This appeared last week:
Any hope of a rational debate about nuclear power is gone
Households and businesses would be better served by a rational debate on the merits of including nuclear power in the future energy mix. They aren’t getting that.
Angela Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Dec 13, 2024 – 7.06pm
Australia’s fractious debate about how to achieve its energy transition ambitions in its electricity sector has become even more muddled by the release of the costings of the Coalition’s nuclear plan. And that’s no help to households and businesses.
Any hope of a rational debate about the merits of including nuclear power in the country’s future energy mix to support decarbonisation goals – something broadly supported by industry struggling to source reliable, affordable, low-carbon power – had already disappeared before Friday.
But arguments over economic modelling using different assumptions to reach near-meaningless cost estimates stretching out 25 years, and then relating those to household and business power bills right now, have escalated the situation to another level.
Certainly, any pledges of lower prices for consumers – as signalled by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and shadow energy spokesman Ted O’Brien repeatedly at their media conference in Brisbane – can have little meaning.
To be noted is that all the estimates by Frontier Economics of the Coalition’s and Labor’s transition plans – ranging from $331 billion to $594 billion – exclude Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
They also do not include the investment required in electricity distribution, and households’ investments in rooftop solar, batteries, electric vehicles and electrified appliances. That means the total costs to consumers of the transition would be much higher in any case than either estimate would suggest.
Baked into the contrasting positions on nuclear taken by major parties is a marked divergence on whether baseload power – now dubbed “always-on” power by the Coalition – is what is even needed in today’s power grid.
For the Coalition, replacing baseload coal with another round-the-clock but emissions-free technology is the way to go. As Dutton said: “We just can’t pretend any more than part-time power is going to run a full-time economy.”
But that stands in stark opposition to the advice from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which underscores the need for flexible power to maximise the use of low-cost renewables. In effect, “always-on” power is an outdated concept. Renewables can in theory at times already meet 100 per cent of electricity demand, were that technically possible on the grid.
Under AEMO’s calculations, using the “progressive” scenario favoured by the Coalition, only 21.5 terawatt-hours of generation is expected to come from coal by 2035, just 9.3 per cent of the total. That compares with 38 per cent in the Coalition’s model.
The worry is that having to run a high-cost power supply source around the clock to meet more than one-third of annual demand will mean switching off rooftop solar systems to make the system balance, and significant wastage of low-cost renewables.
That would be a blow not just to households but to the confidence of private investors lining up to develop wind, solar and storage plants that are needed now to help ease the country’s creaking electricity grid.
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I am confused as to why this debate has suddenly started up again when it seems to be pretty clear that we are slowly phasing out coal derived power ( as we need to and should be ) replacing it with solar, wind and hydro etc. Right now it is not clear to me just how much nuclear power is actually needed and by when.
We now have enough experience globally to know that nuclear power is feasible and reliable but is also pretty expensive compared with pretty much any other sources. If serious alternatives exist – and they do - we should explore them fully and only move to nuclear when it is price competitive in sunny and hydro-rich Australia!
Essentially, the bottom line is that there are transitions to be made to maximum renewables and necessary nuclear over the next decade or two. How much of what and when is well above my pay-grade!
My one plea is that the transition be technically driven and not politically driven! We need to keep the politics out and the scientific decision making in! What is the chance of that happening do you reckon?
Not high I suspect!
David.
I believe a blended approach is needed, David, which includes solar wind waves and nuclear power. Who knows? For how long will Australia be a sunny hydro-rich landscape—the Saraha Desert was a green mango-rich land. Some might see recent flooding in deserts as a shift in the earth's distribution of life-giving resources.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think we can all agree on is that prices never come down, no matter the final outcome.