Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

The Inevitable Triumph of Nuclear Power?

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“ANNA Bligh, the Queensland Premier, has backed calls for the Labor Party to review its policy on nuclear power

“The Queensland Premier has warned that renewable sources cannot meet the surging demand for baseload electricity…  according to The Australian.

PHIL Sawyer, friend, retired fisherman, foundation member of the Australian Environment Foundation and member of the ALP, explains why the ALP will vote for nuclear at the national conference next year:

“THE recent flurry of statements about nuclear energy from some  ALP politicians, including the PM, have ensured that the subject will be debated at next year’s national conference. The consequences of this  development are going to be considerable.

Not least, the work of  Parliament’s Climate Committee is now reduced to irrelevance. How can this Committee possibly come to any conclusion about a national carbon price regime before the ALP decides its energy policy?

Impossible.   It will be forced to defer its deliberations until the ALP conference finally decides the issue. Thus the chief vehicle of Green influence on the Government will be sidelined for a year, an interesting development  indeed.

But the most important outcome of recent events is that very fact that the nuclear cat is now well and truly out of the bag, making a pro nuclear decision by the ALP conference almost inevitable, something the commentariat seems to have missed so far.

Such a decision will be a game changer all round, profoundly effecting relations with the Greens, and the Opposition, not to mention making Greg Combet’s task of trying to come up a credible emissions mitigation policy a damn sight easier. It is not too much to say that the fate of the Government is at stake, so the debate should concentrate their minds wonderfully.

The PM has certainly played a straight bat on the nuclear issue so far, citing the hardy old perennial excuses, the cost argument, and our boundless renewable, as reasons for dismissing it.  She also pointed out that no one wanted one in their backyard, and that the proponents of
nuclear faced a ” tough ask”. She touched most of the bases.

The problem is that these are not tenable positions to take to conference. This is because any motion that would allow for competition from nuclear power in our emissions reduction strategy instantly renders most of the traditional reasons for opposition to nuclear irrelevant to the question at hand, which is: Should nuclear be allowed to compete? I think it is inevitable that the ALP will eventually vote for a change, and I offer the following reasons why.

As a delegate to conference, one can hardly argue that nuclear is so expensive it shouldn’t be allowed to compete! An untenable position. But one could still maintain the view that nuclear is so expensive it won’t be able to compete, and then vote for the motion!  No change of view is
required.

In the same way, one can hardly argue that renewables will be so cheap in 10 years time that nuclear should not be allowed to compete, in 10 years. Another untenable position. But one can continue to believe that renewables will ultimately be our cheapest solution, and be able to vote for the motion.

And one can continue to believe that no region of Australia will ever consent to having a nuclear power plant, but still vote for a policy that gives the regions the opportunity to do so.

Thus it turns out that any motion to allow competition from nuclear has the political virtue of not requiring a public change of opinion from all those who are on the public record as citing costs, or our abundant renewables, or location problems, as justifications for the current anti
nuclear policy. People like the PM, for example. They will therefore be able to painlessly vote for the motion, which most of them know is in the national interest, and indeed the party’s interest, and not be required to change their mind on anything they presently hold dear, or
have to defend themselves against charges of backflipping either, something politicians just hate. This underlying political reality should make a pro-nuclear vote at conference inevitable.

The few delegates likely to vote against the motion are the ones who have stuck with the safety issue over the years, regardless of economic or climate imperatives, or indeed the safety record of the nuclear industry itself. The irreconcilables. The ones who think James Hansen
and Professor Lovelock are merchants of death for their support of nuclear energy. I rest my case.

The Adelaide Advertiser reported recently that South Korea has announced plans to
build 14 reactors over the next 10 years. Lord help us.

Phil Sawyer

**********
And of course it was Phil Sawyer’s open letter to Greg Combet, posted at this blog on November 23, 2010, which kicked things off
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2010/11/the-political-solution-to-australias-energy-dilemma-phil-sawyer/

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ian Mott says

    Well, you know an idea’s time has come when such a conspicuous intellectual laggard like Bligh picks up on it. And is there a better demonstration of the reality that it has always been the left that has been encumbered by entrenched dogma, mired in outdated responses to poorly understood problems. They call themselves “progressive” when all along they are nothing more than literal “conservatives en retard”.

    So be my guest, labor spivs and tossers, tear yourselves apart.

  2. el gordo says

    The party will argue that its cheaper to build a coal power station which comes in at less than 2 billion dollars, compared to a 1000-megawatt nuclear reactor at 3 billion dollars. By comparison a gas power station comes in under 1 billion dollars.

    We have an abundance of cheap coal, gas and uranium, so the discussion will settle on how quick these power stations might be built. Heard it’s a decade for nuclear, but unsure about the others.

  3. spangled drongo says

    If we produce nuclear generated electricity as well as sell uranium in large quantities to other countries, we should be able to claim all of that as offsets and our uranium sales alone would offset all our current ACO2 production.
    If we only sell uranium it could be argued that we are only dumping our nuclear problem on others.
    Of course if we had had the balls to include our 1.2 bil desal plant with a NPP we’d be really getting somewhere.

  4. Neville says

    Trouble is it doesn’t matter what we do or what the developed world does because our reductions in GHG’s will easily be overtaken by the developing world’s increases for at least the next 30 years.

    Even Wong and Ferguson have admitted as much,but let’s hope we have the brains to quickly build a few more cheap gas fired powered stations and not waste any more time and money playing silly buggers with useless wind and solar.

    But I’ll believe it when I see it. The scale of China’s development is just mind bogling .

  5. Luke says

    Peak Coal and the end of cheap coal

    Last article in Nature summarised in link below rather jaw dropping

    http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-20/peak-coal-nov-20

    It sez

    “Countries should also immediately start planning for higher coal prices, and reconsider their investments in clean-coal technology. If coal becomes more expensive, then carbon capture and storage will no be longer be an economically viable route to reducing carbon emissions. The economic shocks from rising prices would be felt by every sector of society, say Heinberg and Fridley”

  6. Neville says

    Luke fortunately we have cheap gas reserves all over Australia and we can cheaply build as many power stations as we need.

    We reduce about 75% of co2 emissions in comparison to coal fired stations so for Australia at least this is a good choice.

    Other countries may need to build nuclear power stations at a far greater cost, but at least they would have reliable power supplies and close to zero emissions. ( if that is your concern)

    Of course enormous shale reserves in north America would enable another source of energy to be exploited but with much higher co2 emissions than gas or nuclear.

  9. Ian Mott says

    El Gordo, Nuke plants can be bought off the shelf, from Westinghouse and others. This ten year lead time stuff is strictly ’60s hangover when each new plant was designed from scratch with a huge element of R & D which blew out the cost and the time frame. China, from a french design, is thumping them out. And the Bob Brown/Green line that we will need 10 years to produce the graduates required is also crap. Show up with a bag of visas and we can take our pick of graduates from all over the world. At least their education systems are capable of responding to demand, even if our own system can’t.

  10. kuhnkat says

    Luke,

    if you can convince our Regime to open some National areas, we can sell you a heap of low sulfur coal that Clintoon locked up for his buddies in China!!!!

  11. Schiller Thurkettle says

    If you want nuclear, you make a deal with Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth:

    Spain’s Biotech Crop Under Threat
    Wikileaks
    Embassy Madrid 2009-05-19
    http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=09MADRID482&hl=greenpeace

    Monsanto maintains that anti-MON810 momentum was gained by a de facto agreement between the Government of France and GREENPEACE/Friends of the Earth whereby the GOF would support the anti-GMO movement and environmental activists would turn a blind eye to Sarkozy’s nuclear energy initiatives.

  12. cohenite says

    So, a choice between GM and agricultural expansion and nuclear, eh. No thanks, I’ll have both; but how to deal with Greenpeace and the other gaia-ites?

  16. Des Dugan says

    Just a short correction. A nuclear power station to replace NSW’ Macquarie Energy’s Baywater and Liddell stations would have a price tag of over $20bln, not $3bln (depending on who’s handling the risk). Sure Babcock in the US is producing ‘ute’ nuclear plants but as you can guess they are at a price but they are almost residue free. People should look at the size of Australia’s power stations when deciding on replacements. Macquarie churns out 15% of the eastern seaboard’s power.