Spencer,

The problem is you don’t know what you are talking about and you won’t listen.

You began with a disingenuous statement about the RET negotiations. Rudd Labor’s policy was to increase RET to 20%. Liberals, unadvisedly, gave bipartisan support. Labor’s GWh target was a mistake. Liberal policy was to return to the agreed 20% target. That would mean reducing the LRET to about 26,000 GWh, the Liberal’s policy. Liberals progressively raised their offer to 32,000 GWh to attempt to get bipartisan support.

Your comment says: “Perhaps you're confused that my argument is about the energy production of renewables? How did we get onto comparing renewables with nuclear?”

Your post says: “The remaining funds could be used to build renewables in developing countries such as China.” That’s a naive idea. You haven’t thought it through properly. Renewables cannot have much effect on global GHG emissions.

Your comment says “"taxpayer funding" – none”

Your post says: “the remaining $500 million could be spent in China”
That would damage Australia’s economy for no benefit?

>” The fact remains that gas-fired power plants are more economical than nuclear in places that have access to gas.”
That’s irrelevant since your argument is about reducing GHG emissions. If we want to make significant cuts we need to replace baseload fossil fuel generators. Emissions intensity of OCGT is 300 times and CCGT is 200 times that of nuclear. So Gas is not the main solution needed. Gas will not replace baseload generators in Australia.

>“ all support the idea that investing in renewables is profitable”
It’s only profitable with massive incentives – which are damaging the economy. If not for the incentives virtually all investment in renewables would cease.

>” I don't see it as a good investment in my time to advocate for nuclear.”

Until the public understands that nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity and can be cheaper than fossil fuels if the regulatory impediments are removed (internationally, starting at the IAEA and then the US NRC), progress will remain blocked. Little can be achieved until nuclear is cheaper than coal.

Peter,

"GHG emissions" - it is inevitable renewables will abate more emissions than nuclear. Regardless if the money would be better spent on nuclear.

"Renewables cannot have much effect on global GHG emissions." - emissions aside, it is a viable investment.

"That would damage Australia’s economy for no benefit?" - Investment can service debt and provide a positive return. So I disagree on both points here.

"It’s only profitable with massive incentives" - The Chinese government has made it clear they are happy to pay for renewables at their expense, but you're right, they offer massive incentives.

"Gas will not replace baseload generators in Australia" - Natural gas has already surpassed brown coal generation in GWh terms back in 2012 to become the second largest source of generation behind black coal, which is in decline. If the trend continues it could surpass black coal quite comfortably within a decade.

"Until the public understands that nuclear is the safest way" - I'll be dead before this happens.

"can be cheaper than fossil fuels if the regulatory impediments are removed" - I'll be dead before this happens.

"progress will remain blocked" - I'll be alive during this part.

"Little can be achieved until nuclear is cheaper than coal." - Nuclear will really be competing for investment against gas-fired plants which are already replacing black coal as a cheaper alternative.

Considering public opinion and the political stance of the current parties, the idea you propose, regardless of its validity, is really a figment. As I've mentioned, I can't dedicate my life to advocating for something so farfetched.

Moreover, as I've mentioned wages (which are high for renewables and nuclear) mean Australia isn't the most efficient place for this sort of investment. You'd be able to build nuclear and abate more emissions in places like China. Not only could they build the plant cheaper, you'd prevent coal plants from being built and using Australian coal.

You could use my idea, but tweak it to only being applicable to Nuclear. That is more likely, will have better emission abatement, and would be more profitable.

Spencer,

This stuffs just your keep repeating is wrong and repetitive blabber. You've provided no evidence (misrepresenting factoids is not evidence).

"- it is inevitable renewables will abate more emissions than nuclear." How much? By when? Evidence that renewables can replace a large proportion of baseload electricity globally?

"emissions aside, it is a viable investment. " Prove it. provide authoritative sources comparing the cost of electricity from a system powered mostly by renewables versus mostly by nuclear. Explain why re needs massive incentives to survive if, as you wrongly believe, it is a viable investment without the subsidies.

"Investment can service debt and provide a positive return. So I disagree on both points here." 8.1% return for high risk investments is not a positive return because all costs are not included. If CEFC was commercially viable there'd be no need for government legislation to mandate it

"gas-fired plants which are already replacing black coal as a cheaper alternative." Misunderstanding or misrepresentation on your part.

" I can't dedicate my life to advocating for something so farfetched. " That's exactly what you ARE doing: "advocating for something farfetched". Not only far fetched but cannot make major global emissions reductions.

"You could use my idea, but tweak it to only being applicable to Nuclear." Your idea is naive and based on ignorance on so many planes it's ridiculous.

You need to provide numbers and show them and the basis for estimates. How much and what proportion of global emissions will you reduce by when and at what additional cost?

If you can't or wont answer those questions it suggests you don't understand what you are talking about. I can give you cost comparisons from authoritative sources and also done them myself using the government's unit costs. Examples of proper comparisons:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.363.7838&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://canadianenergyissues.com/2014/01/29/how-much-does-it-cost-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-a-primer-on-electricity-infrastructure-planning-in-the-age-of-climate-change/

http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios

Nuclear power is the least cost and fastest way to substantially cut GHG emissions from electricity

1 Energy supply requirements

The most important requirements for energy supply are:

1. Energy security (refers to the long term; it is especially relevant for extended periods of economic and trade disputes or military disruptions that could threaten energy supply, e.g. 1970’s oil crises [1], world wars, Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe).

2. Reliability of supply (over periods of minutes, hours, days, weeks – e.g. NE USA and Canada 1965 and 2003[2])

3. Low cost energy - energy is a fundamental input to everything humans have; if we increase the cost of energy we retard the rate of improvement of human well-being.

Policies must deliver the above three essential requirements. Lower priority requirements are:

4. Health and safety

5. Environmentally benign

1.1 Why health and safety and environmental impacts are lower priority requirements than energy security, reliability and cost:

This ranking of the criteria is what consumers demonstrate in their choices. They’d prefer to have dirty energy than no energy. It’s that simple. Furthermore, electricity is orders of magnitude safer and healthier than burning dung for cooking and heating inside a hut. The choice is clear. The order of the criteria is demonstrated all over the world and over thousands of years – any energy is better than no energy.

2 Nuclear better than renewables

Nuclear power is better than renewable energy in all the important criteria. Renewable energy cannot be justified, on a rational basis, to be a major component of the electricity system. Here are some reasons why:

1. Nuclear power has proven it can supply over 75% of the electricity in a large modern industrial economy, i.e. France, and has been doing so for over 30 years.

2. Nuclear power is substantially cheaper than renewables

3. Nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity; it causes the least fatalities per unit of electricity supplied.

4. Nuclear power has less environmental impact than renewables.

5. ERoEI of Gen 3 nuclear is ~75 whereas renewables are around 1 to 9. An ERoEI of around 7 to 14 is needed to support modern society. Only Nuclear, fossil fuels and hydro meet that requirement.

6. Material requirements per unit of electricity supplied through life for nuclear power are about 1/10th those of renewables

7. Land area required for nuclear power is very much less than renewables per unit of electricity supplied through life

8. Nuclear power requires less expensive transmission (shorter distances and smaller transmission capacity in total because the capacity needs to be sufficient for maximum output but intermittent renewables average around 10% to 40% capacity factor whereas nuclear averages around 80% to 90%).

9. Nuclear fuel is effectively unlimited.

10. Nuclear fuel requires a minimal amount of space for storage. Many years of nuclear fuel supply can be stored in a warehouse. This has two major benefits:

• Energy security - it means countries can store many years of fuel at little cost, so it gives independence from fuel imports. This gives energy security from economic disruptions or military conflicts.

• Reduced transport - nuclear fuel requires 20,000 to 2 million times less ships, railways, trains, ports, pipelines etc. per unit of energy transported. This reduces shipping costs, the quantities of oil used for the transport, and the environmental impacts of the shipping and the fuel used for transport by 4 to 6 orders of magnitude.

2.1 Nuclear cheaper and lower emissions than renewables

The CSIRO ‘MyPower’ calculator shows that, even in Australia where we have cheap, high quality coal close to the main population centres and where nuclear power is strongly opposed, nuclear power would be the cheapest way to reduce emissions: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/MyPower.aspx
“MyPower is an online tool created by CSIRO that allows you to see the effect of changing the national ‘electricity mix’ (technologies that generate Australia’s electricity) on future electricity costs and Australia's carbon emissions.”

Below is a comparison of options with different proportions of electricity generation technologies (move the sliders to change the proportions of each technology). The results below show the change in real electricity prices and CO2 emissions in 2050 compared with now.

Change to 2050 in electricity price and emissions by technology mix:

1. 80% coal, 10% gas, 10% renewables, 0% nuclear:
electricity bills increase = 15% and emissions increase = 21%

2. 0% coal, 50% gas, 50% renewables, 0% nuclear:
electricity bills increase = 19% and emissions decrease = 62%.

3. 0% coal, 30% gas, 10% renewables, 60% nuclear:
electricity bills increase = 15% and emissions decrease = 77%.

4. 0% coal, 20% gas, 10% renewables, 70% nuclear:
electricity bills increase = 17% and emissions decrease = 84%.

5. 0% coal, 10% gas, 10% renewables, 80% nuclear:
electricity bills increase = 20% and emissions decrease = 91%.

Source: CSIRO 'MyPower' calculator

Points to note:

• For the same real cost increase to 2050 (i.e. 15%), BAU gives a 21% increase in emissions c.f. the nuclear option a 77% decrease in emissions (compare scenarios 1 and 3)

• For a ~20% real cost increase, the renewables option gives 62% decrease c.f. nuclear 91% decrease.

• These costs do not include the additional transmission and grid costs. If they did, the cost of renewables would be substantially higher.

3 Conclusion:

Nuclear is the least cost way to make significant reductions in the emissions intensity of electricity.

The difference is stark. Nuclear is far better.

But progress to reduce emissions at least cost is being thwarted by the anti-nuclear activists.