Dutton goes nuclear

[Marty_d]

A recent Grand Designs episode showed a house with a new all-solar roof. Yes it was a big footprint but it was producing up to 250kwh a day.  For comparison the average house uses about 8kwh.

So for all new developments just legislate rooftop solar of sufficient capacity to power twice the number of dwellings, and a neighbourhood battery with the capacity to provide a week of power.

Hey presto. No grid, bills that only cover maintenance of the system, and all clean.

[red750]

I don't have solar panels, because my house requires a bit of work (the kids want to pull it down and rebuild), so I will just post from an ABC report.

 

Energy companies have been given the green light to charge rooftop solar owners to export into the grid. Give me stuff and pay me to take it.

[facthunter]

THAT situation will be only temporary Red. Community batteries will change that.  OR Pump hydro.  Just a matter of getting organised. The exact opposite of what Dutton is trying to do..  Saying HE can over rule the STATES wishes is a repeat of when he said Border Farce could over rule Police Forces/..He's also said the Parliament doesn't need to SIT after the Election outcome is decided. Does HE want to make this the beginning of the 1000 year REICH? .No details of anything??? The BLOKES a NUT case. Nev

[old man emu]

It might make some people here gasp in astonishment, but I am strongly in favour of all-out encouragement for the installation of solar panels on every domestic and commercial roof in the country.

 

It is so stupid that a wealthy country such as ours, in an environment where there is daylight for a minimum of 9.5 hours over most of the population (sorry Tassie), that solar generation is not the norm. It is quiet. It is not anymore visually offensive than tiled rooves, when compared to wind generation. It doesn't pollute apart from the pollution associated with the manufacture of the panels.

 

There are problems. The main one being a safe method of storing electricity for overnight use. That's an area where technology needs to find a non-combustible storage medium. 

 

Then here are the economic factors relating to distribution. Who owns the power lines that take the electricity from homes producing excess electricity to retail and industrial sites, and the lines from the storage batteries to the users? Settling the ownership problem is not an insurmountable problem.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's a profitable thing for anyone to establish. Local Councils IF they had the brains. Daylesford Vic has done some forward thinking things..  Nev

[spacesailor]

It now appears that all the initial roll-out, was for the wealthy end of town ,  now the other end is getting on board.  The gangplank is being hauled up ,cutting 

The returns down to the minimum level. 

spacesailor

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

When you think about it, the whole idea is for the wealthy end of town. These are usually financed through Project Finance; which means the bankers earn fat commissions on providing the money. The large international companies that have experience in operating nuclear facilities are likely to get the gong over local companies that have no experience, thanks to the safety concerns.. so the wealthy, most likely US operators will step in (even better because about 80% of them operate the sofware I know). The p[rofits are all but guaranteed, as they are insulated from commodities prices once built - with thge exception of course, of uranium, etc.

 

The profits to the bankers and the corporates are all but guaranteed and will come from your pockets. Centralised pwoer generation is already a legacy technology, so it is YOU who will pay for the wealthy end of town who stand to make the most from it.

 

Dutton and the Libs have no interest in optimising investment for the greater community.

[facthunter]

The  subject got a bit of a grilling on the "Insiders' Today normally a show easy on the LieNP The Cartoon segment labelled it Dutton's UNCLEAR policy. Murdoch's all for it of course and Gina Nein hart the  37 Bn Mining magnate who  Dutton has been sucking up to for the LAST few years would be the Major force behind the Push. . Ted O Brien was  the person who fronted up representing the Lib/Nats very confusing views on the Matter so far.  He's never a stellar performer and I doubt todays performance is something they'll open the champagne over.   Nev

[Mr.Vegemite]

I must admit I haven't read all the comments but I have been watching the news and regardless of what is being said here on estimates to build nuclear power plants and their cost, you only have to look at real world costs and timelines. They are simply extraordinary. Extremely long times to get up and running, sometimes more than double the time originally estimated and cost blow-outs of more than 100%.

I'd accept that having them as a back-up in times of need is acceptable but not at the expense of getting more wind and solar/battery online. 

 

[spacesailor]

If that " solar power grid " was to be put into action ASP.

Then why throttle it back by having a minimum ' power bill ' requirement attached. 

Why not onto ' state housing ' buildings .

Something smells fishy here .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, Mr.Vegemite said:

Extremely long times to get up and running

I wonder what causes that. Surely the majority of the construction shouldn't be too different from any other industrial building. I would have thought that the builders of a nuclear power station could virtually buy the reactor "off the shelf" by now.  I suspect that there would need to be some specialised tasks associated with safeguarding reactor itself, but after the steam is produced, how different could the rest of the operation be from that of coal/oil powered generation. What am I missing here? 

 

 

[facthunter]

Lots of reinforced concrete to make it safe from terrorist acts to start with and contain any thing that MIGHT happen also. I don't think they employ a lot of people. Read up on it for yourself. Serious people need FACTS , NOT SLOGANS and mud slinging.. Don't think they will employ that many people either to run them. They are designed to run at a high output OR the already high costs go through the roof.. There's few facts being put out by the Opposition. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

This may explain some things: https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c

 

[Siso]

I'm hoping it happens. We have been trying for renewables for the last 10-15 years and we  are still nowhere near successful.

Can see a bit on the availability and generation of wind recently at this link. https://www.joannenova.com.au/2024/06/despite-spending-1-8-trillion-on-clean-energy-last-year-the-world-is-still-81-fossil-fueled-burning-more-than-ever/

 

Also some interesting info at Watt clarity website particularly about the amount of wind at the end of last month. https://wattclarity.com.au/

 

Also see https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=7d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time for a real time energy use across the NEM. You can see how far we still need to go with renewables and storage. Every GWh of pumped hydro requires 1 GL (1 billion litres) to be pumped to a height of 400m. 1GL is 1km x 1km x1m dam. Roughly 80% round trip efficiency.

 

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map is also an interesting site. Good to keep an eye on France smashing GWs of energy into their neibours most of the time

 

These websites aren't run by the ABC or Murdoch press. I also worked on a windfarm for over 10 years and we quite often constrained or stopped because of excess generation. The synchronous condensers helped this when they came on line. Renewable generation also gets a large scale renewable energy credits for every MW. This is worth about $40/MWh at the moment which means they can generate down to   - $40 dollars before they are switched off. (subsidy?)The large scale gas and coal are paying money for each GWh they generate at these times. You can imagine what they charge when the sun goes down to make up for this. 

 

I think we will still be seeing energy prices rise for a long time before they fall.

 

[Siso]

A bit of info how the UAE got over the regulation writing towards the end of the video

 

 

 

[Litespeed]

What a complete bullshitter.

 

I can see why he is the ex Ansto director.

 

Build plants in anti nuclear countries as comparison?

 

Bullshit France , UK and Korea are all pro and costs are outrageous.

 

The world atomic energy body ( IAEA) agrees it is too expensive and not suited to Australia.

 

Nothing that bloke said was anything like true.

[Jerry_Atrick]

A medical reactor researcher would have just as "little" generation costing experience as the CSIRO.

 

As @Litespeed says, he is full of BS, just talking about 1/2 of the issues. For example, the nuclear tech regulations are [retty well homoginised. However, there is this thing called seismic activity, which can wreak havoc on them. Also, there are local environmental issues that have to be taken into account. I worked in Abu Dhabi (part of the UAE) for 2 weeks with their oil company and that was enough for me to observe they don't pay too much attention to their land-based environmental impacts.I would hope Australia, like the others, pay a bit more attention. Also, they don't have the planning regulations we do.. and these also have to be respected in, what he calls a modern democracy. Surely, the rule of law counts for something?

 

He is right - the operational cost to generate from is lower than fossil fuels and its capacity is higher (one of the reasons the operational cost is lower than fossil fuels). But it is certainly not the case against renewables. However, this ignores a couple of other costs. Firstly, the amortisation of the initial build cost over the lifetime (plus extensions), as well as further capital expenditure which is not considered operational cost to re-engineer parts of the plant as more eficient ways of doing things and better technology comes along in non-reactor plant. This can be anything from the shafts to clear water feed pumps. This is all capitalisable and not directly expensed (but is over a 5 year period on average).

 

Secondly, there's this thing called decommissioning at the end of the plant life, and that can be quite a bit more than the initial build. I can't remember, but I think it  is the Berrkley plant that haa had a plethora of specialist decomissioning engineering and operating firms go bust trying to manage the decom. The government has to always step in to fund it until the next player comes, and the cost increases. These days, it is at least European and US law, if not part of IAEA requirements to provide funds for decomissioning. And, it takes years. It isn't just a case of puring concrete into the core and walking away. People are still managing every decom plant. Telemetry makes it a little cheaper, but not much.

 

Ask yourself this question - if it is that much cheaper, why do they need a c. $200 per mw/h guarantee? Why does EDF (operator of Hinkley point) require a £94 per mw/h indexed with inflation from when it was incepted guarantee. Surely they don't need it if they can produce the electricity cheaper?

[Jerry_Atrick]

Here is the 10 Yr history of spot electricity prices and note there was only one period they went over $200mw/hrs. Despite being well under that, generators generally are still making money.

 

https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/spot-market-prices-and-revenues-ten-years-of-historical-spot-prices/

 

Couple of other things. First he tries to dismiss the generation cost in favour of to consumer cost, but the only real difference apart from the amount of power if one goes for bigger reactors of course is the fuel and quality control of the kit.. so it really is a bit of a furphy..  with the exception of the percentage of capacity operation.

 

The second is more subtle. I find when experts spend more time being condescending and less time talking objective and as full set of facts as they can get in the time, they are pushing an agenda and not having a debate

 

Edited June 23 by Jerry_Atrick

[Jerry_Atrick]

 

[pmccarthy]

This seems to be the labor party kumbaya thread. An ugly and dangerous place to visit. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

What, because there are facts based discussions?

 

Of course.. look I get it - a lot of people can make money out of it, including me. Problem is, to many, we like the economy to work for the majority; not only the minority

[pmccarthy]

The "facts" quoted here by the Albanese sycophants are 75% nonsense. I can post "facts" which are soundly based but get howled down each time. This has been going on for several years here. The bottom line is that I am seen to be a "denier" so everything I post is fair game. I sometimes forget that and post something, only to get beaten up again. I am a slow learner.

 

My colleague the late Ian Hore-Lacy spent 40 years advocating for nuclear power in Australia. He ran the Uranium Information Centre in Melbourne and wrote several books. He had two science degrees. But people here would ignore his work I'm sure because he had worked for the Rio Tinto group. I wish he had lived long enough to hear Dutton today, he dreamed of nuclear getting a hearing. So, if I quote "facts" from Ian's work. how will you respond?

 

It's like the bloke in Salem who said there are no witches. He was shouted down. "Of course there are witches, we burned a dozen last year! That is proof!"

[octave]

I have not so far expressed a strong opinion and am not necessarily philosophy opposed to nuclear power.   I do however need to know the cost of construction and decommissioning. I want to know who would build it.  know about waste storage.

 

When I look at recent constructions they do appear to be expensive and slow. I also need to make comparisons with other methods.

 

I think this is fair and open-minded

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Taking it a step at a time, I assume no one disputes the safety angle. If we can agree on that we can move on to cost and timing.

[pmccarthy]

And by the way, how is Australia placed for supply?