A "bold but unpopular vision" for nuclear or was it just bullshit?
I'd go for the latter, so Australia wasn't getting nuclear either way.
What they had a chance for, and may now get, is vaguely sensible policy to continue their renewable rollout which is, in some aspects, world leading.
croes · 11h ago
So no Hinkley Point C for Australia.
anenefan · 4m ago
Thankfully not. The question or agenda of nuclear power for the energy grid has cropped up many times in the past here. Each time after eventually reading the room, it's decided it's not a good fit for the country. Late 90s the idea of this old school nuclear power plant BS was finally put out to pasture and dashed any hopes of internationally qualified companies that made their fortunes designing old style nuclear plants.
Had the opposition won on other issues, nuclear would have been touted as a mandate for them regardless and I fear the people who had the most to gain are those in the industries which would have cashed in around a plethora of studies, committees paid to sit and consider locations and other factors, proposed design ... etc which would run into the billions. Not one study but dozens upon dozens (prob in the hundreds) of them as each case is considered. Studies here are not cheap by any means [1]
The debate moved from safety to economics. The economics only worked if you wanted to continue gas and coal for two more decades.
7 nuclear sites in an economy with only a swimming pool reactor for research and nuclear medicine, projecting the most favourable cost of construction worldwide.
Most people saw this as cynical, a move by coal and gas mining interests.
Is nuclear energy safe and useful? Probably. It was a terrible fit for this economy. It should have started 40 years ago.
Possibly, arguably this is why the LNP lost but mostly I think, Trump cost them the election. This nuclear thing was a classic city country divide: a lot of mining, fly in fly out heavy engineering workers liked it. City dwellers Not.
skissane · 22m ago
> Possibly, arguably this is why the LNP lost but mostly I think, Trump cost them the election.
While I agree that Trump and nuclear were factors, I think a bigger factor was charisma - Albanese doesn’t have a lot of it, but at least he’s still above zero, Dutton is a fair way below zero.
Another factor was the anti-work-from-home policy for public servants: not just the policy itself, but abandoning it half way through the campaign was rather damaging to Dutton’s credibility.
I'd go for the latter, so Australia wasn't getting nuclear either way.
What they had a chance for, and may now get, is vaguely sensible policy to continue their renewable rollout which is, in some aspects, world leading.
Had the opposition won on other issues, nuclear would have been touted as a mandate for them regardless and I fear the people who had the most to gain are those in the industries which would have cashed in around a plethora of studies, committees paid to sit and consider locations and other factors, proposed design ... etc which would run into the billions. Not one study but dozens upon dozens (prob in the hundreds) of them as each case is considered. Studies here are not cheap by any means [1]
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-11/commonwealth-kimba-na...
7 nuclear sites in an economy with only a swimming pool reactor for research and nuclear medicine, projecting the most favourable cost of construction worldwide.
Most people saw this as cynical, a move by coal and gas mining interests.
Is nuclear energy safe and useful? Probably. It was a terrible fit for this economy. It should have started 40 years ago.
Possibly, arguably this is why the LNP lost but mostly I think, Trump cost them the election. This nuclear thing was a classic city country divide: a lot of mining, fly in fly out heavy engineering workers liked it. City dwellers Not.
While I agree that Trump and nuclear were factors, I think a bigger factor was charisma - Albanese doesn’t have a lot of it, but at least he’s still above zero, Dutton is a fair way below zero.
Another factor was the anti-work-from-home policy for public servants: not just the policy itself, but abandoning it half way through the campaign was rather damaging to Dutton’s credibility.