Nuclear energy is more expensive than renewables, CSIRO report finds::Renewable energy provides the cheapest source of new energy for Australia, a new draft report from the CSIRO and energy market operator has found.
Just read the article again and it’s kind of suspicious the way the article ends by saying that natural gas will have to be part of the future energy mix. Seems like there might be some co-optation going on, or at least a failure to consider the costs of trying to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the power supply using just wind and solar.
Well the issue with renewable power like wind and solar, is that they are not stable.
Having a battery in order to store the energy and release it when the demand is higher than production is one part of the solution.
But what happens when there wasn’t enough solar and wind to replenish the batteries if those batteries aren’t enough for the demand? Power shortages, which are pretty bad to get.
One of the solutions to this is natural gas for a simple reason : it’s very fast to start generating power or to stop. It’s also not very expensive, at least when there isn’t a war… The co2 equivalent emissions aren’t as high as coal either.
Nuclear power on the other hand is very hard to stop. Having a surplus of power on the grid is also very bad. Some of it could be used to recharge the batteries, but there would be some loss at some point.
Except that H2 can be electrolyzed from water and is an emerging carbon-free fuel source. The nuclear power can just stay on all the time and we let H2 production drop a little when the wind is low and the sky is dark.
It’s another solution, now there is also issues with costs. However with time the costs can be reduced.
For hydrogen based on this video : https://youtu.be/M0fnEsz4Ks0 there could be some hope for large hydrogen storage for a smaller cost (not used in cars tho, due to the weight).
Hydrogen production however is/was very ineficient. However there is also some hope for this https://youtu.be/m0d6iljzzEI
So with this, maybe it could be an interesting solution to store energy.
Tho I’m not sure how efficient it would be to produce energy from that stored hydrogen, and how efficient it could be for the entire hydrogen production/storing/electricity production chain.
Even if the current technology for producing zero-emission hydrogen is relatively inefficient, that’s not really such a problem since it’s a zero-emission process.
Especially when the bulk of your hydrogen production comes from excess energy generation
The issue isn’t emissions, it’s costs. Sadly we don’t live in a dream world, and everything has a cost.
Even running excess production into hydrogen production has costs (transport, storage, infrastructure…).
The current (not taking in consideration the new tech currently in testing) beeing highly ineficient creates many cost issues.
Less effieicnt means that more power needs to be used to get that amount of hydrogen, reducing the gains on electricity surplus.
The storage beeing ineficient means a higher running cost, more space used, less of that space…
The transport beeing ineficient also increases the running costs, but also the emissions if the transport uses fossil fuel. Of it uses hydrogen, well it increases the running cost even more. That expensive produced hydrogen is used for transport…
The electricity production from hydrogen being ineficient increases the used hydrogen to get the same energy amount, which then increases the costs because more of that expensive hydrogen has to be used.
So taking all this into account, being “clean” doesn’t necessarily make it is viable compared to other storage or energy production tech.
The costs have to be taken in account because resources don’t appear magically.
Mining Uranium has a cost. Buying it from abroad has a cost, paying people to maintain all that has a cost…
There is no shortage of bullshit from budding energy companies.
The only people writing articles about energy are lobby groups.
There is a propaganda campaign going on in Australia at the moment from the natural gas lobbyists with ads on the TV where they’re pimping themself out as “partners in the transition to renewable energy”.
Also this report is being used by both sides of politics here, one saying it rightfully justifies focusing on renewables and the other claiming it’s being “used unfairly as a weapon” against nuclear energy. Also, the latter is pimping nuclear instead largely because they’re controled by mining companies who have a lot of political influence here oh and we also happen to dig that shit out of the ground.
Energy generation that works most of the time is more expensive than energy generation that only works some of the time, big surprise. Mason problem is that we need energy all the time and currently can’t store it on a grid level.
More like fission requires massive shielding, tight control of procedures, waste storage sites that don’t exist, and in-depth inspections in order to remain safe.
Yeah, I don’t disagree but it’s a proven technology that can provide a baseline load for the grid. Something we can’t yet do reliably with renewables
There are tons of options for that, mainly energy storage such as batteries, hydro, and green hydrogen. Nuclear is not needed and too expensive among other things.
Hydo is limited in where it can be used and where it can be used if often already is. Batteries can’t yet provide a grid level base load. I don’t know much about green hydrogen but there’s usually a loss of energy when converting from one medium to another.
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Look, I’m all for renewable energy, where it makes sense. When I lived in southern California, BLM had so many wildlife restrictions in place, even for off-roading it was kinda nuts. A lot of it dealt with tortoises. Shortly after moving out of state, they started building solar farms all over the place. They’re massive multi dozens to hundreds of acres in size. Many of them in the same areas they got all worked up about for the tortoises…
Generating the power is only a third the battle. Still need to store and distribute that power. Factor in power demands etc.
What I’m trying to say is, as a species we need to get better. This is a good step. However, the power output of a single nuclear plant to the size shouldn’t be overlooked. We should stop fossil fuel reliance. Nuclear is at this point very understood. Yes some bad accidents happened in the past.
It’s worth pointing out too that we aren’t using newer designs as much, which incorporate inherently safe features.
It’s actually ironic. If we built new reactors we could build breeder tractors to generate fuel for them from nuclear waste. This fear mongering of nuclear energy prevents us from reducing that number.
This is basically common knowledge now. CSIRO report pointed to similar conclusions for several years, at least since 2021 when I started to notice.
What is relevant to real life (since Australia probably never will get nukes) is that even assignning system costs only onto VRE, they are still almost the same LCoE in a 90% VRE system. This is again consistent with previous reports.
After Australia pass 100% VRE, exporting green hydrogen in the regional market will probably handle the last remaining flexibility needs. Exporting electricity directly to SE Asia is less likely but still a possibility.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The report says electricity generated by solar and on-shore wind projects is the cheapest for Australia, even when accounting for the costs of keeping the power grid reliable while they’re integrated into the system in greater proportions over time.
It estimates the changing costs of electricity produced by coal, gas, solar, wind, nuclear, bioenergy, hydrogen electrolysers, and storage such as pumped hydro and batteries.
CSIRO’s scientists say until recently, discussions about the potential cost of using nuclear energy in Australia have remained theoretical, with a lack of data from completed commercial projects hindering attempts to make worthwhile calculations.
This year’s draft GenCost report also provides more data on the estimated “integration costs” for variable renewable technologies.
It says most new-build technologies, like renewables, can enter an electricity system and provide reliable power by relying on existing capacity already deployed, but as their share increases, which forces the retirement of existing flexible capacity, the system will find it increasingly difficult to provide reliable power supply without additional investment.
"Mind you, the integrated system plan was released last week and it did emphasise that although it is likely to be a renewable future, we’ll still need gas as a supporting technology.
The original article contains 754 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Renewables cannot main grid frequency, which is crucial in America. We transmit AC power. You either accept nuclear or accept no electricity. This is fear mongering propaganda to keep us dependent on fossil fuels because that’s the only other way to maintain grid frequency.
This article also specifically says IN AUSTRALIA. So it isn’t even a comprehensive statement. We need nuclear. Get over it.
I eagerly await all the Nuclear fanboys to explain why this unfairly overestimates the cost of nuclear or was put out by the fossil fuel industry to <checks notes>… make renewables look good.
Let’s not nickel-and-dime the green transition. Nuclear energy has a role to play, and so do renewables. The most urgent thing now is to get as much electricity generation off fossil fuels as possible. Building nuclear power plants is an important part of this, especially in countries like China and India which would otherwise default to burning coal.
Okay, but which power sources divert the most wealth to the working class (ie, which one provides more higher paying long term jobs)?
Despite what you learned from The Simpsons, jobs at powerplants of any kind make up an insignificant percentage of overall jobs and wouldn’t be an issue raised when considering much larger issues such as economies, environmental health, and the climate.
You may be confusing power generation with power infrastructure. Infrastructure has many more jobs but is generally not too concerned about the source so long as there.is power.
I was thinking of all the manhours needed to engineer and build a nuclear power plant (and all of its subcomponents) in the first place as well as maintenance and refueling.
Still very inconsequential to other concerns and opportunities.
Think of how much work a bee colony is spent on the Queen. Lots of jobs, sure, but an insignificant percentile when factoring the colony. So long as there is a queen of sorts.
