LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #550 (02/24/2024)
LLAW’s ‘All Things Nuclear’ #550 (02/24/2024)
“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
LLAW’s COMMENTS, Saturday (02/24/2024)
Finally, I have found an article that, except for the fact that it does not include the serious possibilities of radiation leakage, nuclear waste disposal, and other extremely dangerous factors associated with nuclear power plants— including meltdowns and, lately, nuclear war — everything else he has to say conforms precisely to my own points of view that I have been Posting here for 550 consecutive evenings.
But Chris Bowen, Australian MP for Climate Change & Energy, has written a concise and to the point piece here should not be referred to as “opinion”. It is clearly incontrovertible fact, and of course Mr. Bowen is in a position to know what he is talking about. He calls the never-ending propaganda from the entire concept of the nuclear power plant industry ‘hot air’, which is a bit more congenial than my many other descriptions that I use almost on a daily basis here on ‘All Things Nuclear’. But he sharply debunks virtually every propaganda claim that the nuclear power industry and its providers have ever conceived. They are all lies, based on capitalism and profiteering, easily critiqued and demonstrably disproven, and I know from experience that many of the nuclear industry leaders are well aware that their entire industry is based on ‘hot air’. ~llaw
The Hon Chris Bowen MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy
Chris Bowen
Opinion piece: Proponents of nuclear power are peddling hot air
24 February 2024
Opponents of cleaner, cheaper renewables have used a particularly spectacular contortion of logic to claim the recent catastrophic storms in Victoria and the resulting power outages as evidence of the folly of acting on climate change and boosting renewables.
Predictably, nuclear energy advocates seized on the Victorian events and temporary power outage to re-energise their campaign for Australia to start a nuclear energy industry.
Let's be clear upfront. Nuclear is not being pushed as a genuine alternative to renewables. It's being used as a distraction and a delaying tactic.
It's also quite the feat to assert that had it been nuclear rather than renewables, a coal-fired electricity generator in Victoria wouldn't have shut itself down as protection against surges from storm-damaged transmission. It's an even greater leap essentially to assert that a grid under the LNP would involve no distribution - given the vast majority of outages were caused by extreme damage to the distribution network - including from the half a million lightning strikes in eight hours.
Will nuclear powered electricity be transmitted by osmosis? By Bluetooth? By a vibe? Whether your energy comes from coal, nuclear, gas or renewables, if poles and wires are down, electricity won't get where it needs to go.
The pro-nuclear argument is two-pronged. That the world has realised the perils of renewables and is experiencing a nuclear renaissance, and Australia is missing out.
And that nuclear is much cheaper than renewable energy, once upgrading and expanding the grid is factored in.
Both these arguments collapse faster than a tree in a lightning strike when exposed to the facts.
Global investment in renewable energy sources constitutes three quarters of all power generation investment.
Take just solar, for example. Last year, the world installed 440GW of renewable capacity. This is more than the world's entire existing nuclear capacity built up through decades of investment. By early 2025, renewable energy will surpass coal as the planet's largest source of energy, while coal, gas and nuclear will all shrink their market share.
Nuclear and coal combined, however, account for only 16 per cent of new global power investment. In 2005, electricity companies in the US pledged to build more than 30 reactors. Only four ever commenced construction. Two were abandoned due to massive cost and time delays.
The alleged boom in Small Modular Reactors is also a mirage. China and Russia are the only two countries to have installed them. The US has now abandoned its “flagship” commercial-scale pilot SMR (promised back in 2008), wearing 70 per cent cost blowouts without having started construction on a single reactor.
We know the Russian SMRs have extraordinarily low load factors and that nuclear waste from the SMR process is disproportionate to their output. The Chinese data is more opaque, but given SMRs generate about 300MW (compared to a coal-fired power station at 2000MW), we have no reason to believe there is anything approaching a serious contribution to China's energy demand from their two units.
My shadow minister predicted that last year's Dubai COP would be remembered as the “nuclear COP”. Not so much. Twenty three countries have pledged to triple nuclear energy by 2050, while 124 countries pledged to triple renewable energy investment within the next six years, before the nuclear dream even gets started.
Then there is cost. Contrary to myth, GenCost does include the cost of transmission and storage, and the CSIRO-AEMO GenCost conclusions about the chasm between nuclear and renewables costs could not be clearer.
But if you don't want to accept eminent and independent practitioners at those organisations, then you can have a look at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which estimates it will cost $US15 trillion to triple nuclear capacity. Or University College London, which recently found that “new nuclear capacity is only cost effective if ambitious cost and construction times are assumed”.
And if you don't like University College London's research, ask the merchant bank Lazard, which shows levelised cost of nuclear to be four times higher than utilityscale solar and wind.
Then look at how many nuclear projects are falling over because of cost and time overruns. The UK's Hinkley C nuclear plant was promised to be “cooking Christmas turkeys by 2017”. It's yet to warm a single drumstick, with latest costings at more than $86bn. Who in Australia does the opposition energy spokesman expect will be footing those kind of bills?
Like many things in the climate debate, the push for nuclear power has taken on a singular importance in the culture wars. It's striking that a party that once prided itself on economic rationalism could embrace a frolic so spectacularly uneconomic. This is the triumph of culture wars over climate pragmatism in the alternative government.
The LNP has been promising to reveal the details of its long nuclear fairytales soon. It can't come soon enough.
No plan for nuclear power in Australia will survive contact with reality. The Australian people deserve more than hot air to power their homes and businesses.
This opinion piece was first published in the Australian on Saturday, 24 February 2024.
END (Note: This article is also available in the Nuclear Power category below.)
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA:
There are 6 categories (including a bonus category at the end for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity that also play an important role in humanity’s lives) as do ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links to the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in tonight’s Post.)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (per above). If a category heading does not appear, it means there was no news reported from this category today. There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available tonight.
(A reminder, just in case: When linked, the access to the media story will be underlined. If there is no link to a media story of interest you can still copy and paste the headline and lead line into your browser to find the article you are seeking. Hopefully this will never happen.)
TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS (02/24/2024):
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Head Of UN Atomic Watchdog Calls For 'Restraint' After Blasts Near Ukrainian Nuclear Plant
Radio Free Europe
UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi called on February 23 for "maximum military restraint" after a string of powerful explosions occurred near ...
Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Los Altos Hills, CA
The White House
You know, we've made clear from day one of our administration that we believe in science, which the other guy is not quite sure exists. (Laughter.) ...
Science Is the New Nuclear Deterrent - Nautilus Magazine
Nautilus Magazine
Science Is the New Nuclear Deterrent. Sarah Scoles on her 3 greatest revelations while writing Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons. By ...
Nuclear Power
NEWS
At every step of this full-scale invasion, Putin uses nuclear catastrophe as a threat by shelling and occupying Ukraine's nuclear power plants on the ...
Science Is the New Nuclear Deterrent - Nautilus Magazine
Nautilus Magazine
Scientists who work at nuclear weapons labs often do research on physics, astronomy, or nuclear power in addition to their weapons-related work. This ...
Opinion piece: Proponents of nuclear power are peddling hot air - Ministers
Ministers
It's also quite the feat to assert that had it been nuclear rather than renewables, a coal-fired electricity generator in Victoria wouldn't have shut ...
Nuclear War
NEWS
The Cost of Nuclear War in Space - The New York Times
The New York Times
Just before the Russian-Ukrainian war reached its two-year milestone today, U.S. intelligence agencies warned that Russia might aim a nuclear ...
The Long Shadow: Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine - CSIS
CSIS
It also concludes that the risks of nuclear use will likely rise if Russia faces significant battlefield setbacks in the future or the conflict ...
Ahead of Anniversary of Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Senator Markey Condemns Putin's ...
Senator Edward Markey
At every step of this full-scale invasion, Putin uses nuclear catastrophe as a threat by shelling and occupying Ukraine's nuclear power plants on the ...
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
NRRC: Ukrainian nuclear plant explosion not affected in anyway Saudi radiation levels
Saudi Gazette
The Saudi Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission (NRRC) announced that the commission's Nuclear Emergency Operations Center did not ...
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
The Long Shadow: Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine - CSIS
CSIS
Moscow has used explicit threats, including mention of crossing a “red line” in September 2022 if the United States supplied longer-range missiles to ...
Ukraine: how nuclear weapons continue to increase the risks, two years on
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
... nuclear war is not to increase nuclear arsenals or threaten nuclear retaliation. The answer is for all countries to condemn nuclear threats, end ...
Ahead of Anniversary of Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Senator Markey Condemns Putin's ...
Senator Edward Markey
At every step of this full-scale invasion, Putin uses nuclear catastrophe as a threat by shelling and occupying Ukraine's nuclear power plants on the ...
I like what Ed Markey has to say. I wish we would just give up the need for war. I wish we'd find other ways to solve energy problems instead of thinking nuclear energy is a good option. As and aside, much as Biden wants us all to give up gas as an option, the grid will not support an immediate change from gas to electricity. Things need to be thought out instead of leaping before looking.