DEAR News Of The Area,

Following Kenneth Higgs’ excellent recent letter in your paper, I offer a few more facts and figures for this nuclear energy debate.

After just 44 years of fairly erratic and irregular output, Wylfa nuclear power station reactor 1 in north Wales was permanently shut down in 2015.

Current estimates are that it will take about 80 years for it to be completely demolished and for the site cleared and contamination free.

Up to four future generations will inherit this huge environmental and financial legacy for no gain.

Present understandings are that it is at least as expensive to decommission a nuclear plant as it is to build one.

The latest plant under construction in the UK is Hinkley Point C in Somerset.

The initial cost estimate for construction in 2012 (just 13 years ago) was £16 billion.

Present estimates put the price at £41.6–47.9 billion at today’s prices. The cost of electricity for consumers will have risen by a factor of six times the original estimates over this same period.

Meanwhile, nearly 18,000 cubic metres of concrete have been poured for the reactors’ bases.

Hardly a carbon neutral proposition.

The UK has 70 years of history and experience in nuclear power construction which includes a strong complement of very experienced people.

Despite this, initial cost estimates are still wildly understated.

A study by a German thinktank in 2019 found that nuclear power “has not been profitable anywhere in the world”. Which is why of course Mr Dutton is expecting the Australian taxpayers to carry the burden of construction costs, the operating risks, cost overruns and nuclear waste management.

This is in stark contrast to most green energy projects in this country which are financed through private investment because investors can reasonably expect a return.

For us on the ‘dry continent’, another issue is water.

A single nuclear reactor requires billions of gallons of water per year, all of which needs sourcing and filtering.

If the water is contaminated, horrendous problems arise on how to dispose of it.

Think Fukushima where the authorities are left with no alternative but to dump it in the ocean.

On the issue of nuclear waste, over 60,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored across Europe because there’s nowhere for it to go.

Nobody else wants it – and why would they? Finland is the only exception in that it is currently constructing a permanent repository.

Where does that leave us with the prospect of a future coalition government pinning its energy hopes and our money on nuclear energy?

Modern nuclear power generators are considered safe and, for countries with an established nuclear industry and limited access to low alternative clean energy resources, it may be their only option.

And the fact remains that we in Australia don’t yet have a carbon-free solution to our base load problem.
But think of this.

In the December 2024 quarter, renewable energy in Australia had already accounted for 46 percent of all power generation, with total emissions at record low levels.

That has been achieved in an industry that’s barely 25 years old.

New technologies are emerging almost daily and renewable energy costs are dropping steadily. Meanwhile, nuclear energy costs, construction times and associated legacy issues are going through the roof.

We have everything we need in this country to choose a better path.

We just need to be smart and pick our options wisely.

Regards,
Tony HANN,
North Arm Cove.