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Great response @Smurf1976, clear, concise and factual as usual.At sea, especially under the sea, the options available are drastically more limited.
It's either nuclear or diesel-electric for a submarine, that's it, and diesel-electric are inferior from a defence operational perspective.
Versus onshore where electricity is electricity. So long as it's properly designed, built and operated the end product is exactly the same regardless and that being so, the reasons to chose a particular method come down to other criteria eg cost, environment, etc.
Comes down to the available alternatives, economic system and technical attributes which determine cost.
One problem in Australia is simply scale or lack thereof combined with a highly fragmented market along with erratic physical dispatch given it's 5 minute financial trading which determines it. The former state electricity authorities could've done nuclear if they'd wanted to but the present market isn't at all well designed for that.
Countries with nuclear generally involve monopolies or at least far fewer companies than we have along with a centrally planned approach and operational dispatch certainty. That is, a model far more closely aligned with traditional utilities than with the present market arrangements.
So market reform would be very highly desirable as part of any nuclear proposal. Noting that doesn't necessarily mean scrapping the market outright, but it does mean significant reform.
So long as it's properly located, designed, built and operated the safety argument isn't rational.
That said, see point above about market - the present market would certainly provide an incentive for reckless operation, it's bad enough with conventional plant in that regard.
Realistically nuclear 14 years minimum and hydro 10 - 11 years. So there is some difference.
In both cases though the bottom line is it's been left far too late. This should've got underway a very long time ago as it's a case of the longer its left, the fewer options are available.
Some of it's a backdoor subsidy of other things that I won't go into. Let's just say not all the money actually goes into new renewable energy.
Simply because action has been far too slow. In those two states various governments sold the power stations but in doing so failed to consider how to bring about their eventual replacement.
Governments focused on economic neoliberalism and ideology along with a few bits about the environment, breaking unions and various other things. Until relatively recently, the one thing completely missing in a full 25 year period was any focus on actually keeping the lights on.
For anyone who doesn't believe that, just go and look through the news archives. You'll find a lot about how to close coal and you'll find a lot about micro-economics (eg ownership, markets, regulation, trading rules, all that) but you'll find practically nothing was said about energy resources or the technical requirements of making it work, or even fundamental economics for that matter.
It wasn't a failure of planning. Rather, planning became a dirty word in a very big way and was actively discouraged in favour of a focus on short term competition etc.
Using SA as an example, about 54% of a household electricity bill can be explained by the wholesale price of electricity plus the cost of transmission and distribution. That figure calculated by me from price information available to anyone from AEMO, ElectraNet and SA Power Networks and using AGL retail pricing for flat rate residential supply in SA.
The other 46%, well there's an awful lot of hangers on and inefficiency taking your money, that I can assure you. An awful lot....
That's not an argument for or against nuclear, it's just saying the market we have now has a huge level of add-on costs and changing the method of generation won't fix that. Even if generation were literally free, retail bills would still be higher in real terms than they were 30 years ago. That is, real price to consumers has approximately doubled but generation is well under half the total - setting it to zero thus doesn't fix the problem.
Overall, I'm neither an advocate nor an opponent of nuclear power but I am definitely an advocate of an impartial, proper process of assessment of all the options. At present that's woefully lacking on all fronts - both sides of politics need an almighty kick there. Both are trying to tilt the table massively in favour of their preferred options to the exclusion of everything else.
Big problem we have in Australia is despite having a very substantial portion of the population with a tertiary education, those making the decisions largely don't have any education at all that's relevant to the decisions they're making. If you look at the average MP, they're way out of their depth. Versus historically when actual experts came up with what needed to be done then sought approval from parliament to do it - a process that wasn't perfect but it did work far better than what we have today.
What ought be done is not to blindly proceed with wind, solar, nuclear, batteries, gas, hydro or whatever. Rather, what ought be done is systems engineering along with environmental science and accounting, in all cases to a professional standard, then implement what comes out of that.
For the record, in the past when that was done nuclear was indeed looked at in every state, it was considered along with the other options and went as far as detailed costings, specific sites being identified, timeframes and transmission routes were identified, etc. Only reason it didn't proceed was cost at the time but it was kept under review and sites were reserved.
That said, as I've previously mentioned there's be an argument for a single nuclear plant, regardless of the economics, for reasons of building up competency and so on and I'd absolutely be in favour of that so long as it's sensibly located both with regard to the environment and putting the electricity to good use. Best and most obvious location = east of Melbourne connecting to to the existing 500kV network. Somewhere near Morwell.
Your figure of 46% "hangers on" is intriguing, could you expand on that a bit, we need to know who the "bloodsuckers" are.
PS, one or two reactors to serve intensive energy industries like aluminium, steel and cement would be good, as long as it's done in a methodical way and along with cheaper energy forms.
