August 14, 2024

Things to consider about Nuclear Power

SAMRs – UNPROVEN TECH

‘Small Modular Reactors’ (SMRs) are not yet commercially available. (1)

COST

$80bn+ each for 100 MW plant in 2023 dollars, global experience shows all nuclear plants have 40~200% cost over-runs. (2)
SMRs not yet costed, but likely similar for much less output. (3)
Future taxpayers (our children and grandchildren) will carry a debt of $1.5 trillion dollars according to 2024 Liberal-National nuclear policy. (4)

TIME

20 years minimum, allowing for planning time and all the technical studies needed. (5)
Meanwhile we would be relying on old fossil fuels – coal and gas – massively over-running our carbon budgets by 2030. (6)

MATERIALS TO BUILD

Not net zero: each requires 50,000 tonnes of steel and 225,000 tonnes of concrete in construction, releasing about 320,000 tonnes of CO2, approximately equal to the annual emissions of 16,000 households. (7)

WATER

60 million litres per day, which has to be cooled in a lake of many billions of litres before being reused, 5 times more than a coal-fired power station. (8)

Water consumption of diﬀerent energy sources:

(litres per kilowatt-hour of electrical output)

Nuclear	2.5
Coal	1.9
Oil	1.6
Gas	0.95
Solar PV	0.11
Wind	0.004

RISK

Australia is geologically stable, but earthquakes still happen, so the risk is not zero. A failure such as Chernobyl or Fukushima would be an existential threat to those living nearby. (9)

WASTE STORAGE

This is the biggest unknown – there is no clear solution, either in the technology or the location.

Technology: the most stable lock-up for nuclear waste is not impenetrable enough to be simply put awayand forgotten, it must be secured and monitored for at least 100,000 years (the half-life of the most dangerous of the by-products like Polonium. (10)

Location: Australian people and governments could not come up with an agreed location to store the low volume low grade medical waste from Lucas heights. How will we ever agree on a safe location for much larger volumes of very high grade toxicity nuclear waste? (11)

SOURCES

1.
https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/report-small-nuclear-reactors-an-uncertain-and-unproven-technology-that-could-delay-australias-transition-to-renewables/

2.
https://www.synapse-energy.com/sites/default/files/SynapsePaper.2008-07.0.Nuclear-Plant-Construction-Costs.A0022_0.pdf

3.
https://energypost.eu/small-modular-reactor-cost-overruns-the-same-old-problems-haunt-new-nuclear-in-utah/

4.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-option-costs-six-times-more-than-renewables-study-finds/

Planning & approvals timeframe:

https://reporter.anu.edu.au/all-stories/the-coalitions-nuclear-plan-does-it-add-up

Construction timeframe:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/

6.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-big-nuclear-plan-a-serious-joke-that-is-mad-bad-and-dangerous/#google_vignette

7.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2023.1147016/full

https://fhr.nuc.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/05-001-A_Material_input.pdf