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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Dutton’s blast of radioactive rhetoric on nuclear power leaves facts in the dust

Graham Readfearn, Guardian, 14 Mar 24 Coalition's claim of cheap power and quickly built reactors is at odds with real world experience of other countries. We may not yet be entering a nuclear age in Australia, but we would all be best advis…
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Dutton's blast of radioactive rhetoric on nuclear power leaves facts in the dust

Christina Macpherson

March 14

Graham Readfearn, Guardian, 14 Mar 24

Coalition's claim of cheap power and quickly built reactors is at odds with real world experience of other countries.

We may not yet be entering a nuclear age in Australia, but we would all be best advised to handle the rhetoric around the issue as carefully as we would radioactive waste.

This week opposition leader Peter Dutton said an annual CSIRO report that had included estimates of costs for small modular reactors – which are not yet available commercially – was "discredited" because it "doesn't take into account some of the transmission costs, the costs around subsidies for the renewables".

Dutton is referring to a report known as GenCost, which calculates the cost of generating electricity from different technologies when fuel, labour and capital are included. This metric is known as the levelised cost of electricity.

Despite Dutton's claim, the most recent GenCost report does include the cost of integrating renewables such as solar and wind into the electricity grid. That is, it includes the cost of building new transmission lines and energy storage such as batteries.

The most recent GenCost report estimates a theoretical small modular reactor built in 2030 would cost $382 to $636 per megawatt hour. It says this is much more expensive than solar and wind, which it puts at between $91 and $130 per MWh even once integration costs are included.

The calculations in GenCost don't include subsidies for any generating technologies – including renewables or future SMRs.

The cost estimates for SMRs are challenging because no commercial plant has been built. But the closest a project has got to existing – the Carbon-Free Power Project in Utah – was cancelled late last year primarily because the cost of the power would have been too high. And that project was given more than $2bn from the US Department of Energy.

Mycle Schneider is an independent nuclear expert and coordinator of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status report that tracks nuclear power development around the globe. He points to research from US financial group Lazard that says in the US, the costs of unsubsidised solar and wind including firming costs, such as batteries, range from US$45 to $141 per MWh compared to new-build nuclear at US$180 per MWh.

Ramping up the nuclear rhetoric

On Tuesday, Dutton said he would soon reveal six potential sites for nuclear reactors around Australia – likely to be close to, current or retiring coal-fired power stations.

Shadow energy minister Ted O'Brien claimed this week Australia could have nuclear power "up and running" within a decade.

"Nuclear 'up and running within a decade' does not fit with the experience we have seen elsewhere," said Prof MV Ramana, a nuclear expert at the University of British Columbia and a contributor to the nuclear industry status reports.

Ramana points to Finland that has operated reactors since the 1970s, where parliament voted in 2002 to add a fifth reactor to the country's fleet. Work started in 2005 but the reactor didn't connect until 2022 "almost exactly 20 years after the parliamentary vote," he said.

"We can see similar long periods of time between decisions to build reactors and when they start operating, again in countries that already have nuclear plants, in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom."

Dutton and O'Brien have both said there are 30 economies around the world using nuclear and "50 more" that want to.

But Schneider says there are actually 32 countries with nuclear reactors, "but the top five generators produced 72% of the nuclear electricity in the world."

"Over the past 30 years, only four countries started nuclear programs (Romania, Iran, Belarus, UAE) and three phased out their programs (Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Germany). There are reactors under construction in three more newcomer countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkiye). Most other 'plans' are vague."

The UAE – a model case study?

On Sky News, O'Brien pointed to the United Arab Emirates as a country that had commissioned South Korea's Kepco to build four reactors of the size that could be considered for Australia in less than a decade.

In fact, each of the 1.4GW UAE plants was expected to be delivered in five years, but took eight, according to the industry status report. And it took 12 years from the announcement of the plan in 2008, to the first unit coming online in 2020.

The problem with using the UAE as a case study is that it is not a democracy, but an autocracy.

"The UAE is not a good model for Australia," Ramana said...............................................

Reactor reactions

Experts have told the Guardian that even if Australia were to remove its federal and state bans on nuclear energy, it would be unlikely to see reactors generating power until the 2040s – at which point most, if not all, of Australia's coal-fired power will have been turned off years earlier. One nuclear advocate questioned whether Australia could actually find a company to build reactors.

This week one political journalist said on Sky that "Canada is about to put in small modular reactors" and had selected a site in Ontario.

While Ontario Public Generation does plan to build a fleet of four small modular reactors, the company doesn't yet have a licence to construct them.

If it does go ahead, OPG has said it doesn't expect the first-of-its-kind unit – each about one-tenth the size of Australia's biggest coal-fired power plant – to be working commercially until the end of 2029.

Expertise needed to make giant leap

O'Brien and Dutton have rejected the notion that Australia would be "starting from scratch" on nuclear, citing the existence of the tiny reactor at Lucas Heights near Sydney, the country's existing reserves of uranium and the agreement to buy nuclear-powered submarines in the future.

Glenne Drover, the secretary of the Victorian branch of the Australian Institute of Energy and a broad supporter of nuclear power, said it was "quite a step up" from the 20MW Lucas Heights research reactor "to 1,000MW+ and to build, own and operate a pressure reactor"...........................more https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/14/peter-dutton-nuclear-power-comments-csiro-small-modular-reactors

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