Scott Morrison tried to be very clear yesterday: Australia’s nuclear submarines would not be a Trojan Horse for a military or civilian nuclear program. That didn’t stop his announcement making people excited.
Within hours, the Minerals Council of Australia’s CEO Tania Constable called the move “an incredible opportunity for Australia’s economy”.
“Now that Australia is acquiring nuclear submarines which use small reactors, there is no reason why Australia should not be considering small modular reactors for civilian use,” she said.
The council has been an influential pro-nuclear voice for many years. And it’s hardly alone. Nuclear power is immensely popular in the Coalition ranks, particularly among the Nationals.
In 1998, Parliament passed laws effectively placing a moratorium on nuclear power. Ever since, the Coalition and the Minerals Council have pushed to repeal them. In 2019, Energy Minister Angus Taylor set up a parliamentary inquiry into ending the moratorium. The Coalition-dominated standing committee on the environment and energy recommended Australia partially lift it to allow small modular reactors.
Since then, the number of nuke-curious Coalition MPs has grown. By early this year two-thirds of Coalition MPs supported ending the moratorium. By June, Coalition ministers were talking about taking nuclear power to the election.
Another thing that happened in June that strengthened the nuclear push was the return of Barnaby Joyce as Nationals leader. In one of his first interviews as deputy prime minister, Joyce talked up the prospects of nuclear power, arguing it was Australia’s best path to net zero emissions. And last month, Nationals Senator Matt Canavan led another push to end the ban, claiming regional Queenslanders would be happy to have a reactor.
“Gladstone, I think, would support a nuclear power station with open arms because they want to keep their manufacturing jobs, their aluminium smelter, their refinery. There’s thousands of jobs there,” he said.
In parallel, the Minerals Council has campaigned hard for the ban to be lifted. Last year it started running Facebook and Instagram ads targeted at getting young people on board the nuclear energy train.
In Crikey yesterday, Richard Tanter, a senior research associate at the Nautilus Institute and honorary professor in political science at the University of Melbourne, said he was concerned the submarine shift would be used to further strengthen the case for nuclear power.
“This will bolster the case for nuclear power in Australia and aid the deeply ailing uranium industry,” he said.
Of course, it will be decades before the promised nuclear submarines will be developed. And building a small modular reactor can take up to half a decade. Nuclear power takes a long time.
Despite Morrison ruling it out yesterday, there’s very strong support for nuclear power within his party and among Coalition-aligned lobby groups. Yesterday’s announcement will clearly embolden them.
I don’t have a problem with the moratorium being lifted on nuclear – after all, it’s not as if nuclear power as anywhere near competitive with renewables on price.
Yeah, there is that. Who would fund a nuclear plant? Answer, the govt. Like a new coal powered generation plant, the only way one would be built would be by govt.
Let us assume:
It would be pointless building one PWR – they all need to be down for 5% to 10% of the time for maintenance & fuel swapping.
So a minimum of 2. But you would need them spread out for the electricity demands of the grid AND near a river (or the ocean if high enough above it). So maybe 1 near the Wivenhoe dam west of Brisbane, 1 on the Shoalhoven upstream of Nowra, 1 in the Latrobe somewhere, 1 at Murray Bridge, 1 between Yanchep and Joondalup, and 1 near Mandurah.
North QLD could have one just outside Townsville on the Ross River.
The NT wouldn’t need any due to the huge RE+storage system by then powering Darwin & part of Singapore.
Tas wouldn’t need it with more than enough hydro & wind.
So you would need 6 plants. Would you build 1 first & the others sequentially? Probably, because the first one is probably going to cost at least $25 billion & you would hope to get better with experience. If not, you will lay down $150 billion JUST TO BUILD THEM. For that price you better be REAL SURE (by a reasonable mix of technologists economists and financiers (not nuclear boosters + RWNJ)) that (RE + storage + green hydrogen peakers) cannot provide Australia’s power needs for half that price.
Just saying…
Oh come on. I spent ages trying to develop a realistic scenario as possible and all I get is one dislike?
Maybe it wasn’t obvious that only a crazy government would build it. I admit the events of the last week or indeed the last 8 years might lead some people to suspect that the government is indeed crazy.
Maybe someone didn’t like the mere attempt to work up a realistic scenario. Fair enough, but you have to show how mind-blowingly stupid the whole concept would be.
Was it someone who would hate to see their power bills if this went ahead (just assume they would be doubled if you have no solar)?
Was it Roger? A nuclear booster is bound to dislike anything realistic about nuclear.
Was it someone who thought 6 no 7 plants (oops that’s now $175 billion) was too many, or too few?
Was it someone who didn’t like me saying 6 plants when I mentioned 7 (sorry, Townsville was an option I thew in late)
Was it someone who thought $25 billion per plant was too small or too big?
Perhaps the person lives west of Brisbane, at Nowra, in the Latrobe, in the Adelaide Hills, north or south of Perth, or in Townsville.
I will probably never know…
Cej says: “I spent ages … and all I get is…” You have my sympathies! Crikey comments must get many more reads than responses. Carefully composed messages are more likely to resonate with the thoughtful readers, and that is worth a lot more than a mere click of like or dislike.
No it’s just that Crikey readers are more up-to-date with technologies than you.
Catch up by subscribing to Renew Economy’s daily (reneweconomy.com.au) newsletter, it’s what I read every afternoon after Crikey.
10+
It is like oxygen, after the miasmas elsewhere available.
Unbelievable there are still so many luddites out there who are radioactively infected with enthusiasm for nuclear.
If only labor hadn’t, yet again, jumped feet first in to support the libs. Here was their golden chance to have the libs own the French sub contract cancellation and NOT support any new sub contracts. Wow, they even could have said stuff like ‘we’d rather spend a hundred billion on social housing’, you know, stuff that would actually improve life in this country. Do they really want to win the next election?
I think ALP would rather keep the pressure on over Porter.
This subs deal and the AUKus thing is Morrison trying to defelct attention from the liability on his front bench.
Nuclear power advocates are the desk wankers of the energy sector.
Is there a commercial small modular reactor operating anywhere? If so, how do prices compare to renewables?
According to Roger Clifton the SMRs will soon be about $100/MWh.
Wind is roughly $50-$60/MWh and Solar PV is cheaper still.