WHY AUSTRALIA SHOULD CONSIDER NUCLEAR POWER – TONY GREY

In 2024, Opposition leader Peter Dutton has opened up a discussion – indeed a debate – on Australia introducing nuclear energy as part of its zero carbon emissions targets. Should it win government, Peter Dutton has announced that the Liberal/National Coalition would establish nuclear reactors in several communities around Australia backed up by gas-powered electricity. To understand the arguments surrounding a nuclear power industry in Australia, on Monday 22 September The Sydney Institute asked Tony Grey, founder of energy company Pancontinental Mining, and Max Douglass, policy analyst with the McKell Institute, to give the for and against arguments for nuclear energy being part of Australia’s energy mix.

WHY AUSTRALIA SHOULD CONSIDER NUCLEAR POWER

TONY GREY

Following years of slow down after the Fukushima accident in 2011, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance. The shock interruption in Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe after the Ukraine invasion has combined with Climate Change anxieties to redirect attention towards nuclear, a widely available and carbon – free energy source.

The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that its target of keeping the rise in average global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 cannot be achieved without the contribution of nuclear power. And at the recent COP 28 climate conference in Dubai, 22 countries pledged to triple their nuclear generation by 2050.

Around the world, there has been a significant abatement in the fears which have animated the anti-nuclear movement since its 1975 start in the U.S. under Ralph Nader. The effluxion of time has placed safety, the number one issue, in perspective. Since the commencement of nuclear electricity in the 1950s (over 70 years ago), there have been only three accidents where human life was threatened. In fact, death from a direct nuclear cause occurred in only one, at Chernobyl. It was the tsumami that caused the deaths at Fukushima.

All deaths should be treated with concern, but natural compassion shouldn’t obscure the remarkable safety record of nuclear power. Former chief scientist Alan Finkel has said about nuclear, “The deaths from accidents and air pollution per unit of electrical energy generated are comparable with solar and wind power.” And he estimated that coal was 50 times more deadly.

There is still concern, however, about high level nuclear waste. It’s a serious enough matter, but the quantum is not large. The annual high-level waste produced by the entire world could be stored on a football field two metres high. Waste disposal technology has been known for decades. It’s based on incorporating the waste in water resistant minerals and burying it in geologically stable formations. Australia has plenty of these. So, if the technology is there, why isn’t it in use? It’s because of the NYMBY syndrome. The problem is socio- political, not technological.

But that’s changing. Finland is embarking on a permanent storage system. Their technique is to encase the waste in cast-iron and copper cylinders and wrap them in bentonite clay. The Finns have located an appropriate site at Onkalo in the west, and have obtained local community support and approval by the federal government. The project is currently under construction and is expected to be in operation within a year from now. Once that happens, it’s likely the NYMBY effect in other countries will be abated.

At present, 32 countries have nuclear power, with 440 reactors supplying 10 per cent of the world’s electricity. Another 60 are under construction and a further 110 are planned. China is leading the charge, with 23 reactors under construction.

Proof of the nuclear renaissance lies in the price of uranium, which has moved from $US 20 a pound six years ago to $US 86 today. The nuclear renaissance is aided by the take up of Small Modular Reactors, defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 MWh or less. Because of their modular form, SMRs can be manufactured in batches to a single design, which reduces unit costs and facilitates the streamlining of regulatory approvals. The smaller ones can be transported on trucks to remote sites such as mines, obviating the need for diesel to fuel generators. BHP has been lobbying the government for this, and Russia has one operating at a Siberian gold mine. Thirty countries are building or planning SMRs and 20 more are considering them.

Despite the resurgence of nuclear, legislation passed in 1998 prohibits nuclear power generation in Australia. However, there is rising public support for repealing it. Recent polls indicate two thirds of Australians are in favour of a repeal. The Opposition is responding sensibly to the changing nuclear world, with Peter Dutton announcing a policy to build seven large scale reactors and two SMRs.

The role of nuclear could be twofold. The plants could generate power entirely by themselves, or act as an emission-free firming agent for renewables when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. At present, coal and gas provide the base-load service. There is, in reality, no emission-free alternative. Fossil fuels will have to continue their role if nuclear doesn’t fill it.

Chris Bowen vaguely suggests that batteries, which could store energy when renewables aren’t operating, could be the firming agent. But, crucially, he fails to admit that grid scale batteries don’t exist yet. Current batteries don’t have large enough capacity. So much R & D is still to be done that the big ones are years away from being a reality.

Notwithstanding the clarion call of nuclear, the Albanese government is stubbornly maintaining the political left’s antipathy to it, a bias which is sicklied over with the pale cast of ideology. Because the traditional anti-nuclear arguments have lost their force, the ALP is turning to the economic field, with fallacious claims. It’s what they did in their opposition to uranium mining. Their anti-nuclear ideology has a long history

Chris Bowen is claiming that nuclear plants are too expensive and would take too long to build. He bases his claim on the flawed Gencost report commissioned by the CSIRO. Neither the CSIRO, nor the Gencost staff, contain any experts in the construction or operation of nuclear power plants. Gencost outsourced its nuclear task to Aurecon Consulting, which is an engineering firm. It’s of good reputation but also has no nuclear expertise.

The whole exercise is marred by the absence of any input by nuclear specialists. The CSIRO did invite expert submissions but promptly ignored them all. It’s clear that the government expected the Gencost report to come up with findings supporting its claims of high costs for nuclear. And it complied, but with the aid of flawed assumptions and data. The errors led the report to reach the preposterous conclusion that nuclear power would cost twice as much as renewables.

For example, Gencost claims that the capital cost of SMRs would be $16,000 /Kh. That’s almost three times what is disclosed in a report from Canada, which is actually building SMRs. Even making allowance for the different conditions in Australia, the assertion is astonishing. Gencost flagrantly distorted the application of Levelised Cost of Electricity when comparing nuclear with renewables. LCOE comprises both capital and operating costs, spread over the life of the generating asset divided by the electricity output.

Clearly, the length of time over which the asset is amortised can be critical to the calculation of cost. Gencost assumed the life of a nuclear plant was 30 years when its real life is 60 to 80 years, over twice as long as the life of solar and wind plants. Also, it assumed all wind farms would be onshore when the government’s policy is to include many of the offshore variety, which cost more. A further erroneous assumption was that nuclear reactors would only operate at around 50 per cent of their capacity, increasing their LCOE significantly, when every nuclear expert knows they operate at around 92 per cent.

When nuclear plants act as firming agents for renewables, they would operate at somewhat less than their full capacity. However, while renewables are producing, some of the nuclear output could be stored in small batteries. That would result in their operating at less than 92 per cent total capacity but certainly more than 50 per cent.

In another flurry of hyperbole, Gencost took the capital cost of a recently built large scale Korean reactor and almost tripled it, alleging the exaggeration was justified by Australian conditions. If the Gencost people had properly consulted nuclear experts, they would have been forced to reach the inconvenient conclusion that the real costs of nuclear are dramatically lower than what they claimed. For instance, Tony Irwin, a nuclear engineer and the CEO of SMR Nuclear Technology Ltd. in Australia, who has actually run nuclear plants in the UK, says that after appropriate adjustments for Gencost’s fudging, nuclear would actually be 50 per cent cheaper than renewables.

There are other factors not given appropriate weight in Gencost’s report. For instance, a full deployment of renewables would require 15 per cent of Australia’s land mass, larger than South Australia. And it would need a third of the country’s agricultural land. On the other hand, Peter Dutton’s plan for 7 reactors would need only 21 square kilometres in total. And, were nuclear plants to replace coal, (as provided in the Dutton plan) they could use existing transmission and other infrastructure. Instead of losing their jobs, workers could be retrained to work in the new industry.

Contrary to what Chris Bowen claims, nuclear plants require only slightly more water than coal plants. In any event, they can use air cooled condensers, as the Kogan Creek coal plant in Queensland does. No account is taken of the district heat nuclear plants can offer. Since they operate by heating water to create steam to drive the turbines, they can provide heat for the public. In Europe, 60 million people are currently kept warm in winter by 3500 local district heating networks supplied by nuclear waste heat.

The other spurious argument is that nuclear would take too long to install. For that contention, Chris Bowen relies on Gencost’s exaggerated claim that it would take 15 years to bring nuclear plants to production. Since the construction time would be three years (as admitted by Gencost), the pre-construction period would be a breath taking 12 years. Tony Irwin estimates a more reasonable time frame would be 10 years from the date a project is decided upon (including construction). That’s about the same as for wind farms.

How is it that 32 countries, many of them wealthy like Australia, are powering ahead with nuclear if, as Chris Bowen claims, it is too expensive even to consider for us? And if nuclear is uneconomic, why is that Ontario, Canada, which is 58 per cent nuclear, is able to supply electricity at half the cost payable by NSW consumers?

The answer reverberates around the world. Nuclear power is an economically attractive source of emission-free electricity, ready to work with renewables to achieve net zero CO2. emissions. At the very least, Chris Bowen should consider that it is possible he could err and repeal the suffocating ban in order to open the door to the fresh air of knowledge. His obstinate reluctance to do that is evocative of George Orwell’s 1984, where Big Brother says, “ignorance is power”.

In the midst of the palpable discontent with the government’s energy policies, we need a debate about nuclear which is not infected by ideology, and which is free to look at the facts objectively, aided by experts actually relevant to the issues. If we were to do this, it is most likely that affordable and emission – free nuclear power would be selected to act as a helpful energy partner with renewables.

But first, the ban must be lifted. To paraphrase John Lennon’s famous song, “Give nuclear a chance.”