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It seems clear that the Coalition will go to the next election with an incoherent energy-cum-climate change policy. Sticking with net zero and going nuclear won’t mix. Pursuing the first will effectively rule out the second.
The Coalition is very unlikely to propose building any conventional large-scale nuclear reactors. It will punt for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), each providing up to 300MW. For example, numbers of them would have to be linked to provide the comparable electricity supply of our largest coal power station. At full capacity, Eraring generates 2880MW.
Westinghouse, which is developing SMRs, recently provided a projected cost of US$1 billion for its 300MW model. That’s about $1.5 billion in Australian dollars. So Eraring’s power generation could be replaced for something upwards of $15 billion once all costs have been factored in. A lot of money, but a lot less than the $25 billion or more it would likely eventually cost (including transmissions lines) for storing much less power via Snowy 2.0. Assuming Snowy 2.0 is completed; which, clearly, it won’t be. It’s simply a case of when it will be put out of its misery. Cancel Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministerial pension in small recompense for the sunk cost? Just an idle thought.
Of course, Eraring is just one of the remaining coal-power plants for the chop. Speaking at climate “summits” in July and again in October, Daniel Westerman, the CEO of AEMO, said that the “historic mainstay of the power system — coal-fired generation — is on the way out … two-thirds of coal, or 14GW, could exit the market in six-and-a-half years’ time.”
Relacing fourteen gigawatts of coal would take some 47 SMRs at a cost of about $70 billion-plus. Now we’re talking real money? Not so much. After all, Net Zero Australia, a partnership between the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, Princeton University and an international consultancy group, reported, also in July, that Australia would need to spend “up to $9 trillion on the transition in the next 37 years;” and, of this, $1.5 trillion by the end of the decade. Silly, unachievable, amounts of money. Still, it puts a mere $70 billion in perspective. It’s peanuts. So the Coalition and Australia are on a nuclear winner? Not so fast.
Westinghouse said it hoped to have its first (300MW) SMR operating in the United States by 2033. That’s ten years away and we are a long way from adding Australia to the queue of orders. And I assume that Westinghouse won’t be a laggard among the major companies developing SMRs.
What will Australia need to do before joining the queue and putting in its order? First, the Coalition will need to win the next election and probably the one after that. Second, it will need have the existing legal prohibition on nuclear energy overturned by the Parliament. That means getting a bill passed by the Senate. Third, it will need to identify sites for the SMRs and, critically, for high-level waste disposal. Watch out for underground bones, spiritual connections, and leftist judges of a development-denying turn of mind. Good luck.
But suppose a miracle happens and Mr Dutton eventually puts in an order. I would say you could put things on the same footing as the delivery of the first Australian-made SSN-AUKUS nuclear submarine. To wit, the early 2040s.
Before I go on, let’s never forget, when logically preferencing reliable and continuous nuclear power over unreliable and intermittent wind, solar and pathetic battery power, that refurbishing existing coal-power plants and building new efficient ones is much the best option. It is a tragedy of our age that the climate-change hoax has pretty well ruled that out. The United Nations, the EU, the ABC, the Greens, inner-city latte-sippers, Greta Thunberg, renewable-energy carpetbaggers, and many notables, would all howl. One Nation might stand up to it. The Coalition? Hardly.
But back to where I left off, nuclear by the early 2040s. Not so bad? Sadly, it is so bad. It’s too late. Westerman’s not for waiting. He’s a glass half-full man to whom dire predicaments are opportunities. Apropos:
Our Integrated System Plan is clear that investment is needed at scale. Generation from wind and solar, energy storage systems and other firming capacity, and transmission, all need urgent investment to ensure the lights stay on as our coal-fired power stations retire … the east coast power system needs to triple the amount of grid scale solar and wind by 2030, and triple it again by 2050, from 16 GW today to 141 GW by 2050, while storage needs to expand by a factor [of] 30…to 60 GW. That’s a big economic opportunity in anyone’s language, all in the best interests of energy consumers.
Letting this “big economic opportunity” slip is not on Westerman’s agenda, nor more broadly is it on the agenda of climate influencers and potentates. While things aren’t going nearly as well as hoped. Increasing costs, shortages of skilled manpower and pesky objections to ugly wind, solar and transmission eruptions are slowing progress. Nonetheless, the ship has sailed and, even if they win, no bunch of pantywaist Libs, hitched to net zero, will take enough wind out of its sails (if you’ll forgive the metaphorical pun). By the 2040s, the nuclear option will have come too late to save the day. Too much will have been invested in destroying coal and erecting wind and sun totems to reverse course.
Picture if you will an elderly Dutton weeping over the energy carnage as he pens his memoirs. If only he’d ditched net zero and plumped for coal until nuclear arrived. Yes, he won the 2024 election with a nuclear pitch. Alas, that net-zero albatross eventually did him in. What, not another blackout, he sighed, as he put down his quill in the dark.
Yesterday while looking for a relief from ABC classic music I searched London and found a station broadcasting from the Crystal Palace antenna and on line.
It was advertising car sales and lean beef, wagyu.
One ad was from Octopus clean energy company.
It encouraged listeners to join with them by using clean energy from nuclear, solar and wind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58713503
Even Al Gore thinks its good.
Now what’s not to like about that?
How long can Albanese keep the lid on this one?
Thanks for the link, Lewis.
Not sure that Gore and Octopus aren’t using other people’s money. Sound familiar?
Despite a nordic tendency to public sanctimony, the Swedes are always remarkably sensible where their best interests are critically engaged – think their attitude to Covid – and they recently ditched their commitment to 100% renewables by 2040 for the simple reason that it was quite impossible for them to reach “clean energy” targets without nuclear, which currently supplies 30% of their power.
The finance minister said it was the only way for the country to remain “industrialised and competitive.” Would someone please tell our politicians?
“..Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministerial pension”.
Which pension?
Turnbull was first elected to Parliament on 9 October 2004 which means he was not eligible for the very generous parliamentary pension scheme which was axed for new MPs in 2004 (the PM Howard and Leader of the Opposition Latham retained theirs – Latham who agitated for the axing receiving, disgracefully in my opinion, around $80k pa in 2005 at the age of 44 after 10-odd years an MP, indexed for life.
Taxpayers contributed to Turnbull’s lump sum superannuation scheme in the same way we do to those on the ABC payroll.
As an ex-PM Turbull receives tax-payer funded reimbursement for substantial expenses, but no pension.
So long as our manufactured goods are coming out of Chinese factories running on electricity from coal-fired power stations we can hardly claim to be at net zero emissions. But who cares? If Australian emissions were obliterated tomorrow it would have no measurable effect on global climate. The net zero crusade was never about The Science and always about Virtue Signalling (VS). We are supposedly setting an example. To whom? Does anyone know? But one thing is certain. Future generations of impoverished Australians are unlikely to look back and thank us for all the resources and time we commited to this. The whole net zero project is waste of time, energy, resources, and talent. But worst of all it locks Australians into yet another Soviet-style propaganda exercise in which the Five-Year Plan assumes a reality completely detached from the physical world.
“I can see clearly now……..:, a refrain from a very old pop hit. Let me quote from the author of the article above, “What, not another blackout, he sighed, as he put down his quill in the dark.” Little did his readers realise that, close to death as he was, Peter Dutton had, after so long, finally found the solution to the age-old problem of controlled fusion, solving the energy problems of all humankind forever. He was, as the author suggested, reduced to a penurious existence, using a quill and the last of his ration of guttering candles, for the loonie left had banned pencils and wax as too damaging to the Gods of the Planet. He was finishing his thesis with the last sentence being the evidential key to the entire question of controlled fusion, when he passed away, and his quill, instead of making words, inscribed a squiggly line down the page until the unintelligible solution fell off, leaving humanity in their sordid caves eating poisonous mushrooms and wondering what it was that he invented. Here ends the tale, but as the third digital installment of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is available you would do well to read it, for it’s an eerily accurate depiction of the end of the engine of the world.
I suspect it will look a little different.
The next trade union’s financial crisis is solved by a belt and road deal with the CCP. Being will run it very quietly (much like NSW’s current power companies) and the majority will calm down, “see, it wasn’t as bad as those racist fascists said it would be”.
Imagine the look on the faces of trades hall when they eventually twig that they’re not put in charge. Their political arm is just being flown around the country to do pressers to adoring ABC journalists. The CCP want people who can get things done efficiently to actually run things.
Things will go along swimmingly, a few journalists whose suspicions get the better of them will disappear. Then we’ll hear reports of infrastructure developments around the country. We’ll soon notice the streets of Sydney getting busier, school holidays in the bush will be curtailed by power strikes, can’t charge your EV. National parks will be closed permanently for cultural heritage reasons and ‘infrastructure improvements’.
Only the people remaining in the country will notice the expansion of mines and food processing factories, port facilities will be running flat chat 24/7. The coal fired power stations that ‘no longer exist’ will still be churning out ‘steam’, the sky will start to look a little bit smoggy…
Rushing into nuclear power generation before solving the problems of long-term waste disposal is a bit like a fully-laden Jumbo Jet taking off for the summit of Mt Everest (itself a most worthy objective) with passengers and crew all hoping that by the time they get there, someone will have built an airport. It’s that crazy.
Alternatively, an SMR might be built next door to Peter Smith’s (Melbourne?) house. I am sure he would have no objections, nor any time for the inevitable NIMBYism generated by neighbours. Should be a shoo-in.,
NB: This comment I expect will be chucked by QO Editor Roger Franklin into the limbo of the ‘awaiting moderation’ bin of this otherwise ‘liberal’ journal., set out as follows:
“Quadrant accepts unsolicited, previously unpublished articles that fit within its general profile of a journal of ideas, essays, literature, poetry and historical and political debate. Although it retains its founding bias towards cultural freedom, anti-totalitarianism and classical liberalism, its pages are open to any well-written and thoughtful contribution. Some of our writers are internationally renowned; some are previously unknown.”.
https://quadrant.org.au/submissions/
The hypocrisy involved here well illustrates the philosophical bankruptcy of Quad’s ‘conservatism.’
Storage/disposable facilities have been resolved well over a decade ago. Try looking for “Storage of Nuclear Waste xxxx (any of the 32 countries currently using nuclear power generation)”. It’s not too difficult, even for you.
Aus’ problem in storage and disposal is purely political. The minute amount of waste from Lucas Height’s Medical Isotope programme can’t find a home (even a deep salt cavern) because it may disturb the spirit of the Rainbow Trout or something, and that will most certainly disturb the judiciary.
Have you locked the gate on the windmills and transmission lines yet ?
In my experience the only time a comment is held up is when it contains a hyperlink, for perfectly sound reasons, given Australia’s hyperactive defamation laws.
Wrong, Sindri. Though I can understand if you are not aware of this fact, but around this site, every commenter has to pass a test of political correctness. Specifically, support for mainstream science on climate change (as endorsed by 198 scientific organisations worldwide, including the AAAS, the Royal Society and the CSIRO) can get you parked in the ‘awaiting moderation’ queue until doomsday, or the conversion of the Jews; whichever might come sooner. (I put this down to the infkuence round here of the coal barons.) Most importantly, the fact of the censorship must be kept well hidden from the general readership. I am sure that Cato the Roman censor, and Joseph Goebbels, head of Hitler’s Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, would endorse the policy most enthusiastically.
Even The Guardian (hawk, spit, chunder, caaargh!!) has a policy of letting.its readers know when publication of the text of a (named) reader’s comment has been refused because it has breached editorial standards in some way.
But not round this professedly ‘liberal’ site. Readers must be kept well and truly in the dark.
Ian, for the record, the only comments of yours that get spiked are the inane rants about the infallibility of “mainstream science” and the dire peril the world allegedly faces. On other matters you can be quite sensible and your thoughts are posted as is.
Censorship, you say?
Piffle! You’ve had your say many times on the “climate crisis”. The reason you get spiked is that you regurgitate the same nonsense endlessly, take over threads and drive others away.
It’s sad that an otherwise intelligent reader can harbour no higher aspiration than assuming the threadbare mantle of a bargain-basement Tim Flannery.
“Piffle! You’ve had your say many times on the ‘climate crisis’ The reason you get spiked is that you regurgitate the same nonsense endlessly, take over threads and drive others away.”
Endlessly? Only in the context of articles on climate and CO2 as written by resident members of the Ostrich School of Climatolgy. But my sincere apologies to all those delicate, sensitive souls whom I have allegedly “driven away.”
I feel for you. I really do. (Chuckle.).
Ditto
The CSIRO soldiers on in the search for an excellent storage for high level nuclear waste.
https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/innovative-radioactive-waste-treatment-technology-forging-ahead
Judging by some of the disparagement on the net from competitors, they must be getting close.
At the rate Albo moves on nuclear, CSIRO have plenty of lead time to perfect the system and sell it overseas where we are sending our uranium.
Unless, of course, Albo cuts the funds.
Whatever the cause of climate change; and by the good science behind the panic politics that has compromised the professional integrity of too many climate scientists; it is urgent for our politicians to recognise that net zero will happen nowhere with a thriving economy and we need to learn to manage the change.
Snowy 2.0 is expensive but, like the purchase of land, cost becomes next to nothing in later years when it pays off.. and hydro pays off (I grew up around the building of Snowy 1.0, so it’s in my blood). All power to Dutton if he pushes for Nuclear and may we all take the long view with him. Nuclear alongside hydro and solar is Australia’s long term future when all the nonsense of the current climate religion becomes disillusionment, as it will.
Btw, wind has no future because of its myriad of environmental shortcomings.. and yes, batteries on a large scale are a foolish and useless choice (unless attempts to develop new batteries using non rare and non polluting materials are successful). I would be interested to see any research on tidal or wave energy harvesting.
The army tried wave energy electricity.
The sea destroyed the generators by corrosion and battery.
The only hope for Australia’s energy future is to not only abandon the NetZero trope but to reject the whole anthropogenic climate change fandango. Trump did it and America prospered although the swamp eventually brought him down.
Clearly, Australia cannot continue on the path Labor, weakly enabled by the Coalition, is taking us without massive diminution in our standards of living.
Thank you Peter for the links to the speeches by the CEO of AEMO, Daniel Westerman. I also waded through the pile of word salad BS that this head honcho bestowed on his audience and reeled at the rose coloured glasses this man has with no acknowledgement of the realities overseas of ruinables and what clearly awaits us here. Yes quills and candles.
Nuclear power is possible if there’s a will to do it. Under the Messmer plan during 1970s/1980s France built 56 reactors in 15 years.
For a variety of reasons that can’t be wished away no matter how enthused you may be by the Green dream Net Zero by 2050 globally is just impossible. We don’t have the right technology. We don’t have access to any where near enough of the raw materials required (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgOEGKDVvsg ) , We don’t have the money and the more the people come to know about the issues necessary public support will disappear.
No matter what anyone does CO2 is going to at least double to over 800 ppm. Now skeptics, and I’m one of them, think that this wont be a problem. Everyone better hope that the skeptics are right because it’s going to happen any way.
If Net Zero must be a goal then it might be possible to have it by, say, 2150 or 2200. I think I’ll get a T Shirt made!
At 7am the AEMO web site showed fossil fuels at 61% of electricity. I check it regularly and it rarely gets much lower than this.
Australia missed the boat years ago by not investing in all things nuclear, including the “bomb”!