As we speak over 13 GW of 27 GW electricity demand is being met by burning black and brown coal according to NemWatch. That's after decades of subsidies and mandates for renewables, It suggests that there is something about coal or baseload power that is hard to replace. Germany for example is increasing coal use after saying for years they would reduce it.

The GenCost people AEMO and CSIRO seem to have it in for SMRs with fanciful cost estimates. Apparently their consultants must know more than some of the world's biggest engineering firms. To take one example just recently General Electric Hitachi said their BRWX 300 boiling water reactor will produce power for $US60 per Mwh. AEMO's data dashboard gives wholesale prices by state in the range $A120 to $210 per Mwh. There seems to be something slightly amiss with the claim nuclear is more expensive.

There is no debate. Nuclear power has been banned in Australia. Get over it and get back to coal.

"the dramatic cost reductions of renewables"?

Where does this person have his head? Unreliables have pushed power prices up, and they will rise a further 35% next year. And what? Australia is not going the same way as Europe, which is going back to fossil fuels to survive?

Six pages of Marxist bumf. We don't need nuclear while we have abundant, cheap and reliable coal. Ignoring that fact and talking about nuclear, for or against, is plain idiocy. We 'had it all', but we threw it away.

Has this idealist reviewed the relative prices of electricity in Denmark and France or is it just that, for him, ideology takes precedence over real outcomes?

As always the answer lies in attaining and maintaining a sustainable global population of homo sapiens.
Without doing that we are p......g into the wind.
As this appears to be an impossible task Hanrahan was definitely correct. His time frame may be out but he was right.

We are getting far too much of this garbage propaganda by ratbag activists on OLO today.

Time to go back to worthwhile authors.

Jim. You clearly know SFA about nuclear power. and the numerous ways it can be done! Your article was full, as usual, of selectively sourced facts. My last paid job was as a science assistant for a state power authority and I'm here to tell you that we can do nuclear power for less than one cent PKWH.

The quickest build for a conventional reactor was 6 months and commissioned in 12 in Iceland, as memory serves. Moreover, there's no reason that we cannot build a proven design type/mass produce same in factory situation. It's just metal fabrication after all, like airplanes, isn't it.

There was a time when we didn't build trains, ships, planes, cars, trucks and what have you. That never ever prevented us from mass producing same and assembling them in purpose build factories!

If you are worried about nuclear waste? Know this, in MSR technology nuclear waste is mostly unspent fuel which is burnt again and again until all of the available energy component is exhausted. With what's left having a half-life reduced to just 300 years and this largely unspent fuel is fuel other nations will pay us as annual millions to take off their hands! A win, win all round!

See LFTR in five minutes then take your well known and well-rehearsed anti-nuclear stance and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Nuclear power is carbon free and has cost fewer lives per GWH, than your beloved renewables!

No renewable system will support any competitive manufacture or metals smelting. And, I believe, the very goal, if unstated, of moribund green activists like yourself.

Smarter green activists would see that producing copious, clean, green, safe, carbon free nuclear energy and selling to all comers would address climate change far better than anything else we could do! And turn this nation into an energy superpower with enough industrial muscle to be able to tell the likes of China or Russia. GFY!

Better the world suspects you're a fool than to open your mouth to remove all doubt.
Alan B.

The future is renewables and not radioactive. Well then, cancel milk, bananas and Brazil nuts, all of which are radioactive. Thorium is less radioactive than a banana.

And the end decay product of fission as thorium> U233 is the miracle cancer cure, the alpha particle bismuth 213. And Jim it is radioactive.

The study of hormeses shows that where the background radiation is double normal background, cancer rates are halved. The most dangerous waste can be contained in metal or glass then used over a shielded conveyor belt to preserve non refrigerated food indefinitely.

Carbon 40 can be incrusted with cheap manmade diamonds than then turn the radiation into trickled electricity. And good for thousands of years.

Nuclear waste when buried stabilizes over around thirty years to become mostly plutonium which can be dug up and used once again as nuclear fuel. Separating out the transgenics not too difficult or dangerous.

Jim has spent the better half of a clearly wasted lifetime fearmongering over (his favorite bogyman) nuclear power. And only because he doesn't understand how to do it with more built-in safety than coal-fired power.

ttbn. Coal-fired power is no longer cheap, but along with gas, among the most expensive options currently available. Smokestacks burning ROM coal can belch uranium, cacogenic cadmium and arsenic to mention a few. Please ensure brain is engaged before putting mouth into gear next time.

Solar voltaic panels come with mountains of dangerous toxic waste that winds up in our oceans and fish stocks.
Alan B.

A great essay Jim.

Renewable energy sources ARE providing baseload power by charging:

- massive Lithium-ion batteries often co-located with mass solar and wind power stations

- roof solar to home batteries

- along with easily turned on/off Gas power stations when needed.

Just look at South Australia's successful trend http://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/modern-energy/leading-the-green-economy

++++++++++++++++++++++

Nuclear is proving the most expensive problem plagued non-option.

Also comes the prospect of terrorist blowing up SMRs-Alan B's pet Lithium Reactor enthralment.

And large conventional reactors? Note: "UN alarm as Ukraine nuclear power plant shelled again"

at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62505815

A good lie succeeds in its beguiling sway, due to the condiment of truth.

The pretext for the lie in this case, is the contested claims of climate change presented as truth and fact!

The whole argument in this article is superfluous and a red herring.

The cost of coal powered electrical generation is currently “half” the cost of wind power generation, and arguably less polluting, considering manufacturing inputs.

Other factors of cost dodged here in this article, are new line construction and its unreliability from weather dependent vagaries. Rain hail or shine, coal and gas continue their steady and reliable output.

Australia has an abundant coal and gas supply enough, to keep the production of electricity reliable and cheap into the future, a future thrown away by climate change ideologues.

Dan

blow up a MSR, well for starters they be located underground in highly secured environments. with facial recognition, fingerprint access and deployable live firing computer-controlled firearms would limit opportunities for harm. The braindead might try or some empty-headed ten-pound pom.

People can't walk in off the street into any power station now and terrorists blowing stuff up that's molten and at least 700C might get burned beyond recognition if they ever got close enough to plant their explosive charges. I mean at that sort of heat the explosives would detonate almost immediately.

And also risk a death sentence radiation exposure Furthermore they would have to find where they were as a pre-requite.

Some anti Australian smartasses might point them in the right direction but simply send to a premature death. And Putin and his criminal cohort would want to delay this rollout as long as poss., given it would likely kill Russian oil and gas exports!

And if the cap fits?
Alan B.

Another point of SMRs is that they can be made inherently safe. This means that even if every safety device fails the design will shut off the process long before a meltdown occurs.

The continued failure of renewables to reach the capacity or cost savings promised is behind the push for nuclear.