Nuclear Energy

[stylofone]

I'm not sure of the accuracy or currency of this, but I just read that nuclear power in the US consumes 3% of the country's fresh water, so it's obviously an issue.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/styles2/

How it Works: Water for Nuclear

The nuclear power cycle uses water in three major ways: extracting and processing uranium fuel, producing electricity, and controlling wastes and risks.

[stylofone]

The coalition's nuclear policy is at odds with the major science institutions and the corporate giants of the energy sector.

The energy industry is unanimous in pointing out how crazy that plan is, in terms of cost, emissions, and reliability. And the ISP underlines the sheer scale of what needs to be built in the next two decades to replace and cope with a big increase in demand, driven by economic growth, green industries and electrification of homes, businesses and cars.

AEMO locks in renewables and storage to replace coal, as Australia urged to go faster

AEMO planning blueprint confirms that renewables and storage the cheapest and smartest way to replace coal, and nuclear would be too slow and costly. But is the rapid transition quick enough?

[stevebrooks]

Ah Dutton, lying again!

promising the ambitious project will be more efficient than replacing wind turbines “every 25 years”.

Actually, it's not, the math has been done on this, and even with the replacement if turbines the long term cost of wind power is far less than the long term cost of nuclear, but funnily no link are provided in the new article that support Dutton's claim, it's a just, "he says" thing.

Now regardless of which is actually better, this is a straight out lie. Straight costing clearly indicates this, but even clearer, increasing the number of wind turbines decreases the cost of electricity to the public, because apart from turbine replacement the power is essentially free. Increasing the number of nuclear power stations does the opposite because it increases the cost of waste removal and storage, and a running nuclear power station has static costs that don't drop if you increase the number of them, and increasing costs in water usage, waste disposal and eventual decommissioning costs.

GenCost found that a grid with 90 per cent wind and solar power (by 2030) would generate electricity at $70 to $100 a megawatt hour.

Coal generation would cost $85 to $135 a megawatt hour.

Small modular reactors would generate electricity at $210 to $350 a megawatt hour.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/envi ... 6c484fc542

[stevebrooks]

Dutton and nuclear again;

“In Ontario (Canada), people are paying one-third the cost of electricity that they are here in Australia because they’ve got nuclear in their system. I just think we need to have a sensible debate. We can’t run a modern economy without stable electricity.”

What he fails to mention in regard to Ontario's lower power costs is that Canada generates over 60% of its power using hydroelectric.

In fact the nuclear power in Ontario is the 2nd and 3rd most expensive source of power, the most expensive being, of course, gas fired power. So in fact nuclear power is actually raising the average cost pf power generation in Ontario, not reducing it. Also let's point put that the method Ontario is using to create a stable supply of power isn't actually the nuclear plants, it's the new gas fired peaker plant used to generate power in periods of high demand, so almost everything said in that paragraph by Dutton above is wrong.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/envi ... 4fdc26fcae