Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Nuclear power should be a no-brainer for climate activists – scalable zero carbon energy which most Conservatives and climate skeptics would find acceptable. But despite the obvious advantages, greens in Australia and elsewhere continue to shoot their credibility in the foot, by placing their distaste for nuclear power ahead of what many of them claim is an existential global climate crisis.
Is nuclear energy an essential weapon in the fight against climate change — or a toxic white elephant?
ABC Rural / By Daniel Mercer
Posted Yesterday at 6:43amMike Young sometimes wonders why nuclear power has become such an accepted part of life in his native Canada when it is still so deeply controversial in his adopted home of Australia.
Key points:
- There are calls to overturn Australia’s longstanding ban on nuclear energy, which produces no emissions
- Nuclear power provides about 10 per cent of the world’s energy needs, though none in Australia
- Critics say extremely high construction costs and time delays make nuclear power uneconomic
…
For Mr Young, it is an attribute that should put the nuclear option firmly on the table as the world tries to wean itself off fossil fuels such as coal, diesel and gas.
“It needs to be part of the mix,” Mr Young said.
“You have to remember that by 2050, the forecast is we’ll double electricity demand.
…
Mr Buckley is the director of energy finance studies for Australia at the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a think tank funded by environmental philanthropists.
He said the high capital cost of nuclear power stations and their tendency to suffer budget and time blowouts made them uneconomic.
“The cost of nuclear is almost always double whatever anyone estimates,” Mr Buckley said.
“There’s not a nuclear power plant in the world, that I’m aware of, that’s been built without massive government subsidies.
“Why? Because a corporate can’t take a $20 billion punt.
“And we’re not talking Aussie dollars; we’re talking euros, or pounds or American dollars — serious money.
“No company can afford that, particularly if there’s a 10-year delay
…
Future ‘renewable, not nuclear’
Mr Buckley remains unconvinced by the arguments for small nuclear reactors.
He said the technology was yet to be proved at a pilot stage let alone a commercial level.
Mr Buckley said renewable energy costs would continue to drop, making other options including nuclear power unviable.
“This is not a single plant operational in the world, and there’s a very good chance there won’t be even a demonstration small scale nuclear reactor plant this decade,” Mr Buckley said.
…
France and Sweden’s nuclear programmes are unequivocal proof that the “high cost” of nuclear power in most jurisdictions is mostly the cost of the red tape, not the cost of plant construction and operation. France still generates around 70% of their power from nuclear plants. It took just 10-20 years for France to eliminate most of their fossil fuel power generation starting in the 1970s, and they did it without breaking the bank – a feat which could easily be replicated throughout the world, by copying the strategies France employed to keep costs under control.
We know affordable small nuclear reactors are possible, because they have been built many times, by research institutes and even universities – which is more than you can say about affordable renewable energy systems.
But people like Think Tank director Mr. Buckley continue to hang their hopes on the fantasy of renewable energy cost reductions they believe will occur in the near future.
If Greens genuinely wanted immediate bipartisan support for zero carbon energy right now, they could drop their fear mongering and prevarication and join forces with their political opponents, to wholeheartedly sell the idea of nuclear power to the public.
But despite decades of renewable energy failures, most greens continue to oppose the one form of zero carbon energy which could make an almost immediate substantial dent in global CO2 emissions. They continue to pin their hopes on imaginary renewable technology advances which they claim are imminent.
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Ausie environmentalists should have supported my tennis hero Novax Joke-ovic who led the recent anti lithium mining ‘Environmentalists uprising’ in Serbia’s capital, now thrown out of Australia.
President Trump’s close friend Nigel Farage declared:
“There are lessons from history about authoritarian governments that behave in this way.
If you’re not scared, you ought to be.”
At least Novax got one more influential backer.
I would like to know what our friend and the site’s editor Mr
Eric Worrall thinks about all this postXmas pantomime.
Novak Djokovic has taken a stand in support of protesters in Serbia who are raising opposition to an upcoming government project involving an Australian mining company. Major roads and highways have been blocked across Serbia since Saturday as anger swells over a plan to allow a mining company to extract lithium in the country.
https://thebridge.in/tennis/novak-djokovic-serbia-mining-protests-27172
Nuclear power should be a no-brainer for climate activists – scalable zero carbon energy which most Conservatives and climate skeptics would find acceptable.
Well it isn’t scalable -you can’t turn it up or down, so pitching it at peak demand means you have to dump a lot of power at cheap rates (see French nuclear…)
But the obstacle really is the huge cost and long build time. And the never addressed properly issue of nuclear waste and despite everything, continual safety issues popping up somewhere in the world. (not much reported but Chinese EPR has been leaking gas recently)
I doubt whether Australia can afford a nuclear plant.
It could certainly supply most domestic power demand year round with solar.
Hi Griffo
Low demand is 11pm to 5am, ideal for charging your four-wheel electric toys.
Nice try vuk, but we both know that griffter can’t conceive of the idea of having the base load supplied by reliable nukes and the peaks supplied by natural gas. There’s only an intermittency problem when some of the sources are, well, intermittent.
Yeah this is the same idiot who tells us grid scale storage will resolve everything shortly. Nobody accuses him of being honest or consistent.
Looks like griff is out to prove that there is no subject under the sun which he is incapable of being completely wrong at.
Nuclear plants can have their power levels raised and lowered. Current plants may be less efficient when their power levels are dropped, however that’s because they weren’t designed to be variable. For those that were designed from the ground up to be variable, have no trouble changing power levels.
Regardless, Germany for one has lots of experience dumping unneeded power at low rates, or even having to pay to get rid of, thanks to all of it’s wind and solar that excel in producing power when it isn’t needed.
Cost and time of construction isn’t a problem. Over regulation, constantly changing regulation and nuisance lawsuits are a problem.
The problem of waste was solved 70 years ago, reprocess it.
Nuclear is by far the safest form of power.
The problems with solar and it’s inability to create power when power is needed have been repeated ad infinitum.
The simple answer is that the watermelons pushing the nuclear scare morphed into the groups pushing climate alarmism.
Well China is rolling out nukes-
New Reactor Spotlights China’s Push to Lead Way in Nuclear Power – Bloomberg
While the Green credentials of solar is being questioned with its scorched earth coverage-
Solar panel farms growth raises more questions over potential for heavy metals to leak into soil (msn.com)
Welcome to tradeoffs in everything we do climate changers.
they are backward illiterate fools
Tim Buckley has the predictive accuracy of Canada’s CMIP6 model.
What people seem to ignore is that if you bring in nuclear ( or any other baseload energy source you don’t need renewables. But if you keep building more renewables you still need baseload power. If A is cost of baseload and B is cost of renewables A can never be more expensive than A+ B.
The reality is without a cheap effective solution to storage of renewables , renewables are simply not fit for purpose. Both Libs, Labor and Greens are fully committed to net zero but without nuclear in the mix they are not serious. They are relying on technologies that don’t exist and that it hasn’t been for want of trying , with governments and the private sector throwing billions to resolve the issue of renewables intermittency.
I’m running as a candidate at the next election in Goldstein where the issue of climate change is going to be critical as it is a seat where Climate 200 ( a billionaires backed political group ) has backed Zoe Daniel to try to unseat the current Liberal member based on energy policy.. The party I represent is the Liberal Democrats , a Libertarian party which ironically doesn’t believe in net zero but has as the basis of its energy policy the removal of Nuclear power ban and removal of all government subsidies for energy.
In discussions with my Greenie friends and family I am getting some traction in the suggestion that Nuclear should be in the mix and because of the lag in getting these plants operational it needs to happen now. It will be too late in 8 years time when Loy Yang coal plant which supplies 30% of Victoria’s electricity closes and no base load power has been built to replace it. With other states adopting similar policies closing down coal plants Australia is heading for an unmitigated disaster scenario.
It is critical that minor parties like the Liberal Democrats, United Australia or One nation hold the balance of power in the senate or Australia will not have a workable grid in 10 years time.
Only then with constant blackouts, energy rationing and skyrocketing prices will people realise how cheap the nuclear solution is.
This country has long since gone woke and stupid.