Adam Creighton opines that any financial adviser worth their commission will tell clients not to eschew entire asset classes. Diversify, they will insist. You can never predict the future, and even confident forecasts often prove wrong. The same principles should apply to energy security. But when it comes to the Australia power supply debate and our nuclear options in that mix, nothing but silence.
As of last year, 30 countries operated 450 nuclear reactors for electricity generation and 60 nuclear plants were under construction in 15 countries, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. That includes 20 in China and the giant Hinkley nuclear station that has been commissioned by the UK government. Yet Australia, with up to 40% of the world uranium reserves, lacks one, beyond the small medical facility at Lucas Heights.
South Australian blackouts have rightly shifted attention on to the Australian dysfunctional National Electricity Market, and the absurd prospect of the second-largest LNG exporter in the world facing a domestic gas shortage from next year. But the interminable slanging over coal and gas on the one hand, and solar and wind on the other, takes place with no mention of our vast uranium reserves.
Even a recent report from South Australia 2016 Royal Commission into nuclear power has not excited much debate. The Commission did not find that nuclear power is too expensive to be viable or that it is yesterday technology. Rather, it found that a nuclear power plant of currently available size at current costs of construction would not be viable in the South Australian market under current market rules, it reported. South Australia has had either the highest or second-highest average wholesale electricity prices, and the most volatile, for the past nine years, which has hurt the state stricken economy.
Cost aside, nuclear power offers a vastly superior path to a low-carbon emission future than solar and wind power because its 100% reliable.
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Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-