BNEF has just released a paper called “Australia’s nuclear-powered distraction threatens net zero” I will link to it as soon as I can find a link. This is based upon articles about the article
Summary
The issue is not really whether a case could be made for nuclear in Australia, but whether the Coalition policies will deliver:
More emissions, and
More expensive electricity.
That would seem to be the case from the mess of their policy, and their repeated requirement that we trust them to give details after the election.
The plan, even if completely successful will certainly not add that much to Australia’s energy supply, and there is no point going with small amounts of nuclear if we are going to increase emissions through rolling back on renewables.
Political Obstructions?
Despite nuclear energy technology having been banned in Australia since 1998, under Coalition PM, John Howard, with three of the high population states also banning it, the federal Coalition opposition has proposed seven sites for nuclear plants which they claim could be operational as soon as 2035, which is improbable. As Bloomberg states, it will be “a slow and challenging” effort to overturn existing bans, and to force people to accept nukes on the sites selected without consultation.
Nuclear is expensive
Nuclear could reduce emissions, but it is usually a very expensive technology in markets with limited experience, unsupportive politics and uncertain regulation — such as Australia. We have already mentioned that cost overruns are normal even with experienced builders. Another problem is that people cannot be held to contract prices as we do not want cheaply built and unsafe reactors, so we have to assume they are not deliberately underquoting.
Renewables are cheaper and easier
The usual estimates are that renewables are cheaper than Nuclear. Bloomberg said that going by existing nuclear industries in western nations, the cost would be “at least four times greater than the average” for Australian wind and solar plants with storage today.
Furthermore, Australia has plenty of wind and solar resources with large areas of semi-vacant land, and lots of people vying to build wind or solar power. There appears, as yet, to be no one volunteering to build nuclear in Australia, certainly not seven power stations worth by 2035.
To repeat, SMRs do not exist commercially so we have no idea what they would cost, or how much energy they would produce. So it is pointless budgeting for them.
Australia’s coal fired power stations will largely be phased out by 2035. So, to avoid power supply shortfalls and high electricity bills between the gradual shutting down of coal energy and the beginning of nuclear, we have to increase renewables and energy storage. If we do not do this, then electricity prices will increase massively or emissions from Gas will increase.
Nuclear will also add significantly to the costs of energy. To pay off the huge capital investment, which it seems will be carried by taxpayers, prices will have to rise.
Conclusion
if the debate serves as a distraction from scaling-up policy support for renewable energy investment, it will sound the death knell for decarbonisation ambitions – the only reason for Australia to consider going nuclear in the first place.
Plus a few other references. If this summary contravenes copyright, please let me know….
Age
Ted O’Brien, the shadow energy minister, has said the nuclear plants built here will last for between 80 and 100 years.
This is clearly likely to be guesswork as there are no 100 year old plants anywhere in the world…. Nuclear power plants did not exist in 1924.
The mean age of the 416 active nuclear reactors is about 32 years. The average age of the 29 reactors that have shut over the past five years, is less than 43.
16 reactors have been operating for 51 or more years. Mycle Schneider, an independent analyst who coordinates the annual world nuclear industry status report says “There is zero experience of a 60-year-old operating reactor, zero. It never happened. Leave alone 80 years or beyond” (The world’s oldest, Switzerland’s Beznau, has clocked up 55 years with periods of outages.)
CSIRO’s report looked at a 30 to 40 year life for a large nuclear plant as there was “little evidence presented that private financing would be comfortable” with the risk for any longer.
As plants age, maintenance costs are likely to increase (physical entropy or wear), as they have in France. Apparently the US has avoided this problem, although with declining investment over the last decade the average reactor age has increased from 32 to 42 years. So we need to find out how that was done.
What is the state of the global nuclear industry?
Five nuclear reactors opened last year and five were shut down
Over the last 20 years 102 reactors opened and 104 shut down
China has added 49 during that period and closed none. Nuclear energy provides about 5% of China’s electricity, which seems to be slightly more than the Coalition is going for in Australia
Last year, China added 1GW of nuclear energy but more than 200GW of solar.
In the world, solar passed nuclear for total energy production in 2022 while wind overtook it a decade ago.
Schneider says “In industrial terms, nuclear power is irrelevant in the overall global market for electricity generating technology.”
Bill Gates’ company has been trying to build commercial SMR’s for 18 years and not succeeded yet.
The CSIRO Gencost report noted that the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems SMR, was cancelled last November. In 2020 its estimated cost of of $18,200/kiloWatt, was more than double that of large-scale plants at $8,655/kW (in 2023 dollars). But by “late 2022 UAMPS updated their capital cost to $28,580/kW” the CSIRO said. “The UAMPS estimate implies nuclear SMR has been hit by a 57% cost increase which is much larger than the average 20% observed in other technologies.”
Nuscale, the only company to have received design approval from US regulators for an SMR, were building SMRs for US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. NuScale announced at the start of 2023 that the target cost of power for this project had increased by 53% since 2021 to US$89/ MWh. they had, in one account failed to attract customers at these prices.
Big Economies and Nuclear
The Coalition says that Australia is the only one of the top 20 economies that doesn’t have or isn’t getting nuclear energy. However, Germany has abandoned nukes as is well known, and Germany is also using less coal power than it has in decades. Italy shut down reactors after 1990. Saudi Arabia has been considering developing nuclear for about 15 years but, still has not embarked on it, and has set a goal of 50% of electricity coming from solar by 2030.
The 35 construction starts since 2019 were either in China, or were Russian-built in various nations. It is unlikely the Coalition will go to China or Russia for builders.
France?
Nuclear provides almost two-thirds (62%) of France’s electricity. However, the French company EDF has €54.5bn debt and hasn’t finished a plant since 2007.
EDF is building Hinkley Point C in the UK, which has suffered from cost blowouts and delays. The current estimate is that it may not start until 2031 and may cost $90bn to complete. High electricity prices have been promised to keep it solvent.
In 2014, the Government aimed to reduce nuclear’s share of electricity generation to 50% by 2025. This target was delayed in 2019 to 2035, before being abandoned in 2023. Apparently 1 reactor is currently under construction. The amount of energy produced in 2022-3 declined due to necessary repairs [1] and in 2016 all the reactors were offline due to a long-term coverup of manufacturing faults. By the end of April 2022 it was reported that 28 of France’s 56 nuclear reactors were offline
US?
The 4.5GW Vogtle plant reached full capacity in April, making it the US’s largest nuclear power station. Its first two units exceeded $US35bn, with the state of Georgia’s Public Service Commission saying cost increases and delays have “completely eliminated any benefit on a lifecycle costs basis”.
The Korean company Kepco built the 5.6GW Barakah plant in the United Arab Emirates. As Schneider’s report notes, the UAE “did not agree” to the disclosure of cost, delays or impairment losses. so we have no knowledge of the problems, cost overruns etc…..
1) There is no costing at all, except for claiming it is cheaper than Labor’s renewable plan. The CSIRO’s costing are just officially denied. We have no idea of the cost and are not promised a costing.
2) The costs and time frames of nuclear energy production, are notoriously under-estimated even by experienced builders. Australia has never built a nuclear power station, and we are now to build 7 of them (simultaneously?), so we can assume any estimate is an under-estimate.
3) Given that no Australian company will be able to build them, then most of the money for building and supplies will go overseas.
4) The plans seems completely inadequate. The energy generated by seven nukes will not replace the energy from the coal fired power stations that are closing down. On top of that, they clearly cannot supply the extra energy the country may require.
5) Commercially available SMRs are currently hopeful fictions. They may produce about a third of the energy of standard nuclear energy stations. We have no idea what they will cost to build.
6) Dutton apparently thinks a drawing of a building is the same as a ‘concept design’, so his pronouncements that SMRs are viable are hopeful fantasies.
7) The Dutton plan does not care about emissions reduction, and the only reason for altering the energy system is because of the need to reduce emissions. If a plan does not reduce emissions significantly it is a waste of money.
8) There are no plans to reduce emissions from transport or farming.
9) The Dutton plan also seems to involve the suppression of large scale renewables.
10) This suppression plus the inadequacy of the number of reactors, pretty much guarantees that methane burning, and its emissions, will increase to provide the necessary energy.
11) Dutton will scrap the 2030 emissions reduction targets, breaking his own government’s previous agreements at the Paris COP. This, again, illustrates the plan’s lack of concern about emissions reduction. Supposedly net zero will occur after the reactors are built, even though the reactors do not provide significant reduction, gas burning will increase emissions, and other sources of reduction are not being mentioned.
12) Hence it seems plausible to assume that the idea has nothing to do with emissions reduction, other than to distract from it. Therefore it is a complete waste of money, no matter how cheap it is.
13) The Dutton plan for people’s resistance to nuclear is simply to ignore it and suppress it by force or bribery of particular people. However, the Coalition encourages opposition to renewables.
14) There is no comprehensive plan for waste disposal. We can worry about that later.
15) There is no evidence that the proposed sites have enough water for cooling, or that the local environment can handle the heating from taking waste heat.
16) Taxpayers will be responsible for the entire life-time costs of the reactors. It is not clear whether tax payers will get all the profits. Renewable energy is largely financed by the private sector.
17) The economic benefits are asserted rather than proven and would apply to renewables all over the country as well.
18) The Nuclear plan is unlikely to reduce the cost of electricity at all. It will most likely it will boost the price, by stopping the expansion of cheaper low emissions sources, and being inadequate to what is required.
19) Again the nuclear plan will not set Australia on course for net-zero by 2050, or even reduce emissions in any real sense.
It is a complete waste of money and effort, for no obvious benefit.
See the two previous posts on the Australian Coalition’s nuclear energy policy for documentation
The quick summary is that the Coalition’s nuclear plan will not significantly add to energy availability or emissions reduction in Australia. It will, however, cost a lot.
Peter Dutton, the leader of the Australian Opposition, has declared that he has released the policy which will make Australia Nuclear if the Coalition get into government.
The first thing to note is that his policy release is completely uncosted, despite the main scientific organisation in Australia, saying that nuclear would be at least 50% more expensive than solar and wind and would not be available any sooner than 2040, and previous attacks on CSIRO estimates by the Coalition, with the CSIRO denying those attacks had any validity. Oddly perhaps if Labor released uncosted policies that simply ignored the costings by the CSIRO, then the Coalition and Murdoch media would be jumping up and down in dismay, shouting about irresponsibility. But not now.
Some costs for the newest design large scale reactors:
Construction cost experience with generation 3 nuclear projects in US and Europe
AGL Energy’s CEO Damien Nicks said “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…. Policy certainty is important for companies like AGL and ongoing debate on the matter runs the risk of unnecessarily complicating the long-term investment decisions necessary for the energy transition.””
Andrew Forrest, says “I simply want to see fossil fuels removed from Australia’s energy mix as soon as possible, but as an industrialist, I’ve looked at nuclear and it does not stack up,”
Kyle Mangini, of IMF investments, said it was “virtually impossible” for the private sector to take on the financial risk of building nuclear reactors without taxpayer subsidies. “If you look at where the nuclear facilities are being built globally, they’re almost in all cases being built by governments,” adding “”In Australia, there’s never been a nuclear facility built, so there’s no skilled labour force.”
As we proceed it will become reasonable to suspect that the main aim of the plan is to stop renewables, and keep the fossil fuels burning. The leader of the National party David Littleproud.. [said]
“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them…. Earlier on Monday [he] told ABC radio the Coalition’s energy policy will show investors Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms, whether they be offshore or onshore”.
As well the Coalition will drop all 2030 targets, and so encourage the build up of emissions, even if they make the 2050 target. The whole point of the change in energy is to reduce GHG emissions. It is doubtful whether this proposed change will do much if anything to reduce those emissions, and emissions reduction is urgent. Over the last year, much to many scientists surprise the average temperature has crossed 1.5 degrees C, reaching 1.63 degrees C. It is likely to cross 2 degrees relatively soon, and then spiral out of control. Innes Willox, chief executive of national employer association Ai Group summarises the policy, by saying:
“With no delivery projected until the middle of the next decade, the proposal does not immediately help with short-term emissions reduction or the cost and reliability of energy in the short term.”
While it maybe true that the reactors are cheaper than Labor’s Plan…. are they a useful source of power and emissions reduction? If they are not, then it is money and time wasted.
The Press Release and after
The Priority is not climate change
The official press release of the policy opens by making it clear the priority is not dealing with climate change
Every Australian deserves and should expect access to cheaper, cleaner and consistent electricity…
Right now, in households and businesses around the country, Labor’s expensive renewables-only approach is failing.
In a classic move, the reason for changing energy systems has been ignored. However, they do recognise one problem with the energy system
90 per cent of baseload electricity, predominantly coal fired power stations, is coming to the end of life over the next decade…
a future Federal Coalition Government will introduce zero-emissions nuclear energy in Australia, which has proven to get electricity prices and emissions down all over the world
Nuclear certainly has not reduced electricity prices everywhere in the world. The unfinished Hinkley Point being an obvious example. However, the propaganda aim seems to be to associate cost of living increases with the current government, imagined cutbacks in fossil fuels, and the rollout of renewables, which is a tactic borrowed from either Trump or his corporate think-tanks. There is no consideration of the inflationary effects of fossil fuel company profiteering, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and hence more competition for gas, or even the local break down of old coal mines and power stations.
Locations
The proposed locations are:
Liddell Power Station, New South Wales
Mount Piper Power Station, New South Wales
Loy Yang Power Stations, Victoria
Tarong Power Station, Queensland
Callide Power Station, Queensland
Northern Power Station, South Australia (SMR only)
Muja Power Station, Western Australia (SMR only)
SMRs do not exist commercially yet.
It appears likely these sites were chosen because they have cabling infrastructure (grid) already in place. Others state:
Some of the sites, particularly Loy Yang in the Latrobe Valley, are very close to earthquake fault lines. Several have no obvious water source, which is essential. They appear to have been chosen for political saleability, not science.
A later comment from Ted O’Brien implies that the Coalition have not even decided the number of reactors involved
Ted O’Brien, who designed the plan, told the ABC’s Insiders the amount of energy generated would depend on the type and number of reactors built at each site, and that neither of those things could be known until a Coalition government could establish a nuclear expert agency to undertake studies.
Rather optimistically Dutton claims the sites “will start producing electricity by 2035 (with small modular reactors) or 2037 (if modern larger plants are found to be the best option).” Again this is with currently non commercially available SMRs, plus clearing all the political and economic barriers which are discussed below. Loy yang one of the sites is not closing until 2034 at the moment, so building could not start until after then. Again the CSIRO estimated the earliest anything could be running would be 2040 given a 12-15 year build.
The latest AEMO integrated system plan “forecasts the retirement of 90% of Australia’s remaining 21 gigawatts of coal generation by 2034-35, with the entire fleet retired by 2038.” To overcome that issue requires plenty of gas backup, or lots of renewables and storage. The Coalition is not saying how much energy they hope their nukes will generate or how they plan to make up the gap, but given the announced hostility to renewables, the plan most likely depends on gas as a major source and not a backup. Ted O’Brien said the obvious solution to the collapse of Coal was to “pour more gas into the market” but also said he would “welcome all renewables”. So their plan is to increase emissions, and it seems obvious that parts of the Coalition do not want more renewables, and more renewables is not part of the plan
AEMO is worried that renewables are not being rolled out fast enough to fill in the gaps in 2024-5, and nuclear cannot be ready in that time. It will be interesting to see what happens there. The climate council says:
Seven standard nuclear reactors would deliver approximately nine gigawatts of energy capacity [possibly more than that depending on design and what you are counting]. While [AEMO claims] Australia will need at least 300 gigawatts by 2050
We apparently use 22 GW of coal at present, so the planned nukes are unlikely to even replace coal use now, never mind the energy from other sources.
O’Brien strangely argued that “Australia already is a nuclear nation. We know that nuclear technology saves lives, we know that because we have a nuclear reactor operating here in Sydney. It’s been operating for decades, saving lives, especially diagnosing and treating cancers.” However, there is a massive difference between the size and complexity of Lucas Heights and that of a nuclear power station
“It must be recognised that this is a ‘zero-power’ pool reactor where the complexities of high pressure, high power, high radiation environments do not exist.”
People who moved into the reactor’s area, already knowing it was there, have objected to its presence for a long time. Even a small reactor is not accepted by everyone.
The big question, however, is what level of energy will these 7 reactors provide? And the answer appears to be “completely inadequate.”
Ownership, Funding and Control?
In a later interview/speech Dutton said:
The assets will be owned by the Commonwealth – a very important point – and we’ll work with experts to deliver these programmes…… [and] The Australian Government will own these assets, but form partnerships with experienced nuclear companies to build and operate them.
So taxpayers will be funding the building, and probably covering decommissioning and insurance. This will be expensive, and how will it be paid for? By increasing taxes, increasing the deficit, decreasing Medibank or social security, or getting huge loans? Hopefully the reactors will not be given to the private sector after the taxpayers have funded them, although the second statement implies they may be run privately, but we have no idea who will be involved. The main builders currently in operation are Russian and Chinese, who we might assume would not be acceptable.
On the other hand Renewables are under private, community or household funding and control, which is usually said to be a good thing.
We also need to remember that nuclear is potentially dangerous and we need heaps of trained and experienced people, and good regulation for Australian circumstances, to keep it safe and to cover fuel handling at all stages.
Supposed Economic Benefits
The sales pitch is that:
Not only will local communities benefit from high paying, multi-generational jobs but communities will be empowered to maximise the benefits from hosting an asset of national importance by way of:
A multi-billion dollar facility guaranteeing high-paying jobs for generations to come;
An integrated economic development zone to attract manufacturing, value-add and high-tech industry; and
A regional deal unlocking investment in modern infrastructure, services and community priorities. Press release
The leader of the Nationals promoted the idea that this plan would be beneficial for rural economies. Apparently locally owned and controlled renewables are not. Susan Ley again emphasised the economic side saying “So, our vision is to make sure that we underpin our economic success with jobs for decades to come in industries where Australia has that competitive advantage.” She did not say what the advantage would be. Ted O’Brien said “Labor is turning the lights out. Prices will soar, jobs will be shed and industries will collapse. Australians will be left poorer and our nation weaker.” LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION – TRANSCRIPT – JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE WITH THE HON DAVID LITTLEPROUD MP, THE HON SUSSAN LEY MP, THE HON ANGUS TAYLOR MP AND MR TED O’BRIEN MP, SYDNEY
However:
A 2023 PricewaterhouseCoopers report into offshore wind found the energy source was expected to add $40bn to GDP between 2027 and 2040, supporting 19,000 jobs in the peak of construction and 7000 to 14,000 operational roles in regional areas. According to International Energy Agency estimates, 17.5 gigawatts of offshore wind will be added to global capacity in 2024 compared with around 8.5GW of gross nuclear capacity
Coalition at odds on energy strategy. The Australian 19 June 2024: 4
Part of the promotion is that renewables are a “wrecking ball through the Australian economy” and that families “know it because it’s harder in their own budgets”, Again the plan is to associate the current multi-causal world wide inflation with Labor’s renewables’ policy. However,
Dr Dylan McConnell, an energy systems analyst at the University of New South Wales, says only about $100 of a household’s annual electricity bill is made up of charges related to environmental programs, such as feed-in-tariffs for rooftop solar or financial incentives for large-scale renewables projects.
[and] In the last quarter, the biggest price rises were in rents, secondary education, tertiary education and medical and hospital services… insurance premiums have gone up 16.4% in the last year… ABS data also shows electricity prices are a small part of Australian household expenditure, at just 2.36% of overall costs.
And the Coalition’s programme not only seems to include 7 expensive reactors, but to need back up in terms of more coal or gas because those reactors will not replace lost coal generation and will not make up for lost renewables. All of this will put more financial strain on taxpayers and customers as they cost more than renewables as will be discussed in the next section. The price is usually set in Australia by the most costly source, so relying more on gas than on renewables, will boost electricity prices. At the best, the prosed nuclear sites will do nothing to reduce the current increase in prices as they won’t exist for some while. So the Coalition’s implied end of rising electricity prices is false.
Problems
An ex-Prime Minister writes:
A nuclear power plant would face the same economic challenges that coal-fired generators do now – for much of the day it would be unable to compete with solar and wind. During those times of excess supply the nuclear plant would add to the excess. That surplus electricity would be taken up by batteries and pumped hydro which would then compete with the nuclear plant during the night.
So the only way the economics of a nuclear plant could be assured in our market would be for the rollout of solar and wind to be constrained. That seems to be Dutton’s intention
So unless renewables are destroyed nuclear may not be profitable.
The Coalition’s lack of costing is obvious, except to insist seven nuclear stations are cheaper than near 100% renewables. However, in one interview the leader of the Nationals was asked how much the plan will cost and whether it was around the CSIRO’s $8.5 billion to $17 billion estimate. He replied “Yeah, look, we’re not disputing that,” (Nationals leader pressed on how much nuclear will cost Aussies).
The lack of costing also does not include the cost of climate disruptions, fires, floods, droughts, heat deaths etc. They also say that “the investment that we’re making, it’s over an 80 year period” which might imply that they are going to build these 7 reactors very slowly. We don’t know as there is no timeline for the building. We have no estimation of the cost of electricity produced by nuclear power despite the CSIRO estimating it would be over 50% more than renewable energy. We don’t know what reactor types are involved, including the experimental SMRs, we don’t know about waste disposal (waste will be kept on site until it isn’t), we have no plans for emissions reduction in the rest of the economy (so talking of 2050 net zero is fantasy). We don’t know who are the likely builders and it is foolish to expect that nuclear energy can be built by Australian companies so campaigning for nuclear energy is campaigning to export billions of Australian money overseas. And, as argued above, nuclear as proposed by the Coalition will only partially replace current coal power. It will not supply the new energy Australia needs. There is a massive gap which we can presume will require more fossil fuels to fill.
in March 2023 Dutton said:
I don’t support the establishment of big nuclear facilities here at all, I’m opposed to it, but for the small modular reactors, we can have them essentially replacing brownfield sites now, so you can turn coal off and put the small modular reactors in and it’s essentially a plug and play. You can use the existing distribution networks
But that was a year ago…. and he may have realised that SMRs are largely fiction and not high energy sources able to replace coal power. An SMR is expected to produce 300 Megawatt electric (MWe) producing 7.2 million kWh per day, less than a third of a large scale reactor at 1,000 MWe producing 24 million kWh per day. So if we don’t go with 5 normal reactors we would have to have over 15 SMRs to replace them. In any case the 5 large scale rectors and 2 SMRs would, according to Simon Holmes a Court, “be expected to generate 50 TWh a year – less than 15% of the new generation needed”.
I have encountered arguments which suggest that submarines have SMR’s. However we have had nuclear submarines since 1958, so we have had them for at least 60 years. No one, not even the military, has appeared to successfully use them on land, and this is despite various militaries having had no problem using long term poisons and mutagens, even when their own troops could not be protected. Whatever, the reason it has not discouraged large scale nuclear building, so there is no reason to think the conversion would be easy or even plausible.
While the Coalition encourages local communities to oppose renewable energy, it appears they may not tolerate opposition to gas, oil or nuclear. The Deputy leader of the Nationals stated “if a community is absolutely adamant then we will not proceed but we will not be looking beyond these seven sites,” to which David Littleproud (the leader) said:
“No, she is not correct,… We made this very clear. Peter Dutton and David Littleproud as part of a Coalition government is prepared to make the tough decisions in the national interest.
To be confusing he also talked about “proper consultation.” In 2019 Ted Obrien in an official Coalition Government media release said:
“Australia should say a definite ‘No’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘Yes’ to new and emerging technologies such as small modular reactors.
“And most importantly,” said Mr O’Brien “the Australian people should be at the centre of any approval process”
I presume they are intending a neoliberal consultation in which people are told what is happening and ignored, and local businesses bribed. They would also have to deal with the issue that property values would likely decline near the site, although that can be dealt with by telling people that it is their problem.
Importantly there is Federal legislation forbidding nuclear power. Its not clear how changes to that legislation would pass through the Senate. Various states also have legislation (nuclear power is banned in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland), and even the Coalition at state level is not welcoming the project. According to The Australian, Queensland LNP leader David Crisafulli has ruled out lifting the state’s nuclear ban if he wins the Queensland election in October (Coalition at odds on energy strategy. 19 June 2024: 4). The main plan to overcome the problem seems to be bribery (“Somebody famously said ‘I would not stand between the premier and a bucket of money’,”). However Dutton has implied several times that consultation could just involve the Commonwealth overruling the States, again an authoritarian neoliberal consultation process.
However, it is perhaps not surprising that the Minerals Council of Australia (the mining company Union) is in favour of nuclear but wants the ‘free market’ to sort it out, which effectively opposes the idea of government ownership (Tania Constable, End the ban on nuclear energy, and let the marketplace sort it out. The Australian 19 June 2024: 20). So they don’t have complete support from the plan there.
Apparently:
The United Arab Emirates is often put forward of an example Australia could follow. It took just 13 years to connect its first nuclear power plant, and is the only country in the world that has managed to successfully build nuclear from scratch in the last 30 years.
It is obviously not easy to do and that is 13 years after clearing all the political hurdles in Australia, If the Coalition gets in in 2025, and we assume 1 year to get the politics, money, ‘consultation,’ site acquisition, choosing builders and training workers out of the way, and start building, then it would be absolute best practice to have it running by 2039 – somewhat more in keeping the the CSIRO’s predictions that the Dutton predictions. However, Ted O’Brien and David Littleproud are now flagging that there might be two and a half years of local community consultation before the site details were finalised, although communities could not veto the sites. So that adds another year to year and a half to readiness times, making the best practice date 2040, not 2035-37 as promised.
The level of Coalition competence on design is also not impressive. Peter Dutton tweeted that:
“This [image] is the concept design of a zero emissions small modular reactor [SMR].”
This seems frighteningly naïve when it comes to any complex and potentially deadly technology.
That picture is not a concept design for an SMR, it is just a design for a building and setting, which might hold an SMR, a library, a country restaurant, or a cheese display.
A concept design would tell us something about how the SMR is supposed to work, what the materials it will be constructed out of are, what the cooling system is, what the safety system is, where the uranium and waste is stored etc…. You may note that this ‘concept design’ does not even have a fence, it is that insecure and open to terrorist attacks…. this is an empty fantasy drawing, not a design of any practical value.
Foreign Policy
It may now happen that our neighbours think we are going to acquire nuclear weaponry, a normal product of nuclear power, and make moves to defend themselves. This is not fiction. When the Coalition decided to buy nuclear submarines from the US
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.
So they broke their agreement and are now using the argument that nuclear powered submarines are safe, to imply nuclear energy is always safe.
Nuclear vs Renewables.
Apart from over-optimism, and abandonment of emissions reduction, the problems for nuclear and renewables come down to:
Which technology reduces emissions with most speed
How much energy do we need? Can either supply that amounts
Which is most cost effective
Can an economy run on renewables
Which produces less long term environmental problems
What kind of social organisation is required for either of them
Going backwards
6) Renewables will be obstructed by fossil fuel companies for several reasons; the first is the obvious that renewables almost immediately start reducing emissions and the need to make emissions, and potentially cause loss of profit for fossil fuel companies and leave investments in fossil fuels stranded, as they replace fossil fuels. In this policy, it seems that Nuclear as planned does not reduce emissions; it may increase them as gas is used for backup with inadequate power generation. Renewables also allow the slow and modular building of Community controlled energy supplies, local level energy, resilience if they can function when the grid is down, and give the community political power and local finance, as money does not leave the local area. Renewables can be used to encourage independence, local political engagement and choice. Nuclear does not, it remains under outside control. Given the Coalition’s apparent hostility to renewables, the aim seems to be to keep centralised control, fossil fuel company profits and corporate power rather than to solve the emissions problem. In fact there is no real sense from the nuclear position that pollution and emissions are a problem. So it may be that neoliberal corporate dominance is one of many systems incompatible with solving the challenge of climate change, and hence needs to be curtailed.
5) Both nuclear and renewables disrupt environments. Renewables can be built so that farming can continue. Wind farms can also be built offshore and are likely to acts as artificial reefs and attract marine life to boost fishing and tourism. With proper design renewables should create little non-recyclable waste, but that does require the right designs. Nuclear requires ongoing costs of fuel and damage from mining, transport of radioactive supplies and waste, often through residential areas. Waste needs safe storage, and nuclear involves very expensive decommissioning at the end of its life because of high risk to those cleaning up and the local environment. Nuclear portends continued threats to environments.
4) It is possible that a modern corporate economy cannot run on renewables, but then a modern corporate economy cannot run on only 7 nukes. A modern corporate economy cannot run with climate change worsening either. Renewables are expandable, so they might be able to deal with the energy requirements. We might just have to change the economy and lower energy requirements, but that will involve a lot of struggle.
3) The CSIRO is clear on cost. Renewables are far more cost effective than nuclear. Nuclear cost blowouts are apparently worse than cost blowouts for the Olympics. Renewables are cheaper to install even including storage and cables. If well designed they should allow farming. I would rather trust the CSIRO’s estimates than those of a politician who is not itemizing the costs, and may never itemize them. As a further statement, Tim Buckley, director of thinktank Climate Energy Finance says:
“The international experience shows that the western nuclear industry is plagued with massive delays and cost blowouts,”… noting the Vogtle nuclear power plant expansion in the US blew out to cost $35bn, while Britain’s Hinkley Point C plant has been delayed to 2031 and is on track to cost £33bn pounds ($63bn).
2) The question of the energy we need is hard to answer, because this changes all the time. If we have to change the economy, then we change the energy we need. Earlier I mentioned that coal is fading out, and we may need 300GW in the 2030s. This energy cannot be delivered by 7 nukes. It might be that the ideal solution is to develop both nuclear and renewables, but it seems clear that the Coalition does not want to do this, they want to restrict renewables and support gas as with their technology neutral gas led recovery from Covid. Again we may need to change the economy to survive.
1) Either technology could reduce emissions, if the policy and the technology is well designed and implemented. Again the problem seems to be that with only 7 nukes the Coalition’s policy is not designed to reduce emissions. It seems to be designed to generate more gas use at great expense to taxpayers. So the chance of using nuclear and renewables together has been abandoned.
The Conspiracy?
The Dutton nuclear plan
bear a striking resemblance to a policy Trevor St Baker and SMR Nuclear Technology have been advocating for several years, in evidence and submissions to federal and state parliamentary committees, in think tanks and in energy forums.
[St Baker is a patron of the extremely wealthy] Coalition for Conservation, One of its aims is to reach out to environmentalists, renewable energy experts and climate scientists to garner support for Coalition members
I’m not absolutely against nuclear energy, it could be really useful, but I am against nuclear energy when its being used as:
a) a distraction from reducing emissions;
b) in support of continued fossil fuel burning and;
c) to disrupt the replacement of fossil fuels by renewables.
All of these factors seem to be features of Dutton’s policy. The policy will not produce enough energy to make a difference to emissions. It will at best, and probably not at all, generate enough energy to replace some of the phased out coal. We probably need to build at least 40 full scale nukes with continuing expansion of renewables to make a difference; with no sign of that level of build out and the suppression of large scale renewables, the only way to give Australia the energy it wants is through more gas burning. There seems to be no guarantee that the plans can get through the various governmental oppositions. There is no evidence to suggest that it is really intended to. Chucking out the 2030 targets because they are too difficult, suggests that the 2050 targets will become too difficult too, which is great for fossil fuel companies. If the Coalition wanted nuclear to be successful they should have started about 20 years ago.
However, while some people say the deception is easily seen through, Dutton’s choice is not a death wish. He will get funding from mining and fossil fuel companies, he will get corporate and pro-Trump think tanks churning out material to justify him and clog social media. He will get support from Murdoch and probably most of the rest of the media. He will get unity in his Party, and he may even get some Russian and Chinese support through social media.
But then, taking a cue from the Anti-Voice campaign, which is much more appropriate for this policy at the moment….. Peter Dutton wrote:
“In refusing to provide basic information and answer reasonable questions on the Voice, you are treating the Australian people like mugs… your approach will ensure a dangerous and divisive debate grounded in hearsay and misinformation.”
It is often alleged that people on the left are completely responsible for the decline of nuclear energy. However, people on all sides of politics can be cautious about nuclear energy.
Cost overruns are common.
They are expensive when treated commercially. The UK Hinckley reactor has to be supported by a large electricity price, which of course distorts markets and supports other expensive, and polluting, sources of energy.
Reactors tend to take a long time to build, usually longer than estimated. So people figure, perhaps incorrectly, that they will not cut enough emissions in the time we have left to keep the temperature increase within bounds. We have about 10 years carbon budget left (and after that nothing), if we want to stay under 1.5 degrees.
see Georgia Power’s Vogtle project: the cost has increased by 140% since construction began in 2011, and is more than six years behind schedule.
Reactors face problems with heat. They need water for cooling and, in France recently, had to be shut down because the rivers were too low and the water too hot. This is clearly a problem as global temperatures continue to rise.
The small reactors (SMRs) we have been promised for a long time seem uncertain. The Australian CSIRO recently tried to find reliable data on their energy production and cost, and failed completely. I’ve recently read an article which said that they were being used in China, and were wonderful but it had no evidence or references for its position. A report written for the Australian Conservation Foundation states.
The small reactors that do exist are in Russia and China, but these projects have been subject to serious delays and cost blowouts. While there are hopes and dreams of ramping up SMR production, the mass manufacturing facilities needed to produce the technology are found nowhere in the world.
I have been told Japan has a working SMR, which uses ceramic coated fuel pellets, and is very safe. However, I have failed to find anything about this. One pro-nuclear site wrote:
Japan’s problem is that it does not have a viable SMR design that is ready to come off the drawing boards. This raises the previously unthinkable prospect of importing an SMR via licensing from a country that has one ready to go.
Japan is behind the technology eight ball in terms of developing its own SMRs. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority has no policy framework for dealing with them. In addition to being notoriously sluggish in reviewing reactor restarts, so far in its history has not reviewed and approved a single application for a new reactors of any kind or size.
Thorium Reactors failed when people initially tried to build them, and don’t seem to be much better nowadays.
The Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis has reported on an as yet unbuilt set of SMRs in Utah (to be completed in 2030) being built by UAMPS (Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems) and NuScale Power Corporation. It states that the original energy price was to be US$55 per MWh, but recent presentations have suggested it would be between $90-$100 per MWh, despite “an anticipated $1.4 billion subsidy from the U.S. Department of Energy and a new subsidy from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on the order of $30 per MWh”.
In the IEA’s global pathway to reach Net Zero Emissions by 2050, nuclear power doubles between 2020 and 2050, with construction of new plants needed in all countries that are open to the technology. Even so, by mid-century, nuclear only accounts for 8% of the global power mix, which is dominated by renewables.
Ordinary energy generation reactors lead to the capacity to build nuclear weapons, and we probably do not need more distribution of them – the world is already unstable enough.
As far as I can tell, there is still a problem with the waste, although some people say that problem has been solved, but until these imagined solutions are in standard operation we cannot tell for sure.
While they are mathematically safe and low risk, the problems when reactors do go wrong can be major and long term. The more reactors we have, the more likely we will get a major problem.
Commercial building of reactors, can lead to shortcuts and dangers, to meet deadlines and keep profit.
People generally do not want a energy producing reactor near them, so they have to be built away from residences, and that adds to costs and energy loss. They also seem to have to have water for cooling, so this also restricts where they can be built.
Where I live the Right seems to have become strongly in favor of nukes only after leaving government. This is probably because, while in opposition, they don’t risk having to say where the reactors will be established and alienating voters. While in government they did hold some inquiries which concluded that nuclear was not practicable, but they are clearly free to ignore that when they don’t have power. My guess is that, for them, it is a way of trying to inhibit renewable electricity and keep coal and gas going.
Furthermore it is probable, although I don’t know for sure, that fossil fuel companies agitated against nuclear and slowed down research and improvements, in order to keep their monopoly on energy – this would be another reason why parties heavily dependent on fossil fuel money and sponsorship, did not promote nuclear as much as they might have done.
According to reports of a 350.org and Lock the Gate report:
at least $1.3bn and up to $1.9bn in direct funding for the gas industry was promised between September 2020 and the election. They found another $63m was pledged in indirect funding for federal agencies to support the expansion.
The International Energy Agency made it clear in May 2021:
from today, [there should be] no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects, and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants. By 2035, there are no sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars, and by 2040, the global electricity sector has already reached net-zero emissions.
Exxon Mobil made $18bn in profits in the past three months. Shell and Chevron each made nearly $12bn. Those are all record numbers.
A recent study showed that for the past 50 years, the oil industry has made profits of more than $1tn a year, close to $3bn a day. These profits are driven not by some fantasy of free enterprise and perfect competition, but by the exact opposite – cartels, mega-corporations and the regulatory capture of governments..,
However, more recently, the leader of the opposition said:
It is high time that Australia had an honest and informed debate on the benefits and costs of nuclear energy….
The current energy crisis has shown the importance of getting more dispatchable power into the grid. The average wholesale electricity price in the second quarter this year was three times higher than the same time a year ago – a situation described by the Australian Energy Market Operator as ‘unprecedented’….
Australia is already a nuclear nation. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has operated a nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights for over 60 years. A national conversation about potential of nuclear energy is the logical next step.
We have already had multiple inquiries that suggest nuclear power is too expensive without a carbon price which the Coalition will not accept, and few people want to live next door to one.
In their mind it appears to ‘excuse’ opposing climate targets, and suggests they might have a plan.
They will probably hope to distract from their failure to agree to actually cut emissions by arguing that people disinterested in nuclear energy, such as most people in Labor, Green and Teals, are not really prepared to tackle climate change, and are only interested in crippling the Australian economy, while the Coalition has a practical solution to the problem with zero social cost.
However, they have no ability, or probably intention, to get nuclear up before 2030 and thus help phase out greenhouse gas emissions. It’s just empty virtue signaling.
If you want to see the difficulties of modern nuclear then have a look at the Hinkley Point project.
The CSIRO was recently unable to get any pricing from the people claiming to have developed Small and Medium Reactors, and CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall pointed out that:
The latest report shows renewables are holding steady as the lowest cost source of new-build electricity.. With the world’s largest penetration of rooftop solar, unique critical energy metals, a world class research sector and a highly skilled workforce, Australia can turn our challenges into the immense opportunity of being a global leader in renewable energy
The status of nuclear SMR has not changed. Following extensive consultation with the Australian electricity industry, report findings do not see any prospect of domestic projects this decade, given the technology’s commercial immaturity and high cost. Future cost reductions are possible but depend on its successful commercial deployment overseas.
We have had a range of feedback into the assumed current costs for nuclear SMR over several years reflecting the difficulty of finding good evidence for costs in circumstances where a technology is not currently being deployed. This year only one submission was received but it continues the theme established in previous years that current costs of nuclear SMR should be lower. Vendors seeking to encourage the uptake of a new technology have proposed theoretical cost estimates, but these cannot be verified until proven through a deployed project.
So the chances of getting affordable nuclear in time, seems small. However the cost of renewables is decreasing and they are much easier to build than reactors.
It seems likely that a conversation on nuclear, at the same time as ignoring all the other fossil fuel problems we have, and all the solutions we have, is likely to be an attempted shield for doing nothing.
Warning this is largely an excerpt from articles credited below. I hope to do some research to fill it out.
1) Increasing the number of nuclear power plants (currently around 450 globally) increases the risk of a catastrophic accident caused by an extreme weather event (bushfire, typhoon, floods, tsunami) and becomes more likely with increasing and wilder climate change.
2) Nuclear plants consume vast amounts of water, a diminishing resource in a warming world, and uranium mining pollutes groundwater.
Half of the world’s uranium mines use a process called in-situ leaching. This involves fracking ore deposits then pumping down a cocktail of acids mixed with groundwater to dissolve the uranium for easier extraction. This contaminates aquifers with radioactive elements. There are no examples of successful groundwater restoration.
Butler
3) Nuclear plants take at least 7-10 years to build – we need solutions that can be operational now so that fossil fuels can be turned down now.
4) A 2017 report by WISE International estimates, that over its life cycle, nuclear power produces 88-146 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity. Wind power emits 5-12 grams.
7) Nuclear power is a precursor to nuclear weapons. More countries with nuclear power means more countries with the potential to produce nuclear weapons. The second Iraq war, plus the leaving-alone of North Korea, have that nations need weapons of mass destruction to deter bigger States such as the US.
8) Nuclear waste remains radioactive for millions of years and there’s still no safe way to store all of it, or to maintain responsibility for that period of time.
In the 1970s, the US army built a concrete cap to seal away 3.1 million cubic feet of radioactive waste on Runit Island, which is part of the Marshall Islands. Today, rising sea levels threaten to bring down the entire structure, releasing the radioactive waste into the lagoon. The US government has refused to help, saying it’s the Marshall Islanders’ problem now.
Butler
9) Uranium mining is unsafe for the environment and workers.
10) In 2009 the European Commission found that about 70% of uranium used in nuclear reactors comes from Indigenous lands. Mining means even more dispossession and destruction for them.
11) Nuclear power is a centralised power source that requires lots of up-front capital and a large distribution grid, and massive taxpayer subsidy. Wind and solar provide opportunities for local councils and local communities to build facilities that are tailored to local needs, possibly independent from the grid and community controlled.
Nuclear advocates in Australia often blame the Greens for the complete lack of nuclear energy in that country. They may argue that the Greens are obstacles to climate action in general, and try and prove this by saying the Greens opposed the first Carbon pricing scheme.
A1) Greens are not that powerful
The main problem with this argument is that the Greens are not that powerful.
While the Greens do oppose nuclear energy, because they think problems with it (such as waste, rare but massive accidents) have not been solved, if the two major parties wish to ignore them, then the Greens are ignored, as is the case with economic policy, or coal mining.
The Greens do not own or control any media, they don’t have regular spots on media, and generally cannot even get their policies reported, other than with denigration and inaccuracy. They have close to no public propaganda force, they can use, unlike the other parties (particularly the Coalition).
Neither the Coalition nor Labor have a pro-nuclear policy which is disrupted by the Greens. The Coalition has been in government a long time, and nothing has happened. During their time in power there has been zero levels of research into nuclear energy generation, zero nuclear energy generation, and zero plans for nuclear energy generation. Lucas Heights does not count; it primarily exists for small experiments and medical isotope generation. The Greens cannot be blamed for this ongoing situation. If either of the major parties wanted anything different, then it would have happened.
If you want to blame anyone blame the Coalition or Labor, or the electorate in general for worrying about where the reactors would be placed.
A2: Carbon Pricing
Greens also get blamed for the failure of carbon pricing in Australia. This story is not entirely accurate. Again the Greens where the minor party. If Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull could have agreed on a carbon trading scheme then it would have gone ahead. They did not. Turnbull lost the support of his party, probably because of its cheerful connection with fossil fuel companies. Can’t blame the Greens for that.
Rudd refused to negotiate with the Greens. He just told them to take it or leave it. Can’t blame the Greens for rejecting that strategy either.
Even so, the Greens also took note of Treasury modelling which implied the Rudd policy was extremely expensive and would not reduce carbon emissions for a long time. Given Rudd’s failure to get the Coalition to support a policy similar to the one the Coalition went into the election proposing, the Greens cannot be blamed for his failure. The Coalition was the obstacle.
Furthermore, the Greens worked with Gillard to get a system which did not rip off ordinary taxpayers and which lowered emissions almost immediately. It was not perfect, but it was much better. It also shows what Rudd could have achieved, if he had chosen to work with the Greens, rather than against them and with the Coalition.
The Gillard scheme was destroyed by the Coalition. Not the Greens. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Coalition would not have destroyed any form of carbon pricing, given their love for fossil fuel companies.
Again the Greens cannot be blamed for this.
Failings of nuclear Advocates
It may be personal experience bias, but I more often read nuclear advocates arguing against renewables than I read them arguing against fossil fuels. Just as I read them opposing declarations of climate emergency or emissions targets. So I’m not sure I agree about the innocence of nuclear advocates. There is certainly no attempt to win allies in the Greens, just lecture them and blame them.
It is also extremely hard to evaluate nuclear plans that do not exist in reality, which almost no one has any enthusiasm for, and for a kind of truly enormous project which Australia has no commercial experience with. Current total energy generation in Australia is about 265 TWh per year; Hinkley Point in the UK is supposed to be able to generate 3,260MW (not sure over what time period, the text is ambiguous, but I presume a year). That is a reasonable number of reactors to build from scratch, in time to mitigate climate change, and there are no local companies which could be expected to carry out such a project.
Conclusion
Green obstacles to climate action are trivial when compared to the Coalition. It would be more practical to try and get the Coalition onside for nuclear climate action if anyone useful was really serious about nuclear power, but we all can be pretty sure that is not going to happen. And I’m reasonably sure there is no real attempt by anyone with any capacity to build nuclear power, to get it going.
1) After about 70 years of building, nuclear is at about 5% of the world’s total energy supply according to the IEA.
2) If nuclear energy is going to be our saviour, then it needs the same exponential growth that renewables require. A growth it has never sustained in the world as a whole over those 70 years.
3) At the moment there is almost no serious agitation in Australia from politicians or business for even one nuclear power station, never mind the number we need to replace all use of coal, gas and oil.
4) On the other hand, there is agitation from business to build renewables, despite the best efforts of the Federal government to discourage this and promote a “gas led recovery” as the alternative to renewables. The government is not promoting nuclear as an alternative.
5) Avoiding declarations of climate emergency and the setting of emissions targets, as seems common amongst nuclear proponents, does nothing to help energy transition or nuclear energy. Indeed it resists recognising the need for such transitions. No one is going to transition to nuclear for the hell of it.
6) For nuclear energy to work, just as for renewables to work, we need to encourage electrification of all energy use, and the construction of a decent electrical infrastructure. This agitation, again, seems rare amongst nuclear proponents.
7) We could argue that nuclear proponents appear to aim at slowing and hindering transition to renewables, and hence any realistic energy transition at all. Therefore it is possible to suggest that they are inadvertently(?) assisting fossil fuel companies to stay in business.
8) Nuclear proponents in Australia don’t have to behave like this. They could argue for a transition which simply requires:
a) recognition of climate emergency, to help boost action,
b) emissions targets (perhaps with the addition of a carbon price) to help boost action,
c) general electrification, and construction of a new electrical infrastructure to cope that electrification,
d) complete phase out of coal, gas and oil for use and export,
e) money for research into energy sources with high energy return on energy input (EREI) and low greenhouse-gas emissions, and
f) nuclear as one of the energy sources we might need along with renewables or other possible sources.
But sadly this seems rare. They are generally more interested in slapping the Greens, as if with the Greens blamed, transition will just occur by itself.
Some while ago I wrote that, whatever the advantages of nuclear energy, no one is seriously looking at investing in building it in Australia, and nuclear energy seems to be primarily used as a rod to beat climate activists with (“you are hypocrites because nuclear energy could save us”). However if no one is trying to build it, or wanting to build it, then it becomes a distraction from problems, even worse than Carbon Capture and Storage.
A few days after writing that post, a friend wrote to me, saying that nuclear energy was ‘on the table’…. They said, and this is paraphrased a little:
In December 2019 a report called “Not without your approval” was prepared by the Environment and Energy Committee was presented to parliament. It’s available here. It proposes three recommendations to the Commonwealth Government.
1) that it consider the prospect of nuclear technology as part of its future energy mix 2) that it undertake a body of work to progress the understanding of nuclear technology in the Australian context 3) that it consider lifting the current moratorium on nuclear energy partially—that is, for new and emerging nuclear
Subject to assessment of technology and a commitment to community consent for approving nuclear facilities.
This is absolutely correct. The recommendations of the Committee are possibly a step towards doing something, but we shall have to see. I would think that if community consent for wind farms is difficult, then it would be close to impossible to obtain that consent for nukes.
However, as far as I can tell from the Parliamentary records, although a motion was tabled in February to speak to this report, it has not been discussed as yet (last tabled 18 June).
I may be wrong here, because it can be difficult to follow parliamentary procedure. But it certainly does not seem to have been greeted with eagerness, or even formally noted.
The Federal Government’s response to Covid has shown little sign of interest in building or funding, or raising the question of nuclear energy. This is perhaps surprising given that the massive subsidies which are being proposed for Gas and gas pipelines, which do emit methane and other GHGs. Although the stacking of the committee making recommendations with fossil fuel people, might explain this.
I, at least, have heard nothing from the Federal government of a move to free up the path for nuclear energy, which is what would be needed, given the legislation that prevents it from happening.
Now the leader of the National Party and Deputy Premier. John Barilaro, in NSW, part of the Coalition, did at one time say the NSW Nationals would support Mark Latham’s (One Nation) bill to allow nuclear energy in NSW, However the government’s own Energy Minister, Matt Kean, stressed the government’s focus was on “cheap reliable energy” as provided by renewables.
Barilaro later told a budget estimates hearing the matter would first need to be considered by the party room as well as the cabinet. There are people in the party room who are strongly opposed to nukes, especially if the reactors where to be in their electorates. Mr Barilaro, himself, was in favour of “small nuclear reactors”, which he called “the iphone of reactors”. However, in response to questioning he said he was aware these did not exist, but which “we know is on the horizon”. He also said he welcomed it in his own electorate.
In this context, it is worth exploring the estimated costs of small nuclear reactors. The Gencost 2019-20 report by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator concludes that the cost of energy through small nuclear reactors would be $16,304 per kilowatt (kW) [these figures are from RenewEconomy. I do not know where their exact figures come from, but the graphs in the Gencost report give the price per kW as over $16,000], which would need massive reduction to be economical. Which of course could happen.
RenewEconomy comments on the cost of small nuclear reactors being built or just built:
There is just one operational SMR, Russia’s floating plant. Its estimated cost is US$740 million for a 70 MW plant. That equates to A$15,200 per kW – similar to the CSIRO/AEMO estimate of A$16,304 per kW.
Over the course of construction, the cost quadrupled and a 2016 OECD Nuclear Energy Agency report said that electricity produced by the Russian floating plant is expected to cost about US$200 (A$288) per megawatt-hour (MWh) with the high cost due to large staffing requirements, high fuel costs, and resources required to maintain the barge and coastal infrastructure….
The World Nuclear Association states that the cost of China’s high-temperature gas-cooled SMR (HTGR) is US$6,000 (A$8,600) per kW….
Argentina’s Bariloche Atomic Center… By April 2017, the cost estimate had increased [to] US$21,900 (A$31,500) per kW (US$700 million / 32 MW).
there is no hard data to be found on nuclear SMR. While there are plants under construction or nearing completion, public cost data has not emerged from these early stage developments….. Past experience has indicated that vendor-based estimates are often initially too low
Constructing first-of-a-kind plant includes additional unforeseen costs associated with lack of experience in completing such projects on budget. SMR will not only be subject to first-of-a-kind costs in Australia but also the general engineering principle that building plant smaller leads to higher costs.
SMRs may be able to overcome the scale problem by keeping the design of reactors constant and producing them in a series. This potential to modularise the technology is likely another source of lower cost estimates. However, even in the scenario where the industry reaches a scale where small modular reactors can be produced in series, this will take many years to achieve and therefore is not relevant to estimates of current costs
Gencost p.4
The estimated costs for nukes is about twice that of black coal with CCS <!> and about 8 times that of solar PV or wind (GenCost p.5). Only gas without CCS is cheaper than renewables. Gencost remarks “we should see more competitive costs [for nukes] from the late 2020s assuming planned projects go ahead” (p.15).
These figures are sure to be disputed. Giles Parkinson, who does favour renewable energy, remarked of submissions to an inquiry:
The nuclear lobby has largely given up on existing nuclear technology, recognising that the repeated cost blow-outs and delays means that it is too expensive, too slow and not suited for Australia’s grid…
So they have been promoting the new small reactor technology which is just off being ranked as fantasy, and certainly has no long term data, and
insisting to the parliamentary inquiry that wind and solar are four to seven times the cost of nuclear, and to try and prove the point the lobby has been making such extraordinary and outrageous claims that it makes you wonder if anything else they say about nuclear – its costs and safety – can be taken seriously…. When it comes to wind, solar and batteries, they just make stuff up.
So it’s all a bit confused, but as far as I know NSW does not have the power to act alone on this, even if small nuclear reactors were a settled and cheap technology – which they don’t appear to be.
My friend then wrote:
In reference to the second part of your question about who in Australian industry is seeking to build nuclear power plants, here is a list of seven submissions, made between September 2019 & April 2020. There is an eighth still in process of publication https://www.brightnewworld.org/submissions.
As far as I can see, Brightnewworld seems to be a guy, and some friends in a bedroom or an office, somewhere, trying to become a registered NGO. They have no obvious ways of raising finance to engage in actual nuclear reactor building, although they are soliciting corporate donations to support the organisation.
They primarily seem to be an information organisation, not investors. So they do not count, any more than writers in the Murdoch Empire. They could be as much a part of the distraction process as anything else.
Continuing.
The World Nuclear Association reports on nuclear power prospects in Australia & states that in November 2018 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) completed a 12-day integrated regulatory review service mission focused on ARPANSA (Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act) to assess the regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety in Australia.
While interesting, the World Nuclear Association report is primarily about uranium mining. It does mention that the ARPANS Act 1998 would have to be repealed to get nuclear energy going, but does not seem to indicate that anyone of any significance is interested in repealing it, or that there is any near future prospects for nuclear energy in Australia.
I’m also not sure if the IAEA “assess[ing] the regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety in Australia,” has anything to do with real agitation for building reactors either. It could just be checking the regulations, and seems to be something the IAEA would do for any country that had a reactor and mining. As far as I can tell from the annual report for the year 2018, the “integrated regulatory review service mission” was primarily concerned with radiation safety and education, not with changing legislation or promoting nuclear energy.
Another friend wrote:
Given our geography (pretty stable inland where there are few earthquakes or tsunamis etc) and the fact that it can be done in a remote area I think a lot of the risk is not there that is in other countries and I think that’s why it’s being pushed from the back bench of the government – it’s just how many fights the PM wants to take on.
However, I’m not entirely sure nuclear energy can be done economically in remote areas in Australia, I think reactors are used to generate steam to drive turbines, and require water for the steam and for cooling.
Given that we happily give coal mines masses of water, which is polluted by its uses, we could possibly allow reactors to consume the Artesian basin, but that is probably not a good idea in the long term, assuming we want anyone to be able to live and farm outback, with the increasing droughts.
The last serious proposal I know of, for nuclear power was at Jarvis Bay using sea water (after it was purified). It might be possible to have a closed circuit water cycle, but I don’t know how often its been done. I gather there are non-water cooled reactors, but at this moment I can’t tell if they are primarily experimental or not – some sites claim they are and some claim they are standard if rare. There is always a lot of hype about new tech. They may still use water for steam.
You also use water to cover the fuel rods.
The point is that they would probably end up being built on the coast, in relatively fertile regions. So I don’t see this happening, even if people were agitating for it
Altogether, I don’t really see that much evidence that agitation for nuclear energy in Australia is not a fantasy or distraction from the real problems we face. Given that any such successful agitation for nuclear energy will face considerable opposition, this will significantly add to the time frame of building the reactors, which is important as we need emissions reductions now not in 20 years. However, we could be surprised, and something useful might happen.
Climate, technology and chaos Blog 