It might seem weirdly appropriate that Peter Dutton should release his nuclear power policy costings on Friday the 13th. But that would be to downplay the sheer lunacy, rank dishonesty, and clear d…
It’s not a solution for addressing the climate crisis, any attempt to market it as such is disingenuous. It could have been but it’s 20 years too late.
Why cant it help address the issue now? Solar and wind are great but they eaither require large expensive batteris to handle the inconsistent nature or other on demand power geberation methods to fill the gaps (hydroelectric, gas, etc). Most energy on the grid comes from coal which has large lead times with very efficient reliable generation providing a good base power generation. We can replace a vast majority of the non renewable energy with wind + solar + batteries + hydroelectric but this cannot provide the nonfluctuating base generation thats filled by coal atm. Nuclear is a drop in replacment for coal in its generation charecteristics. Nuclear is ideal for long nonfluctuating loads which are increasing a lot with the likes of ai, datacentres, crypto etc, these use cases are increasing and will continue to do so thus increasing the base power load (the ideal for nuclear).
It certainly can be a part of a long term energy plan and even a long term military plan, but it’s not going to be providing energy in 10 years. The only things that are going to achieve that are wind and solar with energy storage.
Exactly and my logic based on past experience is that the government isnt going to make that change they are just gonna keep using coal. If the nuclear gets off the ground then we can replace old coal with new nuclear thus giving ample capacity for the big businesses to adapt without the same level of backlash. Its about alligning profit incentives.
Also Ukraine has had nuclear plants since the Soviet era. Do you mean under under America’s nuclear weapon umbrella? Nuclear weapons development is significantly different from power generation.
I mean america Britain and russia convinced ukraine to give up their nukes in exchange for security guarantees (weve seen how thats going) this significantly undermines the global trust is americas nuclear umbrella agreements theyve made hence rhe global rush by many nations to buold nukes.
Going from nuclear power to nuclear bombs is a lot easyer than anyone is comfortable to admit. If we can get on the nuclear power path then that makes a potential transition to nuclear bombs easyer. Not that we will do that but the capacity for us to do so changes the military calculus for our enemies and more importantly for our allies.
It can’t help to fix the issue now because it takes 20 years to build a functional plant IF you have the local skill and regulatory framework to design, build and operate them. It would take us 30 years because we have none of that. We can roll out gigawatts of solar, wind, batteries and hydro energy storage in significantly less time. These technologies require no new framework and the engineering is well understood.
Nuclear bombs are a significant step from nuclear power. The engineering of the equipment to refine the fuel alone is difficult and requires huge amounts of capital and manpower to develop, let alone that required for the bombs or the delivery systems. Australia doesn’t have the budget or the capability to build nuclear plants let alone nuclear weapons.
Why cant it help address the issue now? Solar and wind are great but they eaither require large expensive batteris to handle the inconsistent nature or other on demand power geberation methods to fill the gaps (hydroelectric, gas, etc). Most energy on the grid comes from coal which has large lead times with very efficient reliable generation providing a good base power generation. We can replace a vast majority of the non renewable energy with wind + solar + batteries + hydroelectric but this cannot provide the nonfluctuating base generation thats filled by coal atm. Nuclear is a drop in replacment for coal in its generation charecteristics. Nuclear is ideal for long nonfluctuating loads which are increasing a lot with the likes of ai, datacentres, crypto etc, these use cases are increasing and will continue to do so thus increasing the base power load (the ideal for nuclear).
Exactly and my logic based on past experience is that the government isnt going to make that change they are just gonna keep using coal. If the nuclear gets off the ground then we can replace old coal with new nuclear thus giving ample capacity for the big businesses to adapt without the same level of backlash. Its about alligning profit incentives.
I mean america Britain and russia convinced ukraine to give up their nukes in exchange for security guarantees (weve seen how thats going) this significantly undermines the global trust is americas nuclear umbrella agreements theyve made hence rhe global rush by many nations to buold nukes.
Going from nuclear power to nuclear bombs is a lot easyer than anyone is comfortable to admit. If we can get on the nuclear power path then that makes a potential transition to nuclear bombs easyer. Not that we will do that but the capacity for us to do so changes the military calculus for our enemies and more importantly for our allies.
It can’t help to fix the issue now because it takes 20 years to build a functional plant IF you have the local skill and regulatory framework to design, build and operate them. It would take us 30 years because we have none of that. We can roll out gigawatts of solar, wind, batteries and hydro energy storage in significantly less time. These technologies require no new framework and the engineering is well understood.
Nuclear bombs are a significant step from nuclear power. The engineering of the equipment to refine the fuel alone is difficult and requires huge amounts of capital and manpower to develop, let alone that required for the bombs or the delivery systems. Australia doesn’t have the budget or the capability to build nuclear plants let alone nuclear weapons.