There’s nothing like nuclear to bring out the over-reactors.
In one corner, it’s all mushroom clouds and Blinky the three-eyed fish. In the other, it’s a muscular and misled optimism that flicking the switch on a nuclear power plant would solve Australia’s “trilemma” of reducing emissions while ensuring energy security and making power cheaper.
A new group — the parliamentary friends of nuclear industries — will be co-chaired by Nationals MP David Gillespie and South Australian Labor Senator Alex Gallacher, with independent MP Bob “Let A Thousand Blossoms Bloom” Katter as deputy.
Two in three Coalition MPs want to lift the ban on nuclear energy, and the Nationals want the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to be allowed to invest in nuclear. And there’s a push on in Labor, too. Some want the issue on the table at the national conference later this month, while reports today say gas will be the key for its net-zero emissions policy.
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Some fission there.
As latest round of the debate started, the Australian Conservation Foundation immediately took the nuclear option.
“There is nothing clean about the fuel behind the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters, which produces waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years,” ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney said. What tosh.
While it’s technically true that the fuel would be the same, it’s no longer technologically true. Any plant built in Australia would be a small modular reactor. They’re smaller, safer, cheaper, and faster to build. And they have less of that pesky waste that nobody wants in their backyard.
They say you’re more likely to sway people with emotion than with facts so maybe a little bit of bluff and guff is par for the anti-nuclear course.
Meanwhile the latest pro-nuclear hotheads seem to think it’s as easy as plug in and turn on.
Liberal MP Tim Wilson said: “Only nuclear plus baseload renewables can deliver Australia a sustainable net zero future with cheap, reliable electricity. You aren’t serious about climate change if you oppose nuclear outright.”
The booming solar and wind sector and advances in storage show that’s bunkum. The latest report from the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator found that by 2030 “adding new variable renewable generation (solar and wind) to as high as a 90% share of the grid will still be cheaper than non-renewable options”.
Renewables sceptics love to proclaim that when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the power goes out. But it doesn’t, or won’t, not with household storage, large-scale batteries and the potential of pumped-hydro and other technologies.
The pro-nuclear lobby also faces another hurdle: the timeline.
The Gen IV International Forum — which Australia joined in 2016 — is looking at six technologies. But the forum says it’ll be a lazy two or three decades before they’ll be deployed. The Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation says small modular reactors could be built in three to five years.
Even in the unlikely case that the federal government decided to take nuclear energy to the next election, and even if the legislation made it through a new parliament, that would be only the start of the awkward conversations about where to put any nuclear plant, how to train a workforce to manage it, and the predictable furore about what to do with the waste.
Australia has had years — decades — of wandering in an energy policy quagmire. This concerted effort to introduce nuclear into the debate has more than a whiff of smokescreen about it. Especially now, as Australia gears up for the Glasgow summit in November and a possible election before that.
Nuclear is not the bogeyman. But it’s not the superhero either.
At best it’s something we should keep in a future mix as the need for climate change action gets ever more urgent. At worst it’s a deliberate red herring being tossed about to further stymie progress on tackling emissions.
And if pushing for nuclear wasn’t politically explosive enough, even the Australian Nuclear Association is among those who say it will be financially viable only with a carbon price. Boom.
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We already have a nuclear reactor in Sydney that is used to produce material for Nuclear Medicine. I don’t see the anti-nuclear crowd arguing for its closure. While I am a fan of Solar and Wind, they simply can’t reliably (emphasis on reliably) meet our increasing energy demands and nuclear would seem to be the only viable alternative to coal and gas. Nuclear energy is in common use in multiple countries overseas and we need to understand that we cant reach zero emissions without a change in thinking.
There’s no real comparison. The reactor you are talking about is making nuclear materials for medical use. There is no other way to do it, but for generating electricity there are many technologies. As for the other countries with nuclear power generation, that’s an irrelevance. Many regret what they did. The very few current projects for new nuclear power stations (eg the UK’s Hinkley and Sizewell) are a terrible warning to anyone considering this path: rapidly escalating construction costs, ever more remote estimated completion dates, monstrous and growing prices per unit generated electricity – if it ever happens.
You dismiss solar and wind on reliability grounds without any consideration of combining them with energy storage; why? The article mentions it.
My comment relates to the hypocrisy of allowing reactors for medical use but not for energy production in Australia. Both are capable of having accidents.
As to energy storage, there is always a finite amount that can be stored and it will not be for a significant supply period. Additionally, current battery technology limits the number of effective charging cycles, thereby incurring regular replacement costs. The technology is really in its infancy and costs higher along with the risk of equipment obsolescence over short timeframes. I recall my first solar panels only 10 years ago being 50% generating capacity compared to the current panels. Our capacity for Hydro is not significant nationally. Climate extremes also impact the ability of wind and Solar to produce electricity reliably.
The nuclear experiences of other countries are not irrelevant. China, as of 2017, had 38 nuclear power reactors in operation and 19 under construction of which 5 went into commercial operation in 2017 alone. This is driven by a strong desire to reduce pollution levels amd will only increase as they reduce their reliance on coal.
The costs of nuclear are not the issue for me. There will be costs regardless of the solution. Prudent risk management however, requires a mix of technologies and not just blind adherence to solar and wind.
The CSIRO identified hundreds of sites suitable for pumped hydro systems. These will last much longer than batteries and are, currently, cheaper to implement.
In Germany, and maybe Queensland, disused coal mines have been, or ar being, converted for use as pumped hydro.
The Snowy Mountain Scheme already has substantial pumped hydro capacity, and Snowy II has even more capacity.
The cost of nuclear is unlikely to be as cheap as solar and wind in the future, and so reliance on nuclear will drive power prices up.
LI batteries are coming down in price according to Wrights law and will be cheaper than pumped hydro within the next few years
I agree WC, but I think once the energy vault like systems take off, they’ll crop up everywhere. They can be inner city, down mines, off cliffs or replace town silos and don’t need water to function.
There is no hypocrisy because, as I said, there is no proper comparison. In safety engineering when the risk of some method can be reduced by substituting some other method, all other things being equal that is what you must do both as a competent engineer and under current health and safety law. For the medical application there is no substitute, so the reactor can be justified. For power generation there are several other options. (This is simplified, there is a lot more to it but I’m not going to write a book about it here.)
There is still hypocrisy with Lucas Heights and an alternative. We imported all our nuclear materials from Canada after closing the old Reactor early and before the new Reactor opened. From a Risk perspective, there is no difference between Nuclear for medical vs nuclear for energy.
I would want to see comparative costings (capital and ongoing maintenance) as well as a risk analysis to comment on pumped hydro however this also relies on Wind and Solar which is a risk in itself that needs to be mitigated. I’m not against these options, just unsure they are, as yet, viable in the long term.
Disaster planning needs to occur and a suitable strategy developed before making solar and wind seriously viable options for baseline supply. There needs to be a mix.
“From a Risk perspective, there is no difference between Nuclear for medical vs nuclear for energy.”
But there is a huge difference. Lucas heights produces small batches under carefully controlled conditions with a highly qualified specialist staff. A power reactor is a completely different proposition, with a massive reactor, steam processing plant, generator hall and HV infrastructure. As it is (inevitably) run by the private sector it will have minimal staff, working 12 hour shifts, carefully selected to accept the lowest possible wages and ask the least amount of questions. If you want to get a flavour of what its like to work in a massive nuclear generation facility I recommend the book ‘midnight in Chernobyl’ which is a kind of written documentary, and pushes no barrow except the horrifying reality of what happens when dangerous technology is put in the hands of industrial production type people who don’t know what they’ve got.
Don’t read no good, does ya?
Actually, I’m sure that you can but are deliberately ignoring the facts in the hope of B/S baffling good sense.
I note that you have not added any substantial input to this discussion other than to deride others viewpoints but then my expectations may be too high. You never add any polite substantial input to any discussion.
You equate “energy” storage with electricity storage. – Whether this is deliberately obfuscatory or just out of ignorance only you can know – you may not even understand the difference.
Insults from you I wear with pride!
One thing almost never discussed is the site cleanup cost. As far as I know there is only one publicly available, in depth, definitive enquiry into just what it costs to cleanup a half dozen mothballed nuclear plants, and that is the UK parliamentary enquiry in the 2000s. The cost ended up being so astronomical, they ended up putting up high fences and security guards.
Fair point but what are the costs for cleanup of existing fossil fuel facilities? A comparison at least is warranted as is the end to end cost of wind, solar amd storage from an environmental viewpoint.
Well without any data I can readily reference, I would guess that a nuclear site would be an order of magnitude more costly to clean up than a mothballed fossil fuel plant, or even ex windmills or solar panels.
I’d be happier were the mines to fulfill the terms of their permission to operate and refurbish the craters left behind.
Nothing can be done about the aquifer draining & pollution, nor the that of the air.
Then there is the infrastructure such as roads & railways used to transport the coal to export ports – on the rare occasions when it is purpose built by the miner the tax subsidies & write-offs mean a loss to revenue.
Guess who then has to make up the short fall or go without health, schools or other services.
Sounds like submarines
Lucas heights is not a power reactor, it generates radiation to create short-lived isotopes useful in science. The economics are totally different, and the issues involved in running it safely are also totally different.
I’m not arguing the economics, simply that we need to consider and compare all options on an end to end basis. While the Lucas Heights Reactor generates nuclear isotopes, it is still a 20 MW nuclear reactor with the same safety risks. You cant argue that a reactor for one purpose is ok but for another is not. To do so is pure hypocrisy but I suppose that is to be expected.
I’m not advocating it, merely saying it needs to be considered against all options.
You are only out by 100% wrong – it is rated 10MW thermal, ie calorific – not much more than a large office heating system.
The Chairborne Public Servant mentality is a constant in the Universe. .
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-pool_Australian_lightwater_reactor
https://www.ansto.gov.au/research/facilities/opal-multi-purpose-reactor
“a small modular reactor… smaller, safer, cheaper, and faster to build.”
smaller – obviously
safer – if one goes wrong it will make less mess than a bloody big reactor, obviously. But how do things look when you compare one big reactor with the power-generating equivalent number of small modular reactors? Will the small modular reactors be sited in populated areas? Now factor in the security issues with small modular reactors, each of them a magnet for terrorists to steal material, bomb the thing where it is or destroy it by hacking its control system.
cheaper – than a bloody big reactor, obviously. But is it cheaper per unit of electricity generated?
faster to build – see above
There’s also the problem with small modular reactors that there are none commercially currently available.
To have economies of scale, to make it possible to manufacture them centrally in a factory, you need to have around 30-50 on order, which isn’t going to happen.
Wikipedia has a good write up on SMRs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor
Other than a few in Russia they don’t actually exist outside of power point presentations.
Chances are we will have a stable fusion reaction for 10 seconds with net energy output – before a SMR is actually ever built as a commercial reactor.
The killer of nuclear power is economics. The problem with small reactors is that they are also small power output. So ok for powering a submarine, or a ship, or something, but a city of $1 million+ people…. nope.
Nuclear energy has never been profitable.
The most “profitable” nuclear reactor has a net-present-value of -1.5B AUD. The average value is -7.7B. Propped up by governments, mostly for military purposes. Hardly surprising that the manufacturers are all going out of business.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-energy-is-never-profitable-new-study-slams-nuclear-power-business-case-49596/
Keep researching, of course: it’s a neat idea. Maybe thorium is the go, or perhaps the newer fusion ides will get up. Personally, I prefer my nuclear fusion reactor to be at a nice, safe 150M km distance, as it is now…
since we have the uranium and thorium here, modular fission reactors for power generation are worth considering in a 100% renewables mix (along with solar, wind, hydro, batteries) It does mean a coherent energy policy related to climate change and probably a (look away now, ScoMo!) carbon tax.
And let’s start by checking out the economics from the countries that have already tried it…. UK, France, USA, Germany, Japan (the latter 2 of which have decided to shut down all of their nuclear facilities). We are not Robinson Crusoe here: all those forerunner have learned the lesson that nuclear power is expensive and un-manageable.
It is not “tosh”
“There is nothing clean about the fuel behind the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters, which produces waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years,”ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney said . What tosh.
Private nuclear operators want the government, hence the taxpayer to be responsible for the storage of the waste. They don’t build that cost into their business plans. Look no further than Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. It is a catastrophic on all levels.