Nuclear dawn won't be tomorrow Science & nature The Australian

The hot topic is powering on and is taking the Resources Minister along with it, energy writer Nigel Wilson reports
May 30, 2006
IN the debate on whether Australia should embrace nuclear power, it is worth remembering one very important point: nuclear energy is not yet commercially viable in this country.
That, at least, is the view of federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane who has found himself - courtesy of the Prime Minister - accelerating a pro-nuclear power strategy.
As a result, he has been forced to defend himself against allegations of backflipping on the issue.
While Macfarlane had been keenly promoting Australia as a uranium exporter to the power-hungry developing world since the World Energy Congress in Sydney two years ago, he had - until earlier this month - been reluctant to support nuclear power for domestic use.
Essentially, he maintained, there was no public appetite for nuclear energy and therefore it was a debate we did not need to have - just yet.
But all that has changed because of events overseas that have influenced John Howard's advocacy of nuclear.
Macfarlane had to accelerate his rhetoric rapidly, while explaining that in fact all his previous remarks and actions had been building up to encouraging a public debate about domestic nuclear power.
"Previously, the very word uranium has stirred a smog of hysteria which has smothered any sort of rational debate," he said immediately after the PM's view became public.
"The industry has matured, the technology has evolved, more countries are signalling their move to, or expansion of, a nuclear energy industry, there's greater demand for Australian uranium and the debate has moved to a more informed level.
"This has to be a national decision but only once everyone is given the opportunity to learn more about the issue in a dispassionate, factual manner."
Even so, the minister conceded that the cost of nuclear power was still around double the cost of coal-fired electricity.
"Back of the envelope calculations show nuclear energy to be twice as expensive as our traditional energy sources at the moment and, for that reason, this isn't an issue on which Australia has to make an immediate decision," he told The Australian.
Almost at the same time as Howard was talking up prospects for a domestic nuclear future, British counterpart Tony Blair was also pushing the nuclear button. In a speech in London on May 17, Blair endorsed a new generation of nuclear power stations. The difference is that Britain already has a nuclear industry. Australia doesn't. And that's a real issue for the $100 billion Australian electricity industry.
Blair warned that failing to replace Britain's ageing nuclear plants would fuel global warming, endanger the country's energy security and represent a dereliction of duty to Britons.
Even so, he said, nuclear was only one option to meet Britain's looming energy gap.
Howard, while on his overseas tour, also had the benefit of the views of his other great international friend, George W. Bush, who has been pushing nuclear as the Advanced Energy Initiative.
Last week, the US President told an audience at Exelon's nuclear plant at Limerick, Pennsylvania, that new plants would cut dependency on imported oil.
Bush said energy demand in the US was expected to rise 50 per cent in the next 25 years.
He focused on nuclear power, saying it was abundant and affordable with low operating costs.
In Australia, analysts say, the dynamic and therefore the need, is somewhat different.
Australia's looming energy gap is in liquid transport fuels, not in fuelling electricity generation. At current rates of use, Australia has around 400 years supply of coal and more than 100 years of natural gas.
Indeed, earlier this year the Government committed, through Macfarlane, to encourage the use of natural gas as the fuel of choice for up to 70 per cent of Australia's future baseload power stations.
Macfarlane announced a new government/industry strategic approach initiated by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association that, while acknowledging the underlying priority of the gas industry was to see Australia become one of the world's top five LNG suppliers, there was also a need to focus on the growing domestic market.
The Resources Minister said the key was industry enthusiasm because it would have to involve changing business and community attitudes about energy production, opening doors which were currently closed, but not locked, to natural gas options.
Substitute nuclear power and you would need the same enthusiasm but as yet it appears absent in Australia.
Andrew Blyth, the newly appointed chief executive of the Energy Networks Association, points out that Australia will have to do a lot of work before committing to nuclear.
Aside from the inherent problem that nuclear energy is currently priced at about double what Australian coal-fired generators can achieve - although that is likely to change as coal becomes more costly through the application of clean technologies - just fitting nuclear into the Australian system poses challenges. Blyth says Australia's physical energy infrastructure is in urgent need of renewal and expansion.
During the next five years, around $16 billion needs to be invested in new distribution networks and in refurbishing gas distribution. Yet in Blyth's terms, there is insufficient incentive through the Government's regulatory approach to ensure the investment takes place.
At the most simple energy regulation is so confused that it acts as a disincentive for remedial work in the system.
The net result is that networks will become unreliable and the costs of fixing them will be passed on to consumers, either through higher electricity and gas tariffs or higher government charges, depending on whether suppliers are privatised or still remain in government hands.
While there is much discussion concerning the change in scale of nuclear power stations - some experts argue that units as small as 100 megawatts could be constructed efficiently - the consensus is that units of around 1500MW would be most likely to meet Australia's needs.
Reactors of this size are the mainstay of China's plans to expand its nuclear capacity to 40 gigawatts by 2020.
Sue Ion, executive director of technology at British Nuclear Fuels, has said that evolutionary designs are intended to replace existing nuclear plants and to prevent sizeable increases in carbon dioxide emissions.
The revolutionary designs, known as generation IV, aim to deliver safe, competitive and sustainable energy.
Generation IV is an international initiative aimed at developing nuclear energy systems that can supply future worldwide needs for electricity, hydrogen, and other products.
They feature so-called passive safety systems that do not require human intervention in the case of an accident. Some will operate at sufficiently high temperatures to produce hydrogen from water as well as electricity.
Experts say the new systems will be more economical to build, operate and maintain.
According to the World Nuclear Association, 441 nuclear power reactors operate in 31 countries, producing more than 363 billion watts of electricity. Another 30 reactors are under construction, and some 24 countries - including six that do not currently operate nuclear reactors - are planning or proposing to build an additional 104 reactors.
But for Australia, Macfarlane concedes the only thing that would make nuclear energy commercially viable in the next 10 to 15 years would be a carbon tax on other energy sources.
But therein lies the paradox.
"The Government does not support a stand-alone Australian carbon tax," Macfarlane said.
That might need rethinking with huge ramifications for electricity generators which are the nation's biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.