It’s like the West has forgotten how to build things…
The nuclear debate in Australia is 100 years behind the rest of Western Civilization. Like children, we banned nuclear power before we even built one. We could afford to strut in our anti-nuke super-cape because we were swimming in 300 years worth of coal. (Now we want to ban that too.)
Somehow, despite the burden of all that coal, the idea of nuclear has grown legs, but the rest of the world must be laughing at us. The US built the first reactor way back in 1957, and 50 years ago the French built 56 reactors in just 15 years and most of the reactors were built in 6-8 years.
But our experts in the CSIRO think it will take us 14 years to even build a small one.
Even if the nuclear ban was lifted tomorrow and a decision immediately taken to commission a nuclear reactor, CSIRO estimates the first SMR would not be in full operation before 2038, ruling it out of “any major role” in reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
Today we have computer aided design and supercomputers with AI, but we can’t even build a 50 year old copy of a French plant as fast as the French could in an era when homes still had slide rules.
If we ask President Macron nicely, perhaps he’ll even give us the old plans?
The first 910 MW reactor at Blayais Nuclear Power Plant was built from 1976 to 1981 and is still operating today. The three other turbines were finished by 1983. So the ancient 1970s French industry could build a 4GW nuclear plant in 7 years.
It produces about 26,000GWh of electricitie each year with a capacity factor of about 75%.
Brown coal power is still cheaper.