Wednesday 19th February 2025
| On 17th February 2024, The Australian published a column piece ‘Fan-boy Bowen in the Dark on Renewables’ by Chris Mitchell (Chris has produced some 40 columns over the past 10 years on climate and power, including the analysis of AEMO reports and interviews with Kerry Schott). This article stirred up some 900 comments within 24 hours. A lot of comments were of a political nature. These will not be discussed, as this is a non-partisan newsletter. We will however examine some technical / fact-based comments as outlined below. |
Comment #1: Nuclear can’t firm the grid. The conservatives have costed their nuclear plan based on nuclear having a 90% uptime. When you take out re-fuelling and maintenance this means that they would be running their reactors at 100% uptime. If your reactor is running at 100%, it can’t be ramped up or down. Nuclear does not make sense. As for gas running after 2050, it will be very rarely turned on.
Response 1: The Coalition proposal is to use nuclear energy for baseload to replace coal, rather than for the firming of renewables. Danny Price (Frontier Economics) confirmed in his modelling that 65% baseload capacity is always maintained for grid stabilization [1]. To prevent the curtailment of nuclear energy, a Contract for Difference (CfD) model is needed, and would need to be factored into an updated NEM electricity pricing model.
Comment #2: Anybody who thinks the Coalitions publicly funded nuclear program is cheaper than renewables with battery, hydro and gas backup, is ignoring the reality of our future energy profile. AEMO and CSIRO gave us the evidence in buckets, any nuclear program relies on coal fired power for decades hence, an aging and increasing unreliable energy source and is, by far, the most expensive option for our future energy needs by far. And if we want the IEA’s advice, then we should heed its declarations: ”if there is a country that has a lot of resources from other sources, such as solar and wind, I wouldn’t see nuclear as a priority option. I’m talking about Australia now”…and discussions around nuclear “can be made more factual, less emotional and political”, stressing Australia should prioritize the “untapped potential in solar and wind”. Australia will indeed pay exorbitant prices for energy if Dutton’s fanciful nuclear plan is implemented!!
Response 2: Frontier Economics report in December 2024 [1] outlined major flaws in the work by AEMO and CSIRO that Australia is supposed to have relied on to develop energy policy. Yes, Australia has access to intermittent wind and solar power, but inadequate storage through pumped hydropower and batteries are prohibitively expensive. Hence, the government has created a conundrum, a 100% renewables strategy that only works with gas. It also hasn’t been properly priced, and the environmental and social implications haven’t been given careful enough consideration. A total rethink and all energy options including nuclear needs to be considered.
Comment #3: Anti-renewable readers (ie most of this newspaper) might understand: four years ago I was paying $5000 per year on electricity. I then spent $21000 installing solar with a battery. Since then I’ve spent $224 total in electricity. My system should run for another 16 years. So yes, much cheaper, turns out sun and wind are free, and if we do it on a large enough scale, we all get the benefits. Looking forward to the rabid replies.
Response 3: It’s important to remember that a lot of Australian households can’t afford solar panels or batteries, or they live in apartments where they can’t be fitted. I am fortunate that I live in a house and bought solar panels and a battery, both received government subsidies that we pay for in our taxes, the system works but I still rely on grid electricity at certain times, and when I have excess solar output that goes back to the grid, I am now facing negative feed-in tariffs, so I pay for the excess energy the panels produce. Solar output and battery efficiency declines with time, and I’ll need to replace them in 10 to 15 years. When we factor-in the environmental cost of replacing these panels and batteries for 5 million Australian homes, together with taxes from subsides and negative fee-in costs, it’s far less attractive than many of us think.
Comment #4: One notes the usual emptying posturing on opposing renewables and yet the opinion piece contains NO ANALYSIS on costs of any energy type in the Australian context at all. All readers should note the ZERO data and financial analysis. Empty rhetoric.
Response 4: Let’s get into it: CSIRO analysed Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of individual energy sources, without thinking about system costs and the value of base-load vs renewable vs dispatchable energy. AEMO presented an Integrated System Plan (ISP), that didn’t address all forms of low/zero emissions energy or optimize our pathway to net zero emissions by 2050. Frontier Economics did this based on the AEMO ISP and included nuclear, finding 54% renewables and 38% nuclear was significantly cheaper than 100% renewables plus storage plus peaking gas plants. Frontier Economics have indicated that more detailed modelling is needed, particularly with calculating demand, as AEMO forecasts are typically unreliable.
Comment #5: Chris — one correction. Nuclear is not about firming the grid. It’s only economically viable when it is running continuously at or near capacity. For this to happen the way AEMO and the NEM manage supply will need to change significantly. And, of course, making these changes will make existing or (better) high efficiency coal also viable. But at the expense of renewables. Basically, the whole system which presently distorts the supply market needs to change.
Response 5: Agreed, the NEM Electricity pricing system will need to change as it has several fundamental flaws: It is highly volatile, it fails to distinguish between baseload, intermittent and dispatchable electricity costs, and it has allowed intermittent renewables (solar and wind) to force the curtailment of coal that undercuts coal power viability. With nuclear, it will need to replace baseload coal, and be protected through a Contract for Difference (CfD) or other pricing mechanism in a modified NEM.
Comment #6: Why not just stick with coal and upgrade existing power stations? And bring gas and nuclear into the mix if needed down the track? There would be no need then to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on thousands of kilometres of transmission cabling for starters, nor any need for additional firming capacity (effectively grid duplication – required by unreliable weather dependent renewables if we are to have a first world power grid that works 24/7/365). And we could get it up and running very quickly given the infrastructure is already in place and bring down power costs while improving grid stability and reliability. Sure, keep on encouraging rooftop solar for households (as it makes sense at that level, just not at a manufacturing one) without perhaps the credits for feeding into the grid and start contracting large scale wind and solar providers to guarantee power delivery 24/7/365 so they in turn have to contract with coal and gas fired producers for the firming capacity. In other words stop the tilting of the deck to try and make coal and gas fired electricity producers uncompetitive and economically not viable. The reality is that doing the above will have zero impact on stopping the climate from changing. The waste of trillions of dollars across the West over the last 22+ years clearly proves that. Perhaps that is too basic?
Response 6: Comment #6 provides an excellent summary of the energy strategy advocated by C2N Australia, in supporting existing coal but in also promoting an optimal transition from coal to nuclear energy to meet net-zero by 2050 emissions obligations.
Comment #7: Investment in major renewable energy developments has increased since the government introduced a taxpayer-underwritten scheme promised to deliver at least 23 gigawatts of renewable energy and 9GW of energy storage capacity, particularly batteries. The federal parliament passed legislation recently making the expanded underwriting program, in operation since late 2023 and known as the capacity investment scheme, law. It’s critical that we don’t lose focus or change direction now on a strategy that is working, Investors need stable and predictable long-term policy settings to provide them with the confidence to invest their money in these critical infrastructure assets which Australia urgently needs.
Response 7: The objectives of the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) are to get renewables projects going as quickly as possible, with little thought on the impacts on the environment and effected communities. Then underwrite them using taxpayer funds, with a Contract for Difference (CfD) pricing mechanism that guarantees investor returns, irrespective of whether the projects are in Australia’s best interests. This is a disastrous strategy as it puts energy operator profits ahead of sensible planning; it locks in expensive transmission that may never be needed or is being built far earlier than is necessary, such as Hume Link; it currently has intermittent renewable projects proceeding way ahead of storage and firming; and it lacks flexibility to incorporate emerging technologies, nuclear, clean carbon and carbon capture over the next 25 years.
Comment #8: Nuclear Power, The IEA has been promoting nuclear power for 70 years yet last year nuclear power globally produced less energy (2,720,000 GWh) than it did in 2006 (2,760,000 GWh) and less than a third of renewables (9,500,000 GWh) As for new nuclear power, global operating nuclear capacity is less than it was in 2018. If we are really lucky capacity will rise by 7 GW this year and be 6% higher than it was in 2011. No new plants will be connected outside Russia and China.
Response 8: The global energy mix is driven by the economics of various energy options, the environment, the need for low emissions energy, and geopolitics. Each one of these factors is constantly changing so the demand for nuclear power also changes. Post Fukashima design incorporates passive safety that was costly to incorporate into initial reactor designs, but as nuclear costs fall, the economics of nuclear energy improves. Australia is well placed to benefit from these changes and incorporate lower cost nuclear power to replace coal between 2035 and 2050.
Comment #9: Chris your arguments might convince me if Australia didn’t have world leading renewable energy resources, if renewable energy and storage was not continuing to rapidly drop in price and if we didn’t have a moral obligation to do what we can to reduce global warming.
Response 9: I agree that we have a moral obligation to reduce carbon emissions, but we also have obligations to support the economy, the environment and to not cause pain and suffering to rural communities at the expense of overbuilding wind farms and transmission lines. In doing this we also have an obligation to embrace all technologies, including nuclear, particularly when many of the problems of a 100% renewables pathway are overlooked.
Comment #10: Lots of cherry-picked facts and disinformation. Renewable generation is growing much faster than nuclear because renewables are much cheaper. China emissions have already peaked. Emissions reduction is consistent with economic growth as the cost of climate change is catastrophic. Our wise politicians on both sides have committed to Paris for this reason.
Response 10: If you measure an increase in renewables year-by-year I agree that the growth is faster than other forms of energy. However, if you measure the increase in energy production in units of energy Terra-Watt hours (TWh), then fossil fuels and nuclear are growing faster than renewables, as seen on a graph of total energy production [2]. Data is further distorted by looking at growth based on ‘nameplate capacity’. For instance, the maximum output from a wind turbine is intermittent and it may only produce 20 to 30% of this capacity. If it’s then compared with coal or nuclear power, running 24/7/365, it creates a false impression of the contribution made by wind and solar.
Comment #11: Some facts might help. One in three Aussie households now have solar on their rooftops – making it three times more common than the backyard pool. This crowns Australia as the world leader in solar energy on a per capita basis, with just over 1.1 kW per person at the end of 2022, ahead of both the Netherlands and Germany. Renewables like rooftop solar, gridscale wind and solar, and advanced storage now provide around 40% of the electricity in our main grid. Our energy system is transforming at lightning speed. Renewable electricity generation has quadrupled in the past decade and is set to double in the next.We are also streaking ahead when it comes to storage. The Waratah Super Battery being built in New South Wales will be one of the most powerful batteries in the world when it’s finished in 2025. More than 100 wind farms and more than 100 solar farms are operating across Australia. There are around 223 projects amounting to 45GW of new utility scale storage and generation progressing through the connection process from application to commissioning. This is equivalent to about twice the capacity of Australia’s current coal generators. Research shows we can supply all of Australia’s domestic energy needs with renewables, and that would directly use 1,200 square kilometres of land – equivalent to just 0.02% of our land mass. Properties hosting wind turbines and solar panels can still be used for pastoral grazing and other forms of agriculture, with large amounts of open space left around renewables. This is already occurring across Australia. Two-thirds (67%) of Australians – whether living in cities or rural areas – support of renewable power projects, including within their own communities. Media coverage has disproportionately focused on the limited opposition toward renewables, and little on its significant support, which has led to Australians believing that community support for renewables is lower than it actually is.
Response 11: I agree that most Australians support renewables, household solar and batteries; this includes myself as I have a solar power system in my home. However, what we need to consider is the overall system. The NEM is planning to add 10,000km of high voltage transmission lines and 45GW of onshore wind by 2030, expanding to 185GW of onshore wind and 33GW of offshore wind by 2050, according to the AEMO ISP [3]. A single wind turbine at 200m high, produces around 6MW of electricity so by 2030 there would be 7,500 expanding to 30,833 by 2050. They need to be located at windy sites, close to the NEM transmission lines, not spread across Australia. Here the problem becomes apparent, it will affect the Great Dividing Range and hinterland up the Eastern Seaboard of Australia. The environmental and social consequences together with impacts on communities and landholders’ property values is immense.
Clearly the ISP doesn’t work and is certainly not scalable for growth beyond 2030 let alone 2050. The issue of batteries also doesn’t work. The Waratah Super Battery is 850MW with 1680MWh of storage. Eraring Power Station is 2,880 MW so the battery’s total capacity equates to the Eraring Power Station running for 35 minutes, when we need storage for days, not minutes.
References
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution