At last, a rational discussion re nuclear power production for Australia. But, I think we’re missing the bigger picture here. Australia has over 40% of the world’s uranium reserves. Australia could become the one stop shop for the sale and thence the safe storage of uranium once used. That’s in addition to the ten or so nuclear reactors we need for power production. We should have started 30 years ago - lots of catch up to do.
That is the most one sided discussion ever. In Germany we are already above 50% renewables. Nuclear power does not work well with renewables. Look at energy mixes changing bin the world. They dont do that because of ideology but because its cheaper. The laughing stock is: France has the most enviable nuclear energy program. Not even the french like their own program. Its old, faulty has huge problems and at the moment their energy is more expensive than in germany.
@@Tracertme You're absolutely right to be cautious about nuclear waste, but it's worth noting that "waste" is a bit of a misnomer. Current spent nuclear fuel still contains about 95% usable material, primarily uranium and plutonium, which can be reprocessed and reused. France, for example, recycles its spent fuel rods, significantly reducing the amount of high-level waste that needs long-term storage. Advanced reactors, such as fast breeder reactors or molten salt reactors, can extract even more energy from this material while transmuting the remaining elements into safer, less radioactive forms. With proper investment, nuclear "waste" becomes a resource, not a liability-minimizing storage challenges and maximizing energy production.
Climate Change was identified in 1967. Australia has both coal and uranium, after 1967, we should have gone nuclear but there was a great fear of nuclear. But you don't fix a past mistake by making making another, nuclear power stations are now way more expensive than renewables. Nuclear will take twice as long and at least twice the cost as advocates claim, yet we need power in the interim, coal power plant will shutdown. Putting all your eggs in one basket, is not smart. The power lines goes down, blackout. Issue with power station, blackout. A decentralised renewable energy (Solar + Batteries) is available NOW, if only politicians who did nothing when in government are now using this old solution to get back in. It is like saying the solution to poor mobile phone signal is building new landlines for 20 years.
As an engineer I never understood the opposition of Nuclear in Australia. Some general population sounds like worried as well as Govt. But that is not from technical expertise. What happened in Germany didn't make sense either, but I will say good for France and other European neighbors there can benefit from Electricity exports. Australia doesn't have that option. Grid sharing with other continent is also not that viable in near future.
Naive people associating nuclear power with Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and as closeminded to any argument _for_ nuclear power as a leftist activist is to a fact.
@@SteveBarritt If your advocating nuclear for Australia, then it is you who does not understand that in 2024, unlike 50 years ago, nuclear is now the most expensive energy generation option. I'm currently setting up new 23kw solar panels with a 30kwh battery which will provide all my power, full house battery backup and all excess power is sold to grid at peak times paying off my system. I wish you well with your nuclear, and your punitive energy bills, estimated to be an extra $1200, to pay for them.
Yes, grid infrastructure is in place there, but what do you do for energy supply in the 10 years between coal shutdown and nuclear coming online? HVDC interconnections is a mature solution available now. Nuclear takes too long to be a viable solution. Tony Abbott should have started a nuclear program in 2013, but he didn't.
Nuclear is a proven and safe form of energy for major first-world economies used successfully and reliably in practice for over 50 years (e.g. France, Canada, etc.) and we have an abundance of uranium resource which we already export. This should be a bipartisan solution and a sure path to prosperity and higher living standards.
Nuclear would a great solution for the 2040s. Unfortunately, we need a solution for large scale electricity supply now, this decade, so HVDC interconnectors fit our time frame requirements to replace coal, whereas nuclear doesn't fit our time frame. HVDC is proven out in Europe, already paying for itself while in progress to building out the European super grid. HVDC is also perfect for continuing growing needs for electricity supply. HVDC is also a good fit for our duck curve demand/supply, whereas nuclear is a bad fit. Nuclear is a good fit for 24/7 constant power needs in heavy industrial processes, which is part of Victoria's rapidly approaching crisis in running out of gas. For that niche case, nuclear is very much worth considering. For Australia's energy needs in general, nuclear simply doesn't scratch the right itch.
@@naomieyles210 Sadly HVDC no use at all without a huge expansion in wind and solar to feed in as well as lots of $$$s. The labor govt has made it clear that what we will get is COG ie. no progress at all
@@jimgraham6722 Agree, except that adding wind and solar is the easy part of the equation. It's market ready and the free-market is well able to supply the need, provided they can overcome regulatory hurdles and get a high voltage connection to the grid. The missing piece is grid and interconnectors, but that's all doable on short timescales.
@@naomieyles210 Good points but for me it is as much about national strategy as economics. In this regard wind, solar, their storage mechanisms and grid infrastructure have their points of vulnerability, particularly when you look at the needs of industry and transport. In this regard a diversity of energy sources and various ways to connect the system up is very important. Nuclear energy is important because it greatly diversifies and strengthens the energy system, particularly for industry. Having said that, rooftop solar PV with batteries for residential and small business use is an excellent way of achieving a strong diversified system for that sector. We need a lot more of it. This also helps put downwards pressure on domestic energy prices. That is unequivocally a good thing. We just need to ensure as many people as possible have access to the necessary capital. Wind will be mostly useful for those applications with a large tolerance for variability and non criticality of supply, electrolysis, some chemical processes, desalination, some heating/cooling applications, water pumping etc.
@@naomieyles210 the world has shown it can build NPPs in about 5 years. This is not some insurmountable hurdle; it is a matter of planning, scheduling, and project management. Presenting a long time-to-operation as a inherent feature of nuclear is just factually incorrect. Hire the proper contracting firms, and you'll get it done properly. Hire EDF or Westinghouse - maybe you won't.
We need these knowledgeable people to be heard by the people of Australia. The courage to discuss these matters without the fear pushed by politicians and media.. The most important thing is cheap power for manufacturing to be restored in Australia let alone green hydrogen. Contract Rolls Royce or General Electric before it’s too late.
I think rather than trying to manufacture solar panels that Australia produces big batteries. The worldwide trend is battery storage will overtake pumped hydro storage in 2025.
Let’s get the people from Chernobyl and Fukushima to help. This should be the model for Australia. Radioactive waste exploding into the air, it will serve two purposes poison the nation and free fireworks on new years.
Build a nuclear power station or 3, put a cafe and tours in the plant, public opposing mitigated. I can see nuclear as technology, industry, jobs and future for our kids as well as power security. Yes, the nuclear moratorium for nuclear power should be removed so we can start planning to get it right. We MUST start now. I drive a Tesla, I have a roof solar array and home battery but I'm also a nuclear advocate.
I'm a nuclear advocate, too, and nuclear would have been a good solution for Australia in 2013 under Tony Abbott. Nuclear is a bad solution in 2024 because we have a coal power fleet at end of life and need a nuclear fleet now, not in 10 years time. We cannot magic up a nuclear fleet in a few short years, but we can build out HVDC interconnectors in that time frame. I hear the new grid infrastructure is running late, but running late doesn't stop it from being a good option in our circumstances. Nuclear probably fits some niche use cases in Australia, but it doesn't solve replacing coal power in the required time frame.
When all of the 1000s of off river pumped hydro sites have been built to support renewables and their communities, we can have a discussion about 7 nuclear sites being built (or just not needed).
@@hitreset0291 The trouble is corruption. A hydro electricity plant near me has been closed down and replaced by solar. Too much money to be made from tax payer subsidies to use existing hydro. Plenty of native animals killed for solar instead, and this far south, six hours of daylight in winter. Nuclear will cost billions, but renewables will cost trillions, according to the CSIRO.
I've been investing in uranium since 2020 , I have watched a lot of interviews regarding this energy. For those who haven't herd of Rick Rule his knowledge is second to none and has stated a couple of times now that the world has spent trillions on renewable energy for less than a 2 percent gain , this is what I would call insanity. Because this is such a critical decision moving forward for Australia should we be voting for a separate body of experienced people to over look our mission to achieve the desired outcome . As all I can see by around 2035 the politicians will realise they have stuffed up and then they will play the usual blame game and none of them will have any accountability for there actions. Great talk and I hope a lot of people watch this.
While Japan & Germany have decommissioned their nuclear power plant. Ukraines had one blow up and another shutdown by Russia. New nuclear power plant are getting increasingly expensive to build but most existing power plant will remain for now, they too will be replaced with renewables someday as maintenance costs increase.
I really like the discussions coming out of the CIS, however I can’t seem to find a discussion similar to this, with a pro-renewables panel. Would you consider doing one if one has not already happened?
Think tanks are paid to promote their funder's agenda. There is no way they would subsdise a forum to promote a counter arguement. It means these foorums end up being rather dull, as there is rarely any disagreement between the panel members, and presentations are often low on visual data and statistics.
@@JoeS-o2r agree with you on think tanks. For an objective assessment, you want an engineer, not a think tank. HVDC interconnectors are the vital enabling technology which CIS is skirting around. Look up Australian channel Engineering with Rosie: * Four Reasons Why Nuclear Power is a Dumb Idea for Australia * Can You Run a Grid on 100% Wind + Solar? * Electricity Across Oceans: Is HVDC the Future? Also Real Engineering: * Is 100% Renewable Possible by 2050? - Interconnectors (the European super grid which is already in progress and already paying for itself too) * The Economics of Nuclear Energy (the comparison to gas in the first half of the video is very relevant). Also B1M: * Why Nuclear is Making a Comeback (nuclear is complicated and cost/time overruns are common)
😂 you joking right. If they wanted discussion they wouldn’t sit around in a circle j, talking about how old mates solar panels aren’t making him money because his retailer has cut his feed in tariff. Or how the wind won’t blow this week, because the offshore wind looks pretty darn active most days this week. Yet he wants to bring a power source into the market that will centralise generation increasing cost because the base capacity will require locked in guaranteed revenue for some multinational investment company like Brookfields to take more dollars out of the country.
@@naomieyles210 As much as I like some of her content, it's hard to say that "engineering with rosie" is super trustworthy when it comes to power generation methods, as she works in the renewables sector. Just as you wouldn't trust someone who works in the fossil fuel sector if they tell you how terrible renewables are....
@@cerealport2726 Rosemary Barnes has 19 years in the industry and a relevant PhD. That makes her an authoritative source, which is more than I can say for myself. Real Engineering and B1M creators are also qualified in related fields, which is why I listed them, too. Rosemary Barnes (aka Engineering with Rosie) is supportive of nuclear power in general, just not for Australia given current circumstances. Refer her video entitled "Can Small Modular Reactors Save Nuclear Power?" dated 9th March 2022. The hydrogen conversation there is relevant to process heat for heavy industry, which is of interest to Australia. The load following design is relevant to Australia, too. NuScale is troubled, but SMR remains a potential future technology option for niche use cases here in Australia. The point is not to fangirl over one of my favourite UA-cam channels, but rather to provide @stefancostanzo5396 with a variety of video content to expand their knowledge. If we were on a blogging platform, I'd refer them to research, reports and reference pages instead.
I'm pro Nuclear, still, the Mr. Paterson's claim that solar doesn't pay / work, is simply not true. My relative installed solar a few years back in WA and it and I have seen their power bills drop by more than 50%. Nuclear shouldn't be an all or nothing argument, it should be a case of combination with existing and future energy solutions. Frankly the presentation comes off as rather combative, which is counter productive, being flippinet and dismissive of the general public (treating them as they are stupid) doesn't help the cause of upgrading Australia's power grids. Because it's far easier to argue against nuclear, so perhaps showing a more solution based approach would work better.
"My relative installed solar a few years back in WA [...] and I have seen their power bills drop by more than 50%." Because your relative is *_stealing_* power-service.
Had solar panels for 18 years reducing power bills. Replacing all old 2.4kw panels with new panels that will generate 23kw and a battery that will store 30kwh and change electricity provider to Amer Electric where I buy&sell power at wholesale prices. All my consumption is off battery, will have battery backup if grid goes down, excess power is sold to grid when wholeprice is high. With Amber I will be making money off selling power to the grid just as the gas power plant does. When grid has too much energy the prices drop and it one has capacity one can buy the power at a low price and sell it back at a high price and make a profit even if the sun is not out. When the sun is out, battery will get charged in a couple of hours. When I get an EV, I will be able to charge it for free off my panels, those putting all their eggs on nuclear, will have to pay big time to pay off the nuclear power plant. I thank you in advance for paying heaps for your nuclear electricity and indirectly funding my virtual power plant. Cheers!
Helen Cook - fabulous! Great insight all round. Why can countries with far lower GDP embark on nuclear and AUS can't? The simple answer is that, deep down, we are not innovative or willing to take risks.
I cannot understand Labor's refusal to consider nuclear. It's an area that is revealing new scientific breakthroughs on a consistent basis. Labor is shutting its mind to any new discovery that may come along. Absolutely bizarre.
Yeah. New breakthroughs that boast of "recycling the fuel rods" which is code for "we pile spent nuclear rods on top of each other and leave them in the actual reactor"; Fukushima showed an example of how volatile that can be.
That would mean re-energising the manufacturing sector building new power stations. Had you not noticed they've been dismantling Australian independence on energy for 20+ years? You cannot strangle a strong independent nation, you have to weaken it to the point of starvation.
How many new nuclear power plants are under construction at present in the UK or USA ???. How many new nuclear power plants have actually been fully approved to start construction in the US'UK and actually proceeded into the physical construction phase in the last decade ??? It is certainly easier to build small nuclear power plants, but given a small nuclear sub or power plant would only produce say 37,500 hp which is equivalent to 5 last generation US main line steam engines of say the Mohawk, Niagra or Duplex type which could be built today into a revised geared oil or coal power station for half a billion dollars a minimal cost of about 1 percent of an equivalent 40,000 shp nuclear power plant and would provide basic electricity for only a small town of 40,00 people. There is no point in such small nuclear power plants. Current nuclear power stations are very much based on steam turbine technology of the late 1940s which is totally obsolete technology ( the QE2 cunnard liner and HMS Bristol in the late 1970s are good illustrations of the failure and impossibility of developing the relevant steam tech furthur) and as Rickover said it is the steam turbine part of the equation which is the difficult and dangerous part of the US nuclear plants and just like an old JA NZR last generation rail engine the steam part of a nuclear power station can certainly blow apart due to blowback which when combined with a pressurised water reactor will casuse hari kari in the nuclar system as well. There is no doubt that early nuclear submarines say the USN Skipjack or Soviet November were very fast with top speeds of around 35 knots and they were twice as fast as available anti submarine torpedoes, effective wire guided a's torpedoes capable of use against submarines at ranges of 2-6 miles( before the introduction of the USN Mk 48 in the 1970s) and only available to the UK post cold war. In the case of the Mk 37 or RN Tigerfish no more than 24-26 knots. It is still tremendously difficult for a torpedo to be guided by a sub towards another sub and catch up with a sub moving away from the attacking and tracking torpedo launching sub The problem with small nuclear subs and nuclear power stations are they are dangerous and can be done by many nations while large nuclear power stations or nuclear subs like a LA class or a Akula are very difficult to replicate today as we have far fewer brilliant physicists and mathermaticians and in the nuclear field the relevant chemicals and agents can never🎉🎉 be entirely replicated as even the first nuclear and hydrogen tests changed the chemistry and biosphere of the world quite substantially
@@resurrectingand it's economic. * nuclear is more expensive. * nuclear build out takes 15 years. * we need energy solutions now, not in 15 years. * HVDC interconnections are a mature technology that provides solutions now. Tony Abbott in 2013 was the last decent economic opportunity for Gen 3 nuclear in Australia, and he dropped the ball. We won't have another economic opportunity like that until Gen 4, SMR, or Inertial Fusion reactors are proven out, probably in the 2040s.
Aidan Morrison argument that if "free" renewable electricity was true then the grid costs added into the customers electricity bills would still be substantial. He is right. Grid costs are a huge majority part of the costs. Grid maintenance costs add to total grid costs. 24/7 servicing capacity. Other nuclear promoters have said $1million per km new grid construction costs. Government publications refer to 1million km of grid total length to 20million buildings. $TRILLIONS construction costs in a 1TRILLION GDP economy. I am an old Construction Civil Engineer contractor who has worked on coal fired and gas turbine generation electric plant new construction. $$$$$$$$ I have worked on new transmission lines construction 1,700 tower transmission line. $$$$$$$$ I have worked in busy street construction with their access restrictions and daily time frames. $$$$$$$$$ I have grandchildren and their future is more important than the chaotic thinking about the wrong problem that comes from ignorant understanding. Experts laugh at the non experts speaking about the experts area of knowledge. Sadly experts outside their own expertise remain embarrassingly confident. Confident and foolish. Solve the right problem.
@@mikehitch7799 thanks for your comment. Gas is cleaner and can be turned on and off. Coal CO2 clean up would be twice the gas CO2, and technically and economically extremely expensive. The rooftop PV, and EV with V2G and big battery have a major problem in that only China is supplying EV and big batteries. China has been an unreliable trading partner to Australia and has threatened Australia. The weakest part of my post is enough reliable economic supply. Robotic factories could make a difference sometime soon I hope. Just my thoughts.
Reliance on the grid is the problem. Unfortunately, the elites don't like off-grid households and businesses because it reduces their political power and, also, because the energy is consumed where it is produced, there is no transaction to record in the GDP stats.
Yes and No. Aiden Morrison was speaking to Solar Farms and he deceptively ignored Solar on a third of Australian homes and how batteries are rapidly improving and costs dramatically reducing. I'm replacing my old 2.4kw solar panels with new panels generating 23kw with initially a 30kwh battery. The panels will generate all what I use in 25 minutes, all the rest I store and sell to grid at peak times eg. Evenings. House can run off batteries for at least 3 days if the grid is down and no sun, I will be generating revenue off the grid. I will be a virtual Power Plant, the power I generate will be used by my neighbours. Liberals are planning to place the nuclear power stations at the location of the coal power stations to utilise the existing power lines. The nuclear power plant is more reliant on the existing power lines that need to be continually maintained and should be underground. Where Aiden is correct, is that if a Solar farm is placed in the outback, there will need to be power lines to connect the power to the grid and other existing power lines may need to be expanded. TRUE but deceiptive. While placing a Nuclear Power plant at a Coal Power Plant can utilise existing power line, Coal Power Plant do not require a LOT of water. In Victoria, the Coal Power Plant is in the Latrobe Valley where there is no easy access to water. I expect they will need two huge pipes to sea to extract and discharge the "dirty" water, there will likely be a need for a lake for the water to cool. Now is it easier to run a power line or 2 huge pipes and pumps? Amazing how Aiden forget to mention the water? What affect will the cooling lake have to the environment? Will the dirty water get into the underground Aquafer? Aiden showed a deceiptive slide showing how solar farms may have a shelf life. Definitely, in 20-30 years panels will need to replaced with a new panel that will likely produce double the power. Nuclear reactors also need the nuclear waste removed, and maintenance on the plant and eventually the expensive nuclear power plant will be demolished. Now what is harder, maintaining solar panels or a nuclear power plant? Has the cost of demolishing the Nuclear Power Plant and toxic cooling lake and restoring the land been included in the costing, I doubt it.
@VaCha62 Good comment. My first thought about distant renewables was that their transmission lines had to go to the point in the grid in the middle where the coal power station put high voltage into the existing grid. All the grid costs are added to the distant renewables electricity costs. Now rooftop PV on the customers roof has no transmission costs. The best illustration is my 5 cents kWh feedin and 50cents kWh supply from the grid. Most generation costs are 3 to 5cents kWh, fossil fueled, nuclear fueled, hydro generation, distant renewables. Most grid supply is 10 times bigger costs Aidan made me think, and then he annoyed me with his shitty failure to keep thinking. Then, he got lost in the money side of the nuclear promoters and created a consulting business.
This was a highly enjoyable discussion on nuclear. This was largely down to our guest speakers being able to say what they had to say in a way that we could all understand. I do wonder if location of nuclear plants will be the biggest hurdle we face. But I agree with the speakers that once the ball gets rolling on this, it will gain momentum quickly. It just needs to get off to a good start with Facts, Facts and more Facts leading the charge. And I do like that point about Ecology rather than Environment. I am astounded at the potential damage being caused to flora & fauna in the interest of saving the planet.
A real problem with Labor, holding back Australia's prosperity with its dogmatic refusal to adopt nuclear base load power generation. Hence never support Labor to be elected again.
That was true of Labor in 2012, but Tony Abbott had the perfect opportunity to start nuclear in 2013, and he dropped the ball. Nuclear in 2024 is too little, too late, because it takes 15 years to build out and we need solutions now. HVDC interconnections provides energy solutions now -- nuclear doesn't.
To@@naomieyles210 Thanks for your interest. True Liberal governments have the same trend to not want to manage properly in the interest of the people and rater concentrate to be elected again. Although we have a democracy once the politicians are elected we have very limited control over them, they can even switch sides or go independent without asking the people. That is why Australia should become a better democracy and install citizens initiated referendum. However it is never to late to make changes for the better it is just the cost goes up the longer we wait. And as is said by Helen Cook we need to think long term.
@@KF-bj3ce totally agree re. CIR. On the subject of nuclear, that ship has already sailed for Austraiia. We urgently need to replace our coal power fleet inside the next 10 years, and the build out time frame for a single nuclear reactor is 6 to 10 years, with high risk of cost and time overruns. We don't have the regulatory frameworks and we don't have the skilled personnel, so that pushes the project delivery date out further and makes the massive scale required that much more difficult to achieve. The other solution is HVDC, where each interconnector pays for itself in a short time frame, and each interconnector increases the percentage of cheap variable renewables we can incorporate in the grid. HVDC is already paying for itself in Europe, and is on the way to building out the European super grid. HVDC fits our time frame, needs, and existing skills. It's too late for nuclear to provide what we need here in Australia. I do think nuclear has great potential for niche use cases in Australia, it just doesn't fit the overall coal replacement use case.
@@KF-bj3ce I get the impression that the LNP is more interested in nuclear while in opposition, and less interested when in government. Given a 6-10 year construction time, plus a lead time of several years for regulatory frameworks and other preparation, a nuclear reactor doesn't fit neatly into a term of office. We'd need an entire fleet of nuclear reactors to solve our issues with our coal power fleet coming to end of life, and we need them this decade. Due to the time frame mismatch, we are forced to pursue the HVDC route, so it's fortunate that HVDC is a proven technology and a good match for our needs.
To@@naomieyles210 That may be so, but is the Australian constitution so weak that this can not be legislated for completion and do we forever have to put up with this nonsense.
There is no advantage to Australia to pursue nuclear. We do not need to burden our future with nuclear. The huge cost blowouts are guaranteed, the delay while we build these plant means we will fall behind the most reasonable decarb goals. Renewables with pumped hydro are 100% safe, clean and cheap.
The talk was all hot air. Hot air rises creating low pressure. The low pressure system will cause air to move from the higher pressure air causing a wind. The 4 presenters were all windbags. Renewable energy is not just wind, it is any kind of energy that is from a source that is not depleted. Nuclear depleted the uranium, but Solar Panels does not deplete the sun, wave energy does not deplete the waves, hydro does not deplete the water source. There is even anti-solar panels that works at night. Adi was just being a smart-arse. With Amber Electric anyone can buy and sell power at the wholesale prices. When one has solar panels with a battery one can easily avoid buying electricity at the high wholesale prices by running off battery and if you have excess power this is a great time to sell power to the grid. Im upgrading my solar to a 23kw panels with 30kwh battery. I only use around 7 kwh and able to sell excess power to grid which will pay off my system in no time. When the grid goes down I simply run off the batteries and get a text message. If Australians are masochists and go for the white elephant nuclear power station in the 2040s, this will be good for me and electricity bills at least $1200pa more for those not on solar+battery.
Only 1 thing wrong with this program,was way too short.I could listen to these brilliant sensible people for hours on end. Thanks very much for a great insight to nuclear,which is the future!!
I am really quite amazed at this nuclear push, what do we actually need if for? The arguement where we debate that it really isnt as expensive as reports have shown is really just a rabbit hole. Build the first one on a fixed price contract or better still, let someone else build it and operate it along side renewables. Bet no one offers! The CIS seem to have kind of stumbled here, I am somewhat puzzled????
This is all about keeping coal going as long as possible by building a great big, never finish, white elephant. Renewables with battery storage is cheaper than coal and gas and half the price of nuclear. Anyone with solar panels on their roof knows that and that is 1 in 3 homes in Australia. Nuclear for Australia is a criminally negligent waste of taxpayers money and as with all centralised power generation an ongoing national security risk because power stations are military targets. Instead of desperately trying to keep jobs going with coal mining perhaps reducing electricity generation costs by adopting renewables gives regulators the opportunity to harvest a royalty on electricity with the aim of providing more useful jobs for the community than just digging big hole in the ground. All done with no extra cost to the community.
You need to do a bit more research, renewables are not cost effective or the cheapest form of electrical generation when you take into account an extra 28,000 kms of Bushfire starting HV grid transmission lines that are necessary to make their renewable scheme work & that is not costed for, or the dams or batteries needed for storage. Renewables are a low density energy source that is intermittent & unreliable subject to weather conditions & sunshine (the very thing we are trying to change for some ridiculous & false reason), they can’t supply good base load power or industry requirements 24/7 so the industry’s we need will vanish. I could argue if they are even actually green by any real standard because more CO2 is probably created to produce and install these renewables than they will ever offset in their lifetime + their is no recycling program for end of life pv panels or wind generators & blades, on top of this the environmental destruction that is going on to the Great Dividing Range & many other protected areas without debate is criminal, koala & platypus habitats being blasted and bulldozed for wind farms. I am someone who has two properties that both have solar and batteries that I would not have if they were not so heavily govt subsidised, so I am not anti renewables, I have worked in the electrical industry and on solar. Solar and wind power is not a national energy solution at any cost, it will fail (and already is), and so will our economy (which already is) from renewables, they require an endless bucket of money to make it work to some degree, so they are not cost effective. The climate doomsday narrative is an overstated lie to justify their net zero agenda with the renewables scam. Labor hates us and they are wrecking Australia to prove it, open your eyes.
Great debate? Well it might have been a great debate if you included a neutral or critical speaker. No chance of that from the CIS of from Chris's new employer Sky.
To be fair he did say he would debate anyone at any time, so its probly more to do with the anti nuclear people not being willing to have a proper discussion.
The discussion left out solar on one third of Australian homes and ignored that battery prices have plummeted, and that it is very affordable now for the properties with solar to now also have storage for use when the sun is not shining and the power is most expensive. I would call this deceiptive. I do not thank people who lie. While I'm earning money selling power to the grid, you can pay the electricity bills that best estimates will go up at least $1200 to pay for the white elephant nuclear power station in the 2040s.
It's so refreshing to hear someone who clearly knows what they're talking about! The renewable "rubber band" will only stretch so far & THAT is nowhere near far enough!
Aiden is knowledgeable, but he is cherry-picking information that makes his case. Quite deceitful. Aiden's slides only included Solar farms and excluded all the Solar & Batteries on buildings. One of Aiden's arguments was that with Solar farms may need power lines to connect it into the grid. TRUE. What Aiden covered up was that Solar installation on buildings, the power is being generated where it is being consumed, which is better than generating the power hundreds on kilometers aways as power is lost in the transmission. What Aiden did not say is nuclear power plants need LOTS of water, the coalition are planning to locate nuclear power plants near the coal power plant to utilise power lines, great, but where is the water coming from and going to, do they need a pipeline to the sea? Lakes are required to cool the water, how will this affect environment? Will radioactive water leak into aquafers? Is it too risky to just rely on local water? Aiden did not mention that battery technology has come leaps and bounds as they are critical for Electric vehicles. The prices of household batteries has plummeted. I'm getting batteries for my house in a few weeks. One should not come to a conclusion based on presentations just from the pro-nuclear camp. Watch the video discussing the pros&cons of a new nuclear power plant on the RethinkX channel and see if you still hold the same view.
By 2030 most miles will be electric. Solar today is the cheapest source of energy on the planet. Solar PV price has gone down by 80 percent in the last 10 years. Solar PVs will keep dropping in price. Batteries keep dropping in price. The electric cars are cheaper to maintain and cleaner than ice vehicles. It costs $11 to charge an electric car versus $90 for a petrol car for 100 kms. This transition is going ahead in the future as the markets, car industry and investors like Tesla have clean energy goals. Oil and gas will be obsolete by 2030. Australia has a solar advantage. Nuclear is a doom day plan for Australia as it will be an expensive option, nuclear makes sense only in cold frozen areas like Russia. Furthermore a nuclear disaster due to bushfires will destroy alot of lives. Its time to think wisely as nuclear is NOT the best option. For further information listen to Tony Seba.
But what really matters is that CIS' opinion is that Nuclear is the cheapest and easiest to build. Facts contrary to this opinion are countered by saying the offending report is compromised. CSIRO's, in this case. Supporting evidence not needed.
Anyone bothered to look at world copper reserves, we are at deficit on copper supply and will require 700% to 1000% increase in copper extraction to meet demand, yet there is very little investment in future copper mining. Without copper your just blowing hot air out of your behind.
56 nuclear plants in France and still only produces 68% of its power needs. 😅 and Dutton says we only need 7 plants, also France has been building the plants since 1960 that is 64 years of building and replacing them to service just 68% of its needs 🙄. Get real Australia.
Do you appreciate how many dinky solar panels are required to match a single nuclear plant? (And it just gets worse when you account for the amount of overbuild necessary to compensate for the poor availability of renewables)
>85% on 8 July 2024. France is exporting power to Germany/UK/others. Suggest you get your facts right. 37plants built in the 80s; 5 in the 90s; only 4 since 2000. The older units were smaller. The average construction time has ben 6.5 years.
Thanks for this excellent information video. Here is Labor burning gas in power plants which in turn could be used as a transport fuel in vehicles in the interim to better battery fuel systems. Solar rooftop systems are great as it generates power where it is being used with some minor upgrades on power transformers but without the need to upgrade Australia's power distribution network to the extent planed by Labor. I have lived in South Australia and seen the blackouts. The big battery in SA buys power at times of low cost then resells it to the citizens at time of need at high costs. Hence one could call the big battery a success but is it really or is it just a smoke screen? What about the damage caused by all these wind turbine structures and the cost of reinstating the land? Labor's plan is seriously flawed and will cause problems in the future if allowed to proceed.
I really needed to hear this today. The world seems to have gone crazy and finally this panel is talking in common sense. Thanks for the great insights and data what a great panel! :)
funny the sort who scoff at solar panels on your roof because of "upfront cost" suddenly want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a nuclear fantasy.
The grid won't work without generation in addition to wind and solar. We need the grid to work. AI and data are materially increasing the electricity demand. The dispatchable generation can either be gas or nuclear. Nuclear is CO2 free.
In 20 years when nuclear is fully installed and expensive, then offgrid with Battery Vehicles and rooftop PV and dirt cheap electricity will mean customers will abandon the national electrical grid. 15% of rooftop can supply too much electricity. Vehicles parked 23hrs every day can store too much electricity with Battery Vehicles. Most vehicles will trickle charge all daylong. Ezi pezi. Grid owners will be screaming for government protection from dirt cheap offgrid in the suburbs. As each customer abandons the grid, grid customers costs begin to explode. Horse meat was cheap when horses were not wanted. 😮
@jvvoid Sorry, my mistake. I meant to be commenting to someone else. The other person is from outside the electricity supply industry and is ignoring how little electricity is used compared to total fossil fuels used. And how expensive the existing 'small' electricity capacity has to be expanded.
Lead by example, CIS members should therefore invest all their money in building Australian 1st Nuclear powerplant. Then list the profitable Nuke company on the ASX.
AEMO are not following the laws of thermodynamics? You can’t take a diluted form of energy and make it less diluted without putting more energy into the system? I haven’t heard much on the discussion on nuclear waste/costs of management of nuclear waste in Australia. Also, is fusion so far off, it’s not worth considering?
You might want to rethink that Jim boy. A 43 year old reactor would have been commissioned 43 years ago. Fast forward to 50+ years later it is not unreasonable to posit that technology - and hence lifespan of the next generation reactor build - would expand exponentially. The Wright Bros made their first flight in 1903 with only Orville Wright at the controls It was a 12 second flight and covered a distance of 120 feet. Some 83 years later (1986) I flew a B747 6 hours and 30 minutes for 4742 kms flying Jeddah - London with 400+ passengers at .86 Mach (.86 the speed of sound). So 43 years reactor lifespan to potentially 60-80-100 lifespan in a similar period seems eminently reasonable - if not seriously understated.
@@johnd1727 Positing and posturing has nothing to do with facts. Maybe's and should-be's and hopefully's are all nuclear pushers have to go with. Don't let the facts get in the way of the LNP donor's fairytales and their interests.
Yeah, Nukes have tended to become a long-term curse on their owner-operator. They have constant and continually increasing Operation and Maintenance costs as time goes on. It becomes cheaper to shut them down than to continue to operate them. In the US (largest Nuke operations in the World) ALL existing Nukes have been put on welfare this last year to prevent bankrupting off-line early.
Yes. And he said carbon dioxide is good for plants therefore Australia's deserts will become 'light green'. In complete ignorance or denial (or perversion) of the most recent IPCC report (generally accepted to be conservative).
Nuclear Waste Facility Folks - is there any truth in the rumour that Australia's new Nuclear Waste Facility will located at: Unit 3 - 199 Gympie Road Strathpine Queensland 4500 Please advise well in advance - so I can purchase the correct PPE!
The current chief scientist is a physicist. previous chief scientists have been (in order): ecologist biologist immunologist chemical engineer molecular biologist astronomer neuroscientist neuroscientist The discussion about (the cost and timing of) nuclear power implementation is really related to engineering, not so much about science, and they are not the same thing, despite being intertwined.
Who pays them and what legislation is currently in place Answer it has nothing to do with science it’s politics and the Australian government of the pays the chief scientists wage. Legislative bans on nuclear stops any real discussion or debate on the so called green energy agenda. In a nut shell the Chief scientists will do as they are told by the government of the day.
He's not a nuclear scientis or an engineer. You still miss the Pont that wind isn't sufficient and the sun go down at night. Battries only last a few hours. How is major business going to power their companies? Do you relise how many watts a cold storage use in power alone. And you have the cost of 1 5 trillion dollars every 20 years for renewables. Australia can't afford that. Renewables isn't cheap it's dam expensive unreliable and stupidity to have as the only power source. Bowen and Albo and the Scientists you claim want just renewables. Than they better start making everything we use only 12 volts at only 1.2 watts so the battries can support 24/7 to have any reliable power. The avrage house use 25.43 kWh a day.
I'm all in with nuclear, part of the reasoning I disagree with, low carbon footprint. forget about carbon, it's a good thing, politicians need to pull their heads out of their @$$ and just get it done for cheap energy. solar and wind is economically and logistically expensive right through is life. not to mention intermittent. also interesting point, I'm in New Zealand and we just had a warning about saving energy because of the risk of blackouts, one reason given by our biggest provider is that the wind farms it partly relies on produced less than expected levels, so there you go !
Solar is far cheaper than nuclear - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source. It's decreased in cost by 82% in the past decade, and is already several times cheaper than nuclear. A nuclear plant would likely take 30+ years to build and pay off, and would need to compete with the cost of renewables then (when it's not competitive now). Australia is up to 39% renewables and on target for 82% by 2030, but these don't work well with nuclear. Nuclear is inflexible - it cannot scale up and down quickly. Hydro, batteries and gas provide the dispatchable energy needed.
Ful cost of Electricity using the latest Nuclear plants is working out at $8,000 per year per household... why would a current roof top solar who has zero bills want to pay toward Nuclear plants.
Helen Cook cites the International Atomic Energy Agency to back a case for nuclear in Australia. That same agency has openly stated that Australia should not go nuclear owing to its abundance of renewable sources. True or false?
This would have been much better if it wasn't a circle jerk. Everyone just nodding at each other isn't helping in this debate. The old guy saying that he couldn't get payback on his solar array was either a lie or he isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is. I've put two systems on houses and both were revenue positive within a short timeframe. One with subsidised tariffs and one without. Pfft.
does anyone here know if nuclear has ever been able to be shown to be cost effective when retiring the plant is considered? I haven't been able to find an example
Ynocool, Reckon a nuclear power plant will make a lot tidier skeleton than ... I dun'no ... a hundred wind toys. Nobody will get back up there and reconstitute those sites.
More people have died from airplane issues & accidents than nuclear failures. Nuclear is no bigger risk to people than normal life issues. Coal mining is a big risk to life & itst not banned. So do we keep this ban in place?
Australia burying it's head in the sand and ignoring nuclear options including upcoming SMR, MMR and most recent, nano reactor technology is quite ludicrous. Larry Fink the chairman of Blackrock recently told the WEF that investing in renewables is a bad option. This is in part due to data centres and upcoming AI technology require stable and reliable power sources. This is something renewables cannot now or likely ever be able to provide. Going forward, nuclear has to form an integral part of the Australian grid.
Can we trust the CSIRO? Their report suggests that nuclear will be more expensive and hence less viable than renewables. This doesn't seem to resonate with what I would expect to be the case given the more extensive use of actual materials spread out across a very large footprint in the case of wind and solar as compared to the more concentrated use of resources with a very dense fuel source in the case of nuclear power.
It's not just the CSIRO - there's a lot of evidence that nuclear is more expensive than renewables. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source Nuclear plants are just extremely expensive to build. Solar and wind are far cheaper for the same production. Currently, nuclear is several times more expensive than solar, and the cost of solar has dropped 82% in the last decade, with batteries on a similar trajectory. Nuclear is already cost uncompetitive, but if you start building it now, it will take 30+ years to build and pay off its capital costs. It has to be competitive with whatever renewables cost then. There's a reason why the LNP is proposing using taxpayer dollars - no business would make that investment.
Sorry. I'm all for consideration of a possible nuclear power generation future for Australia and the potential it offers for grid stability and flexibility with lower emissions, but if this group of 3 'experts' are supposed to convince me that it's feasible, affordable, can be safe and sold as acceptable to the people, and is not just a Murdoch and Fossil fuel industry inspired and funded attempt to railroad and delay the current renewable energy program they will have to do a lot better. I find Adi Paterson a divisive figure who manipulates the truth to suit his every argument. He downplays the Chernobyl and Fukishima failures, proclaims increasing CO2 will revegetate the world's deserts and intimates that Synroc has solved the nuclear waste issue when it has apparently never been regarded by the global nuclear community as an economic or practical solution. How can he credibly continue to flog SMRs as economically feasible, the way of the future and currently happening in other parts of the world, when he was the CEO of the costly Pebble Bed Reactor in South Africa which failed to attract any serious investors and was scuttled? Where are the safe and affordable SMR's which are currently licensed and being built in other countries? Australia has had years to sort out the legalities and adopt a nuclear power generation future but our political masters have spent decades either sitting on their hands and/or arguing over the high price, much to the glee of the fossil fuel industry.
I greatly appreciate this discussion while disagreeing with the overall consensus among these nuclear experts on the best way for us to proceed. And there is no "yeah, but" in that disagreement. These folks are all impressive and authentic imo. Also imo, people like this should be more central to our decision making in general. And I am certain that we can realistically make nuclear work here. But as with things like CCS, the people who could have made this happen weren't sufficiently focused upon it at the time it needed to happen.
AUKUS has us spending significant money on nuke subs. If we had a nuke industry that could support small reactor technology for sub and land based use, that sounds like a strategy that could win broad support.
This is pitiful. There's no mention of the vast costs of construction, that nuclear energy will run at a loss, and then have $249,000,000,000 in decommissioning and safe storage costs in the next hundred years if the UK is any guide. As the safe storage needs to continue for 100,000 years Australia taxpayers will be on the hook effectively forever.
1:00:42 I'm in regional area and I'm quite happy with solar and ev. Last quarter bill was $504. Next quarter will be a transition as awaiting new meter. I'll use the nuclear fusion convertors. No thanks to nuclear fission.
I really agree with Aidan having 4 or more nuclear reactors on the site like UAE or Canada gives you a great performance in 24/7 always on nuclear power Definitely switching from anti to pro nuclear in recent times
Aidan talks about grid costs to save a few nuclear heaters at generation plants but then ignores grid costs to replace all CO2 emissions like a good nuclear greenie. FMD he is frustrating.
Yes, let's assess our options, Helen. Westinghouse AP1000s? Bzzz, they went bankrupt. French EPRs? Bzzz, they have given up on them. APR1400s from the corrupt South Korean nuclear industry., bzzz. NuScale SMRs, bzzz, non-existent and the company is going bankrupt.
It's so great to have this discussion I am fed up with the woke demonisation of nuclear power generation. We need to develop a base load nuclear power generation industry here in Australia.
I can't imagine taking two or three years to build a reactor. The tech is 80 years old. The nuclear community is the biggest problem, it seems to me. They've overvalued their expertise and overcomplicated the entire system. They're boiling water to turn a freaking generator.
Mr Paterson, you state that Lucas's Heights is the world's safest nuclear medicine facility. Please address accusations that it is indeed well below world standards for safety. Additionally, storage of waste has not yet been addressed to meet regulatory requirements. Tru or false?
I agree 100%. I have been saying this for a while. I studied high school science in the 1960s, Electrical Engineering at UNSW at the start of the 1970s, and achieved the award of a B.App.Sc in Queensland in 1992. I have been working as a self-employed computer technician for 25 years. I am very disappointed that Australia is run by people who don't understand basic physics. The Carbon Dioxide narrative is nonsense. This is a terrible situation.
The best point we can stress is the ECOLOGY those large windmills are a blight on the landscape i see them every month ,most of the time not even working and it's literally 100's of them
I think many more died at Chernobyl than 56 people. That aside the failure of Chernobyl was human in design and management. Chernobyl was not built according to international regulations and the station management were foolish in their testing.
Chernobyl was a bad design for a *Gen 2* nuclear reactor. Fukushima was a *Gen 2* nuclear reactor, too. If Australia starts building a nuclear reactor this decade, it would be a *Gen 3* nuclear reactor, with built in passive safety features, no meltdown possible. Different kettle of fish to either Chernobyl or Fukushima. Even though I'm a nuclear advocate, nuclear is the wrong path for Australia because it doesn't fit our time frame and it doesn't fit our duck curve energy supply needs. Nuclear is a perfect fit for Germany, so it was incredibly sad to watch them shut down perfectly good nuclear reactors for political reasons.
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related illnesses in "the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations" [Wikipedia]. No-one knows the long term effects. Leukemia can take 10 years to appear. Nuclear enthusiasts always play down the risks. The people on this panel won't be the ones exposed to any risks. Adrian Paterson said that global warming due to increased carbon dioxide is good for plants therefore Australia's deserts will become 'light green'. He implied that the Sahara will do the same.
@@andwil1959 ...hmm, yes. The nuclear guys play down the risk of nuclear and the renewables/battery storage folk ignore the environmental and human cost in rare earth minerals mining in Africa etc.
@@andwil1959 the human cost of coal mining and coal power stations is many orders of magnitude worse than the 4,000 estimated deaths from Chernobyl's consequences. Chernobyl was unforgivable, but it's also not repeatable given that particular Gen 2 reactor design is no longer in use. Fukushima was a much smaller accident, despite a deficient maintenance record, and despite also being a Gen 2 reactor, because it is a superior Gen 2 design to Chernobyl. A modern Gen 3 reactor does not have Fukushima's vulnerabilities. Is Adrian Peterson an expert on hydrological cycles? Can he explain why the Sahara is expanding despite CO2 increasing by 25% in the last 27 years through to April 2024? The simplistic idea that a planet sized greenhouse is somehow a good thing, and will green all our deserts, depends on our *planet sized greenhouse* being equipped with *planet wide drip feeding.* That's a curious proposition, but I'd be interested to hear how he plans to install that kind of irrigation and what freshwater source he plans to use.
What happens with solar panels and wind turbines after they no longer work? What is the carbon footprint of making them? What is the carbon footprint of transporting them? What is the carbon footprint of installation and ground clearance? What is the cost of upkeep on all components of wind and solar?
If there is such a glut of energy during the day (renewables, negative spot price) why can't our energy providers allow "off peak" rates (hot water and other) during this time or is that not about the climate agenda.
1kg of coal = 6 hrs running a washing machine. Available 24/7 1kg of oil. = 9 hours running a washing machine. Available 24/7 1kg of renewables = less than 1hr running a washing machine. Available less than 30% of the time and requires every watt of power to be backed up by another source of power, usually fossil fuel. This is the equivalent of a second grid when only one is required. 1kg of uranium = 2000 years running a washing machine. Available 24/7 I wonder which one is more efficient and less costly. Why don’t we get rid of all the subsidies and let the market decide which is the most efficient. Renewables will be last on the efficiency/affordable list every which way you look at it.
You think private capital is stupid enough to fall for this?? The market's already decided, genius. That's why Dutton's plan is entirely dependent on govt (taxpayer) funding. No-one else wants to go near it. From all our pockets directly to LNP donors and mates, because their plan is to go from rich.. to obscenely rich.
Pretty much nonsense. We run full houses from Solar PV ONLY. Including Laundry and Air Conditioning. And charging the Tesla EV. Requires no "back up" as Solar PV is the most reliable electrical generation there is. No Moving Parts. Solar PV runs completely unattended on Islands, Buoys and in Space for DECADES. Why are you making up such nonsense?
Come on Australia, time to grow up.
I grew up when I became an adult.
We have and nuclear is still a bad idea.
@@alancotterell9207Have you? You been saying some bizarre things about defending renewables on other threads mate
your right some old labor priminster said we will be the smart country
@@hitreset0291 why?
At last, a rational discussion re nuclear power production for Australia. But, I think we’re missing the bigger picture here. Australia has over 40% of the world’s uranium reserves. Australia could become the one stop shop for the sale and thence the safe storage of uranium once used. That’s in addition to the ten or so nuclear reactors we need for power production. We should have started 30 years ago - lots of catch up to do.
That is the most one sided discussion ever.
In Germany we are already above 50% renewables. Nuclear power does not work well with renewables. Look at energy mixes changing bin the world. They dont do that because of ideology but because its cheaper.
The laughing stock is: France has the most enviable nuclear energy program.
Not even the french like their own program. Its old, faulty has huge problems and at the moment their energy is more expensive than in germany.
Can I store my nuclear waste in your backyard?
You don’t want to become the world’s dustbin for uranium waste.
@@Tracertme
You're absolutely right to be cautious about nuclear waste, but it's worth noting that "waste" is a bit of a misnomer. Current spent nuclear fuel still contains about 95% usable material, primarily uranium and plutonium, which can be reprocessed and reused. France, for example, recycles its spent fuel rods, significantly reducing the amount of high-level waste that needs long-term storage. Advanced reactors, such as fast breeder reactors or molten salt reactors, can extract even more energy from this material while transmuting the remaining elements into safer, less radioactive forms. With proper investment, nuclear "waste" becomes a resource, not a liability-minimizing storage challenges and maximizing energy production.
Climate Change was identified in 1967. Australia has both coal and uranium, after 1967, we should have gone nuclear but there was a great fear of nuclear.
But you don't fix a past mistake by making making another, nuclear power stations are now way more expensive than renewables.
Nuclear will take twice as long and at least twice the cost as advocates claim, yet we need power in the interim, coal power plant will shutdown.
Putting all your eggs in one basket, is not smart. The power lines goes down, blackout. Issue with power station, blackout.
A decentralised renewable energy (Solar + Batteries) is available NOW, if only politicians who did nothing when in government are now using this old solution to get back in. It is like saying the solution to poor mobile phone signal is building new landlines for 20 years.
As an engineer I never understood the opposition of Nuclear in Australia. Some general population sounds like worried as well as Govt. But that is not from technical expertise. What happened in Germany didn't make sense either, but I will say good for France and other European neighbors there can benefit from Electricity exports.
Australia doesn't have that option. Grid sharing with other continent is also not that viable in near future.
Go live in Fukushima and you may get a clue when your children have two heads.
Silly engineer doesn’t understand the punitive cost regime.
Naive people associating nuclear power with Hiroshima and Chernobyl, and as closeminded to any argument _for_ nuclear power as a leftist activist is to a fact.
@@SteveBarritt If your advocating nuclear for Australia, then it is you who does not understand that in 2024, unlike 50 years ago, nuclear is now the most expensive energy generation option.
I'm currently setting up new 23kw solar panels with a 30kwh battery which will provide all my power, full house battery backup and all excess power is sold to grid at peak times paying off my system.
I wish you well with your nuclear, and your punitive energy bills, estimated to be an extra $1200, to pay for them.
@@VaCha62 Are you in the Labor? If nuclear is so expensive why are other country are putting them up, Labor is making $$$ from this crap
Put nuclear power stations where coal power stations already exist and the infrastructure is already in place.
Yes, a no-brainer
As long as theres water adjacent i dont have a problem with that
Yes, grid infrastructure is in place there, but what do you do for energy supply in the 10 years between coal shutdown and nuclear coming online?
HVDC interconnections is a mature solution available now. Nuclear takes too long to be a viable solution. Tony Abbott should have started a nuclear program in 2013, but he didn't.
@@naomieyles210 .....yes, Australia, as per usual is slow to do what needs to be done and too quick to adopt the stupid ideas....
We need 7 times more electricity to stop CO2 emissions the grid is not big enough.
Nuclear is a proven and safe form of energy for major first-world economies used successfully and reliably in practice for over 50 years (e.g. France, Canada, etc.) and we have an abundance of uranium resource which we already export. This should be a bipartisan solution and a sure path to prosperity and higher living standards.
Nuclear would a great solution for the 2040s.
Unfortunately, we need a solution for large scale electricity supply now, this decade, so HVDC interconnectors fit our time frame requirements to replace coal, whereas nuclear doesn't fit our time frame.
HVDC is proven out in Europe, already paying for itself while in progress to building out the European super grid.
HVDC is also perfect for continuing growing needs for electricity supply.
HVDC is also a good fit for our duck curve demand/supply, whereas nuclear is a bad fit.
Nuclear is a good fit for 24/7 constant power needs in heavy industrial processes, which is part of Victoria's rapidly approaching crisis in running out of gas. For that niche case, nuclear is very much worth considering. For Australia's energy needs in general, nuclear simply doesn't scratch the right itch.
@@naomieyles210 Sadly HVDC no use at all without a huge expansion in wind and solar to feed in as well as lots of $$$s. The labor govt has made it clear that what we will get is COG ie. no progress at all
@@jimgraham6722 Agree, except that adding wind and solar is the easy part of the equation. It's market ready and the free-market is well able to supply the need, provided they can overcome regulatory hurdles and get a high voltage connection to the grid.
The missing piece is grid and interconnectors, but that's all doable on short timescales.
@@naomieyles210 Good points but for me it is as much about national strategy as economics.
In this regard wind, solar, their storage mechanisms and grid infrastructure have their points of vulnerability, particularly when you look at the needs of industry and transport.
In this regard a diversity of energy sources and various ways to connect the system up is very important. Nuclear energy is important because it greatly diversifies and strengthens the energy system, particularly for industry.
Having said that, rooftop solar PV with batteries for residential and small business use is an excellent way of achieving a strong diversified system for that sector. We need a lot more of it. This also helps put downwards pressure on domestic energy prices. That is unequivocally a good thing.
We just need to ensure as many people as possible have access to the necessary capital.
Wind will be mostly useful for those applications with a large tolerance for variability and non criticality of supply, electrolysis, some chemical processes, desalination, some heating/cooling applications, water pumping etc.
@@naomieyles210 the world has shown it can build NPPs in about 5 years.
This is not some insurmountable hurdle; it is a matter of planning, scheduling, and project management. Presenting a long time-to-operation as a inherent feature of nuclear is just factually incorrect.
Hire the proper contracting firms, and you'll get it done properly. Hire EDF or Westinghouse - maybe you won't.
We need these knowledgeable people to be heard by the people of Australia. The courage to discuss these matters without the fear pushed by politicians and media.. The most important thing is cheap power for manufacturing to be restored in Australia let alone green hydrogen. Contract Rolls Royce or General Electric before it’s too late.
I think rather than trying to manufacture solar panels that Australia produces big batteries. The worldwide trend is battery storage will overtake pumped hydro storage in 2025.
Let’s get the people from Chernobyl and Fukushima to help. This should be the model for Australia. Radioactive waste exploding into the air, it will serve two purposes poison the nation and free fireworks on new years.
Build a nuclear power station or 3, put a cafe and tours in the plant, public opposing mitigated. I can see nuclear as technology, industry, jobs and future for our kids as well as power security. Yes, the nuclear moratorium for nuclear power should be removed so we can start planning to get it right. We MUST start now. I drive a Tesla, I have a roof solar array and home battery but I'm also a nuclear advocate.
I'm a nuclear advocate, too, and nuclear would have been a good solution for Australia in 2013 under Tony Abbott. Nuclear is a bad solution in 2024 because we have a coal power fleet at end of life and need a nuclear fleet now, not in 10 years time.
We cannot magic up a nuclear fleet in a few short years, but we can build out HVDC interconnectors in that time frame. I hear the new grid infrastructure is running late, but running late doesn't stop it from being a good option in our circumstances.
Nuclear probably fits some niche use cases in Australia, but it doesn't solve replacing coal power in the required time frame.
Tell the people living nearby they'll get free electricity and people will beg to have one .
Cos it’s Australian it’s gotta have a cafe.
When all of the 1000s of off river pumped hydro sites have been built to support renewables and their communities, we can have a discussion about 7 nuclear sites being built (or just not needed).
@@hitreset0291 The trouble is corruption. A hydro electricity plant near me has been closed down and replaced by solar. Too much money to be made from tax payer subsidies to use existing hydro. Plenty of native animals killed for solar instead, and this far south, six hours of daylight in winter. Nuclear will cost billions, but renewables will cost trillions, according to the CSIRO.
I've been investing in uranium since 2020 , I have watched a lot of interviews regarding this energy. For those who haven't herd of Rick Rule his knowledge is second to none and has stated a couple of times now that the world has spent trillions on renewable energy for less than a 2 percent gain , this is what I would call insanity. Because this is such a critical decision moving forward for Australia should we be voting for a separate body of experienced people to over look our mission to achieve the desired outcome . As all I can see by around 2035 the politicians will realise they have stuffed up and then they will play the usual blame game and none of them will have any accountability for there actions. Great talk and I hope a lot of people watch this.
How’s the stock going?
While Japan & Germany have decommissioned their nuclear power plant. Ukraines had one blow up and another shutdown by Russia.
New nuclear power plant are getting increasingly expensive to build but most existing power plant will remain for now, they too will be replaced with renewables someday as maintenance costs increase.
Fantastic panelists, fantastic presentation
I really like the discussions coming out of the CIS, however I can’t seem to find a discussion similar to this, with a pro-renewables panel. Would you consider doing one if one has not already happened?
Think tanks are paid to promote their funder's agenda. There is no way they would subsdise a forum to promote a counter arguement. It means these foorums end up being rather dull, as there is rarely any disagreement between the panel members, and presentations are often low on visual data and statistics.
@@JoeS-o2r agree with you on think tanks. For an objective assessment, you want an engineer, not a think tank. HVDC interconnectors are the vital enabling technology which CIS is skirting around.
Look up Australian channel Engineering with Rosie:
* Four Reasons Why Nuclear Power is a Dumb Idea for Australia
* Can You Run a Grid on 100% Wind + Solar?
* Electricity Across Oceans: Is HVDC the Future?
Also Real Engineering:
* Is 100% Renewable Possible by 2050? - Interconnectors (the European super grid which is already in progress and already paying for itself too)
* The Economics of Nuclear Energy (the comparison to gas in the first half of the video is very relevant).
Also B1M:
* Why Nuclear is Making a Comeback (nuclear is complicated and cost/time overruns are common)
😂 you joking right. If they wanted discussion they wouldn’t sit around in a circle j, talking about how old mates solar panels aren’t making him money because his retailer has cut his feed in tariff. Or how the wind won’t blow this week, because the offshore wind looks pretty darn active most days this week.
Yet he wants to bring a power source into the market that will centralise generation increasing cost because the base capacity will require locked in guaranteed revenue for some multinational investment company like Brookfields to take more dollars out of the country.
@@naomieyles210 As much as I like some of her content, it's hard to say that "engineering with rosie" is super trustworthy when it comes to power generation methods, as she works in the renewables sector.
Just as you wouldn't trust someone who works in the fossil fuel sector if they tell you how terrible renewables are....
@@cerealport2726 Rosemary Barnes has 19 years in the industry and a relevant PhD. That makes her an authoritative source, which is more than I can say for myself. Real Engineering and B1M creators are also qualified in related fields, which is why I listed them, too.
Rosemary Barnes (aka Engineering with Rosie) is supportive of nuclear power in general, just not for Australia given current circumstances.
Refer her video entitled "Can Small Modular Reactors Save Nuclear Power?" dated 9th March 2022. The hydrogen conversation there is relevant to process heat for heavy industry, which is of interest to Australia. The load following design is relevant to Australia, too.
NuScale is troubled, but SMR remains a potential future technology option for niche use cases here in Australia.
The point is not to fangirl over one of my favourite UA-cam channels, but rather to provide @stefancostanzo5396 with a variety of video content to expand their knowledge. If we were on a blogging platform, I'd refer them to research, reports and reference pages instead.
I'm pro Nuclear, still, the Mr. Paterson's claim that solar doesn't pay / work, is simply not true. My relative installed solar a few years back in WA and it and I have seen their power bills drop by more than 50%. Nuclear shouldn't be an all or nothing argument, it should be a case of combination with existing and future energy solutions. Frankly the presentation comes off as rather combative, which is counter productive, being flippinet and dismissive of the general public (treating them as they are stupid) doesn't help the cause of upgrading Australia's power grids.
Because it's far easier to argue against nuclear, so perhaps showing a more solution based approach would work better.
"My relative installed solar a few years back in WA [...] and I have seen their power bills drop by more than 50%."
Because your relative is *_stealing_* power-service.
We’ll go live in Fukushima and eat the fish caught off the rock if you like it so much. I’m pretty sure you like it in someone else’s backyard right ?
Had solar panels for 18 years reducing power bills.
Replacing all old 2.4kw panels with new panels that will generate 23kw and a battery that will store 30kwh and change electricity provider to Amer Electric where I buy&sell power at wholesale prices. All my consumption is off battery, will have battery backup if grid goes down, excess power is sold to grid when wholeprice is high. With Amber I will be making money off selling power to the grid just as the gas power plant does. When grid has too much energy the prices drop and it one has capacity one can buy the power at a low price and sell it back at a high price and make a profit even if the sun is not out. When the sun is out, battery will get charged in a couple of hours.
When I get an EV, I will be able to charge it for free off my panels, those putting all their eggs on nuclear, will have to pay big time to pay off the nuclear power plant. I thank you in advance for paying heaps for your nuclear electricity and indirectly funding my virtual power plant. Cheers!
Helen Cook - fabulous! Great insight all round. Why can countries with far lower GDP embark on nuclear and AUS can't? The simple answer is that, deep down, we are not innovative or willing to take risks.
I cannot understand Labor's refusal to consider nuclear. It's an area that is revealing new scientific breakthroughs on a consistent basis. Labor is shutting its mind to any new discovery that may come along. Absolutely bizarre.
Yeah. New breakthroughs that boast of "recycling the fuel rods" which is code for "we pile spent nuclear rods on top of each other and leave them in the actual reactor"; Fukushima showed an example of how volatile that can be.
That would mean re-energising the manufacturing sector building new power stations. Had you not noticed they've been dismantling Australian independence on energy for 20+ years? You cannot strangle a strong independent nation, you have to weaken it to the point of starvation.
How many new nuclear power plants are under construction at present in the UK or USA ???. How many new nuclear power plants have actually been fully approved to start construction in the US'UK and actually proceeded into the physical construction phase in the last decade ??? It is certainly easier to build small nuclear power plants, but given a small nuclear sub or power plant would only produce say 37,500 hp which is equivalent to 5 last generation US main line steam engines of say the Mohawk, Niagra or Duplex type which could be built today into a revised geared oil or coal power station for half a billion dollars a minimal cost of about 1 percent of an equivalent 40,000 shp nuclear power plant and would provide basic electricity for only a small town of 40,00 people. There is no point in such small nuclear power plants. Current nuclear power stations are very much based on steam turbine technology of the late 1940s which is totally obsolete technology ( the QE2 cunnard liner and HMS Bristol in the late 1970s are good illustrations of the failure and impossibility of developing the relevant steam tech furthur) and as Rickover said it is the steam turbine part of the equation which is the difficult and dangerous part of the US nuclear plants and just like an old JA NZR last generation rail engine the steam part of a nuclear power station can certainly blow apart due to blowback which when combined with a pressurised water reactor will casuse hari kari in the nuclar system as well. There is no doubt that early nuclear submarines say the USN Skipjack or Soviet November were very fast with top speeds of around 35 knots and they were twice as fast as available anti submarine torpedoes, effective wire guided a's torpedoes capable of use against submarines at ranges of 2-6 miles( before the introduction of the USN Mk 48 in the 1970s) and only available to the UK post cold war. In the case of the Mk 37 or RN Tigerfish no more than 24-26 knots. It is still tremendously difficult for a torpedo to be guided by a sub towards another sub and catch up with a sub moving away from the attacking and tracking torpedo launching sub The problem with small nuclear subs and nuclear power stations are they are dangerous and can be done by many nations while large nuclear power stations or nuclear subs like a LA class or a Akula are very difficult to replicate today as we have far fewer brilliant physicists and mathermaticians and in the nuclear field the relevant chemicals and agents can never🎉🎉 be entirely replicated as even the first nuclear and hydrogen tests changed the chemistry and biosphere of the world quite substantially
It's ideological
@@resurrectingand it's economic.
* nuclear is more expensive.
* nuclear build out takes 15 years.
* we need energy solutions now, not in 15 years.
* HVDC interconnections are a mature technology that provides solutions now.
Tony Abbott in 2013 was the last decent economic opportunity for Gen 3 nuclear in Australia, and he dropped the ball. We won't have another economic opportunity like that until Gen 4, SMR, or Inertial Fusion reactors are proven out, probably in the 2040s.
If we need to add 1000kms of power lines to connect and distribute renewable energy, that won't be cheap
Aidan Morrison argument that if "free" renewable electricity was true then the grid costs added into the customers electricity bills would still be substantial.
He is right.
Grid costs are a huge majority part of the costs.
Grid maintenance costs add to total grid costs. 24/7 servicing capacity.
Other nuclear promoters have said $1million per km new grid construction costs.
Government publications refer to 1million km of grid total length to 20million buildings.
$TRILLIONS construction costs in a 1TRILLION GDP economy.
I am an old Construction Civil Engineer contractor who has worked on coal fired and gas turbine generation electric plant new construction. $$$$$$$$
I have worked on new transmission lines construction 1,700 tower transmission line. $$$$$$$$
I have worked in busy street construction with their access restrictions and daily time frames. $$$$$$$$$
I have grandchildren and their future is more important than the chaotic thinking about the wrong problem that comes from ignorant understanding.
Experts laugh at the non experts speaking about the experts area of knowledge.
Sadly experts outside their own expertise remain embarrassingly confident.
Confident and foolish.
Solve the right problem.
Sound economics in your perspective appreciated by this observer. The debate is missing continuing with cleaner coal and LPG.
@@mikehitch7799 thanks for your comment.
Gas is cleaner and can be turned on and off.
Coal CO2 clean up would be twice the gas CO2, and technically and economically extremely expensive.
The rooftop PV, and EV with V2G and big battery have a major problem in that only China is supplying EV and big batteries.
China has been an unreliable trading partner to Australia and has threatened Australia.
The weakest part of my post is enough reliable economic supply.
Robotic factories could make a difference sometime soon I hope.
Just my thoughts.
Reliance on the grid is the problem. Unfortunately, the elites don't like off-grid households and businesses because it reduces their political power and, also, because the energy is consumed where it is produced, there is no transaction to record in the GDP stats.
Yes and No.
Aiden Morrison was speaking to Solar Farms and he deceptively ignored Solar on a third of Australian homes and how batteries are rapidly improving and costs dramatically reducing.
I'm replacing my old 2.4kw solar panels with new panels generating 23kw with initially a 30kwh battery. The panels will generate all what I use in 25 minutes, all the rest I store and sell to grid at peak times eg. Evenings.
House can run off batteries for at least 3 days if the grid is down and no sun, I will be generating revenue off the grid. I will be a virtual Power Plant, the power I generate will be used by my neighbours.
Liberals are planning to place the nuclear power stations at the location of the coal power stations to utilise the existing power lines. The nuclear power plant is more reliant on the existing power lines that need to be continually maintained and should be underground.
Where Aiden is correct, is that if a Solar farm is placed in the outback, there will need to be power lines to connect the power to the grid and other existing power lines may need to be expanded. TRUE but deceiptive.
While placing a Nuclear Power plant at a Coal Power Plant can utilise existing power line, Coal Power Plant do not require a LOT of water.
In Victoria, the Coal Power Plant is in the Latrobe Valley where there is no easy access to water. I expect they will need two huge pipes to sea to extract and discharge the "dirty" water, there will likely be a need for a lake for the water to cool. Now is it easier to run a power line or 2 huge pipes and pumps? Amazing how Aiden forget to mention the water?
What affect will the cooling lake have to the environment? Will the dirty water get into the underground Aquafer?
Aiden showed a deceiptive slide showing how solar farms may have a shelf life. Definitely, in 20-30 years panels will need to replaced with a new panel that will likely produce double the power. Nuclear reactors also need the nuclear waste removed, and maintenance on the plant and eventually the expensive nuclear power plant will be demolished. Now what is harder, maintaining solar panels or a nuclear power plant? Has the cost of demolishing the Nuclear Power Plant and toxic cooling lake and restoring the land been included in the costing, I doubt it.
@VaCha62 Good comment.
My first thought about distant renewables was that their transmission lines had to go to the point in the grid in the middle where the coal power station put high voltage into the existing grid.
All the grid costs are added to the distant renewables electricity costs.
Now rooftop PV on the customers roof has no transmission costs.
The best illustration is my 5 cents kWh feedin and 50cents kWh supply from the grid.
Most generation costs are 3 to 5cents kWh, fossil fueled, nuclear fueled, hydro generation, distant renewables.
Most grid supply is 10 times bigger costs
Aidan made me think, and then he annoyed me with his shitty failure to keep thinking.
Then, he got lost in the money side of the nuclear promoters and created a consulting business.
This was a highly enjoyable discussion on nuclear. This was largely down to our guest speakers being able to say what they had to say in a way that we could all understand.
I do wonder if location of nuclear plants will be the biggest hurdle we face. But I agree with the speakers that once the ball gets rolling on this, it will gain momentum quickly. It just needs to get off to a good start with Facts, Facts and more Facts leading the charge.
And I do like that point about Ecology rather than Environment. I am astounded at the potential damage being caused to flora & fauna in the interest of saving the planet.
A real problem with Labor, holding back Australia's prosperity with its dogmatic refusal to adopt nuclear base load power generation. Hence never support Labor to be elected again.
That was true of Labor in 2012, but Tony Abbott had the perfect opportunity to start nuclear in 2013, and he dropped the ball.
Nuclear in 2024 is too little, too late, because it takes 15 years to build out and we need solutions now. HVDC interconnections provides energy solutions now -- nuclear doesn't.
To@@naomieyles210 Thanks for your interest. True Liberal governments have the same trend to not want to manage properly in the interest of the people and rater concentrate to be elected again. Although we have a democracy once the politicians are elected we have very limited control over them, they can even switch sides or go independent without asking the people. That is why Australia should become a better democracy and install citizens initiated referendum.
However it is never to late to make changes for the better it is just the cost goes up the longer we wait. And as is said by Helen Cook we need to think long term.
@@KF-bj3ce totally agree re. CIR.
On the subject of nuclear, that ship has already sailed for Austraiia.
We urgently need to replace our coal power fleet inside the next 10 years, and the build out time frame for a single nuclear reactor is 6 to 10 years, with high risk of cost and time overruns. We don't have the regulatory frameworks and we don't have the skilled personnel, so that pushes the project delivery date out further and makes the massive scale required that much more difficult to achieve.
The other solution is HVDC, where each interconnector pays for itself in a short time frame, and each interconnector increases the percentage of cheap variable renewables we can incorporate in the grid. HVDC is already paying for itself in Europe, and is on the way to building out the European super grid.
HVDC fits our time frame, needs, and existing skills.
It's too late for nuclear to provide what we need here in Australia.
I do think nuclear has great potential for niche use cases in Australia, it just doesn't fit the overall coal replacement use case.
@@KF-bj3ce I get the impression that the LNP is more interested in nuclear while in opposition, and less interested when in government. Given a 6-10 year construction time, plus a lead time of several years for regulatory frameworks and other preparation, a nuclear reactor doesn't fit neatly into a term of office.
We'd need an entire fleet of nuclear reactors to solve our issues with our coal power fleet coming to end of life, and we need them this decade. Due to the time frame mismatch, we are forced to pursue the HVDC route, so it's fortunate that HVDC is a proven technology and a good match for our needs.
To@@naomieyles210 That may be so, but is the Australian constitution so weak that this can not be legislated for completion and do we forever have to put up with this nonsense.
There is no advantage to Australia to pursue nuclear. We do not need to burden our future with nuclear. The huge cost blowouts are guaranteed, the delay while we build these plant means we will fall behind the most reasonable decarb goals.
Renewables with pumped hydro are 100% safe, clean and cheap.
Watch Chris Ullman's documentary " The real cost of net zero " Great doco eye opening !!
Australia is in a wind drought and have been for 2 weeks since this talk. Wholesale prices have been very high.
The talk was all hot air. Hot air rises creating low pressure. The low pressure system will cause air to move from the higher pressure air causing a wind. The 4 presenters were all windbags.
Renewable energy is not just wind, it is any kind of energy that is from a source that is not depleted. Nuclear depleted the uranium, but Solar Panels does not deplete the sun, wave energy does not deplete the waves, hydro does not deplete the water source. There is even anti-solar panels that works at night. Adi was just being a smart-arse.
With Amber Electric anyone can buy and sell power at the wholesale prices. When one has solar panels with a battery one can easily avoid buying electricity at the high wholesale prices by running off battery and if you have excess power this is a great time to sell power to the grid. Im upgrading my solar to a 23kw panels with 30kwh battery. I only use around 7 kwh and able to sell excess power to grid which will pay off my system in no time. When the grid goes down I simply run off the batteries and get a text message.
If Australians are masochists and go for the white elephant nuclear power station in the 2040s, this will be good for me and electricity bills at least $1200pa more for those not on solar+battery.
Open and frank discussions by people that know what they are talking about ……
Aye, it's refreshing.
@@cbrhubs9245 Yep. Won't see that on their ABC.
Funded by anti-renewables corporations and vested interests.
Only 1 thing wrong with this program,was way too short.I could listen to these brilliant sensible people for hours on end.
Thanks very much for a great insight to nuclear,which is the future!!
Fantastic discussion with a very informed panel and moderator. Thank you.
I am really quite amazed at this nuclear push, what do we actually need if for? The arguement where we debate that it really isnt as expensive as reports have shown is really just a rabbit hole. Build the first one on a fixed price contract or better still, let someone else build it and operate it along side renewables. Bet no one offers!
The CIS seem to have kind of stumbled here, I am somewhat puzzled????
So that was the nuclear lobby. Will CIS host panelists lobbying renewable energy?
Hah!! You made me laugh!! Their "studies" are about as honest as their name.
@@jvvoid Yes, I find it pretty funny too, but in a tragic way.
@@MagisterHenrik Hmmm: long on smart alec insults. Short on actual arguments. Telling...
WHAT A TEAM OF TALENT AND TRUTH ......THANK YOU TO ALL
1:18 - All 3 pages? Does it have any content or just the glossy front and back cover?
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes.. when I count to three you'll wake up and believe that nuclear is perfectly safe. And cheap!!
This is all about keeping coal going as long as possible by building a great big, never finish, white elephant. Renewables with battery storage is cheaper than coal and gas and half the price of nuclear. Anyone with solar panels on their roof knows that and that is 1 in 3 homes in Australia. Nuclear for Australia is a criminally negligent waste of taxpayers money and as with all centralised power generation an ongoing national security risk because power stations are military targets. Instead of desperately trying to keep jobs going with coal mining perhaps reducing electricity generation costs by adopting renewables gives regulators the opportunity to harvest a royalty on electricity with the aim of providing more useful jobs for the community than just digging big hole in the ground. All done with no extra cost to the community.
Sorry, but your facts are getting in the way of this lovely bedtime story.
You need to do a bit more research, renewables are not cost effective or the cheapest form of electrical generation when you take into account an extra 28,000 kms of Bushfire starting HV grid transmission lines that are necessary to make their renewable scheme work & that is not costed for, or the dams or batteries needed for storage.
Renewables are a low density energy source that is intermittent & unreliable subject to weather conditions & sunshine (the very thing we are trying to change for some ridiculous & false reason), they can’t supply good base load power or industry requirements 24/7 so the industry’s we need will vanish.
I could argue if they are even actually green by any real standard because more CO2 is probably created to produce and install these renewables than they will ever offset in their lifetime + their is no recycling program for end of life pv panels or wind generators & blades, on top of this the environmental destruction that is going on to the Great Dividing Range & many other protected areas without debate is criminal, koala & platypus habitats being blasted and bulldozed for wind farms.
I am someone who has two properties that both have solar and batteries that I would not have if they were not so heavily govt subsidised, so I am not anti renewables, I have worked in the electrical industry and on solar.
Solar and wind power is not a national energy solution at any cost, it will fail (and already is), and so will our economy (which already is) from renewables, they require an endless bucket of money to make it work to some degree, so they are not cost effective.
The climate doomsday narrative is an overstated lie to justify their net zero agenda with the renewables scam.
Labor hates us and they are wrecking Australia to prove it, open your eyes.
@@evil17 Bullshit.
Renewables are intermittent. Next.
@@WillyWanka LOL the name says it all.
Great debate? Well it might have been a great debate if you included a neutral or critical speaker. No chance of that from the CIS of from Chris's new employer Sky.
Agreed. Zero credibility unfortunately.
Yeah, would love to see an actual debate on the pros and cons.
@@Fraraccio1 I'm sure you've also been over to the Australia Institute to make similar comments about their single-minded devotion to renewables...
To be fair he did say he would debate anyone at any time, so its probly more to do with the anti nuclear people not being willing to have a proper discussion.
Sanity = = Thank You.
The discussion left out solar on one third of Australian homes and ignored that battery prices have plummeted, and that it is very affordable now for the properties with solar to now also have storage for use when the sun is not shining and the power is most expensive.
I would call this deceiptive. I do not thank people who lie.
While I'm earning money selling power to the grid, you can pay the electricity bills that best estimates will go up at least $1200 to pay for the white elephant nuclear power station in the 2040s.
It's so refreshing to hear someone who clearly knows what they're talking about! The renewable "rubber band" will only stretch so far & THAT is nowhere near far enough!
Aiden is knowledgeable, but he is cherry-picking information that makes his case. Quite deceitful.
Aiden's slides only included Solar farms and excluded all the Solar & Batteries on buildings.
One of Aiden's arguments was that with Solar farms may need power lines to connect it into the grid. TRUE.
What Aiden covered up was that Solar installation on buildings, the power is being generated where it is being consumed, which is better than generating the power hundreds on kilometers aways as power is lost in the transmission.
What Aiden did not say is nuclear power plants need LOTS of water, the coalition are planning to locate nuclear power plants near the coal power plant to utilise power lines, great, but where is the water coming from and going to, do they need a pipeline to the sea? Lakes are required to cool the water, how will this affect environment? Will radioactive water leak into aquafers? Is it too risky to just rely on local water?
Aiden did not mention that battery technology has come leaps and bounds as they are critical for Electric vehicles. The prices of household batteries has plummeted. I'm getting batteries for my house in a few weeks.
One should not come to a conclusion based on presentations just from the pro-nuclear camp.
Watch the video discussing the pros&cons of a new nuclear power plant on the RethinkX channel and see if you still hold the same view.
I really don't understand why there is any resistance to even considering it when AUKUS will give us nuclear subs. It makes no sense.
By 2030 most miles will be electric. Solar today is the cheapest source of energy on the planet. Solar PV price has gone down by 80 percent in the last 10 years. Solar PVs will keep dropping in price.
Batteries keep dropping in price. The electric cars are cheaper to maintain and cleaner than ice vehicles.
It costs $11 to charge an electric car versus $90 for a petrol car for 100 kms.
This transition is going ahead in the future as the markets, car industry and investors like Tesla have clean energy goals. Oil and gas will be obsolete by 2030. Australia has a solar advantage.
Nuclear is a doom day plan for Australia as it will be an expensive option, nuclear makes sense only in cold frozen areas like Russia.
Furthermore a nuclear disaster due to bushfires will destroy alot of lives.
Its time to think wisely as nuclear is NOT the best option.
For further information listen to Tony Seba.
Why didn't any of you mention costs? Other than current prices. What is the cost per KWH over the life of the unit. Build run store. To end date?
Today the CSIRO called bullshit on the Nuclear option re: price. Twice as expensive apparently.
Are they lying?
But what really matters is that CIS' opinion is that Nuclear is the cheapest and easiest to build. Facts contrary to this opinion are countered by saying the offending report is compromised. CSIRO's, in this case. Supporting evidence not needed.
If Russia and China put there energy into making nuclear energy not weapons the would could be a better place 😊
Definitely
It is sometimes hard to tell if the Nuke Fanbois are intentionally lying or just stupid. But either way, they rarely tell the truth
Yes!
Anyone bothered to look at world copper reserves, we are at deficit on copper supply and will require 700% to 1000% increase in copper extraction to meet demand, yet there is very little investment in future copper mining.
Without copper your just blowing hot air out of your behind.
lets build some new copper mines Australia
@terenceharvey6432kong Australia doesn't have that much of it in our soil. Australia has more iron ore Uranium aluminium gold ect
(pssst -- Grids run on Aluminum Conductors -- not Copper)
56 nuclear plants in France and still only produces 68% of its power needs. 😅 and Dutton says we only need 7 plants, also France has been building the plants since 1960 that is 64 years of building and replacing them to service just 68% of its needs 🙄. Get real Australia.
Do you appreciate how many dinky solar panels are required to match a single nuclear plant?
(And it just gets worse when you account for the amount of overbuild necessary to compensate for the poor availability of renewables)
>85% on 8 July 2024. France is exporting power to Germany/UK/others. Suggest you get your facts right. 37plants built in the 80s; 5 in the 90s; only 4 since 2000. The older units were smaller. The average construction time has ben 6.5 years.
Why didn't the coalition propose this while they were in power? It was just 2 years ago - I remember, I was there!
Thanks for this excellent information video.
Here is Labor burning gas in power plants which in turn could be used as a transport fuel in vehicles in the interim to better battery fuel systems. Solar rooftop systems are great as it generates power where it is being used with some minor upgrades on power transformers but without the need to upgrade Australia's power distribution network to the extent planed by Labor. I have lived in South Australia and seen the blackouts. The big battery in SA buys power at times of low cost then resells it to the citizens at time of need at high costs. Hence one could call the big battery a success but is it really or is it just a smoke screen? What about the damage caused by all these wind turbine structures and the cost of reinstating the land? Labor's plan is seriously flawed and will cause problems in the future if allowed to proceed.
I really needed to hear this today. The world seems to have gone crazy and finally this panel is talking in common sense. Thanks for the great insights and data what a great panel! :)
Yes let's doi a holistic economic analysis, Aidan. How does nuclear economics work if the industry has to pay insurance costs?
Thanks
Thank you!! So appreciate your support.
If you haven't see it yet, we have created an Energy Playlist you may enjoy.
funny the sort who scoff at solar panels on your roof because of "upfront cost" suddenly want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a nuclear fantasy.
The grid won't work without generation in addition to wind and solar. We need the grid to work. AI and data are materially increasing the electricity demand. The dispatchable generation can either be gas or nuclear. Nuclear is CO2 free.
In 20 years when nuclear is fully installed and expensive, then offgrid with Battery Vehicles and rooftop PV and dirt cheap electricity will mean customers will abandon the national electrical grid.
15% of rooftop can supply too much electricity.
Vehicles parked 23hrs every day can store too much electricity with Battery Vehicles.
Most vehicles will trickle charge all daylong. Ezi pezi.
Grid owners will be screaming for government protection from dirt cheap offgrid in the suburbs.
As each customer abandons the grid, grid customers costs begin to explode.
Horse meat was cheap when horses were not wanted. 😮
That's more likely than nuclear being a viable proposition.
@@jvvoidif you have not built or priced construction then you should stay in your expertise.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Who?
@jvvoid Sorry, my mistake.
I meant to be commenting to someone else.
The other person is from outside the electricity supply industry and is ignoring how little electricity is used compared to total fossil fuels used.
And how expensive the existing 'small' electricity capacity has to be expanded.
Lead by example, CIS members should therefore invest all their money in building Australian 1st Nuclear powerplant. Then list the profitable Nuke company on the ASX.
AEMO are not following the laws of thermodynamics? You can’t take a diluted form of energy and make it less diluted without putting more energy into the system? I haven’t heard much on the discussion on nuclear waste/costs of management of nuclear waste in Australia. Also, is fusion so far off, it’s not worth considering?
60-80-100 year lifespan for reactors, Helen? Average lifespan of reactors closed over the past 5 years is 43 years.
You might want to rethink that Jim boy.
A 43 year old reactor would have been commissioned 43 years ago.
Fast forward to 50+ years later it is not unreasonable to posit that technology - and hence lifespan of the next generation reactor build - would expand exponentially.
The Wright Bros made their first flight in 1903 with only Orville Wright at the controls
It was a 12 second flight and covered a distance of 120 feet.
Some 83 years later (1986) I flew a B747 6 hours and 30 minutes for 4742 kms flying Jeddah - London with 400+ passengers at .86 Mach (.86 the speed of sound).
So 43 years reactor lifespan to potentially 60-80-100 lifespan in a similar period seems eminently reasonable - if not seriously understated.
@@johnd1727 Positing and posturing has nothing to do with facts. Maybe's and should-be's and hopefully's are all nuclear pushers have to go with. Don't let the facts get in the way of the LNP donor's fairytales and their interests.
Yeah, Nukes have tended to become a long-term curse on their owner-operator. They have constant and continually increasing Operation and Maintenance costs as time goes on. It becomes cheaper to shut them down than to continue to operate them. In the US (largest Nuke operations in the World) ALL existing Nukes have been put on welfare this last year to prevent bankrupting off-line early.
Great forum. Thank you.
Adi: renewables "are destroying the ecology of our country" Further proof he is a nutjob.
Yes. And he said carbon dioxide is good for plants therefore Australia's deserts will become 'light green'. In complete ignorance or denial (or perversion) of the most recent IPCC report (generally accepted to be conservative).
I couldn't believe it when he said that. What a looney.
what a brilliant trio of experts
A comprehensive trade study and risk assessment is needed comparing Nuke and Green and a mixture of all by Engineers Not politicians
Finally someone is making sense
Nuclear Waste Facility
Folks - is there any truth in the rumour that Australia's new Nuclear Waste Facility will located at:
Unit 3 - 199 Gympie Road Strathpine Queensland 4500
Please advise well in advance - so I can purchase the correct PPE!
Why is it that the Australian Chief Scientist opposes nuclear power, as do at least 2 former Australian Chief Scientists, and the NSW Chief Scientist?
The current chief scientist is a physicist. previous chief scientists have been (in order):
ecologist
biologist
immunologist
chemical engineer
molecular biologist
astronomer
neuroscientist
neuroscientist
The discussion about (the cost and timing of) nuclear power implementation is really related to engineering, not so much about science, and they are not the same thing, despite being intertwined.
Who pays them and what legislation is currently in place
Answer it has nothing to do with science it’s politics and the Australian government of the pays the chief scientists wage.
Legislative bans on nuclear stops any real discussion or debate on the so called green energy agenda. In a nut shell the Chief scientists will do as they are told by the government of the day.
He's not a nuclear scientis or an engineer. You still miss the Pont that wind isn't sufficient and the sun go down at night. Battries only last a few hours. How is major business going to power their companies? Do you relise how many watts a cold storage use in power alone. And you have the cost of 1 5 trillion dollars every 20 years for renewables. Australia can't afford that. Renewables isn't cheap it's dam expensive unreliable and stupidity to have as the only power source.
Bowen and Albo and the Scientists you claim want just renewables. Than they better start making everything we use only 12 volts at only 1.2 watts so the battries can support 24/7 to have any reliable power. The avrage house use 25.43 kWh a day.
Fukushima and Chernobyl
I'm all in with nuclear, part of the reasoning I disagree with, low carbon footprint. forget about carbon, it's a good thing, politicians need to pull their heads out of their @$$ and just get it done for cheap energy. solar and wind is economically and logistically expensive right through is life. not to mention intermittent. also interesting point, I'm in New Zealand and we just had a warning about saving energy because of the risk of blackouts, one reason given by our biggest provider is that the wind farms it partly relies on produced less than expected levels, so there you go !
If I hear this "net zero" crap one more time I will pull my hair out. "Net Zero" is a brain fart thought up by some advertising and PR dept.
@@musicalneptunian when they say "net zero" they don't mean themselves, they mean us.
I don't believe the carbon tales of the Malthusian Death Cult either.
I don't believe the carbon tales of the Malthusian Death Cult either.
Solar is far cheaper than nuclear - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source. It's decreased in cost by 82% in the past decade, and is already several times cheaper than nuclear. A nuclear plant would likely take 30+ years to build and pay off, and would need to compete with the cost of renewables then (when it's not competitive now).
Australia is up to 39% renewables and on target for 82% by 2030, but these don't work well with nuclear. Nuclear is inflexible - it cannot scale up and down quickly. Hydro, batteries and gas provide the dispatchable energy needed.
Ful cost of Electricity using the latest Nuclear plants is working out at $8,000 per year per household... why would a current roof top solar who has zero bills want to pay toward Nuclear plants.
The biggest issue is the pursuit of low cost energy. The cheaper it is the most it will be used and the more of it we'll need produce.
Helen Cook cites the International Atomic Energy Agency to back a case for nuclear in Australia. That same agency has openly stated that Australia should not go nuclear owing to its abundance of renewable sources. True or false?
And let’s not forget-this is not the last level of power creation. New tech will appear in the future. Nuclear is a transitional power source.
Noticed Hinkley Point C was not mentioned. Interesting.
This would have been much better if it wasn't a circle jerk.
Everyone just nodding at each other isn't helping in this debate.
The old guy saying that he couldn't get payback on his solar array was either a lie or he isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is. I've put two systems on houses and both were revenue positive within a short timeframe. One with subsidised tariffs and one without. Pfft.
It was not a debate. It was a lame info-mercial sales pitch.
There's actually no need to do anything. There is no climate emergency.
100%
The only intelligent person on here. It is almost as real as Santa Clause.
does anyone here know if nuclear has ever been able to be shown to be cost effective when retiring the plant is considered? I haven't been able to find an example
Ynocool,
Reckon a nuclear power plant will make a lot tidier skeleton than ... I dun'no ... a hundred wind toys. Nobody will get back up there and reconstitute those sites.
What an excellent discussion. Its a pity that our politicians are so intellectually inferior. This would go straight into over Chris Bowen’s head.
More people have died from airplane issues & accidents than nuclear failures. Nuclear is no bigger risk to people than normal life issues. Coal mining is a big risk to life & itst not banned. So do we keep this ban in place?
Why would Australia ever ever want to create an unacceptable national security risk with nuclear?
Australia burying it's head in the sand and ignoring nuclear options including upcoming SMR, MMR and most recent, nano reactor technology is quite ludicrous. Larry Fink the chairman of Blackrock recently told the WEF that investing in renewables is a bad option. This is in part due to data centres and upcoming AI technology require stable and reliable power sources. This is something renewables cannot now or likely ever be able to provide. Going forward, nuclear has to form an integral part of the Australian grid.
Tom Switzer: "All the available evidence shows that Gen Z and millennial Australians strongly support nuclear energy." Ignorant or just another liar.
The terms are interchangeable. So borh.
Actual Intelligence manifestation.
Unmodified on topic Journalism by Observation.
Australia of the ANZAC legend in Defence by practical pragmatism.
Clinate change - It’s easier to fool someone than to convince then they’ve been been fooled .
Can we trust the CSIRO? Their report suggests that nuclear will be more expensive and hence less viable than renewables. This doesn't seem to resonate with what I would expect to be the case given the more extensive use of actual materials spread out across a very large footprint in the case of wind and solar as compared to the more concentrated use of resources with a very dense fuel source in the case of nuclear power.
CSIRO formulas and data are available publicly for anyone to scrutinise.
I'm sure you know better than the CSIRO.
It's not just the CSIRO - there's a lot of evidence that nuclear is more expensive than renewables. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
Nuclear plants are just extremely expensive to build. Solar and wind are far cheaper for the same production. Currently, nuclear is several times more expensive than solar, and the cost of solar has dropped 82% in the last decade, with batteries on a similar trajectory.
Nuclear is already cost uncompetitive, but if you start building it now, it will take 30+ years to build and pay off its capital costs. It has to be competitive with whatever renewables cost then. There's a reason why the LNP is proposing using taxpayer dollars - no business would make that investment.
Sorry. I'm all for consideration of a possible nuclear power generation future for Australia and the potential it offers for grid stability and flexibility with lower emissions, but if this group of 3 'experts' are supposed to convince me that it's feasible, affordable, can be safe and sold as acceptable to the people, and is not just a Murdoch and Fossil fuel industry inspired and funded attempt to railroad and delay the current renewable energy program they will have to do a lot better.
I find Adi Paterson a divisive figure who manipulates the truth to suit his every argument. He downplays the Chernobyl and Fukishima failures, proclaims increasing CO2 will revegetate the world's deserts and intimates that Synroc has solved the nuclear waste issue when it has apparently never been regarded by the global nuclear community as an economic or practical solution. How can he credibly continue to flog SMRs as economically feasible, the way of the future and currently happening in other parts of the world, when he was the CEO of the costly Pebble Bed Reactor in South Africa which failed to attract any serious investors and was scuttled? Where are the safe and affordable SMR's which are currently licensed and being built in other countries? Australia has had years to sort out the legalities and adopt a nuclear power generation future but our political masters have spent decades either sitting on their hands and/or arguing over the high price, much to the glee of the fossil fuel industry.
I greatly appreciate this discussion while disagreeing with the overall consensus among these nuclear experts on the best way for us to proceed. And there is no "yeah, but" in that disagreement. These folks are all impressive and authentic imo. Also imo, people like this should be more central to our decision making in general. And I am certain that we can realistically make nuclear work here. But as with things like CCS, the people who could have made this happen weren't sufficiently focused upon it at the time it needed to happen.
AUKUS has us spending significant money on nuke subs. If we had a nuke industry that could support small reactor technology for sub and land based use, that sounds like a strategy that could win broad support.
The reactors in subs will be sealed for their lifetime. It's a very different environment to a nuclear power plant.
Go holiday in Fukushima and Chernobyl, come back and get your chemo and tell us how enjoyable it was.
So does Adi Patterson take ANY responsibility for the disgraceful safety record at ANSTO while he was CEO?
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes.. when I count to three you'll wake up and believe that nuclear is perfectly safe.
Is it not possible to have some of the hardware ready to go for a neuclear power plant in expectation for this future you are looking at?
This is pitiful. There's no mention of the vast costs of construction, that nuclear energy will run at a loss, and then have $249,000,000,000 in decommissioning and safe storage costs in the next hundred years if the UK is any guide. As the safe storage needs to continue for 100,000 years Australia taxpayers will be on the hook effectively forever.
We have had a nuclear plant since the mid fifties. What is the problem?
And it hasn't produced one watt of electricity.
At best it's radioactive swimming pool.
1:00:42 I'm in regional area and I'm quite happy with solar and ev. Last quarter bill was $504. Next quarter will be a transition as awaiting new meter. I'll use the nuclear fusion convertors. No thanks to nuclear fission.
I really agree with Aidan
having 4 or more nuclear reactors on the site like UAE or Canada gives you a great performance in 24/7 always on nuclear power
Definitely switching from anti to pro nuclear in recent times
Aidan talks about grid costs to save a few nuclear heaters at generation plants but then ignores grid costs to replace all CO2 emissions like a good nuclear greenie. FMD he is frustrating.
Yes, let's assess our options, Helen. Westinghouse AP1000s? Bzzz, they went bankrupt. French EPRs? Bzzz, they have given up on them. APR1400s from the corrupt South Korean nuclear industry., bzzz. NuScale SMRs, bzzz, non-existent and the company is going bankrupt.
Technically uranium is a dilute form of energy. You have to enrich it first before you can hope to produce electricity with it.
Candu, heavy water reactors do not need enriched Uranium.
Nice to see a discussion that doesn’t mention politicians.
Aidan
.... you have a physics background! how can you seriously maintain that stance and accept the utterly flawed AGW hypothesis ?
It's so great to have this discussion I am fed up with the woke demonisation of nuclear power generation. We need to develop a base load nuclear power generation industry here in Australia.
I can't imagine taking two or three years to build a reactor. The tech is 80 years old. The nuclear community is the biggest problem, it seems to me. They've overvalued their expertise and overcomplicated the entire system. They're boiling water to turn a freaking generator.
Mr Paterson, you state that Lucas's Heights is the world's safest nuclear medicine facility. Please address accusations that it is indeed well below world standards for safety. Additionally, storage of waste has not yet been addressed to meet regulatory requirements. Tru or false?
We are meant to ignore the waste issue even though no nation has an effective solution and never will.
& what happen when we run out of land for wind
Should have gone for 2 hours is my only complaint - great work.
0:13:18
"Frequency already destroyed" ... oh please, do expand.
If you're truly independent where can I find your donor information? @CIS
I agree 100%. I have been saying this for a while. I studied high school science in the 1960s, Electrical Engineering at UNSW at the start of the 1970s, and achieved the award of a B.App.Sc in Queensland in 1992. I have been working as a self-employed computer technician for 25 years. I am very disappointed that Australia is run by people who don't understand basic physics. The Carbon Dioxide narrative is nonsense. This is a terrible situation.
That was worth watching glad I seen it very sound information on the subject
Great presentation! Thank you🇦🇺😎
The best point we can stress is the ECOLOGY those large windmills are a blight on the landscape i see them every month ,most of the time not even working and it's literally 100's of them
I think many more died at Chernobyl than 56 people. That aside the failure of Chernobyl was human in design and management. Chernobyl was not built according to international regulations and the station management were foolish in their testing.
Chernobyl was a bad design for a *Gen 2* nuclear reactor.
Fukushima was a *Gen 2* nuclear reactor, too.
If Australia starts building a nuclear reactor this decade, it would be a *Gen 3* nuclear reactor, with built in passive safety features, no meltdown possible. Different kettle of fish to either Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Even though I'm a nuclear advocate, nuclear is the wrong path for Australia because it doesn't fit our time frame and it doesn't fit our duck curve energy supply needs. Nuclear is a perfect fit for Germany, so it was incredibly sad to watch them shut down perfectly good nuclear reactors for political reasons.
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related illnesses in "the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations" [Wikipedia]. No-one knows the long term effects. Leukemia can take 10 years to appear. Nuclear enthusiasts always play down the risks. The people on this panel won't be the ones exposed to any risks. Adrian Paterson said that global warming due to increased carbon dioxide is good for plants therefore Australia's deserts will become 'light green'. He implied that the Sahara will do the same.
@@andwil1959 ...hmm, yes. The nuclear guys play down the risk of nuclear and the renewables/battery storage folk ignore the environmental and human cost in rare earth minerals mining in Africa etc.
@@andwil1959 the human cost of coal mining and coal power stations is many orders of magnitude worse than the 4,000 estimated deaths from Chernobyl's consequences.
Chernobyl was unforgivable, but it's also not repeatable given that particular Gen 2 reactor design is no longer in use.
Fukushima was a much smaller accident, despite a deficient maintenance record, and despite also being a Gen 2 reactor, because it is a superior Gen 2 design to Chernobyl.
A modern Gen 3 reactor does not have Fukushima's vulnerabilities.
Is Adrian Peterson an expert on hydrological cycles? Can he explain why the Sahara is expanding despite CO2 increasing by 25% in the last 27 years through to April 2024?
The simplistic idea that a planet sized greenhouse is somehow a good thing, and will green all our deserts, depends on our *planet sized greenhouse* being equipped with *planet wide drip feeding.* That's a curious proposition, but I'd be interested to hear how he plans to install that kind of irrigation and what freshwater source he plans to use.
@@1969cmp I don't deny that all mining has risks. But mining for lithium does not have the radioactive risks associated with mining for uranium.
What happens with solar panels and wind turbines after they no longer work? What is the carbon footprint of making them? What is the carbon footprint of transporting them? What is the carbon footprint of installation and ground clearance? What is the cost of upkeep on all components of wind and solar?
Nuclear is too expensive and can’t compete with solar.
Wind and solar are *_infinitely-expensive,_* on a sustained basis.
If there is such a glut of energy during the day (renewables, negative spot price) why can't our energy providers allow "off peak" rates (hot water and other) during this time or is that not about the climate agenda.
OVO is offering free EV charging during this time. Amber offers best rates at this time.
1kg of coal = 6 hrs running a washing machine. Available 24/7
1kg of oil. = 9 hours running a washing machine. Available 24/7
1kg of renewables = less than 1hr running a washing machine. Available less than 30% of the time and requires every watt of power to be backed up by another source of power, usually fossil fuel. This is the equivalent of a second grid when only one is required.
1kg of uranium = 2000 years running a washing machine. Available 24/7
I wonder which one is more efficient and less costly.
Why don’t we get rid of all the subsidies and let the market decide which is the most efficient. Renewables will be last on the efficiency/affordable list every which way you look at it.
You think private capital is stupid enough to fall for this?? The market's already decided, genius. That's why Dutton's plan is entirely dependent on govt (taxpayer) funding. No-one else wants to go near it. From all our pockets directly to LNP donors and mates, because their plan is to go from rich.. to obscenely rich.
@@jvvoid Fasinating
Pretty much nonsense. We run full houses from Solar PV ONLY. Including Laundry and Air Conditioning. And charging the Tesla EV. Requires no "back up" as Solar PV is the most reliable electrical generation there is. No Moving Parts. Solar PV runs completely unattended on Islands, Buoys and in Space for DECADES. Why are you making up such nonsense?
Rosie counters this nonsense