Thread: Future of the Australian Electricity Market

The case for nuclear power in Australia, and I hasten to add that this applies specifically in Australia, is fraught with difficulty.

Before I address that, I note that the CSIRO have revised their costings on nuclear power. This is primarily because they have relegated SMRs to the bottom of the list for being relatively untested and also quite a bit more expensive at around four times the cost of renewables. The larger scale reactors are now the focus of attention costed at about twice that of renewables.

Hell, retail customers go into freak out mode if their bill goes up by 10%!

However, cost is not the full story as continuity of supply features heavily in the market requirements. Nobody wants blackouts and, mostly, the world at large does not want climate change (warming in particular). None of the barriers to nuclear power are insurmountable, but they do come at a cost both in terms of MW/hrs and time.

To put a nuclear station into place on the Australian grid the process would arguably be lengthy just for approval. Laws would have to be repealed, which as it happens, I believe they should be repealed simply because it removes an objection by the proponents, but then there is the problem of where to put one. The existing thermal sites have been touted as having the infrastructure, but the existing sites first have to be demolished (Fence Furniture raised this point with me) to make way for the new plant, so they are hardly a walk-in walk-out scenario and upwards of a year can be added for that to happen. However that could be contemporaneous with the approval process. Out of the existing infrastructure, only the transmission lines may be re-useable and as has been mentioned, they are barely suitable for purpose even now.

It would be debatable whether the staff of the old thermal plant would wish to move across to the nuke. I certainly wouldn't, but there again in that situation I would probably be demolished with the plant itself! With a minimum of ten years, and likely more, of approval and building many would be too old or about to retire and no staff would be needed for the first seven to eight years before procedures and commissioning got under way. What do you do for, say, seven years? Just sit and wait? It would be of reduced benefit for that workforce other than a few project managers and without nuclear expertise there may be very limited opportunity for transferring across. Would the local communities endorse a nuke in their backyard? Who knows? How receptive would the residents of Lake MacQuarie be to such a facility, bearing in mind that no community has yet put up their hand and said please put one in out backyard?

Moving on from these administrative and social details, there is the issue of size and size matters hugely here. The CSIRO report has confirmed what we already supposed on this thread. That is the SMRs are dead in the water because of cost and lack of practical experience. This by default leaves the full size examples and they are typically large. I looked at the reactors in the US and 800MW rising to 1300MW was the range, certainly for more recent installations. If you went back to units commissioned in the seventies there were a handfull around 500MW/600MW. Clearly, if you are going to the expense of building a nuke, you might as well make it big to reap the benefits of economy of scale.

Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia

These larger units are an issue for Australia where the largest is the single 750MW unit at Kogan Creek. Eraring's 660MW units were upgraded in 2011 to 720MW. Isolated large units coming out of service either scheduled, or particularly unscheduled, could be disruptive to grid stability in a relatively small system. Everything has to be reasonably in balance. It would be interesting to know what size units were used in the CSIRO's modeling and whether such things as de-commissioning costs were taken into account as that is a particularly onerous process, but one that is spoken about almost never (except here).

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by NeilS

Personally I'm neutral on nuclear, as long as it's NIMBY, but ...

I think that you are quite safe on that one, Neil.

Nuclear is clearly a federal issue which means that it must be located in Canberra - for all the reasons Canberra was created:

• low risk of naval bombardment,
• equally inconvenient from Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide,
• then a Country Party electorate,
• cheap land,
• etc.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Following a little bit of research as I did not know the cost:

"The SA-NSW interconnector, known as Project EnergyConnect, is currently under construction. It will link South Australia (SA) to New South Wales (NSW) and create a “new super highway” for energy exchange between the two states[COLOR=var(--cib-color-foreground-accent-primary)]1[/COLOR]. The project involves building a 916-kilometer, 330 kV high-voltage transmission line from Wagga Wagga in NSW to Robertstown in SA at a cost of $1.73 billion[COLOR=var(--cib-color-foreground-accent-primary)]2[/COLOR]. The total line capacity will be 800 megawatts, equivalent to powering an additional 240,000 households. While the project aims to enhance energy transfer and export opportunities, it’s important to note that the cost of constructing the interconnector is expected to add $6 to the average annual household bill in South Australia initially, with further increases in subsequent years[COLOR=var(--cib-color-foreground-accent-primary)]3[/COLOR]. The interconnector is a significant step toward a more interconnected and sustainable energy market in Australia. 🌏🔌"

Regards
Paul

thanks paul, must have got mixed up some where and added an extra zero to the 1 billion dollars its "predicted" to cost.

Originally Posted by havabeer69

thanks paul, must have got mixed up some where and added an extra zero to the 1 billion dollars its "predicted" to cost.

HAB

No problem. The original figure sounded a little high, but so does $1.73billion to me! Additionally, the budget is bound to blow out. I grew up in a time when a millionaire was a rich person: Not so today.

I heard a comment by a politician involved with costing Inland Rail that when they quoted the cost "they knew it was going to blow out." What!........Is there any truth and credibility skulking in a corner somewhere? It would appear not.



Regards
Paul

Anyone else see the news tonight

Guess eraring/origin threatening to close has paid off

NSW Government secures 2-year extension to Eraring Power Station to manage reliability and price risks | NSW Environment and Heritage