The design wasn’t finished before the construction started, which is part of the reason for construction delays and cost overruns.

@@waywardgeologist2520 Every western nuclear project carried out over the last 20 years (Hinkley C, Olkiluoto, Sumner, Vogtle, Flamanville) has had major blowouts in budgets and timeframes. These have all been in countries with long experience in nuclear, unlike Australia. A big problem has been the extra safety requirements brought on by 9/11 and Fukishima.

Thank you Rosie. Your presentation educated me a lot. Meeting future challenges is something I think we all need to understand, rather than basing our position on opinion without adequate evidence. I had heard about the Hinkley C plant; but that was years ago. It is interesting, and not a little damning, that it is still not in operation, while the cost overrun keeps increasing. *As a total amateur* I have also thought that the locations for nuclear plants would be more of a problem for Australia than at least some other countries. We have a generally dry country. Certainly all the major centres have to be careful to provide water for their people. But nuclear seems to need a lot of water, that seems to me to place any plants somewhere near the coast. But the coast, especially the east coast, is largely occupied, often with major tourist attractions. That seems to make nuclear the most likely technology to encounter huge opposition from existing occupants of all the desirable sites for these plants. And who would want to live or holiday near a nuclear power station? Another objection is related to those small plants. What is not mentioned by those who are in favour of them is how many would be needed to be useful. Unless I misunderstand something, the relatively low power output would mean at least one per medium town, and probably several for all the major centres, and a LOT for Sydney and Melbourne. This just makes the location issue all the more difficult, yet still means a major electricity grid upgrade. I am really keen to know if I understand these issues correctly. A friend thinks he knows everything about nuclear, and yet he brushes over these issues, as well as almost all the problems you talked to. For instance he has never mentioned the problems with cycling reactors, or how they need to operate with other power generation to match the demand.

@@tassied12 Every eastern project outside Japan (completed in the last 20 years) was completed in an average time of 10 years or less. At this rate, in 10-15 years the East will overtake the West in nuclear technology and gain an advantage, as has already happened with a share of 2/3 to 3/4 of all types of renewable energy, batteries, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids

@@John.0z Study the technologies of nuclear power plant reactors of generations 3+ and 4, especially generation 4. They require less water (especially gas-cooled), 4th generation reactors can regulate power from 80 to 100% up to 50 times a year (every week) or better. The goal is to achieve adjustments of 4th generation reactors 200-300 times a year so that they can be used as reactors in France, but with a reduction in fuel waste and an increase in refueling time from 12 to 24 months, which will increase the load factor. Fast neutron reactors, especially those with lead or lead-bismuth coolants, can process nuclear fuel used in other countries into new nuclear fuel (MOX/REMIX) with a coefficient of no worse than 0.5. Some have a replacement rate above 1, meaning they produce more fuel than they consume. This allows nuclear fuel to be used more than 2 times without the need to extract fresh uranium from mines. Thorium reactors can become renewable if the process for producing uranium 235 from thorium is sufficiently developed. This processes is called nuclear cycle closure. Reactors using recycled or purified fuel are considered the first step, partially closing the nuclear cycle.

They don't want to answer how an entire grid needs to be replaced and rebuilt every 15yrs, it's a environmental catastrophe of pollution at a giga industrial scale.. majority of these panels silicones are extreamly toxic.. I cannot imagine strip mining our earth for solar panels and wind farms... nuclear is much safer and much more reliable

@@ADHD55 but strip mining for coal is fine? Maybe compare the areas needed to be mined for coal vs anything else, you might be surprised how small lithium mines actually are in comparison. Also, coal mining is rinse and repeat. Lithium mining actually goes into making something vs coal which is just burnt.

@@steve_787 lithium mining is extremely toxic and water intensive, all green energy critical minerals produce toxic run offs thats hazardous and very difficult to remove, also all these green materials will be massivly imported from china further polluuting the climate and the world, we do not need giga tons of solar panels and wind turbines in land fill , just to import more from china, we need clean energy and clean nuclear

@@ADHD55 You are comparing mountains to molehils. Many more resources are consumed supplying consumables (uranium, coal, gas) than in building generation such as wind and solar which consume nothing in generating power each day. Coal ash makes up nearly 20% of Australia's entire waste stream. Solar panels and wind turbines will not necessarily go to landfill at end of life. Vestas can already recycle about 90% of turbine components. Solar Recovery Corporation is recycling solar panels in Australia.

@@tassied12 I'm sorry but statistics of usage and recycling of solar panels in Europe shows that average lifetime before triple the internal resistance of solar panels is 10-12 years, then it'll must be heated to restore the contacts resistance. Wind generators have at least 4 average repair cycles in every 15 years. At least half of them needs one time to replace moving parts, including blades

That's right! She never factored in the flat earth!!!

​@@ceeemm1901 Exactly! And if global warming is so real, how come there's still winter!!?

Agreed! Outrageous for 2024! She also spoke with a smile, was happy and not enraged… 😅

When you agree to have the most harmful radioactive waste buried in your yard, and your neighbors think it a great idea, people might pay attention to you.

the $$ needed to develop and install nuclear is enough to construc CAES , compres air + solar or wind ,the low overall return can be used as hot water and cold for air conditioner,

Didn't want to mention that as I was trying my hardest to make this video non political 😂

Every manager listens to his consultants. Germany shows that it's need to triple energy prices without any nuclear or coal to achieve fast wind and solar generation. Do you want the same way? No industry, just agriculture and services?

@@MihailG5541 Seems you don't know anything about Australia. Our economy is almost entirely based on agriculture, mining and services already. We have very little industry.

@@SocialDownclimber In other comments they wrote that they want to see Australia as a developed country where they can independently smelt steel, aluminum and products from them. How is this possible without a stable schedule for generating electricity on at least an 8-hour cycle?

@@MihailG5541 You don't seem to understand that Australia has lost a large percdntage of it's industry because it can't compete with with some other countries on labour costs. Energy generation is the least thing Australia needs to worry about if it was to try resurrecting a larger industry base. It's a pointless exercise if your products are too expensive.

Electric mobility will probably lower the need for baseload. Do you own an EV?

What do you mean? If all the current transportation fuelled by gasoline is moved to electric, the total yearly energy demand will be way higher... Or maybe you meant if you have an EV in your garage, it can be hooked up to your house to manage your personal load? That wouldn't matter, the totally yearly energy demand for the whole country is still higher

@@hyperplastic In my opinion, with the share of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the energy system of a large country or continent exceeding 25%, there will be an acute shortage of generation and significant investments and donations will be required from the state and private companies for the development of public electric transport and dedicated lanes for urban electric transport, including joint used taxis or two-wheeled electric vehicles

In the USA, a lot of electricity is used to refine motor fuel. Our Dept of Energy claims that almost 6kWh of electricity is used to refine one US gallon of gasoline. 6kWh of electricity will move a small sedan about 20 miles. One gallon of gasoline will move the same small sedan about 40 miles. About half the electricity for powering the electric fleet will come from Not refining oil. A wee bit will also come from there being fewer gas stations and fewer tanker trucks delivering fuel.

​@hyperplastic I belive what he means is that every electric car has a battery that is usually oversized for your average everyday commute. Therefore increasing the amount of electric cars adds a consumer to the grid that is price driven, and able to match its demand to availability, thus reducing the need for firm generation.

That may turn out to be a good product, but it's still very much in development. They could be decades away from becoming commercially viable, if they do at all.

So you believe batteries are "clean"?

@@BarbarraBaycompared to all fossil fuel alternatives? Yes, vastly “cleaner”. The data is extremely clear. See Dr Saul Griffiths two books, he presents the data very clearly. Personally I’d say a mix of closed-loop pumped hydro and batteries is best mix alongside solar and wind. Could batteries use less extracts resources? Absolutely, the good news is that’s exactly what is happening with the technology development. Not because it is greener, but because it is cheaper. Checkout the latest CATL announcements on their battery technology. It’s cheaper, greener and higher density. Do we need innovations in recycling of batteries? Yes, this is also happening and not as hard as most people think. You can’t beat the learning curve of renewables, particularly solar and batteries. It’s insanely fast with the scale it is being done at. Nuclear has a role in the energy mix, but not a leading one in most nations. And not at all in Australia.

Lithium is not the answer. All lithium batteries components are limited in the world. This boom can stop suddenly and prices can get up as they are dropped.

All over the world wind and solar power installations has just only 3% of battery backups, but 12% of hydro backup and 25% of fossil fuels backup.

Pumped hydro as back up is thirty to fifty times more cost effective than big batteries. If we go all renewables Australia will need ten to fifteen pumped hydro storages on the scale of Snowy Hydro 2 (a project that despite cost overruns is still highly cost effective). Ten such pumped hydro plants would cost around $150-200bn. To do the job using big batteries like Hornsdale, the Victoria Big Battery or the Collie battery, around one thousand such installations are required. At around $1bn each, they would cost around $1tr. You could buy about fifty large nuclear power plants for this amount of money.

Same. I came away from watching this thinking, "makes sense". Then it occurred to me to compare other factors, such as how much mining will be required to replace the broken solar panels during the lifetime of a hypothetical uranium power plant.

​@@recklessrogesthen you would also have to consider the mining for nuclear fuel.

@@mael1515 True, but uranium fuel has great power density 🙂

@@GreyDeathVaccine true, after it has been concentrated with huge effort.

Rosie’s arguments against are threadbare. Nuclear remains safest and most affordable way to deliver decarbonised and reliable power, so long as you commit to picking one design and building lots of them.

but there was little to no research it was just here is stat and my opinion on stat what we dont need baseline power cause right now solar can cover it oh well lest just forget rapid technology developmen then

Exactly Rosie's point. It is just that solar, wind and storage happens to be the cheapest and nuclear the dearest for Australia (as well as taking far too long to arrive here). She notes that may not be true for every country - internationally nuclear has its place. Though I reckon with each new price fall in panels and batteries even that place is getting smaller.

This video will age poorly when it becomes obvious that Australia is unable to get 82% renewable generation by 2030 relying on very large buildout of VRE. The CSIRO gencost report showing that cost for VRE only increases by a very small margin for higher and higher shares of VRE will also be shown to be farical. NUCLEAR is the answer for anyone who cares about decarbonising power as quickly as possible, even in Australia. The infatuation with VRE is a cancer on our society. (And to be fair, it’s fine to modest levels of penetration, but going all-in and expecting it to deliver the lions share of electricity is woefully ignorant.)

@@matster77 Complete garbage. Did you not get Rosie's point that conventional nuclear can ONLY do "baseline" (ie running at daily minimum demand levels) and in a mostly-but-not-completely renewable grid baseline is negative? Solar generation often exceeds 100% of demand on sunny days. Nuclear plants, like all large steam turbine plants, hate being turned on and off (thermal shock) - and their accountants REALLY hate them being turned off (idle capital). This is exactly why our remaining coal plants are becoming uneconomic, quite apart from CO2 issues.

@@matster77 Thorium reactions with anti-corrosive casing ftw LERN safire project looks sick too!!!!

@@matster77 I think so. The share of renewable energy in the form of solar panels and wind turbines is >50% without other base generation, even thermal power plants using hybrid or renewable fuels - greenwashing Ponies, unicorns and butterflies, other dreams of little girls as an attempt to cover up money laundering.

@@kenoliver8913 The industry hates being shut down. If more than 50% of electrical generation comes from wind and solar, this will shut down the industry. Countries whose industry can operate 2 shifts a day or around the clock will receive an undeniable advantage over other countries, whose operating mode will depend only on the sun and wind

If the NUMBYs are crying about wind turbines 15km out to see, you can just imagine what they would be like if you tried to build Nuclear

Just add a transmission problem on top of a NIMBY problem 🤣

So true, the only benefit too nuclear would be the schadenfraude I would feel seeing the national party pushing this to their constituents.

Roof!!

Yes this is a major shortcoming in these videos. You can’t trash talk over a 200% blow out in a nuclear project and ignore a 500% blowout in Snowy 2.0

🤣🤣🤣

😂

Maybe the problem was just incompetence in building them? In Europe French nuclears are the only thing keeping electricity at sensible prices, last year when they shut them for maintenance the whole continent felt the price increase, especially places with highest amount of renewables

@@kostas9088 No, US reactors were built with the weapons programme top of mind. They needed reactors that were fairly dirty, and it's why fast breeders (that France uses to reprocess fuel to use those short lived nucleotides for energy) also don't exist in the USA. High prices and long build times for new reactors are largely a result of stupid and fragmented planning and EIS rules (as is the case in much of Europe), not issues with the technology. And they're not nearly as bad as people make out. Sabine Hossenfelder had a great video on that not long ago.

Politics is not about choosing the smartest solution, it's about getting the voters and financial support. Mr Dutton is very well aware that his plan is stupid but as long as it gets him voters (for example people that do not like solar panels and windmills because of esthetic reasons) and support by the nuclear industry, he is fine with it. I think a better way to prevent nuclear in Australia might be to make solar and wind energy systems more beautiful or put them in places where people don't see them.

@peterarmstrong8613 that would be a waste of time - Mr Dutton has been deriding CSIRO and AEMO, as has his shadow energy minister Ted O'Brien. I think Dutton's energy policy is positioned to support a political narrative about Australia's security. Dutton is an enthusiastic supporter of a nuclear submarine fleet and increased defence capability. The pitch for a nuclear powered electricity grid is that 'renewables are risky' - setting up an argument for the 2025 federal election that the LNP offer a secure future enabled by nuclear power , reducing dependency on China which supplies 80+% of renewable energy infrastructure. The reality is that voters have little understanding of the costs involved, and are more easily swayed by emotive arguments than facts.

Wow, great presentation @rosie. I love the way you lay out the arguments logically without bias

​@@richardbloemenkamp8532 This is greenwashing. Ponies, unicorns and butterflies, other dreams of little girls as an attempt to cover up money laundering. > "to make solar and wind energy systems more beautiful or put them in places where people don't see them."

@@richardbloemenkamp8532 solar roof tiles will inevitably be beautiful and cheap. They haven't gotten very far yet, but lots of pv roof tile companies are popping up now, most importantly in China. It's just a matter of a decade or so that we have tiles that are so good that they'll take over from conventional roofs. Eventually siding will also be pv, and some windows. PV technology will change dramatically by 2050.

Yes you are wrong.

@@johnpeters4214 where are they detailed please , and what is the CER NPV ?

> I've no doubt many within the power industry will see nuclear as a far easier option from an operational perspective.< Of greater concern in the electric generating biz is achieving the lowest cost for the next hour. They have talented people who can work near miracles and it would be nice to make their jobs easier but it is cost that drives their operational decisions.

Nuclear is so expensive that you could build insane amounts of battery storage for the same money to solve the intermittency of renewables entirely.

True, however I think the resources that would be used for Nuclear could be better used for storage solutions, of which there are many.

Because of the Fossil Fuel Lobby.

Because nuclear power suits right-wing lobbyists. It allows a small number of rich people to milk huge government investment, and then control the means of production.

​@@Aermydachfossil fuel lobby?! Doesn't make much sense, does it? Nuclear has also a powerful lobby though.

It’s cheap as long as you only want power occasionally. Forget reliable power if this farcical infatuation with VRE continues.

Its a thing because we are lead by muppets. Career politicians without any sense of reality out there.

Isn't hydro a member of "team renewable"?

@@hartmutholzgraefe Yes but environmentally very unfriendly.

If Austrialia tried to charge vehicles at night that will be an issue due to needing to displace solar power from day to night, which is why daytime workplace charging rather then nighttime charging should made the norm. Having nuclear submarines is irrelivent to nuclear power, the nuclear technology and fuel in the subs is being provided by the UK so Australian navy just needs to maintain what they buy.

Yes, particularly in training qualified nuclear engineers and technicians.

Electrified transport can solve some of the wind+solar grid problems untill the demand of 12-13%. Used batteries must be used in public transport, railways and in industry, services, utility companies for high-powered storages. But grids development are too expensive. Because of that, electric vehicles must use the same network as al other electric transport. It's twice cheaper.

'new vogue' ... SMRs have been nuclear fission industry spin since the 90s...

These still require the mentioned laws & regulations, are likely even more expensive since one loses the economies of scale, and they still solve a non existent problem. 🤷

@@mael1515 we gain another economy of scale, i.e. faster mass production. If a doubling of installed base lowers cost with 15%, and an SMR is 1/4 the size, then there are two more doublings there compared to large plants. Also smaller cores are easier to passively cool, leading to simplified designs.

@@jesan733 i don't understand your logic and math and physics disagree. Lower volume means relatively more outside materials. Simpler design, yes, but much lower efficiency during electricity production.

@@mael1515 if it was up to physics, nuclear would be dirt cheap. From a first principles perspective, a nuclear plant is like a coal plant with halved fuel cost and no emissions. But we both know that's not the reality we live in. The reality we live in is that regulation has piled on excessive labor hours to nuclear due to overblown safety concerns and an unfortunate but ubiquitous western governance philosophy. Thus the challenge for nuclear construction and operation is NOT to reduce materials weight or optimize efficiency, but to convince regulatory agencies to accept lower regulatory burdens and to blaze a trail through the regulation that it's left with so that less hours need to be spent. E.g. NuScale has done this in a clever way, and the NRC has accepted e.g. an emergency planning zone that extends only to the plant boundary and not 10 miles out, and it has accepted that it is passively safe so that backup power doesn't need to be nuclear-certified. And it has modularized in such a way that critical reactor components can be factory produced and shipped to site. It both reduces regulatory burdens and makes it easy to handle much of the regulation that remains by centralizing crucial production.

Strategically, it's not a bad idea but the economics are difficult. It would be a good deal cheaper to build a nuclear plant at each end.

I'm against destroying the ecology of a large amount of the remnant vegetation on top of the Great Dividing Range for windmills (with supporting roads), power lines and pumped hydro.

@@lynndonharnell422 An issue with ranges is it is a place where birds hangout, particularly particularly birds like wedge tail eagles that gets their uplift there. We can't just plonk down windmills be anywhere. They should only be sited in locations where the risk to wild life is minimal.

You can get to around 98% renewables with very few of the problems you mention with massive storage, transmission and instability.

@@kyletopfer7818 I'm not sure how to read your comment, are you saying that it's fine, you just have to put up with grid instability and the cost of massive storage or you're saying those problems only appear at 90%? In any event, you're wrong. Grid stability and management becomes a problem even at low levels with fossil plants running on idle as background support and stabilising. A major grid overhaul is required in Australia in any event, but we don't have the technology to be purely wind and solar without massive amounts of hydro and storage, with black start being notoriously problematic.

@@LudvigIndestrucable My point was to nip the framing you are going for in the bud entirely: you are deliberately trying to frame the discussion around a 100% renewable grid, which is far more difficult and expensive than a 96%-99% renewable grid complimented by other sources. Basically all grids across the globe are dependant on peaker plants (fossil fuels) to step in during spikes in demand or events where several sources are simultaneously offline. To the extent they aren't, they are dominated by massive hydro. So why expect wind & solar grids to function at 100% without fossil peaker plants if it hasn't been achieved by any existing systems either except for a few grids dominated by massive hydro? Short-term storage sources using utility and residential are growing massively anyway and are proving fairly economic plus will continue improving a lot over the next few years as we approach high levels of renewables. Additional transmission infrastructure can be considered an investment in decentralisation too.

@@kyletopfer7818 ah, then it's quite simple, you're just wrong. We do not have the storage technology to manage a 96% renewables grid (unless hydro) without larger plants (non-peaker) running for grid stability and smoothing. The reason for advocating the nuclear as base load, isn't because renewables can't generate enough it's because we currently need large spinning masses of steel to manage grids and it's easier to switch renewables off and on, supported with a manageable bit (but still huge) of storage. Even peaker plants don't provide the grid stability of large GW scale steam turbines.

@@kyletopfer7818 in case you're tempted to still insist on >90% renewables, to store 1 day's worth of electricity, assuming average demand of 30GW would be 720GWh, that alone should disabuse you of the notion, then include that such technology isn't capable of managing a grid. It's not just a question of power and storage, it's an incredibly complicated interplay of different components and rapid changes. Renewables and storage do not supply energy in the most conducive way to support a grid, something you and Rosie either don't know or are willfully choosing to ignore. We can't keep running our turbines on fossil fuels, but the only alternative contenders are nuclear and geothermal.

Yep. Shoulda been "Two things we are not short of in Australia are space AND SUNSHINE. I can see why nuclear would be interesting for Canada..."

Hey did I once talk to you at a conference in Melbourne? Your face looks familiar! I did talk a little bit about inertia in a video I made last year about SA's energy transition. I thought they were on a path to not needing much/any physical inertia? But you'd be on top of that more than me, please correct me if I'm wrong!

Curious to know about this too.

Nope, not true at all. By the time the first nuclear power station is built here in Oz, installed renewables will already be 80-90% of all power generation - with no ongoing fuel costs and very little maitenance costs. How will expensive to run, to insure, to fuel, to maintain, to insure, nukes compete then ?

In fact the rest of the world is not heading to nuclear. From the IAEA reactor database there was just ONE new reactor construction start outside China last year. Global nuclear capacity last year went backwards with capacity lost due to closures exceeding new capacity coming online

@@nordic5490 I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and have worked in heavy industrial automation most of my working life - almost five decades now. To keep the point simple; operating a stable grid with inherently complex, intermittent renewable sources and non-spinning batteries (with massive high powered electronics) comes with a lot more risk and costs than it's proponents imagine. This is already playing out in Germany. I am under no illusions that nuclear power is a serious engineering undertaking requiring proper analysis and design standards - I only wish the same rigor was applied by the renewables crowd to their proposals. If you are sincerely interested in the best path froward on funding and insuring nuclear power - search on "Gordian Knot Jack Devanney". A very experienced engineer who brings a lifetime of deep understanding of building and working in hazardous industry to this problem.

@@nordic5490 > "with very little maintenance costs for decentralised wind and solar generation" ??? WTF??? Are you sure you've been connected to any type of renewables??? Just maintenance of the on-grid inverters and repairing of the panels which have triple internal resistance can triple your maintenance costs. For wind generation it's more complex processes.

I would not lose any sleep over climate change hype, it is a very controversial subject, if it has any bases of reality at all.

well banks lend out 30 yr mortgages for shore front properties, so you still have 30 yrs lol

@@evil17 What do you mean "hype"? What is contraversial about the subject? What do you mean "if it has any bases of reality at all"? What do you know about the topic to be making such comments?

@@BrentonSmythesfieldsaye Nothing that guy was just a run of the mill climate denier, just report them for misinformation.

We need nothing like that level of backup storage. Please check out Dr Rosie's interview with David Osmond who has been tracking Australia's grid demand over the last 2 years and matching it against actual renewable output, extrapolated to 5% overcapacity. With just 24GW/120GWh (5 hours of storage) on top of our existing hydro we can easily get to 98% renewable generation based on existing output profiles.

@@tassied12 did David Osmond answer the questions about base generator and phase oscillations? How can whole electricity network be stable without high power generation? (at least 3-6 GW). I think that it looks like something different from the electricity science, if the system decentralised at all.

It is not very persuasive to start a comment with an obvious untruth. How on earth is nuclear "a far cheaper energy source" in either long or short run? And BTW pumped hydro STORAGE is not like hydro GENERATION - it needs little water as it is a closed system (the only losses are to seepage and evaporation).

​@@kenoliver8913 Obvious untruth? Not according to ANSTO or the International Energy Agency. And if you believe Chris Bowen's cost estimate for nuclear, then he is claiming as much as well: "…it was interesting to see [Minister for Climate Change and Energy] Chris Bowen say $5 billion for a small-body reactor. I would agree with that figure, but for that you get 13 terawatt-hours a year. To get the same actual generation out of a solar plant, you would need 11 of the big Darlington Point solar plants. They're $450 million, so 11 comes out about the same. You're talking about the costs of nuclear and the costs of solar being basically the same, but then for the solar you've got to add on the storage. You've got to add on the local transmission. You've got to add on the interstate transmission. The lifetime is 25 years, compared to 60 years. If you look at the actual costs of solar in the system, it's about double the cost of nuclear. This is what we're not getting at the moment." www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Nuclearprohibitions/Report/Coalition_Senators_Dissenting_Report An obvious untruth is South Australia's claim that it will be 100% renewable by 2027. That is pure fantasy.

A nuclear power station would help that wouldnt your NZ government is even more backwards then Australias when it comes to Nuclear .Its the only option to stop climate change its the only option to save us average people from outrageous energy bills . The average Canadian pays less then half as much for energy then Aussies or kiwis why because they have a nuclear power capacity. Uneducated people here the word Nuclear and go all funny when it's actually the safest most efficient way to produce energy.

reasons to build nuclear

@@spectrum1324 Totally agree.

@@spectrum1324 I'm guessing that's your default response to everything. First it was that Wind and Solar would never be viable. Now that it is viable but is still growing, the goal post has now moved. Because we've never experienced disruption with coal and oil, whether it be power capacity or hitting your pocket leaving you with no option but to pay. I wager the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for those who don't have a short memory and are not shortsighted.

@@gemelwalters2942 when did i say never be viable I know its a viable option but not one to run an entire gird its good as extra power on top of a decent base line. you would have to be crazy everything were talking about is based on replacing an entire industry with renewables like solar and wind. the goal post hasn't move it is not viable to replace the entire system. period. infact the inability to look into the long-term is something you seem to be exhibiting as you aren't thinking of the economic disadvantages brought on by the removal or coal and how that will hit our economy. you aren't looking at the storage and distribution of solar and the cost of storing electricity and aren't looking at how nuclear could develop to be a much better technology than solar if it gets funding. you just see oh big number small cost that's great. not great if that small cost requires increase cost in every other sector of life now is it

What are you talking about? There are several different electric cars available for less than half that price.

@@tomtxtx9617 You mean the Chinese trash that's on the market?

Good question. It will not be a non-starter, obviously. Funny thing is that at the core of these arguments, if we drill down to the true basics, then people are against nuclear because since people are against nuclear, it's too slow and expensive.

But if you have very cheap thermal storage (molten salt etc) why would you not use it to make dispatchable the very cheapest form of generation - ie solar panels? Why pair it to the most expensive generator? In real life the cost of thermal storage is the biggest reason that thermal solar (ie towers and mirrors) is uncompetitive with solar panels.

In France all Nuclear power plants are state owned and the electricity is heavily subsidized. So cheap electricity is paid with higher taxes.

Hydro is vastly more likely to cause huge damages. With current tech, Chernobyl style catastrophe is simply impossible, and has been for decades. The damages at Fukushima were caused by the tsunami. The issues with nuclear were a drop of water in comparison. But it makes for impressive headlines, which is all media really cares about, regardless of how much it skews perceptions. All this is completely irrelevant in a system where there's financial free trade, the consequences of which are several orders of magnitude worse when a catastrophe happens there.

​@@MadNumForce nuclear construction costs are so high because failure is unacceptable. But economic failure is built in to the central generation because it is constrained by the cost of new grid capacity construction costs. Nuclear is an economic dead end to replacing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. We need x5 to x7 more electricity with no fossil fuels.

@@stephenbrickwood1602 u need brains like the Scarecrow. Indeed

@@MihailG5541 wow that's emotional 😢

The initial price not the total one. You should look at the lifecycle price of nuclear plants. Considerably cheaper than renewables.

@@salahidin That's interesting. Could you quote your source? I'd like to look at the data. Thanks.

124.65£/MWh atm

Yes, nuclear is expensive compared to other sources if you are being simplistic (ie just looking at LCOE, or strike-price). But nuclear brings the *overall* generation cost down. Unlike Australia, Britain has long dark winters, regular week long DunkelFlaute, expensive land, limited hydro, and no geothermal. A small amount of base load (maybe 20%) dramatically reduces the amount of (expensive) storage needed for a renewable-only solution. None of Rosie's points are killers for Britain.

@@salahidin "Considerably cheaper than renewables." - 😂LOL, those vocationally involved in energy sector assessment would beg to differ with you.

I have not even changed a single setting on this camera since I bought it 😬🫣 I promise I will do that... Sometime

​@@EngineeringwithRosiehaha nice

the high prices are because we are in a transition period, and having to pay fossil fuel operators to stay operating even when we don't need their power. Add in corporations taking profit for shareholders, and that can explain the higher power prices. Also, Australia's deals with gas exporters means that east coast gas generators pay international rates for our own gas.

But the video was about why nuclear is a dumb ideal for Australia. Not about easily solvable problems.

@@bernhardschmalhofer855 are you trying to suggest the "waste" is an "Easily solvable problem," but cannot find a singe example of where it has been solved, anywhere on Earth? ....you sound like, perhaps, you are a nuclear advocate, regardless of logic... ie., a nuclear cultist...

@@Naturalook I just think that the storage sites, like Onkola in Finland, are a good enough solution. Those storage sites should be build for all of the spent fuel. But I'm not a nuclear cultist as I think that nuclear energy is not worth the hassle when renewables+transmission+storage provide cheaper, more simple, and safer options. I am a fanboy of nuclear fusion though. But that is more a fascination with the sciene and technology behind it. I actually don't think that fusion will ever be cheaper than wind and solar.

@@bernhardschmalhofer855' fair enough, I am a 'fanboy,' too, by those measures... I always first gotta say... ...but it's way more expensive then simpler alternative... but toward the permanent solutions; I only see spot-locations that have viable long-term sequester, like in the 10.s of thousands of years... When you add the all in, and then think, the number of plants is to be thousands of times increased... It's just numbers, and when those numbers are put into dollars, it's easy, "NUCLEAR ENERGY HAS NO PLACE IN OUR FUTURE!!!"

No you can’t say that. That’s being logical and reasonable. People like Rosie function on emotion and nuclear bad no matter what. Much better to have massive fields of turbines and solar panels breaking all the time.

Exactly, the LCoS does not account for many transmission/storage aspects despite being heavily subsidized. Even if Australia does not invest in reactor development right this moment, every country stands to benefit from developing nuclear engineering because countries that do have this infrastructure can deliver cheap nuclear reactors in short amounts of time. For instance, every Hualong One (AP-1000 variation) in China in recent years have been deployed in 6 years or less for under 4B USD for a 1000 MWe unit, many of which are developed in combined units for cheaper per unit.

@@rubbles2206 how much would it Cost to do the same with wind and solar?

You need lots of transmission infrastructure regardless of the generator.

@@apacheslim It is cheaper to deploy Solar and to a lesser extent wind, particularly in the developing world like CN/India where the infrastructure is very good and the subsidies are even larger - for instance, Badla Solar Farm has a 2.2GWe nameplate capacity for 2.5B. The problem is nameplate capacity for solar/wind is not the annual generation due to capacity factor, which is at most 30-35% for solar and less for wind. Copper Mountain Solar facility in California is a 1.8B USD/800MWe nameplate capacity farm but it generates less energy than a 200MWe natural gas plant annually. Typical nuclear units can generate 6000GWh per 1GWe nameplate capacity, compared with only about 1500GWh from a 1GWe solar farm and wind is worse; not to mention off-site storage and transmission costs to get it to the people and sell the energy to the people. In the US, Vogtle and V.C. Summer were the first commissioned nuclear plants planned to be built since the 70s, the lack of experience, infrastructure, and overpromises in managing such a project resulted in cost overruns and delays, it isn't an inherent problem with nuclear as seen in Chinese and Korean nuclear industries. In Australia, even though a third of the energy is generated on solar/wind, only a fraction of it can be used because of the aforementioned distribution and storage issues, about 80% still run on fossil fuels. Generating the power is very easy and cheap for renewables, it's more about getting it to the people and selling it.

The Sierra Club in the US pushes back against any new hydrocarbon electric generation. As a result, outdated coal plants are kept running when the alternative is new combined-cycle natural gas generation. CCNG is not great either, but it is dispatchable and can be shut off and restarted on short notice. The nuke industry promotes "firm" power but the generating companies need dispatchable power.

Most solar panels will still be working in 20 years. They're usually guaranteed to have something like 80% of their original power after 20 years. And they're mostly glass and aluminium, which are easy to recycle. Similarly wind turbines last about 20 years, and it's just the blades that are hard to recycle. The steel tower and copper/iron generator are easy, and the majority of the mass.

Newer generations of wind turbines are built with recycling in mind.

@@robinbennett5994 It's definitely not true that solar panels are easy to recycle, but all your other points are valid.

@@michaelmccluskey2044 its also not feasable to recycle it, so they end up in landfills/eternal storage anyway, just like nuclear waste.

@@michaelmccluskey2044 When you say "It's definitely not true that solar panels are easy to recycle" what do you mean. I trust you are not proposing it can't be done. Solar panels are being recycled already on a commercial scale. I have read about solar panel recycling forecast to become a 50 billion dollar global industry by 2050.

The reactors in the navy would be several multiples more expensive then the large reactors, Nuclear power has well understood scaling factors which make small reactors uneconomical. Gas generators ore more properly Combine Cycle Gas Turbines are NOT baseload powerplants, they are dispatchable fast on/off powerplants, likewise batteries are storage and not even a generator. Baseload powerplants are Nuclear, Coal and Geothermal. The land consumption is not 1% it is 0.1% aka 780 square kilometers by your math, a trivial amount.

One huge cost advantage solar, batteries and, to a lesser extent, wind have is that plants have an effectively infinite life due to their extreme modularity - you can replace individual components without even having the plant go offline. eg when a battery in a battery farm degrades enough to be worth it you just drive a truck up to it and replace the container with a cheaper and better one. So the cost of that appears in the maintenance budget (ie running costs) rather than in the capital budget (ie the stuff for which you have to pay the banks for a big loan, get planning permission, fight the NIMBY's, hire a skilled workforce etc).

As a recovering nuclear advocate, let me just say that: 1. Grid scale batteries are way more capable than I initially thought. I would look at the scale of pumped hydro dams and think "that could never be stored in batteries", not intuitively comprehending that chemical battery storage is nearly a thousand times denser than gravitational storage with water, and that a cities' energy needs for multiple days can fit into a small warehouse. Keep in mind that it's engineers, not hippies, that are installing these storage systems. They have the forethought to install enough capacity to meet demand during extreme circumstances, and the systems are probably underrated if anything. So yes, battery storage can definitely meet demand at night (also the demand isn't a constant 18 GW, that might be the evening peak but it falls rapidly as people go to bed and turn things off). 2. If demand drops below supply, and you don't have any wind turbines or panels that can be disconnected, you have a problem. If the reactor is cranking out power, that power has to go somewhere, or else equipment will begin to be damaged. If you added enough wind and solar to be able to curtail what you needed to, it would be a majority of the power. Then you have to ask yourself why a nuclear plant is being operated just to pick up the occasional slack of a mostly renewable grid, when battery storage could do the same thing for a lot cheaper and the same or better reliability. 3. The "problem" of too much solar capacity isn't one. If there's too much power on the grid, we either need to divert some of it to storage, or power down a coal plant, and the latter is hard to do intermittently. 4. The cost and time of upgrading power grids to use distributed renewable generation is less of an issue than is immediately obvious. Power transmission systems around the world are in need of upgrades, in some cases decades overdue. Replacing most of the transmission system will happen within the next two decades to ensure reliable power access (and prevent wildfires). The additional cost of upgrading the system while it's being replaced is a small add-on to the total cost. Upgrading to a renewable-capable grid has a lot of benefits, mainly the increased reliability of a distributed system with many generation and storage points. That is to say, the total cost reported is often misleading because the majority of that figure is for critically necessary repairs, and the additional cost of upgrading the system provides more reliability and cheaper electricity access in the long-term. 5. Not sure which indications you're referring to. Most renewable development took a dip during the pandemic, but both wind and solar and globally increasing in their rates of deployment, as are new battery storage systems. I too think 2035 for 100% seems off, but even at the current rate of about 3% growth per year would put Australia near 100% within the next 20 years. The point remains that by the time a new nuclear plant is put online, the grid landscape, and price of electricity to compete with, will be dramatically different and probably not in favor of nuclear. I love nuclear. I love the physics behind it, I love learning about new reactor designs. But the hard sober truth is that, as an energy source, it only makes practical sense in niche cases. It's always the most expensive option up front, it takes a very long time to recoup it's investment, and it takes a very long time to actually bring a reactor online (even at the optimistic end, and most places that want to "get into" nuclear energy don't have the domestic expertise and resources needed to build quickly or economically). The main use case for nuclear is in wealthy countries with limited space and non-energy exporting neighbors. And if those places want to build nuclear, then great! It's an ultra-low carbon energy source that helps the world reach net zero emissions

Who wants solar to provide night time power? LOL oh. I had a thought. If every house was to install a battery that replentished at a low cost during high power production we will not need huge storage facilities. #baseloadnolonger

@jasonrhl There's a lot of good ways to reduce baseload that are pretty affordable. For instance, 70% of household energy use is for heating and cooling, either spaces or water. Heating and cooling capacity is energy that can easily be stored in low-cost phase change materials like ice for cooling or molten sales for heating. There's a lot of things we use that use big gobs of power for super short periods of time, like microwave ovens, that could benefit from low-cost, high current draw batteries like lead acid. The general idea of spreading out large loads into small power draws throughout the day can massively reduce the amount of baseload battery storage we actually need.

@@Spencergolde i would still disagree with this. nuclear is still in an infancy. we have an understanding of how it works but haven't invested any money into it due to fear. infact legislation like the one she provided directly contributes to the high cost of nuclear. its a circular argument. nuclear is to expensive but we wont invest in nuclear to make it cheaper and will go out of our way to ban its development. solar and wind where in the same boat 20-30 years ago where people say it was to expensive now its not extremely expensive but it never had to get around lawmakers who would ban the technology for no reason. in total the arguments she made are completely circular nuclear is to expensive because we wont invest in making it cheaper.

There's that professor from university of Illinois who lectures on all the facts about nuclear power. He's good but my attention span is weak .😊

What is *_Deep Isolation?_*

@@aliendroneservices6621 Where is the waste storage facility in Australia ?? Are you claim this exists already ? Where ?

It's a whole continent.

Fast nuclear reactors or 4th generation reactors are the answers to all of your questions. They can process all the mentioned materials and reduce their radioactivity to a level lower than that of fresh uranium from the mine. Moreover, 4th generation reactors can recycle more than half of the used fuel into new hybrid (Mixed MOX/REMIX) fuel and reuse it without mining new uranium

So yeah let's continue extracting tons of tossic material for renewable construction (arsenic, gallium) that you also need to store somewhere (see bautou lake) instead of a much little volume of nuclear waste... Please search an image of the nuclear waste storage in france or switz or idk and look at how 50 years of nuclear production can stay in such a little area

The UAE had no nuclear expertise and bought reactors from a South Korean consortium. Seems like the perfect real world example. May be spend two minutes comparing the costs, capacity and capacity factors of UAE nuclear verse Snowy Hydro 2.0?

Negawatts won't power *_data-centers._*

no. just build moar solar!

Candles

@@jimgraham6722 Right!!! Try heating your house in Canada in December through March with Candles.

Storage is the issue. Once you go past a grid with more than 50-60% renewables you have to commit ever larger resources to storage. At 100% renewables Australia would have to invest around $180m in pumped hydro projects. If you sought to do it with chemical big batteries it would be about $1tr. You could mix and match for something in between. Australia's two governing parties have looked at overcoming the storage problem. The Coalition has opted to go nuclear, Labor has chosen to ignore the problem altogether and go gas (hoping no one will notice). Given the Coalition will certainly be back in power in five years, nuclear it is. The only issue is what type? I am not sure I am convinced by their infatuation with a Rolls Royce solution.

There is very little support for nuclear in the energy sector in Australia. It is viewed as a poor fit for our grid. The Chief Engineer at AEMO told a recent parliamentary enquiry into nuclear that they were looking for more dispatchable generation, and not generation with the output profile of nuclear. The Australian Energy Council is the peak body for Australia's electricity generators. This from their website: "Current nuclear plant is not agile enough to deal with rapid rises and falls in supply and demand; It cannot ‘fast start’ like pumped hydro, gas-fired peaking plants, and batteries."

The irony of your perspective is quite amusing.

Nuclear power plants are completly incapable of delivering industrial useful heat, the nature of a light water reactor limits even the internal temperatures to ~300 degrees and viable heat delivery to external consumers via steam pipes etc would be ~100, ok for home heating but nothing more. Industrial heat needs are generally 1000 degrees and are generally made with electricity onsite or with hydrocarbon combustion, metal smelting specifically utilizes the chemical reaction of Carbon to strip oxygen from metal atoms and 'reduce' them, it is not simply a heating process so Nuclear heat is again completly unable to do this by definition.

Nuclear reactors of generation 4 is the answer. Current temperature rates is between 400 and 900 degrees for both gas cooled, Molten salts / metals reactors. Next generation of CO2 power plants will have the same temperature ranges. Only hydrogen and combined gas (methane+ 20-30% hydrogen) power plants will have higher temperatures

after watching this video, the following one from Sabine popped up which gives a lot of extra depth and color to what Rosie has said here. in short, the construction time component is really a political regulatory one. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a6ujdcx0nq7OqYU.htmlsi=ihrvKSPbM9JyTicT

Still France was done with nuclear in the early 90-ies, while Germany is still struggling and has slideware for 2050 for VRE, and will need to pioneer the hydrogen economy to get there. So nuclear is 8 years slower in some sense, and apparently 60 years faster in another. And actually proven as a form of DEEP decarbonization.

we didn't though. we build 6 in nsw in total and shut them down because of fear. then they got banned. also that just false. the more investment a technology receives the cheaper its cost becomes. we really didn't invent in nuclear we just looked at it then people got scared and ran. the cost o nuclear will come down as the technology develops. like it did with solar and wind.

Spot on. As it happens thirty years ago I was arguing for just this with my greeny friends - but I know nuclear's time has now well and truly passed, at least in Australia.

Are there any arguments or are you just repeating general statements from media?

Just where is this so called cheap coal ?? The coal and gas prices went through the roof when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021. Add to that the state coal concessions in some states expired.

@@ricalthuizen2079 I would recommend you to check current global coal prices and compare with say last 10-15 years historic data. They are barely above the average variability and, considering inflation, totally in trend. Coal is the biggest fossil fuel resource with enormous amounts of easily extractable deposits. It’s a superb energy source unless CO2 emissions.

@@flok462 Not sure I am ready to dive deep in discussion of consumer energy tariffs, but electricity which is a subject of most of renewable folks efforts indeed stands for only 20% percent of the total energy consumption. Whatever the green folks are saying is feasible with renewable, one needs to multiply by 4-5 times. And for that we might never get enough mineral resources at the current state of technology. So being realistic and serious about getting as close to net zero as possible means we need to realize that different energy sources have different characteristics, pros/cons and we need a mix of them. For limitations in minerals I recommend to read reports/ watch lectures by Simon Michaux.

@@usrno1 why do you think you need 4-5 x the capacity? I think this number is far to high. Also remember a rising energy consumption is not given at all. Germany for example uses 17% less primary energy while having 6% more population (1990 vs 2023). It is also weird to think we stay at the current technological level. Every growing industry develops at a mind blowing rate - just look at batteries, solar oder nuclear power. To asume they dont evolve greatly in the next 10 - 20 years is not realistic in my opinion. I also wouldnt say net zero without nuclear is impossible. Worldwide? You're probably right, but there are local systems which can run without nuclear. If you got a huge amount of hydro like Austria, Norway or Skandinavia in general you dont need nuclear. In my opinion hydro is the best way to get power if the terrain supports is, you have enough water and space to build the thing. I also think Germany can make a system without nuclear work because they are heavily interconnected in the European grid and can draw huge amounts of energy from hydro rich countries and nuclear neighbors like France or Poland. You can also use geothermal like Iceland which is not feasable everywhere but far more places than are using it now. A dunkelflaute on a whole continent is also really unlikely. Given Australias unique location and prime land for development of renewables I can also imagine a system without nuclear working there. Especially because there are so few people living there. Nuclear works best in a highly industrialised place with high population density and no other good way to get energy from. I'm not sure Australia is a great place for it.

Unfortunately that's not just a problem in Australia. We here in Canada, and our southern neighbors the USA both have the same problem. I'm not sure how this plays out in Europe, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is the same story there. Asia? Who knows?

@@jimthain8777 It's the same everywhere. Stupid politicians chasing votes with spin...facts and reality be damned.

In Italy? Solar panels on every roof. Then you can sell to Germany when the nuclear conservatives there get their much-loved dunkelflaute.

@@benoithudson7235 and huge batteries in every shed and apartment.

​@@jesan733even the smallest electric cars have more than enough energy storage for residence

@@justseifert that's not true in the slightest.

@@jesan733 do you have proof that it's not true?

All countries with fast nuclear reactors can recycle at least 50% of used nuclear fuel to mixed nuclear fuel + 3% of nuclear waste + cleaned materials with very low level of radiation and chemical activity, lower than fresh uranium from the mines. There's at least 30 examples of triple usage of regenerated nuclear fuel.

@@MihailG5541How does that comment address the point the OP was making?

@@robsengahay5614 The point is that the last sentence ("nuclear power plants are profitable only without recycling waste") is a lie

@@MihailG5541 But that sentence wasn’t there.

@@robsengahay5614 What's that? > "Once the clean up/storage costs are included, Nuclear in any form only makes sense to the companies building them as they walk away from the plant/waste when at the end of it’s working life and the tax payer picks up the bill" In my opinion, this is the biggest lie that could be told about nuclear energy

What do you think about *_Deep Isolation?_*

Nuclear waste is not technically a big deal. It is a big deal in public opinion. Many toxic substances are stored in the ground safely and they will be toxic forever, whereas nuclear waste cuts in half its radioactive emissions in years, centuries or thousands of years.

@@madmachine1 it is a big deal if you don't have an established facility to handle highly radioactive waste. That also needs to be constructed. Unless of course you are the UK whose whole intention was to develop nuclear facilities to feed enrichment plants to fuel nuclear weapons. It is a dirty business with many long term issues that cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand. The half life of the biproducts of nuclear reactors for power production have a half life of thousands of years. It is irresponsible to palm off responsibility onto future generations.

@@aliendroneservices6621 nuclear waste from nuclear reactors is highly toxic and radioactive. Some of the biproducts have a half-life of thousands of year.....what a legacy for future generations. My dad was an engineer and he believed that you should not embark on a project like nuclear power unless you had a safe and secure means of disposing/recycling the waste. So far the only solutions on offer are reprocessing for making nuclear weapons, long term cooling ponds, encapsulation and burial.

@@stevejagger8602 Most of the fuel could be recycled and the French have the tools for it. Activity is directly related to the half life of a substance. Highly active waste does not last long. A single former mine in Canada has to contain more arsenic dust, permanently, than there exists nuclear waste (by mass) on the planet.

What Germany did wrong was the decommissioning of existing nuclear power plants. When they shut them off their CO2 emissions went high. Fun fact: Germany is considered a green champion, but it emits more CO2 per kWh produced than many other European countries (France is way better), because it relies still on coal.

They don’t apply to Germany, far from it.. Unlike Australia, Germany already had perfectly functioning nuclear power plants, there was absolutely no good reason for closing them down, the decision to phase out nuclear was largely fueled by political reasons, it had nothing to do with economics or safety. It was totally possible to extend the life of those plants if one would have really wanted to. A highly renewable system would be a nightmare for Germany, a system like that would require huge amounts of natural gas to fill in the gaps left by renewables and prevent blackouts from happening. Adding more renewables and firming them up with storage wouldn’t change things very much, it’s possible it could even make things worse. High amounts of variable renewables would mean there would be periods where gas generation would not be needed (possibly most of the year) and other periods (Dunkelflaute) where most, if not all, generation would need to come from gas and imports. Factor in that electricity demand will more than double in the future and you get A LOT of gas plants working at extremely low capacity factors. Public subsidies would also be needed to keep those plants open when gas generation isn’t needed, under this scenario electricity prices would simply skyrocket. A 30-40% of electricity coming from variable renewables is the maximum you should aim for, go beyond that and you’ll run into issues, having to export it when you have too much, curtailing it, or storing it in batteries, are just some of the issues you encounter as you try to incorporate more renewables into the grid. Electricity prices in Germany will continue to rise as more renewables are added, families industries will struggle more and more if you keep going down this path. You guys are still in time to backtrack.

@@gianmarconeri6733 It's already done. They shut them down .building new one take decades.

@@gianmarconeri6733 yes you should really look into the data. Most of the things you mention are already proven wrong. First the already existing nuclear plants. If they were so cheap and already paid for, why did no electricity provider want to keep them? They were all quite happy to shut them down. They were built in the 80s with a planned liferime of 30-40 years. It would be possible to maintain them well and run them a few more years, but by law they would have to be upgraded to the current safety requirements. No provider wanted to do that unless receiving heavy subsidies. Electricity prices skyrocketed since the Ukraine war but came down recently to pre war levels and are expected to be low in the future. This is why nuklear would be sold at a loss on the energy market. The german grid doesn‘t stop at its borders and the exchange of electricity within the continent is a benefit for all. Importing and exporting is part of a renewable energy market. Dunkelflaute is not an issue currently in the worat days of the year renewable don‘t make 0% but rather 20% and capacity is increasing. There will be a time were you will have too much output and turn down wind and solar generation but overbuilding is probably cheaper than backup generation. There are also around 10GW biogas generation which are currently running as base load. They could easily be retrofitted with gas and heat storage and a 4 times bigger generator and you would have all the backup power you need for the dunkelflaute. Much cheaper than keeping nuclear running. And also we had still 3 Plants running a little over 4 GW we addded 15GW solar only last year. Yes not the same hours in solar and nuclear but still we added much more TWh in solar and wind each year than those 3 plants could contribute they are simply insignificant, expensive to run and noone wanted to keep funding them with public money. Thats why they could be easily switched off and Rosies points still apply for Germany as well. Just slightly modified numbers concerning area. Here it might be 2-4% but most of that area will be double use like farming below a windfarm or rooftop solar

FALSE. Indeed, the fact you singled out Germany as an example suggests an ideological agenda, because Germany has had an ideologically motivated anti-nuclear movement since Chernobyl in 1986. Germany has instead relied on cheap Russian Natural Gas, but have recently been reluctantly forced to replace this with relatively expensive LNG, both of which are fossil fuels. Germany also continues to use significant amounts of Coal, (including Lignite) which has some of the highest CO2 emissions. The cost of boycotting Nuclear Power has been higher emissions overall, contributing to Climate Change. By contrast, neighboring France avoided both these problems by opting for Nuclear Power in the 1970-80s resulting in much lower CO2 emissions than Germany over the last ~40 years. France's mistake was to partially follow Germany's lead, by not building new reactors to replace the old ones, which they're now regretting...

Science told us that generation less than 30 MW of electricity in one station is not so effective as on the larger station. But...

Nuclear energy is industry development. Wind and solar energy is the end of industry. You must choose between industry and services.

@@MihailG5541 : Would Australia have the time and resources to build a nuclear industry from scratch?

@@josdesouza Nuclear research reactors have been operating in Australia from 1958 to the present. I don’t see any big problems with introducing technologies from other countries

Just think about all those huge government contracts they could hand to their friends, and the bail-outs when the cost over-runs. And then having a few big companies control the market...

"The transmission lines some could bankrupt the country!" So you want every Australian factory and data-center to run off-grid on its own solar power?

Transmission lines? Really? Qld already exports power to Victoria when their precious renewables can't keep up, how do you think it gets there? Black magic?

@@aliendroneservices6621 that would be excellent, independent of corruption by having your own power generation.

@@ozemale6t928 All states in the NEM network share and support each others demand load. "Qld" is NOT doing anything above and beyond what every other state is doing. Qld like all the NEM states, also benefits from cheaper renewable generation when it's available, managing to drive down cost to consumers during that time. While the price goes up when the old coal chuggers are meeting demand. It doesn't matter if any state "can't keep up" at a given time as you put it, that is exactly what is meant to happen and why the NEM exists to share load. It's not an accident, it is intended to increase efficient use of power generation assetts across the NEM.

@ozemale6t928 there is NO connection between Perth and Melbourne!

Then how did France go nuclear?

If nuclear reactors go ahead in Australia, we will have heaps of skilled workforce & operators well before any reactor project is near completion.

Given the time scale involved in a nuclear buildout, you can have some fun in bed tonight and have a trained nuclear plant operator before most of the plants would be finished.

Nuclear research reactors have been present in Australia from 1958 to the present.