Clean energy for Australia: the elegant solution

I don't believe anyone in the battery world claims to have expected or predicted this advance. Conventional battery precedents would have suggested that the lithium EV battery would grow in three dimensions to reach greater size, power and range. Instead, EV battery success turned up in the form of a shallow metal box, very strong, roughly rectangular, with a wheel at each corner. The box is packed with thousands of interconnected small cells and serves most elegantly as a car chassis with a very desirable low centre of gravity.

The "shallow box" idea came initially from General Motors in 2002. It had been dubbed the "skateboard chassis" or "skateboard platform". Remarkably the inventiveness and elegance of the skateboard chassis has passed almost unnoticed. With one small exception. On YouTube you can find a "commercial" for a fictitious "Mercedes AA Class EV", a skit made around 2016 featuring comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Seinfeld fame). She explains how the car is "powered entirely by 9648 AA cells (batteries not included)", with "trunk space for spare batteries" and a "battery auto-dump feature". It's very funny but inevitably doesn't do full justice to the elegant invention it mocks and its remarkable success story.

Now for the contrast, the inelegant clumsy, messy, energy technology heading for failure. I refer to "solar and wind renewables", used worldwide for decarbonising electricity generation and heavily favoured in Australia. Let's call it "solar/wind". There are many energy technologies labelled renewable. Hydroelectricity is the world leader. However, dry flat Australia it is generally considered to be close to its hydro limits. Solar/wind will be where the clean growth occurs.

Solar/wind energy was already popular in 2001 when clean energy policies for reducing emissions were introduced by Australian governments. Those policies used renewable energy targets. Nuclear energy, also clean, did not qualify; in Australia it had been banned by law in 1998. There is much political, institutional and public enthusiasm, even passion, in Australia's support for renewables. Unsurprisingly emotions are distorting perceptions. One symptom is that exaggeration of rates of progress for the transition to renewable energy is common. True rates are much less than the authorities and media boast. Hence my recent conclusion (Australia's Clean Energy Experiment, On Line Opinion 8 July 2024); under present policies "we have no chance of meeting the clean energy needs of an all-electric fossil-fuel-free modern industrialised economy".

The solar/wind solution lacks elegance. At the individual component level, solar photovoltaic technology in modern solar panels is certainly elegant. Australia can be proud of its scientific contributions in that field. However at the system level solar/wind power shows its lack of elegance. Huge numbers of relatively small components, like 130 billion solar panels and large numbers of wind turbines, occupy much of the Australian landscape and are widely regarded as unsightly.

As noted above, nuclear energy plays no part in Australia's energy transition and remains illegal. Could the hypothetical nuclear solution be elegant?

Renewables advocates tend to be obsessed with the problems they see with integrating nuclear technology into existing renewables-based networks. They might have a point but it's hardly a deal-breaker. If there is, or was, a superior solution it should be recognised now and implemented as soon as feasible, regardless. The proper approach is to evaluate nuclear energy on its merits and deal with other issues separately.

Let me suggest a scenario appropriate for evaluation. Assume nuclear has become legal but is still to be used. Also assume a suitably simple model of Australia's present generation, a grid along the eastern coastal regions like the present NEM (National Energy Market) electricity grid, of total capacity 35 GW powered by 35 coal-fired generators, each rated at 1 GW (1 GW = one billion Watts). Assume that grid will be decarbonised by replacing every coal power station with 35 nuclear power stations each of one GW. Note that land area is not an issue. Nuclear plants each occupy about 4 square kilometres of land, slightly more than coal.

The result – zero fossil fuel, zero CO2 emissions, and a continuous, reliable clean power supply of 35 GW, available on demand. Replacement of coal by nuclear is all that's needed to complete the transition.

There are further benefits. One-for-one power station substitution needs no new transmission. Fuels store energy so a new nuclear-fuelled system needs no added electrical storage. Costly new requirements of added storage to support weather-dependent generation systems disappear. Australia's present and future reliance on importing huge numbers of renewables system components from a potentially hostile nation ends.

Simple and elegant. Of course Australia's historic powerful distaste for nuclear technology will cause huge political problems. Elegance won't stop them. One issue renewables advocates like to point to is construction rate. They say that solar/wind systems can be installed much faster than nuclear. The common refrain is that "nuclear is slow and expensive". Yes, many recent nuclear construction projects have failed to meet deadlines. However the nuclear construction industry globally has been in a slump since around 1990. A revival could well increase competition and performance. Also the big picture for renewables is less encouraging of speed than advocates suggest. In 2023, after some 20 years of growth, just 13% of world electricity generation came from solar and wind. For Australia the figure was 28%. So, not very fast. And certainly not strong enough to rebut the case for adding nuclear to the options.

The loudest political objections to nuclear in recent times have related to cost. There is much room to be sceptical, especially in light of the global nuclear construction slump. And how can reliable construction costs be obtained for Australia where it's a crime? Construction projects are normally discussed between customers and contractors, specifications defined, quotes submitted, etc. None of that is possible for an illegal technology. I try to imagine a drug dealer getting a quote for a new meth lab in Sydney.