Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The nuclear industry has announced plans to lobby the Australian government, to advocate nuclear power as an affordable, practical alternative to renewables.
According to The Guardian;
The Australian Nuclear Association (ANA) will accompany Danny Roderick, chief executive of the leading US nuclear technology firm Westinghouse, to talk to government ministers and business leaders in Canberra and Sydney next week.
Roderick said nuclear power could help produce “clean, reliable, affordable electricity for more people”.
“We’d like to help Australia explore ways to create jobs and economic opportunity that are also good for the environment,” he said.
…
“My concern is that renewables won’t get us across the line in terms of emissions reduction,” said Rob Parker, the president of the ANA. “Nuclear is more reliable and it has a smaller resources footprint than renewables.
“Until we approach the issue of carbon abatement honestly, we won’t replace coal because it is the cheapest fuel we have. Nuclear is dead until we acknowledge carbon abatement is the main issue. We already pay a premium for renewables but we need to go further or we’ll just keep burning coal.”
In my opinion, the last thing Australia needs is any form of new energy infrastructure investment, except where driven by economic demand. In one decade, Australia went from paying one of the cheapest electricity rates in the world, to paying some of the most expensive rates in the world, thanks largely to government green energy initiatives.
If Australia’s newly greened government is determined to waste taxpayer’s money on CO2 emissions reduction, nuclear power at least has the advantage that it works. You can convert a modern economy to nuclear power without ruining it. France for example, generates around 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.
By contrast, spending money on renewables is unlikely to deliver any value whatsoever. According to a report produced by top Google engineers, major scientific advances would be required to make renewable energy useful.
To all those who wish to protest nuclear power on the foundation of what to do about the waste or accident: you need to understand that the genie is already out of the bottle and there is no putting it back in. We have to arrive at the technologies to render waste and proliferation manageable and harmless because there is no choice already! It’s arguing a point that is meaningless in the real world!
The problem of waste was solved over 40 years ago.
Reprocessing.
Accident’s happen in every industry. In most industries it’s many small accidents that never make the news. With nuclear power it tends to be fewer but larger accidents that get blown entirely out of proportion by people who have agendas to grind.
Bubba it doesn’t change the fact that globally there is going to be a continuing need to dispose or make use of increasing amounts of fissile material. Having the dense efficient energy in the grid to maintain and expand a modern industrial society is the key to handling the issue! The mess at Hanford wouldn’t be nearly the cluster**** it is without the goofy rules that require everything be treated as a potentially dangerous contaminate of the worst sort that needs to be documented with insane amounts of paper work while all actual work stops. Another situation where bureaucrats with nothing else to do have created a morass where nothing can be done!
Or then again we could just let Pakistan and Iran be in charge of waste disposal
Then burn the plutonium in reactors designed for that purpose.
Problem solved.
BTW, did anyone mention that Hanford was a govt run operation?
Meanwhile, every nuclear plant in the United States is under regulatory assault from bureaucrats who demand an endless stream of multimillion dollar modifications and backfits.
Be realistic. After Australian approval of rescinding their Nuclear Free Zone policy (which would take several years to rescind), then it would take a minimum of ~14 years to bring the first commercial nuclear plant online. In Australia one would expect a lot of antinuclear interveners during construction so add another several years to bringing the first nuclear plant online. So we are talking on the order of almost 20 years from present before the first commercial nuclear electricity is produced. That would only the first. One won’t solve their problem. It would take ten or more.
John
Agreed, but it’s still no excuse not to get started.
MarkW,
Yes, you are right. Austraila, Go Nuclear! But, it takes a far far view to accomplish and sustained will and consistent chains of leadership. But, I won’t be cynical so . . . Australia, Go Nuclear!
John
If the permitting and construction process would take so long, how about locating the plant offshore, on a ship or specially built floating platform?
rogerknights,
It might be even more of a regulatory / intervener mess to put them offshore or in mobile barges. I would tend to think that if that hasn’t been done before in the commercial sector (and I think it hasn’t) then it is more difficult to accomplish than doing a normal land based plant that has been done hundreds of times. NOTE: Of course US Navy (and other nation’s navies) have had hundreds of mobile offshore nuclear plants in their subs and aircraft carriers for more than ~50+ years that are quickly and virtually automatically licensed without serious interveners; but that case hasn’t realistically applied so far to the non-military sector . . . . but it could and should at least be argued to apply to some not insignificant degree . . .
Hey, you stimulate the science fiction idea of building reactors in space and laser beaming the power output to very tall collection towers that go from the earth’s surface to near the height of lower earth orbit. Might be less of a nuclear safety concern, though crazy expensive at least for the first one or two.
John
The problem with populist energy policy in Germany, Aus, U.S., and UK is that it tends toward the high-cost, inefficient first person rooftop approach over large scale of any type including utility-scale PV. Or it allows the policy green light opening the doors to special interests with similar high cost schemes like wind farms with no provisions for dismantling.
BFL September 30, 2015 at 8:18 am
“The capatilistic system does not work, since it is a monopoly situation.”
Some monopolies in critical areas are actually beneficial as long as they have adequate oversight to prevent predatory abuse. Unfortunately in the US, historic “deregulation” didn’t bother keeping the oversight. Many examples since the 1980’s as in health care that was once relatively inexpensive basic hospitalization with a few insurers, then became wide open with no rules and hundreds of companies adding doctor, drug and dental payments to get clients (and push up consumer costs) and the companies were now allowed to disown expensive patients with cancer or previous health issues and could cancel policies on a whim (a side effect is now duel tiered rates at all levels, one for insurers and another for the uninsured making health care too expensive for them and/or resulting in non payment for care resulting in even higher costs for those that have insurance). The Savings and Loan scandal after dereg costing the taxpayer somewhat less than a billion and some 900+ people receiving jail time (unlike the 2008 banking scandals where only one got a slap on the wrist, probably because most of what they were doing had already been “legalized” by the fed/Greenspan). Enron and the rigging of electric rates in California (no oversight again), and many many others. However, since both parties are now in corporate hands and/or special interests, especially with the new Super PAC rules, no improvement is likely in the near future. So basically with a 2 party rigged system, their is really no one to vote for.
Healthcare went down the tubes in the 80s becuase of regulations probiting interstate competiton and in effect creating small state level monopolies. Added to this was additional regulation setting limits on payments for state funded procedures, causing medical providers to get creative in looking for revenue. On top of that was stupid tort laws and spiraling cost of insurance. Finally, reporting regulations driving up administrative costs. Whenever government gets invilved you can be sure that the situation will get worse. Never forget the old punch line: “i’m from the government and I’m here to help”
Those rules you cite would reduce costs unless escape hatches were allowed. Insurance that attempts to cover almost every facet of health, which is what happened to health insurance BECAUSE of DEregulation/increased competition would massively increase costs, especially for those that can’t buy insurance and are stuck paying the much higher prices in the 2 tiered pricing system (one for insurance and another much higher one for those without). The increased paper work alone significantly adds to the cost. It should be obvious that some industries do NOT benefit from total competition but that is never a consideration for ‘all or nothing’ capitalists.
As far as tort actions, the costs are again associated with allowing the AMA to control their own, which doesn’t work well for any organization including unions. When the AMA gives regular wrist slaps to doctors that are regularly incompetent then one would expect a flood of lawsuits. Unfortunately their insurance rate increases are passed on to the public. Another case where a lack of independent third party oversight results in a undesirable outcome.
It really is fascinating the way some people insist that anything less than 100% govt control, is deregulation.
To be consistent, might we not expect folks to outlaw chemotherapy since this entails the use of radioactive materials?
Chemo is a process of hoping to kill the unwanted cancer cells before killing the patient.
Does anyone else find it amusingly ironic that the picture heading the story is of a GE reactor, whilst the story itself is concerned only with Westinghouse? Cute.
rip
Dr. Jaroslaw Sobieski Hampton VA
The US Navy and France are two examples of the large scale nuclear power utilized in a reliable and safe manner. Just say no to the scaremongers and go nuclear full bore. There is no rational reason to hesitate any longer.
Any remote possibility that Australia might have considered nuclear generation of electricity has been hit into a distant galaxy by the Turnbull coup de etat which is taking our Govt further left..
simple-touriste
September 30, 2015 at 2:23 pm
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“Maybe you can convince the Japanese that it’s just waste of money.” [me]
Nobody can. They have been lied to. [and, unlike the simple tourist, the Japanese are too stupid to recognize it] They have been told accidents are “impossible”. [really?]
Now they will believe anyone who says it’s worse than we thought. [anyone?]
But radiation effects have been studied a lot, maybe more than most other potentially noxious compound or physical phenomenons.
We know elevated background radiations is not linked to higher cancer rates.
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http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/2/6/c/e/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620×349.26c1k.png
“elevated background radiations”
simple-touriste
September 30, 2015 at 4:26 pm
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“Why are you opposed to public-owned utilities, anyway?” [me]
They are often badly run, with either very bad quality of services, too much personnel, salaries much higher than in similar jobs elsewhere, hyper-specialisation of personnel (you need several highly workers in SNCF, the French national rail company when one worker is able to handle many different tasks in Germany).
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You must have missed the fact that energy rich Australia has the 2nd highest electricity prices on the planet as a consequence of our politicians selling our public assets to their corporate mates against the wishes of the people.
And here we are just a few years later being Enroned like Californians, and you seem to think that’s the best way to do things, despite all historic evidence in Australia being to the contrary.
“elevated background radiations”
Why do you show a deathbed photo of Alexander Litvinenko? He was murdered, nothing background about that. Is there an angle here?
OK with this photo of a dying man you went from lame propaganda parrot to extremely disgusting troll.
Mods, please do something!!!!
Anyway, you are using the photo of the result of an assassination, so you have disqualified yourself.