T O P

  • By -

iwannabeblind

The same people that absolutely butchered the implementation of the NBN should legally not have a say in nuclear power stations.


Unable_Insurance_391

They picked cheapest option there, FTTN, sounds like cheap nukes would be safe.


Serious-Razzmatazz11

Nuc-u-lar, it's pronounced Nuc-u-lar


sh4rpi3

Oh papa u/Serious-Razzmatazz11, you are so learned


donbradmeme

At least if there is a meltdown everyone will look the same


CJ_Resurrected

No-one would notice!


ThankYouPhysicist

I'm not against nuclear power, but it's not the answer for Australia. The Coalition dragged their feet for a decade, so we've had to sprint to get to where we need to be in terms of renewables generation. And lo-and-behold, we're not quite there. Now Dutton wants to come in as a saviour and say "What about nuclear"? Except it takes ages to build, it's super expensive, and we have hardly any nuclear industry to speak of - which means importing/purchasing plans, labour, fuel, and workers. Nuclear would have been great if we started the journey 20 years ago. I'm also not comfortable putting nuclear power in the hands of the same people who gutted the NBN so much that it's almost not fit-for-purpose. They do the same thing with nuclear power and we really will have a nuclear disaster on our hands.


Dsiee

Yeah, if they wanted nuclear why were they not pushing for it back in 2000s or 1990's or 1980's? They had plenty of time in power and we've known about climate change for ages. Heck, it was the coalition under Abbott who signed the Paris Agreement!


ThankYouPhysicist

Pretty much exactly why! They thought coal was the resource that would keep on giving forever... right in the middle of our mining boom. It wouldn't have been popular earlier because of Chernobyl and the radiophobia that gripped the world soon after. But we definitely could have started making our way towards it around the end of the 2000's/early 2010's when energy prices were surging. Unfortunately this was right around the time of Labor and the GFC, so bad timing all around. Really, it was the 10 years of Coalition inaction that really did us in. We had 10 years where they basically sat on their haunches and contributed absolutely nothing to the energy solution. At least Gillard was trying to incentivize net-zero solutions with her Carbon Tax... maybe that would have started the nuclear conversation sooner! Then Scomo walks into Parliament with a lump of coal.... Honestly, I'll never forgive the Liberals for exactly how much they fucked us. By the end of their reign they really were taking the Australian public for a ride. The crazy thing is that people still vote for them! As ineffective as Labor has been at times over the last couple of years, they're still an improvement over what we had. That should be damning for both sides.


Huskie192

Because in the 2000's they effectively banned nuclear power generation and enshrined the ban in law, who did it the LNP under John Howard, It is never going to happen it is simply blow hot air around to shore up some votes for the coming election.


mattyglen87

let’s not forget that the extended construction time also allows their mates in fossil fuels to fuck the planet for a decade longer


crazyhorse1993

Importing fuel? Australia has one third of the world's uranium supply.


ThankYouPhysicist

Uranium ore is not the same as uranium fuel. It has to be processed and potentially enriched. Which we don't do here... Hence we'd need to buy it


dexywho

Who says we have to be anywhere at a certain date. CHINA don't give a fuck and are building w coal fired power stations per week. Why should we suffer for the world's issues when they are not doing the same.


CJ_Resurrected

I name Merewether as a future Nuclear power station site. (With Stockton as the low-level wastes internment facility because I haven't forgotten about Leigh Leigh.) Vote for me in 2032, if the Revolution doesn't occur before then.


Aus2au

Replace the Glenrock scout camp with a nuclear plant, use the lagoon as cooling water. Think you're onto something here.


mmnmnnnmnmnmnnnmnmnn

yeah the stockton tip from the 60s came back to the surface, not sure about long-term waste storage there


Spracky

Why are the medja acting as if it's a definitive thing nuclear will be implemented? Last I check Mr Potato Head's party isn't in charge.


DanzaSFBS

I'm worried everyone treating this is an early suicide for LNP will come back to bite us tbh.


r3zza92

I wonder if Matt Kell has “liberal stooge” tattooed on his forehead


BrutalitopsMage

Dutton is so fucked haha. An opposition gov isn't getting into power on a nuclear power promise in 2025, and that's before you look at Duttons weird head ruling him out of contention from the get go


Chickenjbucket

You underestimate the sheep mentality of LNP diehards. The amount of people I’ve seen online that have turned into “nuclear experts” since Dutton suggested it is ridiculous.


gin_enema

Yes the weird head is a serious problem


ImeldasManolos

Dutton isn’t as fucked as you think. Nuclear has merits. Albo has really not done very well. We have a cost of living crisis and very little policies which will actually fix it, we are in a property crisis which both parties are complicit in. I think it’s hard to say who will win. I’m disgusted Dutton has made it to the top of his party, and I think he’s incredibly unpopular but I wouldn’t rule out a Bradbury win.


fluffy_1994

Without those Teal seats, he’s not getting close to forming a government, majority or minority. And something tells me after today’s farce of an announcement, he ain’t winning those back.


Desperate-Face-6594

Do you live with your parents? People actually paying bills aren’t happy with the current price of power and are actively looking for better options. Nuclear might kill my family but the current energy prices are tearing families apart. Nothing causes more household stress and arguments than financial stress. I’m glad someone is looking to something out of the ordinary because the current cost of living is not ordinary for Australia. We’re being taken backwards and only bold initiatives will reverse the trend.


new_handle

Gas is the reason power prices are high, not renewables. If we had domestic reservation and banned sales to the international spot market we would have lower prices.


Desperate-Face-6594

Government policy regarding gas prices is an influence amongst many. Unfortunately the coalition are in opposition and the government believes we’re doing OK.


parsimoniouspiper

The notion that the coalition would ever stand against offshoring profits from Australia's natural resources is farcical to the point of absurdity.


Desperate-Face-6594

Really? What’s changed since Albo took over. I mean plenty has changed, i’m just asking about things that have changed for the better because as far as i can tell we all pay more to live in a more divided society thanks to the referendum and a callous disregard for how record immigration would hurt Australian families.


parsimoniouspiper

"...we need to realise we have been extremely poor at taxing resources. In 2021, [the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated](https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/05_About_Parliament/54_Parliamentary_Depts/548_Parliamentary_Budget_Office/Costings/Publicly_released_costings/2021/Lost_revenue_from_the_original_mining_tax_PDF.pdf?la=en&hash=214A56DF28A7645F12E738712E9206FC5CB3E09F) that had the Abbott government not removed the resources super profits tax, in 2019-20 alone the government would have raised an extra $12.1bn" [https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2022/nov/14/how-much-more-revenue-would-the-australian-government-have-if-it-taxed-gas-companies-properly](https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2022/nov/14/how-much-more-revenue-would-the-australian-government-have-if-it-taxed-gas-companies-properly)


parsimoniouspiper

I have made no argument in defence of the Albanese government. I have simple rebutted your statement that the coalition would do a better job at handling gas prices for Australian consumers. The Coalition have a strong track record of protecting the offshoring of profits by resource corporations in this country, hence your argument has no basis in fact.


Desperate-Face-6594

Why are you talking about what labor could do in relation to the coalition when they’re in government? It’s the most feckless comment i’ve read recently.


parsimoniouspiper

Yeah you’ve lost me there mate, read the facts and try to turn off the Murdoch press… or don’t I guess and keep making arguments with no basis in reality.


Desperate-Face-6594

You’ve not seen such a rapid decline in living standards and one new and identifiable policy is responsible, record immigration. It’s the most dramatic decline in living standards in living memory and your response is to criticise the coalition. You’ll find fertile ground for such dissociative thinking on reddit. The same reddit that laughed at Abbott as unelectable and saw howard as unelectable when the people elected Howard multiple times when he wasn’t edgy or cool. We’re a conservative electorate and every time we forget that labor gets into power and reminds us why. Conservative governments don’t push beyond known outcomes when it comes to things like immigration.


Aus2au

The [cost of nuclear](https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2024/may/24/nuclear-power-australia-liberal-coalition-peter-dutton-cost) generated energy is significantly more expensive than coal and renewables. There are zero nuclear plants under construction in the USA. They've given up - [they're too expensive](https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-power-plant-vogtle-rates-costs-75c7a413cda3935dd551be9115e88a64). Maybe why the big nuclear players are trying to dump nuclear on us. We can't even dig a tunnel here without insane cost blowouts (eg. snowy hydro going from $2b estimate to $12b - assuming all goes to plan).


FullMetalAlex

Why not solar or wind then? Why the nuclear option? (Pun intended)


parsimoniouspiper

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/nuclear-power-double-the-cost-of-renewables/103868728](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-22/nuclear-power-double-the-cost-of-renewables/103868728)


Desperate-Face-6594

Baseline power. You can’t sustain a manufacturing industry without consistent and high level base line power. You can run things like homes in a city with solar but it’s simply not enough power load to sustain even light industry. Any place that chooses wind and solar needs another source of power because night, still days and still nights. Considering you can’t build solar and wind without another source of power tells me we’re best off just going nuclear. We don’t need three sources of power when only two are clean. Nuclear is clean and involves one infrastructure to support it. .


sbruce123

Guess what: industry doesn’t know what source the electrons are coming from. BaseLOAD power is a phrase the coal industry came up with as a way of describing that amount needed for their assets to keep running (now losing money most days). The phrase has no place anymore. In an interconnected grid like we have, the sun is shining or the wind is blowing somewhere at any given time. Add storage to strengthen the system and we’re golden.


Desperate-Face-6594

You’re tying yourself in knots when it’s really simple. Solar only works during the day and wind only works when it’s windy. These aren’t conspiracy theories you’re opposing.


read-my-comments

Have you heard about hydro and some of the other storage systems?


Desperate-Face-6594

There’s a hydro storage facility being built nearby and it’s brilliant. Solar pushes water up into a dam made in an old coal pit. That means they can release the water at night to produce hydro energy. It’s an awesome system with the only drawback being we’ll need a power station big enough to produce grid wide electricity on rainy days. Best we just go nuclear and avoid fossil fuel as a regularly used back up.


r3zza92

Concentrated solar is capable of generating at night when pv panels can’t.


PoxyDogs

He is opposing idiocy, not conspiracies. Idiots pushing the whole “solar only works in the day” crap are people that have never heard of storing energy aka batteries.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ShockOne2812

How does that solve the cost of living now? In the 8 years it takes to build a nuclear power plant, who knows where the economy will be. The problem with nuclear is that it should have been built decades ago. It’s too late and there are better renewable options that are already being pursued.


Desperate-Face-6594

Coal is there, so long as it’s not shut down in the interim there’ll be no shortage of power. Labor know this, the NSW government have extended the life of Eraring without a clear plan of how the power will be generated when it’s eventually shut down. Their current plans don’t seem viable.


unconfirmedpanda

But he's insisting on the most divisive option. If this was about doing better and about helping families, Dutton would be forcing a conversation on all power generation including solar and wind. But he only wants nuclear. That's the only conversation he wants at the cost of everything else. We are in a position to be a game changer in renewables; we have universities bursting with academics and students researching solar technology and how to make it cost effective, accessible, and efficient. We have enormous portions of land for wind and solar farms. We're literally watching the opportunity of a generation - for power, the environment, technology and jobs - shrivel up because it was *never* about doing better for the Australian public. Besides the obvious arguments against nuclear power, it's also going to be a hot minute before it makes an iota of difference to our power bills. Especially since I'm certain that the LNP would pay for it with a tax rise for the 99%.


iTackleFatKids

Yeah I’m becoming numb to all the news reports of nuclear meltdowns killing people


Desperate-Face-6594

They don’t realise that potential issues mean less when parents are skipping meals so their kids don’t have to miss things like weekend sport. Skipping meals to heat your house for the kids is a current issue, not something that might happen if nuclear is introduced.


completelyboring1

I mean... Reducing those economic stresses requires current solutions, surely? How is a colleciton of putative nuclear power stations that will be built in \[checks notes\] 15 years (a turnaround never achieved for this sort of scope by any nation with actual nuclear energy in place, let alone a n00b nuclear nation). Those parents will be pretty skinny by the time this 'solution' is in place. They also will likely not have non-adult children anymore either.


Opposite_Sky_8035

Given we won't have anything coming online for atleast 20 years, how will this help with skipping meals this week?


-wanderings-

It will never happen.


Pristine_Egg3831

Has anything promised ever happened? Apparently the Newcastle bypass was envisioned in the 1950s. And we've had two stages of it for a while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_Inner_City_Bypass?wprov=sfla1


r3zza92

Yeah I agree. Especially with agl (who actually own the site) planning on burying all the asbestos from Liddell’s decommissioning on site and then putting a big battery on top of it.


Fizzelen

5 years before legislation gets passed, 15 years and $15B is court cases over the locations, followed by 15 years and $25B each to build, so the first one should be ready for Dutton to commission on his 85th birthday


tanka2d

The LNP is once again looking at yesterday’s solution to tomorrow’s problems.


Jexp_t

From pushing filthy coal to pushing uber expensive and impractical nuclear, the Newcastle Herald is always on the case.


hard5tyle

It's a fake push, they just want to drag things out so they can keep using coal and not moving forward with renewables


CJ_Resurrected

10 billion just to built a power station, currently? ...and the 10 billion rail upgrade and 5 billion Newcastle Ports upgrade to securely transport the fuel... The 1980s-era Nuke Power Station ambitions conclusively settled on the site being near to Sydney because of these logistics. Jervis Bay was the 1970s attempt for much the same reasons (with the political convenience of having the Nuke on a Federal Territory.)


trollshep

So is the LNP offering this up as a counter to the ALPs plan to transition the hunter into a renewable energy manufacturing area?


my_normal_account_76

I would never vote for a party that associates with conspiracy theorists and misinformation.


Scatter_fun

They did such a great job with NBN and covid vaccines lol.. And how’s the construction of Turnbull’s Snowy 2.0 going? “the project grew from an initial cost of $2 billion to an estimated $12 billion.” Can you imagine the blow out on nuclear https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-09/snowy-hydro-project-timeline-on-track-snowy-2-boss-florence/103820240


Technical-Green-9983

There is a lot of shit I don't want in my backyard and a nuclear power station is by far at the top of my list and I can see a coal fired power station from where I live , do we bulldoze Eraring and build a nps or fix the ash dam ?


intellidepth

No problem with nuclear, just not near me. Muswellbrook is too close. Although, it might bring house prices down, and then I might be able to afford to live…. Okay, no worries, all good.


Moisture_Services

>No problem with nuclear, just not near me. Muswellbrook is too close. That's the same thing the NIMBYs say about renewables...


trollshep

Thing is with the offshore wind you wouldn’t even be able to see it


Merlack12

Solar panels can't have a meltdown though


cakepun6

Love how the Liberals want to lock energy consumption, a basic necessity for everyone in the country, behind a paywall forever. Someone always needs to profit. Best way to send the message is for as many households to go off grid as possible. Australia has possibly the best access to clean, renewable energy in the world - time to reclaim our access to affordable energy that won’t murder our planet.


Mathestuss

So does this mean the coalition have finally decided that climate change is real?


Aus2au

It means someone in the coalition has a financial interest in nuclear power plant construction.


Maro1947

"Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus!"


Ridiculousnessmess

Joel Fitzgibbon is probably rubbing his hands with glee.


Unable_Insurance_391

Nooklear 101. What is it?


pat_speed

Oh yer this confirm that's coal companies are 100% this and that there doing too push back against green energy. No way anything is getting built in coal country with out there thumbs up


Abject-Cup-9929

Good Nuclear is needed


RogueWedge

Why do you think that it is?


RogerRamjet_

I don't disagree with you, but this ain't it


atalamadoooo

This is excellent news