This was just published at Climate Spectator. It has left me with decidedly mixed feelings.

On the one hand, perception is as good as reality, so if this is the perception, something needs to be fixed at this end.

On the other hand, I think the piece is a good 50% straw man arguments, suggesting nuclear advocates are, at large, simplistic, one-eyed, right wing, anti-climate change, anti-renewable types who are incapable or unwilling to critically evaluate nuclear power as a solution.

Many of us are nothing of the sort.

I am particularly disturbed that the author sees fit to continue the self-fullfilling prophecy of “two decades” for any nuclear deployment, rather than suggesting that perhaps we come together to sort fact from fiction, build acceptance based on good information and bring that date forward to start cutting our emissions. Apparently we “can’t just twiddle our thumbs hoping for public opinion to change”. I’m not, Tristen. But you seem to think that until then what we should do is keep changing our light bulbs and expect public opinion to change all on its own. 

Is the author honestly interested in potentially seeing nuclear included in the mix? Or is this some kind of concern troll, aping a level of support but then undermining with all the usual memes. I am not sure.

I don’t normally ask directly, but dear readers would you see fit to Tweet, Like, Link and send this one around? I would really like to see Climate Spectator forced to take a harder look at this issue.

What’s really wrong with nuclear?

Tristan Edis

As we approach the 12 month anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, it’s worth reflecting on the potential future role of nuclear power in this country. In spite of this disaster the Australian Government was brave enough to suggest nuclear power as a back-up plan in the Energy White Paper. While I’m very optimistic about renewables in combination with energy efficiency, I’m also keen on a back-up plan given the threat of global warming.

The kind of temperature changes expected as a result of global warming have occurred in the past due to natural causes. The problem is they involved very nasty things called mass extinctions.

That’s why I like anything that has a demonstrated track record of significantly reducing emissions. It’s why I like compact flourescent light bulbs, solar hot water, wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels. Heck I even like pink batts. After all pink batts don’t spontaneously combust, they were put alight by highly inefficient, poorly installed halogen downlights.

All of these things definitely work, and I can see first-hand evidence of them delivering rather than promising to deliver.

It’s also why I like nuclear power. Nuclear power generated a little over 13 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2010. It has a horrible track record of meeting construction timetables and budgets, but it can definitely supply large quantities of electricity with low emissions. It has achieved this while resulting in significantly less deaths than coal use, a major plus in my book in spite of Fukushima. I worry that Japan and Germany, with their nuclear phase-outs, will instead revert to fossil-fuels rather than renewables, which is exactly what Japan is doing right now.

For a geologically and politically stable country like Australia, nuclear power could be a good option for us to reduce carbon emissions while meeting the essential need for large quantities of electricity.

The one problem with nuclear power is its advocates.


Nuclear supporters push the deluded idea that nuclear will be viable without the need for a strong carbon price.

Many of those who back nuclear power are often the same people suggesting that Australia should not be imposing a price on carbon emissions. They seem to suggest that nuclear is a costless fix.

When you dig into the assumptions behind these claims of a costless fix you quickly find a range of clever accounting tricks as well as plain nonsense.

Advocates who try to use nuclear as an excuse to not price carbon will often adopt an incredibly unrealistic interest rate on financing, such as 5 per cent. No company can raise debt or equity finance to build a power station at 5 per cent return, unless perhaps they’re a state-owned enterprise in China or France.

Their second trick is to assume short construction times for nuclear plants that bear no relationship to experience. The World Nuclear Association, for example, will uncritically print claims by power plant vendors of construction taking 36 months. Yet most of the plants built in the western world took over 90 months to build according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

They will then claim that these construction delay problems have been fixed with new ‘Generation 3’ designs. Finland was the first Western country to order a generation 3 reactor, the Olkiluoto-3 unit. The project, which began in early 2005, was reported in 2010 as running €1.7 billion over budget and up to four years late. The other example is the Flamanville-3 project in France, which began in 2007 and was planned to be complete in 2012 at a cost of €3.55 billion. Since then the completion date has slipped to 2016 and the capital cost has been revised up three times. It is now expected to cost about €6 billion.

If you adopt realistic assumptions in accordance with past experience (as opposed to nuclear vendor promises they won’t put in a contract), nuclear could potentially be competitive against wind power in this country. But it will need a very strong carbon price of $60tCO2 or more to be competitive with fossil fuels.

Nuclear advocates argue against efforts to deploy renewable energy based on an excessively simplistic view of how we maintain electricity reliability.

If you were to believe nuclear advocates, if a power plant’s output were to drop-off then the lights would go out. Apparently each individual power plant must produce 100 per cent of the time.

But variability is an inherent feature of electricity systems that means we are already well-equipped to manage wind and solar power. Demand is not constant and can vary quite substantially from day-to-day and hour-to-hour, requiring flexibility from our power plants. Power stations and power lines can also fail unexpectedly. As a result, electricity systems already have a large amount of power generating capacity laying idle for much of the year which can be rapidly ramped-up and down to help accommodate wind and solar power. The idea that we need one new fossil fuel plant to back-up each renewable power plant is nonsense.

Nuclear advocates, rather than acknowledging problems with nuclear power, explain them away with reference to technologies that aren’t commercially available

On the fact that the plants come in one size – bloody big and hard to swallow – they invoke such things as pebble-bed modular reactors or generation IV designs that will come in nice modular small-scale plants. But the only place these things exist is engineers’ drawing pad and experimental test plants. Not a single reputable nuclear power plant vendor could even quote you a price on such a plant.

In relation to the issues of uranium supplies being limited and the problem of long-term radioactive waste, they cite that this will be fixed through breeder reactors or the use of thorium. One problem – efforts to develop breeder reactors have been beset with problems and none are operating commercially.

Most importantly many nuclear advocates just don’t believe global warming is a problem.

Several nuclear advocates in Australia have regularly called into question whether global warming is real or even a problem. This makes me nervous that they aren’t advocating for nuclear because they see it as a viable and necessary option for reducing Australia’s carbon emissions. Rather they may be using it as a smokescreen to undermine other more readily implemented means of cutting emissions.

The majority of Australians are opposed to the use of nuclear power in this country. We might like to assume this away but it’s a political reality that makes nuclear power impractical for reducing Australia’s emissions for at least the next two decades. We can’t just twiddle our thumbs while we hope for public opinion to change.


  1. Starting with just one point that there is already enough on-demand capacity to cover intermittent generation. The question is ‘why bother?’. Take the case of the wind:gas combination.You have have doubled up capital cost with wind farms and new transmission on the one hand and the other hand you have underutilised gas plant. Both installations ‘burn’ financing costs instead of gas alone. Then there is non-optimal fuel use. Quick start open cycle gas plant produces about as much CO2 as supercritical coal, about 750 grams per kwh. Combined cycle gas needs to be kept ticking over to maintain steam. The idea is to minimise gas use, not rely on it.

    Various estimates put the cost of CO2 saved by windpower in the range $100 to $1000 per tonne of CO2. That’s vis a vis 100% gas generation. What happens when gas runs out?

      1. I actually think he’s stooped to harassing people that support nuclear power. Categorising me because of one belief as thinking things that I (or you) clearly don’t, and then trying (but not succeeding) to make a mockery of ‘these people’ is not very professional at all. I hope that anyone interested enough in reading about nuclear power on the internet will realise his article is nothing other than trash talk, although unfortunately a couple people here or there may believe him. What a shame, but let’s not give up, there is a slowly increasing awareness of the importance of nuclear power.

        1. He is saying what a lot of people are thinking. I don’t like it (at all) but to some extent what Tristan has done is open up an important conversation. Let’s respond, clearly, unambiguously. If you visit the original post you will see that he and I have already made up some ground, and I have issued him a challenge. Suggest you pop over there, encourage him to take it up. There may be an opportunity here to move matters forward with some of the people we need most.

  2. “We can’t just twiddle our thumbs while we hope for public opinion to change.” So Tristan is hoping for public opinion to change to support nuclear, but then suggesting we go with what the majority of Australians believe is appropriate right now, whether or not they have been misinformed by others? So being against nuclear advocates, and therefore anti-nuclear, he has just indirectly admitted that he’s a mis-informer to Australians.

    “Their second trick is to assume short construction times for nuclear plants that bear no relationship to experience.”
    How long do you think a wind farm takes from initial planning to supplying it’s first electron? How long do you think it would take to build enough wind farms equivalent to one nuclear power plant, and therefore, what is your point?

    Tristan, I am a believer of and supporter for nuclear power advancement, so it was interesting to read how you depict nuclear power supporters. It seems shocking to me, to know that you may genuinely be surprised to find me write the following points:
    1) A strong price (set by truly free market forces) on carbon will be very useful for nuclear power advancement, and will quickly expose the cost of wind and solar.
    2) I do not have an excessively simplistic view of electricity supply reliability, in fact as an electrical engineer working in exactly this field (substation and wind farms) I dare suggest that I have a sufficient understanding to have informed opinions on this topic.
    3) I am only young, but have seen technology change and improve at a rapid pace when there is a demand for it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect our nuclear technologies to improve if we choose to fund accordingly. Of course we’ll have to start somewhere, just like solar and wind had to.
    4) I certainly believe that global warming is a problem, and I don’t believe any advocate for nuclear power would believe that global warming isn’t a problem. Can you please point me toward a few of these people?

    1. Excellent remarks Tom.

      RE: point 4 though, you will see in recent comments between myself and a reader that I have declined to work with someone on the nuclear issue because our climate change views are divergent. I think such people do the cause great damage and I’m afraid they are out there. We need to make it clear though that they are NOT the stereotypical nuclear advocate and that it is not appropriate to suggest that they are or even worse, use it as some kind of cop out to avoid considering nuclear. I think your comment does a great job of doing just this, nice one.

  3. This paragraph: “Nuclear advocates argue against efforts to deploy renewable energy based on an excessively simplistic view of how we maintain electricity reliability.”

    It’s complete and utter nonsense. Baseload demand is the minimum demand for power in the electricity grid during normal operations – it’s an inherent property of the electricity grid. Additionally, demand changes and power output from wind turbines do not correlate consistently. Solar has more demand correlation, but often there is a lag of several hours and there is still inherent variability due to cloud cover. This is why fossil fuel and hydroelectric power is required to back up these sources – there will be times when it will be cloudy and calm with high demand. A hazy 30 degree day in Melbourne is a classic example of this problem – “Gambler’s Ruin” is the term used I believe.

    As for flexibility, Nuclear power stations are as flexible as any other thermal power stations when modified correctly. The usual method of bypassing steam directly to the condenser instead of going through the turbine still works.

    You can also change the reactivity, which correlates with core heat output. France is the great example of this, by using ‘grey’ (less neutron-absorbing) control rods to change reactivity without shutting down criticality entirely. Of course, the problem with load following in a light water reactor is excess Xenon-135 build-up during rapid reactivity changes – in France they use freshly refuelled reactors to load follow because they have a degree of extra reactivity that can overcome the Xe-135 poisoning.

    Of course, liquid metal and molten salt reactors have no Xe-135 buildup issues at all – the stuff just comes out of solution during normal operations. This means that they can cycle the reactivity even better.

  4. I do wish that nuclear advocates would stop using the jargon of “baseload”. Though most people in the business or involved in energy discussions sort of understand what that term means, I believe that the vast majority of the rest of the world does not.

    The real need in a power system is reliability and responsiveness. The most valuable generators are those that can meet power “on demand” with some degree of controllability in both the up and down directions. Traditional thermal power plants can do the trick by adjusting fuel flow; hydro electric dams can also do the trick because of their large reservoirs.

    Nuclear fission reactors have also been providing very responsive service since the very earliest days on board submarines and on aircraft carriers. Yes, there are certain design choices that must be addresses early in the system design, but they do not require the HEU that US submarines and carriers have generally used.

    I am one of the nuclear advocates that thinks it is exceedingly silly to purposely inject large quantities of unpredictable variability from wind and solar power systems into an electric power grid. Sure, demand always changes, but it changes rather slowly in relatively predictable patterns. In contrast, weather is subject to rather severe variations that can cover large swaths of territory (think frontal systems and high pressure zones).

    Unpredictable variability requires fast acting power systems, which reduces system fuel efficiency and adds mechanical stresses. Adding large quantities of wind and solar to the power grid is like purposely adding the need for a lot of stop and start driving when your goal is to reduce the impact of burning fossil fuel for transportation. They are massive, ugly, wastes of money that generally benefit a few greedy investors.

    PS – I do get frustrated with people who claim to be nuclear advocates that also believe it is okay to keep dumping fossil fuel wastes for free into our shared environment. I am not a fan of carbon taxes or cap and trade; my preferred vehicle is something akin to James Hansen’s proposal for a dumping fee whose proceeds are shared equally to everyone on earth with a set of lungs. We are all born with an equal claim on the atmosphere that provides us with life.

    1. Fee and Dividend as Hansen calls it. A meritorious approach to be sure, and one I believe Rod, that actually has some on-the-ground experience of success and political support, am I right? My brain is saying a province of Canada has it up and running?

      I don’t rule out a cap-and-trade approach, but I feel strongly that unless we open the door to the lowest cost major solution (nuclear) at the same time, the temptation is going to be to great to simply game the whole thing to high heaven rather than have the price actually drive clean investments. The vulnerability to gaming is the big weakness of cap and trade that fee and dividend very neatly avoids. The weakness of fee and dividend is, arguably, the lack of a cap- there is no guarantee of the outcome, only a price. I believe that so far the signs are encouraging, but we are still a bit short on data to say really strongly that it works as desired. But I, too, like the design. Link on Fee and Dividend for those interested.

      1. Ben – the guarantee of the outcome is that nuclear energy already has enormous competitive advantages bequeathed by nature (or God, if you prefer.)

        Fission releases 2 million times as much energy per unit mass as petroleum combustion and the advantages are even greater with all of the less energy dense hydrocarbon and carbohydrate fuel sources.

        Uranium and thorium based fuels can also be really cheap. Even with all of the added overhead and inefficient consumption of light water reactor technology, commercial nuclear fuel delivered to a power plant in the US has a TOTAL cost of just 65 cents per million BTU. That price has been essentially constant for about 2 decades.

        In contrast, our currently cheap natural gas in the US costs about $2.65 per million BTU at the trading hubs. That price can double, triple or quadruple when you add in the cost of transporting the fuel to the power station. In Japan, LNG at the port costs about $15 per million BTU. Diesel fuel selling for $4.00 per gallon costs $30 per million BTU.

        For understandable reasons, few people in the energy discussions like it when I convert heat sources to a common unit for comparison, but as the antinuclear activists have repeated for many years, nuclear energy is just another way of boiling water. It is also just another way of heating other gases that can spin exactly the same kind of turbines that turn the generators in fossil fuel plants.

        Heat is heat, but nuclear heat is cheaper, more abundant, and produces far less waste. As you have noted in other forums, it produces virtually NO pollution since its waste is so concentrated that it can all be contained.

        1. The conventional wisdom (which may, of course, be nothing of the sort) is that nuclear does not make it yet in Australia without the market advantage bestowed by a carbon price (not to mention is being against the law at present).


          I am increasingly convinced that in a level playing field investment environment for nuclear (which we do not yet have), Australia would be in for a big surprise in terms of how well nuclear could stand on its own financial merits. People often forget to consider the alternatives. Is anyone seriously suggesting that building a new coal power plant with the best possible technology in Australia will be cheap? Of course not. Will actually get a financing partner? Almost certainly not. Will be allowed to proceed without vociferous objection every step of the way? Get real.

          The contender is gas: cheaper capital. But on the trajectory of fuel prices, and the sensitivity of the power price to the fuel price, this advantage will diminish every single day and be gone very, very soon, and we will regret it for the remaining 45 years of useful life of the plant.

          As for scheme design with carbon pricing, I merely point out that the model to soon be deployed in Australia will see a legislated cap on emissions by 2020, with diminishing permits available each year to meet the cap, and a 50% limit on the use of permits/credits from outside of the country. These are, to my mind, design advantages over a scheme that, I readily agree, incentivises the behaviour and investment changes very, very clearly in the case of Fee and Dividend, but cannot ensure the outcome. Who knows, it could end up giving a better outcome than our cap in the same time frame! But at this point we are running mostly on informed opinions more so than data from use of different designs.

  5. The problem with Mr Edis’ argument is that he makes up a bunch of arguments by so-called nuclear advocates without any supporting evidence.


    Cite please.

    I think the concern is far more that there will be capricious and illogical excluding of nuclear power from any regulatory solutions. I think that everyone thinks that nuclear power’s cost competitiveness would be enhanced under a decent carbon price. Until there is a carbon price, coal and gas will remain cheaper than nuclear (and everything else).


    Cite please.

    I don’t know of any nuclear advocates that think there is no case for a mix of generating assets. Current nuclear plants do tend to work best run all the time, but they can scale up and down, and can also be used for other stored energy such as pumped hydro and desalinisation where there is excess power.


    This one is closer to the mark than any others. I accept some truth in this. However i) the problems are far overstated, any decent modern Gen III plant I would be perfectly happy with in Australia, I don’t think we have to wait until Gen IV are proven, and ii) the risks of unchecked global warming are far far greater than any proven risk from nuclear power.


    Cite please.

    Absolute nonsense mostly. Who’s one of the highest profile spruikers in Australia? Merely the dude that holds the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at Adelaide Uni.

    Sure there are some dickheads (I could name them) at the BNC blog and elsewhere that don’t accept climate change, but they’re unquestioningly a minority.

    Also, this is beside the point entirely. Who cares if they accept climate science or not? How does this affect the argument?

    1. Yup, pretty much bang on across the board.

      As far as nuclear plants running all the time, it is just a fact that since the cost of the fuel itself is essentially irrelevant to the cost of the electricity, there is a real advantage to maxing out the use of any nuclear installation- there is no pollution, no extra cost, might as well find productive uses for the energy, like overnight charging of electric vehicles, desalination of water, or synthesis of liquid fuels to substitute petrol and diesel.

      Any baseload would prefer to run all the time for the financial returns it provides, that’s not special to nuclear. Difference is that for coal and gas the extra fuel cost if indeed significant, as is the extra greenhouse and pollution load.

  6. Ben,I wouldn’t get too upset by Tristan. He’s just another uninformed anti nuke the like of whom we pro nukes have had to put up with for decades. I note too Ben, that you referred to me in this blog and so, although I took your point the other day, [I held my tongue to do it], I must now make comment. I’ll be as brief as I can. Consider it some fatherly advice from an old codger [I’m 73].
    1. I’m a climate change believer, having taught climatology and geology between 1959 and 1992 to hundreds of 17 and 18 year olds. I don’t believe that man is the main cause of the current apparent catastrophic warming and neither do dozens of very reputable climate scientists if information which has been coming out now for some years is any indication. You should check Richard Lindzen’s speech to the House of Commons. I think you could access it by logging on to You should also check my Ockham’s Razor talk of Sept 4th 2011.
    2. So, as a “denier” as you implied, I’m a danger to your cause. Phew!! That’s a good one Ben. I’ve been promoting nuclear power for 14 years which is probably long before you converted to it. I converted in 1981 when I learnt the truth about it in Canada while on teacher exchange .
    3. I’m a nuclear advocate on the basis of 200 years of fossil fuel use, especially coal. It has killed millions and still does through the particulate matter [carbon] and other gaseous muck that power stations spew out. Nuclear is our best hope of beating that problem. That’s the biggest reason to phase out coal power. I’m all for your “decarbonisesa” if it means ceasing “carbon pollution” which our basically ignorant politicians and others call it. Unfortunately that’s not the same as reducing CO2 emissions as well you know
    4. Apart from our climate change differences, I know we are pretty much on the same page and so, although you don’t want that issue to muddy your waters, you ought to be able to accommodate the occasional reference to it on your blog. Having said that, I respect your position and will refrain from mentioning it if and when I make further comment.
    5. It really is time for the CAGW believers to have another look at what is happening around the world in climate science and to stop making silly claims like “the science is in”It’s never in. I find it hard to believe that intelligent, articulate people could have been conned into believing the IPCC with their predictions based on models,for goodness sake, of a catastrophically heating planet. Please read Lindzen’s speech Ben and have another think about it. Please accept my comments with the good wishes that come with them Ben. And good luck with your programme. If you’re free on March 7th you could contact John Underwood on 0428232418 or 82232418 and ask for an invitation to come to my talk to the Retired Engineers Group. You might get the nod, especially if you tell him what you are up to. Cheers Ben

  7. Hi Terry,

    It’s not so much a matter of being upset by Tristen, he does indeed wear his bias on his sleeve. It’s that if he is saying what a decent number of people are thinking, then we have a problem: some people are f*cking it up for the rest of us.

    Now, you do get right of reply status, but that’s it as far as this general line of discussion goes. Never was, never will be the purpose of DSA.

    I don’t get the way you work on this Terry, and have not the least intention in arguing with someone who can somehow ignore the mountain of evidence and consensus about climate change in preference for a molehill of dissent and, frequently, outright rubbish.

    Yes, it’s nice that we agree where we agree, and good luck to you. But we will never stand shoulder to shoulder on nuclear because you lack credibility. How on earth could I tell people with a straight face to be more rational and evidence-based about nuclear power while lending my brand and credibility to someone who sees fit to dispute the science of climate change on the basis of what Richard Lindzen says? I scanned the suggested link. Lindzen is indeed enough of an expert to do a brilliant job of bastardising the science to somehow cook up a completely different set of conclusions as everyone else. I do find it sickly hilarious though just how many other climate denier arguments (such as those spouted by Ian Plimer and Bob Carter) are refuted by the facts that even Lindzen can no longer manage to ignore in this piece. Even Lindzen get’s dragged along, kicking and screaming, making up the lagging back end of the consensus. It’s just a bad joke stuck on Repeat Terry. So as far as “fatherly” advice goes, I’ll thank you to show a damn sight more respect for my qualifications and experience in this area (let alone the actual scientific community) than to suggest that I or they have been “conned”. The reason I don’t accommodate the “occasional reference” to it, Terry, it that it is crap. Crap in the vein of those who dispute the connection between HIV and AIDS, or smoking and lung cancer. On that last example, you may be familiar with the work of one of the main players. A guy called Richard Lindzen.

    If people are more moved by the argument of pollution than greenhouse gas, fine by me. But sadly, you prove that Tristen is not completely off the mark. Your stance will be perpetually off-putting to a great many people, and your talks on climate will no doubt continue to create unwelcome work for me correcting the serial misrepresentations of Lindzen and his small band of actual climate scientists with the dissenting view.

    I had already received the invitation. I declined, but thanks.

  8. Does anyone have an idea of the construction time when not hindered by political interference? I can’t recall the details, but I thought there was a nuclear powered aircraft carrier built in something like 5 years. If it can be done in a military context it can be done in the context of a global climate change emergency.

      1. Here are two reports, the first by the IAEA outlining the construction times using advanced building techniques (i.e. modular and top down installation) for various reactors over the globe. Note the distinction between EU and Asia, and FOAK and Nth builds.

        The second looks at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in China that utilises the CANDU design. This report looks back at Unit 1’s build (up to Unit 4 now) and where improvements can be made upon the 54 month build to commission time (from first concrete to commercial operation); they outline a 48 month build to commercial operation time (36 months build time). 2003 build cost $1000/kWe, in 48 months to commercial operation, with a installed cap of 780MWe. Not bad.

        The second is a detailed report on the construction challenges and efficiencies which is rather enlightening considering what else is out there. Keeping in mind this was from 2003.

  9. It’s worth remembering that the Arafura rare earths plant to be built at Whyalla will produce 20,000 tonnes a year of ThO2 that I understand can be directly fissioned in a CANDU given suitable start fuel. In contrast Olympic Dam will produce 19,000t a year of U3O8 if it ever gets its mystery power source. However I understand the CANDU licence has now passed from Canada to Argentina and sales have stopped.

Leave a Reply to Terry Krieg Cancel reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: