President Xi will be delighted that so many industrial competitors are sabotaging their electrical grids with erratic, unreliable solar and wind power. Right now, The People’s Republic of China is the biggest platform in the world for the deployment of nuclear power technology. In twenty years, China has increased its fleet of nuclear power reactors from three to 48, with 11 more plants under construction. That means it will soon surpass France which has 57:
By the end of the twentieth century, France’s mature nuclear energy industry operated over fifty nuclear power reactors to supply about 80 percent of the electricity consumed by its population of 60 million people.1 By contrast, when China connects its fiftieth nuclear power reactor to the grid, which is expected in a few years, China’s nuclear power plants will contribute only about 5 percent of the electricity demanded by its population of 1.4 billion.2
At the moment the USA has the largest nuclear generation in the world, with more than double the production of the nearest competitor — France. But China began stockpiling uranium in 2007, and in the last five year plan released in 2016 — China aimed to double nuclear power by the end of 2020. It looks like falling short this year — but by 2030 plans to outdo everyone including the USA.
China poised to overtake US in nuclear power by 2030
by Kotaro Fukaroka, Nikkei Asian Review.
TOKYO — China is on track to surpass the U.S. as the world’s top producer of nuclear energy as early as 2030, reflecting hesitance to build new capacity in Japan and Western nations even as emerging economies move ahead.
The trend reflects diverging approaches to nuclear power after the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns in Japan. While the U.S., Europe and Japan grew risk averse in response to public fears, emerging nations have been keener. Indonesia and Philippines are among the countries dusting off old plans for reactors. And China and Russia have emerged as the main suppliers.
Nuclear Belt and Road:
China is competing with Russia to provide nuclear power in strategic deals, and already has agreements or MOU’s with Pakistan, Romania, Argentina, UK, Iran, Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. There are fingers in many pies.
China would also have a dominant role in the nuclear industry.
The bigger China’s nuclear power footprint grows, the more say China will have in global nuclear governance. If China in the coming decades becomes the leading nuclear power country, it will demand and obtain a commensurate role in members’ decisionmaking concerning multilateral technical rulemaking compacts and organizations, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). If China closes the nuclear fuel cycle, global governance mechanisms related to nuclear security and nonproliferation may be adjusted to reflect that accomplishment.
David Archibald calculates that China is burning through its coal quickly, but obviously they are well prepared for the next step to nuclear.
There are 451 nuclear plants on the planet. Australia has largest uranium reserves in the world but has no nuclear power plants. Given the inevitable rise of nuclear power one way or the other — perhaps we should dig up and burn our 300 years supply of coal while it is still worth digging up?
If I were President Xi, I’d be donating to Greenpeace, funding The Greens, and sponsoring Greta to help hobble the competition.
Let’s trust the design(s) and the financing are fool-proof.
_ _ _ _
There is a facility in Washington State (Columbia Generating Station) that has been operating since December of 1984. After a planned shut-down this past year for maintenance and renewal it has been producing steadily. Now licensed to run until 2043.
Chart here: balancing chart by source
Nuclear is the straight purple line (1000+ MW).
Wind is the green line bouncing off the bottom – going from near Zero to 2500MW in a day.
One reason we don’t have more is an idea gone wrong years ago, called Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS). WPPSS had the largest municipal debt default in history. Now called WHOOPS.
31
Don’t have more what? Nuclear?
10
Five (5) nuclear plants were started. Just the one was finished.
That’s why it is called WHOOPS.
10
Then you have the total disaster of the California, USA power grid where maintenance was not in any way a priority with cut backs to forestry maintenance. Their power lines started some of the biggest forest fires in history. Much of the green energy was useless as well when the grid was shut down.
80
California presents an interesting example. The best estimate of the State’s forest inventory gives 4% (120Mt) of the total as dead but standing and another 180Mt of fallen dead wood. With high efficiency combustion of modern power plants, that is enough dead wood to provide electricity in the state for more than 2 years.
Rather than allowing forests fires to destroy this resource there would be merit in using the energy in a controlled way.
With atmospheric CO2 increasing, trees grow faster and require less water to grow at a given rate. Existing forests are becoming disasters waiting to happen. Forests are now creating easily combustible litter faster than in human history.
Managed forests is currently the ONLY known renewable energy resource and those locations blessed with forest resources view it as a fire risk rather than a valuable energy resource. Human’s simply need to revert to what was done before coal and oil became the fuels of choice but using modern machinery to achieve high productivity.
20
Jo, you raise an interesting point. If the future is nuclear, which appears it is, and coal is on the way out then we better start planning to mine and refine a lot of Uranium before our coal exports dive.
60
Nuclear power has problems.
‘In a major blow to the US nuclear-energy industry, China is reportedly helping Saudi Arabia create a facility to produce uranium “yellowcake” from uranium ore. The deal is further evidence that America’s anti-nuclear energy policies are pushing US allies into the arms of our illiberal and undemocratic rivals.’ New York Post
23
That’s a problem for the US nuclear-energy industry, not for nuclear power.
30
Both Russia and America have been developing mini reactors. Russia has theirs on ships and are powering towns in the Arctic circle. The American model is the size of two double decker buses and can be moved on a low loader. If more power is needed then multiple reactors can be linked together.
Apparently the “paperwork” for the American reactor will be completed this September.
50
Nice idea and if the world was saner, but with anarchistic terrorists always lurking it might be ill advised.
00
Coal was the base for the German chemical industry for 80 years, and is still used there, particularly brown coal. Both the UK and the USA used coal too, in fact it was only 1951 when chemicals from oil started to out-weigh those from coal. Natural gas now supplies another base.
30
“If I were President Xi, I’d be donating to Greenpeace, funding The Greens, and sponsoring Greta to help hobble the competition.”
I have long assumed he is.
120
I understand that Putin has been funding Greenpeace and Wwf
10
A good comment but unlikely, there are sufficient multi-billionaires who appear to have the same aims. (Soros, Gates, Steyer..) China’s money buys influence directly in universities, lefty unions and in those nations, and states, who have governments both dictatorial and inefficient, a big group.
If ScoMo’s bill limiting state powers to make deals with foreign governments fails, expect to see very big Chinese ‘loans’ to Victoria.
10
China has the second largest population after india, China cares more for its citizens than either India or the USA, offering power everywhere and healthcare to everyone, unlike India or the USA.
China persecutes muslims, as does India, and the USA persecutes anyone not rich.
China is also builds more coal plants, has more solar and wind than anyone else as well
This article shows the silliness of using gross numbers rather than per capita numbers when talking about countries.
132
Hear Hear
I also support Renewables more than gas or nuclear.
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/6822262/dubbos-renewables-zone-shows-the-path-away-from-fossil-fuels/?cs=12269
019
Whenever an article appears about renewable generation, it is never stated whether the numbers refer to nameplate or firm capacity. Was the original 3 GW call by the NSW Govt. for firm capacity to cover the scheduled closure of the following plants?
Liddel (2 GW) to close in 2023
Vales Point B (1.3 GW) to close in 2029
From the article linked by el G:
Using the formula from the Snowy Hydro documents that 7% of VRE nameplate was an estimate of their “firm” capacity, then 27 GW is not enough – they need 43 GW nameplate or a 14-fold increase costing $60bn – a bargain.
If the 3 GW is actually nameplate capacity, then the firm capacity is estimated at 210 MW, a long way short of covering the scheduled plant closures. I’m sure that $60bn would cover the cost of building firm nuclear generation to cover the closures.
140
‘I’m sure that $60bn would cover the cost of building firm nuclear generation to cover the closures.’
For that price how many new plants are we talking about?
15
Sixty billion probably won’t buy a second one.
10
This 2018 link estimates the capital cost of building nuclear at US$5,500/kW in the USA.
This puts the capital cost of 3.3 GW of nuclear power at US$18.15bn in 2018 money in the USA.
In Australia – who knows, but if you want zero CO2 emissions and firm, reliable power vs many millions of solar panels, thousands of wind towers and all the infrastructure upgrades, lots of complex management electronics and the wonderful demand side management scenarios to cope with continually varying generation output (which includes massive over-generation as well as stagnation), then nuclear has to be in the mix.
As an aside, which power system (bog standard baseload vs electronically complex VRE) would recover faster from a Carrington-style solar event?
60
Definitely worth debating, but at $25 billion (AU) its a bit excessive and I cannot see it getting up. My quick reading has the Renewable conglomerate centred on Dubbo coming in at half that price.
05
It depends el G on whether we are talking about nameplate or firm generation capacity.
$25bn AU + nuclear will get you 3,300 MW of firm power, whenever it is needed – that’s a capital cost of $7.5 million/firm MW .
:
$38bn + 27 GW nameplate VER x 7% = 1,890 MW of firm power maybe when it’s needed – that’s a capital cost of $20.1 million/firm MW .
:
So what is firm, CO2-free power worth?
91
Its nothing to me, the IPCC has overhyped the warming effect of a CO2 blanket, so we should only consider the cost of the options.
01
🙂
You are teasing us EG.
20
Any article referring to ‘renewable generation’ is inevitably guilty of misleading terminology – the term ‘renewable’ is rarely used accurately. The ONLY current renewable energy source known to mankind is managed forests. No weather dependent electricity generators of current technology are renewable generators.
100
Guilty?? have you a mirror available? “‘renewable generation’ is inevitably guilty of misleading terminology – the term ‘renewable’ is rarely used accurately. The ONLY current renewable energy source known to mankind is managed forests”. Managed forests are just a long term example of nutrient mining. Is not much different than the “organic” farmers who rob the nutrients of flood plains. It just occurs on a longer time scale.
32
Time scales are well beyond the life of any coal resource. And all those nutrients can be returned to soil. Managed forests are the only renewable energy source currently known to man.
10
Does Hydro count as rewnewable? It works well in Norway, but hardly anywhere else due to lack of rain.
30
I did read a study, where sheep were grazed on a solar farm. No side effects for the sheep, at least in the view of the authors, but a reduction in maintenance costs for the solar part, as they did not have to manage the vegetation. Sort of a dual fuel arrangement – if you like lamb that is
28
I like the lamb. And sheep good for keeping the grass down.
The solar cells shade the ground and inhibit the growth of grass so the sheep capacity is severely restricted.
Please provide details on the loss of sheep production due to solar cells.
30
el gordo you now are showing your true colours. Gullible to the Greens madness. Besides since when did cost matter when it comes to saving the world from the mythical CAGW? If you don’t believe in that nonsense then why support renewables and not coal? Is it appeasement just like that of PM Morrison to shy away from upsetting the cafe latte set and snow flakes?
90
He’s also displaying his Pavlovian response to any comment about China’s level of progress, human rights, infrastructure development….
40
Ha! that comment has been a while coming
10
Gentlemen, its time for pragmatism.
Post Pandemic (PP) we live in an altered world and undoubtedly realignments are bound to happen. Renewables can work in certain circumstances, particularly isolated environments or as we see in NSW with zones. It will be cheaper and quicker to go the Renewable way than to begin the planning of nuclear or coal plants on the western side of the Darling.
With low population growth we don’t need a nuclear white elephant.
01
Here here.
Bizarre and unreal.
20
The Utopian Socialists accept the criticism and thank you for your interest.
00
China was privatised/owned by top tier financial institutions (stakeholders) decades ago, just like Au.
Stakeholders care about us all Peter.
20
Peter,
Wrong!
10
Right!
(I’ve read an article saying that China is fudging its statistics to maintain a #1 position for reasons of prestige.)
00
As PeterS pointed out above, if too many people start using nuclear instead of coal, one of Australia’s biggest export earners will fail, except for exports of coking coal for steel production.
It’s odd that the rest of the world can burn Australian coal for cheap electricity production but it’s strongly discouraged in Australia.
There was one case in which Australia refused to export coal however. India made a huge purchase of Victorian brown coal but the state government banned the sale because of concerns that India would create too much CO2 pollution with it. And it remains buried in the ground. And India took their money elsewhere.
Australia, with the world’s largest deposits of uranium (30%), has a phobia about that as well. We don’t even refine it beyond the “safe” yellowcake stage.
I think proper countries will likely start purchasing uranium from the country with the next biggest uranium deposits, Kazakhstan with 13%. It is too much trouble to do business in Australia and getting more so.
Australia can absolutely forget about using uranium for electricity production or powering submarines.
Australia’s future lies in becoming a third rate Western-style country such as Venezuela.
270
Australia maybe third rate, it comes from our convict past and waves of poor immigrants, we are a modest lot.
I’m against nuclear power in Oz, but concede the AP1000 technology with its passive cooling system does look tempting.
https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/1325973/china-nuclear-plant-delay-raises-safety-concern
06
There are a number of nuclear processes in use for electricity generation (about 6 I saw somewhere). Several avoid using enriched uranium e.g. the Canadia Candu reactors used in several countries, and the homogeneous process from the 1950’s which the Russians have selected for a modest reactor (170MW) recently. Neither process results in explosions, indeed the US military attempted to turn a homogeneous reactor into a bomb early on and failed completely.
The Chinese recently constructed a pebble type reactor but that was apparently a failure economically.
Then there are the Modular types (as used in the hundreds by the military in the UK and USA**) with an impressive safety record.
Also quite safe are the thorium processes, although they use “enriched uranium” as a starter. NOTE also that thorium can (and is) used in standard reactors. The advantage these offer is also being able to “burn” nuclear waste rather than storing it for hundreds or thousands of years.
**And France, Russia, China for submarines and also icebreakers.
50
The CANDU has long been my favorite.
More expensive per MW output but no need for uranium enrichment, refuelling on the run and some level of ability to burn actinides (the radioactive waste elements that really are dangerous).
The small positive void coefficient is easily managed with the multiple control systems that exist in Western reactors. TBH, the RBMK was only dangerous because staff who had no idea of what the 3 safety systems did, shut them down for a stability test at Chernobyl – a case of state secrecy overriding proper operator training.
40
Australia is NOT “Third World” currently,
.., but will be if we dont get our Energy priorities sorted out to maintain a standard of living that is not “3rd World” and a population that dependant on international support.
For a country to be a world leader, or “First World”, it needs a stable political and economic systems, energy self sufficiency, food and industrial self sufficiency,
Australia fall short on the last, and is in danger of losing the energy capacity.
60
‘ … industrial self sufficiency,’
Good point, a move away from globalisation would see secondary industry ramp up and we lack the energy to produce the goods. In this situation Australia would most likely return to coal, pointing out that China’s energy mix makes our puny contribution of industrial CO2 a joke.
10
Why?
30
Too costly to build compared with gas, coal or renewables.
04
Not quite.
Surely you can’t think that renewables are cheaper than Nuclear?
90
He thinks it is, which if of course false. The cost of supplying the same amount of power from renewables “on tap” as for nuclear would cost far more. Yet he supports renewables over nuclear based on cost. How wrong can one be?
60
I thank the honourable member for his question.
The renewable zones in NSW are being built by corporations without government subsidy, surely they know something we don’t.
For a start the PM wanted a gas solution to the energy problem, but Premier Gladys thought otherwise and embraced the Renewable bandwagon.
I have no confidence in backup battery, so I propose Santos be allowed to gas mine a large block of land on the outskirts of Narrabri, but only if they organise a gas fired power plant to be constructed nearby as backup for the Renewable Zones.
33
Can you provide more detail?
20
REZs
https://energy.nsw.gov.au/renewables/renewable-energy-zones
02
As usual el gordo you miss the main point. Look at it this way. If any country that uses nuclear as a significant source of their energy needs had to replace them completely with renewables it would cost multiple times that of the cost of the nuclear power stations.
20
France gets 80% of their energy from nuclear and it cannot be replaced by Renewables. In Australia we are more dependent on coal, but if the clowns want to throw money at Renewables to test the market, that is their business.
As you presume that most of the Au electorate is stupid, what is you advice?
00
If you’re talking about Pressurized Water Cooled Reactors, then you’re right and you’ll get no argument from me. But that’s ancient 1950s – 1960s design.
Liquid Fuel reactors don’t need that complexity, so they don’t have that expense.
I can see you have followed up every link I have posted about LFTR over the last few years.
Are you PF’s long lost twin brother?
50
Charts show Australia to be 3rd in the list of countries with Uranium production from mines: Kazakhstan (43%), Canada (13%), Australia (12%), then Namibia (10%). There is ore in the USA, with little production.
In any case, if Australia doesn’t mine coal or Uranium the rest of the nations that have minerals can meet the demand. Next generations can review these decisions. Interesting thought, yes?
60
I was referring to deposits, not production. Like many other things, Australia has plenty but produces little.
40
Australia only exports uranium oxide – there is NO uranium enrichment facility in Australia.
11
I said that. We only produce yellowcake. U3O8
20
You used the word “little”. Which does not mean nothing – there is NO uranium enrichment plant in Australia producing fuel rods.
Also I do not know of any mining operation in Australia exporting yellowcake (ammonium diuranate). I believe all the uranium now exported is just uranium oxide, in the form of fine black sand.
22
Unless we are exporting unprocessed rocks straight out of the ground, the uranium component of which will be mostly UO2, the ore will be processed to remove unwanted material leaving a uranium oxide product, mostly U3O8. This product is in modern terminology called yellowcake although it is not necessarily always yellow. Ammonium diurinate used to be called yellocake but that is not current practice.
The following link says that Australia exports uranium as U3O8 which must be the processed yellowcake form because the ore in the ground is mostly UO2.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/australia.aspx
10
Why are you arguing over the definition of “produces”?
A primary producer can be said to produce raw material – in the case of uranium, uranium oxide would fit this definition.
30
Australia mines and exports lots of uranium oxide – enough export to provide all of Australia’s electricity plus some. I do not believe Australia currently exports any yellowcake. Australia does not produce any uranium fuel rods.
01
[Yes Matty off topic.]AD
11
[Off topic]AD
31
If you think it is bad in Oz, then spare a thought for the UK.
We have over 300 years of coal reserves but we can’t use them because of pressure from XR and The Greens. The problem is The Greens hate nuclear even more than they hate coal.
In the 1950s we built the first commercial nuclear power stations – the advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR). They were the safest and best in the world, but we abandoned them in favour of rubbish French/US PWR technology. Now we are flirting with Chinese nuclear technology as well. We also have the world’s most advanced nuclear reprocessing facility at Sellafield, but we are now decommissioning that as well (although this will take 100 years). Instead we aim to be a world leader in building windmills.
110
It’s tragic what has become of Once Great Britain.
80
Watching a TV doco on Victorian period of GB last night..(BBC/ABC with M Portillo !)
In summary, under the reign on one Queen (Victoria, 75 yrs ) Britain went from being just another developing power, to having established the Greatest nation on the planet , with huge developments in Medicine, Transportation, Industrial processes, Civil engineering, and Military power.
.. A legacy that has been frittered away by a series of incompetent political policies and leadership.
90
Similar pattern unfolding hear in Australia.
40
I am curious as to why Australia appears on the graph for nuclear energy. We have one reactor (the second built in Lucas Heights south Sydney) which is mainly for the production of isotopes for medical use. It does produce some electricity, and that runs the facility but I wouldn’t have thought much else (unless the staff own electric cars?).
30
I wasn’t aware that the Lucas Heights reactor produced any electricity.
30
Sorry, I saw 20MW and assumed it generated some, but it appears that it is a open pool type with the core immersed in water as moderator and coolant, used mainly for medical isotopes and neutron activation experiments.
However I am glad to see that safety precautions have been taken. Life belts are there in case someone falls into the pool.
30
Years ago I did some testing of ballistic discs at the Holsworthy test range southwest of Sydney. The discs were produced for the mining industry to smash large boulders jammed in ore passes or stope draw points. We could get a 2.5kg steel disc to 2,500kph. We were testing the BD260 described here:
http://www.appliedexplosives.com/bd260-318-514/
A bit of steel at that velocity can disintegrate a cube of rock 3m square on each side – about a 100t rock depending on the type pf ore. The industry used the disc over a range up to 100m but they had stable flight for maybe 3 seconds.
The disc were set on the ground with sand bags to position them and a laser pointer with a magnetic base attached to the centre of the disc to aim them. At the range we were aiming them at a pile of concrete bridge beams that had been condemned and taken to the site as strong targets. The discs were placed about 200m from the pile of beams.
On the first test the aiming was out and the disc missed the target. You could see a line through the trees in the national park the base bordered down range that showed it had gone over the pile of beams. I casually asked what was 8km downrange. An army officer, assisting with the tests, volunteered “Lucas Heights’. We expect that the disc missed otherwise there would have been reports.
60
I wonder what word put 9.1.1.1 into moderation?
10
There’d be riots if that reactor produced even 1 milliwatt of electricity.
Yes, our once great nation really has been that dumbed down.
30
What a farce wind and solar from China truly is, I have noted television advertisements for heavily discounted solar systems in recent times, and one offering solar panels and battery storage.
The advert voice explains for country consumers of electricity that in this time of increasing grid unreliability solar and storage is the solution.
Transition to renewable energy, taxpayer’s subsidise destabilising of the grid and solar for rooftops, huge electricity price increases and now the renewables mob recommend that we invest in grid failure insurance?
80
Well, as Arthur Daley said “it’s a nice little earner”.
30
..and …” The World is your Lobster son “: !
RIP , Arthur .!
30
Solar combined with battery storage and a trickle charge generator is the economic proposition for remote locations in mainland Australia. It is a lower cost option than just diesel generator or long transmission lines. Here is an example:
https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/02/06/solar-and-batteries-slash-costs-at-off-grid-wa-cattle-station/
The payback does not appear spectacular but a diesel working continuously would need a major overhaul or replacement every two to three years and that is not cheap. A 33kVA generator that would likely be needed to match the peak rating of the 15kVA inverter cost around $30k. So 6 of those over a 20 year life is the same as the solar/battery system; albeit the battery probably needs one replacement over 20 years as they only get a 10 year warranty. Solar panels usually have a 25 year warranty.
20
“As well as providing reliable power, the $200,000 system, which will eventually include a 3 kWp wind turbine, will save Yallalong Station as much as $10,000 a year in diesel costs. It also avoids maintenance costs for the old diesel generator, which is now used just for backup.” Note: Backup required!!!
Also that the installation is a very long way from the grid, the cost of connecting would be very expensive to install and maintain wouldn’t it.
Meanwhile, and I drive in Central Australia and other remote regions regularly, the main source of electricity for roadhouses and other places remains diesel powered generators, solar and batteries are very expensive, and your own comment says a lot: “will save Yallong Station as much as $10,000 a year in diesel costs alone” …. so ignoring financing costs it will take 20 years to recover the cost of the solar-battery system before any savings are achieved.
Of course installations far from an electricity grid will benefit from hybrid installations but cost saving is not significant, remembering repairs, maintenance and replacement costs.
The fact remains, connection to a grid is still the most cost effective system, and based on the all power station generator supplied grid we used to have, even cheaper than it has become and as it continues to rise with electricity pricing cost.
20
Just came across this short video which contains a shorter video from the company intending to produce this battery, from nuclear waste! Fascinating viewing . . . .
“New Battery Only Needs Charging Every 1,000 Years”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SsQo8HnPr8&feature=emb_logo
10
I watched that video and at the end wondered what the regulatory authorities are doing about the company? Then I remembered that various “entrepreneurs” have been selling “clean” “green” and “cheapest electricity” for some years without being jailed.
20
Australia has huge supplies of coal and uranium but the communist warmies will not allow us to use either. However their idols communist China are building power stations and using both. The aim of these communist warmies is to destroy Australia’s economy to allow their idols to take over the country.
Treason is not acceptable and the communist warmies should be dealt with appropriately.
80
China is poised for success because they don’t care what others think. On the other hand Australia’s policy on anything is governed by the ball & chain opinions of The Left, The Greens, the Endangered Species brigade, Gaia mythology and the Global Warming hoaxters.
100
you are right. Let’s just do things because it benefits us.
26
Alternatively lets do things because they are of no benefit to us.
50
Best comment you’ve ever made, Gee Aye
50
STJOHNOFGRAFTON, I agree. It’s almost impossible to do anything of consequence in this country except for stupid things like destruction of reliable power production and its replacement with expensive weather dependent production.
Plus almost nothing can be done in contravention of some Marxist UN decree.
We can’t even do things that everybody agrees need doing in any reasonable time. Do you think the Chinese would have waited 50 years to make a decision about a second Sydney Airport? From the time of recognising the problem until completion of the build would have been about two years.
50
We Australians are a fairly easy going lot. It will be our eventual downfall. Enjoy it while it lasts.
40
A time of bread and circuses, what fun.
01
A refreshing look at just how bitter and twisted western economies have become since the CO2/fossil fuel driven climate change fear mongering individuals got started after Thatcher determined the coal mining industry in the UK had to be changed. Sadly the USA has ignored many of the developing nuclear projects that it has on its own doorstep, projects that have never demanded or needed the mega-millions thrown at solar, wind and electric vehicles. Many of these smaller scale projects are wonderfully innovative about things like safety, security and waste disposal. And they would buy the planet many decades of breathing space to determine just how much human use of fossil fuel is really damaging the planet if indeed it is.
30
“el gordo”,
At #6.1.3.1.1, in endeavouring to compare the cost of a typical nuclear reactor with that of whatever renewables mix is proposed for the NSW so-called “renewables zone”, might I suggest that you are making the classic mistake: nuclear power stations produce power in spades, on demand, 24/7, 365 days of the year. They also contribute automatically the synchronous inertia which is absolutely essential to grid stability. In short, a nuclear power station is a direct plug-in replacement for coal-fired power. As Anton Lang showed us some blogs ago, it doesn’t matter how many wind or solar “farms” are built, they can never, ever replace a real power station, and their output gyrations destabilise the grid. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of wind turbines and/or solar PV panels, and Minister Matt Kean will never be able to replace Liddell. So, “el gordo”, do you begin to understand that yours is simply not a valid comparison?
Very well done, Jo,
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
60
Good summary of the truth. How anyone can say renewables are cheaper than nuclear (or coal for that matter) just doesn’t have a clue.
20
My view is that all coal fired power stations should be replaced by new Hele. Its a matter for state governments to provide the right mix and bring down energy prices or be thrown out of office.
Any suggestion that a nuclear power plant could replace Liddell is simply laughable.
01
Why not say it properly: are you trying to have a bit each way?
“My view is that all coal fired power stations should be replaced by new Hele.”
Why did you avoid saying it clearly?
My view is that all old/obsolete coal fired power stations should be replaced by new Hele Coal Fired power generation.
Most sensible people would agree.
And yes, this comment is laughable;
“Any suggestion that a nuclear power plant could replace Liddell is simply laughable”.
Nuclear power could replace Liddell but is way too costly relative to coal.
What’s going on.
KK
20
‘Why did you avoid saying it clearly?’
I may have cognitive dissonance.
Focussing on western NSW and looking at the options, the government will fund the poles and wires for the Renewable zones, its the least they could do.
00
El Gordo has made several comments, and now this.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/china-poised-to-be-the-largest-global-nuclear-power-by-2030/#comment-2361226
Please, what is the message you trying to give?
20
We live in a free market economy, business can invest in Renewables if they think it viable.
Mt Piper power plant has room to expand, but they have held back building a new pod because of the green scourge. So they’ll sit on their hands until government decides on whether it should be gas or coal.
00
El Gordo has made several comments, and now this.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/china-poised-to-be-the-largest-global-nuclear-power-by-2030/#comment-2361226
Please, what is the message you are trying to give?
10
We have to get Australia to decriminalize nuclear power and fast track molten salt reactors using fertile Thorium-232 converted to fissile Uranium-233.
00