Nuclear, and Labor's lying lips

It accepted a $20 billion bid from a South Korean consortium to build four commercial nuclear power reactors, totaling 5.6 GWe, by 2020 at Barakah. Unit 1 of the country's first nuclear power plant was connected to the grid in August 2020, followed by unit 2 in September 2021, unit 3 in October 2022, and unit 4 in March 2024.

But as Bowen, Albo and other Labor luminaries claim, "nuclear costs a bomb" right? (oops, pretty obvious pun there guys, let's keep Hiroshima and Nagasaki out of the equation).

Well no, according to the WNA, on a levelized (i.e.lifetime) basis, nuclear power is an economic source of electricity generation, combining the advantages of security, reliability and very low greenhouse gas emissions. Existing plants function well with a high degree of predictability. The operating cost of these plants is lower than almost all fossil fuel competitors, with a very low risk of operating cost inflation. Plants are now expected to operate for 60 years and even longer in the future. The main economic risks to existing plants lie in the impacts of subsidized intermittent renewable and low-cost gas-fired generation.

Labor is quick to criticize the Coalition's scheme as "uncosted" but has never stated the overall cost of its own heavily subsidised green energy transition, including truckloads of financial backing to private companies. Albo obfuscated and dodged the question from Peter Dutton in the House this week, but an independent expert group Net Zero Australia, claims it will be between $1.3 to $1.5 trillion.

ABC finance guru Alan Kohler recently had this to say: "As for Australia's capital requirement, the outgoing head of the Net Zero Economy Agency, Greg Combet, told the National Press Club that 'hundreds of billions of dollars will be needed to achieve Net Zero in Australia by 2050'.

And the rest.

In July last year, a research organisation called Net Zero Australia (a collaboration between the Uni of Melbourne, Uni of Queensland, Princeton and Nous Group) put the cost for Australia at $9 trillion by 2060, or hundreds of billions every year for 36 years…"

That makes nuclear seem a bargain.. But here's a constructive tip for the PM whose promenading on the world stage earned him one of his nicknames - Airbus Albo:

Pack all the nuclear nay-sayer Labor Premiers, Queensland's out of touch LNP Leader David Crisafulli and Victorian Liberal fence sitter John Pesutto along with your Energy Minister Bowen and take an overseas jaunt that actually may bear fruit.

First stop France, whose President Macron called on Australia to lift its nuclear ban after our government rejected a nuclear pledge at the Cop 28 summit last year.

The declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050 was endorsed by more than 20 countries at the UN climate change conference. When asked by 17-year-old Nuclear for Australia founder Will Shackel about nuclear energy's role in global plans to decarbonise, Macron said he hoped Australia would manage to lift the ban. "Nuclear energy is a source that is necessary to succeed for carbon neutrality in 2050," he said.

Well, despite his faults, Macron knows that France produces 70 percent of its energy from nuclear and exports power to other EU green dream believer nations such as Germany and Italy: