Guide:
- The dilemma faced by new energy power generation
- Why oppose the nuclear energy program
- The driving force behind the Coalition's nuclear energy program
Australia's opposition parties have recently put forward an ambitious nuclear energy plan to build nuclear power plants to deal with the current energy crisis. According to this plan, opposition parties will build nuclear power plants at seven sites in five states. These nuclear power plants will be built on the site of existing coal power plants, and the cost of new power infrastructure can be reduced by using a ready-to-use cooling water system and transmission infrastructure. The first nuclear power plants are expected to start operations between 2035 and 2037.
As mentioned earlier, opposition parties have expressed such intentions at international nuclear energy activities. After the announcement of the plan this time, the reaction from all sides of the government was very fierce. Not only have the Labor government produced data from institutions such as CSIRO (Australia's largest national research institute) to support the ridiculousness of the plan, but state governments have also expressed their opposition to nuclear energy.
So is Australia really facing an energy crisis? What are the prospects for the development of nuclear energy? Is the nuclear program an election chip for opposition leader Darton? This article will analyze these aspects.
The dilemma faced by new energy power generation
Australia's new energy sector, particularly wind and solar, is being constrained by a lack of transmission infrastructure. This is also a key reason why the opposition is now proposing a nuclear energy program.
Today, when rooftop solar panels are widely used in Australia, the daytime power supply is in a state of surplus for a long time, and it is normal to sell electricity back to the grid at negative prices. However, due to the lack of transmission infrastructure between states, when one state is short of electricity and neighboring states are surplus with electricity, the fragmented electricity market is unable to allocate resources, resulting in wasted electricity.
The latest grid blueprint released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) shows that the investment required in transmission, generation and storage will reach $122 billion by 2050. With the retirement of coal-fired power generation units, there is an urgent need to invest in new energy generation, energy storage and transmission to ensure power supply.
To meet its current 2030 target, AEMO is proposing to spend $3.4 billion on transmission network upgrades and builds. Eventually, investment in transmission will reach $16 billion by 2050, accounting for 13% of total investment.
AEMO plans to expand 2,500 km of new lines from 10 existing transmission projects, of which 7 are being planned and delivered. By 2050, nearly 10,000 kilometers of new transmission lines will need to be built.
With such a large-scale project, it is extremely difficult to complete it on time. The resistance is twofold:
1. Environmental approvals: The construction of new transmission lines requires a rigorous environmental approval process to ensure that no irreversible damage to ecosystems is caused, a process that is often complex and time-consuming. For example, the approval of a major transmission line project in Victoria took years and led to protests from environmental groups.
2. Landowner negotiations: New transmission lines need to traverse large amounts of private land, and negotiations with landowners are often long and difficult. In negotiations for a new transmission line in Victoria, landowners collectively argued that the new high-voltage transmission towers would interfere with modern agricultural technologies such as GPS navigation machinery, manned or unmanned aerial vehicle spraying and rapidly growing automated agricultural equipment.
While the state government has offered a compensation package of $8,000 per kilometre per annum, landowners have argued that the compensation is not sufficient to cover the damage.
Therefore, in the construction of transmission lines, the hidden costs are often much higher than estimated. So far, the Australian government's planned new energy power generation is facing big problems. The opposition, the coalition, saw the moment to propose a new solution, claiming that the costs under the nuclear energy programme were lower. But how much credibility is there?
Reasons for opposition to the nuclear energy program by all parties
Although the opposition believes that nuclear energy is an important way to solve Australia's energy problems. But after the release of the nuclear energy plan, it hit a wall at every turn. The main reasons are the high cost and long lead time of construction:
Kane Thornton, chief executive of the Australian Clean Energy Council, noted that it would take at least 20 years to build a new nuclear power plant and would cost six times as much as wind and solar. According to the International Energy Agency, the construction cost of a nuclear power plant is usually about 2-3 times that of wind and solar power.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles believes that nuclear power will instead lead to a significant increase in electricity prices, which is bad for households and businesses. The Queensland Government estimates that the use of nuclear power would increase residents' electricity bills by more than 20 per cent.
These fears are not unfounded. The Hinkley nuclear power plant, built in the UK over the past 20 years, was originally planned to be operational in 2017, but is now not expected to be commissioned until 2031, and the cost has more than doubled. The Vogtle nuclear power plant, a large nuclear power plant in Georgia in the United States, was completed last year about seven years later than originally planned, over budget by about $25 billion. Similar projects in South Carolina were abandoned halfway through due to hidden delays and cost overruns.
With the efficiency of large-scale construction in Australia, it is impossible to complete the project according to plan.
The driving force behind the Coalition's nuclear energy program
According to the analysis of the Australian finance investment research team, the proposal of the coalition party's nuclear energy plan is very likely to be lobbying from the United States. First, the U.S. Senate prepares to submit a major nuclear energy bill to President Biden this week that aims to make changes to existing nuclear energy regulations. Allow more nuclear power plants to be built across the United States.
The bill, which passed the Senate by a landslide last week, is seen as a huge victory for the nuclear power industry, and its passage will make the construction of nuclear power plants faster and cheaper.
This time the bill interacts with the Inflation Reduction Act. The former solves the problem of regulating nuclear power in the United States, and the latter solves the problem of subsidies, which not only allows many nuclear power plants to begin to resume operations, but also brings more people involved, and we can even find some familiar figures.
For example, Oklo, a Silicon Valley nuclear fission technology company, with the support of OpenAI founder Sam Altman, is looking to build a small nuclear power facility in the United States.
Bill Gates also founded TerraPower and worked with his friend Warren Buffett to develop the fourth generation of nuclear energy technology. The duo chose the remote town of Kemmele to build a US$4 billion (A$6.15 billion) small modular reactor (SMR) with a generating capacity of 345 megawatts.
After the introduction of the above policy, the United States has been in full swing to arrange for lawmakers to visit Australia next month. MPs Neal Dunn and Bill Johnson both expressed their support for Australia's nuclear development on social media. Both lawmakers are of Republican background.
Although the two parties in the United States have differences on the development of clean energy such as solar and wind energy, it is the consensus of the two parties in the United States to support the development of nuclear energy, and the resurgence of the nuclear energy industry will be an inevitable trend in the future of the United States.
The United States is likely to want to cooperate with Australia's rich uranium resources by using advanced SMR technology, and Dutton's coalition party is just a mouthpiece. It is believed that in the future, these MPs will also have frequent contact with the Labor government after coming to Australia, and it cannot be ruled out that there will be changes in the Labor Party at that time.
Write at the end
China is the country with the largest number of nuclear reactors in the world and is currently the main buyer of uranium ore in Australia. In the United States, on the other hand, the number of reactors has decreased in recent years, but a series of recent US policies will reverse this situation.
The Australian finance investment research team believes that even if Australia's local nuclear energy policy is not passed, the prospects of the uranium industry are still good, and the world's demand for Australian uranium resources will only increase.
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