Small modular nuclear reactor that was hailed by Coalition as future cancelled due to rising costs
Small modular nuclear reactor that was hailed by Coalition as future cancelled due to rising costs
Opposition climate and energy spokesperson had pointed to SMRs as a solution to Australia’s energy needs, but experts raise questions over price tag
So, it appears the first SMR project in the US was scrapped due to rising costs.
An Aussie SMR would take 10-15 years before even being online and we'd be the guinea pigs.
Perhaps it's time to pivot to technology already available and that can be implemented in the short term?
There numerous projects out there, for example Ge Hitachi & Terrapower's Natrium Development Project.
https://www.terrapower.com/our-work/natriumpower/
This will be a big one that's supposed to work synergistically with renewable energy, able to scale up and down it's power supply on demand.
Not the end of the world...yet.
Edit: This comment was talking about Nuclear Initiatives in general to the world, not specifically Australia, apologies. Once implemented and the efficiency is demonstrated, I believe that the plan is to build these around the world.
supposed to work synergistically with renewable energy
Well, there's your problem. They don't want something to work alongside renewables. They want to delay renewables for as long as they possibly can to keep the mining gravy train chugging along for as long as possible.
I think we do need to keep developing new technologies, because there are always going to be situations where renewables aren't ideal, but that's not the "problem" that SMRs in Australia are supposed to be solving.
You know what also works synergistically with renewables? More renewables!
Are there any working now?
How long to build one?
How long before one could be up and running and adding to our power supply?
Construction to begin in 2025 is Wyoming. It's not expected to be operational this decade.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Coalition’s energy and climate spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has cited NuScale’s technology as part of the opposition’s contentious argument that Australia should lift a national ban on nuclear energy and that small modular reactors (SMRs) could be an affordable replacement for its ageing coal-fired power plants.
In an opinion piece in the Australian earlier this year, O’Brien said the company’s integrated reactors, starting with the Idaho plant in 2029, offered “exceptional flexibility” and were an example “of a burgeoning nuclear industry for next-generation technology” in the US.
“If Bowen was to apply the same faulty logic to all forms of zero-emissions technology, he’d be eliminating every single one of them,” he said, arguing wind, solar and hydro energy developers had suffered cost overruns and delays.
Industry experts say SMRs are not commercially available, that nuclear energy is more expensive than alternatives and in a best-case scenario could not play a role in Australia for more than a decade, and probably not before 2040.
It has argued for a slower response to the climate crisis and amplified local concerns about new clean energy and electricity transmission connections.
It had received about US$600m in government funding, but failed after securing subscriptions for only 20% of the required capital from a Utah-based consortium of electricity companies.
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