The report’s central conclusions – rejected by the Coalition – are relatively unsurprising. It found nuclear power would be far more expensive than the projected path of shifting to mostly renewable energy. And delivering nuclear generation before the mid-2040s will be extremely challenging.
For non-Australian, can you explain me why it’s not economic option for Australia? Many other countries such as Korea, US, Pakistan and China seems to be happy with building nuclear. What’s special about Australia?
Because nuclear is more expensive, slower to put into service, and pollutes more compared to renewables.
we don’t have the infrastructure or the knowledgebase in place. So we’re starting entirely from scratch. We’d have to import pretty much every person involved, and for what? We’re literally soaked in renewable resources that make far better sense to use.
We do have a huge coal and gas industry looking to pay politicians to slow down the shift away from fossil fuels though, so the party that was trying to build new coal power plants last time they were in power is talking about nuclear while they’re in opposition. It isn’t about taking action, it’s about delaying renewables.
From the article; “It found nuclear power would be far more expensive than the projected path of shifting to mostly renewable energy. “
The difference is the lack of diversification in Australia’s economy which gives certain industries massive influence over policy that doesn’t always serve Australian citizens or our broader national interests. The LNP has no intention of building nuclear power. They are pushing the interests of the fossil fuel lobby and prolonging the life of stranded fossil fuel investments. If we could do it economically they would find a way to make it uneconomic to keep the coal fires burning.
Australia has extremely high costs, small population (scaling issues - 30m in an area the size of continental USA) and lack of expertise. If built with Australian labour and to our high safety and environmental standards nuclear would be very costly and delayed. There would be massive costs to taxpayers and energy consumers which would not sit well with coalition voters and supporters. That money could have been put into cheaper alternatives that could be delivered faster and provide consumers and business with savings. Many coalition voters already benefit from cheap solar rooftop PV and are aware of the cost benefits of renewables and possibly even have investments in them which the coalition will put at risk. All they are doing is screwing over their own voters, increasing investment risk and raising costs for business to gain favour with a powerful lobby.
The only good reason for us to have a civilian nuclear industry would be to help develop a nuclear deterrent but we are signed up to non-proliferation and our major allies don’t want us to have an independent capability as it lessens their influence The coalition certainly have no interest in that direction.