Any chance of copying the article for us unsubscribed?
Not sure why Dutton is pushing nuclear but I suspect a combination of culture wars, and just plain opposition to anything the government does.
2nd Part,
Fitz: So it has to be the government that takes the hit?
DMcD: Project developers have to get their money back. So, for example in the UK, they basically have put a levy on electricity bills to pay for their plant there. The latest projected cost of that one, at Hinkley Point, is ÂŁ46 billion, which is $90 billion. And the electricity that will come from that is roughly $250 per megawatt hour, which is more than twice the cost of wholesale power in Australia at the moment, at least three times the cost of wind power, and four times the cost of solar power.
Fitz: The economics look grim! But what about the point about our bounteous natural resources? Huge chunks of Western Australia are apparently made of uranium. Is it insane for us as a country
not to be pushing nuclear when we can sell it to the world and all of us, or at least Gina, can get rich – or richer?
DMcD: But you’ve got to have a market for it. And that market is disappearing because of the economic forces, whether we like it or not. Even if you wanted to, who are you going to be selling the uranium to? In the US, they tried to build one – the VC Summer project in South Carolina – and then it had to be cancelled because it was clear the economies didn’t work. So they spent nine or 10 billion dollars for a hole in the ground. Right now, there are no further plans for construction of nuclear reactors in the United States, and the UK only has Hinkley Point, which is a financial disaster. None are currently in train to be built in comparable countries, like France, Germany or the US. The French have announced intentions to build six, but none of this is contracted. At the moment, very little is planned for construction outside of China, and even there, they’re actually building substantially more pumped hydro and many times more wind and solar than nuclear.
Fitz: OK, what about the arguments that are still trotted out, along the lines of the sun doesn’t shine at midnight and the wind doesn’t always blow, so in Australia, we need nuclear or coal to assure “base load” if that’s the correct term?
DMcD: Yes, the sun doesn’t shine at night and wind doesn’t always blow, but the idea is to design an electricity system so big and integrated that through a combination of resources – wind, solar, hydro, possibly some small amount of gas – we have a reliable system. And that is what is being done now.
Fitz: The case you have presented so far seems very much against big nuclear. But there’s also a lot of talk of “SMRs” the Small Modular Reactors? Are they at least more feasible? (And what are they, by the way?)
DMcD: There’s a lot of hype around these, and the idea is that they’re smaller, and the constituent modular pieces can be built in factories like the pieces necessary for wind and solar, so they’re easier to build. With the economies of scale you could have the same sort of success story that you’ve had with renewable energy. That was the promise, but in practice, the ones that we have seen developed are not, by any stretch of the imagination, what most people would consider small.
Fitz: But are they working at all, or well, anywhere in the world?
DMcD: No, and that’s the other point. They’re all still theoretical. There is none operating, and the most advanced project in the world over in America,
Nuscale in Idaho, fell over a couple of months ago. They had all these entities lined up to buy the power when it was built, but, over time, as the cost of building just escalated, it got to the point where they all said, “we don’t want this any more, it is too expensive.” And it hasn’t worked anywhere else.
Fitz: Can you, for a moment, be your own devil’s advocate? I clearly haven’t come at you with arguments that have made any headway for nuclear, but there must be some. What are they? Before the interview you acknowledged there were some academics at least open to the option of nuclear, if not gung-ho. What do they say, for nuclear?
DMcD: They talk of the concept called “
dunkelflaute” which is the idea that we risk a time where across the system might not have enough wind and solar for a couple of weeks, so nuclear will cover that. The current reckoning, however, is that in Australia, which gets so much wind, and so much sun and will have a system spanning an entire continent, there is limited risk. Look, there are people of good faith, who are nuclear advocates who care about climate change and are worried that renewables aren’t up to the job and that we need nuclear power to do it. But there are more bad faith actors who see it as an opportunity to muddy the waters and essentially undermine the renewable energy rollout, to cause delay and confusion and essentially prolong the existing coal and gas assets. And it has turned into a sort of cultural war kind of thing, but none of that changes the central economic argument against nuclear.
Fitz: Speaking of culture wars, I suspect you’ll get this down the track, so let me go first. I put it to you, Dr McConnell, that you’re a sell-out academic in the thrall of the renewables industry – yes, a renewable junkie, you heard me, getting all your research grants from renewable people, and
that’s why you’re saying all this stuff against nuclear!
DMcD: [
Laughing, tightly.] I’d love to say that’s the case because it’s actually a bit of a bugbear of mine, how terribly bad the renewable energy industry is at funding research. I don’t think I’ve actually received any money at all from the renewable energy industry. And in the past I have received some funding from the brown coal industry.
Fitz: Thank you, doctor. Your room is up the stairs, first on the left.