Nuclear power, not renewables, is what is needed. Renewables are high cost, unreliable and would need an enormous amount of storage to provide a reliable power supply.

Nuclear power is and always has been by far the safest way to generate electricity, since the first power reactor began supplying power to the grid in 1954. Deaths from nuclear are about 0.0001 per TWh of electricity generated compared with coal 15, gas 4, solar 0.44, wind 0.15, hydro 0.01. If each technology was required to pay compensation for the annual cost of the deaths it causes, the amount each would have to pay per MWh (in the USA) are: coal $174, gas $46, solar $5.1, wind $1.7, hydro $0.06, nuclear $0.001 (using US Value of a Statistical Life).

If not for the effects of the anti-nuclear power protest movement since the early 1960’s we could now be using small modular reactors instead of the enormous >1 GW reactors. They would be factory manufactured, delivered to site, installed and powering the grid within about 3 years, not 10 to 20 years, and they could be supplying power at about 15% of current cost.

For more read ‘Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone’.

There has been a lot said and written that climate change catastrophism and emission reduction has nothing to do with the environment: it's all about control and Marxist economics. But not enough people are interested in that idea, so there is no point in raising it again. The average drones have decided to leave to the "experts" - aka liars and crooks - so we will all have to pay the price.

But, what is the price? If we are going to have to accept this enormous imposition, what will be the cost to jobs, power prices and the cost of living in general? What will be the reduction in temperatures.

The questions on cost and effects have been asked numerous times. The answers - ZERO times.

Peter Lang,
Renewables were high cost back in the noughties, but the technology has moved on and now they're low cost. Whereas nuclear power in the 21st century has kept promising the costs will come down, but we're still waiting.

'Tis fossil fuelled power that has the biggest unreliability problems. Did you miss the SA government bragging this week that since it came to power there have been zero customer hours lost to supply shortfalls? No other state was so reliable, and Queensland had by far the most load shedding.

As for an enormous amount of storage, much of that could be as hydrogen. Electrolysers have been developed that can run in reverse (as fuel cells) and the more overbuild we have of renewables (and we'll need a lot of overbuild if we're going to be exporting hydrogen and ammonia) the less storage we need.

The anti nuclear power protest movement was only successful because of the failures of the nuclear power industry. Proponents of small modular reactors tried to present them as the solution to the safety problems, but the cost of electricity produced has always been much higher than from large reactors. For the past twenty years they've been saying that will soon change, and that may be the case... but it hasn't yet.

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ttbn,
Marxist economics? Seriously?
Is the ratio of wages to profits higher or lower with renewables?

It's still very much a case of stemming the increase in temperature rather than causing a reduction. I'm not aware of any good reason why anyone working in the fossil fuel industry can't work elsewhere. And renewables are already cheaper than new coal power, and will soon be cheaper than keeping existing coal fired power stations running.

My fear is that by 2030 or so Australia will not have enough affordable energy on demand. We will in effect have rationing such as allowing unlimited aircon when it is 35C but not 45C as the grid can't cope. 100% renewables won't occur without cheap long duration energy storage. That precludes lithium ion batteries which are good for 4 hours and would require Snowy 2 pumped hydro to be replicated several times over.

As to nuclear Australia has the biggest uranium reserves. Several intending SMR vendors are talking about a levelised electricity cost well under $100 per Mwh. That's does not involve add on costs like new transmission lines if using brownfield sites, frequency correction, gas backup and green subsidies like the LGC currently $38 per Mwh. All conveniently omitted from discussion of how 'cheap' renewables are. When this penny drops the 100% renewable crowd will have to explain where it all went wrong.

The psychology of the elite climate change ideologues.

To ttbn. Hope this helps!

Eric Fromm. (Psychoanalyst).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm

Quote from “The Forgotten Language”

*…The “elite” who have to control those who are not “chosen” become the prisoners of their own restrictive tendencies. Thus the human mind, of both rulers and ruled, becomes deflected from its essential human purpose, which is to feel and to think humanly, to use and to develop the powers of reason and love that are inherent in man and without the full development of which he is crippled. In this process of deflection and distortion man’s character becomes distorted. Aims which are in contrast to the interests of his real human self become paramount. His powers of love are impoverished, and he is driven to want power over others. His inner security is lessened, and he is driven to seek compensation by passionate cravings for fame and prestige. He loses the sense of dignity and integrity and is forced to turn himself into a commodity, deriving his self-respect from his salability, from his success. All this makes for the fact that we learn not only what is true, but also what is false. That we hear not only what is good, but are constantly under the influence of ideas detrimental to life. This holds true for a primitive tribe in which strict laws and customs influence the mind, but it is true also for modern society with its alleged freedom from rigid ritualism. In many ways the spread of literacy and of the media of mass communication has made the influence of cultural clichés as effective as it is in a small, highly restricted tribal culture…*

Dan

Aidan,

You are very poorly informed and haven't a clue what you are talking about. I'd urge you and others here to read the paper linked below - and read the two Appendices and the relevant references.

'Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone'
https://doi.org/10.3390/en10122169
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169/htm

You claim I'm poorly informed, but you don't provide any evidence whatsoever! Nothing in the paper you linked to contradicts what I have said.

You seem to have a severe comprehension deficiency - you fail to understand that a good safety record does not justify ignoring safety problems, particularly when the potential consequences are severe. You also ignore the associated pollution problems.

Aidan,

Wrong on all points. You haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Do the research.

Thomas, P.; May, J. Coping after a big nuclear accident. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2017.09.013

Thomas, P.J. Quantitative guidance on how best to respond to a big nuclear accident. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2017.07.026

Waddington, I.; Thomas, P.; Taylor, R.; Vaughan, G. J-value assessment of remediation measures following the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accidents. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2017.07.003

Yumashev, D.; Johnson, P.; Thomas, P. Economically optimal strategies for medium-term recovery after a major nuclear reactor accident. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2017.08.022

Video: ‘Experts talk about the health effects of Chernobyl’ https://youtu.be/PZUvoeIArDM

WHO – ‘Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programmes – Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum Expert Group “Health”
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9241594179
https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf

WHO – 1986-2016: CHERNOBYL at 30 https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/1986-2016-chernobyl-at-30

Regarding the LNT Hypothesis:
Calabrese, E.J.P., Mikko. A-Bombs, Bears and Corrupted Science; Reassessing radiation safety. https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/06/Calabrese-Paunio-2020.pdf

Doss, M. Are We Approaching the End of the Linear No-Threshold Era? http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/59/12/1786.long

Higson, D.J., “A controversy that needs to be resolved”; The Boyce Worthley Oration 2019. Radiation Protection in Australasia; The Journal of the Australasian Radiation Protection Society, May 2020, Vol.37, No.1, pp. 29-36. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1raQz-s_wUOrPvNgCYY91iwg6tbEQQd4U/view?usp=sharin

Smaller but more nuclear power stations are what will sustain us in the future not oil-based renewables the manufacture of which is more polluting than coal & petroleum fuel.
Big nuclear power stations can become unmanagable as we have witnessed already. Small ones have a %99.9 safety record if nuclear ships are anything to go by !

Peter Lang,
Saying "wrong on all points" doesn't make it so, and it's pretty obvious to me that YOU are the one who doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about. If you can identify any errors in what I ACTUALLY said (rather than the point you wrongly assume me to be trying to make) then you're welcome to identify them and we can discuss it. But I don't have time to chase strawmen today, so I'm not going to follow a load of links to irrelevant stuff (much of which I do already know).

"but the technology has moved on and now they're low cost."

Well if that's true (and requires some valiant mathematical distortions to make it so), then let's get rid of all the subsidies and then we'll see just how low cost they are. Of course, it'll never happen because, sans subsidies, these so-called low cost renewables would be outta business by next Tuesday week.

Meanwhile our new BFF, realising that renewables will never get the job done, are moving to mini nuclear. ....

http://www.msn.com/en-au/money/other/government-poised-to-approve-16-mini-nuclear-reactors-to-hit-net-zero/ar-AAOPx1d/

Don't waste your time mhaze, aidan lives in his own Neverland, with Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Captain Hook, & the rest of the green fairy tale crowd.

Where what ever he wishes were true, become true just because he wants to believe. You will never be able to show him the facts, as they don't fit his dream world.

mhaze,
When I say they're low cost, I mean they're low cost. I have NEVER EVER pretended that something that's high cost but subsidized is low cost.

However there does have to be an economic incentive for adding generating capacity, because as things stand it's more lucrative for electricity companies not to provide more capacity; failure to provide more capacity leads to higher electricity prices and therefore higher profits.

So although a few years ago I thought that falling costs would soon make initiatives like the MRET unnecessary, I concede I was wrong on that.

I have long thought England could do with more nuclear power stations, so I consider this announcement to be quite a good one. But there have been announcements before that ended up not actually resulting in anything. I reckon this one has a higher chance of coming to fruition than our nuclear submarines, but it's still far from certain.

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Hasbeen,
I live in the real world. But unlike you, I don't live in the past!

It's truly amazing how the pro-green energy outfits never touch on the subject of the manufacturing of 'Green Energy" !
It is up there with the cosmetics industry's & other frivolous industries' insane pollution !
The worst part is that the most polluting industries are also the most unnecessary !

Quote "I'm not aware of any good reason why anyone working in the fossil fuel industry can't work elsewhere."

There are 39,000 of them in coal alone.

Unemployment... 2.54 million Sept 2021. or 2.58 m inc those in fossil fuel who would become unemployed. I know one thing for certain, you would scream like a banshee if you were turfed out your industry and told,"- bloody well get on with it."

Whats a few more unemployed eh?

Fossil fuel plant operators need re-skilling, plus being paid during the re-skilling, and which industries have the capacity to absorb them..coffee shops?

How about 3% taxing the 13 million employed with average of $1,150 per week and give to the 39,000. After all, it is only taking 3% of the average to give an equivalent average salary..forgetting of course the miners might have bigger house mortgages because of higher pay -so in your view what is a bit of financial pain for some riff-raff rough necks. Right?.

Your wave of the hand "I am not aware" says most of it and "Can't get work anywhere" clearly has you seated comfortably safe, secure and insulated.

Wild Man,
Cheers for that. I've stated here many times that those in secure employment (Public Service) should contribute for their privilege to support the victims of quite a number of bureaucrats !

Wild Man, you have COMPLETELY misunderstood my post.
I'm not saying unemployment is acceptable, I'm saying it's AVOIDABLE.

The current unemployment rate is high because of Covid, but it's a short term problem. Once the economy opens up, the government can create conditions resulting in full employment if it wants to. Indeed I have always advocated it doing so, unlike many people on this board who prefer contractionary fiscal policy (aka trying to run a surplus).

And yes of course people need reskilling. Why do you consider that to be a problem?

The fossil fuels industry isn't going to be shut down overnight. It will be a gradual phaseout taking at least fifteen years, so there's plenty of time for people to reskill. And of course there should be government help for people affected. As for where people will work instead, I expect the metals industry will absorb of them than any other due to similarities in the required skills. But there will be plenty absorbed by other industries right across the economy, and yes that will include coffee shops.

My phrasing "I am not aware" was not a wave of the hand, but an acknowledgement that I don't know everything and that a counterexample might exist (and also an implicit challenge to find one). Your speculation about me is entirely wrong, though of course that's just a result of your missing my main point.

Just to be crystal clear: unemployment is unacceptable, but government policy can make it completely avoidable in normal times.

Well this article will put the cat amoung the pigeons.
That article has said in figures what I had sensed all along that 100%
by 100% is unafordable.
Np need to worry about pollies going for Net Zero by 2050 as it is
impossible, we just cannot do it.
They will just send us broke trying.

Bazz,
Don't know how you could've reached that conclusion. It didn't look to me like this article had even woken the cat up, let alone move it anywhere.
All this article shows is that it's a big task... well duh!
But big doesn't mean impossible. Big things are accomplished all the time.
And the article says almost nothing about the affordability. Worse still, what it does say is based on historical costs (without factoring in the effects of improving technology) and fails to recognise that a large overbuild would decrease the firming costs.

And of course at a global level, sticking with fossil fuels is the most expensive option of all.