Australia’s Renewable Energy Target directs more than $7 billion a year in subsidies to wind and solar and is doing precisely what it was designed to do: namely, destroying Australia’s reliable and affordable power supplies.
At the political level, the scramble is now on to keep coal-fired power plants up and running, wait for it, with government subsidies to the owners of those reliable plants to counteract the effect of the colossal subsidies being doled out to hopelessly unreliable wind and solar. Go figure!
Meanwhile, Australia, which holds the world’s largest uranium reserves, maintains its ludicrous ban on nuclear power generation. Australia’s energy policy is nothing short of treasonous.
Australia’s politics is bereft of leadership and there’s no better example thereof than the failure to advance nuclear power in this country. Notwithstanding the unfolding power pricing and supply calamity – driven by chaotically intermittent and heavily subsidised wind and solar – its new Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, more Elmer Fudd than Bob Hawke, refuses to even discuss the prospect of nuclear power generation, and is left to waffle about mythical battery storage and pie-in-the-sky ‘green’ hydrogen schemes somehow saving his country from the consequence of attempting to rely upon the perpetually unreliable.
The Labor/Green Alliance will always run the anti-nuke mantra – they’re far too invested (literally and figuratively) in the mythical ‘transition’ to an all wind and sun-powered future.
One glaring and obvious reason for the implosion of the Morrison led Liberal/National Coalition was that Morrison and his left-leaning bedwetters from the leafy and well-healed suburbs of Australia’s major cities went all-out by signing and to a net-zero carbon dioxide emissions target without committing Australia to nuclear power generation.
Died in the wool Liberal voters watched on, bewildered as Morrison blundered to his inevitable defeat. Anyone talking about reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the electricity generation sector and not talking about nuclear power generation, simply can’t be taken seriously; Morrison wasn’t.
His successor in title, Peter Dutton is at least contemplating the idea; albeit with his rear end parked firmly on the fence. His party’s Coalition partner, the Nationals are all in. However, if Dutton wants a shot at returning the Liberal/National Coalition to Federal government he needs to firmly reject his predecessor’s fence-sitting approach to energy and stop giving mere lip service to nuclear power. The electorate is ready for it, and for as long as that-zero carbon oxide gas emissions targets are on foot, it stands as the only antidote to the current madness that has overtaken energy policy in this country, and elsewhere.
Peter Dutton presses button on the nuclear energy debate
The Australian
Greg Brown
2 August 2022
Peter Dutton will consider backing nuclear energy ahead of the next election as he attempts to unite the Coalition behind an energy policy that will raise ambitions on lowering emissions but retain product differentiation from the Labor government.
After the Coalition’s joint partyroom meeting in Canberra on Tuesday, the Opposition Leader said there would be an internal party review to “examine the potential for advanced and next-generation nuclear technologies to contribute to Australia’s energy security and reduce power prices”.
The review, to be led by opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, will report to the Coalition policy committee chaired by Marise Payne.
Nuclear energy generation has been prohibited by the federal government since 1998, with legislation needing to be passed to allow the technology to be used for electricity.
Mr Dutton said it was “high time that Australia had an honest and informed debate on the benefits and costs of nuclear energy”.
“The current energy crisis has shown the importance of getting more dispatchable power into the grid,” Mr Dutton said.
“The average wholesale electricity price in the second quarter this year was three times higher than the same time a year ago – a situation described by the Australian Energy Market Operator as ‘unprecedented’.
“While renewables will play an important growing role in Australia’s energy mix, they need to be balanced by sufficient investment in dispatchable generation.”
Mr Dutton said Australian households were vulnerable over energy security given that 60 per cent of the capacity of coal-fired powered generators was expected to leave the market by 2030.
“If we are serious about reducing emissions, while at the same time maintaining a strong economy and protecting our traditional industries, all technologies need to be on the table,” he said.
“Nuclear energy is a mature, proven technology. It can provide the reliable, emissions-free, base-load electricity Australia needs.”
With the Coalition divided on the way forward on climate change, MPs believe backing nuclear can be a way to unite city-based Liberals pushing for more ambition and Nationals MPs against higher emissions targets.
A report by the CSIRO released in July warned the prospect of nuclear generation being realised in Australia this decade was low “given the technology’s commercial immaturity and high cost”.
“Future cost reductions are possible but depend on its successful commercial deployment overseas,” the CSIRO report said.
[Note to the CSIRO: That would be why nuclear-powered France enjoys power prices almost half those suffered in wind and solar powered Denmark and Germany (see below) and doesn’t suffer power rationing and blackouts when the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in]
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Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government’s proposal would see “the most expensive form of energy” be put into the system.
“The answer to dealing with rising power prices is the same as the answer to reducing emissions: that is more renewable energy,” Mr Bowen told parliament’s question time.
“Clean energy is cheap energy. We know the sun doesn’t send a bill, and the wind doesn’t send an invoice.”
[Note to Bowen: see the graphic above, and ask a wind and solar ‘powered’ South Australian about their most recent power bill.]
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable said nuclear energy could play a role in “building Australia’s economic performance and prosperity on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050”.
“Over the longer term, nuclear energy can play a key role – along with other zero-emissions energy sources like renewables and carbon capture and storage – in helping Australia meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement,” Ms Constable said.
“The opposition’s announcement to continue the examination of this important technology is a sensible contribution to this ongoing debate.”
The Australian
STOP THESE THINGS 
Politicians are to afraid to take the bull by the horns and do the right thing.
Politicians are more concerned about working out which hairbrained idea will be the next one that will get them elected again.
They take too much notice of the irrational media seeking mindless so called campaigners who are only interested in finding something they can scream about which the media will then report and report and report until others think the ‘something’ is important enough to push Politicians to accept.
But the situation we are now in, is or should be the most important thing on Politicians minds – they need to stop watching and listening to the irrational calls from the screeching wanna be’s and look to the future of this Nation.
All the cry that Nuclear is too expensive WHAT is cost efficient with the methods being utilised and proposed presently.
Reliable energy to bring this nation back to being a strong one with all who want work are in work and people able to buy or rent homes – that is COST EFFECTIVE. It cannot be done using hapless turbines and solar panels or even hydrogen – all of which are more expensive over a lifetime than a nuclear power plant or two would be.
Turbines are constantly in need of maintenance and replacement, batteries tend to blow-up whether big batteries or those used to power homes. Then there’s the cost of replacing solar panels – each of these things are expensive and do we have the land to meet the numbers needed.
You also have the environmental cost of these things NO ONE HAS UNDERTAKEN A SIGNIFICANT INVESTIGATION OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF THESE THINGS – where is the evidence that they have not damaged the land and welfare of the creatures who live(ed) on the land they use?
These projects require vast amounts of land – just look at what is happening in Western Victoria, there you will see projects so close together they will soon appear to be just one project, where will animals and people go to get away from them?
Building these things offshore is also not cost effective and only damages the remaining beauty of our environments – soon it will not be possible to look out to sea to the horizon because turbines will be there rusting and causing immense damage to the sea floor and all the creatures that rely on it for survival.
But a few of the most advanced energy production facilities around the Nation would prevent all this horrific occurrence. A few small Nuclear plants (WHICH HAVE AND ARE BEING PROVEN TO BE VALUABLE ASSETS ELSEWHERE) will give the land and ocean floor back to nature, enabling life to return, unfortunately not all will be able to return because it has been extinguished in the meantime by the ‘nature loving’ mass of city dwellers who believe they have a right to campaign and bring disaster to this National and its environment.
Members of all Parliaments need to get their heads around exactly what is going on and accept this Nation is now at a turning point, if we don’t secure our energy supply using a sensible cost effective and reliable source then we might just as well let other Nations walk in and take over to plunder our riches until they have no further use for us.
What will be left is not worth thinking about SO POLI’S GET OF YOUR CHAIRS AND PUT YOU FEET FIRMLY ON THE GROUND AND DO WHAT YOU KNOW YOU MUST TO BRING THIS NATION FORWARD – MAKING IT SECURE AND STRONG FOR OUR CHILDRENS FUTURE.
The cost in not doing so will be far more than the cost of taking the bull by the horns and accepting not only have we the ability to build these small nuclear plants but we also have abundance of the stuff that operates them.
THAT IS COST EFFECTIVE as they do not require replacing every few years, are more able to be protected should their be a need to protect our energy supply, and will return the land to its former use and enable people to live again not just exist.
Ask your government:
Please send the comprehensive quantitative system engineering study of an all-renewable electrical system, including analyses of generation, transmission, distribution, backup, storage, frequency stability, voltage stability, grid inertia, recycling, waste disposal, capital cost, operating cost, and end-user price. System Engineering includes analysis of how all the components work together, not just analysis of each component.
If no such study exists, why are we jumping out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute, as Germany, Britain, and Australia have already done?
Don’t expect a response.
I asked my federal (USA) state (CA) and local (Los Angeles County) legislators:
“Please send the comprehensive quantitative system engineering study of an all-renewable electrical system, including analyses of generation, transmission, distribution, backup, storage, frequency stability, voltage stability, inertia, recycling, waste disposal, capital cost, operating cost, and end-user price. System Engineering includes analysis of how all the components work together, not just analysis of each component.
“If no such study exists, why are we jumping out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute, as Germany, Britain, and Australia have already done?”
I have gotten no responses.
A lot of people think Dutton is a bit ‘brainless’ – if he continues to sit on the fence between nuclear and/or wind and solar power it will prove beyond doubt he is both ‘brainless’ and ‘gutless’ – the numbers do not lie – it is either coal, gas or nuclear or economic disaster and oblivion. The fact the Australian voter has been lead up the garden path is no excuse for not doing the right thing for our country and the fact that elected leaders who know the truth but refuse to acknowledge it and fight for the ‘reality’ of it means they should not be in public office getting huge salaries but should be on the dole in which event we would all be better off.
He is waiting for electricity bills to increase, then he will choose. As renewables drive bills upwards – as they will – then he has a way to appeal to voters.