Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has brought forward the date for the closure of Greece’s last coal fired power stations to 2025. Whilst this is admirable in terms of addressing climate change, the replacement will come in the form of new gas fired power stations which are also polluting – although less than coal.
In this article, I explore why Australia is unlikely to get to net zero without nuclear and how other countries are gearing up to go nuclear. This includes Turkey that is building its first nuclear power station with Russian help. This development raises significant issues for Greece’s energy system and its national security as many countries that have started with nuclear power stations have moved on to nuclear weapons.
In Australia, the parties are focused on 2030 and not 2050.
The Labor Party’s new climate change policy proposes a 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, a $275 cut in electricity prices, and 604,000 direct and indirect jobs.
There is significant taxpayer expenditure of $24bn attached to the proposal.
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The Coalition will no doubt attack the new Labor target, but this will not be as politically effective as in the previous election. People want more action on climate change and Scott Morrison looks weak in not being prepared to even commit to his own 35 per cent projection and instead doggedly stick to the 26-28 per cent target to appease his right wing members.
What is lost in all of this is the answer to a simple question: whether it’s a 28 per cent or 35 per cent or 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, how do we get to 100 per cent by 2050? The answer for both Labor and the Coalition is based on wishful thinking technologies around green hydrogen. Or, in the Coalition’s case, even more wishful thinking around carbon capture and storage technologies.
These strategies will simply not get us to net zero by 2050. It is a carbon reduction con, promoted by the Greens in the case of green hydrogen and by the Nationals’ right wing in the case of carbon capture and storage.
Countries around the world are putting in play the real solution to addressing the net-zero problem in the 2030-2050 period – it’s called nuclear power.
Recently, British company Rolls-Royce urged Australia to embrace small nuclear reactors (SMRs) to help it reach its net-zero target. Rolls pointed out the AUKUS security agreement between Australia, Britain and the US paves the way for this.
Rolls-Royce currently manufactures Britain’s submarine nuclear reactors. With adapted technology the company will begin construction of the first of 16 planned SMRs. Each one will have a generation capacity of 470MW, thus adding 7520MW of baseload power to the British system. This is more than Victoria’s entire energy system and will allow Britain to wean itself off gas.
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Funding of more than $900 million for construction of the first unit has been secured and it is expected to be delivered in the early 2030s, with 10 more by 2035.
The British SMR is highly efficient, has many passive and active safety shutdown systems, and can be transported by road, rail or sea – potentially also to Australia.
It is not only in Britain that SMRs are emerging as the silver bullet to get the world to net zero.
China and Russia have SMRs under construction and will look to export them.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced France will begin production of SMRs in its journey to net zero. The US is developing a wide variety including a proposal to build micro SMRs the size of a shipping container that are air-cooled and could be used in remote areas for years without the need for expensive new transmission lines. Perfect for Australian outback conditions, or for that matter on the Greek islands.
Other parts of Europe talk a lot about shutting down coal power stations over the next decade but, in most cases, they plan for them to be replaced with gas. This clearly shows they recognise the transition from coal cannot be achieved by simply increasing renewables and green hydrogen.
So Germany is moving at breakneck speed to convert and embed gas in its energy system.
Another EU country, Greece, will close its last brown-coal power station by 2025 and will also replace it with gas.
These “transitionary” measures rely on Russian gas, to the glee of President Vladimir Putin and his cohorts.
During October, EU gas storage tanks were at their lowest for more than a decade as Russia limited supply and demanded commissioning of the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which goes direct to Germany, bypassing Ukraine and other Eastern European countries not sympathetic to Russia.
The effect was to increase benchmark gas prices from about $30 per MW at the beginning of the year to as high as $180 per MW.
It coincided with the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s border. The implication was that if Russia were to attack Ukraine and the EU reacted to defend it, they might have their gas cut off.
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It is to be hoped in the post- Merkel era Germany will reconsider its turn away from nuclear, which it also intends to replace with Russian gas.
Greece should consider following Turkey’s lead and build its first nuclear power station using French or US technology – rather than the Russian technology Turkey is using. This is the only course that will allow Greece to get to zero by 2050 and also enhance its national security and nuclear technology base.
Australia will not become an energy superpower based on green energy and renewables. If we really want to be an energy superpower, we should gear off the fact we have a third of the world’s uranium reserves that will be feeding hundreds of new SMRs.
We should partner with British or US companies – perhaps even French companies if we want to repair that relationship – to develop our own SMR industry.
Labor and the Coalition should dump the ban on nuclear and allow the market and not ideological warriors to decide its viability. This is the real path to net zero, to Australia as an energy superpower and to enhancing national security.
Theo Theophanous is a commentator and former Victorian Energy Minister.