<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/angry-nuclear-lobby-backs-off-as-landmark-smr-deal-confirms-csiros-bleak-cost-estimates/>
"Over the last few years, the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator
have been under assault from the nuclear lobby and its amplifiers over their
annual GenCost report, which rightly points out what has been obvious to most –
new nuclear energy would be by far the most expensive power choice for
Australia.
According to Paul Graham, the CSIRO energy economist who leads the team that
prepares the draft and final GenCost reports each year, the nuclear activists
have been a lot quieter this year – and that’s probably because the GenCost
estimate has been proved right by real world experience.
“In 2024 we had 40 plus submissions that were really dominated by nuclear,”
Graham says. This year, he says, there have been 23 submissions, and the ratio
of nuclear submissions versus other technologies has flipped from around 80:20
in favour of nuclear to just 20:80.
“There has been a pretty big shift towards submissions from energy companies
and those focused on the things that we’re actually building – you know, solar
PV, wind, gas, battery storage, pumped hydro,” Graham says.
“That shift in this consultation was before the election, so you couldn’t say
that the shift was because this is a post, post election thing. It’s a nuclear
issue. I think maybe it was also because we’ve kind of run out of things to
kind of debate about nuclear in some senses. So, yeah, that’s been a welcome
shift.”
The reason, Graham suggests is the information that has emerged from Canada
confirming the cost of four small modular reactors that are to be built in the
province of Ontario, which already sources more than half of its generation
from nuclear, and was held up by the nuclear lobby as an act to follow for
Australia.
“The Darlington case is really important, because this has been the first
commercial scale Western project, whereas prior to this, we’ve … been using
information for things that haven’t really been built,” Graham says, in
reference to the NuScale project in the US that was cancelled because of high
costs.
“So they (Canada) have signed contracts with lots of suppliers. We think their
numbers are pretty solid, even though they only just started the construction.
So it’s $C21 billion for four 300 megawatt units.
“When you do the numbers at $A24,000 for the first unit, going down to $A16,000
Australian by the fourth unit. That’s pretty spot on with where we’ve been
saying costs are for this technology.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
