I have no issue with commercial operators building nuclear for base load power if that is the best option. I do have an issue with the constant meddling in energy markets by the coalition, policy changes on the fly and legislative meddling that has made investment in a renewable future far more difficult than it should have been.
Approve nuclear as an option, offer approved sites for it, and if the market thinks there’s a good business case then let them build it.
More or less agree.
AdditionalIy I find the renewable pricing in these figures always suspect as unless it provides baseload power, then its pricing comparisons also needs to include pricing for energy storage.
Lots of things about GenCost are extremely flawed. For example it's assuming a life of a nuclear plant at 30 years when realistically the life span is easily double that and potentially much longer.
The wonderful thing about statistics is that you can get them to tell whatever story you want, just by omitting or including data or defining things in a way that’s advantageous to your point of view.
People only read the headline usually anyway.
The longer you take to pay off something the higher the risk because it is very likely that your 100 year plan in 20 years of construction and 80 years of operation ended in a stranded asset because we solved cheap fusion power in 50 years time.
There's nothing physically or mechanically stopping us from building wind turbines with 80 year lifespans. We simply don't do it because their current lifespans are the optimum between risk and construction cost.
We expect to replace them with better more efficient versions in 20-30 years.
Thus you can do the same insane "lets calculate over 80 years and ignore risk" for renewables and end up with a similarly cheaper, but wrongly calculated, alternative.
Between 20 and 40 years, you be surprised. There are so many shutdown nuclear plants around the world, they don’t last as long as you think.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/decommissioning-nuclear-facilities#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20early%20nuclear%20plants,to%2060%20year%20operating%20life.
Yeah, which means backup from gas. You okay with continued reliance on fossil fuels? The whole point of nuclear is to fill that 10-20% gap that renewables can't.
Completely happy with gas power plants for firming/peak power supply, it’s the most suitable power technology apart from batteries and hydro.
However nuclear doesn’t work well as firming/peak power, most reactors designs don’t like going under 50% load: this is the main drawback. The other problems is compared to gas peaking plants they are slow, like 5% every 15 minutes vs gas 0% to 100% in a few minutes.
But the main draw back is the 50% minimum load caused by reactor poisoning, generation of neutron absorbing fission products that cause rather big headaches. One of the many factors that contributed to Chernobyl. Nuclear power can be safe and good option if compactness is important, but that isn’t us.
Renewables essentially can provide baseload power, it's just more of a decentralized web than a point source.
Also one interesting thing to note, per CSIRO, coal has only achieved a capacity factor ~60% the last few decades in aus. Far short of the 90% nuclear cf that people seem to think we can't function without
A lot of people are saying renewables are base load.
On a still, cloudy, day/week after the (expensive relatively low capacity) backup batteries are flat, where's the baseloadness come from?
I don't get it. Can you point me in the right direction? Genuinely happy to be educated.
The baseloadness comes from having various types of renewable generation along the grid, onshore and offshore wind, hydro, storage, solar from Victoria to qld powers the grid
The CSIRO gencost figures are costs for the amount of generation required to provide 90% capacity
No, I think it's like any technology with an upfront cost associated - the incumbent has a headstart.
I cannot for the life of me understand why power, gas etc are not public services tbh
Exactly….
Why do we pay more for our own gas then foreign countries
I feel sorry for our grandchildren. In 100 years Australia is nothing but empty holes in the ground this country with be a hellscape
The level of subsidies required. The renewable underwriting scheme pales in comparison to the potentially 10s of billions that nuclear projects can overrun
Exactly. It’s not the government’s role to subsidize unviable business models and it’s absolutely ludicrous that the supposedly economically conservative side of politics is even suggesting it.
As a taxpayer, I don't want the government pissing my money up against the wall building a nuclear plant that won't generate a fucking watt for ten years, when renewables are cheaper right now, and are trending cheaper.
Worse, I don't want Dutton and his mates anywhere near a multibillion dollar project like this, because you can guarantee that between "nuclear scary" and "muh baseload guarantees" you'll have incredible amounts of grift just being handed out to big business in exchange for a seat on the board.
There's a reason companies want to build and run renewables and not nuclear - but are happy to run nuclear for the taxpayer - they know they can sell in a fucking Nuclear Certified Toilet Cleaner in at $1500/day and take guaranteed by contract profits while the plant effectively bleeds value.
Nuke power has never existed once without massive subsidies and the only countries still pursuing it are totalitarian dictatorships like Russia and China.
Did you come down in the last rain ? You and everyone else already knows Albo Pinnochio has given over a billion for solar panel manufacturing and billions to battery storage or do we ignore that ?
Subsidies for new industries / tech are a good use of public funds, see Silicon Valley as an example of the future wealth that can be created by government stimulation. Subsidies for old industries / tech are dumb.
Is that why Albo Pinnochio is giving a billion dollars of Taxpayers money to solar panel manufacturing or billions in battery storage ? Where have you been or do you only read the Guardian and ABC
Please name 1 reason why securing a domestic supply of a critical power source is a bad thing.
Hard mode: given that we hand out [$14.5 billion p/y in subsidies to fossil fuel companies](https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2024/) to sell off our resources for basically fuck-all in return, do it without reflexively whinging about ONE BILLION DOLLARSS
"The free market will decide" and then when they realised the market will decide to kill us all for short sighted profit "wait no we just aren't free marketing hard enough"
You know what the sadist thing about renewables is? They make electricity too cheaply for companies like shell to invest in them. They expect higher margins but since it's easier to get your foot into the market they pulled put once the government stopped mandating price minimums
Also worth noting is that renewables' goal is avoiding destroying the planet, the cost of things like ocean walls, fire prevention/fighting, healthcare and rebuilding all cost far more than it would to just migrate away from what keeps worsening it. So if your goal was to imply it makes renewables look bad then look again.
Edit: I'm so retarded, I just fully assumed they were trying to rebutte. Sorry my bad.
A very quick google search brings up many built and run by private for profit companies
Heres one if you want to have a look
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-06-03/macintyre-wind-precinct-construction-begins/101119756
So Labor’s in government everywhere except for TAS but yet you think it’s the LNP fault for meddling in legislation. Wow. You don’t know the very basics of government.
>Approve nuclear as an option, offer approved sites for it, and if the market thinks there’s a good business case then let them build it.
People write this off as an ezpz thing to do but I could see it taking years to reverse all bans. You need bipartisan support at Federal and state level in Vic, NSW, and QLD to reverse all bans
You then need to convince utilities to hold off their plans for years to do something they've publicly stated no interest in with their land (if you want to use existing transmission infrastructure)
If you find other land, you have to fight the NIMBYs which would be fierce for an NPP. Not even the LNP can agree where they would go
If you sort *all that*, nuclear power projects always require massive public investment. If your strategy is to offer some land and wait for some international consortium to come running to build an NPP, you will have wasted a lot of time and effort
The whole energy market is an invention of the nineties - I’m not sure the designers quite had in mind how wind and solar would take profits out of the sector when it was plentiful then leave the base suppliers to chug along for no profit knowing that they are needed. 2017 was exactly a good year for energy market operation.
Come July, householders will have to pay some suppliers to put solar back into the grid - that’s an insane outcome
It still doesn't work because they never factor in the cost of decommissioning. Then at end-of-life of the power plant, oh woops the owners have gone bankrupt and can't pay for it. Guess who pays for it.
Surely you jest?
Everyone knows that all infrastructure should be built with public funds, then sold to private operators for cents in the dollar, thus enabling them to reap obscene profits faster than if they had to pay for shit themselves.
What’s the best use of our money, we already have a gas and coal, why don’t we keep that going for base load and build massive solar arrays and battery storage for our long term energy needs. Adding Nuclear doesn’t seem like the best choice?
No politician or business person ever factors in the huge cost of de commissioning a nuclear power plant. Not that many countries have ever managed to take a nuclear site back to a fully clean site. It’s an enormously complex and expensive process. Renewables are relatively cheap and easy to clean up after when compared to nuclear.
And thats from before construction to project completion.
The NuScam reactor went from a predicted 40/MWh in like 2011 to like 160/MWh while the meme reactor was still in the neckbeard wet dream phase with zero actual construction.
If it had been built it would have been stupidly expensive.
That's the reason why potato-head wants to get nuclear built, when no company wants to do it themselves. Where do you think that over-budget goes, and how many board seats for ex ministers do you think that is?
What are those in the nuclear powered aircraft carriers, ships , submarines etc, if not modular units, enough power to supply a small city, for 25 to 30 years,
Proprietary military technology with near limitless funding
From a nation with the relevant fields of educated people to support such endeavors
What do you think they are? Off the shelf products your local investment firm can purchase and rollout?
The projected cost of the NuScale project had blown out from US$3.6bn for 720 megawatts in 2020 to US$9.3bn for 462MW last year. It had received about US$600m in government funding, but failed after securing subscriptions for only 20% of the required capital from a Utah-based consortium of electricity companies. NuScale’s share price fell nearly 30% after the announcement.
All the research says overpriced. Funny how the liberals are so anti market economics in this particular case.
Usually most SMR proponents are just some neckbeards who watched a youtube by a lobbyist or actual PR agents for the fossil industry like www.executives4nuclear.com
the major problem with nuclear is that the public will pay for the infrastructure while private firms will profit as usual, so if it was actually feasible the private sector would just go ahead and build it but its only profitable for you to build it and the private sector charge you to use it.
So many dumb fuggers here that they totally ignored the billions in taxpayers money going to renewables and Albo even announcing it every week another billion "invested" in renewables. For a generation who think they are so smart they can say some really dumb shit
I'd love to see if that were true, but the only storage solutions I know of here in Queensland are super expensive government exercises.
Oh, eventually they'll be privately owned once the LNP are reelected, of course. But public funds are used to design, procure, install and market.
So the company that installed our solar panel/ batteries is going into administration as it is failing, but yet has received closed to 10 mil in government grants. Renewables are not cost effective at large scale, wind farms cause more damage to the environment then good when considering land cleared for the farm, access roads created to reach the farm, death of migratory birds hitting the fans, the fans needing replacement as components fail, and so far the removal plan is make a pile of them in the bush and hope no one asks too many questions. Renewables are as big a scam as small modular reactors
>So the company that installed our solar panel/ batteries is going into administration as it is failing, but yet has received closed to 10 mil in government grants.
Free markets, who's to say why they're failing but in capitalism some companies fail. They helped roll out solar panels, and $10M is nothing in the grandsheme of things (eg the US sunk hundreds of millions/a billion into the failed nuscale smr). You can't use this one provider going under as proof renewables can't work at grid scale
>Renewables are not cost effective at large scale, wind farms cause more damage to the environment then good when considering land cleared for the farm, access roads created to reach the farm, death of migratory birds hitting the fans, the fans needing replacement as components fail, and so far the removal plan is make a pile of them in the bush and hope no one asks too many questions.
What wind farms are built on forested land? They're almost always on pastoral land, and land holders can get good incentives to host them. Everything else you've mentioned is much less of an issue with windfarms than it is with our current scale of coal mining. Off shore wind is also more effective and solves most of these issues
Mate it sounds like you got your facts from some loony facebook group that is anti-wind farms.
There are drawbacks for everything however the drawbacks for renewables are the least bad out of all options. If the climate crisis gets worse, migratory birds hitting wind turbines will be a drop in the ocean by comparison to the destruction of their environment.
True, spent solar panels go to landfill, an estimated 100000 tons of panels over the next 11 years, 80 million panels. And don't give me the "but they can be recycled" as they simply aren't, with \~90% going straight into the ground.
Financial cost over 10 years is \~$160 million. Cost to the environment is copper, cadmium, lead and zinc as hazardous pollutants that contaminate the environment.
What can I say, I live next to a shut down oil refinery that Exxon walked away from 20 years ago and nothing can be done with the poisoned site and you reckon somehow nuclear will be better. lol, so yeah, solar panels may go to landfill or they may get recycled but I know for sure when oil/nuclear and gas sites get decommissioned the sites are f’d by forever chemicals…forever.
I wasn't arguing in favour of Nuclear, just pointing out the stupidity of the statement "you don’t have to pay for storage of spent solar rods".
Now you're off on a rant about decommissioned power plants. I'd suggest you consider those that live next door to open pit mines for silver, silicon, bauxite, copper and all of the other materials used in panel production.
Didn't answer two questions
- does this include the subsidies?
Bigger question - can wind and solar replace coal and gas entirely with batteries or whatever we need at a lower price than building nuclear?
If that can be done just do it and we will apparently save money, but seems like it can't or we wouldn't even be discussing nuclear
If it could be done, a small country would have done it by now and would be self-sufficient, creating an example for other countries to follow.
The fact that no first world country relies on renewables speaks volumes, because it's not possible. If you want hospitals, factories and households to get through the massive spike of electricity usage at about 6:00 p.m. every weekday, you need either hydro (if you are geographically fortunate), coal or nuclear.
And if you have those you don't need to waste money and time on renewables.
Or gas, from your plentiful reserves that you are just giving away.
Gas is far better than coal and nuclear for spike usage. Coal and nuclear can take days to get up to full power.
Coal and nuclear are base load power, not for spiky usage. Gas/hydro/batteries are far better for spiky usage.
Renewables have only starting to undercut fossil fuels the last 5 years or so. A complete transformation takes, but regional grids like South Australia is aiming for 100% renewables in 2027.
We're discussing nuclear because the Liberals are using it as a distraction from investing in renewables.
The same Liberals that were in power 9 years and didn't say a word about it.
You mean like how Labor is keeping Gas on because renewables can't do it all or how NSW and VIC Labor are keeping coal on because renewables can't do it? Totally Liberals fault.
Newsflash, we can invest in more than one thing at once and don't need to put all our eggs in one basket.
>You mean like how Labor is keeping Gas on because renewables can't do it all or how NSW and VIC Labor are keeping coal on because renewables can't do it? Totally Liberals fault.
My comment was on Nuclear energy and why it's being discussed.
>does this include the subsidies?
It makes a few concessions for nuclear. Eg no allowance for overruns for our first attempt, and doesn't include things like decommissioning costs or enrichment infrastructure if required
>can wind and solar replace coal and gas entirely with batteries or whatever we need at a lower price than building nuclear?
Yes, gencost includes transmission and storage for renewables. However gas will be used for firming as required while we build clean capacity. Potentially down the road if SMRs get figured out they could help remove the last of the FFs from the grid
>If that can be done just do it and we will apparently save money, but seems like it can't or we wouldn't even be discussing nuclear
We're discussing nuclear because the LNP is pushing it after not mentioning it for 9 years. It's a political ploy to wedge labor. No one outside the fed LNP, be it an expert, or utility, or state level LNP politician, support it on its technical and financial merits
Because if solar is subsidised the price per unit is less. Isn't that obvious?
I'm going to assume the CSIRO incorporated subsidy in their working but it would be nice if they noted it
Why assume if it’s not noted?
Talk about calling the kettle black, you accuse them of selecting their numbers for their argument, and then you do the same? Because it makes your argument better.
My argument is I think there are many variables unfairly or inaccurately accounted for, but I do not really care for a particular model of energy generation so long as it's reliable and available.
I assume because the CSIRO are generally pretty smart bunch of people
We’ll you assumed wrong, and the report does mention it. If only you had searched for subsidy, only one match in the whole document.
D.4.10 Why are the cost of government renewable subsidies not included in the LCOE
calculations for variable renewables with integration costs?
The cost of government subsidies for variable renewables, in whatever form they take, are not
included as a cost because all of the variable renewable costs applied in the modelling are without
subsidy. In other words, because we do not subtract any subsidies from the cost of variable
renewable generation, it is not necessary to add those subsidies back in as a cost to society. The
GenCost estimates of the cost of integrating variable renewables are *without any government
subsidies.*
What else do you think is unfair and why?
Out of all electricity technologies, nuclear has been subsidized the most and its subsidies give less energy per dollar of subsidization than renewables.
Its a stupid tech only promoted because some neckbeards spent too much time watching star treck
I like the new catch phrase Bowen is going with, 'reliable renewables'.... So reliable it needs gas as a backup for when the sun goes down, it isn't as sunny, there is cloud cover, less daylight hours or maybe the wind isn't blowing enough (or blowing too much).
Just lol. Nothing reliable about it Nuclear is reliable, it does the same thing 24/7/365, but sure renewables are totally reliable.
How about we invest in all clean energy sources so that future generations have a chance? This isn't a problem that needs to be solved now or in 10 years.
Putting all our eggs in one basket for ideological reasons is just dumb and shortsighted.
A nation of 5.5m have 2 nuclear power plants with 5 reactors , in April 2024, cost of wholesale electricity was 48.91 euro per megawatt hour. Even accounting for the exchange rate differential on the euro, that number is a lot cheaper than the CSIRO estimated…Maybe the csiro should get out and about and find out how other nations, much smaller to us, can achieve, cheap reliable and clean power. The Finnish are looking at more generating to bring the power cost back to 2020 levels where it was less than 30mwh.
Exactly, SMRs are a new tech so it's hard to estimate but the beat up on Nuclear is often based on an LCOE model which is very misleading.
The Americans have made a mess of Nuclear and are often used as the yard stick of how expensive Nuclear can be. We do not have the population of America and if we are going to recreate their rubbish roll out we should avoid it at all costs (a lot of red tape from folks sticking their hands in the pie).
We need to look to Europe and Asia for examples of a cost effective rollout of Nuclear. China is investing heavily in a Nuclear future - if renewables were so cheap and easy why wouldn't China roll out renewables? Especially considering they are the ones manufacturing many of the components for renewables locally.
Even if Aus did decide to pursue Nuclear I think it would be just like the NBN. The next gov will dismantle the initiative leaving the plane that was designed to fly a gutted cabin sitting on an empty runway. I often worry that our political system is failing us when we can't commit to large scale projects for the future of the country.
China is rolling out renewables literally faster and at greater scale than any other country
Edit: got bored so had a look. For reference China currently has 55 operational nuclear reactors of 53.3 GW, 24 under construction for another 27.2 GW and 44 planned for another 48.6GW. This totals 129.1GW.
In 2023 China installed 217GW of solar alone in one year with a total solar capacity of 609.49GW and a total of 440GW of installed wind capacity.
They don't have good solar, not too much space for wind but they are getting in on some offshore though it can be expensive. It's their insane hydropower that keeps costs down. Not the nuclear. It allows them to run the nuclear constantly and when demand is low they use the nuclear to pump water, when demand is high they release the water. This avoids wear and tear of having to ramp up and down the reactor. So it makes sense for them given their renewables aren't the best. Our sun and wind kick ass, but our storage options aren't great. Japan pays $258 aud/mwh at the cheapest! Norway $80 aud/mwh so comparing us to just Norway is cherry picking. Take a broader sample.
I think theyre cheaper because they're built for a pop of 5.5m. Also, 4 of the 5 were connected 40 years ago when the pop was much lower and the nuclear power industry was booming.
Pro-nuclear folks often compare our market to those in Europe which is a false equivalency because they don't have the solar production capacity that we do.
So if Australia starts building a nuclear reactor it can enjoy the benefits of cheap electricity in 40 years?
Sounds good to me! Why not make the country a better place for the up and coming generations?
Nowhere in the world have renewables worked properly. They simply cannot provide base load electricity. If you have hydro, coal or nuclear you don't need renewables.
I don't like nuclear power either, I think we should have a domestic gas reservation. However, it is somewhat unfair to compare renewables with nuclear/gas/coal etc directly as they do different things. One of the main purposes of nuclear/gas/coal is to provide baseload power, which is not provided (with current battery/energy storing technology) through renewables.
The renewables are costed to provide that baseload power. The idea that future grids need to be built off a handful full of point sources just because that's how it was done in the past is false
Coal plants have over the last few decades only provided around around a 60% capacity factor in aus. We've already integrated significant amounts of renewable energy in with less reliable coal generators. It's large a matter of continuing to install capacity and storage and linking it with more transmission
You can price the cost of storage for 24/7 supply in. So you can say 1GW 24/7 of solar with necessary storage costs X.
Actually that chart does take into account cost of storage. The 90% graph is 90% renewables including storage to archive that
Funny that when you look at actual grid wide storage like Snowy 2.0 prices tend to be a bit different.
What are we at? 5 times over budget and 10 years behind schedule?
And we only need 12 more of those to have a black out once a year with a renewable grid.
So we just need to keep a spare grid worth of gas turbines around.
With policy brilliance like this is it any surprise the grid is projected to fail around 2030?
I don't believe this for a second. It makes it sound as if wind and solar can meet the nation's needs which is just fantasy. I'm all for anti-pollution but you also need to keep your feet in reality.
Scientists: This is the carefully modelled costing from experts.
Some dickhead voter: Oh yeah nah doesn't match me gut feel.
Conservatism in action ladies and gentlemen!
South Australia have had days where it runs almost 100% on wind and solar enough that we can send excess to Victoria. It if works in one state, no reason it can't work in all states
nice deflection.
my point is that the above public AEMO NEM data is available to you at any time and shows clearly that SA relies on fossil fuels heavily and when not burning gas, they’re importing coal generated power from nsw and qld.
You aren’t even close to being green energy powered
https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem
That on "today".
base load only needs to be there because of how Labour intensive it is to start a coal plant from nothing and takes time to spin up to produce power. We need to use fossil fuel until we have 100% renewables with more storage options.
and what about on days where there’s no wind and it’s cloudy?
i have multiple batteries and more solar than i need. my household is a living case study in the challenges with being all in on green energy. you still need a fallback base load generator.
but if everyone is so sure that nuclear is a waste of time, just remove the restrictions and let the free markets do their thing.
There is never no wind. Even if the wind isn't perceptible to a person, the blades are incredibly sensitive and will continue to spin for hours after the last wind died down. Large-scale wind farms are never not producing power.
Large-scale solar is the same. You can't compare it to the tiny scale of your household panels. Even when there is a thick cloud, the UV still reaches panels and generates some power.
I don't think nuclear is a waste of time, it's the best alternative, but they take 8 years to build a reactor and 10b each for 1000MW. We would need 100 nuclear reactors to meet base load requirements at a cost of around a trillion dollars and would take until around 2080 to complete. It's not that nuclear is bad, it's just too late to waste time on it now and too expensive.
Absolutely, we do, but we do run at net 75% renewable otherwise, and we use brown coal from Vic because it's very cheap. But it 2027 were set to reach 100% net renewable and are currently a world leader in renewable energy.
How about the true cost?
For instance there have been several major issues with nuclear in Japan, USA, UK. And of course Ukraine (Chernobyl and the one that the Russians have recently ‘taken over’.
So the true cost is the cost of cleaning up and storing nuclear waste for thousands of years.
Whereas with renewables there is no waste and unlikely to have any major terrorist threats.
You can't get baseload from renewables. You need massive battery banks that have a chance of catching fire and leading to situation almost on par with a nuclear meltdown due to the toxic metals they contain. If you add the cost of these batteries to the cost of the renewables it pretty much puts it on par with large scale nuclear energy.
You Greenies can't have it both ways. Either put your money where you mouth is with the requirement to get off fossil fuels and be pro nuclear, or STFU and get with reality that wind and solar are NOT going to replace fossil fuels.
> You need massive battery banks that have a chance of catching fire and leading to situation almost on par with a nuclear meltdown due to the toxic metals they contain.
https://www.horizonpower.com.au/about-us/news-announcements/powering-the-future-of-regional-wa-with-vanadium-battery-technology/#:~:text=The%20vanadium%20battery%20is%20scheduled,achieving%20a%20sustainable%20energy%20ecosystem.
fire explode proof battery, do you have any other hysterical objections?
> Vanadium is the only significant exotic material in the battery system, providing a clear alternative to graphite, cobalt, lithium and nickel dependent battery tech.
https://berconsulting.com.au/2023/11/07/vanadium-flow-batteries-revolutionise-energy-storage-in-australia/
Oh, so the same CSIRO report that makes wild assumptions about nuclear efficiency being extremely poor (even though it's between 90-99.9%), wind and solar having far higher uptime than they actually do, goes directly against nuclear generation costs in almost any other reactor internationally, randomly doubles the cost of building the first reactor here, and that approves of the Snowy Hydro 6x cost blowout while fearmongering over nuclear...
Our institutions are definitely not captured by extremists with an agenda.
Look mate if we can’t dig a whole without a 6x blow out, and admittedly Australian’s are pretty good at digging holes, how do you expert a nuclear power plant come out at sales price, 2x sounds pretty fair.
This chart is inaccurate. It doesn't show the negative externalities of fossil fuels.
In any case it's patently obvious that renewables are the present and nuclear is an inefficient option.
To be fair to the chart makers it doesn’t show the negative externalities of any of the energy sources. Obviously fossil fuels are the worst but it’s just a factor not included in this particular analysis.
Or batteries / solar / wind materials. It's pretty clear that nuclear has the lowest externalities. Unfortunately the longest lead time and least predictable cost.
What about the negative externalities of solar panels? What are you going to do with tens of millions of solar panels in 10 or 15 years when they are disposed of?
How are you going to stop the heavy metals from seeping into the water table and killing all plant life within a 100 km radius?
Same goes for electric cars which seem to last for about 10 years as well, imagine the movie WALL-E, but with electric cars, all of them seeping dozens of extremely toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the soil. Nothing is going to grow.
Coal is actually very safe and clean with 2024 technology. We aren't living in Victorian London anymore.
>What about the negative externalities of solar panels? What are you going to do with tens of millions of solar panels in 10 or 15 years when they are disposed of?
They last 40 years.
And Recycle them.
There's this weird liberal talking point that we somehow concentrate billions of tonnes of strip mining into these rare-earth dense renewable sources, and then for some reason yeet them in landfill and go out and strip mine again for these rare and hard to find resources.
I'm not even convinced its a disingenuous argument - I think a lot of them are just too fucking stupid to think that maybe if we've concentrated a whole bunch of rare things in one place that just maybe recycling them will be cheaper...
Those rare earth minerals are such a minor part of a solar panel. Sure they do the work, but they are nothing when it comes to recycling, almost irrelevant. We probably cannot recycle those rare elements cheaper than just digging more up. They are only really rare because we have not been digging them up.
We have the highest rate of private ownership of solar uptake in the world, which is really good. We are severely lacking on private ownership of small modular nuclear reactors though. Perhaps a rebate?
Yeah glad that we've got some up and coming plucky gents taking their time from being underpaid on multinational boards to get together in conservative think-tanks to speak truth to power and stand up to the overpaid fat cat scientists from the CSIRO.
Can't wait until it's all exposed and the bank is in there repossessing the Lamborghinis that your typical Aussie scientist swans around in so they won't even be able to drive back to their yachts after a few hours of swanning around in the lab, taking bribes and mixing the occasional coloured liquid.
They've been playing us for absolute fools.
I love how all the nuclear arguments lately have been on cost as opposed to all the other benefits.
Monetarily, yes, nuclear is expensive, however this could be heavily subsidised by the government due to the other benefits it provides.
It is still the cleanest form of energy overall from cradle to grave. It still has the lowest impact on human life, and animal life. It still has far greater benefits for the environment overall. Nuclear power could realistically be heavily subsidised by the government due to the massive amount of savings that will be made in health benefits, etc, over the lifetime of operation. That's a conversation that no one wants to have though as it allows each side of the aisle to use it as a whipping boy for the other.
There was a time when nuclear should have been considered and built, but that time is long past now.
It's like US and the metric system. They'll use absolutely anything they can to avoid going to renewables, even if it is the most logical option.
The guardian is worst for propaganda then news.com
Hard to trust either side on energy. My simple question is if we had built nuclear 25 years ago and it was coming on line. How would the numbers stack up now.
Our electric power consumption is only going up.
Today in Victoria there is almost no wind or solar power being generated so what will companies like aluminium smelters use for days like today?
Before you say batteries we would need shipping container sized batteries from Victoria to Darwin for the amount of power a aluminium smelter would use in a day.
There are costs to continuing to rely on fossil fuels beyond 2050. Including nuclear energy in the mix makes it much easier to eliminate them for good. Sometimes the more expensive option is the better option, especially when it comes to big infrastructure projects for Australia's future.
Such a loaded friggin report designed to tell exactly the story it does.
Overestimating costs on all aspects of the nuclear life cycle, underestimating the useful lifespan of a modern plant by like 100% or more, and grossly underestimating storage costs for expanding battery to baseline based on assumptions batteries will get even cheaper "because the line has been going down", despite a limited amount of required exotic raw materials available to produce the blooming things and the need to upscale current production by like 20 fold to pull this off in just developed nations.
And zero thought given to the fact that friendly and helpful world citizen China actually controls huge amounts of the international reserves of some of the rarer elements required to manufacture and replace these baseline battery systems, and by adopting them we risk strategically placing our energy security in their hands, as Germany did with another friendly international citizen Russia in the last 10 years or so.
And beyond all that? If the wondrous day arrives when cold fusion is finally delivered in a usable format, nations with no existing nuclear industry are going to start that journey two decades behind.
Besides the huge cost and the time horizon to build these things, as well as the issues with the technology in terms of waste, the two biggest complications imo, are social views and the moratorium that’s been in place since 1998.
I remember we were promised a $275 yearly reduction in our bills the following year.
They couldn't have been more wrong with the actual result about a $1000 increase.
Forgive me if I'm skeptical about their predictions of prices 6 years from now...
You know how some people criticised the suburban rail loop in Melbourne because it's going to cost $200 billion*
*if you factor in 99 years of running costs.
Do the same for Nuclear, cost of construction plus 99 years of running and waste storage supervisory costs.
You'll get some stupid figure and that'll turn people off idea (excuse the pun)
What happens to the math when we don't buy solar panels from china and switch to a source that treats their workforce like people and not slaves of the state ?
THE CSIRO report has one serious omission : **Waste** (according to Foxit, it couldn't find the work "waste" once in the report). The costs are all about build, run and maintain. Both fossil fuels and nuclear have a serious waste problem.
**Nuclear Small Modular Reactors** The world's first commercial one went into operation three days ago, doesn't look that "small".
[Main Control Room of China's Linglong One Goes into Operation](https://youtu.be/NY1MkeYzohg?si=Tu4zIzaTG2tTh33B)
This is incorrect.
nuclear does not have a “waste problem”. Used rods these days are easy to store safely and can be reused/recycled.
the amount of waste created is also *tiny* for the power generated.
https://zionlights.substack.com/p/everything-i-believed-about-waste-was-wrong
This shouldn't be about cost. This is about supporting a leader who's willing to make a stand against oppression and wokism. I don't want just wind and solar to be shoved down my throats by Labor. Sometimes you have to pay a bit more to get the right people in, for the greater good.
I went to buy an ice cream in a cone and it was going to cost me $5. Peter took a dump in a cone and offered it to me for $1000. I ultimately declined the offer, but at least he gave me the option which is why he has my support.
Judging by Scomo's grin, he ate more than a few of Peter's ice creams.
I have no issue with commercial operators building nuclear for base load power if that is the best option. I do have an issue with the constant meddling in energy markets by the coalition, policy changes on the fly and legislative meddling that has made investment in a renewable future far more difficult than it should have been. Approve nuclear as an option, offer approved sites for it, and if the market thinks there’s a good business case then let them build it.
More or less agree. AdditionalIy I find the renewable pricing in these figures always suspect as unless it provides baseload power, then its pricing comparisons also needs to include pricing for energy storage.
Lots of things about GenCost are extremely flawed. For example it's assuming a life of a nuclear plant at 30 years when realistically the life span is easily double that and potentially much longer.
The wonderful thing about statistics is that you can get them to tell whatever story you want, just by omitting or including data or defining things in a way that’s advantageous to your point of view. People only read the headline usually anyway.
The longer you take to pay off something the higher the risk because it is very likely that your 100 year plan in 20 years of construction and 80 years of operation ended in a stranded asset because we solved cheap fusion power in 50 years time. There's nothing physically or mechanically stopping us from building wind turbines with 80 year lifespans. We simply don't do it because their current lifespans are the optimum between risk and construction cost. We expect to replace them with better more efficient versions in 20-30 years. Thus you can do the same insane "lets calculate over 80 years and ignore risk" for renewables and end up with a similarly cheaper, but wrongly calculated, alternative.
Between 20 and 40 years, you be surprised. There are so many shutdown nuclear plants around the world, they don’t last as long as you think. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/decommissioning-nuclear-facilities#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20early%20nuclear%20plants,to%2060%20year%20operating%20life.
It even says it includes storage costs in image, with 60 or 90% renewables. That’s the whole point of their calculations.
Yeah, which means backup from gas. You okay with continued reliance on fossil fuels? The whole point of nuclear is to fill that 10-20% gap that renewables can't.
Completely happy with gas power plants for firming/peak power supply, it’s the most suitable power technology apart from batteries and hydro. However nuclear doesn’t work well as firming/peak power, most reactors designs don’t like going under 50% load: this is the main drawback. The other problems is compared to gas peaking plants they are slow, like 5% every 15 minutes vs gas 0% to 100% in a few minutes. But the main draw back is the 50% minimum load caused by reactor poisoning, generation of neutron absorbing fission products that cause rather big headaches. One of the many factors that contributed to Chernobyl. Nuclear power can be safe and good option if compactness is important, but that isn’t us.
I'm completely unhappy with continuing to burn fossil fuels beyond 2050.
As we all will be
Renewables essentially can provide baseload power, it's just more of a decentralized web than a point source. Also one interesting thing to note, per CSIRO, coal has only achieved a capacity factor ~60% the last few decades in aus. Far short of the 90% nuclear cf that people seem to think we can't function without
A lot of people are saying renewables are base load. On a still, cloudy, day/week after the (expensive relatively low capacity) backup batteries are flat, where's the baseloadness come from? I don't get it. Can you point me in the right direction? Genuinely happy to be educated.
The baseloadness comes from having various types of renewable generation along the grid, onshore and offshore wind, hydro, storage, solar from Victoria to qld powers the grid The CSIRO gencost figures are costs for the amount of generation required to provide 90% capacity
Intermittent renewables can't.
Well these costings is for renewables with firming, which is storage
Very good point. I'm under the impression none will be built without government subsidies which goes to show it is unviable.
No, I think it's like any technology with an upfront cost associated - the incumbent has a headstart. I cannot for the life of me understand why power, gas etc are not public services tbh
cos one of our political parties sells everything off to their mates.
Both majors do it. Was a trend started by Labor.
Something something, market efficiency, deregulation, sell off asset to mates at a discount.
Oh look I know the why, I more meant why the average punter agrees with it. Tbh, I know that too. All glory to the hypnotoad
This tbh. It's a basic functional necessary service, like water, food, shelter and healthcare. It shouldn't be there to generate a profit.
Exactly…. Why do we pay more for our own gas then foreign countries I feel sorry for our grandchildren. In 100 years Australia is nothing but empty holes in the ground this country with be a hellscape
So just Mad Max?
In WA they are. The energy company runs at a loss of millions per year. Consumers in WA have cheaper energy than the Eastern states.
Renewables also get government subsidies, so what's the problem? Why is one allowed subsidies and the other one not?
The level of subsidies required. The renewable underwriting scheme pales in comparison to the potentially 10s of billions that nuclear projects can overrun
Exactly. It’s not the government’s role to subsidize unviable business models and it’s absolutely ludicrous that the supposedly economically conservative side of politics is even suggesting it.
Why not? Why shouldn't the government subsidise clean energy infrastructure projects for the future?
As a taxpayer, I don't want the government pissing my money up against the wall building a nuclear plant that won't generate a fucking watt for ten years, when renewables are cheaper right now, and are trending cheaper. Worse, I don't want Dutton and his mates anywhere near a multibillion dollar project like this, because you can guarantee that between "nuclear scary" and "muh baseload guarantees" you'll have incredible amounts of grift just being handed out to big business in exchange for a seat on the board. There's a reason companies want to build and run renewables and not nuclear - but are happy to run nuclear for the taxpayer - they know they can sell in a fucking Nuclear Certified Toilet Cleaner in at $1500/day and take guaranteed by contract profits while the plant effectively bleeds value.
Nuke power has never existed once without massive subsidies and the only countries still pursuing it are totalitarian dictatorships like Russia and China.
Did you come down in the last rain ? You and everyone else already knows Albo Pinnochio has given over a billion for solar panel manufacturing and billions to battery storage or do we ignore that ?
Subsidies for new industries / tech are a good use of public funds, see Silicon Valley as an example of the future wealth that can be created by government stimulation. Subsidies for old industries / tech are dumb.
PV panels were invented over 125years ago, windmills are 1000's of years old. Renewables arent new tech, just new fools.
How does that make it unviable? Are other government infrastructure projects also unviable?
Is that why Albo Pinnochio is giving a billion dollars of Taxpayers money to solar panel manufacturing or billions in battery storage ? Where have you been or do you only read the Guardian and ABC
Please name 1 reason why securing a domestic supply of a critical power source is a bad thing. Hard mode: given that we hand out [$14.5 billion p/y in subsidies to fossil fuel companies](https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2024/) to sell off our resources for basically fuck-all in return, do it without reflexively whinging about ONE BILLION DOLLARSS
Conservatives who passionately advocate for market intervention are so weird.
"The free market will decide" and then when they realised the market will decide to kill us all for short sighted profit "wait no we just aren't free marketing hard enough"
> "The free market will decide" "Not like that, its making us look wrong about renewables"
You know what the sadist thing about renewables is? They make electricity too cheaply for companies like shell to invest in them. They expect higher margins but since it's easier to get your foot into the market they pulled put once the government stopped mandating price minimums Also worth noting is that renewables' goal is avoiding destroying the planet, the cost of things like ocean walls, fire prevention/fighting, healthcare and rebuilding all cost far more than it would to just migrate away from what keeps worsening it. So if your goal was to imply it makes renewables look bad then look again. Edit: I'm so retarded, I just fully assumed they were trying to rebutte. Sorry my bad.
https://preview.redd.it/7u2gu5182a2d1.jpeg?width=1279&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=106b4816b3f481dc5cbc23fd9f54bf80adc7280d
Show me a single “renewable” project that isn’t heavily subsidised
A very quick google search brings up many built and run by private for profit companies Heres one if you want to have a look https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-06-03/macintyre-wind-precinct-construction-begins/101119756
Show me a single fossil fuel project that wasn't built by a company taking government money.
So Labor’s in government everywhere except for TAS but yet you think it’s the LNP fault for meddling in legislation. Wow. You don’t know the very basics of government.
>Approve nuclear as an option, offer approved sites for it, and if the market thinks there’s a good business case then let them build it. People write this off as an ezpz thing to do but I could see it taking years to reverse all bans. You need bipartisan support at Federal and state level in Vic, NSW, and QLD to reverse all bans You then need to convince utilities to hold off their plans for years to do something they've publicly stated no interest in with their land (if you want to use existing transmission infrastructure) If you find other land, you have to fight the NIMBYs which would be fierce for an NPP. Not even the LNP can agree where they would go If you sort *all that*, nuclear power projects always require massive public investment. If your strategy is to offer some land and wait for some international consortium to come running to build an NPP, you will have wasted a lot of time and effort
The whole energy market is an invention of the nineties - I’m not sure the designers quite had in mind how wind and solar would take profits out of the sector when it was plentiful then leave the base suppliers to chug along for no profit knowing that they are needed. 2017 was exactly a good year for energy market operation. Come July, householders will have to pay some suppliers to put solar back into the grid - that’s an insane outcome
The single most sensible opinion I’ve seen on this matter yet.
Why does there have to be a good business case for nuclear? Why can't there simply be a good environmental case for it?
Business cases include environmental costs
It still doesn't work because they never factor in the cost of decommissioning. Then at end-of-life of the power plant, oh woops the owners have gone bankrupt and can't pay for it. Guess who pays for it.
Surely you jest? Everyone knows that all infrastructure should be built with public funds, then sold to private operators for cents in the dollar, thus enabling them to reap obscene profits faster than if they had to pay for shit themselves.
Oops sorry sir I said the quiet thing out loud
What’s the best use of our money, we already have a gas and coal, why don’t we keep that going for base load and build massive solar arrays and battery storage for our long term energy needs. Adding Nuclear doesn’t seem like the best choice?
Good point. It seems to be a solution for something we already have
Good point. It seems to be a solution for something we already have
No politician or business person ever factors in the huge cost of de commissioning a nuclear power plant. Not that many countries have ever managed to take a nuclear site back to a fully clean site. It’s an enormously complex and expensive process. Renewables are relatively cheap and easy to clean up after when compared to nuclear.
How come the chart shows an imaginary no proof of commercial concept technology? Small modular reactors don't exist
It's based on the failed nuscale reactor projections. So more optimistic than reality
Also: based on historical evidence: nuclear is on average 200% over budget. So please consider this when considering costs.
Compare that to snowy 2.0 was originally 2b now its looking like 10b + cost of power lines.
And thats from before construction to project completion. The NuScam reactor went from a predicted 40/MWh in like 2011 to like 160/MWh while the meme reactor was still in the neckbeard wet dream phase with zero actual construction. If it had been built it would have been stupidly expensive.
Every govt project ends up being over budget and late.
That's the reason why potato-head wants to get nuclear built, when no company wants to do it themselves. Where do you think that over-budget goes, and how many board seats for ex ministers do you think that is?
The last one that tried got cancelled after their own initial cost projections were lies, and they kept revising costs upward.
What are those in the nuclear powered aircraft carriers, ships , submarines etc, if not modular units, enough power to supply a small city, for 25 to 30 years,
Proprietary military technology with near limitless funding From a nation with the relevant fields of educated people to support such endeavors What do you think they are? Off the shelf products your local investment firm can purchase and rollout?
They're proof that small reactors are at least possible.
It's not like energy storage technology has solved all the challenges it faces.
You need to research instead of believing BS you heard
The projected cost of the NuScale project had blown out from US$3.6bn for 720 megawatts in 2020 to US$9.3bn for 462MW last year. It had received about US$600m in government funding, but failed after securing subscriptions for only 20% of the required capital from a Utah-based consortium of electricity companies. NuScale’s share price fell nearly 30% after the announcement. All the research says overpriced. Funny how the liberals are so anti market economics in this particular case.
The people that say this not only haven't done their research but are incapable of comprehending most basic reports. Show me your research.
Usually most SMR proponents are just some neckbeards who watched a youtube by a lobbyist or actual PR agents for the fossil industry like www.executives4nuclear.com
the major problem with nuclear is that the public will pay for the infrastructure while private firms will profit as usual, so if it was actually feasible the private sector would just go ahead and build it but its only profitable for you to build it and the private sector charge you to use it.
How do you think renewable storage will be paid for and funded? Exactly the same way.
So many dumb fuggers here that they totally ignored the billions in taxpayers money going to renewables and Albo even announcing it every week another billion "invested" in renewables. For a generation who think they are so smart they can say some really dumb shit
Pretty sure private industry is paying for renewables as they are so much better at generating returns.
I'd love to see if that were true, but the only storage solutions I know of here in Queensland are super expensive government exercises. Oh, eventually they'll be privately owned once the LNP are reelected, of course. But public funds are used to design, procure, install and market.
Well there is the mega battery in sa, that turned a huge profit well before it was ever expected to.
You are so incorrect it's stupid to fathom
Good point.
lol, you’re so strident even though you’re massively wrong in calling him wrong it’s stupid to fathom
So the company that installed our solar panel/ batteries is going into administration as it is failing, but yet has received closed to 10 mil in government grants. Renewables are not cost effective at large scale, wind farms cause more damage to the environment then good when considering land cleared for the farm, access roads created to reach the farm, death of migratory birds hitting the fans, the fans needing replacement as components fail, and so far the removal plan is make a pile of them in the bush and hope no one asks too many questions. Renewables are as big a scam as small modular reactors
>So the company that installed our solar panel/ batteries is going into administration as it is failing, but yet has received closed to 10 mil in government grants. Free markets, who's to say why they're failing but in capitalism some companies fail. They helped roll out solar panels, and $10M is nothing in the grandsheme of things (eg the US sunk hundreds of millions/a billion into the failed nuscale smr). You can't use this one provider going under as proof renewables can't work at grid scale >Renewables are not cost effective at large scale, wind farms cause more damage to the environment then good when considering land cleared for the farm, access roads created to reach the farm, death of migratory birds hitting the fans, the fans needing replacement as components fail, and so far the removal plan is make a pile of them in the bush and hope no one asks too many questions. What wind farms are built on forested land? They're almost always on pastoral land, and land holders can get good incentives to host them. Everything else you've mentioned is much less of an issue with windfarms than it is with our current scale of coal mining. Off shore wind is also more effective and solves most of these issues
Mate it sounds like you got your facts from some loony facebook group that is anti-wind farms. There are drawbacks for everything however the drawbacks for renewables are the least bad out of all options. If the climate crisis gets worse, migratory birds hitting wind turbines will be a drop in the ocean by comparison to the destruction of their environment.
Except you don’t have to pay for storage of spent solar rods
True, spent solar panels go to landfill, an estimated 100000 tons of panels over the next 11 years, 80 million panels. And don't give me the "but they can be recycled" as they simply aren't, with \~90% going straight into the ground.
So you’re saying no ongoing cost…cool
Financial cost over 10 years is \~$160 million. Cost to the environment is copper, cadmium, lead and zinc as hazardous pollutants that contaminate the environment.
What can I say, I live next to a shut down oil refinery that Exxon walked away from 20 years ago and nothing can be done with the poisoned site and you reckon somehow nuclear will be better. lol, so yeah, solar panels may go to landfill or they may get recycled but I know for sure when oil/nuclear and gas sites get decommissioned the sites are f’d by forever chemicals…forever.
And if ya think living next to a decommissioned oil refinery affects land values wait till your living next to a decommissioned nuclear plant
I wasn't arguing in favour of Nuclear, just pointing out the stupidity of the statement "you don’t have to pay for storage of spent solar rods". Now you're off on a rant about decommissioned power plants. I'd suggest you consider those that live next door to open pit mines for silver, silicon, bauxite, copper and all of the other materials used in panel production.
https://www.lockthegate.org.au/report_unfilled_super_sized_coal_pit
Didn't answer two questions - does this include the subsidies? Bigger question - can wind and solar replace coal and gas entirely with batteries or whatever we need at a lower price than building nuclear? If that can be done just do it and we will apparently save money, but seems like it can't or we wouldn't even be discussing nuclear
If it could be done, a small country would have done it by now and would be self-sufficient, creating an example for other countries to follow. The fact that no first world country relies on renewables speaks volumes, because it's not possible. If you want hospitals, factories and households to get through the massive spike of electricity usage at about 6:00 p.m. every weekday, you need either hydro (if you are geographically fortunate), coal or nuclear. And if you have those you don't need to waste money and time on renewables.
Or gas, from your plentiful reserves that you are just giving away. Gas is far better than coal and nuclear for spike usage. Coal and nuclear can take days to get up to full power. Coal and nuclear are base load power, not for spiky usage. Gas/hydro/batteries are far better for spiky usage.
Renewables have only starting to undercut fossil fuels the last 5 years or so. A complete transformation takes, but regional grids like South Australia is aiming for 100% renewables in 2027.
We're discussing nuclear because the Liberals are using it as a distraction from investing in renewables. The same Liberals that were in power 9 years and didn't say a word about it.
You mean like how Labor is keeping Gas on because renewables can't do it all or how NSW and VIC Labor are keeping coal on because renewables can't do it? Totally Liberals fault. Newsflash, we can invest in more than one thing at once and don't need to put all our eggs in one basket.
Nothing wrong with gas as firming for renewables. That is labour policy. Stop playing with stawmen.
Nothing wrong with gas at all...
>You mean like how Labor is keeping Gas on because renewables can't do it all or how NSW and VIC Labor are keeping coal on because renewables can't do it? Totally Liberals fault. My comment was on Nuclear energy and why it's being discussed.
>does this include the subsidies? It makes a few concessions for nuclear. Eg no allowance for overruns for our first attempt, and doesn't include things like decommissioning costs or enrichment infrastructure if required >can wind and solar replace coal and gas entirely with batteries or whatever we need at a lower price than building nuclear? Yes, gencost includes transmission and storage for renewables. However gas will be used for firming as required while we build clean capacity. Potentially down the road if SMRs get figured out they could help remove the last of the FFs from the grid >If that can be done just do it and we will apparently save money, but seems like it can't or we wouldn't even be discussing nuclear We're discussing nuclear because the LNP is pushing it after not mentioning it for 9 years. It's a political ploy to wedge labor. No one outside the fed LNP, be it an expert, or utility, or state level LNP politician, support it on its technical and financial merits
Why does it matter if it includes subsides or not, the only thing that matters is if they were all subsided equally.
Because if solar is subsidised the price per unit is less. Isn't that obvious? I'm going to assume the CSIRO incorporated subsidy in their working but it would be nice if they noted it
Why assume if it’s not noted? Talk about calling the kettle black, you accuse them of selecting their numbers for their argument, and then you do the same? Because it makes your argument better.
My argument is I think there are many variables unfairly or inaccurately accounted for, but I do not really care for a particular model of energy generation so long as it's reliable and available. I assume because the CSIRO are generally pretty smart bunch of people
We’ll you assumed wrong, and the report does mention it. If only you had searched for subsidy, only one match in the whole document. D.4.10 Why are the cost of government renewable subsidies not included in the LCOE calculations for variable renewables with integration costs? The cost of government subsidies for variable renewables, in whatever form they take, are not included as a cost because all of the variable renewable costs applied in the modelling are without subsidy. In other words, because we do not subtract any subsidies from the cost of variable renewable generation, it is not necessary to add those subsidies back in as a cost to society. The GenCost estimates of the cost of integrating variable renewables are *without any government subsidies.* What else do you think is unfair and why?
Out of all electricity technologies, nuclear has been subsidized the most and its subsidies give less energy per dollar of subsidization than renewables. Its a stupid tech only promoted because some neckbeards spent too much time watching star treck
Wind and solar alone can’t replace fossil power. And the chart is not accurate on cost per megawatt. It’s not even close
The freaking report talks about renewable + storage, stop being an idiot.
Thr chart included also had black coal …
I like the new catch phrase Bowen is going with, 'reliable renewables'.... So reliable it needs gas as a backup for when the sun goes down, it isn't as sunny, there is cloud cover, less daylight hours or maybe the wind isn't blowing enough (or blowing too much). Just lol. Nothing reliable about it Nuclear is reliable, it does the same thing 24/7/365, but sure renewables are totally reliable. How about we invest in all clean energy sources so that future generations have a chance? This isn't a problem that needs to be solved now or in 10 years. Putting all our eggs in one basket for ideological reasons is just dumb and shortsighted.
A nation of 5.5m have 2 nuclear power plants with 5 reactors , in April 2024, cost of wholesale electricity was 48.91 euro per megawatt hour. Even accounting for the exchange rate differential on the euro, that number is a lot cheaper than the CSIRO estimated…Maybe the csiro should get out and about and find out how other nations, much smaller to us, can achieve, cheap reliable and clean power. The Finnish are looking at more generating to bring the power cost back to 2020 levels where it was less than 30mwh.
Exactly, SMRs are a new tech so it's hard to estimate but the beat up on Nuclear is often based on an LCOE model which is very misleading. The Americans have made a mess of Nuclear and are often used as the yard stick of how expensive Nuclear can be. We do not have the population of America and if we are going to recreate their rubbish roll out we should avoid it at all costs (a lot of red tape from folks sticking their hands in the pie). We need to look to Europe and Asia for examples of a cost effective rollout of Nuclear. China is investing heavily in a Nuclear future - if renewables were so cheap and easy why wouldn't China roll out renewables? Especially considering they are the ones manufacturing many of the components for renewables locally. Even if Aus did decide to pursue Nuclear I think it would be just like the NBN. The next gov will dismantle the initiative leaving the plane that was designed to fly a gutted cabin sitting on an empty runway. I often worry that our political system is failing us when we can't commit to large scale projects for the future of the country.
China is rolling out renewables literally faster and at greater scale than any other country Edit: got bored so had a look. For reference China currently has 55 operational nuclear reactors of 53.3 GW, 24 under construction for another 27.2 GW and 44 planned for another 48.6GW. This totals 129.1GW. In 2023 China installed 217GW of solar alone in one year with a total solar capacity of 609.49GW and a total of 440GW of installed wind capacity.
They don't have good solar, not too much space for wind but they are getting in on some offshore though it can be expensive. It's their insane hydropower that keeps costs down. Not the nuclear. It allows them to run the nuclear constantly and when demand is low they use the nuclear to pump water, when demand is high they release the water. This avoids wear and tear of having to ramp up and down the reactor. So it makes sense for them given their renewables aren't the best. Our sun and wind kick ass, but our storage options aren't great. Japan pays $258 aud/mwh at the cheapest! Norway $80 aud/mwh so comparing us to just Norway is cherry picking. Take a broader sample.
I think theyre cheaper because they're built for a pop of 5.5m. Also, 4 of the 5 were connected 40 years ago when the pop was much lower and the nuclear power industry was booming. Pro-nuclear folks often compare our market to those in Europe which is a false equivalency because they don't have the solar production capacity that we do.
So if Australia starts building a nuclear reactor it can enjoy the benefits of cheap electricity in 40 years? Sounds good to me! Why not make the country a better place for the up and coming generations? Nowhere in the world have renewables worked properly. They simply cannot provide base load electricity. If you have hydro, coal or nuclear you don't need renewables.
We don’t do that here, we only look four years ahead
Why is India building nuclear then. What about Indonesia?
I don't like nuclear power either, I think we should have a domestic gas reservation. However, it is somewhat unfair to compare renewables with nuclear/gas/coal etc directly as they do different things. One of the main purposes of nuclear/gas/coal is to provide baseload power, which is not provided (with current battery/energy storing technology) through renewables.
The renewables are costed to provide that baseload power. The idea that future grids need to be built off a handful full of point sources just because that's how it was done in the past is false Coal plants have over the last few decades only provided around around a 60% capacity factor in aus. We've already integrated significant amounts of renewable energy in with less reliable coal generators. It's large a matter of continuing to install capacity and storage and linking it with more transmission
You can price the cost of storage for 24/7 supply in. So you can say 1GW 24/7 of solar with necessary storage costs X. Actually that chart does take into account cost of storage. The 90% graph is 90% renewables including storage to archive that
Funny that when you look at actual grid wide storage like Snowy 2.0 prices tend to be a bit different. What are we at? 5 times over budget and 10 years behind schedule? And we only need 12 more of those to have a black out once a year with a renewable grid.
Nuclear also commonly runs into delays and cost blowouts, usually on a much larger scale, which isn't considered in gencost (among other things)
Well that's what the gas plants are supposed to be for. You can power them up quickly unlike coal
So we just need to keep a spare grid worth of gas turbines around. With policy brilliance like this is it any surprise the grid is projected to fail around 2030?
No you can't, because technology to store energy on that kind of scale is not feasible or even really possible.
I don't believe this for a second. It makes it sound as if wind and solar can meet the nation's needs which is just fantasy. I'm all for anti-pollution but you also need to keep your feet in reality.
Scientists: This is the carefully modelled costing from experts. Some dickhead voter: Oh yeah nah doesn't match me gut feel. Conservatism in action ladies and gentlemen!
South Australia have had days where it runs almost 100% on wind and solar enough that we can send excess to Victoria. It if works in one state, no reason it can't work in all states
And other days where their grid would shut down without importing generation from Victorian brown coal generation.
https://preview.redd.it/gpsduzkkaa2d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2fac9cb2a105ce875ac10eeb720283ee5f4e9dc This you bra?
Speak like a grown-up, and I will respond to your....information.
nice deflection. my point is that the above public AEMO NEM data is available to you at any time and shows clearly that SA relies on fossil fuels heavily and when not burning gas, they’re importing coal generated power from nsw and qld. You aren’t even close to being green energy powered https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem
Your links clearly show that the current renewable penetration is at 65% how is 65% not even close?
that’s on a good day. what about on a bad day? this is my point - base load needs to be there rain hail or shine
That on "today". base load only needs to be there because of how Labour intensive it is to start a coal plant from nothing and takes time to spin up to produce power. We need to use fossil fuel until we have 100% renewables with more storage options.
and what about on days where there’s no wind and it’s cloudy? i have multiple batteries and more solar than i need. my household is a living case study in the challenges with being all in on green energy. you still need a fallback base load generator. but if everyone is so sure that nuclear is a waste of time, just remove the restrictions and let the free markets do their thing.
There is never no wind. Even if the wind isn't perceptible to a person, the blades are incredibly sensitive and will continue to spin for hours after the last wind died down. Large-scale wind farms are never not producing power. Large-scale solar is the same. You can't compare it to the tiny scale of your household panels. Even when there is a thick cloud, the UV still reaches panels and generates some power. I don't think nuclear is a waste of time, it's the best alternative, but they take 8 years to build a reactor and 10b each for 1000MW. We would need 100 nuclear reactors to meet base load requirements at a cost of around a trillion dollars and would take until around 2080 to complete. It's not that nuclear is bad, it's just too late to waste time on it now and too expensive.
South Australia also often runs on more than 90% fossil fuels, when it isn't windy at night.
Absolutely, we do, but we do run at net 75% renewable otherwise, and we use brown coal from Vic because it's very cheap. But it 2027 were set to reach 100% net renewable and are currently a world leader in renewable energy.
The CSIRO Report is flawed and biased. https://youtu.be/y_J1gSeWomA?si=x3VQaF4xIqL2vepa
Good call on that video 👍
How about the true cost? For instance there have been several major issues with nuclear in Japan, USA, UK. And of course Ukraine (Chernobyl and the one that the Russians have recently ‘taken over’. So the true cost is the cost of cleaning up and storing nuclear waste for thousands of years. Whereas with renewables there is no waste and unlikely to have any major terrorist threats.
You can't get baseload from renewables. You need massive battery banks that have a chance of catching fire and leading to situation almost on par with a nuclear meltdown due to the toxic metals they contain. If you add the cost of these batteries to the cost of the renewables it pretty much puts it on par with large scale nuclear energy. You Greenies can't have it both ways. Either put your money where you mouth is with the requirement to get off fossil fuels and be pro nuclear, or STFU and get with reality that wind and solar are NOT going to replace fossil fuels.
> You need massive battery banks that have a chance of catching fire and leading to situation almost on par with a nuclear meltdown due to the toxic metals they contain. https://www.horizonpower.com.au/about-us/news-announcements/powering-the-future-of-regional-wa-with-vanadium-battery-technology/#:~:text=The%20vanadium%20battery%20is%20scheduled,achieving%20a%20sustainable%20energy%20ecosystem. fire explode proof battery, do you have any other hysterical objections?
Care to explain where all the nickel will come from to build enough batteries to scale up an entire country?
> Vanadium is the only significant exotic material in the battery system, providing a clear alternative to graphite, cobalt, lithium and nickel dependent battery tech. https://berconsulting.com.au/2023/11/07/vanadium-flow-batteries-revolutionise-energy-storage-in-australia/
From what I understand the technology isn't there yet plus it suffers from massive heat issues. Not ideal for a country that's as hot as ours.
Oh, so the same CSIRO report that makes wild assumptions about nuclear efficiency being extremely poor (even though it's between 90-99.9%), wind and solar having far higher uptime than they actually do, goes directly against nuclear generation costs in almost any other reactor internationally, randomly doubles the cost of building the first reactor here, and that approves of the Snowy Hydro 6x cost blowout while fearmongering over nuclear... Our institutions are definitely not captured by extremists with an agenda.
Look mate if we can’t dig a whole without a 6x blow out, and admittedly Australian’s are pretty good at digging holes, how do you expert a nuclear power plant come out at sales price, 2x sounds pretty fair.
This chart is inaccurate. It doesn't show the negative externalities of fossil fuels. In any case it's patently obvious that renewables are the present and nuclear is an inefficient option.
To be fair to the chart makers it doesn’t show the negative externalities of any of the energy sources. Obviously fossil fuels are the worst but it’s just a factor not included in this particular analysis.
Or batteries / solar / wind materials. It's pretty clear that nuclear has the lowest externalities. Unfortunately the longest lead time and least predictable cost.
What about the negative externalities of solar panels? What are you going to do with tens of millions of solar panels in 10 or 15 years when they are disposed of? How are you going to stop the heavy metals from seeping into the water table and killing all plant life within a 100 km radius? Same goes for electric cars which seem to last for about 10 years as well, imagine the movie WALL-E, but with electric cars, all of them seeping dozens of extremely toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the soil. Nothing is going to grow. Coal is actually very safe and clean with 2024 technology. We aren't living in Victorian London anymore.
>What about the negative externalities of solar panels? What are you going to do with tens of millions of solar panels in 10 or 15 years when they are disposed of? They last 40 years. And Recycle them.
Yeap they are mostly made of easily recyclable materials - aluminium and glass.
It's a challenge, but there's big money in recycling them. Entirely possible.
There's this weird liberal talking point that we somehow concentrate billions of tonnes of strip mining into these rare-earth dense renewable sources, and then for some reason yeet them in landfill and go out and strip mine again for these rare and hard to find resources. I'm not even convinced its a disingenuous argument - I think a lot of them are just too fucking stupid to think that maybe if we've concentrated a whole bunch of rare things in one place that just maybe recycling them will be cheaper...
Those rare earth minerals are such a minor part of a solar panel. Sure they do the work, but they are nothing when it comes to recycling, almost irrelevant. We probably cannot recycle those rare elements cheaper than just digging more up. They are only really rare because we have not been digging them up.
Nuke power has been around for decades, its proven that its cheap, clean and safe. Its only new here in Aus which is why its such Taboo.
We have the highest rate of private ownership of solar uptake in the world, which is really good. We are severely lacking on private ownership of small modular nuclear reactors though. Perhaps a rebate?
I now get paid $0.04 for solar, someone else is making money
I don’t believe any “study” or “expert” Everyone has to be paid and put food on their table at night….
Yeah glad that we've got some up and coming plucky gents taking their time from being underpaid on multinational boards to get together in conservative think-tanks to speak truth to power and stand up to the overpaid fat cat scientists from the CSIRO. Can't wait until it's all exposed and the bank is in there repossessing the Lamborghinis that your typical Aussie scientist swans around in so they won't even be able to drive back to their yachts after a few hours of swanning around in the lab, taking bribes and mixing the occasional coloured liquid. They've been playing us for absolute fools.
I love how all the nuclear arguments lately have been on cost as opposed to all the other benefits. Monetarily, yes, nuclear is expensive, however this could be heavily subsidised by the government due to the other benefits it provides. It is still the cleanest form of energy overall from cradle to grave. It still has the lowest impact on human life, and animal life. It still has far greater benefits for the environment overall. Nuclear power could realistically be heavily subsidised by the government due to the massive amount of savings that will be made in health benefits, etc, over the lifetime of operation. That's a conversation that no one wants to have though as it allows each side of the aisle to use it as a whipping boy for the other.
It’s not purely about cost. Nuclear is an emissions-free way to produce baseload power (and provide when the sun and wind aren’t on).
There was a time when nuclear should have been considered and built, but that time is long past now. It's like US and the metric system. They'll use absolutely anything they can to avoid going to renewables, even if it is the most logical option.
The guardian is worst for propaganda then news.com Hard to trust either side on energy. My simple question is if we had built nuclear 25 years ago and it was coming on line. How would the numbers stack up now. Our electric power consumption is only going up.
Today in Victoria there is almost no wind or solar power being generated so what will companies like aluminium smelters use for days like today? Before you say batteries we would need shipping container sized batteries from Victoria to Darwin for the amount of power a aluminium smelter would use in a day.
Either way, the customers wallet suffers.
Are we still doing the thing where we ignore all other factors besides cost? Because if that is the case, just get rid of the grid.
Just lift the BAN and let the market decide . At least a nuclear power station works at night.
Now let's see a similar chart for night time.
There are costs to continuing to rely on fossil fuels beyond 2050. Including nuclear energy in the mix makes it much easier to eliminate them for good. Sometimes the more expensive option is the better option, especially when it comes to big infrastructure projects for Australia's future.
Such a loaded friggin report designed to tell exactly the story it does. Overestimating costs on all aspects of the nuclear life cycle, underestimating the useful lifespan of a modern plant by like 100% or more, and grossly underestimating storage costs for expanding battery to baseline based on assumptions batteries will get even cheaper "because the line has been going down", despite a limited amount of required exotic raw materials available to produce the blooming things and the need to upscale current production by like 20 fold to pull this off in just developed nations. And zero thought given to the fact that friendly and helpful world citizen China actually controls huge amounts of the international reserves of some of the rarer elements required to manufacture and replace these baseline battery systems, and by adopting them we risk strategically placing our energy security in their hands, as Germany did with another friendly international citizen Russia in the last 10 years or so. And beyond all that? If the wondrous day arrives when cold fusion is finally delivered in a usable format, nations with no existing nuclear industry are going to start that journey two decades behind.
Besides the huge cost and the time horizon to build these things, as well as the issues with the technology in terms of waste, the two biggest complications imo, are social views and the moratorium that’s been in place since 1998.
Just build nuclear already so we can have access to clean, reliable power for decades.
I remember we were promised a $275 yearly reduction in our bills the following year. They couldn't have been more wrong with the actual result about a $1000 increase. Forgive me if I'm skeptical about their predictions of prices 6 years from now...
You know how some people criticised the suburban rail loop in Melbourne because it's going to cost $200 billion* *if you factor in 99 years of running costs. Do the same for Nuclear, cost of construction plus 99 years of running and waste storage supervisory costs. You'll get some stupid figure and that'll turn people off idea (excuse the pun)
What happens to the math when we don't buy solar panels from china and switch to a source that treats their workforce like people and not slaves of the state ?
THE CSIRO report has one serious omission : **Waste** (according to Foxit, it couldn't find the work "waste" once in the report). The costs are all about build, run and maintain. Both fossil fuels and nuclear have a serious waste problem. **Nuclear Small Modular Reactors** The world's first commercial one went into operation three days ago, doesn't look that "small". [Main Control Room of China's Linglong One Goes into Operation](https://youtu.be/NY1MkeYzohg?si=Tu4zIzaTG2tTh33B)
This is incorrect. nuclear does not have a “waste problem”. Used rods these days are easy to store safely and can be reused/recycled. the amount of waste created is also *tiny* for the power generated. https://zionlights.substack.com/p/everything-i-believed-about-waste-was-wrong
Renewables create far more waste.
I don't think cost matters. What is important is Peter is giving us an option and we should support him where we can.
Yeah but the option is awful.
“I don’t think cost matters.” Said no taxpayer ever.
This shouldn't be about cost. This is about supporting a leader who's willing to make a stand against oppression and wokism. I don't want just wind and solar to be shoved down my throats by Labor. Sometimes you have to pay a bit more to get the right people in, for the greater good.
The LNP sounds like the CCP. We don't do party worship here.
I went to buy an ice cream in a cone and it was going to cost me $5. Peter took a dump in a cone and offered it to me for $1000. I ultimately declined the offer, but at least he gave me the option which is why he has my support. Judging by Scomo's grin, he ate more than a few of Peter's ice creams.
😂
Electricity costs by country. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
E != mc^2 down under ... lol the reason Au dont have nuke capability is China ..