Nuclear is the cheapest low-carbon source of electricity around, so it can keep bills down and the lights on - Charles Hendry, the (UK) Energy Minister

Days after Germany announced it was going nuclear-free, Charles Hendry, the Energy Minister, said the UK will build a new generation of power stations.

He said that the eight sites earmarked for new reactors will offer 5,000 jobs, as well as supplying a cheap form of low carbon electricity as coal-fired power stations close down.

"Nuclear is the cheapest low-carbon source of electricity around, so it can keep bills down and the lights on.”

 "The wider economic benefit cannot be over-emphasised - around 5,000 jobs could be on offer at each of the eight sites we listed as suitable for development, and as we develop a domestic supply chain, all parts of the country could gain from a nuclear resurgence."

"We are on the brink of the biggest nuclear renaissance since the 1950s.”

 "The 16 gigawatts of new nuclear generation planned by industry equates to investment of around £50 billion with the construction of each reactor delivering investment equivalent to that for the 2012 Olympics."

Yet Julia Gillard will sentence every Australian to a life term of unreliable renewable energy from Solar and Wind.

Instead of blowing $36 billion on the NBN, Gillard could have guaranteed all Australians cheap, reliable Carbon Dioxide free nuclear energy.

You know she isn’t serious in tackling so called “Dangerous Climate Change” when the obvious answer to replace “evil” coal fired power is nuclear.

 

Andy Semple

Follow him on twitter @Bulmkt

Comments

[pip]

1.

No

[Marksouth]

2.

"We are on the brink of the biggest nuclear renaissance since the 1950s.”

At least one government minister in the Western world isn't living in fantasy fairy land! Good to hear.

[Anton]

3.

nuclear is cheaper and more reliable than any known "green" energy source.

But it does not even come close to coal in Australia (about 4 times the cost).

[Charles Everist]

4.

love it how the labor pollies try and highlight how wonderful a conservative UK government is for being tough on carbon......maybe labor should keep following them....

[pk]

5.

Anton, you are correct for now. I much prefer to see our innovation and funding going into actual renewable and clean energy options (for which there is a v. bright future) than having the build containment structures for nuclear waste which must last 100 thousand years (yes that is 20 times longer than the Sphinx, the oldest man-made structure in the world).

Never mind the billions of litres of water required for nuclear.

Nor the 15 years+ it would take to build any reactor in this country.

Nor the security/target for terrorists issues.

Nor the mining and selling uranium to warring nations issue (India V Pakistan anyone)

[pk]

6.

Anyway, I sorta don't grasp why anyone here would care about carbon emissions and alternatives for coal anyway- since AGW is all make believe, right?

[Michael Webb]

7.

Nuclear has virtually everything positive going for it except for one 'little' thing. Storage of used nuclear materials that take an eternity to lose their ability to get into the ecosystem and into us and give us cancer and God knows what else.
I think we should stick with coal burning until newer forms of safe energy production are viable.

The great moral economist, Dr Schumacher of "Small Is Beautiful" fame devoted a whole chapter, a life time ago, about the hazards of going nuclear. He could not be accused of being biased as he was neither from the Right or the Left.

[TerjeP]

8.

Michael - most of that "waste" can be burnt up in generation IV reactors and make electricity in the process.

[Dallasbeaufort]

9.

I want carbon coal as it delivers better value heat and does not tax as much, and the other plus, it heats up the climate and that can only be good for civilization.as their is to much ice around, and if the greens and labor think it is a bad thing well let them freeze, NB the earth balances out any addition which man is likely to make and that amount is infinitesimal. Any nappies are now put in the dryer.

[Vikas Nayak]

10.

The selling of uranium has been a closed issue, we sell to pakistan (via china), and we dont sell to india.

[Col. of Blackburn]

11.

We have a vast sparsely populated continent, why should storage be a problem. Our governments have built expensive desalination plants, we can use them for water, also what is wrong with using recycled sewage?
They can be sited alongside existing power plants. Where can I buy shares?

[Pia Robinson]

12.

Meanwhile, Germany is decommissioning its nuclear plants, following events in Japan.

[pk]

13.

"The selling of uranium has been a closed issue, we sell to pakistan (via china), "

Well that makes me feel a whole lot better Vikas.

[Andy]

14.

Meanwhile, Germany is buying nuclear power from Finland and France, following events in Japan.
Pia, Germany just outsourced it.

[pk]

15.

At least they're taking steps Andy, as soon as actual renewable technology is avilable en masse (and I assure you it will be) they'll switch, without the hassle of local job-loss and local profit-loss for german people - making an easy transition for them, which in turn will cause the demand will dry up for nuclear power from those who still produce it.

Smart, those Germans.

[pk]

16.

Not to also mention in the meantime their homeland is free from the threat of spills or prime terrorism targets............

[Brian Adshead]

17.

There is so much hype around this subject! My limited research,as an interest only, is that Nuclear is now around 6-7c per kWh with coal only slightly less. However, when you add the cost of mining and transporting coal, Nuclear is way ahead. Also the idea that you have 'Piles' of nuclear waste is also false. It appears that the total amount of nuclear waste at the end of the Nuclear Power Plants life is now about the size of the average household refrigerator.
Regards
Brian

[%).]

18.

"There’s no such thing as nuclear waste! This nasty term was invented just to stop the development of civilian nuclear power.

The spent fuel from nuclear power plants is actually a precious resource: About 96% of it can be recycled into new nuclear fuel. No other fuel source can make this claim—wood, coal, oil, or gas. Once these fuels are burned, all that’s left is some ash or airborne pollutant by-products, which nuclear energy does not produce.

Thus, nuclear is a truly renewable resource. Furthermore, unlike wind, solar, and other so-called alternative energy sources, a nuclear fission reactor (the fast reactor or breeder reactor) can actually create more fuel than it uses up.

In the Atoms for Peace days of the 1950s and 1960s, it was assumed that spent reactor fuel would be reprocessed into new reactor fuel. The initial plan was for the United States and other nuclear nations to have closed nuclear fuel cycles, not “once through” cycles. In the closed fuel cycle, uranium is mined, enriched, and processed into fuel rods; then it is burned as fuel and reprocessed, to start the cycle again.

“Burying” spent fuel (as planned for Yucca Mountain) was not in the Atoms for Peace picture. Why bury a fuel source that could provide thousands of metric tons of uranium-238, fissile uranium-235, and plutonium-239 that could be used to make new reactor fuel?

But, as explained below, the U.S. stopped its reprocessing program in the 1970s and instead now stores spent nuclear fuel, waiting for a long-term burial site. Despite the scary headlines, the total amount of spent fuel in storage in the United States is small. The U.S. Department of Energy stated in 2007: “If we were to take all the spent fuel produced to date in the United States and stack it side-by-side, end-to-end, the fuel assemblies would cover an area about the size of a football field to a depth of about five yards.”

Excerpt from link: The Myth of Nuclear ‘Waste’
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14724

[Andy]

19.

Wind Energy won't get any cheaper for this very reason:

Each 1.5 MW wind turbine of a type frequently seen in Australia has a tower 80 meters high. The rotor assembly (blades and hub) weighs 22,000 kg. The nacelle, which contains the generator component, weighs 52,000 kg. The concrete base for the tower is constructed using 26,000 kg of reinforcing steel and contains 190 cubic meters of concrete. Don’t forget the rare earth’s found inside the nacelle.

Unless the cost in construction amazingly decreases (which it won't), these things will alway cost a BOMB to install.
Not to mention you need new Pylons to carry the intermittent power.

The POMs worked out to replace 1/6th of their energy with wind energy would require a land area bigger than wales or 1/3 the size of Tasmania.

PK - Wind Energy is a con, the economics will never stack up.

[pk]

20.

Once again Andy you seem to have limited knowledge about what options are available in the renewable sector, a contempt for you technological minds working on renewables right now and a disregard for the possible job growth with these technologies and companies.

Its not all wind turbines and this years technology Just so you understand. It is also about tidal power, geothermal, decentralised solar, and correct use of design to ensure no wastage of energy use we presently have.

I guess you could have denied the possibility of DNA based medecine and crime solving 20 years ago, because the the human genome had not been totally sequeneced at the time - using arguments for the future with todays technology is premature, negative and short-sighted.

[pk]

21.

Here are some quote you might find in a similar vein as you Andy...

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” - Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” — Albert Einstein, 1932

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.

[Andy]

22.

Good try PK, but you can't build and install wind energy totems without all the gear I explained - you need thousands of Kgs of steel and tons on concrete per wind energy totem. You know that so stop your nonsense.

[Andy]

23.

you love making assumptions about people, don't you PK.
You know nothing about me so stick to the topic of the post and cease your stupid assumptions about me and others who happen to disagree with you...

[pk]

24.

Are you ever going to stop talking about wind turbines as the ONLY renewable energy option going Andy? Did you even read what I posted about what else may be out there now and, more importantly, in the future?

We can't use renewables, cos windfarms don't work.We can't use renewables, cos windfarms don't work.We can't use renewables, cos windfarms don't work.We can't use renewables, cos windfarms don't work.......

it's getting tiresome...

In the meatime, nuclear is still not seen as an viable option for Australia. Not by the Australian population, not by Australian pollies of any stripe.

[Andy]

25.

PK,
The purpose of this post was to expose the lack of vision exhibited by both sides of politics – the reality is Nuclear power is the only form of zero carbon dioxide emissions baseload power. Hydro would be the next cab off the rank but the leftards and ecotards don’t want either. They place their misguided faith in intermittent renewables of solar and wind.
Geothermal doesn’t work here – only in places like NZ’s Rotorua where the volcanic activity is close to the surface. Sinking a 2 km pipe into the ground won’t make for via geothermal – just look at Flannery’s failed Geodynamics investment.
Tidal may offer some alternatives but that would be restricted to towns/cities along the coast.

[Col. of Blackburn]

26.

@PK
I am a proud Australian. I am a recipient of the National Medal and the Australian Defence Medal, I have devoted more than half my life to the service of Queen and Country. I am in favour of Australia building nuclear Power Plants. Go chew on that! ;-)

[Andy]

27.

I'll read you "posts" PK when you actually contribute to MH with an actual post. What's stopping you?

[pk]

28.

Andy, "you're we'll never to do this" & "we can never achieve that" as some kind of argument against renewable energy is not really an argument-more of an opinion against resource managment options for tomorrow, based on technology as we have it today.

This is as short-sighted as 150 years ago considering whale oil or steam engines the only possible options for powering the twentith century.

[Andy]

29.

PK,
the cold hard facts are that renewables – Wind and solar don’t stack up economically and the only way to make them “economical” is to jack up the price of coal/gas fired power plants to such an extraordinary high price.
That’s Green economics for you. When the alternative can’t be made cheaper, just jack-up the price of everything else and the solution is solved.
The reason Australia has been so prosperous for many decades is because we have enjoyed the competitive advantage of cheap reliable base load power.
Gillard’s and the Greens will flush that down the toilet for ZERO environmental gain. You know that and I know that and only a misguided fool would think Gillard is on a winner.

[Grantley]

30.

Ah yes, there is a very bright "future" for re-newables...for so long as the subsidies remain in place for the "jobs" provided....Germany subsidising some $240,000 per job and Spain has had enough, walking away from its subsidies as the money runs out.

Ah yes, a very bright future.

[pk]

31.

I wouldn't call and end to air pollution in the entire country zero environmental gain...

"Geothermal doesn’t work here – only in places like NZ’s Rotorua where the volcanic activity is close to the surface. Sinking a 2 km pipe into the ground won’t make for via geothermal – just look at Flannery’s failed Geodynamics investment"

not yet- all in good time. Never say never, when you don't know the prospects. I don't suppose you watched 7.30 on the ABC tonight? I suspect not.

Oh BTW Geothermal does have the capacity to power the entire country 20 times over...if only the government would stop giving money to coal (yes- they give millions to the coal industry- don't for get that) and get more to Geothermal and kickstart a new clean industry........ or don't you like capital investments for nation building? Not a fan of the snowy mountain scheme and the like?

[Anton]

32.

Given that the coal mining industry pays royalties and environmental levies, as well as using the monopoly rail service, ON TOP of company taxes, what are these "millions in subsidies" the lefties keep crying about.

Or is that just more Getup bullshit

[Michael Sutcliffe]

33.

(yes- they give millions to the coal industry- don't for get that)

What millions? The government does not subsidise coal. You and Bob Brown both need to provide some evidence if you want to make that claim. It's a lie.

That silly old screwball Brown was referring to the fact the coal industry was not yet taxed! The fact the coal industry is not taxed more means the coal industry is being subsidised! He's a retard.

[Michael Sutcliffe]

34.

or don't you like capital investments for nation building? Not a fan of the snowy mountain scheme and the like?

I only like them when the benefits outweigh the costs, like the Snowy Mountains scheme. With most things to do with 'climate justice' your side admits the costs are going to be huge and the tangible long term benefits somewhere around nil.

[Andy]

35.

It might come as a complete surprise to you, PK, but I, like millions of other people, was watching the State of Origin 3, not some garbage on the ABC.

What sort of loser watches the ABC when State of Origin is on...seriously

[pk]

36.

Ah northerners!

Sorry Andy, I follow The National Game (and the oldest codified football in the world) and care not for some insignificant code followed 2 two states.

Come down to the 'G' one day with 70,000 others (yep that's a regualar Victorian AFL match crowd - not a final) and learn what real football is all about.