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.