Nuclear Power For Australia?

[Knobby22]

Mean while back at the farm or station

Gina Rinehart to build “eye sore” solar farm on family property to help power new iron ore project​

Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, may not be a fan of renewable energy – she describes solar as an “eye sore”, but her private company is now planning to build a major solar farm to help power a big new iron ore project on the family’s historic pastoral property.

The addition of the solar farm is revealed in a revised application for the Mulga Downs iron ore project in the Pilbara to the state’s Environment Protection Authority.

As has been widely reported elsewhere, the new plans will see the scale of Mulga Downs – to be built on the pastoral property where Rinehart spent much of her childhood – downsized considerably, seeking to produce 40 per cent less iron ore than previously expected, and reducing the amount of groundwater to be extracted.

Gina Rinehart to build “eye sore” solar farm on family property to help power new iron ore project

Gina Rinehart has described solar farms as an “eye sore”, but her mining company plans to build one on her family property to help power and cut emissions at a new iron ore project.

reneweconomy.com.au

Seriously the sensible option for remote locations. I am sure Gina looked at the options and would have chosen an alternative if it was remotely competitive.

 

[Knobby22]

Adding that if we consider what an engineer actually does, it's fundamentally a derivative of economics.

Using structural engineering as the example, if you just build everything far stronger than it needs to be then there's no need to worry about proper engineering. Hence any competent handyman can build themselves a deck, fence or anything else simply by using an abundance of heavy gauge materials.

Why you need an engineer is if you want to calculate the lowest specifications that won't fall down.

The bit the economists miss, and I've seen this many times, is failing to understand that the engineering design is not a given and that if it turns out a particular approach is too expensive then changing the design is an option. That's the mistake invariably made by all-economics approaches, they tend to get the best possible price for doing x, but don't optimise x itself.

Engineers aren't experts in materials prices, labour or project management however. They can seek to minimise quantities but they're not the best people to be determining the total project cost and factoring in the cost of capital during construction and so on. Finance people are much better at that.

But if the two are combined along with others such as project management well now everything can be optimised in terms of the total cost, bearing in mind, and this is a key point, that usually won't mean anything is optimised in terms of itself. That is, being 80% perfect with the technical, construction, capital management and so on tends to end up cheaper than being 100% perfect with one and ignoring the others.

One practical outcome of that being there are very few electrical power systems globally based on a single technology. Because it's not true that nuclear, hydro, wind, coal, solar, gas or whatever is cheaper outright but rather, it's true that a particular technology is cheaper for a certain load profile. Hence the cheapest approach becomes to break the load down into portions and build the type of generation that can do each portion most economically.

Now in case that's lost anyone, well the most commonly known portion of the load profile is the base load, and that is where the concept of base load generation originates from. The idea of building generation specifically for the base load but not for other load, and the reasons for that are economic far more than they are technical.

Likewise other components - peak load, intermediate (aka shoulder), load following (aka regulating), spinning reserve and cold reserve plant (which is typically just old outdated plant retained for the purpose, but could be purpose built if required).

It always has been an exercise in breaking down the task and using the most cost effective technology for each component of it. Suffice to say that won't be achieved without the involvement of both engineering and finance people as well as others in the process, it's well beyond the scope of any one profession.

Looking at Australia specifically, several times within living memory we've driven costs down by a combination of engineering and construction approaches sufficiently to make otherwise unviable projects outright winners. The key was to treat both as contributing to the same outcome, coming up with designs that could be cheaply built and coming up with construction approaches that enabled a cheap design.

Failure on that means both the renewables and the nuclear proposals are inferior compared to what they could be, resulting a situation where taxpayers end up footing the bill and the nation's international competitiveness suffers.

Something's going very wrong in Australia if, despite having such a highly educated population, we're not taking an intellectual approach to this. It ought be well within our capabilities to crunch the numbers and come up with definitive answers.

bull**** baffles brains
There is some very cynical politics happening.

I do think there is a case for maybe 1 or 2 nuclear reactors to increase the confidence or availability of supply and reduce reliance on hydro and batteries and create another option for supply reliability- as long as we are willing to pay extra for this (and reduce emissions), but the Coalition plan is disingenuous pretending they will build many plants.

I would guarantee they know this and would build 2 at most.

 

[Knobby22]

Reading an analysis, the biggest criticism of Dutton’s plans is that it hopes that the past will be the future and we won't need increasing amounts of electricity to run plant and EVs.
EVs are the future, get over it. Gas is running out in the Bass Strait, new homes won't use gas for heating.

Nuclear isn't that popular. Last year 5 Nuclear plants were completed but equally 5 were decommissioned. We will see more nuclear but its not like it will take over.

China is the biggest proponent, 27 reactors under construction but way more wind and solar.

Last year China added 1GW of nuclear power. Seems a lot.
But they also added 278GW of wind and solar!

 

[mullokintyre]

Reading an analysis, the biggest criticism of Dutton’s plans is that it hopes that the past will be the future and we won't need increasing amounts of electricity to run plant and EVs.
EVs are the future, get over it. Gas is running out in the Bass Strait, new homes won't use gas for heating.

Nuclear isn't that popular. Last year 5 Nuclear plants were completed but equally 5 were decommissioned. We will see more nuclear but its not like it will take over.

China is the biggest proponent, 27 reactors under construction but way more wind and solar.

Last year China added 1GW of nuclear power. Seems a lot.
But they also added 278GW of wind and solar!

Yeah, but the big difference is that Nuclear is reliable, and available pretty much 24 hours a day, something that wind and solar have struggled with, and always will.
The proponents of the Sun cable that was going to send clean Solar and Wind generated power to Singapore might be somewhat alarmed to see that Singapore has signed agreements with the US to transiton to Nuclear Power.
from State Department

Mick

 

[Knobby22]

Yeah, but the big difference is that Nuclear is reliable, and available pretty much 24 hours a day, something that wind and solar have struggled with, and always will.
The proponents of the Sun cable that was going to send clean Solar and Wind generated power to Singapore might be somewhat alarmed to see that Singapore has signed agreements with the US to transiton to Nuclear Power.
from State Department

View attachment 189486
Mick

Singapore is an island. Surprised they didn't put nuclear in years ago. I'm not anti nuclear because I want coal and gas replaced.

 

[sptrawler]

Yeah, but the big difference is that Nuclear is reliable, and available pretty much 24 hours a day, something that wind and solar have struggled with, and always will.
The proponents of the Sun cable that was going to send clean Solar and Wind generated power to Singapore might be somewhat alarmed to see that Singapore has signed agreements with the US to transiton to Nuclear Power.
from State Department

View attachment 189486
Mick

I haven't heard much about the Sun Cable project, since Twiggy pulled out, it certainly is a massive project and will be worth following.

 

[Bellcose]

More please seems to be the cry.

How data centers and the energy sector can sate AI’s hunger for power

The growth of data centers and AI rely on the availability of electric power. Opportunities for investors in power infrastructure and adjacent sectors are quickly emerging.

www.mckinsey.com

 

[IFocus]

Reading an analysis, the biggest criticism of Dutton’s plans is that it hopes that the past will be the future and we won't need increasing amounts of electricity to run plant and EVs.
EVs are the future, get over it. Gas is running out in the Bass Strait, new homes won't use gas for heating.

Nuclear isn't that popular. Last year 5 Nuclear plants were completed but equally 5 were decommissioned. We will see more nuclear but its not like it will take over.

China is the biggest proponent, 27 reactors under construction but way more wind and solar.

Last year China added 1GW of nuclear power. Seems a lot.
But they also added 278GW of wind and solar!

Areas with high population density small land areas makes sense Japan / South Korea, for China they make weapons grade material so fuel is a spin off.

Note I think most of the cheaper US fuel at one stage was coming from Russian decommissioned nuclear weapons.

Not surprised Singapore would look at nuclear the renewables cable stuff to me never stacked up IMHO.

As for Dutton's plan its just getting pillared by everyone as expected, still many will believe Dutton over the CSRIO gen Cost report, AEMO, AEC etc.

Some of the stuff that's at odds with reality,

"Frontier only has wind and solar generation capacity rising from 24GW to 46GW by 2051, according to its “nuclear inclusive progressive scenario”.

But then

"According to Aemo, there are 45 gigawatts of renewable projects in the pipeline to connect to the national energy market (NEM)."

And this

"Using Frontier’s progressive scenario, rooftop solar would almost double from about 23GW now to 44.5GW by mid-century. Aemo’s step change scenario, by contrast, had estimated our homes will be accommodating a hefty 110GW of solar by then."

 

[JohnDe]

Facts without the emotion of politics -

The case for nuclear generation in flat and dry Australia is compelling. The case against it is embarrassingly weak, as we discovered last Friday when Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen set out to discredit Frontier Economics modelling and failed.​

​

Accusing Frontier of pushing “dodgy figures” and labelling Peter Dutton’s endorsement of its findings as “a Christmas con job” provided copy for plodding journalists. Yet Bowen could not refute the report’s most damaging finding: the cost of decarbonising the grid under his policy.​

​

Frontier’s headline figure of $594bn is a conservative underestimate. It does not include the cost of cleaning up the grids in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.​

​

In 2020, AEMO said transmission lines to support the New England Renewable Energy Zone would cost $1.5bn. In the 2024 Integrated System Plan, AEMO has upped that figure to $3.7bn.​

​

The Queensland SuperGrid was supposed to cost $500m. Now they’re telling us it’s $3.3bn. The HumeLink was supposed to set us back $2.4bn. AEMO’s latest guesstimate is $4.9bn.​

Bowen’s response to nuclear plan proves his irrational mind

Sweden’s Energy Minister took to social media last Thursday to voice her displeasure with the Germans. German demand for Scandinavian electricity had sent power prices through the roof.

“It is a result of decommissioned nuclear power,” Ebba Busch wrote on X.

“When it’s not windy, we get high electricity prices with this failed electricity system.”

In Norway last week the ruling centre-left Labour Party pledged to cut the interconnector with the EU grid after Germany’s latest wind drought sent Norwegian power prices to record highs. Norway’s Energy Minister Terje Aasland summed it up thus: “It’s an absolutely **** situation.”

The nuclear power debate runs on different lines in Europe and North America. A country can invest in its own reactors or scrounge nuclear power from its neighbours. The only exception to the rule is Norway, which invested heavily in hydro generation until the greenies put a stop to it in the mid-1980s.

The case for nuclear generation in flat and dry Australia is compelling. The case against it is embarrassingly weak, as we discovered last Friday when Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen set out to discredit Frontier Economics modelling and failed.

Accusing Frontier of pushing “dodgy figures” and labelling Peter Dutton’s endorsement of its findings as “a Christmas con job” provided copy for plodding journalists. Yet Bowen could not refute the report’s most damaging finding: the cost of decarbonising the grid under his policy.

Frontier’s headline figure of $594bn is a conservative underestimate. It does not include the cost of cleaning up the grids in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Costs incurred directly by the consumer to install solar panels and batteries are excluded. So is the price of trading in gas appliances for electrical appliances.

Frontier does not attempt to model externalities such as the loss of amenity in regional Australia caused by wind and solar generators and augmented transmission networks. Frontier says if these were included, the total cost of the transition in the energy sector would be well more than $1 trillion.

Bowen was wise to avoid getting trapped into a messy argument about Frontier’s claim that the new transmission lines needed to accommodate variable renewable energy would cost $66bn.

Wise because the Australian Energy Market Operator’s transmission cost estimates are all over the place.

In 2020, AEMO said transmission lines to support the New England Renewable Energy Zone would cost $1.5bn. In the 2024 Integrated System Plan, AEMO has upped that figure to $3.7bn.

The Queensland SuperGrid was supposed to cost $500m. Now they’re telling us it’s $3.3bn. The HumeLink was supposed to set us back $2.4bn. AEMO’s latest guesstimate is $4.9bn.

The integrity of Frontier’s report is hard to question. It has a solid record in climate and energy research stretching back 25 years. It can hardly be accused of skewing its findings to satisfy its client since the research was conducted at the company’s expense.

For its trouble, Frontier can kiss goodbye to any government contracts so long as Labor is in power. It can expect to be shunned by the cashed-up renewable sector.

Frontier’s Danny Price could not have been blind to the reputational risk. He would’ve known that the time-poor, economically illiterate press corp would not read the report before jumping on its imagined failings.

Economist Danny Price

Frontier’s motives appear genuinely publicly spirited under the circumstances.

“We have decided to do the work because of the large amount of ill-informed and misleading cost comparisons being publicly made about nuclear power,” Frontier explains in the introduction to its first report.

“We feel Australia deserves better quality analysis and commentary on this important issue.”

If Bowen were sure of his ground, he would test the report’s findings by asking AEMO to replicate its work. AEMO describes its ISP reports as “least-cost modelling”, implying they point the way to the least expensive method of meeting consumer demand for electricity. In practice, however, it self-censors its work to conform with the government’s emissions target and insistence on the use of renewables. By adding nuclear to the mix, Frontier has merely done what AEMO should have done in the first place.

AEMO’s road map is based on shaky assumptions that Frontier has been fearless in challenging.

Chief among these is the prediction that electricity demand will almost double in the next 26 years from 180,000 gigawatt hours to 340,000GWh, the so-called step change scenario. AEMO and its processor NEMMCO have a woeful record of forecasting demand.

Frontier says the step change demand forecast is so far from the historic trend that it looks incredible. It assumes that 98 per cent of new vehicles by 2050 will be fully electric and that green hydrogen technology will mature.

Frontier’s assumption that the nuclear option is $260bn cheaper than the government’s current policy is based on a more modest expectation of a rise in demand to 250,000GWh by 2050.

It also assumes the increasing power demand from AI computing largely will be met behind the meter. Data storage and processing centres will generate their own electricity to reduce outage risk. Should demand exceed expectations, nuclear technology is relatively easy to scale up.

Additional reactors can be added in sequence on the large tracts of land vacated by retiring coal-fired generators.

Scaling up renewable energy is a nightmare proposition. The scarcity of suitable land, the fragility of supply chains, the challenge of gaining community consent and the demand for yet more transmission will only increase.

Global interest in nuclear is gaining momentum. At COP29 in Azerbaijan, six more countries joined the pledge to triple the world’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050, bringing the number of nations on board with the agreement to 31. Microsoft is reopening a mothballed reactor at Three Mile Island. Some of the world’s largest banks, including Bank of America, Barclays and BNP Paribas have agreed to bankroll nuclear.

Six new reactors have gone online this year, three of them in China, where the average build time is five years. Another 65 are under construction.

Meanwhile, Australia muddles along, legally shackled to a 34 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 that it cannot possibly meet under a Luddite government fighting a rearguard action against nuclear energy that defies rational explanation.

 

[Knobby22]

Facts without the emotion of politics -

The case for nuclear generation in flat and dry Australia is compelling. The case against it is embarrassingly weak, as we discovered last Friday when Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen set out to discredit Frontier Economics modelling and failed.​

​

Accusing Frontier of pushing “dodgy figures” and labelling Peter Dutton’s endorsement of its findings as “a Christmas con job” provided copy for plodding journalists. Yet Bowen could not refute the report’s most damaging finding: the cost of decarbonising the grid under his policy.​

​

Frontier’s headline figure of $594bn is a conservative underestimate. It does not include the cost of cleaning up the grids in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.​

​

In 2020, AEMO said transmission lines to support the New England Renewable Energy Zone would cost $1.5bn. In the 2024 Integrated System Plan, AEMO has upped that figure to $3.7bn.​

​

The Queensland SuperGrid was supposed to cost $500m. Now they’re telling us it’s $3.3bn. The HumeLink was supposed to set us back $2.4bn. AEMO’s latest guesstimate is $4.9bn.​

It's a bit socialist though.
Instead of relying on private enterprise, the taxpayer has to fork out many billions and most the projects on the books from private enterprise get axed.

 

[JohnDe]

It's a bit socialist though.
Instead of relying on private enterprise, the taxpayer has to fork out many billions and most the projects on the books from private enterprise get axed.

South Australia once had the cheapest electricity and the best social housing program in the country, created by the Playford state government. Nothing about it was socialist, it was good governing with a long-term plan for prosperity and nation building.

Funny thing is it was a socialist government that started dismantling the housing trust system and leaving the state to pay hotels for rooms to house the homeless.

I would rather government funded nuclear power stations, than government funded Chinese solar panels, wind farms and grids across every spare piece of land at a cost that has no end.

 

[basilio]

If one is looking for "nuclear facts without emotions" this analysis nails it well.
Excellent history background of nuclear power in Australia as well as a clear eyed analysis of the costs and timing of the proposed nuclear power development.

The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan takes a sharp turn away from a cheaper, cleaner future​

Simon Holmes à Court

After 22 failed energy policies, the Coalition is being guided by a roadmap to higher bills and higher emissions

Mon 16 Dec 2024 13.12 AEDT

On the front cover of Frontier Economics’ costings of the Coalition’s nuclear policy is a stock photo entitled fork in road, implying that we’re at some kind of juncture where we must decide between a nuclear or renewables path.

In 1969 John Gorton’s Liberal government chose the nuclear path with the construction of the Jervis Bay nuclear power plant project. As Gorton later said, “We were interested in this thing because it could provide electricity to everybody and it could, if you decided later on, it could make an atomic bomb.”

In 1971 Billy McMahon’s Liberal government cancelled the project after a review deemed it too expensive. The cleared site became a massive car park at Murray’s Beach.

No nuclear power station was built in the intervening 27 years before John Howard introduced a federal ban on nuclear power. There were no attempts to overturn the ban during the next 18 years of Liberal government.

At the start of the 1970s we were indeed at an energy crossroads, we took the road towards coal, and as one of those who’d like to pass a safe climate on to the next generation, I wish we had taken the road towards nuclear instead. Our emissions would be dramatically lower

The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan takes a sharp turn away from a cheaper, cleaner future | Simon Holmes à Court

After 22 failed energy policies, the Coalition is being guided by a roadmap to higher bills and higher emissions

www.theguardian.com

 

[JohnDe]

If one is looking for "nuclear facts without emotions" this analysis nails it well.
Excellent history background of nuclear power in Australia as well as a clear eyed analysis of the costs and timing of the proposed nuclear power development.

The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan takes a sharp turn away from a cheaper, cleaner future​

Simon Holmes à Court

After 22 failed energy policies, the Coalition is being guided by a roadmap to higher bills and higher emissions

Mon 16 Dec 2024 13.12 AEDT

On the front cover of Frontier Economics’ costings of the Coalition’s nuclear policy is a stock photo entitled fork in road, implying that we’re at some kind of juncture where we must decide between a nuclear or renewables path.

In 1969 John Gorton’s Liberal government chose the nuclear path with the construction of the Jervis Bay nuclear power plant project. As Gorton later said, “We were interested in this thing because it could provide electricity to everybody and it could, if you decided later on, it could make an atomic bomb.”

In 1971 Billy McMahon’s Liberal government cancelled the project after a review deemed it too expensive. The cleared site became a massive car park at Murray’s Beach.

No nuclear power station was built in the intervening 27 years before John Howard introduced a federal ban on nuclear power. There were no attempts to overturn the ban during the next 18 years of Liberal government.

At the start of the 1970s we were indeed at an energy crossroads, we took the road towards coal, and as one of those who’d like to pass a safe climate on to the next generation, I wish we had taken the road towards nuclear instead. Our emissions would be dramatically lower

The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan takes a sharp turn away from a cheaper, cleaner future | Simon Holmes à Court

After 22 failed energy policies, the Coalition is being guided by a roadmap to higher bills and higher emissions

www.theguardian.com

What, no emotions form Simon? Get real.

He's all emotional about political donations: Climate 200 founder slams political donation caps

Simon doesn't like the media questioning his input into the political party he founded:

The member for Wentworth admitted at the National Press Club on Wednesday that she tried to pressure the Australian Financial Review to remove Mr Holmes a Court from a power list designed to rank the most powerful figures in Australia who operate behind the scenes.​

The AFR’s Political Editor Phillip Coorey revealed Ms Spender personally visited his paper’s press gallery offices and tried to pressure the paper to remove her biggest donor from the list because “he did not want to be on it”.​

His emotions transfer through his political representatives: Teal MP Zoe Daniel referred to National Anti-Corruption Commission over Simon Holmes à Court favour

National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the inner-city Melbourne politician for lobbying on behalf of one of her financial supporters, wealthy renewables campaigner Simon Holmes à Court, to keep him out of the press.​

And let us not forget about Simon's investments - Mr Holmes à Court is an investor in renewable energy and founder of the Climate200 fund

 

[basilio]

What, no emotions form Simon? Get real.

He's all emotional about political donations: Climate 200 founder slams political donation caps

Simon doesn't like the media questioning his input into the political party he founded:

The member for Wentworth admitted at the National Press Club on Wednesday that she tried to pressure the Australian Financial Review to remove Mr Holmes a Court from a power list designed to rank the most powerful figures in Australia who operate behind the scenes.
The AFR’s Political Editor Phillip Coorey revealed Ms Spender personally visited his paper’s press gallery offices and tried to pressure the paper to remove her biggest donor from the list because “he did not want to be on it”.

His emotions transfer through his political representatives: Teal MP Zoe Daniel referred to National Anti-Corruption Commission over Simon Holmes à Court favour
National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the inner-city Melbourne politician for lobbying on behalf of one of her financial supporters, wealthy renewables campaigner Simon Holmes à Court, to keep him out of the press.

And let us not forget about Simon's investments - Mr Holmes à Court is an investor in renewable energy and founder of the Climate200 fund

Yeah.. Did you actually read the analysis.? Like how about doing that first John and critiquing what he says.

For the sake of anyone else who is interested in the discussion I'll post it in full.

 

[basilio]

The Coalition’s nuclear energy plan takes a sharp turn away from a cheaper, cleaner future​

Simon Holmes à Court

After 22 failed energy policies, the Coalition is being guided by a roadmap to higher bills and higher emissions

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
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Mon 16 Dec 2024 13.12 AEDT


On the front cover of Frontier Economics’ costings of the Coalition’s nuclear policy is a stock photo entitled fork in road, implying that we’re at some kind of juncture where we must decide between a nuclear or renewables path.
In 1969 John Gorton’s Liberal government chose the nuclear path with the construction of the Jervis Bay nuclear power plant project. As Gorton later said, “We were interested in this thing because it could provide electricity to everybody and it could, if you decided later on, it could make an atomic bomb.”

In 1971 Billy McMahon’s Liberal government cancelled the project after a review deemed it too expensive. The cleared site became a massive car park at Murray’s Beach.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ar-plan-represents-4tn-hit-to-economy-by-2050
No nuclear power station was built in the intervening 27 years before John Howard introduced a federal ban on nuclear power. There were no attempts to overturn the ban during the next 18 years of Liberal government.

At the start of the 1970s we were indeed at an energy crossroads, we took the road towards coal, and as one of those who’d like to pass a safe climate on to the next generation, I wish we had taken the road towards nuclear instead. Our emissions would be dramatically lower.

In 1997, just before he banned nuclear, Howard took us down a different path – he announced the mandatory renewable energy target, a plan to add a tiny slice of renewable energy to our sliver of hydroelectricity. In 2009, in what was perhaps the last act of bipartisanship on domestic energy, parliament agreed to massively increase the target to 20% renewables by 2020. Today we’re just shy of 40%, and the government’s policy is to double it again by the end of this decade.

Howard’s modest renewable energy target was surely more successful than he ever intended, in great contrast to the 22 failed energy policies the Coalition famously held during its last tenure. Its latest energy policy began shortly after the last election, when in August 2022 Peter Dutton tasked Ted O’Brien to “examine the potential for advanced and next-generation nuclear technologies to contribute to Australia’s energy security and reduce power prices”. We had to wait until Friday for the costings, published after many of the country’s journalists had filed their last stories for the year.

Here are four reasons why in my opinion the costings, prepared by Frontier Economics, completely undermine the Coalition’s 23rd energy plan:

1. The Coalition plans for lower household income and the collapse of heavy industry​

Of the three scenarios the independent market operator Aemo published in June, the Coalition has chosen what’s known as progressive change, giving Aemo’s preferred scenario, known as step change, to Labor.

Under the Coalition’s scenario, large industrial load collapses in 2030, signalling the closure of smelters and presumably datacentres – goodbye AI! By 2050 industrial demand is down by 62%. Over the 25-year modelling period, household disposable income will be down a whopping $2.8tn more compared to Labor’s plan.

With a pivot away from electrification, under the Coalition’s plan Australians will burn an additional 273bn litres of petrol and diesel through to 2050 costing $465bn and an additional 1,831 PJ of gas costing at least $36bn. Even if the Coalition’s purported cost savings were credible, this $501bn would mean that Australia’s total energy bill would be considerably higher.

On top of this, the Coalition’s plan would see a 61% reduction in rooftop solar, meaning that millions fewer Australians would be able to slash their electricity bills.

Currently we are paying hundreds of millions to three coal power stations to stay open for a couple of years. The Coalition budgets nothing to coax the other 14 coal power stations on the east coast to extend their lives by a decade or more.

Economist Steven Hamilton has calculated that the Coalition’s plan would see the power sector emit about 1,000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide above our current trajectory. The Coalition’s crabwalk away from electrification would add a further 723 MtCO2.

The Coalition has chosen an energetically and fiscally poorer Australia with higher energy bills and higher emissions. I’ve long suspected that the Coalition hasn’t bothered to read or understand Aemo’s last seven years of modelling, and this pretty much clinches it.

2. The analysis lowballs nuclear’s cost then punts it over the horizon​

Frontier appears to have made the rookie error of confusing the nuclear industry term nth of a kind (Noak) with next of a kind. The Noak cost is not what we’d pay for the next reactor built, but a cost target we’d theoretically hit eventually if we got really good at building them. If you build, say, eight identical reactors on a site, the last one should cost a lot less – and provided nothing goes wrong, theoretically you’d approach the Noak cost.

If Australia were to achieve Frontier’s costs, it’d be the cheapest nuclear built in the western world this century, by a wide margin. Frontier’s head, Danny Price, told the ABC on Friday that he wouldn’t put himself in the category of a nuclear expert, so maybe it’s no surprise that the modelling appears to confuse Noak with next-of-a-kind pricing.

Frontier are, however, modelling experts, so the next thing they did was with eyes wide open. The modelling pushes the vast majority of the cost of nuclear beyond 2050, so if the program is delayed it would appear cheaper and if the cost triples, it’d barely show in the analysis. Nice work!

Next, Frontier assumes that building nuclear reactors will get cheaper every year – what’s known as a positive learning rate. In reality, the US nuclear industry is famous for its negative learning rate – is that a forgetting rate? – meaning that Noak costs are more theory than practice.

3. The Coalition’s unrealistic schedule leaves us short of power​

As I told a recent nuclear inquiry – the eighth since 2005 – there’s not a hope in hell that Australia can deliver its first nuclear power reactor producing power before 2040. Even with fantastical assumptions, such as a Coalition that controls both Houses of Parliament, states quickly overturning their bans, the first project sailing through environmental approvals and court challenges and fast build times, it’s almost impossible to achieve the first nuclear kilowatt hour before 2044.

Czechia, a country with 66 years of nuclear experience, embarked on a nuclear construction project in 2022. If all goes well the first unit will start commercial operation in 2038. Australia is at least six years behind this project, and we face many more barriers, so 2044 for our first really does seem optimistic.

4. Our grid doesn’t have room for these reactors​

Frontier’s analysis assumes that Australia builds 13.3GW of nuclear, equivalent to 12 AP-1000 reactors, and that these run flat out when they’re not off for refuelling and maintenance.

The problem is that for much of the year Australia uses less power. Our minimum system load (MSL) is already below 10GW and on its way down to 2GW around the end of this decade, thanks to rooftop solar. The inflexible manner in which the Coalition plans to run the reactors would result in masses of excess power and require that we turn off massive amounts of renewables, both utility-scale and rooftop solar. Alternatively we could soak up the excess nuclear energy with gigantic battery farms.

Over the weekend I sent a polite text message to Danny Price, the consultant behind the Coalition’s modelling, explaining that I’m not a newcomer to nuclear and outlining three of the above flaws. Price replied:

“Thanks for sending me your credentials and your generous offer to set me straight, but I will decline. I’ve got all the help and technical advice I need. I know you are just protecting you (sic) financial interest. I get it, but please don’t contact me again.”

Contrary to Coalition belief, I am not a large investor in renewable energy (nor am I a billionaire). This shows the depths of the culture wars we’re in – where impugned motives trump rational discussion. I took the opportunity to reply:

“Since you misinterpreted my motives, allow me this: Less than 2% of my investments are in Australian renewables – similar to millions of superannuation accounts I’m advised – and if the renewables transition slows, the value of those investments would likely increase.”

The fact is, over the last six years, Australia has added wind and solar generation equivalent to the annual output of six gigawatt scale nuclear reactors, according to data from OpenElectricity.

If we’re at a crossroads it’s one where the Coalition took a sharp turn, based on what looks to me like some really sloppy advice. Let’s hope that Australians stay on the path to a cheaper, cleaner and more prosperous energy future.

 

[JohnDe]

Yeah.. Did you actually read the analysis.? Like how about doing that first John and critiquing what he says.

For the sake of anyone else who is interested in the discussion I'll post it in full.

I did, twice because I don't know what the article is about other than Simon's emotions about his investments in renewables.

I have followed the nuclear debate ever since I discovered science in primary school, and science fiction in middle school. Australia has had the nuclear debate ever since I can remember, but the majority of the public has been against. and that has been for several reason, we have cheap carbon fuels, nuclear technology was primitive, the nuclear bombs and the radiation scared the hell out of everyone.

Today is a different story. Carbon fuels need to be reduced, nuclear energy technology has been proven for decades and through massive natural disasters, the public are now more acceptable.

Simon is worried about his investments.

 

[basilio]

I did, twice because I don't know what the article is about other than Simon's emotions about his investments in renewables.

I have followed the nuclear debate ever since I discovered science in primary school, and science fiction in middle school. Australia has had the nuclear debate ever since I can remember, but the majority of the public has been against. and that has been for several reason, we have cheap carbon fuels, nuclear technology was primitive, the nuclear bombs and the radiation scared the hell out of everyone.

Today is a different story. Carbon fuels need to be reduced, nuclear energy technology has been proven for decades and through massive natural disasters, the public are now more acceptable.

Simon is worried about his investments.

Today is certainly a different story. Solar, wind, hydro and rapidly improving battery costs make firmed renewable energy far more cost effective than anything else.

Coal, Nuclear, fairies in thegarden.

Nuclear is not currently cost effective. It cannot be developed before current coal fired power stations run out of legs. The discussion about the short to medium term direction of Australia's energy future is overwhelmingly about the best mix of renewables and firming.

Is there a space for Nuclear ? Perhaps Post 2050. If somewhere, somehow a cost effective nuclear power solution is developed say by the mid/late 2030's Australia could develop a project for 2050 plus. But here and now the proposals offered by the Coalition are not viable either economically, in terms of capacity to deliver and finally the overall national interest.

 

[JohnDe]

Today is certainly a different story. Solar, wind, hydro and rapidly improving battery costs make firmed renewable energy far more cost effective than anything else.

Coal, Nuclear, fairies in thegarden.

Nuclear is not currently cost effective. It cannot be developed before current coal fired power stations run out of legs. The discussion about the short to medium term direction of Australia's energy future is overwhelmingly about the best mix of renewables and firming.

Is there a space for Nuclear ? Perhaps Post 2050. If somewhere, somehow a cost effective nuclear power solution is developed say by the mid/late 2030's Australia could develop a project for 2050 plus. But here and now the proposals offered by the Coalition are not viable either economically, in terms of capacity to deliver and finally the overall national interest.

Imagine a solar powered transport, or a wind turbine emergency response power supply. Any civilisation that chooses that route is doomed to circumstance.

Instead imagine a future that invested in nuclear technology and found the holy grail of energy with its advances, similar to what happened with the combustion engine over the past 150 years. A nuclear power plant that can be manufactured to the size that suits its purpose, at a cost that is cheap enough to for all industries.

That can only be happen if we start to allow industry the freedom to choose, just like the combustion engine.

Renewables have their place, but they can’t be used for everything, and they aren’t reliable all the time.

Think of the last 2000 years we used to wood, coal, oil, whale fat, vegetable oil, produce diesel and petrol, used steam and nuclear.

The future will be a mix to get us through.

 

[JohnDe]

Another view point, from someone that has been involved in the electricity industry since the 1960’s to the present -

Renewable energy tsar Trevor St Baker throws weight behind nuclear​

Renewable energy rich-lister Trevor St Baker has backed the development of nuclear energy in Australia, saying it was “absurd” it remained banned in the face of a broken power sector.
Mr St Baker, whose StB Capital Partners invests in everything from electric vehicle recharging stations to battery systems, said the country’s ageing coal-fired power stations would be needed longer unless more dispatchable generation, including nuclear, could be developed.

“We are not nuclear advocates, but it is absurd it is outlawed in Australia,” Mr St Baker said. “Nuclear should be part of the mix.

“It’s not going to be here tomorrow, but it will be here well before 2040. Ageing coal-fired power stations can’t be retired until there is an alternative.”

Nuclear power is banned in Australia, with both the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 prohibiting its development.

Mr St Baker also backed plans for a government-owned national electricity commission that would play a key role in the development of nuclear power in the country.

“The best support to efficiently grow renewables is with a national government-owned electricity commission that will help complement the new nuclear share of the generation mix,” he said.

He said similar electricity commissions in the past had allowed Australia to produce some of the cheapest power in the world. “The current system is broken,” Mr St Baker said, adding there was a need for more bipartisanship on energy policy.

Energy rich-lister Trevor St Baker recharges his electric vehicle in Brisbane.

Mr St Baker said nuclear would be able to better complement “behind the meter” renewable generation that did not need long transmission lines.

He said Energy DeCarbon, one of the companies in his portfolio, is developing rooftop solar on commercial premises that did not need government handouts for projects in renewable power zones that compete with farmland and forests.

Mr St Baker joins the Kerry Stokes-backed Beach Energy in throwing his weight behind the move to establish nuclear power in Australia.

Beach Energy chief executive Brett Woods last week said the strong upward trajectory of energy prices and the gap in any current coherent energy policy to alleviate supply shortfalls and energy costs were hurting families and Australia’s economic competitiveness.

“I strongly support a sound economic and science-based approach to the energy transition, which naturally needs to include nuclear energy,” said Mr Woods, who heads Australia’s second-largest oil producer with a significant natural gas portfolio.

Peter Dutton is pitching his nuclear power policy to average Australians, declaring the Coalition has a plan that is “going to keep the lights on”.

However, gas would play a reduced role in the overall energy mix under the Coalition plan because nuclear would act as the main backup option.

Gas giants Woodside and Santos said gas-fired generation would still be needed for Australia’s energy security even with a wholesale move to nuclear. Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill said in February that she believed Australia was unlikely to have sufficient time to adopt nuclear.

 

[JohnDe]

Here is a page containing the staff of Frontier Economics.

Our Economists - Frontier Economics

Through training and experience our economists have a well-honed understanding of how markets work. You’ll find we know your sector and have the economics skills to deliver the results you need. We hope you’ll also find us fun to work with.

www.frontier-economics.com.au

They all look remarkably similar, they are basically all economists.

No nuclear engineers or scientists among them, so what do economists know about building nuclear reactors ?

Who did they ask for technical opinions?

This goes back to the fundamental reasons why costs of nuclear reactors and other technical infrastructure blow out. Get someone to give a blue sky opinion, then the engineers find they can't build it for the price quoted unless they cut serious corners.

The CSIRO on the other hand, contains scientists and engineers.

I know who I believe.

cost generation estimates put out by the CSIRO must look an ill-conceived and befuddled mess to an outside observer. Apart from the obvious question of why a government-funded scientific organisation is even undertaking such an exercise – estimating costs is an exercise for economists, accountants and engineers, not scientists – the guesses are simply irrelevant. The thing that really matters is system-wide costs.

Picture the scene. It’s a “town and gown” event being held at the University of Chicago. An entrepreneurial businessman approaches a well-known economics professor. He outlines his business proposition, describing the market, the potential demand, the technical requirements, the costs. The professor’s response is simple: if it’s such a good idea, it would already exist.

Of course, the story is apocryphal, but the message is clear: compelling propositions become reality because they stack up. When it comes to nuclear energy, this is precisely what has happened in 32 economies, with more jumping on board each year. These countries are investing or facilitating investment in nuclear energy because it makes perfect economic and strategic sense.

The one person who doesn’t seem to see the logic of this is Chris Bowen, our Climate Change and Energy Minister. He would rather spend his time playing a never-ending game of puerile political football rather than focusing on the best means of ensuring reliable and affordable energy with a minimal carbon footprint. He simply refuses to acknowledge what is going on in virtually every developed economy around the world and some developing ones too.

He is caught in a time warp of yesterday’s thinking, spouting the outdated tropes about nuclear being unsafe, expensive and slow. The fact that Labor politicians released pictures of three-eyed fish points to the lack of substance of Labor’s objections to nuclear as one source of energy for this country.

The reality is that nuclear is moving very quickly overseas. Even climate fanatic Ed Miliband, the UK Energy Secretary, has stated that nuclear power will be an essential part of the government’s net-zero plans. The government has called for private companies to participate in the process, with the government willing to help.

“My message is clear: if you want to build a nuclear reactor in Britain, my door is open. On funding, we are exploring how the government can help private developers bring advanced nuclear projects to market. On planning, we are consulting on a new nuclear planning framework and siting policy next year.” Can you imagine Bowen uttering those same sentences?

In the US, the nuclear industry is progressing rapidly, as large energy users such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google sign private purchasing arrangements with developers of small modular reactors to secure power for their energy-hungry data and AI centres. The Gates’s pilot project in Wyoming, using a novel version of nuclear power, has begun construction.

Around the world, new nuclear plants are being built and old ones are being refurbished. There is even a nuclear power plant being built in Egypt, with Russian technology and Russian funding.

And let’s not forget here the group of countries at the recent climate COPs that have committed to tripling the capacity of nuclear generation in their countries by 2050 – 31 this year. Australia is increasingly looking like an irrelevant wallflower on the world stage of climate action.

It is also why the cost generation estimates put out by the CSIRO must look an ill-conceived and befuddled mess to an outside observer. Apart from the obvious question of why a government-funded scientific organisation is even undertaking such an exercise – estimating costs is an exercise for economists, accountants and engineers, not scientists – the guesses are simply irrelevant. The thing that really matters is system-wide costs.

Note here also the embarrassing result of the latest iteration of this dubious exercise – that coal-fired power is the cheapest means of generation, something the average person in the street probably appreciates. It’s something the Chinese and Indians also fully understand.

The CSIRO nuclear results remain completely unconvincing, particularly those related to small modular nuclear reactors. It is true that the utilisation rate of nuclear plants is very important to the outcome on unit prices. But to assume a low rate of utilisation, as the CSIRO does, is to skew the data towards relatively high costs.

The CSIRO has now conceded nuclear power plants last longer than 30 years – that was the assumption last year. But the methodology employed means there is no noticeable difference in the costs of a plant that lasts 60 years rather than 30 years. The reality on the ground is that even after considering refurbishment and maintenance costs, the last several decades of a nuclear power plant generates very low capital as well as operating costs.

One of the key benefits of having several nuclear plants in Australia is the saving on the renewable energy overbuild as well as the extremely expensive and relatively under-utilised infrastructure needed to connect the intermittent power to the grid. Network costs currently are the largest component of electricity prices; a future with nuclear would constrain their costs relatively to reliance on renewable energy.

It will never make economic sense to build transmission lines at a cost of many billions of dollars for electricity to flow only a quarter of the time, say, and at somewhat unpredictable times. But this is what the Bowen plan involves. Once that transmission line is certified as a “regulated” asset, the costs are passed on to consumers essentially for ever. This aspect of the government’s strategy has been under-reported.

The fact is that new transmission lines are causing all sorts of headaches in addition to the legitimate objections of rural and regional folk to the unwelcome intrusion on the landscape. The cost of constructing new transmission lines has blown out dramatically. Just take the completely unjustified CopperString transmission line linking Mount Isa to Townsville. Only last year, the Queensland Labor government estimated the cost at $1.5bn; it is now estimated to cost at least $9bn.

No doubt there is a lot of water to go under the bridge when it comes to the nuclear-plus-renewables versus renewables-plus-storage debate. Sadly, it won’t be a sensible debate because Labor is intent on politicising the issues rather than objectively weighing up the costs and benefits.

Labor has dug itself into a hole that may end up costing the country dearly. Bowen has finally realised that his plan can only work with gas as a critical backup. But having demonised gas for so long – and let’s not even talk about the behaviour of the Victorian and NSW governments here – there is now a shortage of gas for domestic purposes. We face the bizarre prospect of importing LNG, with all its attendant costs, to shore up the electricity grid as well as supply gas to the domestic market.

The end result is electricity prices that are highly correlated with the gas price, with gas as the marginal supplier. Having acres of rooftop solar makes no effective difference to this outcome and creates problems for grid stability.

Hopefully, there will be some sensible debate in the New Year. If Bowen is so convinced nuclear has no future in the country – well, apart from ANSTO and AUKUS – then he should commit to lifting the bans because, in his mind, it would make no difference. We could then assess whether there is any real interest in building a nuclear power industry in this country.

Anti-nuclear Bowen is stuck in a fantasy world of his own

Around the world, new nuclear plants are being built and old ones are being refurbished. There is even a nuclear power plant being built in Egypt, with Russian technology and Russian funding.

And let’s not forget here the group of countries at the recent climate COPs that have committed to tripling the capacity of nuclear generation in their countries by 2050 – 31 this year. Australia is increasingly looking like an irrelevant wallflower on the world stage of climate action.

It is also why the cost generation estimates put out by the CSIRO must look an ill-conceived and befuddled mess to an outside observer. Apart from the obvious question of why a government-funded scientific organisation is even undertaking such an exercise – estimating costs is an exercise for economists, accountants and engineers, not scientists – the guesses are simply irrelevant. The thing that really matters is system-wide costs.