Wind power no match for nuclear

The Greens and others have labelled the cost of nuclear electricity in Australia too expensive.  To be consistent, they should advocate subsidising it.  After all, wind power is too expensive and the Greens have no issue with corporate wind farmers quietly collecting their subsidies.

The subsidies come through the federal government mandatory renewable energy target (MRET) certificates and they are arguably not very effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The largest new trough of this sort is the Victorian government scheme, VRET, which sets a target of 1000 megawatts of installed renewable energy sources.  Electricity consumers will pay a $2 billion subsidy to the owners of wind farms, over a period of 15 to 20 years.

Government consultants have estimated the benefit to the state of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to be a saving of about 1.3 per cent of brown coal-sourced electricity, about 80Mw.  The same saving in brown coal-burning might have been achieved by installing 350Mw of gas turbine-powered generators that would have had the added advantage of being able to supply energy when it was needed.

The point is that we expect power to flow when we flick the switch.  If we want emission-free electrical power and we also want to keep our streets lit at night, our refrigerators and deep freezers working while looking at the television, then what power sources will help?

In Victoria, in the deep of the night at, say, 3am we consume more than 4000Mw of electricity, probably not powering TV sets but keeping much else going, including an aluminum smelter at Portland.  No wind or solar power supply can help us.  Until some low-cost storage technology appears that does the equivalent of video recording, which allows us to time-shift supply to match demand, we are restricted to coal-burning power stations.  Our only low-emissions hope is nuclear power.

Yet, how do we get started?  There are no nuclear engineers in the country, no universities training nuclear engineers and very few training electrical power engineers.  Perhaps we should subsidise the construction of an advanced reactor design that produces less long-lived high-level radioactive waste.  It need not be a giant, perhaps a modest 500Mw of output.  It should be built as an industrial collaboration with others so we will gain valuable experience and know-how while making a useful contribution.

If we want to start on this track, then why not extend the MRET scheme to cover all low-emission electricity generators?  These schemes transfer large sums from consumers to suppliers, spreading the burden over many to give to the few.  Given that wind farms have a 30 to 40 per cent capacity factor and nuclear is nearer 90 per cent, there should be room enough to earn a return on an investment in nuclear electricity supply.  After all, the concern of government should be safety and security and after that it should be a business decision.

There is just one problem, we may create yet another class of rent-seeker.  Bring on a nuclear subsidy.

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