Nuclear is a toxic idea ... here's why

As you can see from the below graph, nuclear is by far the most expensive way to power our homes. [4]

Nuclear would provide the most expensive power. Source: CSIRO

The cost of building large scale nuclear is eye-watering. Best case scenario, constructing just one nuclear plant would cost $8.65 billion. But Australia has never built a nuclear power station before, so it’s very likely this price would be much higher, possibly as much as $17 billion or more. [5]

Nuclear energy projects have a long history of delays and massive cost blowouts. In the UK, the Hinkley Point C reactor was originally budgeted to cost $35 billion (AUD) but will now cost up to $94 billion (AUD). And this is in a country that already has an established nuclear industry! [6]

For this reason, superannuation funds and banks have refused to back nuclear as it doesn’t stack up economically, so the Coalition has conceded taxpayers would need to pay the full amount.

It’s a different story for clean energy. The Federal Government’s Capital Investment Scheme (CIS) is driving billions of dollars in private investment in wind, solar and batteries (which means taxpayers don’t have to foot all the costs).

In fact, the first large scale auction for battery storage was massively oversubscribed, showing huge investor interest in Australian renewable energy projects. [7]

Powering Australia with nuclear energy would cost roughly twice as much as renewables, CSIRO report shows

ABC News

In 2010 just 10% of our electricity production came from clean energy, but by 2023 that number had soared to almost 40%. [11]

Rapid advances in energy technology, including large scale batteries, means we no longer require energy grids to be designed around the old ‘baseload’ model, where large, centralised power stations operated at a constant rate and can’t quickly or efficiently vary their output. Clean energy grids are being designed around a combination of variable but predictable solar and wind, and dispatchable sources. ‘Dispatchable’ means they can quickly ramp up and down their output like batteries and pumped hydro.

This is a new way of designing an energy grid. But we have study upon study showing exactly how it is possible using the technology we already have. See here, here and here.

This new model works for a number of reasons. Solar and wind output can be predicted in advance, allowing grid operators to plan and engage the required dispatchable output. You can also use ‘demand response’ mechanisms, where large industrial energy users are paid to reduce consumption at rare times of very high demand. This is much more cost effective than building generation capacity that might only be needed a few hours each year – which occurs in baseload systems. As nuclear generation is not flexible, introducing it to the energy mix would require rooftop solar system to be disconnected from the grid during the day! [12]

No room for nuclear power, unless the Coalition switches off your solar

The Conversation

As you can see from the graph below, even if the Coalition’s proposed nuclear plants were built, they would only be a small, but very expensive, fraction of our energy grid. We would still need to move full steam ahead with renewable energy.

SEE THE LITTLE RED SLIVER? THAT'S ALL NUCLEAR WOULD BRING TO THE TABLE ... SOURCE: BloombergNEF

Nuclear is costly, time intensive and unnecessary. We need to cut climate pollution now, not in 25 years’ time, and clean energy sources like wind and solar with battery storage are the fastest and lowest-cost way to achieve this.

Header image credit: Zach Korb, Flickr