this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Nuclear Power Fanatic Peter Dutton Shows Off His Nuclear-Powered Christmas Lights — The Shovel (theshovel.com.au)
submitted 10 months ago by unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do those cost calculations account for energy storage as well?

[–] gumnut@aussie.zone 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Yep. The latest CSIRO/AEMO report published this week addresses exactly this, with various levels of renewables penetration modelled, including associated firming costs (additional transmission & storage) Here’s an overview (spoiler: renewables are still cheaper by far.) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-21/nuclear-energy-most-expensive-csiro-gencost-report-draft/103253678?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If u go look at the spurce document and not a report on the document i found a couple interesting things.

  1. Risk profiles have not been considered due to renewables variation etc
  2. The nuclear costs are all based on one reactor from a single startup and overlooked the multitude of other reactors around the world at significantly better prices
  3. Renewables where assumed to go down in cost but we have seen that the cost of storage has actualy been rising recently
  4. Why does the IEA think nuclear is still cheaper?
[–] CalamityJoe@aussie.zone 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are you able to link the source document?

However, as an example of why nuclear is seen as risky, time-consuming and subject to massive cost blowout and time delays, see Flamanville 3 ( https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx Under "new nuclear capacity")

It's gone from being a project started in 2004 to build a 1650MWe plant costing 4.2 billion euros (in 2020 euros), to an estimated completion date of 2024, at 13.2 billion euros.

And this is France, a country that is very familiar and well-versed with building nuclear reactors.

Without the source document, this may well be the example you use from your 2nd bullet point. But I wouldn't have called this a startup.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

THEY FUCKING MISSED AN ENTIRE CLASS OF NUCLEAR REACTOR. They had one fucking job compare all the power options and they ignored any reactor that was not a small scallable bullshit silicon valley hyptrain piece of shit. This "unbiassed" report funded with million of dollars just happened to accidentally forget the cheapest and most economically efficient reactor design this is heigly sus and very much looks like it is purposefully misleading. I thought the CSIRO was unbiassed but this is an aggressiouse error that canot be overlooked.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Their rationale for why larger Nuclear Reactors were not and could not be included in the report seem to make sense.

GenCost has been advised by stakeholders that small modular reactors are the appropriate size nuclear technology for Australia. Australia’s state electricity grids are relatively small compared to the rest of the world and planned maintenance or unplanned outages of large-scale nuclear generation would create a large contingent event of a gigawatt or more that other plants would find challenging to address.

In the present system, it would take two or more generation units to provide that role. As such, large-scale nuclear plants which are currently lower cost than nuclear SMR, may not be an option for Australia, unless rolled out as a fleet that supports each other - which represents a much larger investment proposition. 

The second issue is that observations of low cost nuclear overseas may in some cases be referring to projects which were either originally funded by governments or whose capital costs have already been recovered. Such prices will not be available to countries that do not have existing nuclear generation such as Australia. 

For more detail go to GenCost section 2.4.4 Perceived inconsistency between high nuclear SMR capital costs and low-cost nuclear electricity overseas from page 17. 

Have you actually read the report or do you just get your opinions from Sky News?

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I read the report then went and spoke to my engineering proffessor for nuclear engineering and confirmed that csiro where being dickheads. Why not include it anyways and still give that disclaimer and let the people judge still seems misleading to totally leave it out.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How would people be able to accurately judge the cost factors of a solution which cannot be priced properly as there are no projects to compare with? It would be completely useless in the report. That's without considering the time it would take for the supposedly "cheaper" Nuclear option to be operational. It would've been a good idea maybe 30-40 years ago, but it would not be suitable today considering the urgency of climate change

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

First there ars more large scale nuclear plants globaly bullshit we dont have a comparison. Second we dont know that they didnt run the numbers so we cant make the comparison.

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago

This is a 3 month old thread I'd rather not continue it as you have proven incapable of engaging with my arguments and the article

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 3 points 10 months ago
  1. Not sure what you mean here
  2. See Section 2.4.4 of the report
  3. Source?
  4. Source? IEA seems to see renewables as being important for emissions reductions by 2050 Source
[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world -5 points 10 months ago

Does this not only look at 2023 to 2024 would that not skew it towards options that have a low upfront cost? Nuclear is strongest in the longterm not over the period of 1 year.