Hi Fester,
Yeah – talk about the ‘glossy brochure’ – you’re quoting from it! See, many nuclear builds simply MUST be eliminated from the LCOE or it shows the true cost. Nukes in the western world are unfairly discriminated against due to our democratic values imposing what I used to call a “fear tariff.” That is, they’re over regulated. The demands are too high, and constantly changing as anti-nuke lobbyists do their thing and shift the goal posts.

Nuclear COULD be affordable if the Australian government decided to standardise a good Gen3 like the CAP1400. Put it on a nation-wide assembly line, get those components coming, get the learning curve and economies of scale to kick in, and build 50 or 60 CAP1400’s and we’d be able to replace ALL fossil fuels – including oil! Because the climate crisis is so horrendously serious – I would support that world, and vote for it even.

But it’s not going to happen. Why? Because by the time we got the anti-nuclear legislation repealed, renewables will already be there.
See, as much as your article might have had a few points, it’s 2 years out of date. The learning curve for wind and solar KEEPS dropping. KEEPS compensating for the intermittency. And studies like Andrew Blakers KEEP being confirmed by independent peer reviewed studies and even independent studies. This is just going to happen, AND be cheaper than today’s power, AND hit before you and your pals here can do ANYTHING to defend good old nuclear.

The sun will come up and Australia’s energy grid will ‘breathe in’ all that solar and pump water uphill. Then night time, and the wind will take over. And if it doesn’t, the PHES might ‘breathe out’ a little. We’ll be OK.

And you will love us when we win

Also Fester, this bit of yours was a bit of a lie wasn't it?

"The renewable energy swindle in Europe is unravelling:"

http://netzerowatch.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=5277af6ecd&e=48bb978c50

What utter rubbish! And you KNEW it before you even typed it. You expect me to take you seriously with utter BS like this?

Gee, what's been happening in the world?

1. Coal mines flooded in Queensland - price goes up.
2. Drought in Hydropower dependent Brazil - demand for gas increases - price goes up.
3. Post-pandemic economic bounceback - price goes up.
4. Oil tanker shipping shortage after pandemic - price goes up.
5. RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE! PRICE GOES UP!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_global_energy_crisis

You need to calm your alt-right paranoia down a bit and broaden your reading - you're sounding a bit irrational at the moment.

Thx for re-entering the fray, Max, and a Merry Xmas and a happy new year to you. Here is your essential homework, learn to understand the difference between energy and power. It is the case in Walpole, South Australia Japan and the world that with enough intermittent generation, for periods of time here and there, you can even power a nation. The rest of the time you need baseload. Storage at the scale to to make 'base-load renewables' is expensive beyond your dreams and will be so until something absolutely magical happens. Why wait for its coming when nuclear has been doing the job for over half a century?
Just a thought for Xmas, it's possible to change your mind: https://newsbeezer.com/czechrepubliceng/the-nuclear-phase-out-was-a-big-mistake-says-schwarzenegger/?fbclid=IwAR27AjPNbc9oDf5gI9UhoKYKZNhDFYgqCkYMxdJCyo1ziyUUSSMSXr3HDf4

I'm glad Arnie likes nukes.
I like nukes.
I really do - and I've even published a magazine article about why I preferred nukes to renewables. It wasn't very good - I didn't have much space - and it was kind of a philosophical magazine as well.

But Aussies hate nukes. I ought to know - I campaigned for them and got my designer wife to designed posters for various nuclear websites and all sorts of stuff.

And now that the LCOE for renewables IS actually 4 times cheaper than the AVERAGE nuclear LCOE? Awesome! It means renewables actually have a fighting chance to come in as cheap as nukes when deployed.

"Storage at the scale to to make 'base-load renewables' is expensive beyond your dreams..."

Evidence required or that's just a crap anti-science assertion.

See, Blakers and his team have done the science. So have others. Over-build is a thing, and it brings the storage down to a quite manageable few days.

“PV and wind allow Australia to reach 100% renewable electricity rapidly at low cost. Wide dispersion of wind and PV over 10–100 million hectares reduces cost. Off-river pumped hydro energy storage is the cheapest form of mass storage. There are effectively unlimited sites available in Australia. LCOE from a 100% renewable Australian electricity system is US$70/MWh (2017 prices).” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568

"and will be so until something absolutely magical happens."

No magic required!

Blakers was VERY strict on that at least. His paper is based on off-the-shelf technology. They have years of weather data - looked for the worst Dark Lull - and overbuilt for it. It was economically viable back in 2017 when they published their paper and is EVEN CHEAPER now. And in the years to come I fully expect solar to at least reach 1/5 - maybe even 1/6 the cost of nuclear as the learning curve rates continue to kick in.

Once this sinks in, you'll have an even merrier Christmas! :-)

Hi Max,

Your way of thinking about renewables replacing dispatchable power was commonplace a few years ago, but some very significant emerging problems have dampened the enthusiasm to the extent that renewables are now regarded as having a much smaller role in low carbon dispatchable energy generation. This IMF piece outlines the shortcomings of renewables:

http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/12/nuclear-resurgence-nordhaus-lloyd

Perhaps the main driver of the renewed interest in nuclear generation has been the real world observation that in the long term nuclear power is cheaper, less complicated, and far more reliable than renewables. The following table (source: Nuclear Energy Association, part of the OECD) of long term costs of energy from various sources shows the cost of nuclear power to be similar to that of non-dispatchable wind and solar:

https://www.oecd-nea.org/lcoe/

The hardship from spiraling energy costs created in Europe by the aggressive adoption of wind and solar is making many countries rethink the move to renewable energy, e.g.:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2021/10/13/europes-energy-crisis-underscores-the-dangers-of-the-proposed-clean-electricity-performance-program/?sh=721788c7473a

I hope that the renewable lunacy ends soon.

Fester - Are you kidding?

First, Nordhaus is an economist. He looks at what's happened so far and says "That's all it can achieve". He doesn't look at the political stuff around delays in the German HVDC transmission lines, etc, that have SLOWED renewables deployment but not stopped them outright. He doesn't analyse the cost curves. He doesn't present weather data models that disprove Blakers.

Instead, he makes a ONE paragraph argument against renewables - with simplistic tripe that even I could write? Indeed, I HAVE written stuff like that in the past. "There's no such thing as a Danish grid" was a favourite quote of mine - pointing out how interconnected most "high renewables" countries are to the Nordic grid and in turn the pan-European super-grid.

I have learned to be a little bit more humble since then - and actually try to comprehend the peer-reviewed energy papers, the decades of weather data they analyse, and the backup methods like off-river pumped hydro.

So other than sharing that these countries share a grid (NEWSFLASH NORDHAUS - the European renewables engineers KNOW this - and indeed are counting on international grids if you bothered to actually READ their papers dumbass!), Nordhaus breaks some more astonishing news!