31 Aug 23
The Australian Financial Review says the question of why nuclear power isn't the right solution for Australia deserves a serious answer.
Fair enough.
The Financial Review argues the rest of the world is moving to nuclear. An odd claim, when the world added 295GW of wind and solar last year but just 1.5GW of nuclear power. The International Energy Agency predicts that "only a small number of units are likely to start operating this decade".
In fact, there are five serious answers to why nuclear is the wrong solution for Australia.
When thinking about the conundrum of how we manage this massive transformation to a lower-emissions energy grid, it is hard to think of a more ill-fitting solution for Australia than going down the nuclear road.
No.1 issue: cost. Proponents of nuclear energy simply dismiss the multitude of evidence that nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy available. Or, worse, seek to undermine the rigorous independent analysis that finds it so.
GenCost, independently prepared by the CSIRO and Australian Energy Market Operator, is one of many studies which find nuclear the most expensive form of energy. Despite the political attacks on AEMO and CSIRO in recent weeks, it is a robust report and their analysis stands up to scrutiny.
As AEMO has said: "Recent media commentary that AEMO's Integrated System Plan (ISP) does not include transmission and storage, as well as generation costs associated with providing electricity to Australian customers, is wrong." And the finding is clear: renewables (including the cost of transmission and storage) are cheaper than nuclear by several multiples.
If you don't like the work of AEMO and CSIRO, sure, look around for an alternative report. Take a recent report by Lazard on the levelised cost of energy in the US. It found that between 2009 and 2021, utility-scale solar costs came down 90 per cent and wind 72 per cent, while new nuclear costs increased by 36 per cent.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) can supply up to 300 megawatts per plant. They are conservatively costed at $5 billion each. You need quite a few 300MW SMRs to replace say a 2GW coal-fired power station like Eraring. That is an extremely expensive transaction. The leader of the Nationals has said nuclear power wouldn't cost Australia "a cent". How can an alternative government make such a ridiculous claim with a straight face?
2. Second, the much-vaunted small modular reactor technology is unproven. There is no commercial SMR operating anywhere in the world. There are two demonstration plants: one floating around on a barge in Russia and one in China.
Last week's Financial Review editorial lauds Ontario's plans. Really? Ontario Power Generation has not released any costings for its proposed SMRs and it is yet to receive (or even apply for) environmental approvals. Are we to hang our hat on this technology for our national energy plan?
3. Third, nuclear is notoriously slow to build. Can anyone credibly claim that Australia could have a nuclear plant operating by the early or even mid-2030s, when we need no-emissions technology to be supplying the vast bulk of our power? The answer to that question, reasonable observers would agree, is "no".
4. inflexibility. The fourth serious answer to the Financial Review's suggestion of a nuclear path is that it is not a flexible source of energy. As we move to more renewables, we need peaking and firming that can be tuned on and off at short notice to fill gaps in renewable supply. Coal-fired power stations can be turned down, but not off. Likewise, a nuclear power station cannot easily be turned off once it is running.
Nuclear power is largely useless as peaking and firming support for renewables. This is where gas-fired power stations are a useful back-up to renewables. The latest technology allows gas-fired power stations to be turned on with two minutes' notice.
5. Finally, there's the matter of nuclear waste. Small modular reactors would produce no small amount of waste. A Stanford University study finds that "… most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors …"
For 235 years, Australia has searched for comparative advantage. We have found one. It is renewable energy. Imagine having abundant resources of the cheapest form of energy available and choosing, as a matter of policy, to deploy a source of energy much more expensive and slower to build instead? That's what advocates of nuclear power are arguing for.
After 10 years of denial and delay on climate action, I'm not interested in more years of distraction by a debate on an energy source which clearly doesn't stack up for our country.
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