Photo by Spiritrespect.
By Jo Nova
Everything just changed. For the first time in Climate Bureaucracy, Nuclear power can save the world too.
Until today, only renewables had the Holy Sacred Power against Climate Change. But last night the UK and US signed a new agreement at COP29 to share “billions of pounds worth of nuclear research” in order to “decarbonize” the world.
They did this backflip in such a tearing rush, they didn’t even have time to phone the Prime Ministers they were offering this bonanza too. They accidentally listed all the countries they expected to sign up, only to find the Australian government is going to an election waving the anti-nuclear flag, while the opposition demons carry the pro-nuclear pennant. Oopsie indeed. The press release was reissued, but the Labor government in Australia are now trying to explain why nuclear power is great in submarines, but too expensive and slow for sites that don’t move and aren’t underwater. It’s entertaining.
Apparently, Australia has too much sunshine, and thus we’re stuck with solar power. We also have the largest uranium reserves in the world, but shh. This is like energy lessons on Sesame Street.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:
Nuclear will play a vital role in our clean energy future
That is why we are working closely with our allies to unleash the potential of cutting-edge nuclear technology. Advanced nuclear technology will help decarbonise industry by providing low-carbon heat and power, supporting new jobs and investment here in the UK.
Nuclear power is Kryptonite to Renewables
Don’t miss how big this is. Only a year ago France scandalized the world when they dropped their renewables target and fought the EU to get nuclear power accepted as a “low emissions” generator. They had to threaten to scupper the EU’s new Renewable Energy Directive unless the EU included a role for nuclear power.
Renewables groupies hate nuclear power, because it’s everything they want to be but aren’t. Nukes are low emissions, reliable, proven, easy to add to a grid, and they don’t need a caravan of batteries, flywheels, hydro-dams or a 1,000 miles of high voltage lines. Obviously, if nuclear power can save the world from the Carbon Yeti, no one needs to build floating bird killers.
The implication is that renewables are being quietly thrown under a bus. The Blob is backing away slowly from 30 years of “free energy” propaganda. They have blinked, and switched to nuclear, the same obvious solution they could have picked from the start in Rio in 1992. Be prepared as they gaslight the world, hoping they will forget the trillions of dollars poured into the renewable energy port-a-loo.
The Trump factor is already killing sacred cows
The Blob is clearly tripping at full speed here — reacting to the shift in power with Trump’s win.
Ed Miliband may be trying to try to save COP29 from terminal irrelevancy. But the Blob surely knows that the grifter game is up for renewables — now that investors are abandoning them, industries are headed to China, and electricity prices have taken off like one of Elon’s rockets. That and Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle ignored their wind and solar pony showcases and rushed to get nuclear power to feed their pet AIs.
For all we know, the new nuclear plan might have been written the day they released it. How much effort would it have taken for Ed Miliband to mention it to Australia’s Energy Minister (Chris-“Blackout”-Bowen). He didn’t even need to phone him. They’re both at Baku.
Giving away Nuclear technology
The UK Government and the US will be giving away nuclear technology, to speed up deployment of civil nuclear power to “decarbonize industry”. The new agreement would start on March 1 2025, and is (was) expected to be signed by Canada, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, China, Euratom [Europe], Switzerland and Australia. Thus it perfectly wedged the Australian government — which agreed to AUKUS, a nuclear sub sharing program, but is also 100% committed to a Glorious Renewable Future. The US and UK obviously assumed their AUKUS partner would leap at the chance. Instead the updated press release dropped the list of nations.
The UK press release:
The UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and US Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk have today (Monday 18 November) signed a new agreement while in Baku for climate talks that will help pool together billions of pounds worth of nuclear research and development – including the world’s leading academic institutions and nuclear innovators.
New technologies such as advanced modular reactors can help decarbonise heavy industry such as aviation fuel, hydrogen or advanced steel production, by providing low-carbon heat and power. They are also smaller and can be made in factories, making them quicker and cheaper to build.
This will support the commitment made last year at COP28 to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050, with 31 countries signed up including the US and UK.
The UK is reversing a legacy of no nuclear being delivered and moving forward with its advanced nuclear reactor programme and Great British Nuclear’s small modular reactor competition, as well as continuing development of the Sizewell C project. New nuclear will help to secure thousands of good, skilled jobs and support energy independence beyond 2030.
The Australian Energy Minister, clearly caught unprepared, said “No”
Albanese government gives firm ‘no’ to joining UK-US agreement to advance nuclear technology
A spokesperson for Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who is at the COP meeting, said: “Australia is not signing this agreement as we do not have a nuclear energy industry.
“We recognise that some countries may choose to use nuclear energy, depending on national circumstances.
“Our international partners understand that Australia’s abundance of renewable energy resources makes nuclear power, including nuclear power through small modular reactors, an unviable option for inclusion in our energy mix for decarbonisation efforts.”
…and, we have too much sun.
Chris Bowen’s UK-US nuclear energy pact COP out leaves AUKUS partners surprised
By Dennis Shanahan, The Australian
When Mr Dutton asked Mr Marles in parliament whether Australia would sign up to the nuclear agreement with Australia’s allies, the Acting Prime Minister said: “I can confirm that the Australian government will not be signing that agreement. For Australia, pursuing a path of nuclear energy would represent pursuing the single most expensive electricity option on the planet.”
Mr Bowen also argued that Australia’s longer hours of sunshine compared with the UK meant that Australia had solar-power advantages and nuclear energy was not viable for Australia.
“Put simply, London has only 1633 hours of sunshine in an average year. By comparison, Australia’s least sunny capital city is Melbourne with 2362, while our sunniest capital city is Perth has 3229,” Mr Bowen’s statement said.
For baffled foreigners, the next election in Australia has to be held by May 2025, and looks like it will hinge on nuclear power, which is currently banned in Australia, (largely by accident — because of an incidental Green ten-minute amendment in 1998). Our slow moving Labor diehards were already glued to the renewables-train but the opposition is making nuclear energy a key part of their platform. Polling suggests Australians are not anti-nuclear, but they are anti-electricity-bill-bonfires. So voters seem to find the idea of change appealing.
Ed Miliband, of course, is still raving in a hollow rehearsed way about the unreliable transition, but it is a simple fact that the more nuclear power a grid has, the less wind and solar it wants. In the new world order of Trump — The Australian Labor Party may be the last man standing on unreliable renewables.
I don’t pretend to understand why OZ is so anti nuclear bearing in mind the authorities don’t want to use coal. I don’t know your situation with gas supplies, but no matter how sunny you might be you still need base power.
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Oz is not anti-nuclear, except by accident. When everyone else was getting excited about nuclear power in the 1960s we had too much coal, so we didn’t bother. It wasn’t economic, because coal was ridiculously cheap and we have ridiculous amounts of it.
We never had a debate or protests much. The Greens scored a minor PR win in order to agree to build a new research reactor plant at Lucas Heights, and nobody cared.
— APH
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Jo that was the new Opal reactor, but the original Nuclear reactor was built at Lucas heights NSW in the 1950s.
The new Opal reactor is now saving thousands of lives through the use of nuclear medicine etc.
In time about 50% of Aussies will benefit from the new Opal reactor.
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It’s not for power generation but nuclear medicine. Only 20Mw. Four wind towers actually working. Australian’s electrical energy needs alone are 1000x that. Our total energy needs much higher.
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“OPAL generates around 20 megawatts of thermal power, which is much less than a typical large nuclear power reactor.
The heat is only enough to warm the water in the reactor pool to about 40 degrees Celsius”
It is a neutron generator for irradiation. As opposed to cyclotrons for accelerating charged particles, typically protons.
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Recently Albanese Labor Government approved upgrading of the Opal reactor.
They also signed an agreement with 14 Indo Pacific Region countries in Singapore approving future nuclear power for those signatory nations, including Indonesia and Fiji.
And last February Albanese Labor signed a contract with Rolls-Royce UK and placed orders for SMRs to be supplied for the new generation AUKUS nuclear submarines scheduled to be built in SA.
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There was one nuclear power station plan and the foundations were built on Commonwealth land in Jervis Bay NSW near Nowra, around the same time the first radio isotope production nuclear reactor was built at Lucas Heights Sydney.
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Australia has had various (small) nuclear reactors since 1959.
Only the Greens and parts of the Labor Party are against it, with various lies about safety and cost. Both could be rebutted by The Liberal Party if they pointed out that France (70% nuclear) has electricity about half the rate that Germany and the UK get charged by their desperate efforts to be Green. And French nuclear waste is stored in the middle of France.
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France (70% nuclear) has electricity about half the rate that Germany and the UK get charged.
I hope Peter Dutton has noticed, for the upcoming election campaign. Not that logic ever plays any part.
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It’s really about forcing the conversation back to base load. Once you force an acknowledgement base load is needed.
The conversation defaults to why we don’t already have nuclear.
It’s taking the voters by the hand an showing them 5 white cubes are the same lenght as one yellow rod, and 2 yellow rods are the same lenght as 1 0range rod.
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Australia needs BASE-LOAD power now not toxic, unreliable W & S and why waste trillions of $ and destroy land and sea environments for a guaranteed ZERO return?
And the entire rotten mess and the very low CFs of W & S should rule them out today.
Why is Australia so stupid and why do Labor and the Greens, Teals etc care so little about destroying thousands of kilometres of our precious wilderness areas?
We must vote them last in 2025.
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Yes, baseload power and that is why Eraring must be kept open and functioning. All of our energy needs are accounted for by the use of Coal,Gas and Oil – there is really no need for nuclear given the lead times are way out there. Politics will dictate otherwise, but Labor is in line for a hiding for its petty intransigence on energy matters.
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The Daily Chart: De-Industrializing Europe
While the U.S. economy continues to chug along, and will perhaps gain considerable speed once Trump II takes the visible foot of government off the invisible hand of the market, Europe’s economy continues to decline in relative and absolute terms.
One reason for this is the EU’s “Net-Zero” monomania. How bad is it? This bad:
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Bowen and Kean, in particular, and the various governments, LNP and Labor/Greens that support renewables insanity should be accountable for the untold damage they are causing to our country. There should be no free pass for them – they must be charged for economic and security negligence.
Stupidity cannot be a defence, no matter how obvious it is. And the industry and media fellow travellers who have cheered them on must also be held accountable.
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It should be noted that the leftie Aus MSM (eg. the AFR, Silly Morning Herald, ABC etc) have refused to run this story. Their loyal audiences will now deny the truth of it.
The obvious reason for this refusal ? To avoid both looking stupid worldwide and the pain of having a basic notion criticised. In short, no cognoscenti …
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Expect a Four Corners show outlining the desecration of our countryside. For most city dwellers – who remain ignorant or bury their heads in the sand, the problem of accepting that Solar and Wind poses a bigger environmental issue. Meanwhile the sheep remain inside their pen.
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I wish I could say that I have confidence in the Coalition when it comes to adopting nuclear. It takes determination and a can-do attitude and a will to see that things happen, but we are infested with non productive and subversive bureaucrats. WE need strong leaders but the few that we have will face obstruction from negative elements.
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Labor is sticking with renewables because they have to. This problem is a consequence of their association with unions because what has happened is that the union dominated industry superannuation funds have decided they want a piece of the rent-seeking subsidies (large and small scale renewable energy certificates particularly) associated with renewables and have invested big time in them hoping for an extravaganza of (undeserved) riches from long-suffering electricity consumers. Nuclear threatens that investment and will leave them with stranded assets if it succeeds, so they are holding Labor’s feet to the fire on this one.
It’s not even ideology, it’s just an example of crony capitalism.
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Bingo!
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‘The Real Cost of Net Zero’: Inside the Albanese government’s renewable energy push and what it means for struggling Australians –
Australia is in the middle of an energy revolution.
The Albanese Government wants over 80 per cent of electricity to be generated by wind, solar and hydro power in the next six years.
That’s over double what it is now.
And both major parties have committed to cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
It all comes wrapped in a guarantee of a greener – and cheaper – future.
But will it be?
If the cost blows out, who pays?
If the lights go out, who will be responsible?
And the rush to net zero goes well beyond reengineering the electricity grid to reach into every aspect of our lives.
So a team from Sky News Australia set out to look at the task ahead and to ask, what is the real cost of net zero?
https://www.skynews.com.au/business/energy/the-real-cost-of-net-zero-inside-the-albanese-governments-renewable-energy-push-and-what-it-means-for-struggling-australians/news-story/109d8f491328db7ca8248aff8845c64e
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The new Opal reactor at Lucas Heights is already saving lives and helping with new research and development of Nuclear medicine etc for Australia.
Soon this will improve the health of 50% of our population.
This video only takes 4 minutes and is very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiAkelzSIGg
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Is it just me or does the Government persistently back losing projects (mRNA, Ruinables) 2-3 years past where it is obvious to blind Freddy? How I wish we had a strong leadership of this country that passed reality testing.
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Strong leadership? What about any leadership? Politicians are only trying to please swinging voters. Greens, Doctor’s wives, single cat ladies and our new arab muslim community and aboriginal activists. The people who actually built the country and do almost all the work are irrelevant.
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And I am very tired of thanking aboriginal activists for all they have done to build the country. How can you colonize a country which doesn’t have a single building or any infrastructure of any type?
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TdeF I’d like a time machine and take the lefty extremists back to 1770s Australia.
Then come back and see how they got on after a few years.
No houses, no cars, no phones, in fact no food unless you could hunt and kill a roo or find scarce berries etc.
It would sure be a lot of fun. SARC.
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We should be making computer chips and not solar panels (the World is awash with solar panel makers). We have all of the materials here to make those computer chips and then export them and make value added money with high paying jobs. Get Taiwan to move here.
We do however have fish and chips and rubbish Newspapers (apart from the Australian, AFR, etc.) to wrap them in .
Vale Australia.
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Don’t worry we are about to become a world superpower in renewable energy. All will be well as we export our Solar and Wind overseas (presumably stored in cans with the green kangaroo logo)
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We cannot make a transistor in Australia and to my knowledge, never have. We have no electronics industry at all.
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Company Overview
For over 60 years, GME has been an industry leader in the RF communication technology space.
GME remains a family-owned private company, and is proudly 100% Australian.
We are the only Australian manufacturer of UHF CB Radios and Emergency Beacon products, holding significant market share in these segments through an ongoing focus on innovation and technology leadership.
We pride ourselves on engineering and manufacturing high quality, market-leading products to suit the specific requirements of our customers.
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https://www.minelab.com/
An Australian company that manufactures metal detectors.
From mostly imported components I assume.
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In case anyone has missed the chart showing nuclear in Washington State, have a look
{BPA calls the color “cobalt}:
https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
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I still prefer coal … I would rather deal with CO2, which is mostly beneficial, rather than nuclear waste.
I know we have the technology to run nuclear power safely, but this also requires a sense of responsibility on the part of the operator. Quite frankly I would not trust the Australian government … their track record on honestly and integrity is not exactly enviable.
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“Our international partners understand that Australia’s abundance of renewable energy …”
It’s good to know about this abundance.
I guess that’s why your electricity costs are so affordable.
And when I read about that system you have for pricing and selling solar back to the grid … or not … it’s so easy to understand.
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Labor will, eventually, be compelled to join the transition to Nuclear and jump off the Xi Jing Ping band wagon. It’s only the fear of losing Teal/Green votes that is sustaining. Both Albo and Bowen are hanging by very slim threads. Trumps inauguration in January will act like Madame Guillotine and sever the remains
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Here Mark Mills easily proves that W & S are a super expensive toxic joke and it only takes 5 minutes to understand.
The idea that we can quickly increase mining by 1000% is just unbelievable and we’ll waste trillions of $ to make us poor and guarantee we can’t defend ourselves against our future enemies. Will we ever wake up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOI-uLvTnY
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This is all fine, but I can’t get over the fact that this debate is unnecessary. One can go on and on about this topic till the cows come home but can anyone show me the evidence that man made CO2 causes significant global warming?
Then we can have the energy mix debate.
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Exactly, at the moment there is no hard evidence to link CO2 with global warming. All we need now is for Donald to tell the world CC is a scam.
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Again, Nuclear energy is by far the safest base-load energy in the world and is safer than toxic W & S.
It also produces the lowest co2 emissions over its life cycle. And by a long way. If that’s really important to anyone?
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
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British Bonkers Calamitists (BBC) go nukular over the climate that ran away with the spoon:
“Much of southern England and the Midlands is covered by a yellow warning with icy patches.” Ouch, sounds painful, hopefully it’s not contagious.
97% of BBC script-writers believe this dis-ease is caused by men burning the sky – even though the article clearly states it’s due to “bitterly cold Arctic air”. But! Isn’t the Arctic cooking 4x faster than all other places? Expertese©️ is such a hard language to comprehend (unlike Latin).
NB. The cartoon image they use resembles a 14-yr-old schoolboy’s rude doodles in his Maths book: Science or Biology?
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Just a personal hobby horse about language.
I am always pleased when I see the more accurate term “intermittent” in use in place of the propagandistic term “renewable”.
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Funny isnt it how climate loons will happily play the “we are falling behind the rest of the world” card when it suits them, but will shuffle around looking at their shoes when the rest of the world goes off their narrative.
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That squealing you can hear is the ALP bunker hard-heads performing a u-turn and trying to find a way to sell it to the electorate. First step will be to jettison Bowen.
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Jettison both Bowen and Alboneasy. The next election, within 6 months, will be on the cost of electricity and Labor cannot win without nuclear
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Please Jo ( and everyone else ) , PLEASE stop using the term ” Renewable ” to describe wind and solar . It is a term designed to deceive , to trick and to gaslight people .
While the sun comes up every day ( except when it is cloudy ) and the wind blows every day ( except when it doesn’t ) , the infrastructure required to collect these ephemeral energy sources have a short life and have to be replaced ( often ) requiring very heavy use of minerals that are not abundant and definitely not renewable and in fact will be depleted BEFORE the crazy W & S plan can be completed .
Furthermore , even if completed their crazy plan will fail to provide reliable power . This was demonstrated in Broken Hill recently . They tried ( I imagine desperately ) for 10 days to get their wind , solar & battery mini-grid to stand up on it’s own . They failed . Even though the nameplate rating of the system was 10 times the load . They didn’t have the 300 ton spinning mas of base-load generation to stabilize the grid .
If you don’t have the heavy spinning mas of base-load generation you DON’T HAVE A GRID . Period !
Call it ” Unreliables ” or ” Ruinables ” or ” replaceables ” or ” TOXIC wind & Solar ” or just ” Wind & Solar ” ( W & S for short ). But we should never use the tern ” Renewable ” to describe something that isn’t renewable or environmentally friendly .
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As usual, the debate has descended into dishonest distortions dominated by personal beliefs rather than data and including politics seemingly diverting money to grubbers.
Contrary to Bowen, Australia is already in the nuclear fuel cycle. In 1969 colleagues of mine discovered the globally important Ranger Uranium deposits. I foined them soon after and assisted with bringing Ranger into production, this being the first big step of the several that make up the international nuclear fuel cycle.
I have helped make corporate and industry submissions on the next part of the fuel cycle, enrichment. And more, so perhaps I know more about the topic than most. I have actually used the MOATA reactor at Lucas Heights, when many wise people have not even seen a reactor.
The future inexorably comes down to the claims of high cost of nuclear electricity mixed with scare tactics about radiation. The short circuit tactic that all in favour can use is “Learn from France.” They get 70% or so of their grid electricity from nuclear, providing day to day evidence that it is not expensive, that it is safe, that it presented no significant problems. End of argument.
I hesitate to make comments because I left the industry some years ago, but I will add that many commenters on blogs like Jo’s have less to no direct experience. Their comments do not help, often they add needless confusion. There are enough current experts.
In Australia, we need a Referendum for people to be heard and to break current barriers. Write in favour of such a course or vote for pro-nuclear parties. Geoff S
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They are certainly NOT a renewable energy source.At best they are a process of energy transformation.
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Marles insists nuclear industry, AUKUS subs pact ‘completely separate’. The cognitive dissonance is “asstounding” but par for the Labor course
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Also, even more asstounding Australia’s Decision to Opt Out of Nuclear Pact with USA and UK.
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