Nuclear more costly and could ‘sound the death knell’ for Australia’s decarbonisation efforts, report says
Peter Hannam Economics correspondent, Guardian, Fri 28 Jun 2024
A nuclear-powered Australian economy would result in higher-cost electricity and would “sound the death knell” for decarbonisation efforts if it distracts from renewables investment, a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) argues.
The report comes as ANZ forecast September quarter power prices will dive as much as 30% once government rebates kick in. A separate review by the market watchdog has found household energy bills were 14% lower because of last year’s rebates.
BNEF said the federal opposition’s plan to build nuclear power stations on seven sites required “a slow and challenging” effort to overturn existing bans in at least three states, for starters.
Even if they succeeded, the levelised cost of electricity – a standard industry measure – would be far higher for nuclear power than renewables. Taking existing nuclear industries in western nations into account, their cost would still be “at least four times greater than the average” for Australian wind and solar plants firmed up with storage today, Bloomberg said.
“Nuclear could play a valuable, if expensive, role in Australia’s future power mix,” the report said. “However, if the debate serves as a distraction from scaling-up policy support for renewable energy investment, it will sound the death knell for its decarbonisation ambitions – the only reason for Australia to consider going nuclear in the first place.”
Bloomberg’s analysis complements CSIRO’s GenCost report that also found nuclear energy to be far more costly than zero-carbon alternatives. Australia’s lack of experience with the industry would result in a learning “premium” that would double the price of the first nuclear plant, according to the CSIRO.
Bloomberg also found that assuming the opposition’s seven plants had a generation capacity of 14 gigawatts, they would supply only a fraction of the total market.
If governments tried to rely on inflexible generators – whether coal-fired or nuclear – as renewables increased, they would have to resort to subsidies and other market interventions at a cost to taxpayers, Bloomberg said.
“This report speaks for itself,” the energy minister, Chris Bowen, said. “It’s another example of experts confirming that nuclear energy is too slow, too expensive and too risky for Australia.
“The Albanese government’s plan is the only plan backed by experts to deliver clean, cheap, renewable power available 24/7, and get us to net zero by 2050.”
Guardian Australia sought comment from the opposition energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien.
ANZ, meanwhile, expects residential electricity prices to begin to see big falls starting from next month as federal and state rebates take effect.
@ANZ_Research predicts electricity prices in the September quarter could fall by 30% as fresh rebates kick in. That would lop a large 0.7 percentage points off the inflation rate (to be recovered later unless the rebates continue). pic.twitter.com/fjHWP8duEn— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) June 27, 2024
From 1 July, all households in Queensland get a $1,000 rebate, those in Western Australia the first of two $200 rebates and nationally the first of four $75 rebates from the federal government will arrive.
In the September quarter, ANZ estimates consumer prices will fall 0.7 percentage points, temporarily dampening overall inflation – assuming those rebates aren’t extended again.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will also release its annual market inquiry report on Friday. It showed that without the federal government’s energy rebates in the May 2023 budget the median residential energy bill would have been 14%, or $46.64, higher across all regions…………………………………….more https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/28/nuclear-energy-report-australia-expensive-decarbonisation-renewables
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors cost concerns challenge industry optimism
Reuters, Paul Day, Jun 27, 2024
Concerns over the potential cost of small modular reactors (SMRs) and the electricity they produce continue to cast a shadow over growing optimism for new nuclear.
Proponents say that the recent faltering history of large nuclear projects missing schedules and running over budget are just teething problems for a new industry in the midst of a difficult economic climate.
However, critics claim it as proof that nuclear is not economically viable at all, and it will take too long faced with pressing climate issues.
There is little doubt that new nuclear will, at least initially, be more expensive to develop, build, and run than many are hoping.
New Generation IV reactors, such as SMRs, are likely to produce hidden costs inherent in the development of first-of-a-kind technology, while high commodity and building material prices, stubbornly high inflation, and interest rates at levels not seen for decades are adding to mounting expenses for the new developers.
NuScale’s cancelled deal to supply its SMRs to a consortium of electricity cooperatives due to rising power price estimates prompted The Breakthrough Institute’s Director for Nuclear Energy Innovation Adam Stein to write that advanced nuclear energy was in trouble.
Speaking during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference in June, Stein said nothing had changed to fix the fundamental challenges nuclear faces since he wrote that in November, but there was a greater sense of urgency.
“Commodity prices have come down slightly, though interest rates are largely still the same and those are risks, or uncertainties, that are outside of the developer’s control,” Stein said during an event at the American Nuclear Society (ANS) 2024 Annual Conference.
“Until those can be considered a project risk, instead of unknown uncertainties, they are not going to be controlled at all and can drastically swing the price of any single project.”
Enthusiastic hype
These criticisms clash with growing enthusiasm (critics say ‘hype’) surrounding the new technology.
Twenty two countries and 120 companies at the COP28 conference in November vowed to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050, and developers are making sweeping promises about the capabilities and affordability of their latest creations, many of which will not be commercially available in North America or Europe until the early 2030s.
SMRs, defined as reactors that generate 300 MW or less, cost too much, and deployment is too far out for them to be a useful tool to transition from fossil fuels in the coming 10-15 years, according to a recent study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
“SMRs are not going to be helpful in the transition. They’re not going to be here quick enough. They’re not going to be economic enough. And we really don’t have time to wait,” says co-author of the study Dennis Wamsted.
Existing SMRs in China (Shidao Bay), Russia (floating SMR such as the Akademik Lomonosov), and in Argentina (the still under-construction CAREM) have all cost significantly more than originally planned, the IEEFA says in the study ‘Small Modular Reactors: Still too expensive, too slow, and too risky.’
Construction work on the cutting-edge CAREM project has been stalled since May due to cost-cutting measures by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, the head of National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) told Reuters.
The billions of dollars the U.S. and Canadian governments are pouring into nuclear power through subsidies, tax credits, and federally funded research, would be better spent on extra renewables, Wamsted says.
Some 260,000 MW of renewable energy generation, mostly solar, is expected to be added to the U.S. grid just through to 2028, the study says citing the American Clean Power Association, way before any new nuclear is expected to be plugged in.
“Federal funds to nuclear is, in our opinion, a waste of time and money,” says Wamsted.
High uncertainty…………………………………………….
https://www.reutersevents.com/nuclear/smr-cost-concerns-challenge-industry-optimism
Peter Dutton’s nuclear power plans are an ironic backflip to nationalisation for the Liberal Party
With a mantra of small government and minimal interference in the economy, the Liberal Party has long stood for the rights of the individual and free enterprise.
Until last week.
If Dutton’s nuclear ambitions come to fruition, control of Australia’s energy market, will end up in the hands of the federal government.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/dutton-nuclear-power-renewable-energy-liberal-party/104016288
By chief business correspondent Ian Verrender 25 June 24
Ben Chifley is considered one of the giants of Labor politics.
As treasurer, he guided the nation through the arduous task of financing World War II and later, after John Curtin’s death, went on to lead the country in the immediate post-war era.
But, in August 1947, concerned that rival banks would undermine the roles of the Commonwealth Bank and the federal government in operating monetary policy, he announced a plan to nationalise Australia’s banking system.
Politically, it was a disaster after the High Court ruled against it. From wartime hero, Labor was swept from power in the 1949 elections by the Robert Menzies-led Liberal Party and spent the next 23 years in the political wilderness.
With a mantra of small government and minimal interference in the economy, the Liberal Party has long stood for the rights of the individual and free enterprise.
Until last week. Rather than allowing market forces to dictate how Australia should respond to the global challenge of reducing greenhouse emissions, the Coalition under Peter Dutton has turned that ethos on its head with a plan to embark upon one of the biggest government-funded investment programs in history.
It is a radical plan that not only throws future private investment in the energy sector into a state of uncertainty, it threatens to undermine the value of privately owned renewable energy investment made during the past 15 years.
On some estimates, depending upon how big the nuclear rollout will be, a capital expenditure program of more than half a trillion dollars will be required to fund this sudden shift in energy policy.
To operate efficiently and to minimise cost, nuclear power plants need to be permanently going full pelt, leaving little room for any other source of power generation.
If Dutton’s nuclear ambitions come to fruition, control of Australia’s energy market, having been privatised largely under Coalition-run state governments since Jeff Kennett made the first move in Victoria, will end up in the hands of the federal government.
Who cares about cost?
It is not the first time the Coalition has up-ended its free-market ethos when it comes to energy policy.
Under Tony Abbott, Australia abandoned the carbon tax established under the Gillard government which put a price on carbon emissions. Instead, it was replaced by a direct subsidy program, the Emissions Reduction Fund, which allocated billions of taxpayer dollars to private enterprise.
Australia’s energy and climate policies have been a mess, the battleground of a bitter raging war between both sides of politics for most of the past 20 years. It has resulted in an underinvestment in new electricity generation as the industry has watched policy lurch between the two extremes.
While many senior Coalition members have openly questioned whether climate change exists with Abbott labelling climate science as “crap”, both sides of politics finally appeared to be on a unity ticket in November 2021 when then-prime minister Scott Morrison signed up to the Paris agreement on emissions reductions.
Since then, gas shortages, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the shutdown of our aging coal-fired generators have sent retail electricity prices soaring.
While Dutton claims the first nuclear station could be operational by midway through the next decade, realistically, they are likely to take far longer.
By that stage, however, almost all our coal-fired plants would have been retired, creating massive energy shortfalls in the meantime. Those supporting the opposition and its nuclear policy argue the coal generators’ life should be extended.
That means either building new ones or refurbishing the existing ones at enormous expense which would then detract from the economics of replacing them with nuclear. And our emissions reduction targets would be blown.
The French experience
Whenever any kind of debate on nuclear power plants erupts, France enters the conversation.
More than 70 per cent of France’s electricity is generated from nuclear power plants. And as the proponents will highlight, the French enjoy much lower power prices than most of their European neighbours who now rely on imported fossil fuels.
That’s because the vast bulk of them were built decades ago, they are all government-owned and their costs largely have been sunk.
France has more than 55 nuclear plants dotted around the country that are run by a government entity EDF.
They were built in reaction to the 1973 energy crisis under a plan put forth by then prime minister Pierre Messmer given the country had little if any fossil fuel resources.
Economists Steven Hamilton and Luke Heeney argue that France has made its nuclear system work largely because the technology dominates the power generation system and because it has neighbours that can absorb the excess.
“Countries like France can only make nuclear work by exporting large amounts of energy when it’s surplus to demand,” they wrote recently.
Almost half the plants are more than 40 years old and many are in need of upgrades, a process that has been delayed by debate about whether they should be decommissioned or their life extended.
In September 2022, more than 30 plants were shut because of technical or maintenance problems while the extended European drought created havoc with plant cooling facilities.
Water is essential for nuclear plants, a challenge the opposition appears to have overlooked in its plan to roll them out on the world’s driest continent.
Instead, it has opted to place them on the sites of retired coal-fired generators. But those sites were selected because they were close to coal fields.
Nuclear not compatible with renewables
For all the talk about the cost of building nuclear stations, the cost involved in running them has taken a back seat.
They are horrendously expensive to build. But, even if you don’t take the build cost into account, they are hugely expensive to run.
Even when they are running flat out, the cost of electricity generation is much higher than for renewables, according to the CSIRO and most reputable economists and analysts.
To maximise their efficiency, they need to be running full-time at maximum capacity. But the opposition has hinted nuclear power would somehow complement renewables, that they could switch on to fill the breach when renewables fall short.
As investment banker David Leitch argues, renewables flood the system during daylight hours, sending wholesale power prices to zero and even lower on many days, which would cripple the economics of nuclear power.
“Generation technology choices do not live in isolation from the system in which they operate,” he says.
“For those not already tired of the debate around small, modular reactors, the fact is they are not a technology designed to deal with the reality of a system that has lots of renewables and specifically lots of solar.”
That means much higher generation prices on top of an extraordinarily expensive and long build time that will come into effect long after our coal-fired generators have bitten the dust.
Chifley’s experience still looms large over Labor. So, for the next few years, prepare to be entertained by a Labor Party preaching market forces butting heads with a Coalition hell-bent on nationalising a key segment of the economy.
The irony.
Matt Kean to helm Climate Change Authority, says no to nuclear
Rachel Williamson, Jun 24, 2024, ReNewEconomy
The architect of New South Wales’ (NSW) renewable energy transition is set to be the next Climate Change Authority (CCA) chair, with Matt Kean stepping up to take on the job of advising on the options and pace of the national shift to decarbonisation.
The former NSW Liberal MP and state energy minister – who only stepped down from politics late last week – will combine decarbonisation with economic policy in his new role, a job whose importance is taking on an outsized importance in advance of an election set to be fought on how to get to net zero.
The CCA advises the government on climate change policy.
He then handled the NSW emissions reductions target of 70 per cent by 2035.
Today, Kean rejected nuclear as a solution the CCA will support, saying that his department looked into the energy source for NSW and advice was that it would take too long and be too expensive.
He says the advice was from professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, who was responsible for the British government’s nuclear defence program and is one of the few people in Australia to have actually run a nuclear program.
Retiring chair Grant King restored the agency to “its proper role” supporting the government’s climate goals, says energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen.
“Good climate and energy policy is good economic policy – the Albanese government gets that and so does Matt Kean,” he said in a statement.
“Our ambitious but achievable policies are ensuring our approach is credible and delivers benefits for all Australians. The Climate Change Authority is critical to this agenda.
“Matt Kean’s time in public office was marked by reform and the ability to bring people from across the political spectrum with him for the good of the community.”…………………………………………………………………. more https://reneweconomy.com.au/matt-kean-to-helm-climate-change-authority-says-no-to-nuclear/
Peter Dutton says nuclear power plants “burn energy.” No they don’t
Giles Parkinson, Jun 25, 2024 https://reneweconomy.com.au/peter-dutton-says-nuclear-power-plants-burn-fuel-no-they-dont/
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has betrayed his complete ignorance about the nuclear technology he threatens to impose on the Australian population by a making a fundamental error: He thinks they burn fuel, or energy.
The comments were made in a heated Question Time in parliament house on the first day of the winter session which promises to be focused on energy and climate.
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien was ejected from the house by speaker Milton Dick, and Dutton ran close, earning the ire of the speaker on several occasions when he interjected as Labor ministers spoke.
At one point Dutton – trying to tie Labor up in knots over waste from a nuclear submarine, said this, according to Hansard:
Mr Dutton: It’s on relevance. And, perhaps, to be of assistance to the minister, the propulsion system burns energy—that’s how the system is working—and it’s stored in the—
The SPEAKER: Resume your seat.
Actually, they don’t burn fuel. That’s the point of them. If they did, they would likely create emissions, as defence minister Richard Marles explained.
Mr MARLES: Actually, it doesn’t burn any fuel, because burning is oxidisation, which is what happens in an internal combustion engine, which is exactly what happens when you use hydrocarbons. What this is is a nuclear reaction which gives rise to power. That is what happens inside the sealed nuclear reactor. The point is that the waste that will need to be disposed of …
And if he doesn’t accept Labor’s word on it, the Opposition leader could also read up on the website of the Nuclear Energy Institute:
“Nuclear plants are different because they do not burn anything to create steam. Instead, they split uranium atoms in a process called fission. As a result, unlike other energy sources, nuclear power plants do not release carbon or pollutants like nitrogen and sulfur oxides into the air.”
It reminds me of an encounter I had when I first started driving an EV. It was rubbished by a passer-by who suggested the car would be better off powered by nuclear. He seemed to think you could just shovel uranium into a boiler and off you go. Just top it up at the local refuelling station.
It could be that the aspiring prime minister thinks along the same lines. After all, we are constantly told we should mine Australia’s vast uranium reserves – heck, why not burn them like we do with coal.
It’s not the only major misunderstanding of nuclear by Dutton. He has suggested that what he defines as a small nuclear reactor, around 400 MW, would produce just a single can of coke as waste. It will need to be a very big can.
Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, of Griffith University’s school of environment and science, told the SMH it was safe to say an SMR would generate many tonnes of waste per year, and it was likely that waste would be more radioactive than the waste from a large-scale reactor.
“For a 400-megawatt SMR, you’d expect that to produce about six tonnes of waste a year. It could be more or less, depending on the actual technology but certainly multiple tonnes a year,” he said. “They run on highly enriched uranium and produce a much nastier and a much more intractable set of radioactive waste elements that have to be treated.”
The Coalition’s entire nuclear push is based on lies and misconceptions, from their claim that wind, solar and storage can’t power a modern economy, that their plan needs no additional transmission, that its cheaper than renewables, and that it’s consistent with climate targets.
As virtually all experts have pointed out, with the exception of an heroic rear guard action on Sky News, the policy makes no sense economically, environmentally, or from an engineering point of view.
Perhaps Dutton needs to watch a few more episodes of The Simpsons. Or perhaps not.
This week’s countering the nuclear spin
Some bits of good news. Solar Power’s Giants Are Providing More Energy Than Big Oil. Clean-Energy Investment This Year To Be Twice That of Fossil Fuels, IEA Says. A River’s Rights: Indigenous Kukama Women Lead the Way with Landmark Legal Victory.
TOP STORIES. Blinken made secret weapons promise to Israel – Netanyahu. The US, Russia, and Ukraine: 75 Years of Hate Propaganda. Nuclear-armed countries spent $2,898 per second last year on nuclear weapons. We’ve barely scratched the surface of how energy efficiency can help the energy transition.
Climate. Extreme heat and flash floods: Scientists warn of hazardous summer weather in Europe. Climate Emergency strikes Islam’s Holy Ritual, with nearly 600 dead of Heat stroke at 124.24° F. in Mecca. Saudi Arabia shuts pilgrims out of air-conditioned areas as more than 1,000 die in extreme heat.
Nuclear. Overwhelmed with Australian stuff this week!
Noel’s notes. Nuclear culture wars – especially in Australia. What a disaster, if the anti-war movement brings Donald Trump back to the White House!
*****************************************************************
AUSTRALIA Keep up to date at this site:
Australia’s media quagmire on nuclear power.
Lockheed Martin, Australian Government: joined at the hip. Australian Futures:
Bringing AUKUS Out of Stealth Mode, and the true financial costs.
*****************************************************************
NUCLEAR ISSUES
ECONOMICS. Big Tech Wants Nuclear Power But
Doesn’t See Role as Investor. Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan could cost as much as $600bn and supply just 3.7% of Australia’s energy by 2050, experts say. Nuclear power’s financial problems exposed in new report. Very late and over budget: Why newest large nuclear plant in US is likely to be the last. UK’s nuclear plant will cost nearly three times what was estimated.
| ENERGY. Why we are heading for a globally connected electricity system based on renewable energy. | EVENTS. Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project 2024: the Pacific Northwest. | ETHICS and RELIGION. Ten Holocaust survivors condemn Israel’s Gaza genocide. |
| HEALTH. Nuclear industry workers face significant, inevitable and unavoidable radiation health risks. | LEGAL. Sellafield operators plead guilty to criminal charges over security breaches. Veterans for Peace Golden Rule Project 2024: the Pacific Northwest. | MEDIA. Comments to The Times: Nuclear won’t fix our energy crisis |
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR .
Kenya’s first nuclear plant: why plans face fierce opposition in country’s coastal paradise.
POLITICS.
- Senate Nuclear Fetishists Take Lid Off of Pandora’s Box.
- No more ‘endless’ payments to Zelensky – Trump.
- Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reinforced his party’s commitment to nuclear energy UK nuclear power plants rollout may be hit by planning hurdles. ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2024/06/22/1-b1-uk-nuclear-power-plants-rollout-may-be-hit-by-planning-hurdles/ Nuclear black hole could deal a knock-out blow to UK Labour’s renewable targets.
- Over budget and plagued with delays: UK nuclear lessons for Australia.
- Scotland’s First Minister Swinney hits back at ‘hopelessly ideological’ attack from nuclear industry.
- U.S. Congress passes bill to jumpstart new nuclear power tech, but it may be too little, too late.
- Gavin Newsom’s $12 Billion Radioactive Diablo Scam Could Soon Be Twisting In The Wind.
- Norway To Consider Developing Nuclear Energy.
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.Why ‘no’ to NATO? U.S. and China hold first informal nuclear talks in five years, France’s Orano loses operating licence at major uranium mine in Niger. | SAFETY. ‘Lax’ nuclear security leaving UK at risk of cyber attacks from hostile nations. | SECRETS and LIES. Leaked doc reveals Israeli military KNEW of Hamas plan to raid and take hostages 2 weeks before Oct 7, Israeli news reports. |
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS The United Nations Security Council takes up Space Security – it might have been best if it had not.
| SPINBUSTER. Australia’s Nuclear debate is getting heated, but whose energy plan stacks up? | WASTES. Specialised device tried to recover highly radioactive melted fuel at Fukushima plant. |
TECHNOLOGY. Researchers have doubts, but Bill Gates is hyping his new liquid-sodium nuclear reactor.URANIUM.
Iran’s Nuclear Point Man : We Won’t Bow to Pressure.
WAR and CONFLICT. Can Israel defeat Hamas? Its own military doesn’t seem to think so, clashing with Netanyahu. Delusional Netanyahu joins delusional Zelensky in seeking total victory when none possible. Israeli ‘extremist’ tells Australian audience Gaza should have been reduced to ashes.
Ukraine, Continued Aid, and the Prevailing Logic of Slaughter.
What nuclear annihilation could look like.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
- Corporations are influencing government policy on nuclear weapons, a damning report shows.
- Congress will hold a hearing about the Sentinel missile’s exploding budget, but is it too little, too late?.
- NATO chief says members considering deployment of more nuclear weapons, Kremlin warns it’s an ‘escalation of tension’
- Top lawmakers sign off on massive US arms sale to Israel. Chutzpah: Netanyahu demands Biden give him more genocide weapons “to finish the job a lot faster.” Former Official: Biden State Department Bending US Law to Send Israel Weapons.
- Sweden opens doors to possible US nukes deployment.
- US greenlights new arms sale to Taiwan.
- Vandenberg Conducts Test Launch for Development of New Weapon System.
Is rooftop solar a fatal flaw in the Coalition’s grand nuclear plans?
Unlike nuclear, solar is also extraordinarily cheap, at least up-front, and large-scale projects can be delivered for comparative peanuts — and with blinding speed.
There are now almost 4 million homes spread across the country with solar installations, and the electricity they generate accounted for about 12 per cent of Australia’s needs last year.
It’s a constituency that politicians would tackle at their peril.
By energy reporter Daniel Mercer, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-24/rooftop-solar-potentially-lethal-flaw-in-coalition-nuclear-plans/104008864—
Earlier this year, the Coalition made a curious, significant move.
David Littleproud, the leader of the National Party, broke cover and wholeheartedly threw his support behind rooftop solar and household batteries.
The Nationals, he said, were not against renewable energy, only large-scale projects such as wind farms and transmission lines that were “tearing up the environment”.
Quite the opposite — the National Party wanted as many Australian households to get solar and batteries as would have them.
The pitch, which was quickly backed by opposition leader Peter Dutton, evidently had a few purposes.
For starters, it clearly distinguished the opposition from the Labor government, whose plan to decarbonise the power system rests largely on big-ticket renewable energy and transmission items.
In one fell swoop, the Coalition was able to say it was pro-renewable energy while being able to attack the government’s own green plans as environmentally and economically dangerous.
What’s more, the shift was a clear nod — or a sop, depending on who you ask — to the enormous and growing political clout of Australia’s solar-owning class.
Lastly, as both Mr Littleproud and Mr Dutton have repeatedly since pointed out, rooftop solar was an ideal complement for the central plank of the Coalition’s energy plans — nuclear.
Dangers in the detail?
The thinking behind that pivot has been on full display in recent days after the Coalition finally unveiled the major details of its energy policy for the upcoming federal election.
Under the plans, Australia would get seven nuclear power plants by the middle of the century — five large-scale ones across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria and two small ones across South Australia and Western Australia.
No longer would the renewable emphasis be on scores of new wind and solar farms in regional areas and the high-voltage power lines needed to plug them into the grid.
It would instead be directed towards people’s rooftops, “an environment that you can’t destroy”, according to Mr Littleproud.
But hiding behind this veil of logic from the Coalition, energy experts reckon, is a potentially fatal flaw.
Solar power and nuclear power don’t play nicely together.
“That’s another untested and questionable part of this whole strategy,” said Dylan McConnell, a senior researcher and energy analyst at the University of NSW.
“What happens if we look into a system that is largely dominated by … a significant proportion of … behind-the-meter solar?
“People are going to continue to install rooftop solar and, in fact, the Coalition is supportive of that.
At the heart of this tension are the differing — and some argue incompatible — characteristics of nuclear and solar power.
On the one hand, nuclear reactors are the quintessential base-load generators that can — and want to — run at or near full capacity all the time.
Not only are they well-suited to the task technically, nuclear plants also have an economic imperative to operate flat-out given their monumental development costs.
These development costs are typically exacerbated by very long lead times — lead times subject to significant blowouts — in which debts are incurred and eye-watering amounts of interest can accrue.
The hare and the tortoise
Paying off those debts is paramount for the owner of a nuclear plant.
Failure to do so can be financially ruinous.
And the way to do that is to produce and sell as much electricity as is technically possible.
By contrast, solar power — specifically from photovoltaic cells typical of suburban rooftops — are the archetypal source of variable renewable energy.
They produce the most power when the sun is shining during the day, none when it’s not, and their output can be highly variable depending on the conditions.
Unlike nuclear, solar is also extraordinarily cheap, at least up-front, and large-scale projects can be delivered for comparative peanuts — and with blinding speed.
For a household, the cost of a 10-kilowatt system — an installation capable of meeting much of an average customer’s needs — can be done for a few thousand dollars.
In other words, if nuclear power is the proverbial tortoise, solar is the hare.
None of which is to dismiss the technical and economic challenges that solar presents, namely, how to back it up when it’s not producing — a very big task indeed.
But there is another crucial way in which solar and nuclear — or any base-load power such as coal, for that matter — clash.
Solar generation, by its very nature, peaks in the middle of the day.
As ever-more Australians install seemingly ever-more solar panels on their roofs, that peak in solar output is becoming truly epic in its proportions.
Rooftop solar is a beast
or example, there are times in South Australia when rooftop solar alone can account for more than the entire demand for electricity in the state.
To ensure South Australia’s electricity system doesn’t blow up, virtually all other generators have to pare back their output to a bare minimum or switch off entirely.
And even then, South Australia’s surplus rooftop solar generation has to be exported to other states or wasted.
Rooftop solar can do this because it’s largely uncontrolled and flows simply by dint of the sun shining.
It was partly for this reason that South Australia’s only base-load coal plant retired in 2016.
Of course, there are many more times when rooftop solar provides precisely 0 per cent of South Australia’s power needs.
But it all goes to illustrate the very real challenges that base-load nuclear would face, and the very real trends that are unlikely to grind to a halt between now and 2035, by when the Coalition hopes to have the first of its nuclear reactors up and running.
A quick glance at the numbers will tell you all you need to know about the popularity — and power — of rooftop solar in Australia.
There are now almost 4 million homes spread across the country with solar installations, and the electricity they generate accounted for about 12 per cent of Australia’s needs last year.
Bruce Mountain, the director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, summed it up this way: “Rooftop solar has few opponents.”
“It’s the one thing that keeps on growing despite the impasse at a national level,” Professor Mountain said.
“And I think there’s much more to go to realise the potential for that, most notably on factory roofs.”
Something has to give
Professor Mountain said “I’m kind of open to the idea of nuclear”, noting that it was being taken seriously by many other developed countries seeking to decarbonise their electricity supply.
He also pointed out that Australia’s development of large-scale renewable energy projects and, particularly, the transmission lines needed to support them, had hardly been a glowing success to date.
In any case, Professor Mountain suggested the fact the Coalition was proposing to own and operate any nuclear power stations was an acknowledgement that there was no commercial case for the technology in Australia.
On that point, Dr McConnell from the University of NSW agreed.
Dr McConnell said the economic obstacles in front of nuclear in Australia were enormous, and a big one was rooftop solar.
He said that in the almost inevitable event that nuclear and solar power clashed, something would have to give.
“The way you might achieve that in a system with lots of rooftop solar is by curtailing [switching off] rooftop solar,” Dr McConnell said.
“And that may not be politically popular either.”
Robert Barr, a power industry veteran and a member of the lobby group Nuclear for Climate, did not shy away from the potential for future tensions, noting that coal was already getting squeezed out of the system by solar.
But Dr Barr said any clash could be easily managed through a combination of price signals that encouraged householders to use more of their solar power and export less, and new reactor technology that could ramp up and down more effectively.
You could probably drop down from 100 per cent down comfortably to like 60 per cent output and on a daily basis,” Dr Barr said of new nuclear technology.
Ultimately, however, Dr Barr argued it may need to be households with solar panels that gave way to nuclear energy for the greater benefit of the electricity system.
Don’t mention the solar wars
Right now, he said, renewable energy was benefiting from taxpayer-funded subsidies that allowed wind and solar projects to make money even when the price of power was below $0.
These subsidies applied to both utility-scale projects and rooftop solar panels, through the large- and small-scale green energy targets introduced by the Rudd Labor government.
They effectively allow such projects to sell their electricity for less than zero — up to a point — and still be in the money.
In the future, Dr Barr said, those subsidies would no longer exist and renewable energy projects would start to be penalised each time the price of electricity went negative.
“I think what will happen is that nuclear will just tend to push out solar,” he said.
“There’ll be an incentive for customers to back off.
“And I think it wouldn’t be that difficult to build control systems to stop export of power at the domestic level.
“It’d be difficult for all the existing ones but for new ones, it just might require a little bit of smarts in them to achieve that particular end — it can be managed.”
Much like the Coalition’s grand policy pitch, those comments might be considered bold given the political heft wielded by millions of solar households.
Last decade, politicians of all stripes got into all manner of trouble when they tried to wind back subsidies known as feed-in-tariffs, which paid customers for their surplus solar power generation.
Solar households, egged on by the industry, mobilised, went on the attack and in many cases forced governments to bend to their will.
And that was at a time when the number of households with solar was a fraction of what it is now.
It’s a constituency that politicians would tackle at their peril.
Keep up to date on Australia’s media quagmire on nuclear power
This is still the most interesting article of all
Patricia Karvelas: Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan breaks all the rules of policy making. Is it genius or career self-destruction?
Below is a list of news articles. Now I have not here included the pro nuclear propaganda ones, nor the ravings of the very right-wing shock jocks of commercial radio – such as Melbourne’s 3AW. But you can find all that stuff on mainstream, mainly Murdoch media. The ABC is doing its best to stay afloat and actually give the facts. I am sure that those brave female TV and radio voices are now under quite vicious attack – Patricia Karvelas, Sarah Ferguson and Laura Tingle
I will try to keep this list up-to date – it is a daunting task –
National politics Dutton’s plan to nuke Australia’s renewable energy transition explained in full . No costing, no clear timelines, no easy legal path: deep scepticism over Dutton’s nuclear plan is warranted Nuclear plan is fiscal irresponsibility on an epic scale and rank political opportunism. Dutton’s nuclear lights are out and no one’s home. Peter Dutton launches highly personal attack on Anthony Albanese, calling him ‘a child in a man’s body’ while spruiking his new nuclear direction. Peter Dutton vows to override state nuclear bans as he steps up attack on PM. Peter Dutton is seated aloft the nuclear tiger, hoping not to get eaten.
Local politics. Nuclear thuggery: Coalition will not take no for an answer from local communities or site owners.
Climate change policy. Here’s how bad the climate crisis will get before Dutton builds his first nuclear reactor. Labor’s new climate chief Matt Kean says nuclear not viable. Peter Dutton’s flimsy charade is first and foremost a gas plan not a nuclear power plan. Coalition’s climate and energy policy in disarray as opposition splits over nuclear and renewables.
Economics Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan could cost as much as $600bn and supply just 3.7% of Australia’s energy by 2050, experts say . The insane amount it could cost to turn Australia nuclear – as new detail in Peter Dutton’s bold plan is revealed. Nuclear engineer dismisses Peter Dutton’s claim that small modular reactors could be commercially viable soon. Wrong reaction: Coalition’s nuclear dream offers no clarity on technology, cost, timing, or wastes. ‘Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan is an economic disaster that would leave Australians paying more for electrici.ty’. Dutton’s nuclear thought bubble floats in a fantasy world of cheap infrastructure. UK’s nuclear plant will cost nearly three times what was estimated.
Energy, Coalition won’t say how much nuclear power its plan will generate until after an election. Is rooftop solar a fatal flaw in the Coalition’s grand nuclear plans? Nuclear lobby concedes rooftop solar will have to make way for reactors.
Health Nuclear industry workers face significant, inevitable and unavoidable radiation health risks
Indigenous issues, How a British nuclear testing program ‘forced poison’ onto Maralinga Traditional Owners.
Technology. Dutton’s plan to build nuclear plants on former coal sites not as easy as it seems Over budget and plagued with delays: UK nuclear lessons for Australia.
Sabotaging renewables. There’s one real Coalition energy policy now: sabotaging renewables.
Secrecy. Port Augusta mayor and local MP kept in the dark about Liberal Coalition’s plant to site nuclear reactors there.
Site locations for reactors. Peter Dutton reveals seven sites for proposed nuclear power plants. Coalition set to announce long-awaited nuclear details.
Safety. Nuclear debate is getting heated, but whose energy plan stacks up? Some of the Coalition’s proposed nuclear locations are near fault lines — is that a problem?
Spinbuster. It’s time to go nuclear on the Coalition’s stupidity. Ziggy Switkowski and another big nuclear back-flip . Does the Coalition’s case for nuclear power stack up? We factcheck seven key claims. A Coalition pie-in-the-sky nuclear nightmare.
Peter Dutton’s flimsy charade is first and foremost a gas plan not a nuclear power plan
Dutton’s nuclear castle is made of cardboard. Close questioning over the many months until election day will show that behind the costly facade, it’s not so much a nuclear plan, as a plan to give up on our climate targets, turn our back on a clean energy future and burn a lot more gas (and money).
Simon Holmes à Court, 21 June 24, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/21/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-plan-gas-energy
Straight from the Donald Trump playbook the opposition leader left Australia with more questions than answers.
Finally, on Wednesday morning Peter Dutton announced his nuclear plan … well, it’s more a vibe than a plan – a flimsy announcement leaving us with more questions than answers.
If there’s any doubt that Dutton has internalised the Trump playbook, here’s an example of how he’s deployed the infamous Steve Bannon technique: “flood the zone with shit”.
The media conference was a stream of falsehoods, empty rhetoric and veiled swipes, deftly delivered with unwavering confidence.
As an energy nerd, there’s a lot I like about nuclear technology, and my long-held interest has led me to visit reactors in three countries. Last year I took a nuclear course at MIT and met nuclear developers, potential customers, innovators and investors, tracing many footsteps of the shadow energy minister, Ted O’Brien.
I strongly believe nuclear power is an important technology – but it has to make sense where it’s used and that requires close questioning. Here are some important questions, and what we know so far.
How to remove the current bans?
Nuclear is banned in Australia by two acts of parliament. Naturally, to repeal the ban the Coalition would need to win back control of the house – a daunting task when they are 21 seats shy of a majority – and control of the Senate, power it hasn’t held since the end of the Howard era.
Once the federal ban is lifted, Dutton needs a plan for lifting state bans in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
The leaders of the Labor governments and their Coalition oppositions in each of these key states have expressed their clear opposition. Dutton rehashed the old quip that you wouldn’t want to stand between a state premier and a bucket of money, indicating that he thinks dangling commonwealth carrots will solve the issue.
They will not be cheap carrots!
Where will the reactors go?
The Coalition has named seven specific locations, two in Queensland, two in New South Wales and one each in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, all on sites of retired or soon-to-be-retired coal power stations.
One big problem – the commonwealth doesn’t own any of these sites, and in many cases the owners of the sites have plans to redevelop the sites, such as a $750m battery on the site of the old Liddell power station being built by AGL.
On Wednesday Dutton hinted that if the owners wouldn’t sell the sites, he had legal advice that the commonwealth could compulsorily acquire them. That’ll go down well.
How do we keep the lights on?
Australia’s 19 coal power stations generated 125 TWh of electricity last year. The Australian Energy Market Operator expects all will be retired by 2037. On top of that, our energy demand is expected to increase by more than 230 TWh by 2050. Over the next 25 years we need to build facilities that generate at least 355 TWh every year.
Dutton announced that the Coalition would build five large reactors and two small modular reactors by 2050. This would be about 6.5 GW of new capacity, which at best could be expected to generate 50 TWh a year – less than 15% of the new generation needed.
The Coalition has been quite clear that it wants to see renewable energy development slowed to a crawl. This would leave a massive hole in our energy supply, which could only be filled by extending the life of coal and a massive increase in gas power generation.
This is first and foremost a gas plan, not a nuclear plan.
What will it cost?
Gas is the most expensive form of bulk energy supply in the electricity market … at least until nuclear is available.
Replacing the cheapest form of energy – wind and solar, even including integration costs – with the two most expensive forms can only send energy prices higher.
The Coalition’s announcement is too vague to cost precisely and nobody really knows what SMRs will cost, but a reasonable estimate using assumptions from CSIRO’s GenCost would be in the order of $120bn, or to coin a new unit of money, one-third of an Aukus.
What does this mean for emissions?
An analysis by Solutions for Climate Australia, released before Wednesday’s announcement and which assumes a much more aggressive nuclear build, shows an aggregate increase in emissions by 3.2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050 – the emissions equivalent of extending the life of our entire coal fleet by 25 years.
While the Coalition has turned its back on Australia’s legislated 2030 target, their talking points say they’re still committed to net zero emissions by 2050. This does not compute. Dutton’s proposal would see high emissions in the electricity sector all the way to 2050 and beyond, blowing our carbon budget and every emissions target along the way.
What if locals object?
For years Coalition members have been running around the country fomenting then amplifying community concern around wind and solar farms. Genuine community consultation, which has sometimes been lacking, is the best antidote to opposition.
Yet the Coalition has made a massive blunder in telling communities exactly where they’ll go before any consultation. Worse, it has adopted a strong-man posture that communities will have to accept that the reactors are in the national interest. It will be fascinating to watch how the Coalition handles local opposition over the coming months.
How will they be built?
With a combination of astronomical costs and zero interest by energy companies, there only ever was one possible owner of a nuclear power station in Australia: the commonwealth government.
One of the biggest challenges will be locking in major contractors. With the high likelihood that a future Labor government would cancel any contracts, no contractor would proceed without very expensive cancellation protection.
When will the reactors come online?
We often hear that a nuclear reactor can be built in eight years. In reality it takes three to four years from signing the contract to completing the civil works to begin ‘construction’, and it would very optimistically take four years to complete site selection, planning, licensing, vendor selection and contracting. Add in the inevitable legal challenges and it’s highly unlikely a reactor could be delivered by 2035 – as Dutton claimed – let alone before the early 2040s.
The newest reactors in the United States took 18 years from announcement to commercial operation, while in the UAE, it took 13 years under an authoritarian regime … and I’m being kind by not mentioning contemporary projects in France, the UK, Finland and Argentina.
Dutton has said he favours the Rolls-Royce SMR, tweeting an artist’s rendering on Wednesday.
These SMRs exist only on paper, yet Dutton wants us to believe he can provide one by 2035. Remember, this is the mob that brought us the NBN and the Snowy 2.0 disaster. This is the team that couldn’t even build commuter car parks.
What about the water and the waste?
I think we can relax a little about water and waste. Yes, nuclear power stations generally require large volumes of water for cooling, but so do coal power stations. By choosing sites with existing access to cooling water, the Coalition has sidestepped this concern.
Public concern around nuclear waste is high, but ultimately the problem is manageable. The waste will be kept on site, likely in dry casks and eventually moved to wherever Australia decides to store its waste from the Aukus program. Nobody has ever been harmed by spent nuclear fuel.
Who will provide disaster insurance?
While serious nuclear accidents are very rare, their costs can be astronomical. The Japan Centre for Economic Research has estimated that total costs related to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident may reach $350 to 750bn. The only viable solution is for the commonwealth to accept liability.
For a long time the Coalition’s nuclear plan sat beyond the horizon, to be unveiled before the election. But now Dutton’s built a castle and he has to defend it.
Dutton is still learning about nuclear. On Wednesday he said that an SMR would emit only a “coke can” of nuclear waste a year. In reality it would probably produce more than 2,000 times that.
Nuclear energy is complex. He and his team will keep making mistakes. Keith Pitt, a Nationals backbencher told RN Breakfast on the same day that the grid couldn’t handle more than 10% wind and solar power combined. Over the past year the grid has averaged 31% wind and solar.
Some people want to believe there are simple solutions to the complex solutions behind the cost of living crisis, and like his political forebear Tony Abbott, Dutton has a knack for delivering simple messages with cold competence.
But Dutton’s nuclear castle is made of cardboard. Close questioning over the many months until election day will show that behind the costly facade, it’s not so much a nuclear plan, as a plan to give up on our climate targets, turn our back on a clean energy future and burn a lot more gas (and money).
- Simon Holmes à Court is a Director of The Superpower Institute, the Smart Energy Council and convener of Climate 200. Contrary to Coalition belief, he is not a large investor in renewable energy.
Dutton’s plan to build nuclear plants on former coal sites not as easy as it seems
Dr Katherine Woodthorpe said it would be impractical for nuclear facilities to use existing poles and wires. CREDIT:LOUIE DOUVIS
By Bianca Hall, June 21, 2024, https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/dutton-s-plan-to-build-nuclear-plants-on-former-coal-sites-not-as-easy-as-it-seems-20240620-p5jnbo.html
Experts have cast doubt on the central pillar of Peter Dutton’s nuclear pitch to voters, saying it would take decades to fill in coal mine voids and make contaminated power station sites safe, during which time fragile and valuable transmission lines would be left to deteriorate.
Operators at several of the seven sites identified by the Coalition for nuclear plants already have well-advanced plans to transform their sites into renewable energy hubs with grid-scale batteries, hydrogen and solar once the coal runs out.
Announcing a future Coalition government would build seven nuclear power stations on the sites of existing coal-fired power stations, Dutton said nuclear facilities could be built on the sites of retired coal power plants using existing transmission poles and wires.
“Each of these locations offer important technical attributes needed for a zero-emissions nuclear plant, including cooling water capacity and transmission infrastructure,” he said.
“That is, we can use the existing poles and wires.”
Dr Katherine Woodthorpe, president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, said overseas examples like the United Kingdom’s Hinkley Point C showed it could take decades to approve and build new nuclear facilities – leaving aside the time needed to remediate dirty and geologically unstable former mine sites.
Woodthorpe said even if it only took 25 years to get a new nuclear facility up and running, that meant the existing transmission potential could lie dormant for 25 years after a coal plant closed.
“In theory it could be done, but when you look at the actual practicality of doing it they’d pretty well have to replace it all,” she said.
University of Sydney professor Glenn Platt, who specialises in energy policy, markets and grids, said there was already high demand for dormant transmission networks among renewables operators.
“The unknown bit [about the Coalition policy] is what happens to those poles and wires between now and when somebody wants to build the nuclear plant, because everybody else is trying to use those poles and wires today for wind and solar and battery projects,” he said.
“The landowners many of these sites are already deploying wind and solar or batteries on those sites. They would use up the available poles and wire infrastructure.”
AGL, which owns the Liddell Power Plant in the Hunter Valley, and Loy Yang A in the Latrobe Valley, said it was well-advanced in plans to transform the sites into industrial energy hubs with renewables, batteries and associated industries.
A spokesman referred this masthead to a statement made by chief executive Damien Nicks in March.
“AGL is already developing our coal and gas power station sites into low-emissions industrial energy hubs,” he said.
“As the owner of these sites, nuclear energy is not a part of these plans. There is no viable schedule for the regulation or development of nuclear energy in Australia, and the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive.”
Many observers are looking to now-closed mine sites for clues about how Dutton’s policy could work on a practical level.
French energy giant Engie, which is rehabilitating Victoria’s closed coal mine Hazelwood, has estimated it could take up to 35 years under a worst-case scenario to finish filling the enormous mine void to a maximum depth of 116m and surface area of 1145 hectares.
Engie Australia and New Zealand manager of environment and planning Adam Moran, who has led the rehabilitation, said a nuclear facility could in theory be put on the site of a former coal power station.
“Could it be done? Yes, but if you had to choose a location, would you choose next to a mine void that’s been rehabilitated and full of water, or would you put it some distance further away?” he said.
“You would probably err on the side of caution, and move it well outside of the geological buffer zone that would exist around a rehabilitated coal mine.”
At Hazelwood, which had a 1600-megawatt transmission capacity when the coal mine operated, operators have installed a 150-megawatt-hour battery, which is now plugged into the mine’s existing transmission network.
In November, Yancoal announced plans to transform the coal mine at Stratford in the Hunter Valley, slated for closure this year, into a major 330-megawatt solar farm and pumped hydro facility capable of producing 300 megawatts in a 12-hour period.
A spokesman for EnergyAustralia, which operates the Mt Piper mine in Lithgow, said the company spoke regularly with governments and regulators.
“To date, we have not discussed the use of any EnergyAustralia sites in the context of nuclear,” he said
With its Mt Piper plant due to close in 2040, and Yallourn this decade, EnergyAustralia is increasingly looking to diversify, he said.
“We are focused on continuing to roll out existing, readily available technologies,” he said, which included gas and batteries.
“We are developing more batteries in multiple states, pumped hydro at Lake Lyell in Lithgow and working with partners to underpin further renewable energy.”
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and Climate Action Network Australia commissioned a report identifying industry and workforce opportunities presented by the renewable energy shift.
National secretary Steve Murphy said with government backing, coal workers could retrain and reap the benefits of renewable technologies.
“This is coming, so let’s get involved and get the best results for our members,” he said.
“We’re in a global race for the jobs of the future, and we spent 10 years standing still, [but] we can catch up very quickly with the natural advantages that we’ve got, provided that there is government support.”
Peter Dutton vows to override state nuclear bans as he steps up attack on PM
Opposition leader tells Liberal party officials that state premiers ‘won’t stop us’ and labels Anthony Albanese a ‘child in a man’s body’
Guardian, Jordyn Beazley, Sat 22 Jun 2024
Peter Dutton has vowed a Coalition government would override the states’ legislated ban on nuclear power, telling party officials on Saturday that state premiers “won’t stop us”.
The opposition leader made the comments in an address to the federal Liberal party council in Sydney, where he escalated his attacks on Anthony Albanese. He called the prime minister a “fraud” and a “child in a man’s body” that is “still captured in his university years”.
On Wednesday, the Coalition unveiled its controversial nuclear energy plan in the event it wins government, including seven proposed sites for nuclear reactors across five states. The nuclear pledge drew unanimous blowback from state premiers.
In question time this week, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said he wanted to “make it clear” that his government would not be repealing the ban on nuclear energy in the state. The premiers of Victoria and Queensland said the same.
In responding to the criticism, Dutton said he would work “respectfully and collaboratively” with state premiers, “but I don’t answer to them”.
“The decisions I make will be in our national interest to the benefit of the Australian people,” he said on Saturday.
“Commonwealth laws override state laws even to the level of the inconsistency. So support or opposition at a state level won’t stop us rolling out our new energy system,” he said to a round of applause erupting from the room.
Some state opposition leaders have also opposed the Coalition’s nuclear pledge, with Victoria’s opposition leader, John Pesutto, saying his party had “no plans for nuclear” and Queensland’s opposition leader, David Crisafulli, also saying it was not part of the party’s plan and would remain that way.
In his address, Dutton said Crisafulli had taken “a perfectly understandable position on nuclear power” and was “getting a hard time from the worst premier in Australia, Steven Miles”.
Dutton said Australians would decide their energy future, saying the “the next election will not only define the next political term, it will define the future and fate of this nation”.
During his speech, Dutton slammed Albanese as being out of “his depth”, later adding “visionary Labor leaders – like the late, great Bob Hawke – knew that zero emissions nuclear energy was a good thing”.
“But Labor’s current crop of leaders have been reduced to posting juvenile social media memes of three-eyed fish and koalas.
“Frankly, their behaviour is an affront to the intelligence of the voters whom they seek to represent,” he said.
He then diverged from his scripted remarks to say “our prime minister is a man with his mind still captured in his university years, he’s as a child in a man’s body.
“[Albanese’s] more interested in appeasing the international climate lobby than sticking up for the interests of everyday Australians,” he said………………………………….
Prof Anne Twomey, a constitutional law expert at the University of Sydney, said the commonwealth can override state laws, but there were a number of hurdles the government would face.
The first would be enacting legislation that overrides any inconsistent state laws and passing that through the Senate, while ensuring government decision-making processes around the laws were done fairly.
“If you get through both of those, then … so long as the commonwealth enacts laws that are valid, that are supported by the Constitution, then those laws will override state laws that are inconsistent.”
Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, said in a statement after Dutton’s remarks: “There is no plan that sits behind Peter Dutton and his Liberal National colleagues’ announcement to bring a nuclear power plant to Victoria – and no detail about how much it would cost, how long it would take, where the waste would go, the impact on water supply and the water security for the Gippsland community.
“When you look at all that uncertainty, it makes no sense when you have an alternative. We’ll continue to stand with the Gippsland community and stand against this toxic, risky, uncertain pathway that Peter Dutton wants to go down. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/22/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-energy-state-bans-attacks-pm
No costing, no clear timelines, no easy legal path: deep scepticism over Dutton’s nuclear plan is warranted
Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University June 20, 2024 https://theconversation.com/no-costing-no-clear-timelines-no-easy-legal-path-deep-scepticism-over-duttons-nuclear-plan-is-warranted-232822
It is very difficult to take Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear announcement seriously. His proposal for seven nuclear power stations is, at present, legally impossible, technically improbable, economically irrational and environmentally irresponsible.
Given the repeated community objections to much more modest nuclear proposals, such as storage of low-level radioactive waste, there is almost certainly no social licence for nuclear power stations.
Dutton promises that, if elected, he would make nuclear power a reality within a little over ten years. Given the enormous obstacles even to turn the first sod, this seems like a pipe dream.
Here’s why.
Legal status: seemingly impossible
Some 25 years ago, the Howard Coalition government legislated a ban on nuclear energy in its environment laws. Coalition governments have been in power federally for most of the time since, but have made no attempt to repeal the ban.
Even a sweeping victory in the forthcoming federal election would not give the Coalition the Senate majority necessary to change the ban in the next term of parliament. As is usually the case, only half the Senate will be elected, so simple arithmetic shows no prospect of a Coalition majority. The only possibility would be negotiating with the crossbench.
Of the seven nuclear power stations Dutton is proposing to build on the site of old coal stations, five would be in the eastern states: two in Queensland at Tarong and Callide, two in New South Wales at Mount Piper and Liddell, and one in Victoria at Loy Yang.
Each of these states have their own laws banning nuclear power. The eastern premiers have made clear they will not change their laws. Even Dutton’s Queensland Liberal National Party colleagues, who face a state election in October, do not support the plan.
So the proposal does not satisfy current laws and there is no realistic possibility of these changing in the timeframe Dutton would need to get the first reactors built (he says the first would be operating by the mid-2030s).
Dutton could try to bypass the states by building on Commonwealth land. But this would mean missing the supposed benefit of locating reactors next to existing transmission lines at old coal plant sites.
Cost: astronomical
Cost is a huge problem. Dutton has promised nuclear will deliver cheap power. But CSIRO’s latest GenCost study on the cost of different power generation technologies shows there is no economic case for nuclear power in Australia. Nuclear power would cost at least 50% more than power produced by renewables and firmed with storage.
This estimate is conservative – in reality nuclear would likely cost even more, as GenCost relies on the nuclear industry’s cost estimates. All recent projects have gone way over budget.
The three nuclear power stations being built in western Europe are all costing two to four times the original budget estimate.
It is true a renewables-dominated grid will require more storage, which means building more grid batteries and pumped hydro schemes. It is also true we’ll need to expand our existing 40,000 kilometres of transmission lines by 25% to get renewable electricity to consumers.
But even when we add these extra costs, and even when we accept industry figures, nuclear still cannot compete with solar farms or wind turbines. CSIRO costs nuclear at between A$8 and $17 billion for a large-scale reactor.
There are no private investors lining up to build nuclear. Overseas, nuclear has always been heavily bankrolled by the taxpayer. Dutton’s plan would either require a huge spend of public money or a major increase to power bills. In the United Kingdom, for example, the government has assured the developer of its Hinckley Point C reactor they will be able to recoup the cost by charging higher rates for the power.
While Dutton is promoting nuclear as a way to avoid building expensive and often unpopular new transmission lines, this is not true. Several proposed reactors would need their own lines built, as coal transmission capacity is rapidly being taken up by renewables, as South Australia’s energy minister Tom Koutsantonis has pointed out.
Time: we’re out of it
Building a nuclear reactor takes years or even decades. Dutton has promised Australia would have its first nuclear power station operational in a decade, assuming his party is elected and their scheme implemented without delay in 2025.
This claim is wholly without merit. In 2006, the Coalition government commissioned a study on whether nuclear power was viable in Australia, which found it would likely take 15 years to build a reactor here. The timeframe today would be similar, because we don’t have a workforce with experience of building large nuclear reactors. We also don’t have the regulatory framework needed to give the community confidence nuclear power stations could be built and operated safely.
Even in the United States, the UK and France – three countries with long experience with nuclear – no recent project has been completed within ten years.
It defies logic to suggest we could start with a blank sheet of paper and build complex systems faster than countries with long-established industries and regulatory regimes.
Nuclear backers often point to examples in China and the United Arab Emirates, which have both built reactors within about a decade. But these countries do not tolerate the community objections which would be inevitable. In Australia, consultation, legal challenges and protests often delay far less controversial projects.
Why does this matter? Dutton’s push for nuclear isn’t happening in a vacuum. This is the crucial decade for action on climate change. As Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis has written, we are now paying the cost of long inaction on climate change in damage from more severe bushfires, floods and drought.
Let’s say the Coalition is elected and sets about making this plan a reality. In practice, this would commit us to decades more of coal and gas, while we wait for nuclear to arrive. We would break our Paris Agreement undertaking to make deep cuts to emissions, and keep making climate change worse.
A Coalition pie-in-the-sky nuclear nightmare
(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
By Belinda Jones | 22 June 2024, Independent Australia
Having reignited the “climate wars” with pie-in-the-sky nuclear energy plans, if the plans fail, Dutton and Littleproud will face the wrath of a climate-war-weary Australian people at the ballot box, writes Belinda Jones.
AUSTRALIANS finally caught a glimpse of the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan this week. And, we mean “glimpse” — a one-page media release identifying seven proposed locations for nuclear power plants and not much more detail than that.
Nationals’ Leader David Littleproud called for Australia to have “a conversation about nuclear”, which culminated in this week’s long-awaited announcement from Littleproud and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.
It has taken two years to create a one-page media release. By any standard, that is poor form.
As Betoota Advocate editor Clancy Overell so eloquently summed it up this week,
“Man who was paralysed with fear over lack of details about Indigenous Voice provides a one-page media release for his half a trillion dollar nuclear plan.”
In fact, the Coalition press conference on nuclear energy inspired far more questions than answers, despite Dutton claiming the Coalition has done “an enormous amount of work”.
Obviously, for Australians, the most pressing concerns for nuclear energy are cost and the time it’ll take to build seven nuclear reactors, as well as safety concerns.
As a policy, it’s not off to a good start. State premiers have rejected the idea and their support is crucial to the success of nuclear energy, due to the fact state legislation would have to be amended to allow any nuclear energy plan even to exist…………………………………………………………………..
However, the states’ consensus on nuclear energy may not be a major hurdle for the Coalition’s nuclear plans. Constitutional law expert, Professor Emerita Anne Twomey, suggested “state bans on nuclear could be overridden by a federal law, as outlined in section 109 of the Constitution”.
Section 109 of the Australian Constitution states:
‘When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.’
Perhaps, similar to the Coalition’s plan to announce first where they plan to build nuclear reactors, then consult with the local communities affected after the fact, their plan is to bulldoze their way past state laws irrespective of the wishes of constituents, state governments or any other objectors to their nuclear plans — which is hardly a democratic process.
One supporter of the current Coalition’s nuclear energy policy is nuclear physicist Dr Ziggy Switkowski, the former Howard Government advisor on nuclear. This is despite Switkowski telling a Federal Parliamentary Inquiry in 2019 of the risk of “catastrophic failure” and that the “window for ‘large nuclear generation’ had closed for Australia”. At the time, Switkowski cited the “emerging technology of small nuclear reactors [as] the viable option on the table”.
That prediction has been proven to be premature with no small nuclear reactors at a viable or commercial stage in 2024. The USA’s first small modular reactor was cancelled by developer NuScale last year due to cost blowouts.
Switkowski also told the 2019 Inquiry:
“It was unlikely the industry could establish enough support to gain a social licence to operate.”
This week, Switkowski weighed in on the scepticism his work in previous years had helped to foment within Australia saying, “The strong positions some critics have taken in the last 24 hours are ridiculous”.
Australia’s wealthiest woman and enthusiastic Coalition supporter Gina Rinehart has long been demanding nuclear energy be part of Australia’s energy mix — a view that may emanate from her business interests around uranium exploration and mining.
Rinehart is no fan of renewables, claiming they’ll force food prices up and send farmers broke. This is despite the fact that they produce alternative sources of income for farmers and provide reliable energy solutions where “there’s no mains just to switch on” in isolated, rural communities.
The Coalition’s proposed seven nuclear reactors would not provide any benefit to those rural communities to which Rinehart refers that are not connected to mains power, whereas a combination of solar or wind and battery power would.
So, the electorally embattled Dutton and Littleproud face an uphill battle to get their nuclear policy off the ground in the face of overwhelming opposition to their plans. And though their scant plans offer nothing substantial on the issue of Coalition nuclear policy, they have managed to “reignite the climate wars”, which may in fact be the method in their madness.
Rather than bring the nation together, divide and conquer on any issue seems to be their modus operandi.
For a nation exhausted by over a decade of “climate wars” that it hoped were well and truly over, the Coalition has taken a huge risk to bring expensive, pie-in-the-sky nuclear to the table and reignite those wars. If it fails and it likely will, based purely on economics, then both Dutton and Littleproud will face the wrath of a climate-war-weary Australian people at the ballot box and, ultimately, their own political parties.
Dutton and Littleproud have both nailed their colours to the mast, demanding a conversation on nuclear energy with no intention of taking no for an answer. Like their failure to consult with communities before announcing their plans, they may have put the cart before the horse. Time will tell. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/a-coalition-pie-in-the-sky-nuclearnightmare,18704
There is no shortage of Coalition U-turns on nuclear. But this Aukus example might be the most remarkable
So the Coalition is going all-in, no longer responsible for upholding the guarantees of government nor at the same risk of sparking proliferation speculation that might arise if it did so while in office.
Karen Middleton, Sat 22 Jun 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/22/there-is-no-shortage-of-coalition-u-turns-on-nuclear-but-this-aukus-example-might-be-the-most-remarkable
From the nuclear submarine pact to community vetoes, Peter Dutton has abandoned pledges the Coalition made in government with his latest announcement.
When he unveiled preliminary details of his nuclear power plan this week, Peter Dutton was not asked any questions about the relevance of the Aukus agreement.
His energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, mentioned the nuclear-powered submarine pact in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s joint news conference, called to name seven sites for possible future nuclear reactors.
O’Brien’s reference was in the context of safety – that nuclear technology was already in use in Australia medically and anticipated for the military.
Journalists were more concerned about interrogating the absence of details on cost, reactor type, volume of power generated and the like, than exploring what relevance Aukus might have.
But there’s an Aukus-related back story to this week’s nuclear announcement that sheds some new light on how we got here. Or, more precisely, why we didn’t get here sooner.
When Scott Morrison was prime minister, the Coalition thought about having a second go at a nuclear power policy. It had been part of John Howard’s bid to engage with climate change in late 2006 as the Kevin ’07 juggernaut advanced.
Twelve years later, contemplating the 2022 election, Morrison considered having another go. The climate debate had shifted and embracing coal was no longer going to cut it. Nuclear energy offered a possible low-emissions course.
But polling on the proposal came back negative and Morrison quietly shelved the idea immediately, despite the urgings of some who thought a case could be made.
Then came the Aukus negotiations and the extraordinary announcement in September 2021 that Australia had ditched its contract with France to buy conventional submarines, securing a nuclear-powered option instead.
With a Coalition government in power, it seemed logical this might reopen the nuclear energy debate in Australia. But any thoughts of that were banished before they had time to form.
“Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability,” Morrison declared at the surprise announcement via satellite with the United States president and British prime minister. “And we will continue to meet all our nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”
Turns out, this wasn’t just a definitive Morrison statement. It was a condition of the Americans agreeing to go ahead.
As the Aukus deal reached its crucial end point, the US made it plain to senior members of the Morrison government that if there was any suggestion the submarine deal could precipitate any broader policy change in Australia – anything at all that could generate speculation about acquiring nuclear weapons, no matter how fanciful – the deal was off. It must not, under any circumstances, give rise to any extraneous suggestion that the US was bending non-proliferation rules.
That included any talk of establishing a civil nuclear industry.
At the announcement, all three leaders – Morrison, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden – emphasised that the agreement did not and would not breach the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
“I want to be exceedingly clear about this: we’re not talking about nuclear-armed submarines,” Biden said at the time, throwing in a shout-out to snubbed and furious France, a “key partner and ally”. “These are conventionally armed submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. This technology is proven. It’s safe. And the United States and the UK have been operating nuclear-powered submarines for decades.”
Peter Dutton was defence minister at the time. But three years later and now in opposition, his circumstances have changed. Aukus has become a Labor government project. Domestically, the historical public animosity towards nuclear power also appears to have softened – at least in principle
So the Coalition is going all-in, no longer responsible for upholding the guarantees of government nor at the same risk of sparking proliferation speculation that might arise if it did so while in office.
And now Aukus isn’t a handbrake but its own nuclear weapon against Anthony Albanese and his Labor colleagues who are now the agreement’s custodians.
On Wednesday, the fact that journalists gave him no direct opportunity to enlist Aukus to counter inevitable nuclear safety scares did not stop Dutton from doing it.
“There will be a reactor there where submariners, in Australian uniforms, will be sleeping in a submarine alongside the reactor in a safe way,” Dutton said, in a lengthy response to a question that was actually about whether he could convince the Senate to overturn a nuclear ban.
To a question about the viability of getting reactors up and running within 10 years, he said: “I mean, this is a good question to the government in terms of Aukus. The Aukus submarines will arrive in 2040 and that’s a decision that we’ve taken now, with a lead time.”
A question about convincing Australians that nuclear technology is safe allowed him to talk about it again.
“Would a prime minister sign up to an Aukus deal using this nuclear technology to propel submarines, and to have our members of the Australian Navy on those submarines 24/7, if he thought, or she thought that that technology was unsafe?” he asked. “No.”
And there was one final opportunity, when a question came about where nuclear waste should be stored. Dutton said the waste should be stored onsite until the end of the reactor’s life and then moved to a permanent disposal site.
“That should be where the government decides for the waste from the submarines to be stored,” he said.
So Aukus has gone from being the reason Australia couldn’t have a nuclear energy industry to the Coalition’s handiest argument in favour.
It’s not the only aspect of this policy that involves a 180-degree swivel.
The seven sites the Coalition has chosen for nuclear reactors – sites that host coal-fired power stations now – are not negotiable. There was a brief suggestion late on Wednesday from Nationals’ deputy leader Perin Davey that unhappy locals would have a veto.
“If the community is absolutely adamant, we will not proceed,” Davey told Sky News.
Littleproud and Dutton said she was wrong.
But in late 2019, back when the Morrison government was briefly entertaining the idea of nuclear power again, it was the Davey – not the Dutton – view prevailing.
In December that year, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy published a report entitled Not Without Your Approval: a Way Forward for Nuclear Technology in Australia. The chair of its inquiry into the pre-requisites for nuclear energy in Australia was Ted O’Brien.
Its terms of reference noted Australia had a bipartisan moratorium on nuclear energy and declared it would “remain in place”. Nonetheless, it was commissioned to look at “the circumstances and prerequisites necessary for any future government’s consideration of nuclear energy generation”.
O’Brien wrote a foreword, which included a final note headed “Honouring the will of the people”.
“The Committee believes the will of the people should be honoured by requiring broad community consent before any nuclear facility is built,” O’Brien wrote. “That is, nuclear power plants or waste facilities should not be imposed upon local communities that are opposed to proposals relating to nuclear facilities presented to them.”
But that was then and this is now.
Whether to the US government or the federal parliament, it seems nuclear undertakings given in government no longer apply.
Ziggy Switkowski and another big nuclear back-flip
Ziggy 1.0 said in 2009 that the construction cost of a one gigawatt (GW) power reactor in Australia would be A$4-6 billion.
Ziggy 1.0 wasn’t wrong by 4-5 percent, or 40-50 percent. He was out by 400-500 percent. And yet he still gets trotted out in the mainstream media as a credible commentator on nuclear issues. Go figure.
Jim Green, Jun 21, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/ziggy-switkowski-and-another-big-nuclear-back-flip/
Dr Ziggy Switkowski, best known as a former Telstra CEO, less well known as a former oil and gas company director, is a nuclear physicist by training. Wearing his nuclear hat, he was appointed by then prime minister John Howard to lead the 2006 Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Power Review (UMPNER) inquiry.
The UMPNER inquiry didn’t inquire. The panel was comprised entirely of “people who want nuclear power by Tuesday” according to the late comedian John Clarke. Its report was predictably biased and misleading.
Howard evidently decided that he was pushing too hard and too fast. The UMPNER panel was required to finish its report in great haste in late 2006 and the Coalition tried to run dead on the nuclear issue in the lead up to the November 2007 federal election.
However, the Coalition’s political opponents – including Anthony Albanese – were more than happy to draw voters’ attention to the Coalition’s unpopular nuclear power plans. During the election campaign at least 22 Coalition candidates publicly distanced themselves from the government’s policy. Howard lost his seat and the Coalition was defeated. The nuclear power policy was ditched immediately after the election. Past as prologue, perhaps.
Ziggy 2.0
In recent years we’ve had Ziggy 2.0. To his credit, he reassessed his views in light of the cost blowouts with reactor projects and the large reductions in the cost of renewable energy sources.
He said in 2018 that “the window for gigawatt-scale nuclear has closed” and he noted that nuclear power is no longer cheaper than renewables, with costs rapidly shifting in favour of renewables.
Ziggy 2.0 noted in his evidence to the 2019 federal nuclear inquiry that “nuclear power has got more expensive, rather than less expensive,” and that there is “no coherent business case to finance an Australian nuclear industry.”
He added that no-one knows how a network of small modular reactors (SMRs) might work in Australia because no such network exists “anywhere in the world at the moment.”
Ziggy 2.0 noted the “non-negligible” risk of a “catastrophic failing within a nuclear system”. He acknowledged the difficulty of managing high-level nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, particularly in light of the failure of successive Australian governments to resolve the long-term management of low- and intermediate-level waste.
Ziggy 3.0
Now we have Ziggy 3.0, who sounds a lot like Ziggy 1.0. Peter Dutton and shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien “are as well informed on things nuclear as any group I’ve talked to in the last 20 years in Australia,” Ziggy 3.0 says.
Just about everything Dutton and O’Brien say about nuclear power is demonstrably false. Only the ill-informed could possibly claim they are well informed.
Ziggy 3.0 is spruiking the next generation of nuclear plants. Perhaps he’s talking about non-existent SMRs, or failed fast breeder technology, or a variety of other failed technologies now being dressed up as ‘advanced’ or ‘Generation IV’ concepts.
Who knows what he has in mind, and there’s no reason anyone should care expect that he has, once again, assumed the role of a prominent nuclear cheerleader.
“I think it’s unreasonable for anybody to expect the opposition leader to come out with a fully documented and costed plan at this stage,” Switkowski says.
But why is that so hard? O’Brien chaired a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into nuclear power. Coalition MPs initiated and participated in a 2022/23 parliamentary inquiry. And they have a mountain of other research to draw from.
Baseload
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Switkowski now says “the cost curve for solar and wind has moved aggressively down” and he praises CSIRO for its work on the higher relative cost of nuclear power compared to renewables.
But Ziggy 3.0 goes on to say that “you need to have nuclear as well for baseload power”. Seriously? Nuclear power as a complement to renewables as we head to, or towards, 82 per cent renewable supply to the National Electricity Market by 2030? That’s nuts.
Perhaps he thinks non-existent SMRs can integrate well with renewables? Does he support the Coalition’s plan to expand and prolong reliance on fossil fuels until such time as SMRs i) exist anywhere in the world and ii) are operating in Australia?
Apart from the practical constraints (not least the fact that they don’t exist), the economics of SMRs would go from bad to worse if using them to complement renewables. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, power from an SMR with a utilisation factor of 25% would cost around A$600 per megawatt-hour (MWh).
Likewise, a recent article co-authored by Steven Hamilton – assistant professor of economics at George Washington University and visiting fellow at the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the ANU – states:
“Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said: “Labor sees nuclear power as a competitor to renewables. The Coalition sees nuclear power as a companion to renewables”.
“The trouble is that nuclear is a terrible companion to renewables. The defining characteristic of being “compatible” with renewables is the ability to scale up and down as needed to “firm” renewables.
“Even if we don’t build a single new wind farm, in order to replace coal in firming renewables, nuclear would need to operate at around 60 per cent average utilisation (like coal today) to keep capacity in reserve for peak demand. This alone would push the cost of nuclear beyond $225/MWh. To replace gas as well, the cost skyrockets beyond $340/MWh.”
Making sense of Ziggy 3.0
Ziggy 1.0 said in 2009 that the construction cost of a one gigawatt (GW) power reactor in Australia would be A$4-6 billion. Compare that to the real-world experience in the US (A$23.4 billion / GW), the UK (A$27.2 billion / GW) or France (A$19.4 billion / GW).
Ziggy 1.0 wasn’t wrong by 4-5 percent, or 40-50 percent. He was out by 400-500 percent. And yet he still gets trotted out in the mainstream media as a credible commentator on nuclear issues. Go figure.
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and co-author of the ACF’s new report, ‘Power Games: Assessing coal to nuclear proposals in Australia’.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 