15 February 2016, Renew Economy, Nuclear commission findings spell more trouble for wind and solar in Australia. The South Australian Royal Commission into the nuclear fuel cycle has conceded that nuclear power is not a viable alternative for Australia, but has urged authorities to consider it anyway – in what could have serious implications for the roll out of renewable energy across the country. The commission delivered the results of its “tentative” findings on Monday, indicating that it supports the establishment of a nuclear waste facility in the state, the storing of spent nuclear fuel and the expansion of uranium mining. On the subject of nuclear generation, the commission admitted that it wasn’t viable in South Australia in the foreseeable future (2030) – even with a significant carbon price and a sharp reduction in the cost of capital. It conceded that Australia should only adopt “proven” new nuclear technologies such as “small modular reactors” and next generation “fast reactors” , but that these were some way off, and likely to be very costly. But commission chairman Kevin Scarce wants the nuclear generation dream to continue. He admitted that while there were real risks in nuclear generation – and there are “no guarantees on its safety” – he doesn’t “think the positive side of nuclear power is being presented.” Despite the findings of the commission on the high costs of nuclear, and its unsuitability to the South Australian market in particular, he wants nuclear energy to be part of the national consideration because of the challenges Australia faces in meeting its emissions abatement task. In effect, he and the nuclear proponents are betting that Australia will fall short in its climate targets; and given the record of the Coalition government on climate policy – including the repeal of the carbon price, the slashing of the renewable energy target, the attack on key institutions and slow progress on energy efficiency – that is a fair bet. Read more here
Tag Archives: nuclear
22 January 2016, Climate News Network, Plutonium’s global problems are piling up. Increasing worldwide stockpiles of surplus plutonium are becoming a political embarrassment, a worrying security risk, and a hidden extra cost to the nuclear industry. Two armed ships set off from the northwest of England this week to sail round the world to Japan on a secretive and controversial mission to collect a consignment of plutonium and transport it to the US. The cargo of plutonium, once the most sought-after and valuable substance in the world, is one of a number of ever-growing stockpiles that are becoming an increasing financial and security embarrassment to the countries that own them. So far, there is no commercially viable use for this toxic metal, and there is increasing fear that plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorists, or that governments could be tempted to use it to join the nuclear arms race. All the plans to use plutonium for peaceful purposes in fast breeder and commercial reactors have so far failed to keep pace with the amounts of this highly-dangerous radioactive metal being produced by the countries that run nuclear power stations. The small amounts of plutonium that have been used in conventional and fast breeder reactors have produced very little electricity − at startlingly high costs. Read More here
4 January 2016, New Matilda, Nuclear And Nonsense: An Insider’s Guide On Making Renewables Work. Renewable energy advocate Terry Leach takes up the fight for an inexhaustible power supply. Geoff Russell’s recent New Matilda article ‘Batteries and Bulldust’ makes the argument that renewable energy can’t displace fossil fuels due to the problems of the intermittency of renewable energy and the difficulty of storing electrical energy. Russell compares the stupidity of Germany’s renewable push to France’s wisdom in generating most of their power from nuclear. Obviously, the superior governance, cheaper electricity and lack of inefficient subsidies results in France consistently outperforming Germany economically. Sadly for the French this isn’t true. Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Germans aren’t ‘puddle shallow thinkers’. Problems of intermittency and storage of renewable energy are solvable, and the Germans are doing just that. Despite our current government’s opposition, technological development and entrepreneurship means that Australia is well placed to solve those problems here. Intermittent power Firstly, intermittency. Our electricity network is well equipped to cope with intermittency, as it has been built to cope with intermittency of demand. Demand fluctuates on daily, weekly and seasonal bases. We usually have a large proportion of our production capacity sitting idle, waiting for the high demand and price events that justify their economic existence. Like Europe, we have a continental grid, stretching from North Queensland to the West Coast of South Australia. Excess low cost capacity can be sent interstate, which means that demand, and therefore price, is smoothed. Currently we have cheap coal providing our base load capacity. Coal (like nuclear) can’t be ramped up and down quickly and has always needed to be supplemented by ‘dispatchable’ generation. This has historically been provided by gas and hydro. Read More here