Nuclear Power For Australia?

[sptrawler]

You just did

They are the numbers the maths and timeline just dont work, adding to the whole mess new transmissions lines will need to be also built for some of Duttons Nuc stations (another lazy $100 bil?)

At some point nuclear will be a good fit as already said (you missed that bit... its those rose coloured Coalitions glasses should have gone to spec savers) unfortunately Duttons plan is as you say ludicrous.

The one major difference between you and I is, I actually understand that I really don't have enough information to know what is and what isn't achievable, yet you rant and rave about what is and isn't achievable with less information than I have.

I say a technical plan should be developed by experts in the field, ASAP and that plan should be followed and all sources of energy should be considered in the mix.

You say nuclear doesn't work and shouldn't even be considered, when in reality you know about as much about nuclear power generation and electrical system analysis, as my ar$e know about duck shooting.

Also you could put 99.9% of the politicians in that same basket, let's get Jacqui Lambie's thoughts on the suitability of nuclear power as regard system stability and dynamic response, maybe Sarah Ferguson could run it on the 7.30 report.

 

[SirRumpole]

I heard AEMO complaining today that there are not enough renewables being added to the system.

They are 'experts' so hopefully Jacquie and other seat warmers listen to them.

 

[sptrawler]

I heard AEMO complaining today that there are not enough renewables being added to the system.

They are 'experts' so hopefully Jacquie and other seat warmers listen to them.

Well a lot of the problem is, there is a lot of white noise being generated.

Take for example Snowy 2.0, which really is ATM the only large, long duration renewable storage project on the go.

When I was researching it to answer the question you posed a couple of days back (post#144), about nuclear and renewables, I found some conflicting info on Snowy 2.0.

I didn't use the info in what I posted, I used what is generally accepted as being Snowy 2.0 designed capacity, which is 2,200MW and 350,000MWh of storage.

But I did actually come across this article, maybe @Smurf can clarify it, as I have no in depth knowledge of Snowy 2.0 and wasn't actually going to post it due to the anger surrounding the debate.
But if we are going to keep investigating the issue, here goes.

https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/stakeholder_consultation/consultations/nem-consultations/2023/draft-2024-isp-consultation/draft-submissions/mc2-energy.pdf?la=en

An extract from the article:

AEMO 2024 draft ISP mc2 Energy submission re: Section 6 Storage and gas to firm renewables Section 6 of the draft 2024 ISP makes a number of assertions that require examination to establish their veracity. Chief among these claims is that Snowy 2.0 will provide 376 GWh of long duration storage. The implication from Figure 19 is that upon completion of Snowy 2.0 presumably in 2029, there is ample long duration storage in place to be able to close all NEM (NSW) coal fired generators (Figure 1) with system security. Here, we examine the veracity of the Snowy 2.0, 376 GWh storage (AEMO 2024 ISP) claim and the implications for system security if the accelerated coal generator closure timetable eventuates.

Does Snowy 2.0 have 376 GWh of long duration storage? The simple answer is no, when taken in conjunction with another claim by Snowy Hydro that Snowy 2.0 will have no net water loss. If Snowy 2.0 does not have 376 GWh of energy storage then how much useable storage does it have? About 40 GWh (see attached schematic diagram). It is impossible to drain Tantangara’s theoretical maximum active storage (240 GL) into Talbingo’s active storage1 (155 GL) without overflow to Jounama pondage and water loss downstream from Snowy 2.0. The claimed 376 GWh of energy storage capacity (AEMO 2024 ISP) for Snowy 2.0 would require at least 203 GL of water to flow from Tantangara to Talbingo, which also exceeds the active storage of Talbingo (155 GL), also causing overflow. Using average active water storage in Tantangara and Talbingo, in a closed system2 (not affecting river flows) a realistic operational energy storage capacity for Snowy 2.0 is around 40 GWh (Tantangara 223,4 GL and 680m head). Snowy 2.0 is an open system2 pumped hydro scheme. Any extra water retained in Tantangara and Talbingo to operate Snowy 2.0 will not be available for downstream users along the Murrumbidgee River. Under drought conditions Snowy 2.0 real operational energy storage capacity may be significantly less than 40 GWh.

The article was written by this company, so I'm not sure as to the veracity of it. but as I keep saying there needs to be some honest and OPEN discussion and debate on the transition, way too much politics and ranting ATM.

 

[mullokintyre]

I'll have one in my backyard.

Ah Sir Rumpole, you wouldn't by any chance be a part of this movement would you???

Mick

 

[SirRumpole]

Ah Sir Rumpole, you wouldn't by any chance be a part of this movement would you???
View attachment 179328

Mick

I only like things in my backyard that are of benefit to me. If I can plug into a small nuclear reactor, fine, slums on the other hand...

 

[IFocus]

The one major difference between you and I is, I actually understand that I really don't have enough information to know what is and what isn't achievable, yet you rant and rave about what is and isn't achievable with less information than I have.

I say a technical plan should be developed by experts in the field, ASAP and that plan should be followed and all sources of energy should be considered in the mix.

You say nuclear doesn't work and shouldn't even be considered, when in reality you know about as much about nuclear power generation and electrical system analysis, as my ar$e know about duck shooting.

Also you could put 99.9% of the politicians in that same basket, let's get Jacqui Lambie's thoughts on the suitability of nuclear power as regard system stability and dynamic response, maybe Sarah Ferguson could run it on the 7.30 report.

Rubbish you have failed to debate the points I put up instead ramble about me and my beliefs both of which you know nothing of.

I am starting to wonder if you have ever seen a power station.

The numbers reflect assertions not from Labor or political talking points but from a wide range of analysis.

Nuclear power stations operational capabilities are widely available as are the costs, footprint requirements reflecting station sizing.

In terms of reticulation again the numbers are in the public domain the site for Port Augusta supposingly using existing HV power lines fails simply because renewables already do.

I have never said nuclear doesn't work however current technology is seriously problematic in Australia's current power generation environment (you would be a zombie not to know that) and certainly not a remedy for net zero or lower power prices (again zombie world) but I do I agreed with Smurf build one but would expect it to a very expensive white elephant after technology advances.

Duttons nuclear plan is continuing political sabotage of renewables and time wasting exercise nothing more.

My last comment on the matter.

 

[sptrawler]

Rubbish you have failed to debate the points I put up instead ramble about me and my beliefs both of which you know nothing of.

I would debate something if you actually put up something to debate, you can't even explain labor's plan let alone Duttons FFS

I am starting to wonder if you have ever seen a power station.

Yes well I definitely knw you have never worked in a modern thermal Power station, that is painfully obvious.

The numbers reflect assertions not from Labor or political talking points but from a wide range of analysis.

You haven't put up any numbers yet, other than anecdotal nonsense.

Nuclear power stations operational capabilities are widely available as are the costs, footprint requirements reflecting station sizing.

How can the Nuclear power stations footprint be known, when Dutton hasn't even said what size units would be used, you really have no idea do you.

In terms of reticulation again the numbers are in the public domain the site for Port Augusta supposingly using existing HV power lines fails simply because renewables already do.

That doesn't mean new bays can't be added to the switchyard, Kwinana has three switchyards and the original station still standing, plus 4 gas turbines have been added and now a Big grid connected battery all feeding the same original switchyards.
What the hell do you mean, Port Augusta already has renewables connected so more can't be added? You really don't have a clue do you.

I have never said nuclear doesn't work however current technology is seriously problematic in Australia's current power generation environment (you would be a zombie not to know that) and certainly not a remedy for net zero or lower power prices (again zombie world) but I do I agreed with Smurf build one but would expect it to a very expensive white elephant after technology advances.

Duttons nuclear plan is continuing political sabotage of renewables and time wasting exercise nothing more.

My last comment on the matter.

Thank god for that.
By the way, what renewable energy is installed at the site, because I can't find any later news on it than 2019 and it is now 2024 by the way. So any new info would be appreciated.
Maybe @Smurf1976 has some info?

The bottom picture is from 2019.

 

[sptrawler]

@Smurf a question, a lot of companies in W.A decided to build their own Power Stations, rather than purchase power from the State, that left us with the problem of low loads overnight when most went to bed and there being no 24/7 heavy loads overnight.

The private power stations were running coal, now many have changed over to gas, what if it is a requirement for them to change to renewables?
Do you think that could turn a lot them to chose the State supply, rather than put in their own renewable generation and firming, as putting in their own may not be possible due to land and transmission constraints. e.g Cockburn Cement 240MW combined cycle, Alcoa Pinjarra 280MW combined cycle, Alcoa Wagerup 380MW, Worsley refinery Collie, 216MW.

 

[Smurf1976]

as I have no in depth knowledge of Snowy 2.0 and wasn't actually going to post it due to the anger surrounding the debate.
But if we are going to keep investigating the issue, here goes.

Upper reservoir, Tantangara, has an active storage capacity of 238.768 GL.

Lower reservoir, Talbingo, has an active storage of 160.28 GL.

So it's true that the upper is larger than the lower. However.....

Talbingo is feeds the existing Tumut 3 power station, 1800MW, which discharges into Jounama pondage (31.053 GL). Three (of six) generating units at T3 have pumping capability from Jounama back into Talbingo, the other three are generation only.

Water discharged downstream from Jounama, that which is not pumped by T3, runs through the small (14 MW) Jounama power station into Blowering (1609.859 GL) which is primarily an irrigation storage.

Water release from Blowering being via the 80MW Blowering power station, the operation of which is primarily determined by water requirements not electricity requirements.

Now the thing to realise is that water does exit the scheme, it has to indeed that's part of its primary function. Nominal annual flow being 1282GL at Tumut 2 (upstream, discharging into Talbingo), 1583GL net from T3, and 1750GL from Blowering. The scheme picks up more water at progressively lower elevation, that being a normal characteristic of cascade hydro systems.

A present operating limitation is that T3 discharges water at a very much faster rate than does upstream T2 (or T1 which feeds T2). Noting some upgrades planned to T1 & T2, even after those T3 still discharges at 9.5 times the rate as does T2 and at present, before upgrades, it's 11 times the rate.

That leads to a situation where T3 can run out of water in the event that sustained high loading is required despite there being plenty of water still in the scheme as such. T3 was built for peak generation, it wasn't intended to run at sustained high output but the shift to wind and solar is changing that, it's creating more a need for periods (days, weeks) of high output and other periods (weeks, months) of low output. That breaks it somewhat, it wasn't designed for that mode of operation but rather, was designed for daily peak load use at least Monday to Friday.

At the extreme, if run at constant full output and with simultaneous maximum output from T1 and T2 at present capacity, then Talbingo can be run from FSL (Full Supply Level - the maximum water level) to NMOL (Normal Minimum Operating Level - the point below which normal operations cannot continue) in just 36 hours. Historically no problem, since demand peaks are relatively short, but a very real deficiency when firming VRE.

So dumping ~239GL from Tantangara into Talbingo via SH2 isn't actually a problem. Yes it needs to be released, but a situation when SH2 runs hard is a situation where T3 also would be running hard and releasing water downstream to Blowering. A situation that at present carries the very real risk that T3 runs out of water, a problem that SH2 overcomes.

Now regarding the lack of water normally stored in Tantangara, there's a simple reasons for that. Tantangara's purpose in the existing scheme is to collect water runoff (from rainfall) to a central point where it's then sent, via limited capacity channels etc, to the primary storage Lake Eucumbene. No generation occurs at that step and that being so, unless Eucumbene is full (or almost full) then there's simply no reason to hold water in Tantangara - just leave the gates wide open and whatever comes in gets sent to Eucumbene at a regulated rate.

That being so, it's not difficult to decide to fill Tantangara. Just shut the flow to Eucumbene and it fills up by itself. Or alternatively, release via T1 and T2 into Talbingo can be pumped via SH2 into Tantangara.

So to put some figures on it:

The true pumped-only capability of SH2 is about 234 GWh without release.

Add release from T3 stored in Jounama, then pumped back to Talbingo then Tantangara, and that increases it to 280 GWh.

But in serious operation, in a full discharge situation as required during a lack of wind and sun period, it actually adds about 438 GWh via SH2 + additional water for T3.

So clarifying all that, present water flow is:

Rainfall > Tantangara storage > Eucumbene storage > Tumut 1 PS > Tumut 2 PS > Talbingo storage <> Tumut 3 PS <> Jounama storage > Jounama PS > Blowering storage > Blowering PS > river.

With each step picking up more water from rivers, creeks and direct rainfall into storages. For simplicity I've left an assortment of minor ponds etc out of that list.

SH2 adds a direct route Tantangara storage <> SH2 PS <> Talbingo storage and leaves the rest unchanged. By doing so it creates the new pumped storage between Tantangara and Talbingo, and also enables T3 to access substantially more water in a maximum generation scenario.

Further enhancements are also possible:

One is to simply increase generating capacity at Jounama. The 14MW station was designed to discharge surplus water from Jounama to Blowering but that was on the assumption of T3 only operating for relatively short periods. For future use where sustained high output is possible during VRE droughts, large volumes will spill from Jounama to Blowering, a situation that an upgrade of the generating capacity to 140MW, 10 times the present level, would resolve. There's no essential need for that physically, the water can be safely spilled between storages, the benefit simply being the additional 126MW that's essentially free in terms of resource use.

The other obvious one is top build pumping from Blowering to Jounama, thus being able to recover the very large volume stored in Blowering back into the rest of the scheme. So pump from Blowering to Jounama, then use T3 to pump that to Talbingo, then SH2 can pump that up to Tantangara where it can be retained or alternatively sent for long term storage at Eucumbene.

Retrofitting pumping to the 3 (of 6) generators at T3 that don't presently have pumping would be a logical part of the above but could also be done separately so as to pump more rapidly, maximising the ability to store solar energy at midday.

Existing scheme as below. Note reservoirs are not drawn to scale and are illustrative only. Note SH2 is not shown here:

I doubt politics will be in a rush to do it but enhancements to the Murray side of the scheme are also certainly possible in a physical sense, the present development isn't the limit of what's possible. What was built was adequate for the time (1960's) but it's possible to do more if someone's keen enough.

 

[sptrawler]

That's why I used your specs on Snowy 2.0, when I posted earlier, you haven't any reason to BS and you give unbiased, honest info.

 

[sptrawler]

So @Smurf1976 going back to my back of the napkin scenario, from the AEMO info am I in the ballpark with saying we need about 3 Snowy 2's by 2035 and 5 by 2050? That is to achieve zero emissions from generation, realistically batteries and renewable deployment isn't an issue, deep firming is.
Which is doable, if they get a move on and get over using boring machines.

 

[sptrawler]

The problem that I think is becoming obvious to me in this debate, is really an ideological one and I could be wrong it's just my thoughts and as I say I don't give a rats either way.

If renewables are the 100% goto solution deployment will be only on an as required basis. What I mean by that is the Government will only put in what it has to, which will probably be storage and the private sector will only put in what they have to which is enough to stay afloat.
This will make it difficult to attract new industries, as the cost of mitigating their emissions and supplying their power will add a lot to the projects. So offshore markets with concessions eg Indonesia will attract the investment.

The problem with nuclear is, it is expensive to build and to be sensible has to operate basically continuously, so as we said in the beginning it has to be Government owned.

But to operate it continuously, it has to have a load to feed, that would mean the Government selling the electricity at a price that attracts industrial loads to sign up. Which becomes a taxpayer subsidy, a bit of a catch 22 really.

 

[Smurf1976]

The problem that I think is becoming obvious to me in this debate, is really an ideological one

Absolutely. Looking at the two sides:

Cost:

Side 1: Rooftop solar is a given, we must build that, so we'll leave the cost out of all calculations. Transmission we'll do as a "nation building project" funded by taxes so that too is out of the calculations. We'll also completely ignore the cost of gas infrastructure. Any alternative will however have to stand on its own two feet financially, funded only by the sale of electricity, because we can't have subsidises now can we? In the case of nuclear, we'll just ban it from competing.

Side 2: Nuclear will be built by the federal government and as a federal project there's no need for cost to only be recovered by the sale of electricity, since government has the ability to levy taxes on the public as an alternative means of funding. Versus any alternative which we insist shall only be funded by the sale of electricity and, in the case of wind and solar, we'll just ban them.

Both are using the same trick of taking costs of their preferred option "off the books" to make it cheaper than anything else, which they insist must be on a fully costed basis and, in the case of anything that might actually be cheaper, they'll just ban it.

Tunnels:

Side 1: Tunnels are great as long as they're rail tunnels for urban public transport projects because we like those even if they cost a fortune. Tunnels are also fine for mining too. Just don't put water in one, oh no can't do that because if water's going in it well that's just too risky you see.

Side 2: Tunnels are great as long as they're road tunnels for privately owned toll roads that we'll force the public to use by closing alternative routes. They're fine for mining too, coal especially, as that's good for humanity. Can store nuclear waste in them too and that's all fine. Just don't put water in one, if you say the tunnel's going to get wet then we'll be against it be cause too risky you see.

Land Use:

Side 1: Dotting the landscape with wind farms, solar farms and transmission lines is just fine, nothing wrong with that. Just don't anyone dare suggest putting even a tiny bit under water, that'll be the end of us, an we can't use any land for nuclear waste either.

Side 2: Wind, solar and transmission are ugly so can't have those although strangely we don't see a problem with farming having cleared orders of magnitude more land for some very dubious uses. Nor do we see any problem with nuclear power stations being visible over huge distances or with leaving a problem of waste to deal with.

CO2:

Side 1: We promise to achieve net zero by 2050. Not that we've any plan on how to do so, but it's a promise we're making and conveniently we've shifted discussion to mention nothing other than electricity generation. So if we ignore all other emissions, then natural sinks ought soak up whatever emissions we still have from power stations at that point.

Side 2: We've also shifted the discussion solely to electricity and we've also promised net zero by 2050 without having a plan on how to do it. But since our nuclear plants emit no CO2, and we're ignoring all other sources of emissions, we're confident we can achieve it by ignoring most of it.

And so on.

Both sides are pretending there's some sort of factual debate going on when in reality they've picked a winner and are tilting the table so far against anything else the outcome's a given. When you've got taxpayers paying for your preferred option but not anything else, when you ignore the environmental consequences of your preferred option but insist on zero harm from anything else, well the outcome's a given. It's a completely rigged process.

The problem of course is that physics is having none of this and real economics doesn't bend to politics either. Whilst politicians are arguing about all this on a purely ideological basis, physics stands there ready to plunge the nation into darkness, literally so, meanwhile business stands ready to flee the country and cripple the economy if the financials are stuffed up.

That's not an argument for wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, gas, diesel, coal, hydrogen or anything else. Rather, it's saying that if as a country we continue to go down the track of ideology rather than pragmatism then we're going to pay dearly in every way. Higher electricity prices, worse environmental outcomes and a stuffed economy is the end result and that's assuming the lights do stay on.

Versus the old approach that was far more hard headed. Plenty of things were identified and examined but never built simply because there was a better option. The decisions were practical not ideological and suffice to say they served society far better than the present approach.

Meanwhile inflation's up and the nation slowly slides.

 

[SirRumpole]

Transmission we'll do as a "nation building project" funded by taxes so that too is out of the calculations.

Does that mean it is government owned and should continue to be?

 

[sptrawler]

Absolutely nailed it 100% smurf, brilliantly put.

 

[SirRumpole]

It's pretty political when we have Labor criticising "Soviet style" nuclear reactor ownership, then putting $billions of public money into transmission lines.

 

[sptrawler]

It's pretty political when we have Labor criticising "Soviet style" nuclear reactor ownership, then putting $billions of public money into transmission lines.

I personally think the big problem with it all is, as usual the politicians can't get over themselves, we're right you're wrong.

The big issue is what will work to reduce emissions and encourage investment in industry, which creates jobs and supports our lifestyle.

The answer will be somewhere between both camps, but to get them together to work out what will work best, is impossible. You can even see that on this forum.

Nuclear is bloody expensive but gives a huge amount of power, which the Government would have to sell at a loss to attract Industries, which is exactly what we were doing pre privatisation.
The Government put in power stations before they were required and made very little money from it, same when the gas was found.

Renewables are cheap to buy, but they give off very low output unless they cover a large area and have to be located in a suitable climatic area which may not be convenient for transmission.

Also the land can be difficult to purchase and or have access to, so Industries have to look at that when deciding whether to process here or dig and ship to process offshore.

But for companies that are in the business of selling power or installing power, there is a lot of money in renewables, there will be zip in nuclear, the build would have to be done by an overseas company and the Government would own it.

Like I say it is a bit of a catch 22, do you go for renewables because they are on song with the vibe and it is really cool, but quite likely will reduce industrial expansion.
Or do you blow the budget on getting huge grunt at huge cost, to encourage industry to value add here?

It is funny really, only 10 years ago, the Coalition gave an ultimatum to General Motors and Ford, either get your $hit together and make cars profitable or we will stop subsidising you.
Labor went bananas at them, now we have a complete roll reversal, the Coalition is suggesting something that will take years of operation to actually pay its way if ever, which is really Govt subsidising power for industry.

Somewhere in the middle ground, no doubt there is the right choice, whether or not it is found, time will tell.

 

[sptrawler]

It's pretty political when we have Labor criticising "Soviet style" nuclear reactor ownership, then putting $billions of public money into transmission lines.

One is spending money on nation building infrastructure and the other is spending money on nation building infrastructure, it just depends which tribe you belong to.

One tribe wants a Tesla, the other tribe wants a Batmobile, all the tribe want is a house and a job.

 

[JohnDe]

Some interesting questions that I'd like to hear an answer on.

Labor’s hysterical over-reaction to the Coalition’s commitment to nuclear power betrays the weakness of its arguments. It insists that nuclear power is impractical, too expensive, potentially dangerous and would take too long.​

​

Yet how can it be perfectly practical to have nuclear power at sea but not on land; economic for at least 33 other countries to have nuclear power but not for us; not dangerous to have a medical nuclear reactor a stone’s throw from houses at Lucas Heights in Sydney but dangerous to have more; and too time consuming to have nuclear plants that will take a decade to build when the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plant will take at least that long to become operational?​

​

If the government’s claims are correct – that renewable energy is the cheapest form of power – why is it still being subsidised through the renewable energy certificates that power generators are forced to buy, to the tune of well over $3bn a year? And if weather-dependent renewable power really can keep the lights on, why are the Victorian and NSW Labor governments now paying millions in subsidies to keep coal-fired power stations open?​

​

And if the system really is generating the cheapest possible power, why have both federal and state Labor governments started to directly subsidise the power bills of households?​

Why Peter Dutton has turned energy debate on its head​

Labor’s hysterical over-reaction to the Coalition’s commitment to nuclear power betrays the weakness of its arguments. It insists that nuclear power is impractical, too expensive, potentially dangerous and would take too long.

Yet how can it be perfectly practical to have nuclear power at sea but not on land; economic for at least 33 other countries to have nuclear power but not for us; not dangerous to have a medical nuclear reactor a stone’s throw from houses at Lucas Heights in Sydney but dangerous to have more; and too time consuming to have nuclear plants that will take a decade to build when the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plant will take at least that long to become operational?

For all the government’s hype about renewable wind and solar power, and its expansion from almost nothing two decades back to about 30 per cent of total electricity generation now, reliable and inexpensive coal-fired power still provides almost 60 per cent of our total electricity.

Far from producing cheaper power, as the government claims, cutting coal-fired power back to under 10 per cent of the total in just six years will create massive disruption, vast additional costs and widespread blackouts.

Peter Dutton’s proposed seven nuclear reactors won’t solve the whole power problem that decades of running the power system to reduce emissions rather than produce affordable and reliable power has created.

Still, because nuclear is the only currently proven means of providing zero-emissions baseload power in the long term, they’re a necessary part of getting to net zero and keeping the lights on.

If the government’s claims are correct – that renewable energy is the cheapest form of power – why is it still being subsidised through the renewable energy certificates that power generators are forced to buy, to the tune of well over $3bn a year? And if weather-dependent renewable power really can keep the lights on, why are the Victorian and NSW Labor governments now paying millions in subsidies to keep coal-fired power stations open?

And if the system really is generating the cheapest possible power, why have both federal and state Labor governments started to directly subsidise the power bills of households? Subsidising renewable power to incentivise its take-up, then subsidising coal-fired power to keep the lights on and finally subsidising households to make electricity affordable is hardly the sign of a rational energy system.

Yet affordable and reliable electricity is the absolute foundation of modern life, needed for everything from heating and lighting to charging our phones, paying our bills and, increasingly, keeping our cars on the road.

As a recent Menzies Research Centre study concluded, after considering power costs in various countries, some with a preponderance of nuclear power and others with more renewables, “systems with a larger portion of stable base-load power in their overall electricity mix tend to deliver cheaper power than those that are more heavily reliant on intermittent and peaking power”.

Anthony Albanese wants the next election to be a referendum on nuclear power now that Peter Dutton has so clearly committed to it. In fact, now that the opposition has committed to a very different way to get to net-zero emissions by 2050, via emissions-free nuclear power, the next election will finally be the contest over energy policy that both sides have been avoiding for a decade and one that the Prime Minister could easily lose.

An early sign of problems ahead is the PM’s insistence that Dutton cannot cost the opposition’s nuclear policy even though, two years into government and with all the resources of government at his disposal, the Prime Minister still can’t put a cost on his own green energy transition.

We do know that, far from cutting power bills by $275 per household per year as the government promised at the election, power bills have since increased by up to $1000. We do know that Energy Minister Chris Bowen thinks that moving from a power supply dependent upon fossil fuels to one almost entirely based on renewable energy is the biggest transition since the Industrial Revolution and that it will require the erection of 40 large wind turbines every single month and the installation of 22,000 solar panels every single day for eight years, plus up to 28,000km of new transmission lines – because that’s what Bowen has told us would be needed.

We also know that the cost of the extra transmission lines alone will be at least $80bn because that’s what Labor said pre-election. And we further know that the green energy transition is way behind schedule because that’s what the energy market operator says, plus without getting more gas urgently into the system blackouts could be widespread by the end of the year. Because it doesn’t matter how much wind and solar power is installed, there has to be back-up power to keep the lights on when weather fails us.

By far the most efficient way to “firm” renewables is via gas “peaker” plants, yet the extra gas needed to make the green transition work is exactly what the climate zealots insist on keeping in the ground.

At about $3m each, the nearly 4000 two-megawatt wind turbines that the government says we need would cost about $12bn (and that’s without any construction infrastructure). And at about $8000 each, the four million new nine kilowatt home solar systems that the government says we need would cost about $32bn. So that’s $44bn to provide a potential maximum of 54,000 megawatts of power that, due to intermittency, would only produce, on average, about 18,000 megawatts of power at any one time.

Given that this doesn’t include firming and doesn’t include the necessary extra transmission lines, just on these back-of-the-envelope calculations, even the $56bn that the CSIRO says it would cost to install the seven, thousand megawatt 24/7 nuclear power plants that Peter Dutton is backing doesn’t look too bad.
In fact, Dutton’s position is much stronger than that, with the recent Net Zero Australia study involving three universities and headed by a former chief scientist putting the cost of getting to net zero, without nuclear, given all the firming and unavoidable overbuild of infrastructure needed, at an eye-watering $1.5 trillion by 2030.

While the CSIRO study, which Labor endlessly cites, claims that firmed renewables are the cheapest form of power, that’s based on dubious assumptions about the long-term price of gas and coal, faulty assumptions about the life expectancy of nuclear power plants, ignoring the recycling costs of spent panels and turbines, and a failure to include in its calculations the cost of home solar because it’s initially paid for by the householder. As shown by the now near-daily headlines about potential blackouts and heavy industries (and jobs) moving offshore where electricity and gas is cheaper, energy policy in this country has become a slow-motion trainwreck.

Finally, Dutton has injected a note of realism into the debate by offering an alternative that reduces emissions without jeopardising security of supply. The government’s response – asinine cartoons about deformed fish and the rushed appointment of a turncoat Liberal to a supposedly independent climate authority – shows just how debauched our public debate has become. Because the government can’t demand Dutton’s costing without also producing its own we might finally be able to make some energy decisions based on rational judgment rather than green religion.

 

[SirRumpole]

Some interesting questions that I'd like to hear an answer on.

Labor’s hysterical over-reaction to the Coalition’s commitment to nuclear power betrays the weakness of its arguments. It insists that nuclear power is impractical, too expensive, potentially dangerous and would take too long.​

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Yet how can it be perfectly practical to have nuclear power at sea but not on land; economic for at least 33 other countries to have nuclear power but not for us; not dangerous to have a medical nuclear reactor a stone’s throw from houses at Lucas Heights in Sydney but dangerous to have more; and too time consuming to have nuclear plants that will take a decade to build when the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plant will take at least that long to become operational?​

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If the government’s claims are correct – that renewable energy is the cheapest form of power – why is it still being subsidised through the renewable energy certificates that power generators are forced to buy, to the tune of well over $3bn a year? And if weather-dependent renewable power really can keep the lights on, why are the Victorian and NSW Labor governments now paying millions in subsidies to keep coal-fired power stations open?​

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And if the system really is generating the cheapest possible power, why have both federal and state Labor governments started to directly subsidise the power bills of households?​

Written by Peta Credlin, just thought I would mention that.