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Comment by guidedlight | Hacker News Reader

Yep. This is the current direction. As I said, investment uncertainty due to the alternative nuclear proposal, issues with transmission lines, and environment issues for wind projects are the main barriers.

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> investment uncertainty due to the alternative nuclear proposal

I think it is a stretch to say that the nuclear proposal is creating any investment uncertainty. What is there to be uncertain about? Optimistically the coalition has to win government then the plant will take >10 years to be designed and constructed (probably much longer assuming that something goes wrong politically). The power produced by such a plant will almost certainly be expensive. Unless Labor makes more supportive sounds it'd be quite reckless to invest in the project as a private investor.

That is far enough out and a small enough commercial risk that it probably doesn't change the investment landscape in the here and now. We could see any number of similar policies as we feel the political backlash from mismanaging our energy infrastructure.

The coalition Nuclear plan comes with dropping 2035 targets and international climate agreements. This creates a lot of uncertainty. Polluting plants and factories remain viable until 2050 (unless a future government walks back), making a lot of investment a crap shoot. Australian industries may find themselves locked out of international trade or subject to tariffs, making export markets uncertain. Nobody believes that the Nuclear power will be as cheap as the government claims, given all the experts and industry representatives say it is bollocks or relies on technology that does not yet exist, creating a lot of uncertainty.

So not so much a problem with Nuclear, but the diversion of funds from other projects needed to meet existing 2035 targets. Still, if the leader of the coalition is able to invent viable small nuclear reactors, bring that much capacity online in such a short time, and produce cheaper electricity than 2037 tech solar/batteries or wind/batteries in the vast, sun drenched plains and deserts of Australia, he probably deserves his Nobel prize and a seat on the board of Westinghouse or similar. After all, taxpayers need to pay for the nationalized generation since no corporations seem willing to invest in this amazing opportunity with its achievable deadlines and budget.

> The coalition Nuclear plan comes with dropping 2035 targets and international climate agreements.

Why would either of those things matter now though? Aren't renewables supposed to be an economic option?

People can "just" invest and make money. There just needs to be some mild support to let the projects start up and maybe I've missed a policy document but it seems unlikely that the Coalition would want to do anything about that.

Internationally, the countries currently paying to meet their Paris targets will need to recoup some of that investment through tariffs on imports from non-participating countries. This is the stick. Will they be nice and not put tariffs on imports that can be demonstrated to be Green enough? Doubtful, given the cartel of Green nations will see the opportunity to increase market share of their own exports. Will your personal investments into Green production, which costs more since you have to personally take on the otherwise externalized cost of pollution, cause you to be noncompetitive? On the local market. Will your customers pay more for the 'Green' logo on your product? Will they believe it? Or will a competitor eat your lunch with their dirty production, relying on the rest of us to pay to clean up, or give up on clean air, cheap healthcare and bearable weather.

I don't want to be impolite but that is verging on gibberish. Someone could build a solar farm and presumably start making money. The costs are reasonable (eg, [0]).

There is an outside risk that in 10 years an extremely expensive source of power enters the market. Assuming a bunch of relatively unlikely stars align, including that someone is mad enough to fund a nuclear plant in Australia despite the usual vocal political opposition that has scuttled the industry in most other western countrys. There is nothing there that threatens solar investment; people invest in riskier capital projects all the time. We're in the middle of what appears to be an energy crisis right now.

The targets and stuff were an issue when mass solar buildouts were an ideological stunt. But we delayed that idiocy for long enough and it appears that private investment will take it from here as long as the environmental approvals etc aren't too onerous.

[0] https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi...

I hope you are right and that solar, wind and battery farms can continue to navigate environmental regulation, be built, and actually sell enough of their electricity to the grid to turn a profit, without incentives from the government, investment in grid connections to suitable locations, and while gas and coal power remains subsidized in all sorts of ways. If this is true then, yes, the problem solved itself. But I personally suspect continuing rollout of wind and solar and the necessary scale is going to require government support.

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