By Jo Nova
Quietly while Australians were talking about Grace Tame or Britanny Higgins the levers of industrial power are shifting gear
While Australia has a puritanical objection to nuclear power there are 437 operating reactors around the world producing 9% of global electricity. One day Australians might be as technologically advanced as Armenia and Bangladesh. We can only hope…
For the last fifty years, the leaders of the world in nuclear power have been the US first and then France second, and by a long way, but China is about to change that global tally board.
Currently operating nuclear plants
Click to enlarge (World Nuclear Association)
Under Construction
There are 78 Reactors Under Construction which will add another 78,986 MWe, and nearly all of that is in one country.
Click to enlarge (World Nuclear Association)
The tally board stands at 438 Operable Reactors with a capacity of 400,680 MWe producing 9% Share of Global n Electricity Generation and 2,667,383 GWh (2024).
Why aren’t we talking about this?
Australia even started to build its own nuclear power reactor back in the day, at Jervis Bay. I have visited the site. Construction was shut down by PM John Gorton (Liberals) in 1971. John Howard (Liberals) further banned nuclear power by law with the National Radiation and Nuclear Safety Act (1998) and Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999).
Very short range thinking regardless of whatever political reasons existed for these decisions.
Of course, Australia had the HIFAR and Moata experimental and medical isotope and training reactors since 1958 and 1961, now both decommissioned. HIFAR was replaced by OPAL in 2006 for medical isotope production and research.
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I think Australia as a country having a bright future and some forward-looking vision ceased to exist around the early 1970’s with Whitlam (Labor). It has been in decline ever since although given a false sense of security by the wealth created by the export of rocks and energy (including uranium!) which tends to hide the economic deficiencies to a certain extent. It’s not much different to any oil sheikhdom.
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I think we went down after Whitlam signed the Lima Declaration. It shut down so much of our industry. Compounding that was the things mentioned by David. I cannot understand any politician blocking our development. Maybe it is part of a plan by the elites.
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China is the global king of all forms of power generation. Nuclear might be on the only one they don’t dominate (but will soon). In another generation or two though, India will be nipping at their heels and eventually pass them up. And at some point in the very distant future, sub-Saharan Africa will likely start nipping at India’s heels. Population is king.
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They are leading the charge on Fusion Power.
‘China’s EAST nuclear fusion reactor has successfully kept plasma stable at extreme densities, passing a major fusion milestone and potentially bringing humanity closer to wielding near-limitless clean energy.’ (Live Science)
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And in small reactors, including types that don’t require a continuous flow of external water.
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America is now the largest oil and gas producer in the world and the largest fossil fuel exporter.
We have an added advantage: Elon Musk, who sees that power in space is way more efficient than on earth. Sounds ridiculous but tell, you what, you bet against him with your money. If you do, you won’t have it long.
US is also going back to more nuclear – just in time. Being anti-nulcear is stuck on stupid.
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Nah, sub Saharan Africa lacks the brain power to be a player on that scale.
It’s not purely about population, it’s about applied intelligence.
Europe has it, East Asia has it, sub Saharan Africa doesn’t.
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Correct. There is a great site which looks at Africa and why all African nations fail:
https://www.youtube.com/@BantuCityDiaries
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Our Opal Nuclear reactor is saving thousands of lives in Australia and around the SH, yet very few Aussies have a clue.
We should be building BASE-LOAD energy and coal, gas and nuclear are the obvious choice and delusional, unreliable, toxic, super expensive W & S are a sick joke and have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
And thousands of klms of the Australian environment have to be destroyed for the unreliable, clueless W & S delusion.
Yet our left wing idiots call this “clean and green energy”?
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That guarantees their rapid demise. None of the existing ones will be replaced because the Renewable Energy Theft runs out in 2030 and is already close to zero. None of the existing wind farms are economically viable to get new turbines.
All new wind farms require guaranteed return on investment from taxpayers to get off the ground (did you agree to that). So those contracts will need to be extended to existing wind farms for new machines as the existing ones reach end of life. And it is not a matter of just replacing the mechanical parts. The structural parts, including foundations, will need replacing because they are fatigued and new machines are generally larger so separation is greater.
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Aren’t new subsidy-harvesting installations subject to secret “commercial-in-condidence” subsidy arrangements which circumvent the existing mandated theft arrangements?
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They might be secret but I know they have guaranteed return on investment that is not associated with their output. It has been like that in the UK for a long time.
The downside for the proponents is if they cost more to build than agreed. At early stages, that may cause some investors to walk away but once substantial costs are sunk, they will carry on and accept a lower return.
The guaranteed return is based on agreed project cost. There will be some wriggle room if the government make changes or cannot guarantee land access but you can see how Labor is bulldozing farmers’ land rights to get land access.
The change from the RET is that the cost of new generators will fall on taxpayers rather than electricity consumers. It will give the appearance of lower electricity costs because electricity bills will be lower but taxpayer money will have to flood in because none of the new wind or solar plants are economically viable without the direct payments from general revenue. That is why it is secret. And only One Nation is asking what it will cost because LNP agree with what is being done.
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I recently visited the Albany wind farm. The first 12 turbines were commissioned in 2001 and 6 more were added in 2011. The future of all of them is under consideration.
Enthusiasts say they exceeded their design life and hence should be considered a great success!
According to Google AI the turbines are frequently shut down (curtailed) because there is too much rooftop solar.
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From Openelectricity.org.au “Albany wind and Grasmere farms are two wind power stations near Albany, Western Australia, owned by Bright Energy Investments. They are adjacent and are often considered a single facility. They have 18 wind turbines, with a maximum generating capacity of 35.4 MW of electricity. The original Albany Wind Farm was commissioned in October 2001, after ten years of planning. The wind farm has the capacity to produce 80 per cent of the electricity requirements of Albany.”
Ave 104MWh per day for the last year,(a small contribution), output in the last 7 days was 749MWh. The WA SWIS grid is shown as having 1106 MW of Wind turbine capacity (Similar to current Coal capacity) but produced 3938 GWh of electricity while coal produced 6111 GWh for the year even when being heavily curtailed to allow wind and solar generation when it’s available.
Google AI is correct, in the NEM (eastern grid) Wind had 3741GWh of electricity curtailed in the last year, as you say, caused by excessive rooftop (and Industrial solar) generation at the same time. Yet our idiotic Government and Bureaucrats have still aggressively pushed for more solar and wind turbine installations.
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That site used to employ a person to regularly collect and dispose of the sea birds that were impacted by the turbines. No numbers or details.
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Unlike Australia which has some of the world’s most extreme anti-energy policies, China realises that the key to industrial Civilisation and ongoing advancement in the standard of living is inexpensive and reliable coal, gas, hydro and nuclear power.
They also know that to keep their slave army of useful idiot supporters of the Left in the West happy, they need to have some token solar and wind plant for showcase purposes. These economy-destroying technologies are then sold on to stupid countries like Australia to destroy their economies and to eliminate economic competition.
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Not enough people in Australia are smart enough to realize this.
Australia is stuffed
The only way out may be ON!
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Time to end the …FEDERATION!…..each to their own. Will happen in time.
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Here’s a 4 minute video that shows us how the Ansto Opal Nuclear reactor is helping to save lives all around Australia.
Nuclear medicine is a wonderful new tool to save lives and yet some left wing loonies get upset if you even mention this in a casual conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHCOBL2_3ZQ
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Australia should have nuclear power just like they do in proper countries but we should also have coal, gas and hydro.
Whether a nuclear power reactor is chosen or not should be purely an economic decision given the site location and proximity to alternative fuel sources like coal.
An Outback location might be ideal for nuclear, but a replacement for the prematurely and maliciously destroyed Hazelwood, right on top of a coal mine, would be better as a coal power station.
I am not even opposed to wind and solar provided it is built on private land and has absolutely zero subsidies or forced purchase arrangements including subsidised transmission lines. This expensive and unreliable electricity could be sold to rich Leftists who can also run their own batteries to collect power when it’s available. Smart meters would allow such arrangements.
Australia’s “foremost” scientific body, CSIRO, have already demonstrated their anti-energy, anti-nuclear, pro-Official-Narrative bias and should absolutely be left out of any decision making process.
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I believe that there are suitable locations for small and large-scale reactors in Australia. As you say, the preferred sites for large reactors are on existing power stations. Small reactors are ideally suited for larger country towns that are on the end of long expensive transmission lines.
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Back in the 1970s Victorian SEC engineers and surveyors identified 120-130 suitable sites in Victoria for hydro plants, some of which were mutually exclusive.
Of course, they would have also been really handy to have as water reservoirs as well.
None have been built, in fact no dams since the Thompson and Dartmouth dams were completed in the early ’80s, even while Melbourne’s population has more than doubled.
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Where are all the Leftists protesting against Chinese nuclear power?
Or coal?
Or gas?
Or hydro?
Or China being the world’s largest CO2 emitter, by far. With more than double the emissions of the United States.
And building two coal power stations per week.
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Opening their Shein and Temu packages which arrive every 2nd day from China. My wife (who is no fashion aficionado) now gets the bulk of her clothes from Shein. Every couple of months she puts an order in and it arrives about a week later from China ( or Vietnam or Thailand – not sure ). Probably now buys only about 10 % of her clothes from shops.
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Same place they were when they were protesting about the French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll back in the day while the Chinese were carrying out underground nuclear tests in China that were closer to Australia.
Never expect standards or consistency from leftards, they don’t have any.
They think if having standards is good then having double standards is double plus good.
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Here Chris Kenny talks to Adi Paterson about the Ansto Opal nuclear reactor and how he was warned not to promote Nuclear energy for Australia.
We were very lucky to have Adi as a new Aussie from Sth Africa and his common sense and knowledge is very clear from this interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_OMFGmitMg
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Jo’s right about the Grace Tame/ Brittany Higgins thing. Australia has wasted so much time in the last 10 years over trivial pursuits. Wasted time involved in elections and referendums and you could hardly say either have contributed positively to our national well-being. The present fuel crisis is just a perfect example. Where was all the media scrutiny and discussions regarding the lack of fuel storage and refining capability in Australia. Nup, people were more besotted with how all the couples in MAFS were going or who was going to win The Block. China, on the other hand, well, their version of government seems to be like a D9 bulldozer. Just keeps ploughing on through all the undergrowth to clear a path for people to follow. It’s not just Australia mind you. You hear the same criticism of nearly all western democracies. So, here again with nuclear power ( and electricity generation in general ) the Chinese have stuck to a long term plan, never wavering, just keep going like an economic bulldozer. What has Australia done in that time- changed Prime Ministers many time over, enabled gay marriage and voted down a racial division system that no one wanted in the first place. That’s ok, because we’ve got nice weather and lovely beaches. Also, do great coffee, dont forget the coffee.
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Tried asking GROK to describe the Chinese form of government. Kept spitting out a very long winded response. Managed to get it down to this :-
“China’s government is a centralized one-party authoritarian system ruled solely by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with Xi Jinping as its paramount leader. Officially a socialist republic under “people’s democratic dictatorship,” it features no competitive multi-party democracy, with the CCP controlling all key institutions, military, media, and society under the banner of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Ok, so a bit like Canberra then with one party, the Uniparty controlling everything so that it’s “socialism with Australian characteristics”.
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China’s form of government is quite different to Australia.
Australia simply follows the dictates of the unelected UN bureaucrats based in New York. The Australian stooges are implementers of UN policy, not leaders. None of those in government have had an original thought.
CO2 bad – don’t burn any carbon.
First Nations good – set up racial apartheid to promote First Nation’s control over everyone else.
No borders – we are one world with one people. Everyone can come and go as they please and take whatever they want.
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The decision on the type of power production to be built should be based on normal commercial decision-making, not on the whim of politicians’ vote-harvesting or pressure-group delusions. At present, Australia is led by a group of semi-literate numbskulls whose only concern is re-election and continuation of their place at the gravy trough.
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“Why aren’t we talking about this?”
Reminds me of the old adage –
Small Minds Discuss People (Grace Tame or Britanny Higgins);
Average Minds Discuss Events (Bluesfest, petrol rationing), and;
Great Minds Discuss Ideas (Nuclear energy, immigration, fuel security, the list goes on).
Our parliament is full of fools, some being smart fools (high IQ, low EQ) and the rest just being utter fools.
Let’s start again in resource rich QLD, a bit of anarchy followed by secession and a Swiss like democracy with plebiscites and referenda.
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You only need to check on what’s happening at Copenhagen Atomics to see just how stupid are we in Oz to have a ban on nuclear! (And ridiculous government policy advocating limited-life windmills/solar panels with power-lines all over the countryside.)
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In 20 years’, time if we continue with the same Leftist policies Australia will be receiving foreign aid from what are today 3rd world countries who we send aid to. 👹🔥💰💰💰
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Hey Jo,
Will the E.U.be able to dictate to us on Climate Business.
And will they have authority on how much fossil energy products we can sell?
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