Should Australia go Nuclear?

[stui magpie]

So Dutton has announced his Nuclear strategy today.

It essentially involves replacing coal fired electricity stations with Nuclear power plants on the same site. Up to 8 of them.

As usual the two main parties are poles apart and neither being overly honest.

I've done a (little) bit of research on the topic and there's definitely pros and cons. Let's park safety for the point of the exercise as Nuclear Power Plant construction and design along with the tech has improved a lot since the Russians built Chernobyl.

So let's look at the pros and cons.

Pros

Nuclear provides a constant source of power like gas or coal but without the CO2. Solar doesn't work at night, batteries are expensive and have a relatively short shelf life.

Building the Nuke plants on existing Coal powered sites means you can plug straight into existing infrastructure like the transmission facilities. Building Solar and Wind farms all over the place takes up lots of real estate (plus they're fugly) and requires thousands of km of new transmission lines and towers to be built.

We already have Uranium, just have to dig it up and use it.

Nuke power plants have a life of 30-40 years but can be upgraded as you go without having to completely knock down and rebuild so it's a long term plan. Solar panels have a max of 20 years and as above, don't work at night.

It's far from dead tech. China is currently building 20+, India around 9, several other countries including the UK and USA have plants under construction and in planning.

Cons.

Cost 1. According to the CSIRO, Nuclear power is a lot more expensive than renewables or even coal and gas. I'm not sure of the detail behind that calculation

Cost 2. Again the CSIRO estimate that it would cost around $8 Billion to build 1 plant. But, when the North East Link is currently estimated to cost over $26 Billion, it doesn't seem that much.

Time. Labor and Greens claim it would take decades to build them. Fact is, average time to build one is 7-10 years but that is when you have the expertise and all the necessary legislative and regulatory framework in place. Doing the latter could take longer than the build if previous experience of Canberra is any guide.



That's what comes to mind, what does everyone think? I personally think it's well worth looking into the detail further. Another option is generating electricity from Waves which is another constant source but apart from one Australian mob setting up a wave powered generator that worked to power (I think it was King Island) there hasn't been a lot of consistent luck, but shit is improving all the time.

[Bruce Gonsalves]

Parking safety? I imagined that would be a priority. You'd also be aware of fault lines running through Gippsland where Dutton proposes the plant?
I think it's a big no for me.

[What'sinaname]

We should be decades into nuclear power, but for the oil and gas lobby corrupting politicians and keeping us on the coal and gas teat.

Imagine a world with reliable nuclear power being supplemented by renewables during peak sun and wind periods.

We could basically already be a net zero emissions for power and have cheap, reliable power for all

[stui magpie]

Parking safety? I imagined that would be a priority. You'd also be aware of fault lines running through Gippsland where Dutton proposes the plant?
I think it's a big no for me.

Look, fair calls. I parked Safety as there's a lot of hysteria around Nuclear power when the facts are, apart from a handful of serious incidents back when the tech and standards weren't up to scratch, it's been proven to be a reliable energy source around the world.

We don't have big earthquakes in Aus, any Faultline in Gippsland is minimal compared to what could happen if you put one in LA or Christchurch.

You just don't want the CFMEU involved in the building in any way.

[eddiesmith]

The cost is nothing compared to some of the other stuff government waste money on.

They can build all 8 for less than half of Dan's toy train set that no one asked for and no one needs and the time? They'll be built 20 years earlier as well!!!

[roar]

Oh yes, let's ignore all the advice from professional organisations on cost effectiveness and overall benefits, and listen to the politicians instead.

[Culprit]

This is just another Facebook policy that divides the country. Knowing that we don't have a Nuclear workforce to build submarines we will all of a sudden have a workforce to construct multiple power stations. The LNP is carrying on about immigration at the moment. Where do they think the workforce will come from? Not in Australia, we can't fill roles now, and with an aging population, we have no chance to fill these roles. Now costings are yet to be revealed. There are no small Stations in the world that they talk about. One only needs to look at the UK's latest build started in 2017. "The project in southwest England, Britain's first new nuclear plant in more than two decades, was at the last update expected to start operations in June 2027, with an estimated cost of 25-26 billion pounds, which also was a revision of a previous 2025 start date at a cost then estimated at 18 billion pounds".

Now those are the least of the LNP's problems. They have to not only win the election but have to control both houses. The Teals are celebrating as they will retain their seats and despite the spin they won't win the seats where they want to put the stations so where will their seats come from? They will win QLD as that's just our answer to the USA's deep south.

They were in power for 3 terms and did nothing, now they have a plan that's not even costed.

[pietillidie]

My answer would be 'modestly as a bridging technology with science and research benefits' if it were an option.

I would prefer renewables, but we still need to bridge the period between now and grid-scale batteries which stabilise supply.

Safety and handling aside, I also have no doubt that the patent, regulatory and safety burden of nuclear is far greater than commonly acknowledged, as is its susceptibility to monopoly pricing. Hence the cost burden, of course.

But as I say, we still have to bridge the transition sensibly, and modest bridging nuclear makes sense in a geologically inactive land like Australia. The country also needs to stay in the nuclear game, which after all is the cutting edge of work in physics (especially given the carrot of nuclear fusion). But not too much that it can form it's own internal trade bloc and influence policy like fossil fuels have this century.

[eddiesmith]

Uncosted plans? That's good enough for landslide victories in Victoria!!!

[stui magpie]

^

I agree. renewables are great in theory but, at the moment, can't deliver a reliable base load of electricity which we need for stability of the grid.

Until such time as grid size battery tech becomes feasible, the choices for a baseload are Coal, Gas, or Nuclear with green Hydrogen another option.

Theoretically you could use solar power during the day to use electrolysis to split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, store the Hydrogen for burning in a modified gas fired plant at night or at times of peak demand.

Problem is, If I remember my high school science, it uses more energy to split the water than you release when you burn the hydrogen so you're in deficit straight away (same as pumped hydro) but if you can find a spot with plenty of fresh water and sunshine, it's feasible as the science improves the fuel cell and other storage options.

The coal fired power stations are on their last legs so something needs to be done for the short to medium term at least.

[pietillidie]

^Yeah, it could be robbing Peter to pay Paul. I just voted need more info!

If there's no proper science policy around it, and it's not backed by the universities with multiple purposes in mind, then the cost and special arrangements could mean it's too expensive even as an interim step.

What has the science community said? Does the CSIRO have another preference in mind? If it's too hard to develop a specialisation around it then there's no point as it simply becomes another risk and hacking target, and it will be dependent on overseas experts. But if research and fusion were the goal, that's more tempting and meaningful.

Still, it would be nice to build a job engine for a competitive industry that won't be a monopoly locked into other nation's patents. You have to see it as a specialist science and industry in it's own right, or instead go all in on something like post-lithium battery technology or new desalination tech given water is likely to be even more precious in the long run.

Battery or water tech could potentially get all parties and interests on side.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Meanwhile, the half-life of plutonium is still 24,000 years.

Since it is generally agreed that storage of spent-fuel nuclear reactor-waste is required to last for about a million years (in each single case) and that the only viable hypothesis for that is deep geological storage - and since, so far as I am aware, no such permnanent storage yet operates anywhere in the World for high-level reactor waste, people who think it's OK to use nuclear energy production as a short-term fix are kidding themselves.

Here's what the World Nuclear Association (which is the international business lobby in favour of nuclear power) says:

Deep geological disposal is the preferred option for nuclear waste management in most countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA. Hence, there is much information available on different disposal concepts; a few examples are given here. The only purpose-built deep geological repository that is currently licensed for disposal of nuclear material is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the USA, but it does not have a licence for disposal of used fuel or HLW. Plans for disposal of spent fuel are particularly well advanced in Finland, as well as Sweden, France, and the USA, though in the USA there have been political delays. In Canada and the UK, deep disposal has been selected and the site selection processes have commenced.

Of course, the entertaining thing is to see how far you have to read into their page on "storage and disposal" to find this: https://world-nuclear.org/information-l ... tive-waste

The inability of political systems to address the intractable problem of reactor waste storage is probably the best example of shiort-term thinking, ever.

Just to be quite clear, all the reactor waste disposal you read about is actually short-term holding disposal, pending a viable solution becoming feasible.

[nomadjack]

^^^Funny how this fundamental limitation of current nuclear power gets glossed over these days. Modular nuclear tech looks promising but is as far if not further away from realisation than mass scale battery storage.

Nuclear is worth exploring but if anyone thinks it's a fix for even medium term energy supply concerns they are kidding themselves. The lack of policy detail (or background policy work) in Dutton's announcement shows how little genuine commitment there is to even explore the issue in a meaningful way. it's a thought-bubble aimed at wedging Labor and nothing more.

[What'sinaname]

^ France is on a pathway to recycle 96% of the material from nuclear waste. They already recycle plutonium and also recycle some uranium, called RepU, which is re-enriched and used in LWRs.

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles ... ling-plans#