Peter Dutton – you want to attend NRL grand finals, as the owner of 26 investment properties, pay for air flights out of your own pocket, instead of slugging Aussie taxpayers.
Not a good look, for a Liberal leader.
Email, Mar 13
Richard Ryan, Summerland Point
Dreeeam, dream, dream, dreammm.
Nuclear power is not a source of zero emission electricity, water vapour is produced to cool the reactor. Water vapour may seem benign but has caused massive climate change in the geological past – water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas.
Nuclear power is more expensive refer to: Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Johanna Bowyer Nuclear in Australia would increase household power bills. (Sept 2024). Where the author conservatively estimates “Nuclear power would raise household power bills by $665pa. Or if you prefer, even Matt Canavan has stated publicly “It ain’t the cheapest form of power.” The CSIRO’s GenCost 2023-24 Final Report. Paul Graham, Jenny Hayward and James Foster. May 2024. Clearly shows that Nuclear: SMR or Large Scale would be the most expensive options. Cf pge 73 which illustrates this very clearly in a nice graph, showing nuclear is twice the cost of the cheapest solution Wind & Solar (including integration costs ie. batteries and transmission infrastructure Fin Review 21/12/2023; The Guardian 15/03/2024). But why trust our foremost scientific agency when Potato released his costings (frontier Economics Report 2 Economic analysis of including nuclear power in the NEM) just before last Xmas so you wouldn’t notice they’re BS. “Economics of Coalition’s nuclear modelling are worth nothing” Fin Review 15/12/2024). According to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE): “Currently, there are no licensed designs, or constructed or operating SMR’s in Australia, or in any OECD countries…” Also stating that: “Commercial releases could commence by the late 2030’s to mid 2040’s, with a mature market likely emerging during the mid to late 2040’s, depending on regulatory approvals and investment and resource allocation”. That’s a lot of assumptions and hopeful thinking there ladies and gents. Then ATSE predict: “Projected costs and performance attributes could only be accurately demonstrated once full-scale prototype SMR’s are built.” Oops; perhaps Mr. Potato will be willing to offer himself as a battery, that would be more constructive I think, and to quote the Coalition: “If you don’t know, vote No”. But Potato reckons that he can build SMR’s to start in 2035 and Large Scale Reactors in 2037: 19/06/2024 ABC News. To which I say: “Tell him his dreaming” perhaps it’s a green potato & the toxins are getting to him?
So what do the real experts say?
The French: Flamanville Unit 3 took 20 years from announcement to completion. That was 12 years blow out in time at 4 times cost.
The UK: Hinkley Point C might take 23 years; announced 2007 – projected to complete 2030. That should be 14 years behind schedule at 3 times the cost, hopefully.
The US: Vogtle Units 3 & 4 took 18 years – 7 years behind schedule U$10B+ over budget. Where the Georgia Power customers are going to pay $7.56B/$10.2B Vogtle cost overrun. 20/12/2023 Fox 5 Atlanta.
That’s what we call scope creep – just like a nightshade to be so creepy.
Now please note that these countries are old hands at this kind of infrastructure and we’re supposed to trust the Noalition; the party that couldn’t build carparks 29/06/2021 The Guardian: “Government committed millions to commuter car parks that could never be built”.
Lest we forget the genius collaboration: “Barnaby Joyce’s pet rail project suffers ‘astonishing’ blowout to $31B” Fin Review 06/04/2023.
Now Potato et alia keep referring to the magical UAE project who managed to build the Barakah project: “When UAE inked the region’s first nuclear power deal 15 years ago” 27/12/2024 Khaleej Times. But the Noalition fails to mention that an un-democratic authoritarian state used slave labour (Human Rights Watch “Migrant Worker Abuses in the UAE and COP28”). With the cost of construction workers lives and accidents that are world leading to make the UAE great again. A return to this kind of Medievalism of course excites the capitalists so very muchly. Unfortunately we have a Democracy (for the moment) with Workers rights and Environmental Regs then there’s all the nuclear bans at state and federal levels? What’s going to happen with the waste? Where are the reactors going to go? To which Mr. Potato says: “ Dutton also acknowledged he would need to convince state premiers to overturn nuclear bans. He said the Commonwealth could apply a national interest test and compulsorily acquire land from states for reactor sites.” 19/06/2024 SMH. How terribly trumpy.
According to AEMO 2022 Integrated Systems Plan p. 46 Figure 17: 20 years from now renewables are projected to power 96% of our grid “the transition is well underway”. That is, we’re almost there: in the last 6 years Australia has built six 1GW nuclear power stations worth of power generation using solar and wind. Refer to Simon Holmes à Court tweet: 38.8% renewables. …. equivalent to 6.6 large nuclear reactors, but much lower cost & much faster > 17:04 01/01/2025.
What is obvious from all this is that the Noalition are obviously trying to slow down the move to renewables to keep the reliance on Coal and Gas. “Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant Eraring to stay open for two extra years” 23/05/2024 ABC News. At a cost to the tax base of $450M and more pollution to poison the Lake Maquarians; increased risk of black and brown-outs (Climate Council 22/01/2025 Lights out: ageing coal and summer blackouts). To pay for the most expensive option (Gas fired power stations) while we wait for the even more expensive nuclear dream. Leading to increasing our cumulative emissions and reneging on our climate commitments.
Meanwhile Labor gets to skate by with this idiotic distraction, while they approve coal mines and offshore gas. So basically both parties are blatantly supporting and being overtly and covertly supported by the fossil fuel developments. Take back control of your democracy and please vote for independents the current duopoly is passing legislation that will reduce your choices after this election. Look at what’s happening to other “democracies”. Diversity is strength, at the core of democracy is our ability to argue, negotiate and compromise a system that allows the best option to rise to the surface.