Like France, often cited as the the world leader, with around 70% of its generated electricity coming from nuclear. Or Belgium, with around 50%, or Bulgaria around 30%, or Czechia around 40%, Finland around 35%, Hungary around 50%, Slovakia around 60%, Slovenia around 40%, Sweden around 30%, Switzerland around 35%...
Compared to Australia's one nuclear power, which isn't even being used to generate power, or the US' 18%, or UK's 14%, or Canada's 13%.
If you look at : https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
and look for 1 year as the time period then the places with low emissions from electricity either have lots of hydro, import power or are nuclear powered.
As yet there does not yet appear to be a single place in the world that uses solar and wind and has low emissions for electricity.
Germany's emissions given the Energiewende and the huge cost of that are particularly noteworthy.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/AU-SA?wind=false&solar=... ("Electricity Maps: South Australia")
https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=all&interval=1M&vie... ("OpenNEM: South Australia")
https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australia-to-reach-100-pct... ("South Australia, the state with a world-leading average share of renewable energy of more than 71.5 per cent in its grid, is expected to reach “net” 100 per cent renewables within four years, according to the state’s transmission company.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_South_Australia
I am somewhat disappointed you aren't aware, as an Australian.
> The first and only EPR under construction in France is Flamanville-3, a project led by EDF as developer, constructor, owner and operator. This project is an industrial failure with endless delays and substantial cost overruns observed. When the construction of this reactor started in 2007, its commissioning was scheduled for 2012 at a cost of around €4 billion. In 2022, Flamanville-3 is still not operational and it will not be before 2023 – at least an 11-year delay on a five-year project. Its cost has spiraled to more than €20 billion, a multiplication by a factor five compared to the cost estimate when decision was taken. As a result, the generation cost of Flamanville-3 is now estimated at €115-125/MWh. Explanations provided blame for unpreparedness, incorrect technical references and insufficient detailed studies as well as the loss of competences in the French nuclear industry. The absence of skills maintenance, or “learning by doing”, has proven particularly problematic for the quality of welds – requiring repairs, notably.
https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/column/REupdate/2...
It's all over bar the shouting for nuclear at this point. But granted, the shouting level seems to be going up not down. You would think NuScale going broke would damper the enthusiasm but no, Dutton's response to that seems to be to shout louder.
As for the OP claim Australia needs coal - South Australia has no coal. It's one of the few places in Australia that isn't build on coal seams. Consequently South Australia is now at 70% renewables, higher than any other OECD place on the planet with a substantial population (including other Australia states). That's 70% average over a year, not peak. Without coal. So much for "needing it".
As the population of Canada grows past the point that the hydro projects provide nearly all electricity, I expect them to start burning more and more natural gas.
Initially this will show as New York state using more natural gas since Canada produces a huge amount of the total power there.
It's also most expensive.
The only thing more expensive than nuclear — in these stats at least — is small-scale solar installations.
Btw, this widespread (but wrong) belief that nuclear is cheap stems from the fact that a lot of countries heavily subsidized their nuclear industry in order to gain know-how and/or materials for atomic weapon production. It's not even cost-covering at current energy prices without those subsidies.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...
And fund the plants from budget, not commercial debt.
> "Governments can borrow much more cheaply that private companies and that lower cost of borrowing can drastically reduce the ultimate cost. Hinkley Point C would have been roughly half the cost if the government had been borrowing the money to build it at 2%, rather than EDF's cost of capital, which was 9%."
Having governments finance the plants does not reduce the cost, it is a subsidy transferring the risk to the government with the taxpayers being on the hook instead of the banks.
The cost stemming from the project risk will not be realized until the construction goes over budget or fails, at which time the difference between the market rate and the government rate is realized by the tax payers.
What all this means is that the project's risk and cost is constant. You only transfer who pays for it. The public or the owner.
With Hinkley Point C looking to cost even more than €160/MWh over 35 years strike price they got that territory is being entered with bitter negotiations at the highest political level.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/16/edf-hinkley-...
40, most were build for 40.
>Having governments finance the plants does not reduce the cost, it is a subsidy transferring the risk to the government with the taxpayers being on the hook instead of the banks.
There's no "transferring the risk", energy safety is as much responsibility of the government as everyone else. Taxpayers are on the hook for everything government does, it makes as much sense as buying police cars from a budget.
If the power plant fails, everyone loses due to lack of power. The magical idea that some kind of failure of power plant does not affect every citizen, but only shareholders is just not true.
>With Hinkley Point C looking to cost even more than €160/MWh over 35 years that territory is being entered with bitter negotiations at the highest political level.
Which comes from financing.
This is not true, the alternative to nuclear power is being built today without subsidies or government involvement.
There is a transferring of the risk. For the alternative the government is not on the hook. I.e. there is no unrealized cost.
We can put it into concrete terms:
Who pays when something like Nukegate [1] or Hanhikivi [2] happens if the government finances the plant?
The taxpayers.
Who pays when Ørsted realizes that the contracts signed during ZIRP [3] no longer make business sense to pursue?
Ørsted.
If Ørsted were to go bankrupt due to the project, like Areva and Olkiluoto 3, who pays?
The banks.
The difference between the market rate and the government rate is who pays when the project goes belly up. Trying to fudge the numbers like you are doing is only a ploy to politically sell a project which does not economically make sense.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
[3]: https://us.orsted.com/news-archive/2023/10/orsted-ceases-dev...
I'll distill all those questions into one: who pays to make sure that despite all potential and real failures the venture is profitable? Taxpayers. That's why those rates are so high, you're paying upfront for that possibility. Getting all the downsides and zero upsides.
It's like getting extended warranty on a toaster or any item you can easily buy ten of. The expected value is strictly negative.
Dealing with insurance is not something government should be doing anytime; it's way too big for that.
You want to splurge tax payer money on a dead-end technology when the alternative delivers today.
It's just not worth the hassle.
Yep. It's sad-funny — they had to shut down reactors because the cooling water was getting too hot. To be fair this seems to be environmental regulations and not the reactors themselves, but then again the water is from rivers and at some point you really grill the river.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Heatwave-forces-...