouse, excluded from the Czech bid is engaged on long-running litigation with KNHP, claiming a breach of intellectual property. It’s been unsuccessful so far, but a final ruling is not expected until 2025. If Westinghouse succeeds, the Czech project will almost certainly be delayed. 

Summing up, taking the Czech announcement as a baseline, building two to four 1000 MW nuclear plants in Australia would probably cost $50-$100 billion, and not be complete until well into the 2040s. 

If nuclear power is so costly, why have the Czechs chosen to pursue this technology. The explanation is partly historical. The former Czechoslovakia was an early adopter of nuclear power and, despite the usual delays and cost overruns, enthusiasm for the technology seems to have persisted.

More significant, however, is the influence of one man, Vaclav Klaus, a dominant figure in Czech politics from the dissolution of the Soviet bloc to the 2010s.  Apart from sharing the same first name, Klaus has little in common with the architect of Czech freedom, Vaclav Havel.  Klaus was, and remains an extreme climate science denialist, whose views are reflected by the rightwing party he founded, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS).    Although Klaus himself left office under a cloud in 2013, ODS remained a dominant force. 

The current Czech Prime Minister, Petr Fiala (also ODS) has followed the same evolution as other ‘sceptics’, shifting from outright denial to what Chris Bowen has described as “all-too-hard-ism”. And with high carbon prices in Europe, persisting with coal is even less tenable than in Australia.  In political terms, nuclear power is the ideal solution to the problem of replacing coal without embracing renewables.  It’s just a pity about the economics.

With luck, Australia can learn from the Czech lesson. Even under the favorable conditions of  a brownfield site and an established nuclear industry, new nuclear power is hopelessly uneconomic.

John Quiggin is a professor of economics at the University of Queensland.

July 24, 2024 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy downplays Rockingham residents’ concerns of AUKUS nuclear waste storage

advocacy group the Medical Association for Prevention of War [MAPW] said Mr Conroy was wrong to equate nuclear submarine waste with medical waste.

“The vast majority of nuclear waste from hospitals is very short-lived waste or very low level waste, both of which go to normal rubbish streams after a month or two,” MAPW vice-president Margaret Beavis said in a statement.

“The proposed submarine waste is low level waste (LLW), which needs isolation from the environment for 300 years.”

By Nicolas Perpitch, 23 July 24  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-23/pat-conroy-rockingham-garden-island-aukus-nuclear-waste-storage/104131462

In short:

The government has plans to temporarily store nuclear waste arising from its AUKUS contracts on Garden Island.

Residents in the nearby City of Rockingham have expressed concern about that, but the Defence Industry Minister says people shouldn’t worry.

What’s next?

The waste’s final storage place is unknown at this point, with the minister saying it will be on defence land.

The Albanese government has sought to dispel community concerns surrounding a planned radioactive waste management site off Perth’s coast for AUKUS nuclear submarines.

It comes as the chiefs of navy of the three AUKUS countries — the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia — met for the first time at the HMAS Stirling naval base on Garden Island, 50 kilometres south of the Perth CBD and about five kilometres off the coast of Rockingham, where the submarines will dock and be serviced.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), the nuclear safety watchdog, has issued a licence to the Australian Submarine Agency to prepare a site on HMAS Stirling for a low-level radiation waste management and maintenance site, to be known as the “Controlled Industrial Facility”.

It will be a workshop for servicing and repairing the nuclear submarines and will temporarily store the waste.

Some Rockingham residents have expressed alarm at the prospect of a radiation site just off the coast.

Among the submissions to ARPANSA on the facility, concerns were expressed about residents’ safety and the potential for radiation leaks.

But federal Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has sought to ease those fears, saying there was no risk to the community.

“This is akin to what occurs in 100 other sites around the country, anywhere that has a hospital that deals with medical imagery that involves radioactive isotopes has exactly the same level of waste,” Mr Conroy said.

Specifically, the radioactive waste would be material that Australian sailors and civilians use to maintain the nuclear submarines.

“Think things like gloves, and other things that naturally become slightly radioactive as they handle componentry. So this is not other people’s waste. This is Australian waste,” Mr Conroy said.

However, advocacy group the Medical Association for Prevention of War [MAPW] said Mr Conroy was wrong to equate nuclear submarine waste with medical waste.

“The vast majority of nuclear waste from hospitals is very short-lived waste or very low level waste, both of which go to normal rubbish streams after a month or two,” MAPW vice-president Margaret Beavis said in a statement.

“The proposed submarine waste is low level waste (LLW), which needs isolation from the environment for 300 years.”

Final storage site unknown

The radioactive waste will be temporarily stored at the HMAS Stirling site, before it is taken to a permanent repository elsewhere for AUKUS-nuclear submarine reactors and related radioactive waste.

But Mr Conroy did not say where that would be, only that it would be on defence land to be acquired by the defence forces.

Under the AUKUS security agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom announced in 2021, Australia will acquire nuclear technology to build and sustain its own nuclear submarines.

ARPANSA received 165 submissions about the waste and workshop facility proposal during a 30-day consultation period, but has not made them publicly available.

The facility will also need separate approvals for construction and operation.

July 24, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear + Solar In Australia = A Huge Waste Of Energy

July 23, 2024 by Michael Bloch,  https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/nuclear-renewables-australia-mb2969/
The operation of just one nuclear power station in Queensland would require cutting off renewable energy output equivalent to tens of thousands of home solar power systems every day says Queensland Conservation Council (QCC).

The Coalition wants to see nuclear plants at what are or will eventually be shuttered coal power sites around the country, including two in Queensland – one at Callide and the other at Tarong. The Coalition’s plan would mean increased burning of fossil fuels for many years while these power stations are being constructed. Australia’s existing ban aside, nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive and slow to build, and nuclear power doesn’t play well with renewable energy.

Nuclear power stations can’t be switched on and off as demand dictates. While output can be dialled down to a degree, there may still often be electricity surplus to demand during the “solar window” each day; and this could pose a threat to grid stability.

Nuclear-Powered Home Solar Shutdowns?

Something has to give during these times – either the expensive nuclear electricity or the cheap power from renewable energy. This could include home solar systems.

The tools needed for remote solar power system shutdowns are already in place in Queensland. Ergon Energy and Energex have the capability to remotely switch off some systems via a “dumb” device called a GSD, which is meant to be a tool of last-resort.

But “last resort” may become more common in a grid with nuclear power. And it’s simply not needed, as by the time the first nuclear plant could be built – around 2040 at the earliest – technologies such as batteries and pumped hydro should be providing the flexible storage needed to support renewables.

According to Queensland Conservation Council:

“Baseload generation is what our power system was built on, but it’s not what we need in the future. Saying that we need baseload generation is like saying that we need floppy disks to transfer files between computers.”

In its report titled Delayed Reaction: Why Queensland Will Never Need Nuclear Energy, the QCC estimates 3,700 GWh of cheap renewable energy would need to be wasted every year just to allow a single 1GW nuclear power station to run.

“This means the equivalent of an average of 45,000 Queensland household solar systems would need to be shut off every day.”

The organisation bases its estimates on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s “Step Change” scenario in the AEMO’s 2024 Integrated System Plan.

Queensland is not an island. Interconnectors between the state and New South Wales allow it to export power south. But if the Coalition’s plans reach fruition, there may not be anywhere to export it to. Whether it’s shutting down home solar or more curtailment of large-scale wind and PV, the “solution” is an awful waste of cheap-as-chips power.

Nuclear Spectre Scaring Investors

Even if the Coalition’s nuclear dream isn’t achieved, that it exists is starting to make some renewable energy investors nervous. Policy uncertainty has held back Australia’s renewable energy transition in years gone by. This rehashed nuclear debate has the potential do the same.

Raising this rotten old chestnut (yet again) seems to be an Opposition specialty. Whichever way it turns out, the distraction of nuclear power in Australia will be a huge waste of time, money – and energy.

Queensland has nearly doubled its renewable energy capacity in five years says QCC. While there are plenty of large-scale facilities operating or currently under construction, a significant part of the growth is associated with home solar power in QLD. This has fundamentally changed when the state needs energy to support the grid and QCC believes it’s where the Opposition should be directing its attention.

“We would like to see the Federal Opposition focus on a real plan for bringing down emissions and power prices and that would mean backing renewable energy and storage.”

July 24, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Peter Dutton visits Queensland back country in nuclear energy push

Peter Dutton has hit the sticks to promote his controversial nuclear energy plan but remains mum on how much the “essential” project will cost.

news.com.au Nathan Schmidt, July 22, 2024

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has for the first time spruiked the Coalition’s controversial nuclear energy plan in an electorate earmarked for a new “modular reactor”, promising the ambitious project will be more efficient than replacing wind turbines “every 25 years”.

The Liberal leader on Monday championed the contested energy project in Mount Murchison, a town of little more than 100 people in the Shire of Banana on Queensland’s central coast, following the unveiling earlier this year of the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan.

Mr Dutton flagged seven sites – two in Queensland and NSW and one each in South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia – for potential new small-scale nuclear reactors under the plan that he promised to take to the next federal election in 2025.

Despite pushback from energy experts about the proposal’s feasibility, Mr Dutton said nuclear power would be “good for jobs” and “the underpinning of 24/7 reliable power into the future”, blaming Labor for warnings about future power shortages.

“The Coalition’s policy of renewables and gas and of nuclear (power) is absolutely essential to keeping the lights on, to having cheaper power and to making sure that we can reduce our emissions,” Mr Dutton said on Monday alongside Liberal Flynn MP Colin Boyce.

He claimed warnings by the energy regulator about brownouts were based on Labor policies. “The PM and Chris Bowen have us on this 100 per cent renewables-only path which is what’s driving up the price of your power bill. It’s what is making our system unreliable,” Mr Dutton said.

“If we want to have cheaper power, if we want greener power, and if we want reliable power, then nuclear is the way in which we’ll provide that 24/7 power into the future … let’s have an honest discussion because Australians are really struggling under this government.”…………………………………………………..

Under the plan, the Coalition proposed the government would fund the construction of the plants in partnership with experienced nuclear energy companies. The government would own the sites in a similar system set-up to the Snowy Hydro and NBN networks.  https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/sustainability/peter-dutton-visits-queensland-back-country-in-nuclear-energy-push/news-story/c4c311c83edf71a99738c76c484fc542 

July 24, 2024 Posted by | politics, Queensland | Leave a comment

One nuclear plant could see 45,000 rooftop solar systems shut off each day

Sophie Vorrath, Jul 22, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/one-nuclear-plant-could-see-45000-rooftop-solar-systems-shut-off-each-day/

The extent to which the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plans clash with Australia’s world-leading rooftop solar uptake has been highlighted by new analysis that estimates tens of thousands of residential PV systems would have to be shut off on a daily basis to allow just one nuclear plant to operate.

The Queensland Conservation Council report models the potential impact of nuclear power on the Sunshine State’s future grid by measuring it against the latest projections of the Australian Energy Market Operator’ in its’s 2024 Integrated System Plan.

The ISP sets out a detailed 20 year plan for how Australia will meet its energy needs while retiring all coal fired power stations by 2040, using mostly renewable energy and storage. Nuclear is not a part of this plan.

Using the most likely scenario of the ISP, the Step Change, the QCC finds that adding just one, 1GW nuclear plant to the equation in 2040 would displace more than 3,700 GWh of cheap renewables, due to the inflexible nature of “always on” nuclear power generation.

“A [1,000MW] nuclear power station, which can only run down to 500 MW …would usually be supplying more energy than the system needs (Figure 6),” the report says.

“This means the equivalent of an average of 45,000 Queensland household solar systems would need to be shut off every day. We would be shutting off cheap energy, like people’s rooftop solar, to allow expensive nuclear power to run.

“This report shows that, even if large-scale nuclear energy can be built in 15 years in Australia, we won’t need it.”

The new data supports what just about every other informed participant in Australia’s energy transition – from the market operator, to regulators, policy makers, utilities and the energy market itself – understand, and have been saying, about what will and won’t work in a grid that is changing dramatically.

And just last week, the University of Western Australia’s Bill Grace gave his own detailed analysis of why the sort of baseload power nuclear provides “is no longer necessary or commercially viable.”

QCC energy strategist Claire Silcock says this week’s report confirms that nuclear power has no place on Australia’s grid and isn’t what is needed to meet future energy demands at least cost. 

“What we need is flexible generation and storage which can move energy from when we have lots of it, in the middle of the day, to when we need it overnight,” Silcock says. “That is not how nuclear power stations work.

“The earliest we could possibly build a nuclear power plant in Australia is 2040 – by then we will have abundant renewable energy and technology like batteries and pumped hydro will be providing the flexible storage we need to support that renewable energy.

“Nuclear is also much more expensive than renewable energy backed by storage,” she adds.

“It’s as clear as day that the federal Coalition’s nuclear plan is a fantasy to delay the closure of Australia’s polluting coal-fired power stations.

“We would like to see the federal opposition focus on a real plan for bringing down emissions and power prices and that would mean backing renewable energy and storage.”


Sophie Vorrath Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. She is the co-host of the Solar Insiders Podcast. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.

July 24, 2024 Posted by | energy | Leave a comment

We published an analysis from a leading economist on soaring nuclear costs. Facebook removed it

Facebook pages all still full of articles and videos making outrageous claims about renewables and nuclear. But that, it seems, is OK for the social media giant.

Giles Parkinson, Jul 22, 2024  https://reneweconomy.com.au/we-published-an-analysis-from-a-leading-economist-on-soaring-nuclear-costs-facebook-removed-it/—

On Sunday, Renew Economy published an analysis on the soaring cost of nuclear power by leading economist John Quiggin. On Monday we attempted to post it in our feed on social media.

Facebook removed the item, saying it was an attempt to generate clicks by providing misleading information. We’d like to know on what basis this decision was made, but Facebook has yet to provide an answer.

It’s a concerning development, and not the first time one of our posts has been removed by Facebook.

Social media platforms including Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram – are full of unchecked and misleading information about climate change and energy technologies. Much of it is complete nonsense creating FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – about new technologies.

It appears to be part of a well-funded and orchestrated plan by vested interests, and the fossil fuel industry in particular, to demonise renewables, electric vehicles, battery storage and other emerging competitors.

Much of this is amplified in mainstream media, where outrageous claims against renewables – and claims of blackouts, economic collapse and environmental failure – are repeatedly given voice.

Social media platforms including Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram – are full of unchecked and misleading information about climate change and energy technologies. Much of it is complete nonsense creating FUD – fear, uncertainty and doubt – about new technologies.

It appears to be part of a well-funded and orchestrated plan by vested interests, and the fossil fuel industry in particular, to demonise renewables, electric vehicles, battery storage and other emerging competitors.

Much of this is amplified in mainstream media, where outrageous claims against renewables – and claims of blackouts, economic collapse and environmental failure – are repeatedly given voice.

Quiggin notes that the Czechia deal suggests the opposite is true, and confirms the widely held view in the energy industry itself that GenCost underestimates rather than overestimates the costs of nuclear. Nuclear, he says, is really really expensive.

But Facebook has now ruled that such analysis is misleading, and it won’t allow its users to view such information. Over the last few months, this has happened on several occasions to Renew Economy and its sister site The Driven.

Just last week, another article on the certification of green hydrogen technologies in Australia was pulled down. Last month, it was a story on how households will be a driving force of the energy transition. A few months earlier, an analysis on nuclear costs by Jeremy Cooper, the former deputy chair of ASIC and chair of the 2009/10 Super System Review, was also removed.

Over on The Driven, a story on how EVs are actually suitable for farmers in regional communities, was also pulled down. No explanation was provided. Despite protests, the posts were not reinstated.

Yet Facebook allows media groups such as Sky News Australia to post misleading information about renewables and climate without a check.

It’s a shocking development, and one that points to the manipulation of information by naysayers and vested interests. Some attribute it to the work of the Atlas Network, a shadowy group with strong Australian fossil fuel links that has campaigned against renewables, the Voice referendum, climate action, and climate protests.

Researchers say that the whole point of the Atlas network of organisations and so called “institutes” and think tanks – which this article in New Republic says includes Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies, which has launched loud attacks against institutions such as the CSIRO, AEMO, and renewables in general – is to drown out actual academic expertise.

The Atlas Network does this, researchers say, to reduce the capacity for public and government influence with its own corporate propaganda that is dressed up as “research.” 

George Monbiot, a columnist for the Guardian, calls many of the 500 institutions linked with the Atlas Network “junk tanks.” Jeremy Walker, from the University of Technology in Sydney, wrote in a paper that the network in Australia includes the CIS and the Institute for Public Affairs, both strongly anti renewable, and pro nuclear.

Their Facebook pages all still full of articles and videos making outrageous claims about renewables and nuclear. But that, it seems, is OK for the social media giant.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | media | , , , , | Leave a comment

Australian nuclear news headlines 22-29 July.

Headlines as they come in:

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Aussies react to Dutton’s Nuclear Policy

July 23, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Dutton’s nuclear delusion an exercise in stupidity.

Aspects of the proposed program also go distinctly against the supposedly free market individualism so treasured by those on Dutton’s side of politics. If nuclear power was to become the fundamental means to decarbonise the Australian economy by 2050, it would entail crushing levels of debt and heavy government stewardship. 

By its very nature, the Commonwealth would have to take the reins of this venture, given that private investors will have no bar of it

By Binoy Kampmark | 23 July 2024

Peter Dutton’s sketchy plan for Australia to go nuclear is nothing more than a political distraction with no actual benefits for the country, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

POLITICS AND FACTS are not necessarily good dinner companions. Both often stray from the same table, taking up with other, more suitable company. The Australian Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, has never been discomforted by facts, preferring the chimera-like qualities demagoguery offers. His vision for Australia is admirably simple and simplistic. 

In foreign policy, he supports U.S. interventions in any theatre of the globe without question. Ditto such allies as Israel. To the distant north, the evil Yellow Horde is abominated. Domestically, matters are similarly one-dimensional. Irregular boat arrivals are to be repelled with necessary cruelty. And then there is a near pathological hatred of renewable energy.

Needing to find some electoral distraction to improve the Liberal-National Coalition’s chances of returning to office, Dutton has literally identified a nuclear option. Certainly, it is mischievous, throwing those wishing to invest in the problematic Australian energy market into a state of confusion. As with any investment, the business of renewables is bound to also be shaken.

Last month, Dutton finally released some details of his nuclear vision. Seven nuclear projects are envisaged, using sites with currently working or shuttered coal-fired power stations. These will be plants up to 1.4 gigawatts (GW) to be located at Loy Yang in Victoria, Liddell in NSW’s Hunter Valley and Mt Piper near Lithgow, Tarong and Callide in Queensland. Small modular (SMR) reactors are planned for Port Augusta in South Australia and Muja near Collie in Western Australia. 

The SMR gambit is particularly quixotic, given that they have yet to come to viable fruition. Besides, the entire reactor venture already faces glaring legal impediments, as nuclear power is prohibited by Commonwealth and state laws. (The ban on nuclear energy was, with sweet irony, legislated by the Howard Coalition Government a quarter of a century ago.)

Already, the handicaps on the proposal are thick and onerous. Ian Lowe of Griffith University witheringly describes the proposal as ‘legally impossible, technically improbable, economically irrational and environmentally irresponsible’.

The greatest of all handicaps is the fact that Australian governments, despite tentatively flirting with the prospect of a civilian nuclear sector at points, have never convinced the citizenry about the merits of such power. The continuous failure of the Commonwealth to even identify a long-standing site for low-level radioactive waste for the country’s modest nuclear industry is a point in fact.

Aspects of the proposed program also go distinctly against the supposedly free market individualism so treasured by those on Dutton’s side of politics. If nuclear power was to become the fundamental means to decarbonise the Australian economy by 2050, it would entail crushing levels of debt and heavy government stewardship. 

By its very nature, the Commonwealth would have to take the reins of this venture, given that private investors will have no bar of it.

Tom Dusevic, writing in the otherwise pro-Dutton outlet The Australian, put it thus:

‘There is no other way because private capital won’t go anywhere near this risky energy play, with huge upfront costs, very long lead times and the madness that has pervaded our energy transition to meet international obligations.’

The extent of government involvement and ownership of the proposed nuclear infrastructure made The Age and Sydney Morning Herald search for a precedent. It seemed to have an element of “Soviet economics” to it, directly at odds with the Liberal Party’s own professed philosophy of “lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative”.

It would also add to the already monstrous AUKUS obligations Australia has signed up to with the United States and the United Kingdom, a sovereignty-shredding exercise involving the transfer and construction of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra costing upwards and above $368 billion.

The Smart Energy Council has been good enough to offer its own estimate: the seven nuclear plants and reactors would cost somewhere in the order of $600 billion, securing a mere 3.7 per cent of Australia’s energy share by 2050.

While draining the treasury of funds, this nuclear-in-Duttonland experiment would do little to alleviate energy costs. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, along with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), have concluded that nuclear power in Australia would not be prudent in terms of cost relative to other sources of power. The obstacles noted in their 2023-24 report are impressively forbidding. 

According to the report, Australia, for instance, lacks existing nuclear power projects:

‘Therefore, although it is true that all technologies have extensive pre-construction development times, nuclear is unique in that it has an empty development pipeline in Australia.’

Throw in the layers of legal, safety and security steps, any pioneering nuclear plant in Australia would be ‘significantly delayed’, rendering nuclear power’s role in achieving net zero emissions by 2050 a nonsense.

The Dutton plan is scratched of all empirical shape. Estimates are absent. Numbers, absent. Capacity, absent. Figures, if supplied, will be done immediately prior to the next Federal Election, or while in government. Such moves teeter on the edge of herculean stupidity and foolhardiness, at least in Australian conditions. The exercise is also, quite rightly, being seen as an attempt to stealthily retain coal-fired stations while starving continued investment to the renewable sector. 

Dutton’s junior partner, the Nationals, has also been very candid about its position on renewable energy projects.

Party Leader David Littleproud nailed his colours to the mast on that subject early last year. By August 2023, he was explicitly calling for a “pause” to the rollout of wind and solar and transmission links, calling the Albanese Government’s pursuit of its 82 per cent renewables target a “reckless” one. His implicit suggestion: wait for the release of the nuclear genie.

The Coalition Opposition’s nuclear tease continues the tendency in Australia to soil climate policy with the sods of cultural conflict. On any matter, Dutton would be happy to become a flat-Earther were there any votes in it. The problem here is that his proposal might, on some level, be disruptively attractive — in so far as the voters are concerned. With Labor dithering in office with the smallest of majorities, any disruption may be one too many.

July 23, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

What are the steps (and the COSTS) to building nuclear power stations – by Peter Farley

22 July 24,  https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/what-are-the-steps-to-building-nuclear-power-stations-by-peter-farley
In this, the third part of a series about Coalition plans for nuclear power in Australia, Peter Farley asks the question – How would we establish a nuclear power industry?

It is often claimed that many countries are going nuclear and if Australia wants to be a ‘Developed Country’ we should have nuclear power.

If that is the case, how would we go about it?

The first step is to build a regulatory framework. Regulations differ from country to country partly for historical reasons and partly different circumstances.

Then like all codes, the regulations are modified bit by bit in response to new hazards or changes in practice, but they become cluttered with deadwood with slightly conflicting requirements which make compliance difficult and expensive.

Typically, it takes two to three years and US$1-2bn to get a licence to build a new nuclear plant in the US, even if the plant itself is an approved design on an existing site.

We could work with the international agencies to develop a modern set of regulations, but that could easily take 4-5 years.

So, let’s say we agree to just doing a quick copy and paste job after legislation is passed in late 2025 and we start to recruit the necessary staff in 2026.

The UK has 700 regulation staff, France 1,500 and the US 2,700 so by 2030 the regulations would be published, and site selection could proceed.

The French regulator has a budget of €150m/y and French salaries are about 25 percent lower than ours.

We can then estimate that the first thirty years of the Regulator’s life would cost the taxpayer $3-5bn.

The nuclear workforce

At the same time, we need to establish and train the construction workforce.

EDF Energy claims that 22,000 people in Britain are working on the Hinckley Point C power station (pictured). This is nine times the size of the Snowy II workforce and almost three times the size of the entire Australian oil and gas extraction industry.

Most of these people would need security clearance and many would need additional training and certification.

If we say that on average it is 3 months training for two thirds of the staff, that is an initial training load of about 900,000 person days, say 1,000,000 days including training the trainers.

ver seven years, that is a cost of about $200m not including students wages.

However, Britain is building two plants in about 17 years. If we want six plants on line by 2065 we would be building a peak of five at one time so the workforce would reach 45-50,000.

With retirements and departures, the training and security bill will be over $700m over thirty years

Fabricating nuclear power stations

Now apart from the lack of skills, we don’t have fabrication workshops with twin 500 tonne cranes and appropriate welding and heat treatment equipment.

These cost about $200m to build and equip.

Further, transport constraints and the distance between projects means that new workshops will probably need to be built near each site as would concrete batching plants etc. Some equipment would be shared but $500m in plant costs is not unreasonable.

Then there is the question of build cost. CSIRO used Korean figures, but they are highly questionable as there have been no public updates since 2018 and the company building and operating the nuclear plants is carrying US$150bn in debt, about two years annual sales.

We do have public data on other reactors, although that data usually doesn’t include all the losses made by contractors such as Westinghouse and Siemens who withdrew from projects after billions in losses.

All these plants are built on existing sites with plentiful cold cooling water and robust transmission access and an established nuclear workforce.

Access to cooling water can’t be dismissed. A single reactor cooling tower evaporates enough water for a city of 350,000 people.

Even without the traditional ‘Australian Premium’ for construction projects, believing we could build plants at less than a 10 percent premium over experienced northern hemisphere countries is stretching credibility, so A$42-45bn each in 2024 dollars is likely with another $2-4bn on water and transmission infrastructure per reactor.

Adding up the bill for nuclear power

ll up the bill is approaching $270bn over thirty years to build enough nuclear capacity to supply about 50-55,000 GWh/y.

If we build the cheapest plant above and somehow manage to give the Americans twenty-three years start and build them for the same cost, it is still close to A$175bn for less than 50,000 GWh/y.

According to the US Department of Energy, fuel, operations, security, maintenance and other overheads are around A$50-65/MWh.

At current cost of capital, amortising the establishment cost over 60 years, finance and depreciation works out at about $400-500/MWh.

Best case total cost of $450/MWh.

Further, as it is not uncommon to have three or four of six plants offline at once for six weeks or more, we would need to maintain even more gas/coal/hydro than we have now to supply 500-600,000 GWh/y of demand in 2060-70.

Or what of wind, solar?

On the other hand, we are currently building enough wind/solar/storage every year to add 7-10,000 GWh/y, roughly the equivalent of one nuclear power plant.

With enough storage to make wind/solar as reliable as nuclear, if the government offered a guaranteed price of A$120/MWh they would be knocked over in the rush.

Further reading:
Nuclear does not mean reliable power for Australia – by Peter Farley

Peter Farley holds an engineering degree and is a manufacturing leader who built pioneering CNC machine tools for export winning many export and engineering awards. Peter has been studying the electricity sector since his 2012 Election to the Victorian Committee of Engineers Australia.
A realistic time frame for building nuclear- by Peter Farley

July 22, 2024 Posted by | business | Leave a comment

Pacific leaders, Japan, agree on Fukushima nuclear wastewater discharge (not everyone is happy)

“The discharge, planned to continue for decades, is irreversible. Radionuclides bioaccumulate in marine organisms and can be passed up the food web, affecting marine life and humans who consume affected seafood,”

“The discharge, planned to continue for decades, is irreversible. Radionuclides bioaccumulate in marine organisms and can be passed up the food web, affecting marine life and humans who consume affected seafood,”

RNZ 19 July 2024 , By Pita Ligaiula in Tokyo

Consensus has been reached by Pacific leaders with Japan to address the controversial release of treated nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

In August last year, Japan began discharging waste from about 1000 storage tanks holding 1.34 million metric tons of contaminated water collected after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that caused the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The agreement came at the Japanese hosted 10th Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (PALM10) on Thursday in the capital Tokyo attended by most of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) country leaders…………………………..

Pacific leaders emphasised the importance of a shared commitment to safeguarding the health, environment, and marine resources of the Pacific region and a need for transparency from Japan………………………………………….

TEPCO uses a process known as Advanced Liquid Processing System involving special filters which remove from the contaminated water most of the 62 types of radioactive materials, radionuclides such as cesium, strontium, iodine and cobalt but not tritium.

The leaders agreed to keep the ALPS treated water issue as a standing agenda item for future PALM meetings with Japan, supported by an ongoing review process. Their decision reflects concerns about addressing the long-term implications and ensuring continuous monitoring and evaluation.

While consensus was reached at the summit, the wastewater release continues to be questioned by some scientists.

Director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, Research Professor Robert Richmond, said concerns remain regarding the efficacy of the ALPS treatment and the contents of the thousands of storage tanks of radioactive wastewater.

“The long-term effects of this discharge on Pacific marine ecosystems and those who depend on them are still unknown. Even small doses of radiation can cause cancer or genetic damage,” Richmond said in a statement to BenarNews after the agreement.

He criticised the current monitoring program as inadequate and poorly designed, failing to protect ocean and human health.

“The discharge, planned to continue for decades, is irreversible. Radionuclides bioaccumulate in marine organisms and can be passed up the food web, affecting marine life and humans who consume affected seafood,” Richmond said……………………………………………… https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/522582/pacific-leaders-japan-agree-on-fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-discharge—

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Australia’s secret support for the Israeli assault on Gaza, through Pine Gap.

DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA by Peter Cronau | 3 Nov, 2023

The Pine Gap US surveillance base located outside of Alice Springs in Australia is collecting an enormous range of communications and electronic intelligence from the brutal Gaza-Israel battlefield – and this data is being provided to the Israel Defence Forces. 

Two large Orion geosynchronous signals intelligence satellites, belonging to the US and operated from Pine Gap, are located 36,000 kms above the equator over the Indian Ocean. From there, they look down on the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and gather huge amounts of intelligence data to beam back to the Pine Gap base.

After collecting and analysing the communications and intelligence data for the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA), Pine Gap’s data is provided to the Israel Defence Forces, as it steps up its brutal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza enclave.

“Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel,” a former Pine Gap employee has told Declassified Australia.

David Rosenberg worked inside Pine Gap as ‘team leader of weapon signals analysis’ for 18 years until 2008. He is a 23-year veteran of the National Security Agency (NSA). 

“Pine Gap has satellites overhead. Every one of those assets would be on those locations, looking for anything that could help them.”

“Pine Gap facility is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel.”

Rosenberg says the personnel at Pine Gap are tasked to collect signals such as ‘command and control’ centres in Gaza, with Hamas headquarters often located near hospitals, schools, and other civilian structures. “The aim would be to minimise casualties to non-combatants in achieving their objective of destroying Hamas.”……………………………………

Pine Gap base’s global role in fighting wars for US and allies

The sprawling satellite ground station outside Alice Springs, officially titled Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), has been described as the United States’ second most important surveillance base globally. 

About half the 800 personnel working at the Central Australian base are American, with Australian government employees making up fewer than 100 of the increasingly privatised staff. 

The base is no mere passive communication collector. Personnel at the Pine Gap base provide vital detailed analysis and reporting on SIGINT (signals intelligence) and ELINT (electronic intelligence) it collects. 

As well as surveillance of civilian, commercial, and military communications, it provides detailed geolocation intelligence to the US military that can be used to locate with precision targets in the battlefield.

This was first conclusively documented with concrete evidence in a secret NSA document, titled “Site Profile”, leaked from the Edward Snowden archive to this writer and first published by Australia’s ABC Radio ‘Background Briefing’ program in 2017:

“RAINFALL [Pine Gap’s NSA codename] detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.”

These PROFORMA signals are the communications data of radar and weapon systems collected in near real-time – they likely would include remote launch signals for Hamas rockets, as well as any threatened missile launches from Lebanon or Iran.

This present war in Gaza is not the first time the dishes of Pine Gap have assisted Israel’s military with intelligence, including the detecting of incoming missiles, according to this previous report.

“During the [1991] Gulf War, Israeli reports praised Australia for relaying Scud missile launch warnings from the Nurrungar joint US-Australian facility in South Australia, a task now assigned to Pine Gap.”

During the early stages of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the NSA installed a data link to send early warning of any Iraqi missile launches detected directly to Israel’s Air Force headquarters at Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv.

Israel’s access to the jewels of the Five Eye global surveillance network

The NSA “maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU),” according to documents published by The Intercept in 2014. The documents show the NSA and ISNU are “sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting”.

“This SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.

It’s thanks to the Pine Gap base, with its satellites so strategically positioned to monitor the Middle East region, along with its targeting and analysis capability, that Israel is able to make use of these benefits.

………………….This wide intelligence sharing arrangement potentially opens up to the Israelis the ‘jewels’ of the Five Eye global surveillance system collected by the NSA global surveillance network, including by Australia’s Pine Gap base. 

Declassified Australia asked a series of questions of the Australian Defence Department about the role of the Pine Gap base in the Israel-Gaza war, and about the legal protections that may be in place to defend personnel of the base should legal charges of war crimes be laid. No response was received by deadline.  https://declassifiedaus.org/2023/11/03/targeting-palestine/

July 22, 2024 Posted by | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

How close are we to chaos? It turns out, just one blue screen of death

Keeping cash as a backup is a smart idea in the event of a payment systems outage,

David Swan, Technology editor, 22 July 24,  https://www.theage.com.au/technology/how-close-are-we-to-chaos-it-turns-out-just-one-blue-screen-of-death-20240720-p5jv6t.html

In some places, Friday’s mass tech outage resembled the beginning of an apocalyptic zombie movie. Supermarket checkouts were felled across the country and shoppers were turned away, airports became shelters for stranded passengers, and live TV and radio presenters were left scrambling to fill airtime. The iconic Windows “blue screen of death” hit millions of devices globally and rendered them effectively useless.

The ABC’s national youth station Triple J issued a call-out for anyone who could come to their Sydney studio to DJ in person. One woman was reportedly unable to open her smart fridge to access her food.

All because of a failure at CrowdStrike, a company that most of us – least of all those who were worst hit – had never heard of before.

It’s thought to be the worst tech outage in history and Australia was at its epicentre: the crisis began here, and spread to Europe and the US as the day progressed. Surgeries were cancelled in Austria, Japanese airlines cancelled flights and Indian banks were knocked offline. It was a horrifying demonstration of how interconnected global technology is, and how quickly things can fall apart.

At its peak, it reminded us of some of the most stressful periods of the pandemic, when shoppers fought each other for rolls of toilet paper and argued about whether they needed to wear masks.

Many of us lived through the Y2K panic. We avoided the worst outcomes but it was an early harbinger of how vulnerable our technology is to bugs and faults, and showed the work required to keep everything up and running. The CrowdStrike meltdown felt closer to what’s really at risk when things go wrong.

As a technology reporter, for years I’ve had warnings from industry executives of the danger of cyberattacks or mass outages. These warnings have become real.

The cause of this outage was not anything malicious. It was relatively innocuous: CrowdStrike has blamed a faulty update from its security software, which then caused millions of Windows machines to crash and enter a recovery boot loop.

Of course Australians are no strangers to mass outages, even as they become more common and more severe.

The Optus network outage that froze train networks and disrupted hospital services just over six months ago was eerily similar to the events on Friday, not least because it was also caused by what was supposed to be a routine software upgrade.

The resignation of chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin did little to prevent another Optus outage a month later. If anything, Friday’s CrowdStrike outage highlights how many opportunities there are for one failure to cripple millions of devices and grind the global economy to a halt. So many of the devices that underpin our economy have hundreds of different ways that they can be knocked offline, whether through a cyberattack or human error, as was likely the case with CrowdStrike.

The incident would likely have been even worse were it a cyberattack. Experts have long warned about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure – including water supplies and electricity – to malicious hackers. Everything is now connected to the internet and is therefore at risk.

And yet the potential damage of such attacks is only growing. We are now more reliant than ever on a concentrated number of software firms, and we have repeatedly seen their products come up short when we need them to just work.

In the US, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, put it succinctly.

“All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage, affecting industries from healthcare and airlines to banks and auto-dealers,” Khan said on Saturday.

“Millions of people and businesses pay the price.”

Khan is right. The technology we rely on is increasingly fragile, and is increasingly in the hands of just a few companies. The world’s tech giants like Microsoft and Apple now effectively run our daily lives and businesses, and an update containing a small human error can knock it all over, from Australia to India.

The heat is now on CrowdStrike, as well as the broader technology sector on which we rely so heavily, and some initial lessons are clear. Airlines have backup systems to help keep some flights operational in the case of a technological malfunction. As everyday citizens, it’s an unfortunate reality that we need to think similarly.

Keeping cash as a backup is a smart idea in the event of a payment systems outage, as is having spare battery packs for your devices. Many smart modems these days, like those from Telstra and Optus, offer 4G or 5G internet if their main connection goes down. We need more redundancies built in to the technology we use, and more alternatives in case the technology stops working altogether.

For IT executives at supermarkets, banks and hospitals, the outage makes it clear that “business as usual” will no longer cut it, and customers rightly should expect adequate backups to be in place. Before the Optus outage, a sense of complacency had permeated our IT operations rooms and our company boardrooms, and it still remains. No longer.

The “blue screen of death”, accompanied by a frowny face, was an apt metaphor for the current state of play when it comes to our overreliance on technology. Our technology companies – and us consumers, too – need to do things differently if we’re to avoid another catastrophic global IT outage. There’s too much at stake not to.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

This week – nuclear news to 22 July

Some bits of good news.  Support for parents and children from birth. Montenegro signs the Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action

TOP STORIES.  

Nuclear industry faces acute cybersecurity threats – report. 

International Court of Justice Tells Israel to End Occupation of Palestinian Territories, Pay Reparations.

From the archives. An unacceptable risk to children

Climate. 27 Ways Heat Can Kill You – Update 2024

Noel’s notes.  The cover-up of the danger of nuclear radiation and health, but who is speaking for our grandchildren?     Nuclear power -costs, wastes, etc, but what about the children?  More American media madness.

                                       ********************************************

AUSTRALIA.

………………………………………….

NUCLEAR ITEMS.

ART and CULTURE. The chilling map that shows the devastation of a nuclear attack on Scotland.ATROCITIES. Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West.CIVIL LIBERTIES. Never Forget Julian Assange. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZLbFkv7I4k
ECONOMICS. Premier of New Brunswick Higgs suggests New Brunswick’s Small Nuclear Reactors may not win race to commercialization. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/07/19/2-b1-premier-of-new-brunswick-higgs-suggests-n-b-s-smrs-may-not-win-race-to-commercialization/
France’s EDF faces fresh setback after losing Czech nuclear bid.		ENERGY. China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week.
Nuclear does not mean reliable power for Australia – by Peter Farley.
ENVIRONMENT. EDF’s plans to create new saltmarsh.EVENT. Cold War Scotland – Exhibition National Museum of Scotland24 July. Rally – Washington – Stop the Gaza Genocide .
HEALTH. Radiation.New Book. The Scientists Who Alerted us to Radiation’s Dangers.Mounting evidence of cancer risk from low dose radiation in childhood, or in the uterus.Specific Radioactive Elements and Their Effects on Health – (Original at https://ionizingradiationandyou.blogspot.com/)INDIGENOUS ISSUES. In New Mexico, a Walk Commemorates the Nuclear Disaster Few Outside the Navajo Nation Remember.LEGAL. Overwhelming ICJ Ruling against Israeli Occupation Highlights Need for UN Action.
ActionAid welcomes the historic judgment of the International Court of Justice.
MEDIA. With Media Enamored by US Presidential Race, Israeli Massacres in Gaza Get Even Deadlier.OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Anti-nuclear weapons activists to camp outside RAF base for ten days. Nuclear Free Local Authorities challenge UK government on New Cleo’s application for “justification” of its small nuclear “fast” reactor. Nuclear convoys travelling to Coulport should be peacefully stopped
PERSONAL STORIES. Testimonies from the Mawasi massacre: 90 people buried in the sand.PLUTONIUM . North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex: New evidence of increased activity
POLITICS.J.D. Vance unlikely to advance peace advancing to Vice Presidency.UK: Ed Miliband unveils plans for mini-nuclear reactors ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/07/22/1-b1-uk-ed-miliband-unveils-plans-for-mini-nuclear-reactors/Campaigners against Sizewell C hopeful new MPs will take their concerns to parliament.Absent but not missed: No mention of nuclear in King’s Speech.80 CANADIAN ORGANIZATIONS CALL ON FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO RESCIND APPOINTMENT OF NUCLEAR REGULATORY AGENCY PRESIDENT.POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.AUKUS – Australia-United Kingdom-United States nuclear pact endangers us all.Saudi Arabia wants to fully recognize Israel in exchange for arms, nuclear facility — Biden.Nuclear-weapon states are disregarding political commitments accepted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
SAFETY. Major failure at southern Russia’s largest nuclear plant, 1 power unit shut down.‘Near miss’ incident reported at nuclear waste site near Carlsbad. High hopes and security fears for next-gen nuclear reactorsSPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Space-Based Warfare: America’s Dominance Challenged.Please, No Weapons and Wars in Space.
SPINBUSTER. Shiny New MP’s Fizzingly Push For More Nuclear Waste – Hotter the better! And a Complaint to Advertising Standards – Standards? What Standards!.TECHNOLOGY. Massive IT outage spotlights major vulnerabilities in the global information ecosystem.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)– Dirty Dangerous Distractions from Real Climate Action.		WASTES. Pacific leaders, Japan, agree on Fukushima nuclear wastewater discharge (not everyone is happy). Fukushima plant ends 7th round of treated water release into sea.
WAR and CONFLICT. Nuclear War Is Imminent.
Exposing the Myth of the ‘Good War’US Ally South Korea Threatens Nuclear-Armed North Korea With Regime Destruction.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.Democrats to Keep Unconditional Military Aid to Israel in Party Platform. NATO’s Obscure Relations With Israel and its weapons industry. NATO/US Complicity in Israel’s Relentless Genocide of Gaza. Israel using water as weapon of war as Gaza supply plummets by 94%, creating deadly health catastrophe: Oxfam.
North Korean nuclear weapons, 2024.
China Stops Arms Control Talks With the US Over Arms Sales to Taiwan.
Russia Says It May Deploy Nuclear Missiles in Response to New US Missile Deployment to Germany.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Christina reviews | , , , , | Leave a comment

A realistic time frame for building nuclear- by Peter Farley

15 July 2024  https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/a-realistic-time-frame-for-building-nuclear-by-peter-farley

In this, the second in an occasional series about Peter Dutton’s Coalition plans for nuclear power in Australia, Peter Farley finds the earliest conventional nuclear power could be on online in Australia would be 2048-49. Read the first article on reliability here.

It has been said that we could have nuclear power plants running in Australia in 2035. How realistic is that?

Let’s start with an assessment of how long it would take to place an order. The first thing is for the Opposition to win an election, where they control both the House and Senate.

That is possible but quite unlikely before 2028 but lets assume they get into power and draft very detailed legislation and get it passed by the end of 2025.

Then we must vastly expand the nuclear safety agency ARPANSA to include people with experience in nuclear power plants.

The UK has 700 people doing this job with only nine reactors. Will we build a new industry with fewer inspectors?

Then regulations must be drafted which are updated versions of the very antiquated regulations in the UK and US.

This will be a trade-off be between risk of modernisation and making a mistake or copying and pasting very cumbersome foreign regulations which contribute to unnecessary delays in delivery.

Every page has to be scrutinised to ensure conflicts with existing NEM rules and regulations are resolved. This is not trivial.

Let’s say based on other new bureaucratic endeavours, two years from when the legislation is passed.

With luck draft regulations as far as siting, transmission standards and access, safety zones, cooling water priority and access might be delivered a little earlier to allow site selection to proceed.

Site selection for nuclear power

The Coalitions plans to use existing sites has many complications, that have not yet been clarified, so site selection is by no means simple.

For example, modern nuclear power plants are almost never built as isolated units, having two or more reactors in one spot is necessary for reliability of supply, sharing infrastructure etc.

This is the same as mainline coal and gas plants which are almost always built with two to ten generating units.


Then there is no prospect of having an SMR built in Australia by 2035.

Four projects have already failed this year and every other project has announced delays.

So, although the first commercial Proof of Concept reactor might be operating in Canada in 2032 on a site where it will only be producing 10 percent of site output, we would be foolish in the extreme to place orders for Collie or Port Augusta where two SMRs would be 40-60 percent of site output.

Conventional, large nuclear reactors

Thus, we will be focussed on conventional large reactors in SE Queensland, the Hunter Valley or Latrobe Valley.

Nuclear plants use 20-50 percent more water than coal plants, need additional transmission, need seismic rating and high security safety zones and can’t be built next to an old coal mine.

Given that it takes three to nine years for a simple wind or solar farm to get through all the planning and environmental hoops, it will probably be at best three years after preliminary regulations are released before a site is confirmed, taking us to 2030/31.

Now it is likely that preliminary tender documents could be worked on in parallel with the EIS, but they cannot be finalised until three to six months after all planning approvals are obtained.

In the UK and US it has usually taken two or more years from project approval to order placement, so now we are out to 2033/34 before a contract is signed.

But what about China?

There are claims that China can build a reactor in 4.5 years.

There is no evidence of this, the last reactor connected was on an existing site with existing infrastructure and took 7.5 years.

We could look at Korea, Shin Hanul II again on an existing site with established workforce and fifty years experience in building reactors took 11 years.

That the UK took 19 years, Finland 19 years, France 17 years and the US 15 years, all on existing sites with experienced workforces suggests 15 years would be very optimistic for the first Australian reactor.

Thus the first reactor might come on line if all is well in 2048/49. But if there are legal challenges, workforce issues, site issues (Snowy II, Westgate tunnel etc etc etc) 2055 is quite likely.

After that how fast can we build them.

Korea with an electric equipment industry 15 times as big as us and fifty years of experience building reactors has built six in the last twelve years, the US three and Britain is about halfway through two.

For many reasons the Barakah build time of twelve years from order for the first reactor is not applicable in Australia.

Let’s be really really optimistic and say we can commission a new Nuclear plant every four years, so we have six large reactors on line by 2070-75.

By that time demand is expected to be about 500-600,000 GWh/y and nuclear at best would supply 55,000 GWh or eight to 12 percent of demand.

On the other hand at the recent rate of building wind and solar we have been adding 8-10,000 GWh/y from wind and solar – so by 2070 without accelerating build times they would be supplying an additional 400-450,000 GWh/y

Further reading:
Nuclear does not mean reliable power for Australia – by Peter Farley

Peter Farley holds an engineering degree and is a manufacturing leader who built pioneering CNC machine tools for export winning many export and engineering awards. Peter has been studying the electricity sector since his 2012 Election to the Victorian Committee of Engineers Australia.

July 22, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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