<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-needs-to-build-up-to-8000-smrs-just-to-catch-up-with-wind-and-solar-now-by-2035-they-might-have-5/>
"Australia’s almost indistinguishable far right political parties – the
Liberals, Nationals and One Nation – are pushing the nuclear barrow once again,
not for climate reasons but because of the “anything but wind and solar”
ideology demanded by their fossil-fuelled benefactors.
So it came as a timely reminder on Wednesday, when one of the world’s leading
green energy analysts, Michael Liebreich, underlined just how useless nuclear
energy is for dealing with climate change, and how far the small nuclear
reactors championed by many are from competing with surging wind and solar.
Liebreich is the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance and his address to the
Energy Efficiency Council’s National Conference also touched on the perils of
net zero targets (because it puts the focus on what’s really hard rather than
what’s readily achievable), and the overwhelming push for electrification for
“just about everything.”
But it was the nuclear hype that he was also keen to puncture, if only to
underline the sheer scale and dominance of wind and solar, and its rapidly
growing share of “useable” energy, as opposed to “primary energy” that ignores
the massive inefficiencies of fossil fuels.
SMR are still not being built but they are championed by some of the world’s
richest people, the AI and social media “tech bros” who are looking for ample
energy sources to power their massive data centre needs (while contracting tens
of gigawatts of wind and solar in the meantime).
“They (the tech bros) love nuclear, and they’re going to be very angry when
they discover what everybody discovers, which is nuclear is kind of expensive
and long and complicated,” Liebreich said.
“But even if they succeed, it’s not going to be a climate solution,” he said.
And the reason is that simply to match the output of wind and solar in the 2024
calendar year, the industry would need 1,250 of the 470 MW SMRs that are being
developed by Rolls Royce, or up to 8,000 of the much smaller SMRs pushed by the
likes of Oklo.
“If they build five by 2035 that will be a big win,” Liebreich said. “And so,
as a climate solution, by the time you did build 2000 Westinghouse SMRs, where
do you think wind and solar is going to be?
“It’s obviously going to have grown. That green curve is not stopping, it is
taking off, and you can see it’s taking off even in the countries that are
really trying to build nuclear.”"
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
