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steady dutton's promise of fake nuclear costings that do not add up....

Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy announcement has been totally nuked, so to speak, but Michael Pascoe argues it is nonetheless working just fine.

If a major Australian political party has had a core policy more quickly and comprehensively debunked, destroyed and generally defenestrated than the LNP’s nuclear power play, I can’t remember it. But that’s irrelevant to Peter Dutton and Atomic Ted O’Brien.

 

The LNP’s nuclear policy is working just fine

by Michael Pascoe

 

Despite the near universal rubbishing of the Coalition’s costings, allegedly supplied gratis by economic modeller Danny Price, the stunt is doing exactly what Dutton’s Trumpy playbook said it would do.

And that is: create massive media coverage of the LNP promising cheaper clean energy avoiding much more expensive and unsightly renewable energy spending by Labor.

That all credible media coverage effectively called that promise bullshit doesn’t matter. The promise was still being broadcast, still being talked about, still being reinforced.

For the votes the LNP is chasing, believing or disbelieving the promise is a matter of choice, political choice. Who do you believe, Labor or LNP?

Weak, faltering Albanese or strong, decisive Dutton?

Experts … who needs ’em?

All the “expert” opinions are merely background noise to that decision. Dutton and the LNP’s media wing have already done the groundwork to undermine those contrary opinions, no matter how numerous or expert.

The CSIRO has a political agenda, the criticism is coming from that “woke” ABC and “left-wing” newspapers, sources not to be trusted, Dutton copying Trump’s very successful “fake news” campaign.

“But, but, but,” you might argue, “these are fake nuclear costings! They have been totally exposed!”

I doesn’t matter. It’s not new that the LNP’s nuclear promise doesn’t add up. All the expert opinions rubbishing last week’s costings had already eviscerated the economics and credibility of the promise since Dutton made it back in May, before the Budget.

The Climate Council’s response back then is as solid an example as any. Dutton’s absolutely false claim that a nuclear reactor’s waste would only fill a Coke can continues to be a joke. Yet, it is unretracted.

Zero difference to Dutton’s polling

That’s seven months of steady, consistent, multifaceted dismissal of the LNP’s core energy and climate policy. Has it made any difference to Dutton’s polling? Well, as his rise in the polls shows, it certainly hasn’t harmed and has probably helped.

Once again, in this age of impressionism politics the detail of a policy being sensible or nonsense doesn’t matter. What counts is the impression it might leave of leadership. 

The figures spat out by Danny Price’s modelling aren’t a surprise either. If you search on any issue, you can always find a consultant with a contrary view. 

As a leading climate scientist once told me, there is a scientific basis to the three percent of climate scientists who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change: there will generally be about three per cent of a group that will have a contrary view to overwhelming evidence.

Coalition media in cahoots

The staged-managed LNP/Murdoch costings reveal last week was a demonstration of Steve Bannon’s “flooding the zone”, starting with the Murdoch media simplifying, swallowing and promoting the nonsense in preview and rolling on with the flood of detailed critical analysis elsewhere, analysis that meant little-to-nothing to the voters Dutton is after.

The LNP’s nuclear policy was adopted without concern for costings. It was the vibe, opposition. The perpetrators knew some figures could be found to suit. Mere details.

There was a hint of that in the Saturday Paper’s story on Danny Price. Mike Seccombe quotes Price:

“What happened was I did an interview on the ABC about nuclear, because I was already doing some stuff in this area. And then the Opposition, Ted O’Brien’s office, contacted me and said they’d be interested in talking about my work. That would have been a few months ago.”

The truth does not matter

A “few” months ago? When it comes to months and years and measuring time and such, formulating a major policy in whatever period that would take before the Budget back in May sounds like more than a “few” months to me.

Total opposition. Grab the headlines, look strong and decisive, promise something the eventual failure of which would occur long after you’ve departed the scene, keep promising it, keep opposing whatever the government is doing. Some concurring figures can always be found along the way.

It works. It’s working. The truth does not matter. That’s what the polls are telling Dutton.

That’s what worked and works for Trump. Before the US Presidential election, Trump promised voters he would return prices to pre-COVID levels. It was obviously nonsense, obviously a lie. Doesn’t matter. It was part of Trump’s impression and now that he has been elected, it matters even less as he walks away from the promise.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor is promising the LNP nuclear show will lower power bills by 44 per cent.

Yeah, right.

The worry for Australia is that the LNP shows every indication of continuing to follow the Trump path, the next step of which is ever greater lawfare.

Trump is suing a pollster and local newspaper over an incorrect poll in Iowa that had him losing that solidly Republican state, claiming the poll was election interference.

That is a fearsome warning to other media and pollsters.

The American ABC network settled a Trump defamation action over a little careless wording around rape/sexual assault, paying Trump $US15 million. The common view is the case would have been defensible, but ABC doesn’t want to be seen opposing Trump.

Given how small and impoverished independent media is in Australia, Dutton taking that next Trumpy step is frightening. A defamation action doesn’t have to be credible to be very effective. It just has to be started by a party with plenty of resources against a party with few.

Teals will baulk

Peter Dutton has backers with effectively endless resources. With such a frightening prospect, the only good news from the LNP’s nuclear fairytale is that it should make it impossible for the community independents, the Teals, to support a Dutton minority government.

The Teals are not stupid. They are committed to climate policy, a raison d’etre for them.

But if Dutton’s impressionist politics momentum continues, the Teals won’t matter either.

https://michaelwest.com.au/peter-duttons-nuclear-policy-is-working-just-fine/

 

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

crap costly nuke....

 

More coal and gas, less renewables: what a nuclear power plan for Australia would really mean

 

 

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear power in Australia has provoked a great deal of discussion and analysis – most of it critical. 

Experts point out the Coalition’s long-awaited modelling involves both highly optimistic costings and a massively lower demand for electricity than expected in official projections. 

In the upcoming federal election campaign, debate over the hypothetical costs and benefits of nuclear power will doubtless play a big role. But this conceals the real issue. 

As in every election over the last 20 years, at stake will be the question of whether Australia chooses a clean energy future, or prolongs the life of coal and gas – an outcome the nuclear plan relies on.

In that sense, nuclear energy is shaping up as an election fig leaf like no other.

Decades until first power

Even if the Coalition’s plans go ahead, concrete will not be poured for a nuclear plant before the 2030s – three or more elections away. To see why, it’s worth examining recent international experience.

In 2006, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf states commissioned a study on the peaceful use of nuclear power. It was released in 2008 and the following year, Korean firm KHNP was selected to build four reactors.

Final approval was not granted until 2012. The reactors began commercial operation between 2020 and 2024. The UAE has made no further nuclear orders and is, instead, rapidly expanding solar power.

In 2020, Czechia began the process of replacing its ageing Soviet-era reactors. This year, it reached an agreement with KNHP, though the contract is yet to be finalised. Authorities expect the reactors to begin producing power commercially in 2038. 

The Czech deal indicates nuclear is hardly cheap – each reactor will cost A$12.8 billion and produce power at $225 per megawatt hour (mWH). By contrast, CSIRO has priced firmed or “backed up” renewable energy – that is, renewables combined with transmission and storage infrastructure – at between $91 and $131 per mWH. 

France has long been held up as the poster child for nuclear power, because it relies on nuclear for about 70% of its power, far more than any other nation. 

In 2022, President Emmanuel Macron announced a desire to go further still by building up to 14 new reactors. Construction of the first is due to start in 2027. 

These examples suggest five years is a realistic minimum period from decision to construction. But Australia is highly unlikely to achieve this minimum. 

Czechia and France, for example, already had well-established nuclear regulatory regimes. By contrast, Australia would need to establish and staff a nuclear power authority from scratch. Our existing organisation, ANSTO, is set up only to manage tiny research reactors. 

The UAE was also starting from scratch. But the UAE is a near-absolute monarchy – so courts, environmental impact studies and public consultation did not slow the process. And plants were built by migrant workers without union representation or rights of any kind. 

In Czechia and France, the reactors can be located at existing nuclear power plants. Dutton wants to build nuclear on the sites of existing coal plants to take advantage of existing transmission lines, but it’s not that simple. For instance, emergency evacuation systems are needed to deal with the small but real possibility of a catastrophic accident. 

Then there is the problem of overriding the wishes of the current owners and of state governments opposed to the plan. 

All this means a Dutton government would need at least two full terms in office before it would be in a position to commit the tens of billions of dollars necessary to fund the proposed publicly owned nuclear industry. Then comes years more of actual construction.

Coal and gas would fill the gap

Based on recent experience in developed countries, nuclear power is unlikely to come online before 2045, by which time our existing coal plants would be well past their expected lifespan. Many would break down. How would this energy gap be filled?

The answer is already clear. The core of Dutton’s energy policy – the part that would take effect immediately – is to keep coal plants running as long as possible, and then to switch to gas. It would also likely mean suppressing renewable energy in favour of coal and gas. 

Dutton has already vowed to scrap the offshore windfarm zone planned for the Illawarra region of New South Wales, despite the fact his party passed laws paving the way for offshore wind in 2021. 

Offshore wind is a missing piece of the puzzle for renewables in Australia, because winds offshore blow strongly and more consistently than on land. But the nascent sector could easily be destroyed at the stroke of a pen, using the Commonwealth’s powers over Australian waters.

Queensland’s newly elected LNP government is already showing what that might look like, spending $1.4 billion in propping up coal, while killing off plans for a major pumped-hydro facility. 

Given Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations are breaking down more often, going nuclear would mean spending billions on extending their lives while discouraging solar and wind. 

This could easily produce blackouts, or the threat of blackouts in short order. Here, too, Dutton has a solution: more gas. 

Only two weeks ago, Australia’s major gas producers paid forfront-page stories across many Murdoch newspapers claiming gas-fired electricity would be necessary. 

There is nothing new here. Under the Morrison Coalition government, a taskforce set up to deal with supply chain problems caused by the COVID pandemic produced, instead, a report advocating a gas-led recovery. 

Wrong way, go back

Australia should not be distracted by nuclear power. 

The Coalition plan for an Australian electricity supply, based on extended reliance on coal and gas, will rule out any chance this nation meets its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the global climate effort.

It would also result in more expensive and less reliable electricity for Australian households and businesses.

https://theconversation.com/more-coal-and-gas-less-renewables-what-a-nuclear-power-plan-for-australia-would-really-mean-245948

 

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

 

 

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.