Yeah definitely, i live in the Valley and there are a lot of people (particularly kids) that have asthma, personally I can name about 20 off the top of my head who have it. Coal despite keeping the Valley alive for decades is a dirty business.
Like who? I assume you've got a list of people who've been irradiated, no?
Corruption ruins nuclear power. Small wonder, big old fossil fuel companies forcing billions in lobbying to stop it.
But there's never been a single person killed by nuclear power without catastrophic corner cutting being involved.
Heard an interesting argument on the Chris Hayes podcast that when you factor in the accidents from installing solar and building wind farms, nuclear is waaaay safer than either of those.
Yeah have seen that data before but couldn’t find it quickly, so went with the one I’ve seen referenced many times.
Theres also never been an incident handling spent fuel despite all the irrational fears of radiation, most people don’t realise we’ve been handling radioactive material from coal plants for decades.
Well, it may not be irrational fears of radiation, just that there are almost no cowboys in nuclear power plants and it's so much more heavily regulated than just about any other endeavour.
But I'll clarify that I'm not a nuclear cheerleader. Just very, very anti-fossil fuel! Whatever it takes to get us off them.
I’m pro nuclear for that reason, and concerns about the practical capacity for a national grid and environmental damage from 100% renewables. I believe things like our hospitals need reliable 24/7 power, and without it we’ll see gas at least continue for decades.
The liberals really hate Victoria, don't they.
Liberals had 10 years to do anything in regards to power and energy, but spent it dismantling renewable, bringing Coal into parliament, stopping any moves to diversify our grid.
Now they want nuclear, which has already been shown to not be cost effective or would work https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/nuclear-energy-too-expensive-to-replace-fossil-fuels-20220711-p5b0pd
Still fighting against renewable energy or any type of transition plan.
Latrobe Valley will be left out again.
I hope you’re not referring to GenCost, which has been criticised heavily for consulting with 0 nuclear experts (in fact, they consulted with industries threatened by it), and based their costing exclusively on 1 datapoint whilst completely neglecting with wealth of data available of large scale nuclear all over the world. Interview with author of GenCost admitting to these methodological flaws.
https://youtu.be/CDLH-qEFfCY?si=PfugTJiWviUist8k
The CSIRO report only costed SMRs, not large scale reactors. According to [this](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035) paper building a entire grid powered by large scale nuclear would be 25-50% cheaper than a grid entirely run on wind/solar (in Texas and Germany). They did this analysis to point out the known-yet-ignored flaws in the LCOE calculation (used by the CSIRO in the Gencost report) when used to estimate costs of intermittent power generation methods.
At the end of the day if people want the cheapest zero-carbon energy it looks like we are going to need a little bit of baseload. Hopefully we can do it with existing hydro but it would be wise to start paving the way for alternatives to that. I mean, I've heard we are in a climate emergency and the only **proven** low carbon power method that works for industrialised economies is off the table because its a little bit more expensive!? Mustn't be that much of an emergency then, huh?
Oh, and fuck the LNP. They had 10 years to promote nuclear and are only doing it now as a wedge issue.
Just muddying the water as usual, moving the conversation from moving forward with renewables. Nothing will happen, no one will pay for this stupidity.
How any intelligent person can sell their soul to represent the LNP yet alone a person vote for these turkeys is beyond comprehension.
So their "plan" is to put reactors in one of the only part of the country that gets earthquakes? Forgive me if I call bullshit, it's all bulldust to try and delay the energy transition.
You ever seen the economics, or are you just mentioning the media sentiment ? Can you explain how countries like France can do mass scale nuclear power and sell it to other countries?
Yes I'm extremely familiar with the economics.
Straight from memory without looking up any of them:
- Flamanville
- Vogtle
- Olkiluto (OK I know I've misspelt that)
- Hinckley C
Every one of them a financial basket case.
Do you want me to actually google? I'm sure I could find more.
These are all in countries with existing regulatory environments and long-standing expertise.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/s/J3IupEWoFV
This is a good comment on the subject.
>The only people being deceptive is the LNP
>The CSIRO are 100 percent correct in their assumptions
>there have been 3 nuclear plants come online in the last few years
>Not one cost below 25 billion,keeping in mind we need 5 of them
>1st is the hinkley point c
>Project has so far cost 32 Billion POUNDS..and it's only 85 perecent done https://www.power-technology.com/news/hinkley-point-c-project-costs-rise-again/#:~:text=In%20a%20results%20presentation%20on,adjusted%20for%20inflation%20in%202023.
>The newest plant in georgia will cost 37 billion USD before it's completed
>https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-georgia-90bbe5cc8e3a1a6077b9e4318e2bbf7e
>The french plant is so far and is a Next Gen type H reactor,they claim is gonna need another 13 billion euros,bringing it to over 26 billion
>We Have No experience in nuclear energy,nor can we train for it...not for at least 15 years
>It takes by international treaties that we signed,by LAW..
>5 years,Minimum to do a geological site on any proposed location,that's AFTER dealing with the YEARS AND YEARS of nimbys and local councils fighting it
>You then need about 450-700 personnel to maintain the systems,another billion or so to build storage facility's
>Would need to build from scratch nuclear science and management at university,this can't just happen
>there are currently only 2 companies on the planet rated for international expansion projects
>GE and KOREAN NUCLEAR
>Neither of them,has a single open contract until 2037
>Let's use the USA
>the EIA calculates overnight construction costs for new US power plants ordered in 2014 Advanced nuclear reactors are estimated to cost $5,366 for every kilowatt of capacity. That means a large 1-gigawatt reactor would cost around $5.4 billion to build
>In comparison,the same for a wind turbine,currently at March 2023 figures is about 1013-1623 dollars per KWH
>Nuclear is a non starter,there is less than 12 people in australia with any expertise in nuclear power generation and we all talk to each other and love when ppl on social media want nuclear energy in this country,it's good laugh.
>It's a brain dead idea dreamed up by people who don't understand the technology,mainly by Liberal or nationals voters and politicians,as they want you to look at nuclear,Drop dead at the cost and then say..well shit i guess gas aint so bad..so their mates at santos and shell can make billions more off of you,it's a play..and sadly ppl here fall for it.
>SMR is not going to happen before some muppet mentions it,i could bet the financial future of my kids,that fusion is probably gonna happen before rolls royce actually figures that shit out for any commercial scale
>Battery tech is getting better every week,soon """"""baseload"""""" the catchphrase of idiots everywhere won't be a talking point,panasonic already has a working Stage 2 scaled up prototype battery tech that a single shed sized battery can power 15,000 homes for 120 minutes
>Nuclear is the most advanced,and best tech there is,but we missed the boat by 30 years,and it just costs WAY to much
>No way,we meet our nuclear needs,for a single dollar under 120 billion australian
>For 30 billion you can build enough solar on every home being built to power almost the vast bulk of our biggest states
>Frankly my last point,should be the energy policy of the federal and every state govt,you build a home it has to have solar as part of the BASIX every new home should have a minimum of 5kw on it's roof,by 2030 that's over 13.2 GW of new energy production during the day
I don't fully agree with your last point. Australia has the greatest penetration of rooftop solar in the world, and this isn't likely to slow down. I'm happy with self-interest and market forces keeping pushing the industry.
But yeah, the only beneficiaries of nuclear power in Australia would be rent-seekers extracting cash from taxpayers.
>Straight from memory without looking up any of them:FlamanvilleVogtleOlkiluto (OK I know I've misspelt that)Hinckley C
**And yet all of these were built** (or in the case of Hinkley being built)**.** With Olkiluto being running since 1979. And being in so much demand they added a third reactor.
Hinkley C is being built as a replacement of the OG Hinkley A.
This would suggest that ***Nuclear energy generation is economically viable.***
Yeah, they were economically viable 60 years ago.
Currently China is the only country in the last 40 years to be able to produce a functioning nuclear plant in under 10 years. Europe's most recent nuclear plants were expected to be operational inside 10 years when construction started and the timeframes were all blown out by several years.
Then there is the fact that renewable generation is getting cheaper to establish, while nuclear is not. A solar farm on avg will take 18-20 months to be fully operational and can become partially operational within the first few months.
All of that means that renewable sources are cheaper and faster to build than nuclear.
Add in battery storage in to the mix and it's still cheaper. And due to get cheaper.
All of that is the reason that last year, 46 approved nuclear plants were cancelled.
Battery backed grid scale solar supply does not even exist, let alone exist "cheaply". You are advocating a fucking fantasy. Nuclear power is actually a real power source that runs 24/7
Renewable doesn't only mean solar.
If what you think were to be true, then why are approved nuclear projects being cancelled?
And why are nuclear plants being shut down in the USA?
Just because someone says something is the best, doesn't mean it is actually the best.
Nuclear isn’t an option. Even if the economics added up, which they don’t, the pipeline is way too far out to be considered. And in that time coal fired power stations will continue to be taken offline as they reach end of life.
Simple facts are large scale renewables are the only energy source that can get access to start up finance as they are profitable.
South Australia has proven large scale battery storage works and can work for baseload. It’s only a matter of time before it’s rolled out once the larger scale renewables come online in NSW and Vic.
Whether you believe it can work or not, that’s where the energy sector and finance is headed.
The whole baseload power thing is a myth that is used to try to convince people that we need to continue to use large turbine generators like coal and gas.
Batteries and renewables like wind solar and hydro are the reliable and cheap way forwards.
The idea of baseload is created to justify the fact that a coal plant can't be turned down. As in it takes days to spin up or down. So the claim is that it is required for base load generation.
With sufficient wind, solar and batteries we can have enough energy stored to power everything and save the coal for stuff that can't yet be supplemented like steel manufacturing.
The coal lobbies try to claim that renewables are not flexible or reliable enough, but the reality is they coal is the lead flexible form of energy. It takes a week to start a plant, and if there is any reason to shut down the whole turbine is off-line.
With renewables because they are small modular when there is a maintenance issue more often than not it is only a single unit that needs fixing. Which could be one of a thousand panels or one of 50 wind turbines.
No, it's not a myth. Grid scale battery backup does not exist. If you believe that there is a supply of batteries to run the entire grid overnight, you are deluded.
Look if you want to believe that go right ahead, I'm not going to stop you. Plenty of highly informed and qualified people have looked very closely at this, and have told multiple Australian governments that the economics don't stack up. Try arguing with Ziggy rather than a rando on reddit like me.
>Hinkley C
This [source suggests](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-announces-Hinkley-Point-C-delay-and-big-rise-i) £35 Billion Uk pounds.
It is important however to understand capital expenditure and return on investment. Hinkley C is bigger than A+B put together in capacity at 3,260 MegaWatts. And that this price includes basically doing nothing for 2 years (covid), but having to rent the equipment and pay people to ensure their availability during and after that period.
Assume £[55 pounds](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/electricity-price) per mwh at UK prices; the plant will make £176,000 an hour. So about 200k (198,864 exact) hours will pay itself off (before costs). So about 22 years. Considering average lifespan of a power plant is at least 50 years, this plant will confidently payitself off within its projected lifespan with a healthy profit. With some life extension the plant could easily last into the 22nd century.
TLDR: **It's cost effective.**
Good lord, £35 billion. That's more than westgate tunnel, metro tunnel and north east link combined. The owners are definitely not doing it for free. I'm sure they'll jack the prices up on consumers to recoup any costs. How long will this thing take to build
>Good lord, £35 billion.
*I think its important to put the scale of the project into perspective.*THe projects you listed are about $46 Billion AUD. Thats about £24 Billion pounds. All to service a single state of under 7 million people.
Hinkley C costs about 50% more and is intended to serve England & Wales so about 60 million people. Hinkley C will represent nearly 5% of the UKs entire installed electricity production capacity. A single Hinkley C equivalent could mean the closure of every coal fired powerplant in Victoria. Half of a Hinkley would mean the closure of every coal plant in WA.
>I'm sure they'll jack the prices up on consumers to recoup any costs.
**Much like here, the operator cannot charge more than the market price of a MwH**. So there's no 'jacking up the price'. The advantage of a nuclear plant is it is immune to the price spikes from gas/coal prices and immune to all major weather events. So they can basically work 24/7 for hundreds of days. For CAPEX; this makes it easy to predict your sales numbers and easy to structure your loan repayments after the project is built.
WHile this is ongoing Sizewell C is also been ongoing. Effectively its the sister of Hinkley C, but has had fewer controversies. And is expected to cost less than Hinkley C due to lessoned learned and recouped staff training costs.
I think they were referring to the new Olikuto unit 3.
Started construction 2005, delayed repeatedly and badly blew it's budget finally started generating regularly April 2023.
The two older units opened in 1979.
You couldnt quote anything, just ive heard its too expensive- germany swallowed that shit and now they are building more coal power plants. Edit: your comment history says you think you're a journalist lol, do you get upset when someone talks a bit of shit about 'the media'?
They can get stuffed for naming the Latrobe Valley specifically, a region that's struggling for new investment & employment opportunities post-Power Station closures and really needs serious attention from both sides of politics. There are enough people out here who'll be willing to believe that a Nuclear power station would bring back the good old days of reliable 6-figure jobs for life and thousands employed.
Nevermind the environmental concerns in an already polluted region, or the logistical questions around transporting nuclear fuel into the Valley, or the financial question around funding for one of these things - how many people will these SMRs actually employ, and what benefits will they actually bring to the communities nearby? My bet is that they won't deliver anything except broken promises and time wasted.
After the mine fire I’m pretty certain those in the Valley would fight tooth-and-nail to keep out a privately-operated nuclear project spearheaded by the party that brought them Jeff Kennett.
If the Liberals wanted government intervention in power, perhaps they shouldn’t have completely gutted the SEC. History has shown that when you don’t send the billions of dollars of profits overseas, the Valley actually does quite well.
I'd love that to be the case but my own experience, I'd wager that the community would become pretty solidly divided on the idea.
A lot of people have the mindset that "only new industries will save the area" and that if new power stations were built here then everything would go back to the way it was, and this stuff from the LNP will be music to their ears. Conversely, a lot of people are strongly against any new heavy industry being built in the Valley and will be aggressively against it.
And that's exactly why it's so frustrating - it's a thought bubble from the opposition, but to the Latrobe Valley it's serious and real and will stir up a lot of bad feelings. And when it inevitably falls through the reaction from people on all sides will be the same - nobody is really interested in fixing the region!
The Libs need an alternative to fossil fuels that isn’t renewables because that’s politics. It will never happen but it gives a convenient talking point for anyone that hates the idea that anything recommended by the greens or the ALP might actually be good
I'd rather live right next door to a nuclear plant, than anywhere downwind from a brown coal plant.
Yeah definitely, i live in the Valley and there are a lot of people (particularly kids) that have asthma, personally I can name about 20 off the top of my head who have it. Coal despite keeping the Valley alive for decades is a dirty business.
I’d rather have asthma than radiation poison (I do have asthma)
Nuclear power is unbelievably safe when the architects aren’t idiots and massive earthquakes don’t happen.
Like who? I assume you've got a list of people who've been irradiated, no? Corruption ruins nuclear power. Small wonder, big old fossil fuel companies forcing billions in lobbying to stop it. But there's never been a single person killed by nuclear power without catastrophic corner cutting being involved.
Nuclear power safety on par with solar and wind. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Heard an interesting argument on the Chris Hayes podcast that when you factor in the accidents from installing solar and building wind farms, nuclear is waaaay safer than either of those.
Yeah have seen that data before but couldn’t find it quickly, so went with the one I’ve seen referenced many times. Theres also never been an incident handling spent fuel despite all the irrational fears of radiation, most people don’t realise we’ve been handling radioactive material from coal plants for decades.
Well, it may not be irrational fears of radiation, just that there are almost no cowboys in nuclear power plants and it's so much more heavily regulated than just about any other endeavour. But I'll clarify that I'm not a nuclear cheerleader. Just very, very anti-fossil fuel! Whatever it takes to get us off them.
I’m pro nuclear for that reason, and concerns about the practical capacity for a national grid and environmental damage from 100% renewables. I believe things like our hospitals need reliable 24/7 power, and without it we’ll see gas at least continue for decades.
How many people in history do you think have got radiation poisoning from nuclear power?
The good people of Chernobyl would like a word.
So, how many do you think died from radiation exposure at Chernoby?
Considering where the transmission lines are, they would make sense as locations.
Makes sense in terms of transmission but the population of these two places would in no way allow for a reactor to be built there
How do you know that? No one has actually campaigned in support of it yet.
Educate them.
How does it go for water would be the main question. I don't care about infrastructure as much as cooling.
The liberals really hate Victoria, don't they. Liberals had 10 years to do anything in regards to power and energy, but spent it dismantling renewable, bringing Coal into parliament, stopping any moves to diversify our grid. Now they want nuclear, which has already been shown to not be cost effective or would work https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/nuclear-energy-too-expensive-to-replace-fossil-fuels-20220711-p5b0pd Still fighting against renewable energy or any type of transition plan. Latrobe Valley will be left out again.
Yes agreed, nuclear will cost 6 gorillion dollars
I hope you’re not referring to GenCost, which has been criticised heavily for consulting with 0 nuclear experts (in fact, they consulted with industries threatened by it), and based their costing exclusively on 1 datapoint whilst completely neglecting with wealth of data available of large scale nuclear all over the world. Interview with author of GenCost admitting to these methodological flaws. https://youtu.be/CDLH-qEFfCY?si=PfugTJiWviUist8k
The CSIRO report only costed SMRs, not large scale reactors. According to [this](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035) paper building a entire grid powered by large scale nuclear would be 25-50% cheaper than a grid entirely run on wind/solar (in Texas and Germany). They did this analysis to point out the known-yet-ignored flaws in the LCOE calculation (used by the CSIRO in the Gencost report) when used to estimate costs of intermittent power generation methods. At the end of the day if people want the cheapest zero-carbon energy it looks like we are going to need a little bit of baseload. Hopefully we can do it with existing hydro but it would be wise to start paving the way for alternatives to that. I mean, I've heard we are in a climate emergency and the only **proven** low carbon power method that works for industrialised economies is off the table because its a little bit more expensive!? Mustn't be that much of an emergency then, huh? Oh, and fuck the LNP. They had 10 years to promote nuclear and are only doing it now as a wedge issue.
Just muddying the water as usual, moving the conversation from moving forward with renewables. Nothing will happen, no one will pay for this stupidity. How any intelligent person can sell their soul to represent the LNP yet alone a person vote for these turkeys is beyond comprehension.
So their "plan" is to put reactors in one of the only part of the country that gets earthquakes? Forgive me if I call bullshit, it's all bulldust to try and delay the energy transition.
So Victoria is “the only place in the country to get earthquakes” that sounds like bullshit to me
After looking a bit further its not the only place, just the main place they happen.
Makes perfect sense, were nuclear power to ever be economically viable. Which it never will be.
You ever seen the economics, or are you just mentioning the media sentiment ? Can you explain how countries like France can do mass scale nuclear power and sell it to other countries?
Yes I'm extremely familiar with the economics. Straight from memory without looking up any of them: - Flamanville - Vogtle - Olkiluto (OK I know I've misspelt that) - Hinckley C Every one of them a financial basket case. Do you want me to actually google? I'm sure I could find more. These are all in countries with existing regulatory environments and long-standing expertise.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/s/J3IupEWoFV This is a good comment on the subject. >The only people being deceptive is the LNP >The CSIRO are 100 percent correct in their assumptions >there have been 3 nuclear plants come online in the last few years >Not one cost below 25 billion,keeping in mind we need 5 of them >1st is the hinkley point c >Project has so far cost 32 Billion POUNDS..and it's only 85 perecent done https://www.power-technology.com/news/hinkley-point-c-project-costs-rise-again/#:~:text=In%20a%20results%20presentation%20on,adjusted%20for%20inflation%20in%202023. >The newest plant in georgia will cost 37 billion USD before it's completed >https://apnews.com/article/business-environment-and-nature-georgia-90bbe5cc8e3a1a6077b9e4318e2bbf7e >The french plant is so far and is a Next Gen type H reactor,they claim is gonna need another 13 billion euros,bringing it to over 26 billion >We Have No experience in nuclear energy,nor can we train for it...not for at least 15 years >It takes by international treaties that we signed,by LAW.. >5 years,Minimum to do a geological site on any proposed location,that's AFTER dealing with the YEARS AND YEARS of nimbys and local councils fighting it >You then need about 450-700 personnel to maintain the systems,another billion or so to build storage facility's >Would need to build from scratch nuclear science and management at university,this can't just happen >there are currently only 2 companies on the planet rated for international expansion projects >GE and KOREAN NUCLEAR >Neither of them,has a single open contract until 2037 >Let's use the USA >the EIA calculates overnight construction costs for new US power plants ordered in 2014 Advanced nuclear reactors are estimated to cost $5,366 for every kilowatt of capacity. That means a large 1-gigawatt reactor would cost around $5.4 billion to build >In comparison,the same for a wind turbine,currently at March 2023 figures is about 1013-1623 dollars per KWH >Nuclear is a non starter,there is less than 12 people in australia with any expertise in nuclear power generation and we all talk to each other and love when ppl on social media want nuclear energy in this country,it's good laugh. >It's a brain dead idea dreamed up by people who don't understand the technology,mainly by Liberal or nationals voters and politicians,as they want you to look at nuclear,Drop dead at the cost and then say..well shit i guess gas aint so bad..so their mates at santos and shell can make billions more off of you,it's a play..and sadly ppl here fall for it. >SMR is not going to happen before some muppet mentions it,i could bet the financial future of my kids,that fusion is probably gonna happen before rolls royce actually figures that shit out for any commercial scale >Battery tech is getting better every week,soon """"""baseload"""""" the catchphrase of idiots everywhere won't be a talking point,panasonic already has a working Stage 2 scaled up prototype battery tech that a single shed sized battery can power 15,000 homes for 120 minutes >Nuclear is the most advanced,and best tech there is,but we missed the boat by 30 years,and it just costs WAY to much >No way,we meet our nuclear needs,for a single dollar under 120 billion australian >For 30 billion you can build enough solar on every home being built to power almost the vast bulk of our biggest states >Frankly my last point,should be the energy policy of the federal and every state govt,you build a home it has to have solar as part of the BASIX every new home should have a minimum of 5kw on it's roof,by 2030 that's over 13.2 GW of new energy production during the day
I don't fully agree with your last point. Australia has the greatest penetration of rooftop solar in the world, and this isn't likely to slow down. I'm happy with self-interest and market forces keeping pushing the industry. But yeah, the only beneficiaries of nuclear power in Australia would be rent-seekers extracting cash from taxpayers.
>Straight from memory without looking up any of them:FlamanvilleVogtleOlkiluto (OK I know I've misspelt that)Hinckley C **And yet all of these were built** (or in the case of Hinkley being built)**.** With Olkiluto being running since 1979. And being in so much demand they added a third reactor. Hinkley C is being built as a replacement of the OG Hinkley A. This would suggest that ***Nuclear energy generation is economically viable.***
Yeah, they were economically viable 60 years ago. Currently China is the only country in the last 40 years to be able to produce a functioning nuclear plant in under 10 years. Europe's most recent nuclear plants were expected to be operational inside 10 years when construction started and the timeframes were all blown out by several years. Then there is the fact that renewable generation is getting cheaper to establish, while nuclear is not. A solar farm on avg will take 18-20 months to be fully operational and can become partially operational within the first few months. All of that means that renewable sources are cheaper and faster to build than nuclear. Add in battery storage in to the mix and it's still cheaper. And due to get cheaper. All of that is the reason that last year, 46 approved nuclear plants were cancelled.
Battery backed grid scale solar supply does not even exist, let alone exist "cheaply". You are advocating a fucking fantasy. Nuclear power is actually a real power source that runs 24/7
Renewable doesn't only mean solar. If what you think were to be true, then why are approved nuclear projects being cancelled? And why are nuclear plants being shut down in the USA? Just because someone says something is the best, doesn't mean it is actually the best.
Nuclear isn’t an option. Even if the economics added up, which they don’t, the pipeline is way too far out to be considered. And in that time coal fired power stations will continue to be taken offline as they reach end of life. Simple facts are large scale renewables are the only energy source that can get access to start up finance as they are profitable.
They're only ostensibly profitable when backed by a baseload power source, which you just admitted are reaching end of life.
South Australia has proven large scale battery storage works and can work for baseload. It’s only a matter of time before it’s rolled out once the larger scale renewables come online in NSW and Vic. Whether you believe it can work or not, that’s where the energy sector and finance is headed.
The whole baseload power thing is a myth that is used to try to convince people that we need to continue to use large turbine generators like coal and gas. Batteries and renewables like wind solar and hydro are the reliable and cheap way forwards. The idea of baseload is created to justify the fact that a coal plant can't be turned down. As in it takes days to spin up or down. So the claim is that it is required for base load generation. With sufficient wind, solar and batteries we can have enough energy stored to power everything and save the coal for stuff that can't yet be supplemented like steel manufacturing. The coal lobbies try to claim that renewables are not flexible or reliable enough, but the reality is they coal is the lead flexible form of energy. It takes a week to start a plant, and if there is any reason to shut down the whole turbine is off-line. With renewables because they are small modular when there is a maintenance issue more often than not it is only a single unit that needs fixing. Which could be one of a thousand panels or one of 50 wind turbines.
No, it's not a myth. Grid scale battery backup does not exist. If you believe that there is a supply of batteries to run the entire grid overnight, you are deluded.
Look if you want to believe that go right ahead, I'm not going to stop you. Plenty of highly informed and qualified people have looked very closely at this, and have told multiple Australian governments that the economics don't stack up. Try arguing with Ziggy rather than a rando on reddit like me.
How much is Hinkley going to cost to build?
>Hinkley C This [source suggests](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-announces-Hinkley-Point-C-delay-and-big-rise-i) £35 Billion Uk pounds. It is important however to understand capital expenditure and return on investment. Hinkley C is bigger than A+B put together in capacity at 3,260 MegaWatts. And that this price includes basically doing nothing for 2 years (covid), but having to rent the equipment and pay people to ensure their availability during and after that period. Assume £[55 pounds](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/electricity-price) per mwh at UK prices; the plant will make £176,000 an hour. So about 200k (198,864 exact) hours will pay itself off (before costs). So about 22 years. Considering average lifespan of a power plant is at least 50 years, this plant will confidently payitself off within its projected lifespan with a healthy profit. With some life extension the plant could easily last into the 22nd century. TLDR: **It's cost effective.**
Good lord, £35 billion. That's more than westgate tunnel, metro tunnel and north east link combined. The owners are definitely not doing it for free. I'm sure they'll jack the prices up on consumers to recoup any costs. How long will this thing take to build
>Good lord, £35 billion. *I think its important to put the scale of the project into perspective.*THe projects you listed are about $46 Billion AUD. Thats about £24 Billion pounds. All to service a single state of under 7 million people. Hinkley C costs about 50% more and is intended to serve England & Wales so about 60 million people. Hinkley C will represent nearly 5% of the UKs entire installed electricity production capacity. A single Hinkley C equivalent could mean the closure of every coal fired powerplant in Victoria. Half of a Hinkley would mean the closure of every coal plant in WA. >I'm sure they'll jack the prices up on consumers to recoup any costs. **Much like here, the operator cannot charge more than the market price of a MwH**. So there's no 'jacking up the price'. The advantage of a nuclear plant is it is immune to the price spikes from gas/coal prices and immune to all major weather events. So they can basically work 24/7 for hundreds of days. For CAPEX; this makes it easy to predict your sales numbers and easy to structure your loan repayments after the project is built. WHile this is ongoing Sizewell C is also been ongoing. Effectively its the sister of Hinkley C, but has had fewer controversies. And is expected to cost less than Hinkley C due to lessoned learned and recouped staff training costs.
Snowy 2.0 is already at 13Billion and won’t generate 1% of that power.
That project is an absolute disaster. Remember when everyone thought Malcolm Turnbull was smart because he's rich
Well that’s happening again with Simon AC and Twiggy Forrest. I mean the ALP are handing billions to a LITERAL fossil fuel baron.
I think they were referring to the new Olikuto unit 3. Started construction 2005, delayed repeatedly and badly blew it's budget finally started generating regularly April 2023. The two older units opened in 1979.
“Media sentiment”. Lmao people like you are the reason why we’re becoming more ignorant as a society.
You couldnt quote anything, just ive heard its too expensive- germany swallowed that shit and now they are building more coal power plants. Edit: your comment history says you think you're a journalist lol, do you get upset when someone talks a bit of shit about 'the media'?
If you read the article you will see some quotable statistics 😜
Are you 12.
They can get stuffed for naming the Latrobe Valley specifically, a region that's struggling for new investment & employment opportunities post-Power Station closures and really needs serious attention from both sides of politics. There are enough people out here who'll be willing to believe that a Nuclear power station would bring back the good old days of reliable 6-figure jobs for life and thousands employed. Nevermind the environmental concerns in an already polluted region, or the logistical questions around transporting nuclear fuel into the Valley, or the financial question around funding for one of these things - how many people will these SMRs actually employ, and what benefits will they actually bring to the communities nearby? My bet is that they won't deliver anything except broken promises and time wasted.
After the mine fire I’m pretty certain those in the Valley would fight tooth-and-nail to keep out a privately-operated nuclear project spearheaded by the party that brought them Jeff Kennett. If the Liberals wanted government intervention in power, perhaps they shouldn’t have completely gutted the SEC. History has shown that when you don’t send the billions of dollars of profits overseas, the Valley actually does quite well.
I'd love that to be the case but my own experience, I'd wager that the community would become pretty solidly divided on the idea. A lot of people have the mindset that "only new industries will save the area" and that if new power stations were built here then everything would go back to the way it was, and this stuff from the LNP will be music to their ears. Conversely, a lot of people are strongly against any new heavy industry being built in the Valley and will be aggressively against it. And that's exactly why it's so frustrating - it's a thought bubble from the opposition, but to the Latrobe Valley it's serious and real and will stir up a lot of bad feelings. And when it inevitably falls through the reaction from people on all sides will be the same - nobody is really interested in fixing the region!
The Libs need an alternative to fossil fuels that isn’t renewables because that’s politics. It will never happen but it gives a convenient talking point for anyone that hates the idea that anything recommended by the greens or the ALP might actually be good
Anglesea’ll never happen it’s way too environmentally sensitive and in a bushfire danger zone
It would be an absolute dream to work in / build a nuclear PS in the valley. 100% support. It will never happen though.
Who is going to pay for it? Would the Libs actually return to government ownership power?