Australia’s Nuclear Debate

Aidan Morrison, Director of Energy Research at the Centre for Independent Studies joins me for an update on the Australian nuclear debate which is shaping up to be a core issue in the approaching federal election.

Listen to Decouple on:

[jamiehayes]

This is an important conversation that most voters will never see. To cater to the electorate’s reduced attention span these points need to be put into a plain english video with lots of visuals. IMO

[Hoop-pidp]

Slow motion trainwreck, nah, we call it a complete shit show! The uneconomical wind farm Aidan mentioned is also proposed to be constructed in very steep land prone to landslips and in the immediate water catchment area for a large regional city. The additional costs for specialised erosion and sediment control, specialised foundations and road network costs have been excluded from the costings of this project so even if they get their full 64 turbines this project will never be commercially viable. Likely to sit in a fund managers approved green projects folder, but never built, just upend the local community and tarnish the remaining "social licence" that the renewable industry claims they have. A complete shit show it is..

[davidkelly]

We are sooo going nuclear, there is no other rational choice. It maybe not in the next 5 years, but when people start to really feel the pain, we will go nuclear.

[lynndonharnell]

I would prefer not to have remnant vegetation along the Great Dividing Range destroyed by windmills, powerlines and pumped hydro.

[lauchlanguddy]

You all know that the protests would be massive and it would never ever get off the ground.

[Michael-lgwz]

I thought Australia would have nuclear power twenty years ago but here we are. No one seems to talk about coal power toxins anymore

[whoguy]

$9 million per megawatt for nuclear power, $3 million per megawatt for coal, $1 million per megawatt for solar or wind. Nuclear is atleast three times more expensive, so are Australians ready to pay 300% more for power???

[higgos]

Uranium mining, nuclear energy, uranium conversion, spent fuel storage. We could be world leaders in this space instead of being just a quarry 🙏

[yooper]

Australia is crazy not to be at least 80% nuclear powered.

[PhotoVideoTechOz]

Nuclear Debate, more like Nuclear Opinion piece by Aidan Morris from the Centre for Independent Studies which is part of the shadow Atlas Network. Who include organisations Advance Australia, Australian Institute for progress, and many others that are against action on climate change.

Who started the CIS? Well it was donations from Santos, Shell, BHP, Rio.

[decem_unosquattro]

Low cost nuclear? 😂 There is no such thing as low cost nuclear. If you're going to build nuclear reactors they're full size reactors.

Small modular reactors?

No.

The problem with full sized nuclear reactors is the staggering cost of nuclear.

We are in a serious financial trouble in Australia now.

Our federal government is essentially bankrupt yet despite this there is this talk of building what 7 nuclear reactors?

Does Dutton have any idea of the cost of these reactors?

What would a reactor cost over the next 12 years or longer?

50 billion each?

Look at Olkiluoto 3 for example which has only just come online after what 12 years construction time.

Not only did it take much longer to build, the costs associated with it blew out by a factor of just under 3X.
Siemens and Areva sued and counter sued each other.

The Bulgarian mafia was allegedly involved in blackmailing welders and their families.

Sizewell C is also behind shedule and again way over budget.

Hinkley Point reactor again over budget and behind shedule.

Estimated cost 2016 18 billion UK Pounds now 47 billion...

Its estimated reactors take 15 to 20 years to build.

I hate to think what a reactor would cost now into the future.

As fuel prices increase so does the cost of reactors.

Already we've signed up for nuclear subs yet we are broke.

Now they trying to push to build nukes.

Lets just build coal powered stations.

Faster and cheaper.

[iamdrone]

30:30 Small nuclear reactors are promoted to gain favor with specific voter groups, rather than due to technical constraints. The push for these reactors is more about political strategy than addressing technological limitations.

[adamwMLB]

Great discussion - please have Aidan on as a regular guest

[chaptertravels]

The absolute smartest thing Australia could do is continue to burn coal, possible even build new coal stations if electricity demand warranted it. Then at the same time host every qualified Generation IV nuclear startup company to develop and build prototypes in the country. Provide a chunk of desert land, some infrastructure, and fuel, the rest of the funding is up to them. If any of them succeed at making a reactor that is cheaper to build and fuel than a coal station, slowly convert over to that technology and then export it all over the world along with the fuel.

[tokbucks]

Well nuclear power advocates never include the cost of storing nuclear waste

[GBiv]

Will Australia "privatize" this power source so we end up not getting cheap electricity? What will probably happen is the government use public money to get this going and then palm the asset off to one of their mates to take profit instead of providing cheap electricity to the public

[carneeki]

I'm in favour of nuclear power, I'm just not confident an Australian govt can make it happen by the time we've colonised other planets. Getting it done with a minimum of deadlines having rushed past would be nice.

[vincentcleaver]

Small, fourth generation nuclear needs to be part of every country's energy portfolio. You need nuclear derived radioisotopes for medicine, you need nuclear power plants for your navy, and by all means relie on China for wind turbines and pv

[davieb]

20:09, please remember that the Australian media is controlled Rupert Murdoch, and it's pretty easy to guess what his thoughts on the "voice vote" were.

[aevans]

Why are you interviewing a lobbyist?

This guy is as credible as a Campbell’s soup tin on the topic of Nuclear power generation in Australia.

He’s also paid to disinform, and has a clear agenda?