Just one other small correction to the article.

Solar PV is now competitive with the cost of new coal power and is rapidly getting cheaper. Concentrating solar thermal ditto, with the added benefit of offering energy storage. Solar PV and CST together can come very close to matching load demand across the diurnal cycle in some areas. Other renewable/recovery technologies, like energy recovery from water reticulation pipelines are valuable adjuncts to meet peak demands, while local generation via gas turbines can both supplement and if necessary, replace renewables when conditions are unfavourable, such as extended overcast or lack of wind.

Distributed generation is massively more power-efficient. The generation efficiency is about the same or better than for central plants, but there is almost no reticulation loss and the maintenance regime for small plants is much less onerous, meaning that there is no need to build enormous redundancy into central plants. In addition, small plants can be wound up and wound down much more rapidly and flexibly, so the need for load banks to maintain turbine output during low demand periods is much reduced.

I could go on for a lot longer about this, Mark. While I recognise that you are in this case acting as an "urger" for nuclear, I'm also sure that as a competent and responsible journalist you'll be interested in seeking out the facts. Please do so.

It is interesting but not surprising to see that the pro-renewables team have weighed in with opinion but without references to independently obtained, peer reviewed data and analysis. They have adopted the antiscience methodology of the pro-tobacco lobbies of yesteryear.

It is no surprise to see that inconvenient facts, such as LCOE calculations from organisations such as BREE and CSIRO, are waved away by optimists who remain steadfastly convinced that opinion trumps all else.

Peter Lang's comments are spot on. I agree with the author that this is not the time and place to ram home argument regarding detail of systemic advantages of nuclear (SMR) technologies over less reliable and unschedulable PV and wind, but I must correct one common misconception.

Nuclear power has been operated in load-following mode for at least 4 decades. There is nothing magic about matching the steam rate and pressure at the turbine with the desired load, as has been demonstrated by the French. The concept of Base Load primarily refers to the ABILITY of baseload plant to run continually at or near a planned set point. It has little to do with whether that set point is at 100% or some lower value of the nameplate rating of the generating unit.

Non-baseload units ALWAYS need standby plant such as fossil fuelled gas turbines or large hydro plant in order for the overall system to achieve that level of reliability which is essential for any stable networked system.

Craig; you seem to be the one needed to reacquaint himself with the facts?

Before you post again, please Google, thorium cheaper than coal.

An authoritative article written by a physicist, describes The 1950's technology.

And informs that small mass produced modules, connected to very local micro grids can reduce industrial energy costs by around 50% or better.

The great white elephant of a national grid, all but doubles the end user cost of energy, given transmission losses; and is extremely vulnerable to attack by miscreants, given one just needs to take out a remote, impossible to defend pylon, to shut down huge swathes of it!

Very localized options don't have that problem, and are not disadvantaged by their distance from a centralized mega unit.

Moreover, and given liquid thorium reactors consume most of their fuel, very little waste is created; and such as is produced, is vastly less toxic and eminently suited as long life space batteries!

Given the largest cost to (ship/sub/car) manufacturing is the energy bill; halving it will bring a lot of it back to this country!

And even more so, when we summon enough courage to finally reform the tax collection model; to eliminate all the unproductive and parasitical practice; and the inevitable compliance costs (7% of the bottom line) they create.

Of course those benefiting from these gravy trains are going to find all the "imaginable reasons" to continue with the, money for jam, status quo!

And advances have allowed economies of scale solar thermal plants, to compete successfully with coal fired options; and as 24/7 suppliers, thanks to the heat retaining abilities of liquid thorium/fluoride salts!

Finally, we could halve yet again the cost of domestic energy, just by converting problematic biological waste into endless energy, and endless free hot water!

It beggars belief, that people want to endlessly argue the respective merits of renewable wind and solar, yet leave this vastly cheaper, endlessly sustainable option off the table!

Why? Maybe because it completely eliminates the middle man profit taker; and provides whisper quiet energy on demand?
Rhrosty.

If human beings could be trusted we could have limitless power from tiny batteries that will last for thousands of years.
A tiny tiny piece of Plutonium surrounded by Photoelectric cells will power your mobile phone forever. Same for cars, trains, factories, houses everything.
But.
It would be easy for anyone to gather and combine enough Plutonium to wipe out whole suburbs and make whole cities uninhabitable.

Compact nuclear plants have the same, and more, problems.

How long will it be before those small reactors have the ability to do that? It's been promised for decades but still seems as far away as ever. Once we see how well they work in Europe, they might be worth considering here, but renewable energy technology will have moved on by then.

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Rhosty, why not improve the efficiency of those micro grids by linking them together to form a national grid? Electricity transmission is more efficient than battery storage.

We do not need to play around with toxic materials to generate power. Household battery banks will be on the market at the end of this year, from Japan already to plug and play.

2 % of electricity goes missing from distribution which the consumer pays for, plus over generation which can’t be payd for.

Solar, wind and hydro take precedence over coal as the former can not be switched off. This is why the generators of coal power are feeling the pinch. Consumers will go by way of storage and disconnect from grid power. Solar panels are cheap and effective, it won’t be long we will have power producing paint.

Individuals like the fact they can have control of their power supply and sell excess to neighbors. Solar has opened a gigantic kan of wormies