SMRs are no right-wing fantasy: 200 small nuclear reactors are presently powering 160 ships and submarines all around the world, and have been for decades.
STT promotes nuclear power because it works: safe, affordable, reliable and the perfect foil for those worried about human-generated carbon dioxide gas – because it doesn’t generate any, while generating power on demand, irrespective of the weather – unlike the forever unreliables: wind and solar.
Australia’s maniacal obsession with wind and solar has just delivered a 25-30% hike in retail power prices – that crushing impost sits on top of increases of between 10-20% in retail power prices that have taken effect throughout the financial year. Which means that many households and businesses will see a 50% jump in their power bills in less than 12 months. And that follows double-digit percentage increases in retail power bills every year since the Green-Labor Alliance ramped up the Federal government’s Renewable Energy Target back in 2010.
At a time when Europeans are crab walking away from their subsidised wind and solar catastrophes, Australia has doubled down. The Swedes have ditched their policy of trying to rely on wind and solar, plumping for new nuclear power, instead. And the French are demanding a rapid uptake of nuclear power across Europe.
But in Australia – with its idiotic, 25-year-old ban on nuclear power generation – the sensible response to their self-inflicted energy woes seen in Europe fails to register, with the solution to Australia’s power pricing and supply calamity hiding in plain sight.
The leader of the Federal Opposition, Peter Dutton is, thankfully, not so blind that he cannot see.
As reported in The Australian, Dutton has hitched his party’s wagon to a nuclear-powered future. And about time, too.
Peter Dutton: turn coal-powered plants to nuclear
The Australian
Simon Benson
7 July 2023
Peter Dutton has proposed converting old coal-fired power sites into locations for small-scale nuclear plants as part of the Coalition’s future energy plan as the Opposition Leader launches his most strident attack yet on the “renewable zealotry” of the Albanese government.
In a speech to the Institute of Public Affairs on Friday morning, the Liberal leader will double down on the party’s plans to pursue nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, claiming the “renewables only” agenda was “fanciful” and putting the nation at risk.
Mr Dutton will suggest the site of the decommissioned Liddell Power Station, in the NSW Hunter Valley, was an example of where a small modular nuclear reactor that could power 300,000 homes alone could be located.
The Albanese government has rubbished his proposals for nuclear power bases, arguing they would be too costly, and has previously challenged Mr Dutton to nominate where they would be located.
BHP has also argued for Australia to remove prohibitions on nuclear energy, arguing it could help achieve the 2030 and 2050 climate change targets.
In an attack on the environmental credentials of the renewable energy industry, Mr Dutton will say while renewables were necessary, the pursuit of wind, solar and batteries alone would not solve the energy problem he says has catapulted Australia’s domestic energy to among the highest-priced in the world.
He has also linked the need for nuclear energy to national security, claiming renewables alone would leave the nation vulnerable, outlining three pillars for the Coalition energy policy based on clean power, cost-effective power and consistent power.
“If the government wants to stop coal-fired power and phase out gas-fired power, the only feasible and proven technology which can firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean, cost-effective and consistent power is next-generation nuclear technologies, which are safe and emit zero emissions,” Mr Dutton will say in the speech.
“Namely, small modular reactors or ‘SMRs’. And microreactors or micro modular reactors – ‘MMRs’ – which are also known as ‘nuclear batteries’.
“A single SMR can power 300,000 homes. A microreactor could power a hospital, a factory, a mining site or a military base.
“Chris Bowen has burrowed so deeply down the renewable rabbit hole that he refuses to consider these new nuclear technologies as part of the solution to our energy problems.
“In the Energy Minister’s eyes, he sees nuclear and renewables as competitors. Whereas we need to see them as companions. New nuclear technologies can be plugged into existing grids and work immediately.”
Mr Dutton identified Liddell Power Station, claiming an SMR needed only about 18 hectares of land. Liddell, he said, occupied about 100 hectares. “We could convert or repurpose coal-fired plants and use the transmission connections which already exist on those sites,” he will say. “It’s no wonder more than 50 countries are exploring or investing in new SMRs and nuclear batteries.
“Energy security is a primary reason why Australia must consider new nuclear technologies as part of the energy mix.
“The government has committed to building nuclear-powered submarines in Australia under AUKUS.
“The submarines are essentially floating SMRs. The most modern reactors in the submarines in operation today don’t need to be refuelled for 30 years.”
In remarks likely to ignite a fierce response from the renewables industry, Mr Dutton also questioned the environmental benefit of building 58 million solar panels and 3500 wind turbines he claims would be needed to reach the government’s 2030 clean energy targets.
“Of course, we all understand the need to invest in the development of renewables and the important role they play in the energy mix,” Mr Dutton said.
“But the government is not being technologically agnostic or objective. On the contrary, its ‘renewables only’ mentality – its renewable zealotry – is putting our nation at risk.
“The Albanese government is recklessly rushing to renewables and switching off the old system before the new one is ready.
“We hear too from the ‘renewables only’ campaigners that they are better for the environment.
“By 2050, the plan includes carpeting our landscape with 28,000 kilometres of new transmission poles and wires – the equivalent of almost the entire coastline of mainland Australia – at a cost of more than $100bn.
“Putting aside the fact that a rollout on this scale is fanciful … how on Earth is it environmentally friendly?”
Mr Dutton first flagged nuclear energy as part of the Coalition’s energy plans in September 2022 and again in his budget reply speech in May.
But his speech to the IPA is the first to identify potential locations for the SMR reactors.
Nationals leader David Littleproud on Wednesday praised Mr Dutton for having the “courage” to get the Liberal Party on board with a pro-nuclear position already held by the Nationals.
The Australian
STOP THESE THINGS 
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
If the Coalition had pushed nuclear at the last election they would have probably won! Hopefully they mean what they are now saying!
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Why does Dutton and others like him insist on paying lip service to renewables. There is zero need for renewables. Everywhere they are implemented, they are counter-productive. Once you have nuclear it doesn’t complement renewables, it replaces them completely if one is intelligently managing the grid.
He’s playing to left-wingers in his tent, who believe that they can attract the doctor’s wives in the leafy green suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne and win back those seats from the so-called Teals.
The GE/Hitachi PRISM design (150, 300, or 360 MWe) is based on EBR-II, which was proven in 1986 to be walk-away safe. It included a simple small fuel cycle facility, making it the first Integral Fast Reactor — power and fuel processing integrated at one site. http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Nuclear.html#Plentiful
It was approved by the US NRC in 1994. They await only orders.
It’s not obvious that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is a bad thing. Indeed, if it were to be reduced to about one third of the present concentration, plants would die, and so would every other life form. CO2 has been decreasing on a straight-line path from 2800 ppmv 150 million years ago to 280 ppmv in 1750 because sea plants and creatures have been creating armor composed of calcium carbonate, aka limestone and chalk. Extrapolating that line shows life on Earth would have ended in seven million years. Fortunately, humans burning coal and petroleum and methane to fuel the industrial revolution have increased CO2 to 415 ppmv, postponing the end of life to fifteen million years. The optimum range for plant growth is up to 2000 ppmv. If we want to feed a growing population with increasing crop yields, more CO2 is better. Contrary to stopping CO2 emissions, we should be burning coal as fast as we can (cleanly, of course), and making cement as fast as we can. https://vsnyder.substack.com/the-end-of-life-on-earth.
I wonder why it hasn’t occurred to any Australian politicians that there is a huge elephant in their living room – China!
“If the government wants to stop coal-fired power and phase out gas-fired power, the only feasible and proven technology which can firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean, cost-effective and consistent power is next-generation nuclear technologies, which are safe and emit zero emissions,” Mr Dutton will say in the speech.
Dutton is another Liberal idiot trying to appease the zealots who are all in on the renewables.
Why build nuclear to “firm” up renewables? It makes absolutely no sense at all. We don’t need renewables if we build nuclear. Simple!
I swear that politicians are getting dumber as I get older!
Il ne faut pas rever. Il n y a pas de probleme de prix en propulsion navale sousmarine et bien que leur fiabilite nous semble acquise (mais que sait on des problemes techniques rencontres par les marins) il faut bien convenir que le capital a investir par KW SMR civil et surtout son prix d exploitation sont ensemble au bas mot au moins le double de celui du reacteur conventionnel. Le seul interet present de la vogue SMR actuelle est de refamiliariser le public avec le nucleaire que des idiot utiles ont villipende depuis 50 ans.
Perhaps. But unlike the pragmatic French, Australians banned nuclear power in 1998. Our best hope of entering the modern age is with SMRs placed on sites presently used for coal-fired power. That’s not based on a dream, but necessity.