David Archibald
Life in Australia has grow to be a theatre of the absurd. One of many extra absurd notions is that Australia will grow to be a ‘inexperienced power superpower’, even to the extent of holding a Senate inquiry into it. In my submission to the inquiry I attempt to level out as gently as potential that the legal guidelines of physics and economics gained’t enable that to occur:
“Senators must be conscious that power from photo voltaic panels and wind generators is barely as low cost as it’s as a result of the photo voltaic panels and wind generators are made utilizing power from fossil fuels, predominantly coal. Photo voltaic panels are made in China utilizing electrical energy costing US$0.04/kWh. Beneath excellent circumstances within the West Australian desert those self same panels produce energy at a worth equal to energy produced from diesel turbines at $0.21/kWh.
When you used energy from photo voltaic panels to make extra photo voltaic panels, the price of energy from the second era of photo voltaic panels could be of the order of $1.00/kWh. The identical is true of wind generators. When you tried to hold on the method of changing photo voltaic panels and wind generators as they wore out with photo voltaic panels and wind generators created from energy produced from those being changed, the fee would grow to be infinite and the financial system would collapse. The state of affairs is that straightforward, and that apparent.
As such photo voltaic panels and wind generators are neither renewaable or sustainable. The photo voltaic panels and wind generators we’ve got put in in Australia in the meanwhile are an artefact of low cost coal energy.
In the future the coal will run out and it could be smart to organize for that day. The one power supply that may substitute coal and keep civilisation at a excessive stage is nuclear. The earlier we put together for that day, the safer we shall be as a nation and as a civilisation.
In going to that nuclear future, Austalia ought to keep away from the lure of adopting the present predominant nuclear know-how which is mild water reactors burning U235. That know-how is inherently wasteful, harmful and leaves an infinite waste legacy.
It’s wasteful as a result of it burns solely a small fraction of the entire uranium endowment. It’s harmful as a result of it combines water, zirconium and decay warmth within the reactor vessel. The waste legacy is because of the truth that, by the point the rods are pulled in every fuelling cycle, half the power is coming from the fission of plutonim and better actinides. These will stay radioactive for thousands and thousands of years except recycled.
Making mild water reactors bigger to realize scale economies will increase the decay warmth flux per unit space of the reactor core floor and makes the reactor much less protected. Going the opposite method to small modular reactors just isn’t an answer as a result of they enhance the capital expenditure per MW produced and nonetheless have the waste drawback.
The one answer to Australia’s long run drawback of the coal working out is plutonium breeder reactor know-how. This know-how is inherently protected because it doesn’t use water within the reactor vessel, would utilise our full uranium endowment and doesn’t have a waste legacy. The plutonium produced may have a Pu240 content material too excessive for use in weapons. As such this know-how just isn’t a proliferation risk.
There’s a plutonium breeder reactor know-how from GE-Hitachi known as Prism that is able to be commercialised. Australia ought to begin putting in Prism reactors as quickly as potential.
Energy from these reactors could be utilised to make hydrogen which in flip shall be used to hydrogenate biomass within the Bergius course of. Energy at $0.05/kWh produces hydrogen at $7.00/kg. Artificial diesel so produced would supply an energy-dense energy supply for transport, mining and agriculture. The latter two industries are significantly problematic with respect to electrification and artificial diesel, made potential by nuclear energy, is the answer.
Senators must also bear in mind that nonetheless Australia produces its energy, this has nothing to do with local weather. The world has not warmed within the final 44 years and there’s no bodily signal of it warming from this level. Numerous fashions of the ambiance which have predicted considerable warming have failed and are thus discredited.
In abstract, pursuing a ‘inexperienced power’ future is bodily and economically unimaginable. Spending Australia’s capital in pursuing that chimera will solely finish in tears. It’s a latter day model of the Kids’s Campaign, bringing dying and destruction to those that pursue it.
Understanding of the physics and chemistry of what’s potential in producing the power that will keep civilisation at a excessive stage implies that we don’t have a alternative – it’s sodium-cooled plutonium breeder reactors or nothing. Our solely alternative is in how a lot ache we need to endure earlier than we resolve to take the right path.”
David Archibald is the writer of The Anticancer Backyard in Australia.
GE-Hitachi Prism reactor
