Some issues with the energy minister’s claim that nuclear is just ‘hot air’

Solar is 2 percent, wind 3 percent, nuclear 4 percent, and coal a massive 25 percent. These are 2022 figures, the latest available, and while they show renewables a long way from overtaking coal, they also show nuclear at a very low level, albeit higher than either wind or solar.

But to measure the prospects of the different technologies you have to ask what job it is that each can do.

Plainly if coal, gas, and oil, which produce on-demand power, are to decrease, then nuclear is the only technology that can replace them. This argues that the world in a couple of hundred years is likely to be dominated by nuclear.

The extent of the actual, planned, and projected build of nuclear also makes a mockery of the few cherry-picked examples of nuclear projects, like the UK's Hinkley C, that are in trouble and that the minister relies on to "prove" nuclear won't work.

He also claims: "The U.S. has now abandoned its "flagship" commercial-scale pilot SMR (promised back in 2008), wearing 70 percent cost blowouts without having started construction on a single reactor."

This appears to be a reference to NuScale, not in fact "the U.S." but a public company, which has had one project for its revolutionary design fall through.

If he, or his staff, had bothered, they could have gone to NuScale's website to find that while they have withdrawn from a project in Idaho they have several other projects progressing.

Nuclear too expensive?

Minister Bowen also claims that nuclear is un-financial. Well, if it is, then he has nothing to worry about as no one will want to build nuclear power here, preferring to stay with his favoured alternatives.

Except that his renewables are so "cheap" they can only operate with government subsidies.

The government relies on the CSIRO's GenCost report to claim nuclear is too expensive, despite international, real-world data that proves this to be wrong.

For instance, France is 70 percent nuclear, and has a price of electricity less than the average for Europe.

Here is the GenCost graph with their claimed levelised cost of electricity for various technologies. You will note that they say nuclear currently costs around 400 to 650 a MWh.