Nuclear reactor proponents are never willing to admit power bills would go through the roof under their proposals.
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In their 2023-24 GenCost report, Australia's leading science agency CSIRO and the energy market operator AEMO outlined the cost of nuclear reactors against other sources of energy, confirming that renewable energy with storage is the cheapest form of reliable energy in Australia now and to 2030.
CSIRO and AEMO indicated the levellised cost of energy for renewable energy with storage at 82 per cent renewables - that's the government's 2030 target - would be around $91 to $131 per megawatt hour, while the same figure for so-called small, modular, nuclear reactors would be between $382 and $636 per megawatt hour.
The most optimistic view would be that even if we could overcome all of the insurmountable problems with nuclear power in Australia, our power bills would more than triple. Australians dealing with real cost-of-living pressures right now need to know nuclear energy would massively increase power bills.
Solar and wind, backed up by short and medium duration battery storage and long duration pumped hydro and other forms of storage, offer cheap, reliable, zero-emissions energy today and well into the future.
The exorbitant cost of nuclear reactors is just the start of the problems for nuclear proponents.The small, modular nuclear power station project pushed by nuclear lobbyists the world over collapsed last month after multibillion-dollar cost blowouts. So-called small, modular nuclear reactors are simply not commercial.
There are no such plants in operation outside of Russia and China and none under construction in Europe or North America, meaning there is no evidence of their safe and consistent operation or viability.
When they're not promoting so-called small, modular reactors, nuclear proponents, like Cristina Talacko writing recently in The Canberra Times, highlight the Barakah nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates. A single nuclear reactor like that here in Australia would cost at least A$35 billion, if you could get anyone to build it (you can't), someone to insure it (you can't) and had 25 years to spare (we don't). Who would pay the cost of this nuclear reactor? You would, through your power bills and through your taxes. And that's just one nuclear reactor.
This is before we consider safety and how to store radioactive waste for 400,000 years and the cost of storing it, which is conveniently ignored by nuclear lobbyists. And then there is the fundamental question of where nuclear reactors are going to be located, which is almost always ignored by the nuclear enthusiasts.
Thankfully, one of the biggest proponents of nuclear power, Barnaby Joyce, has been very upfront with his thoughts on where we could locate nuclear power plants, suggesting there would be a rush of proposals for "hills in the middle of towns that people want a reactor on". You could just imagine a nuclear reactor on Mount Ainslie or Mount Taylor.
Nuclear lobbyists suggest their small, modular nuclear reactors could provide up to 300 megawatts of energy. With around 20,000 megawatts of fossil fuel power stations facing retirement, you would be looking at around 67 nuclear reactors dotted around the country. That's a lot of hills in the middle of a lot of towns.
Nuclear is an expensive distraction. Nuclear power is not an option in Australia today or tomorrow or any time before 2045, at the earliest. We need solutions right now. We need climate action right now and nuclear is not that answer.
- John Grimes is the chief executive of the Smart Energy Council.
