A nuclear waste of time

Last week’s lead story, Dutton’s nuclear meltdown, drew an enormous response from Grapevine readers, who vehemently opposite nuclear power as the solution to addressing our energy crisis – a clear indication that Peter Dutton was stuck in some space-time-continuum, where fact and fantasy meld into nonsensical policy.

3 July 2024

ALAN HAYES

 

FOR those who don’t remember our dark history, on 27 September 1956 Britain conducted 12 major trials of nuclear devices across the three sites at Maralinga – mushroom clouds reached heights of 14,325 metres and radioactive fallout was blown by the wind as far as Townsville in northern Queensland. A considerable amount of radioactivity and radioactive particles fell on people in the vicinity, including military personnel and Aboriginal people.

 

The radioactive materials caused major health problems including deadly diseases like cancer – Australians were seen as nothing more than Britain’s nuclear guinea pigs.

 

Then in 1964 there were very small Peace Marches, which featured 'Ban the bomb' placards, held in several Australian capital cities. Initially scattered and organized at the local level, opposition to nuclear power became a national movement by the mid-1970s when such groups as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defence Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Critical Mass became involved.

 

In 1969, a 500 MW nuclear power plant was proposed for the pristine shores of Jervis Bay, 200 kilometres south of Sydney, but was quickly opposed by then Liberal Leader Billy McMahon – far more expensive than a traditional coal plant was the excuse, but he was more worried about plans leaking out to use the facility to also generate weapons-grade plutonium for use in an Australian nuclear weapon.

 

Phillip Baxter, Chairman of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) during those heady days of nuclear debate, had managed to influenced three Liberal prime ministers (Menzies, Holt and Gorton) to support the project.

 

Baxter was reported as saying at the time about his stance on going nuclear, "The only way in which we can protect ourselves, I believe, is by having not machine guns and rifles, but the most sophisticated weapons that we can devise.

 

"And I put nuclear weapons in that too. And anything else which will enable one man to hold off 100."

 

The project, which was delayed after William McMahon became prime minister in 1971, was later put on hold indefinitely, despite efforts to keep the project alive.

 

Any hopes of a nuclear power industry in Australia effectively ended when McMahon lost government to Gough Whitlam's Labor in December 1972.

 

Whitlam's signing of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty in 1973 also ended any plans by the AAEC to provide Australia with the capacity to manufacture atomic weapons.

 

In 1998 the Howard-led Coalition government agreed to a Greens amendment to the National Radiation and Nuclear Safety Act (1998) to gain Senate support for a new research reactor at Lucas Heights. That amendment prohibited development of any other nuclear facilities. And so, it’s been ever since – nuclear power stations are banned by legislation. Yet the radiation sickness that grips political desire in the Coalition, despite the nuclear ban, continues to compromises rational thinking.

 

A resurgence of interest in nuclear power was prompted again by Liberal Prime Minister John Howard in 2007, in response to the need to move to low-carbon methods of power generation in order to reduce the effects of global warming on Australia – his no nuclear legislation, it seemed, had infected logical thinking. And just like Peter Dutton’s nuclear yearnings, was a formula for self-destruction.

 

In 2007, Howard’s nuclear whim became an anti-nuclear campaign, which was given added impetus by public concern about the sites for possible reactors; fears exploited by anti-nuclear political parties in the lead-up to the federal election that same year.

 

The Rudd Labor government was elected in November 2007 and was opposed to nuclear power in Australia – a position that Labor governments continue to hold.

 

Regardless of government policy, the anti-nuclear movement continues to be active in Australia, opposing the expansion of existing uranium mines, lobbying against the development of nuclear power in Australia, and criticising proposals for nuclear waste disposal sites. Yet the ‘yellow-cake’ sickness continues to infect Liberal Party politicians, with a fervour that is almost as explosive as that of a nuclear meltdown.

 

The irony of Peter Dutton’s proposal, which surely can’t have been lost on his party ‘per se’, is the simple fact - unless the Labor rank-and-file were to have an extraordinary change of heart – the issue was already dead on arrival.

 

Unless there is bipartisan support, Dutton's dream of nuclear power stations popping up like mushrooms across the Australian landscape has virtually no chance of being developed. A quick reality check would have made it extremely clear that there is no chance of the ALP changing their position.

 

The advice from government agencies and nearly all energy experts is that renewable energy will be able to provide more than 90% of Australia’s electricity needs at  a much cheaper cost long before a nuclear industry could be built from scratch. A rather ambitious claim considering the impact climate change is having upon weather conditions – wind and solar will contribute significantly to electricity demand and battery storage, but there will also be a gap to fill for continual supply of green, base load power into the grid.

 

This then raises the real motive behind Dutton’s push for nuclear power – it’s no secret that the LNP is increasingly entrenched in its opposition to solar PV and windfarms. It’s no secret that Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, in particular, and the rest of the National Party MPs, want coal and gas-fired power stations dotting the landscape. Yet, not surprisingly, many National Party politician’s reared up when it was announced by Peter Dutton that a disproportionate number of his proposed nuclear power plants would be in National Party held seats.

 

So, the problem for Dutton is that the Coalition can’t walk naked into the next election without at least a fig leaf for a net zero policy. Of course, the Nationals don’t give a toss about Net Zero, nor do they believe in climate change – they’re no more than political dinosaurs teetering on the edge of extinction. The problem is that they’re too dumb to realise what’s happening around them. But they have a ‘smidgen of smarts’ to realise that they can extract compensation from the Liberals for hosting any technology that they ‘crow about’. Why? Because it will fool the ‘rubes’ into believing that the ‘NATs’, along with the ‘LIBs’, are delivering on the net zero promise. In their uranium-radiated minds, nuclear power plants can be that fig leaf.

 

The National Party’s nuclear madness

 

Five years ago, just before the Nation had to come to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic, Barnaby Joyce was telling anyone who would listen that free nuclear power could be offered to residents living close to a reactor. This, Joyce maintained, could help build support for the controversial technology, while at the same time contending that an analysis pinpointed those Australian towns that were best placed to host a nuclear plant.

 

At the same time, just two months after the 2019 election, disgraced and dumped Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce was part of a maverick band of MPs pushing for nuclear power. Joyce imagined that he had a saleable argument to convince the naysayers.

 

The key to the NAT's argument was their unremitting reasoning that nuclear energy protects air quality by producing massive amounts of carbon-free electricity.

 

Joyce even said that he supported building a nuclear reactor outside the upper Hunter town of Muswellbrook. He made no distinction between burning coal or using enriched uranium to make power at the former Liddell Power Station site.

 

Well, Peter Dutton has now pinpointed his nuclear power station locations, but many of the NATs are far from happy – cries of “not in my backyard" have resounded loud and clear. The loud bloke in the pro-nuclear hat, who's anything but renewables – describing renewable energy development as a “swindle” and wind turbines as “filth" - is out of touch with his electorate and the way forward for the country’s energy needs.

 

Out of touch

 

The truth, which Joyce needs to come to grips with, is that his New England electorate not only wants renewables, they love renewables.

 

Just because they vote for Joyce doesn’t necessarily mean that they like him or agree with him – he was the best of a less plateable bunch of candidates for an electorate that is rarely contested.

 

Amid all of his nuclear pontificating, Joyce is no fan of the Paris climate change agreement either. Last month he was calling, along with his mate Keith Pitt, to abandon the agreement and the related emissions reduction targets – it seems there’s more than the usual amount of CO2 being exhaled in parliament.

 

Let's not also forget that Joyce issued a challenge to Chris Bowen over nuclear energy following the release of the CSIRO's scathing report last month. But the LNP fell flat on its face when Chris Bowen requested the CSIRO to re-run its modelling on the basis of how technologies, such as nuclear energy, "are actually utilised across the world and how they would be deployed and operated in Australia".

 

Treasurer Jim Chalmers responded to Joyce’s assertions and said the CSIRO has “completely torpedoed” the “uncosted nuclear fantasy” of Peter Dutton.

 

“The madness of this, I think, is laid bare in the CSIRO report. For Australia, we have immense opportunity in the renewable sector as the world transitions to net zero and one of the key motivations of the budget was to ensure that Australia grabs the vast industrial and economic opportunities presented by the global net zero transformation.”

 

What is the future?

 

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) argues that their Integrated System Plan (ISP) for The Australian National Electricity Market indicates that, by 2035, renewable energy could meet almost 90% of network demand. This is an astonishing leap looking at today's market, with coal and gas supplying over three quarters of requirements.

 

The 2024 Integrated System Plan further confirms that the optimal, lowest cost pathway to deliver net zero by 2050 is to dramatically accelerate the development of more renewables combined with energy storage and transmission.

 

Nuclear does not figure in AEMO’s analysis given it is the most expensive solution, as confirmed by the CSIRO’s most recent GenCost report.

 

A spokesperson from the Clean Energy Council said, “While the rate of renewables is not where it needs to be today, we are confident that governments and industry are working together to continue to unlock the barriers to investment. We are optimistic therefore that we can deliver the level of renewable energy required to reach 82 per cent by 2030 and net zero long before 2050.

 

“In any case, GenCost suggests that Australia’s remaining coal-fired power stations are set to close over the next ten years. As we know, nuclear is at least 20 years away and does not have a role to play under the lowest-cost pathway for renewables, storage and transmission.”

 

But the problem that exists with the AEMO and Clean Energy Council argument is that windfarms are prone to breakdowns – ten per cent per year after three years from the date of their commission; then there's inevitable delamination and lightning strikes – and wind isn’t a guaranteed continual 24/7 source. Solar PV farms only generate power during the day and are subject to weather conditions being ideal to maximise power generation. Batteries can store power to be used when wind and sun generation is not at its maximin, but heavy and continual discharge loads can quickly deplete storage capacity – continual charge and discharge also shortens battery life exponentially to between eight to fourteen years.

 

So, what is the solution? Fossil fuel and nuclear generation is not the answer for a sustainable green power solution – neither is complete dependency on windfarms, solar PV farms, batteries and pumped hydro.

 

What I, as someone who produces clean energy and stores it on site, and hasn’t had to think about paying an electricity bill for more than twenty years, is that not only the Opposition, but also the current government, can’t see the ‘electricity wood for the trees’ for those people, including industry, who are dependent upon a grid power supply.

 

Despite the amount of power that renewables, such as the wind turbines and photovoltaics,  will provide, we still need a guaranteed and constant supply of base-load energy – ‘Concentrated Solar Thermal Power’ (CSP) can fill the gap, ensuring that our countries energy future is clean and sustainable.

 

Like an old vinyl record, stuck in the groove, the Grapevine has continued to report on this technology. Why? Because it is the obvious answer to our renewable energy solution – one that is now being embraced worldwide.

 

To recap, CSP captures heat from sunlight, then uses it to produce 24/7 electricity. No emissions are generated during the process. One of the only real by-products is waste heat, but this can be utilised for purposes such as water desalination, or in food manufacturing, such as the new CSP system being developed for MARS Foods in Victoria.

 

The federal government knows about CSP and so does the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen. The Grapevine has never failed to bring to Mr Bowen’s attention the stories that we have published on the benefits of CSP. So, why isn’t the Albanese Government ‘talking CSP up’ as part of the Nations move to Net Zero and a clean and sustainable energy future?

 

The Federal Government has just loaned Vast Energy $110 million toward the cost of building a $200 million, 30 MW CSP plant in Port Augusta, South Australia. Yet CSP uptake is still slow in comparison to solar PV and wind. Why? Because the government believes it is not currently competitive with other large scale renewables for electricity generation in Australia.

 

Ironically, the cost to build a CSP plant is far cheaper than coal, gas and nuclear and has a lifespan exceeding fifty years. Compared to the lifespan o solar PV, wind and battery storage it becomes fare more economical.

 

The AGL super battery, being constructed on the site of the decommissioned Liddell power station at a cost of $750 million, will have an expected life span of twenty years. It will only service 60,000 homes for two hours during the evening peak period, yet for the same investment a 100MW CSP generation plant, operating 24/7, could have been built.

 

So, why is there no ongoing government encouragement and incentives for private industry to invest in clean, base-load CSP energy supply? The economics stacks up!

 

It’s time our federal government looked beyond the trees – there’s a green energy utopia waiting to be found!