by SEAN BURKE – FEDERAL Energy Minister Chris Bowen has intentionally misled Australians on alternate clean power sources in an effort to justify his pet wind and solar projects.
With increasing numbers of Western nations destroying their energy independence by chasing unreliable and ideologically-driven green projects, Mr Bowen has again ruled out a nuclear path for Australia.
- You can’t have economic development if you don’t have reliable power.
- Nuclear is the only realistic pathway to net-zero.
- Yet, Mr Bowen has again ruled out a nuclear path for Australia.
In his latest attack on small modular reactors, the minister – described as Australia’s “dumbest man in politics” – presented five (already debunked) reasons why uranium-based generation should be ignored.
All five of Mr Bowen’s points, however, have been ridiculed by Canada’s Energy Minister for Ontario Mr Todd Smith, who said his State had been nuclear powered for more than 50 years.
BANNED
Mr Bowen this month claimed that nuclear – banned in Australia since 1998 – was more expensive, unproven, inflexible, created significant waste and had an unsuitable implementation timeframe.
His Canadian counterpart, meanwhile, told 2GB’s Ben Fordham today that this was not the experience of Ontario, which is currently installing its first small modular reactor to be commissioned by 2030.
“Our federal government has come around on nuclear as being the only pathway to net-zero,” Mr Smith said.
“This is because of the reliability factor and because of the amount of energy that can be produced from a very, very small footprint.
“You’re talking about a very small chunk of land that produces enormous amounts of megawatts.
“We’re seeing a big sea change not just in Canada but from around the world.”
Sixty per cent of Ontario’s energy generation currently comes from nuclear at a cost of between 10 to 11 cents per kWh. This compares to Australia’s average household electricity cost of 36 cents per kWh, according to GlobalPetrolPrices.com.
“Our previous Left-wing government was paying exorbitant subsidies to renewable projects such as wind and solar, which was driving up electricity prices and which was also unreliable and unsustainable,” Mr Smith said.
COMPETITIVE
“Nuclear power is base load power, it’s there 24/7, it’s power you can count on at a very competitive rate and it employs about 76,000 workers.”
He said Canada disagreed that small modular reactors were “unproven”, as Mr Bowen described them.
“We have modular technology that we have chosen in Ontario that is based on the ‘boiling water reactor’, which is a proven technology that we’ve had for 50 to 60 years,” Mr Smith said.
“It’s just a smaller, scaled down version of what we’ve been operating in North America for a long, long time.
“One of the things we like about the small modular reactor – like the one we’re building right now – is that not only is it going to be smaller and more flexible, meaning that you can locate it at phased-out coal generators, but it is a proven safe technology.”
Mr Smith said waste from nuclear was negligible.
WASTE
“The spent fuel that has come from our existing facilities over 50 years fits on the size of a football field – and small modular reactors will produce even less,” he said.
“If you were to measure per person in our country, the amount of waste that one person would consume over their lifetime would be equivalent to a Coke can.”
He said Canada had, for a time, mistakenly bought into wind and solar “in big way”, resulting in unimaginable economic problems.
“You have to have energy you can rely on,” Mr Smith said.
“You can’t see economic development if you don’t have reliable power in your jurisdiction.
“Nuclear is a base load, non-emitting power source that you can count on – and we’ve had enormous economic development here in Ontario of late.” PC
Ben Fordham/Todd Smith Interview
‘Blackout’ Bowen believes that nuclear energy is far too expensive and far too dangerous – even though it’s a longer-term cheaper option than either solar or wind and statistically it’s the second safest form of energy generation.
Nuclear power plants operate in 32 countries and generate about 10% of the world’s electricity. The USA is the largest producer of nuclear power followed by China, France, Russia, South Korea and Canada.
France has the largest share of electricity generated by nuclear power at about 70%. China has the fastest growing nuclear power program, followed by India.
Meanwhile, our Federal Minister for Climate Change & Energy, the unbelievably incompetent Chris Bowen, ridicules the idea of extending our nuclear energy capabilities. He obviously believes that all these 32 countries’ governments are wrong and only he is right. His level of arrogance is mind-blowing.
The man is a dunce and needs to be quickly replaced before he does any more harm to Australia’s economy and our image overseas and to each of us personally through higher energy bills and inflated retail prices. And all of this nonsense for no measurable improvement because Australia only produces 1% of global CO2 emissions. It’s insane and he needs to be stopped.
Ask Blackout Bowen and any of your family, friends and neighbours who have or are considering an EV where they expect to recharge in future as base load supply is dodgy and the authorities shut down local grids to avoid grid destabilisation.
Explain that they are not saving the planet, most emissions are from natural sources. Australia’s emissions from human activities are a tiny 1.3 per cent of global emissions, China alone increases output every year by more than Australia’s total. And, Australia is a carbon sink because of our small population and huge land area plus territorial waters. In other words we are naturally zero.
On the other hand as Blackout Bowen and other experts say, buy an expensive EV and use it as your back up electricity supply. But call an electrical engineer first is my advice.
By the way, what would EV virtue signal people say if you explained to them that most of the electricity grid supply is from fossil fuelled generators, and that burning petrol or diesel in an internal combustion engine is much more fuel efficient than burning coal to produce electricity?
Makes sense to me
The energy crisis now reaching boiling point could easily have been avoided if woke fools known as politicians and like minded followers of the climate hoax had thought it through, looked before leaping.
Since Federal Labor introduced their 30 per cent plus Renewable Energy Target after 2008, increased by Albanese Labor recently to 80 per cent plus, and incentive to invest in wind and solar “farms” amounting to more than $12 billion every year in a subsidy for profit, State governments with primary responsibility for electricity supply have sold, leased and even demolished coal fired Power Stations. Essential base load generators that regardless of wind and sunshine generate electricity 24/7.
The RET transition is not cheap and is becoming more expensive, not unit prices for a Wind Turbine or Solar Panel, the system, number of units per farm required, removal and replacement every 15-25 years, back up generators such as gas fuelled, pumped hydro, batteries, grid stabilisers, transmission lines from every “farm” to main grid and now a new main grid dedicated to wind and solar transmission. As a complete package the system, if ever completed, will have cost far more than replacement over time of coal fired power stations or nuclear energy power stations.
Even when the Morrison Federal Government recommended four gas fired generators be built, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and one new HELE coal fired Power Station in North Queensland with Federal Government under writing the debt, so far just one gas plant is being built at Kurri Kurri NSW.
The former CEO of Snowy Hydro has estimated it would take at least eighty (80) years to build the wind and solar system. The accountable life of a Power Station is usually fifty (50) years but well maintained could achieve at least another two decades. We are going to need them.
If Small Modular Reactor nuclear energy Power Stations were ordered now from Rolls Royce UK or Westinghouse USA, or others, and Liddel coal fired Power Station was put back on line in New South Wales, and others were kept operating, the worst potential crisis could be avoided.
But note that governments Federal and State have made it clear that they will not support coal fired Power Stations, so why would the owners invest more money to maintain them?
Politicians have caused this mess and both sides deserve a ballot box baseball bat slaughter.