Roses1,

"We deliberately made conservative assumptions so we couldn't be accused of costing bias in favor of renewable options."
And in that you have failed dismally (as can be seen by looking at Hasbeen's post).

You're relying on some assumptions (such as a carbon price) going your way. But funding renewable energy with concessional loans is likely to be less controversial than a carbon price, especially when you can demonstrate that it will result in cheaper electricity.

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Geoff of Perth,

I'm well aware that experimental thorium reactors have been built before now. But the fact remains that there aren't yet, and never have been, power stations using LFTRs.e wrong: I think LFTRs have a great future, especially in countries with a high population density. But we aren't there yet. We don't know what the cost will be.

You enthuse about what LFTRs can do, but they are no better than other energy sources for synthesising diesel. And AIUI they're not as good as particle accelerators for producing medical isotopes.

Don't get me wrong: I think LFTRs have a great future, especially in countries with a high population density. But we aren't there yet. We don't know what the cost will be.

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plantagenet,

It's not about heavy moral weight. It's about showing how it can be done rather than our inaction (despite being one of the highest per capita emitters in the world) being used by other countries to justify their failure to tackle the problem.

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Alan B.

Just repeating the claim that we need base load power does not make it so. We need to meet our power needs at all times, but there is no good reason why any of it should come from power stations that are no good at varying their output.

Your hypocritical bluster about intellectual depth is belied by your failure to engage with any of my arguments! When you repeat the same claims over and over again, ignoring the criticism, does it not deserve the (very tame) abuse?

Alan B, please give just one good, & real reason why we should get out of coal, the cheapest most reliable source of power on the planet.

The latest study on generation technology http://www.co2crc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/LCOE_Report_final_web.pdf costs sees nuclear as increasing to $180 - 220 per MWh by 2030 (significantly higher again than the costs SEN used in their study). This study is by 5 government agencies including CSIRO.
So nuclear enthusiasts (including Taswegian), why do you ignore these costs, which are 50-80% higher than the renewable energy scenarios I presented, with transparent modeling that you can check? http://www.sen.asn.au/modelling_findings. There are 30 of the latest most recent, peer reviewed energy reports cited in our study. Where are your sources? All we hear from you is 'oh, there's a prototype thorium reactor being built....' or the 'Gen 3-4 reactors are safer' when there's none operating commercially. Do you know how many wind and PV power stations there are? Thousands. How many solar thermal powers stations operating? Scores.

As for the usual trolls on this site (hasbeen and plantagenet) who always make negative unsubstantiated statements about anything progressive - if the world had followed your line in the 1890's the cities would all be knee-deep in horse manure!

The Predicted LCOE of advanced nuclear is about $95/MWhr and considering that it does not need vastly expensive gas standby, it is vastly cheaper and lower emitting than any renewable.

https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

Hasbeen,
Coal isn't that cheap. Even disregarding the huge environmental costs, the cost of digging the stuff up is fairly high.

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Shadow,
Gas standby is not vastly expensive.

LCOE, like all single figure comparisons, can be highly misleading because it relies on assumptions about variables. Rather than declaring x to be better than y because these figures say so, we should look at what conditions x is better than y under, and what it would take for y to perform better than x.

Shadow
The $95 for nuclear (EIA report) is in $US. Also they claim a capacity factor of 0.9 where 0.8 would be more realistic. Scale those costs accordingly and you have $135. Scale it up again to account for the fact that none have been built here and allow for the OCGT generation that is required to provide load following for the inflexible nuclear plants and you'll get > AU$ $170

The same document states " LCOE for incremental wind capacity coming online in 2020 ranges from $65.6/MWh in the region with the best available resources in 2020 to $81.6/MWh in regions where LCOE values are highest due to lower quality wind resources".

So they have wind, a clean source requiring no fuel with none of the disaster underwriting and waste disposal costs that nuclear places on governments, coming in at 70% of the cost of nuclear with all of its additional externalized costs and risks.

The EIA site also tells us that nuclear plants in the US average 35 years old, and construction might commence this year on the first one since then 1996.

Its easy to see why they aren't very enthusiastic. Have you heard of the 3 Mile Island radiation spill and the 1987 Shoreham reactor that Long Islanders are still paying for but has never generated any electricity as it was deemed too risky to commission? I've been there; I know people who worked on it; I have photos of it; you can easily google it.

Nuclear will never be a goer in Australia with our cheap wind and solar. As for the US, I reckon they'll try for as much renewable generation as they can. But unless they curb their crazy energy guzzling habits (4 tons of oil to heat a typical house over winter), they may have to put in a few new nuclear plants in the colder areas. (it will be interesting to see if anyone will accept them near their back yard in these post 9/11 times)