{"id":354349,"date":"2024-12-14T09:19:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T08:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=354349"},"modified":"2024-12-14T09:19:48","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T08:19:48","slug":"the-oppositions-nuclear-plan-saves-260-billion-but-its-still-53-renewable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=354349","title":{"rendered":"The Opposition\u2019s nuclear plan saves $260 billion, but it\u2019s still 53% renewable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From JoNova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jo Nova<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here in crazy Australia, we have too many renewables, but both sides of politics still want more<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Here in the Renewable Crash Test Dummy Land, both sides of politics think we should use our national grid for weather control,\u00a0which is good for President Xi<\/a>, but bad for Australians.\u00a0 The Opposition is pointing out that the 82% renewable purity target is bonkers, and we should add nuclear plants, while the Labor party are hell-bent on running the world\u2019s first experiment in wind and solar with not much hydro, no nuclear power and no extension cords to an international market that can rescue us. Literally no nation on Earth is this recklessly ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an election coming, and domestic electricity prices approaching escape velocity, both sides are sparring with economic reports. The government claims it can do a national wind and solar miracle grid for just $122 billion.  But Frontier Economics<\/em> put the cost at $594 billion. The opposition, meanwhile, has finally revealed the first serious costing of their big new nuclear power plan is $331 billion<\/a> (which is $260 billion cheaper), but it\u2019s still $300 billion we don\u2019t really have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awkwardly for Labor, both latter cost comparisons come from the same economists \u2014\u00a0Frontier Economics. A<\/em>nd as\u00a0Simon Benson points out in\u00a0The Australian<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0the energy minister might like to discredit them, but his own department uses the same team for energy modelling, so he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, in news that will surprise no engineer, a fifty-year-old technology will be about half the cost of a wild national experiment with technology so new,\u00a0half of it hasn\u2019t even been developed\u00a0<\/a>yet. The real surprise is that the difference is not bigger, and perhaps the reason for that is that the Coalition plan still has a lot of renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can\u2019t we just have cheap electricity, and skip the \u201cweather control\u201d fantasy?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, for Australians, no economists, academics, or over-paid bureaucrats, are looking for the cheapest option, which would be coal and gas \u2014 or exactly what we had 30 years ago. The invisible problem here is that the Coalition\u2019s plan is 38% nuclear and 53% crazy. (It\u2019s 53% renewables, or 53% unreliable, however you want to label it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia is currently 36% renewable<\/a>, and it\u2019s already too much<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Australia is well beyond the sweet spot of renewable energy, the more we add now, the worse it gets. We already have so much roof-top solar power we are savagely curtailing most of our solar grid scale plants,<\/a> even in early Spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One warm week and the grid is on the verge of blackouts<\/a>. We\u2019re paying industries to shut down<\/a> so the grid can survive a normal summer day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The small Alice Springs microgrid became too unstable <\/a>with little more than 13% solar power. A cloud rolled over and the whole town blacked out. Since that scare in 2019, other perfectly good solar plants have sat idle for 4 years in the Northern Territory<\/a> because the people running their grid are afraid their presence will crash the Darwin grid too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after the Sydney near miss, our own national grid manager has belatedly realized solar power threatens our largest cities and now wants emergency powers to switch off individual panels<\/a> spread across 4 million homes. And the South Australians want to force two diesel plants to return to service<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the surge of negative prices at midday is frightening off investors<\/a>. Jeff Dimery, the head of Alinta Energy, basically said electricity has to get a lot more expensive before an investor will even think of building something to replace coal in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt $58, I can\u2019t build anything to meaningfully prepare for coal to come out of the system. I can\u2019t build more solar, because we already have a glut of solar in the middle of the day, which is sending spot prices deeply negative. If I was just looking at the forward price, I would also be very wary about building new wind, because the margins would be slim to non-existent, and any curtailment \u2013 which is a growing problem \u2013 could be disastrous.\u201d\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When will one of our 27 government agencies find out what Australians really want to know \u2014 what grid would get us the cheapest reliable electricity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s have a plebiscite on whether we should be paying to \u201cfix\u201d the weather?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in the Renewable Crash Test Dummy Land, both sides of politics think we should use our national grid for weather control,\u00a0which is good for President Xi, but bad for Australians.\u00a0 The Opposition is pointing out that the 82% renewable purity target is bonkers, and we should add nuclear plants, while the Labor party are hell-bent on running the world\u2019s first experiment in wind and solar with not much hydro, no nuclear power and no extension cords to an international market that can rescue us. Literally no nation on Earth is this recklessly ambitious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":354354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818216,691818206,691819094,691823573],"class_list":{"0":"post-354349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-nuclear-power","10":"tag-renewable-green-energy","11":"tag-the-grid","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/OIG-71.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ubj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":266776,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=266776","url_meta":{"origin":354349,"position":0},"title":"Energy SOS Means SMRs: Small Modular Reactors Offer Permanent Power\u00a0Solution","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter Dutton has proposed converting old coal-fired power sites into locations for small-scale nuclear plants as part of the Coalition\u2019s future energy plan as the Opposition Leader launches his most strident attack yet on the \u201crenewable zealotry\u201d of the Albanese government.","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0NuScale-SMR.jpg?fit=1032%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0NuScale-SMR.jpg?fit=1032%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0NuScale-SMR.jpg?fit=1032%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0NuScale-SMR.jpg?fit=1032%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":266437,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=266437","url_meta":{"origin":354349,"position":1},"title":"Spectator: Aussie Opposition Leader\u2019s Call for Nuclear to Backup Renewables is Wrong","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Why Dutton needs coal not renewables or nuclear","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/00d478ce82-566b-4c2a-902e-d2a1abdcc0ad.webp?fit=1200%2C846&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/00d478ce82-566b-4c2a-902e-d2a1abdcc0ad.webp?fit=1200%2C846&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/00d478ce82-566b-4c2a-902e-d2a1abdcc0ad.webp?fit=1200%2C846&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/00d478ce82-566b-4c2a-902e-d2a1abdcc0ad.webp?fit=1200%2C846&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/00d478ce82-566b-4c2a-902e-d2a1abdcc0ad.webp?fit=1200%2C846&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":277685,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=277685","url_meta":{"origin":354349,"position":2},"title":"Resistance Is Futile: Net-Zero CO2 Targets Can Only Be Met With Nuclear\u00a0Power","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The fact that those pushing net-zero emissions targets aren\u2019t talking seriously about nuclear power, says it all. If energy policy is left in the hands of the wind and sun cult \u2013 and other weather-obsessed lunatics \u2013 it won\u2019t be long before we\u2019re all left sitting freezing or boiling in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-237.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-237.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-237.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-237.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-237.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":258707,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258707","url_meta":{"origin":354349,"position":3},"title":"Nuclear Now: Time to Scrap Subsidised Wind & Solar Scam & Back Serious Power\u00a0Generation","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Renewable energy rent seekers and the wind and sun cult hate nuclear power because it works, 24 x 365, whatever the weather. 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