Welcome to Grumpy Strategist episode 23 brought to you by Strategic Analysis Australia.
I'm Michael Shubridge and I'm here with SAA's head of research, Dr. Marcus Helia.
Hello, Bill. I'm going to call you Bill today after Chano Bill because today we're going to
debate the big issues around nuclear power. So we're going to try and have a civil nuclear debate
and I mean that in both powerful meanings of civil. Yeah, bring it on, Shubridge.
This is not about nuclear weapons or nuclear submarines. It's about civil civilian nuclear power
and the debate, Dr. Helia, is to stay civil. Right. Okay. Stay civil. They're the ground rules.
Okay, Bill. I got that. Our purpose here is to try and have a discussion about the
fundamentals in the energy debate in Australia and the potential role of nuclear and the
pluses and minuses around renewables, nuclear and the current path. We will engage with the
coalition nuclear power plan because that is a part of this bigger debate. But we're really just
trying to sketch the boundaries of the debate so that a bunch of Australians and anyone else
listening to this mighty fine podcast can at least have some common foundations to discuss the issue.
And I'll just note one reason we're doing this is, A, it's an important issue, but B, we'll kind of
seek of agreeing with each other all the time. So we decided we're deliberately going to disagree
and both of our us have children with very distinguished high school debating careers.
And so we thought we would model, take that model where we will pick a side and represent that side
regardless of whether we actually agree with that side or not. So today Marcus is the good guy wearing
a green shirt. I think that tells you all you need to know. He's on the renewables of the answer side
of the debate. I'm in a dark suit and that's quite deliberate. I'm more the Darth Vader,
very big, dark star, nuclear power is our future side of the debate. So that's who we are for the
purposes of the discussion. Let's get started. We're going to cover some core foundational
stuff starting with, look at Australia, how much energy do we need? What are we producing now from
what and can renewables scale in the time and to the volume required to meet future demand?
Can nuclear do that? And what are the ups and downsides around each of these? So Marcus,
how much energy does Australia currently need every day in 2024? Okay, so we'll talk electricity.
So we're talking electricity here, not all energy, but as we move forward in time, more of our energy
usage will be electrified as more of us drive electric vehicles. And there'll also be other
drivers for the use of electricity as AI takes over and will be running lots and lots of huge
servers and storage farms and things like that. So there's no debate that our requirement for
electricity will go up, both new demand and replacing existing demand with electricity.
We've already seen that with crypto, the power demands of generating Bitcoin. So yes, demand
is obviously increasing. But right now, what is it about 30 gigawatts a day?
Yeah, the national energy market, which is essentially the East Coast doesn't include
Western Australia and sort of some of the big iron ore farms and things like that out in the middle
of the desert, sort of averages maybe around 30 gigawatts at any point in time, but obviously
surges up greater than that. And so that when it gets hot and people run their air conditioners,
it gets cold and they run their heaters can go up and down. But we're probably sort of looking
at just for the East Coast market, probably 30 surging to 40 gigawatts. And so that's our starting
point today. But I think predictions are that will probably certainly by the middle of the century
will have at least double die suspect. Well, there's population growth and there's the electrification
of current fossil fuel powered activities. And then there's new sources of demand. And you've
mentioned the big obvious ones, crypto artificial intelligence data centers generally. Yeah, so
if you're looking at at least doubling that demand over the period of time we're talking about, which
is now in 2050, that would be a reasonable foundational plan news for you. The bad news for
you, Michael or Bill is that a civil nuclear reactor generates depending on what kind of
mole you have between one and one and a half gigawatts. So if we are going to have get to,
you know, 6070 80 potentially, Mr. Dutton's plan of seven power plants that might do 10 gigawatts
doesn't get us. It maybe gets us to best case maybe 15%. So we're still looking around under
his plan for the other 85%. Let's stay civil here. So I'm not even going to get angry with that
strange formulation of the problem. Because to me, it's the energy mix that is so important here.
I don't think anyone is even suggesting that nuclear power is a 90% solution for Australia's
energy need. To me, to me, isn't that what Mr. Little proud is saying? Well, if I could just
put this on the table, but before before getting quickly getting talked over by my colleague,
that is the parable of the Chinese gardener planning a sapling in the middle of this big open
space. He's an elderly gardener and the young gardener comes up and says, I like how you are
developing our energy policy on the basis of an ancient Chinese parable, but keep going.
The young gardener says to him, what on earth are you doing planning this little sapling here?
Don't you know this tree will take 100 years to grow? Do we have 100 years to start?
The old gardener says, but when it has grown, it'll create beautiful shade and be a place for birds
and people to enjoy. It'd be a wonderful addition of this park. And the young guy says, but what
are you doing? It'll take 100 years to grow. He said, you're right. I should have planted it
yesterday. Anything long term has to be begun. That's the point I'm making.
Now, every journey starts with the first step. I agree, Michael. And when I was a much younger man,
I'm still relatively young, but when I was much younger, I thought nuclear, there was a place
for nuclear. My view now is there's there's really no place left for nuclear because of those time
frames. It's not maybe not 99 years. I think it's news to Peter Dutton and it's going to be 99 years,
but it may not be 99 years, but it is a tiny part of our solution, a tiny part of the solution.
I'll give you an analogy. Okay. So we like to
Before you continue, I just want to say
Sorry, you're talking over the top of me, Bill.
I'd just like to thank you for agreeing that nuclear is a part of the solution.
It is a potential part of the solution. It is a potential. I think there is potentially niche
roles, but let me give you an example of a country that has adopted nuclear as part of its solution.
Let's say Canada. So Canada, a country that in many ways quite analogous to Australia,
that slightly larger population, larger resource about economy, lots of space.
Canada has 19 nuclear reactors that produces a grand total of 12.9% of their electricity
requirements. So seven power plants and I'm not sure how many reactors that includes that is
Mr. Dutton's policy, I think will really only be a very small part of our energy mix, assuming
it can be delivered. This is this could be a whole focus on the 90%. Why are we obsessing
around the 10% this could be a whole separate podcast, but there is the really big issue
that you're pointing to here and I agree with you. The world dropped the ball on nuclear power.
If only those trees had been planted earlier, those saplings, more nuclear power would be online now
possibly would be much further on our transition to a fossil free future.
That's really not. With energy independence. So the lesson that you're teaching is why
haven't we already started and grown that option? Absolutely. And I think that's a
sorry story across the world. It just can't grow fast. Well, this is back to what's happening.
What are we actually producing now and where's the electricity coming from? Clearly we're
meeting that 30 gigawatts a day because we're not having mass brownouts and blackouts. So that's
the good news. There's concerns about resilience. Baselow generators suddenly fail and that will
be a risk in the nuclear system. So if you replace large scale coal generators with large scale
nuclear generators and one drops out and you let's say it was had two reactors with two to three
gigawatts, there is a huge hole in your energy supply. So yes, we may actually I think have a
less reliable grid with nuclear because you are still going to be faced with that risk of big
chunks of it. Unpredictably dropping out. Well, you know, this obviously brings us to one of the
core things to be understood about renewables and think there is some very positive facts,
very positive part of the renewable story in Australia, the growth in renewable supply
over the last five years. So hang on, are you on my side now? I'm trying to have a civil debate
and agree on some core facts. But okay, that's I thought that was our grammar all at the start.
So the trend now is renewables, I think producing about 46% of Australian energy supply and that
waxes and wanes. On what period of time we're looking at it, instantaneously it gets up to
at some points over 60% and in South Australia over 100%. And as low as 30%. And as low as 30%.
So you average that out over months or weeks, you are up into we're getting up into the 30 to 40%
kind of rain. And then but averages are important, but clearly the ups and downs are important too
for what happens for particular days and actual consumers. The real success story in renewables,
I think has been rooftop solar, which I think is now delivery on average about seven and a half
gigawatts a day, which when total demand is 30 gigawatts, you have to say that is a success.
It is a massive. So thanks to all your mums and dads out there that have put those things on your
roofs and we lead the world in rooftop. So the other thing that's happened is there's been a
growing contribution by big scale solar, but it's still the solar contribution is still dominated
by rooftop. And I think that's a key point. So four years ago, there was virtually no large scale
solar in Australia. There was a lot of rooftop solar owned by mums and dads. There was virtually
no large scale solar. So we've gone from virtually nothing to sort of meaningful percentages in a
very, very short space of time. And I think that to me really gets at the heart of the contradiction
between nuclear and renewables. And that renewables scale really fast. And if I can put a call out
to my, my hero, Ben Flivvieg, again, the guru, mega projects, Flivvieg of mega projects. When he
looks at across the span of mega projects, the ones most likely to succeed on the ones most likely
to fail, the ones most likely to fail in terms of going over over schedule over budget and
under delivering outcomes. The worst of all is nuclear waste disposal. The next worst, interestingly,
is the Olympics. And then the third worst is civil nuclear power. If we look at the other end of the
spectrum, the things that succeed are actually truly modular systems such as solar power and wind
power. And the reason for that is if you want solar power, you put in some panels and they generate,
you want some more, you put in some more panels, you put in some more panels. But I want for the
only person, I want for the only person saying, we're going to keep this as a polite discussion.
I'm not going to have you dragging down the Olympics. Paris Olympics are just about to start.
I'm right behind the Aussie team. I think every Australian besides the cringe is right behind
the team. Is this a distraction, Michael? I don't want to tie nuclear power and renewables to the
Olympics. I think we're bigger than that. Aren't we bigger than that? Are you admitting you're losing?
And the other point I make about the Olympics is you can take Professor Flickirk.
He's a professor. He must know what he's talking about. The professor can talk all he likes about
the Olympics being a failure. I think the Olympic movement is one of the triumphs of humanity.
It's resurrection after World War One was a stroke of genius. All right. So how is this
relevant? So there are other factors that play here. And that's important with nuclear energy.
Yes. Okay. All right. I'll just go back to my earlier point that renewables are the most
successful mega projects that you can find. Nuclear energy is the least successful. And
that's based on from the guy who has looked at more mega projects than anybody else in the world.
I think we don't want to get away. We were talking about the contribution to the current energy mix.
Yes. And if I could just mention, coal is still the heavy lifter in the Australian energy mix.
And so what happens to replace that incredibly important base load contribution you get from
coal, given this growth in renewables, but that unfortunate variability we see, 30%,
60%, well, which is it? And for a reliable power system, you need reliable supply. So
replacing that heavy coal contribution, it's not going to be gas because at the moment,
I think about 1.5% of power generation is coming from gas, which is an extraordinary
own goal, isn't it? The problem with gas is that the mega geniuses who've been running our economy
decided to lock in all of our gas to overseas export and not reserve any of it for Australians,
with the result that Australians are paying more for Australian gas than overseas customers. And
we're almost getting into the ludicrous situation where those overseas customers are selling it
back to us. So Australia can't afford to buy the gas we produce, even though the gas we produce,
we produce very cheaply and at scale because we insist on selling it to ourselves at the highest
price we can get for it on the international market. Yes. And by the way, so people who say
renewables, look at the price we're paying for electricity now, that's being driven by renewables.
Uh-uh, it is not being driven by renewables. Renewables are helping to keep the price down.
That cost increase is being driven by Mr Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which is driving up the cost
of gas and coal around the world. And because we've locked ourselves into international markets,
we are suffering because of that. So one part of our energy mix over the next 20 and 30 years,
while we're doing this transition in our energy mix away from coal, would be a much more sensible
policy around pricing of domestic gas, even with the ripple effect that might cause in our overseas
markets. Because frankly, Australian energy resilience is so important, us doing something
like the West Australian government, but reserving a share of domestic gas for domestic consumption
makes so much sense. It is a strange thing on the topic, but it is astonishing that the one
jurisdiction that is probably most subject to state capture of any government in Australia
was the one that actually stood up to the energy industry and the gas industry and said,
we are actually going to reserve West Australian gas for West Australian consumers with the result
that they pay the lowest price for gas of anybody in Australia. Yeah. So I just put that there as
when we're talking about the role of different energy sources in our energy production, there's
no way under current policy settings, gas is a bridge to the future. It could be, but unless
you're in Western Australia, it isn't. Now, so the question then is, all right, we're seeing,
we've seen some phenomenal growth rates out of rooftop solar. We're starting to see with big
scale solar, there was a surge in wind that seems to be dying down. Can renewables scale to meet 90%
of our energy demand and can it be sustained over time? And then the same question for nuclear.
Well, I think we've already answered the can nuclear scale. Well, I haven't been given an
opportunity there, but you tell me about renewables first. Well, so on nuclear account,
let me just answer this because as we've already identified, Mr. Dutton's seven nuclear power plants
will probably best case do 10 to 15% of our requirements by the middle of the century.
All of Western Europe at the moment is building two nuclear power plants. So for Australia to
suddenly do not only those seven, but the additional ones you'd need to make a meaningful
contribution to provide the bulk of electricity. I'm not quite sure how that is going to happen,
particularly when they seem to be running at a cost of, well, we're looking at,
Hinkley Point C is already up in the UK is already up to 46 billion pounds. So roughly,
you know, 80 to 90 billion dollars. All Kaluto three, the finished one that was just completed
came in actually was reasonably close to what it was meant to, but it still hit over close to 18
billion dollars. So somehow if we're going to be building all of Mr. Dutton's power plants,
plus you need to maybe triple quadruple quintuple that to do the bulk of our electricity. Okay,
we are looking at hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. What I would say about that,
it cannot scale in the timeframes available to what I would say about that is those European
clear initiatives, they're all based on the lack of investment in nuclear power generation that
we've lived with and now are suffering from of decades. So the peak of nuclear power building
happened in the 70s. It's and we've been coasting on that long term sensible investment without
renewing it. So it's really, I mean, it's ironic, isn't it? There's been no renewal of nuclear power
generation. And so the capacity to build these things has sensibly atrophied and that the
government regulation has hobbled some of those international markets. So US nuclear power production
regulation around nuclear power is probably a good thing. I'd just like to finish a couple of sentences here.
Come on already. The US nuclear power providers like General Electric were hobbled in exporting
their nuclear power systems globally because of regulation. I think the good news around climate
change and environmental activism has been a more clear eyed look at nuclear power and seeing it as
part of the past to getting to net zero. You talk to young Australians, people that in previous
generations would have been fervently anti nuclear power. They're among the strongest advocates and
that's because they see it as part of the past to net zero and that renaissance in investment in
nuclear energy will do two things. Drive down the time scales and drive down the costs. Okay,
that was that was a nice homage to nuclear power, but there was not a lot of fact in there, Michael.
Well, South Korea and Japan can build nuclear power stations in three and five years. Well,
Japan is not building nuclear power stations at the moment, but it can build them at those rates,
but it's not. It already has them. Okay, so let's look at sort of comparable countries and people
talk about nuclear renaissance going on. Well, there is not really a nuclear renaissance going on.
So the UK is currently building two reactors at one station. The French are building one and the
United States are not actually building any at the moment. They just completed two reactors in
one station, but they pulled the pin on another project that was building two reactors at one
station because it when so far over budget and we're so far behind schedule. So I think what
the world is realizing is that nuclear is just too slow and too expensive. So I would say you're
talking about countries that already have nuclear in their energy mix. So they've got a luxury we
don't have. We need to create that same luxury for ourselves. Well, I will quote the Australian
Energy Regulator who just came out and said it would take eight years to set up a regulatory
framework to allow the construction of nuclear power plants in Australia. So if we add on sort of
the 15 year construction time, so 15 and eight, 23 years. So if we add 23 on to let's say Mr.
Dutton wins the next election, he'll come in in 2025. We are kind of looking at 2050 for the first
however, however, I would say about the energy market regulator saying it takes eight years.
That sounds very America before the space race, before John F Kennedy laid down that challenge
of putting a man on the moon and energize the nation around it. So and the other thing I'd say
to make this our moonshot. Well, I think a sustained public initiative with the kind of
weight of investment and interest around it can accelerate those timeframes. And frankly,
if I was elected with the policy of putting nuclear power in place quickly and had it regulated
tell me it would take eight years, I'd be finding a new head of that regulatory agency.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Hitler. Okay, I'll just run through some of the project times of recent
Western nuclear projects. So Okolido three, which started generating last year, 23 years from the
start of that project. So only 18 of them were construction. Flammenville three, the French
one, which is about to go online 19 years, Hinckley point C latest estimate is 19 years,
folk tool three and four, 17 and 18 years. So the average there is around about 19 years.
Those are all countries with existing. Let me give you the International Atomic Energy Agency
study that said 15 countries have built a total of 83 nuclear plants over the last 20 years,
among the 31 countries with nuclear power. It took on average 190 months to build each plant.
During that period, Korea built a total of 13. Their average construction period was only 56
months more than three times faster than other countries. And the fastest country was Japan
on average 46 months to build each plant and doing one in 36 months. Japan has stopped. So Michael,
question to you. Do you see us and when you look around at mega projects in Australia being more
akin to South Korea or more akin to Western Europe? Yes, well, I have to say I've written
something about Australia's ability to do large projects quickly and we do not have a good track
record. So building that new optis sports stadium in Western Australia was about 15 years from idea
to finishing it. It's a very impressive stadium, but it's not a massively complex, controversial
public work like a nuclear power station. Putting the second Sydney Airport in a Badgeries Creek,
that's been over 40 years from site selection. It's still not operating. It should have some
freight operating out of it probably next year. We actually know airports in this country. Yes,
and the high point of large project failure, I think if we take defence projects like the French
submarine out of the mix, that was only three and a half to four billion dollars down the door.
We'd have to say Snowy Hydro 2.0 is one of the worst. And by the way, as the advocate for renewables,
I would say Snowy Hydro 2 is not the way to do renewables. Yes, because Billy debogged that tunnel
was still kind of funny. Tunneler. And the other big example of failed public project implementation
is a nuclear waste repository, which the sites were selected twice and have been overturned each
time by federal court challenges. So for nuclear power to happen, there needs to be a sea change
in Australian public policy and regulation because nothing will happen quickly without that.
Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that change. But waste, you raised the waste issue.
How long? How long has the world been generating electricity through civil nuclear power stations,
Michael? How long has that been going on? Since the 60s. Wrong. Wrong, Michael. My understanding
is 1954 was the first civil nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Union. So 70 years. I don't count
the Soviets. Well, they have been generating electricity and along with it waste. Now,
while Mr. Dutton may sort of hold up coat cans to sort of give us an indication of the scale
of the waste problem, there are actually by the figures I could find 392,000 tons of waste fuel.
Now, how many long term waste storage facilities has the world created in those 70 years? I think
there's a very good one just opening in Finland as we speak. That's it. That is it. And this,
I'd say two things about this and they're both about opportunity. The first one is Australia is
the most geologically stable continent on the planet. We have an enormous opportunity, which I
think is part of our nuclear stewardship obligation as a supplier of uranium to store a lot of that
spent fuel. You want to take the 392,000 tons of waste fuel? Some of it. But the other big opportunity
related to that is the reprocessing opportunity. There's some outstanding research about the
ability to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and reuse it. And you do it so many times, you end up with
hundreds of tons, not hundreds of thousands of tons. So yes, this is a case where further
research and technological progress needs to happen. Does it exist? Back to my, this is a long-term
endeavor. If you want a sustainable fossil free energy mix, you need to make long lead investments
and storage and reprocessing. There are two of those. So this is interesting because I think
when I look at the nuclear advocacy at the heart of it is his face in technology. So technology
will solve all the problems. So we've got 392,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, but we haven't bothered
to come up with a way to dispose of it. We can't even dig holes to put it in. So I think underpinning
this is a view that sooner or later we'll find a way to reprocess it. Well, we are finding those
ways. We haven't got that way. But there is this faith in technology that is at the heart of the
nuclear enterprise. Now, you can argue that a lot of it is misplaced. I think a lot of it is misplaced.
But I don't understand why those people don't have the same faith in renewables technology,
even though we can see in front of us that technology taking effect. So the efficiency
of solar panels increasing exponentially, the cost of battery storage going down exponentially,
we can see that occurring in front of us. So why don't we have the faith, faith,
same faith in that technology? Well, that's really interesting because I was going to
put the same argument to you that your side of this argument is based around the phenomenal
promise and delivery of renewables that not so long ago, not so long ago, was seen as just
hypothetical. We're seeing some of that reality, whether or not that can continue. We don't know
yet. But we've seen that we've seen technologies, the solution started to deliver with renewables.
So I have the same faith about nuclear power and solving the problems of storage and reprocessing.
So I actually think I'm half agreeing with you here, even from my side of the argument.
I think we both have faith in that human development of technology. The trouble is with the nuclear
enterprise, it's faith not action. We've had 70 years to build long term storage and the
storage facilities. We've done one. But if you have a brief flowering of investment and research
in a nuclear and then you coast on your laurels and do nothing for decades, you can't be surprised
that the progress didn't continue. Well, I'm not sure we have coasted and done nothing. I mean,
that there's the promise, the promise of small modular reactors. Well, one of the things I've
been hearing a lot recently is people say, oh, gosh, it's this debate about nuclear. There's no
one's listening to the engineers. No one's listening to the engineers. Well, I was reading a piece
put out by the engineers, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering,
they were looking at SMRs, small modular reactors. And they said, you can't expect that to be a
reality in the Australian context until the late 2040s. Okay, so we are looking at another 25 years
before we get small modular reactors that are commercially viable in the Australian context.
I bet if you'd ask establishment outfits like the ATSE about how rapidly electric vehicles
will become well accepted consumable products before Tesla came along, they would have given
you the same kind of time frames. So all I'm saying is the creativity we see in a whole lot of
fields around energy and technology undercut these kinds of analyses. That's that's what I say about
that. This is the establishment speaking. Okay. Well, it's just they would say that based on the
facts they have in front of them, but they've been that that's not kind of analysis. People make
conclusions based on facts. The unfortunate thing for that kind of analysis is new facts rapidly
overtake them. You know, I could say the same about the space industry where the legacy approaches
NASA had became too slow, too expensive, along if you let new entrants in and you get the right
government policies, including a healthy amount of subsidization, you can have outstanding new
results. I do agree there and that if you want to keep doing nuclear the same old way, it's not
going to solve our problems. So you got to look at you wouldn't need a completely new approach to
nuclear. Unfortunately, we don't actually know what that is yet. We do. We can look at the South
Korean and Japanese experiences. We can accept the Japanese have stopped, but they still have the
capacity to produce these things at scale. If they're not building them for themselves,
what a wonderful opportunity to have them help us build ours. So the other thing that we haven't
really talked about is and what about some of the intractable problems? So you've talked about
waste with nuclear, waste with renewables. There is no feasible remanufacturing solutions for
batteries or use solar panels. Or you can recycle bits of them. But they're not going to sit there
for 100,000 years. It is clearly not economic. And the way we're making these things, you know,
let's start at the horrible exploitation at me in the Congo with a lot of those rare earths and
other essentials. Let's talk about the silicon production in Xinjiang with the forced labour
and oppression of the Uyghurs. So people driving around in these Chinese electric vehicles and
sticking these rooftops over, they're feeling good about themselves. But there's a lot of human
misery behind that in the production and the waste. Do we really think we're just going to export it
to landfill in places like Indonesia? They're not accepting this stuff anymore. So I think there's
some downsides. The other big one is your thing about scaling in time. Where do we get these
renewable technologies and systems from if we want them fast? China has built a dominant market
position. We'll be like Europe with Russian oil and gas, hugely dependent on a coercive energy
provider. In this case, the Chinese for our renewable technologies. And don't tell me they
wouldn't use that for ill as well as good. Well, you'll be surprised to know that this is an area
where I do agree with you in that. So supply chain security is important. If we go back to our sort of
day job analysis, which is security in the defence of Australia, supply chain security is very important.
And so yes, this is an issue that we need to look at. And fortunately, fortunately, the good guys
around the world, the free world are recognising this. And so the free world is reinvigorating the
manufacture of wind turbines of solar panels. It is really gripping up the issue of rare earths
and how you break the coercive dominance of the Chinese in the rare earth market. So yes,
these are serious issues, but the good guys are looking at this and trying to break the Chinese
monopoly. Well, it's not going to happen overnight. Well, my concern there is the same concern you've
raised about the whole nuclear power thing, which is the speed of action is not matching the speed
of the problem. No, but as of today, the Chinese are building lots and lots of solar panels,
which we can buy quite affordably. And let's keep doing that. I will note the Australian
government's Future Made in Australia program does involve solar panels. I am generally skeptical of
essentially picking winners and direct subsidies in the commercial space remains to be seen how
that's going to go. I think that Future Made in Australia initiative is based on the butterfly
effect. For butterfly in Mongolia flaps its wings, it changes the weather in Latin America.
I thought it was Brazil. But the reason I think that is it's such a tiny initiative,
like that idea of producing some solar panels for a tiny, tiny investment compared to the
scale of investment required. I just I think that is a marketing brand, not a program.
Yes, I think you are right to be skeptical there. But I'll get back to this other point
with that we made earlier and that renewable scale really quickly. And so you have a lot more
potential to do it faster. Now, yes, you may want to break the Chinese, your reliance on Chinese
production. The whole world wants to break its reliance on Chinese production. But renewable
scale really I think that supply chain issue will really slow the renewables rate of scaling.
But I think it will never be as slow as nuclear. I think that reliance on Chinese sourcing has to
be broken because that's a strategic and reliability issue. And we've just seen the problem of dependence
on single suppliers with the mass outage of global internet, not Chinese internet with Microsoft and
and cloud strikes. So economic dependence over economic dependence on a supplier based in China
is all bad news that will undercut renewable rollout for a while. So we're pretty much out of time.
The other interesting thing this would be a whole different podcast, I think is whether or not
nuclear power has a potential role in Australia's energy mix and whether or not renewables are
the main answer. These are probably bridges to a future energy solution because of some of these
just intractable issues around scaling and waste and cost with nuclear fusion, clean nuclear energy,
hopefully being humanity's sustainable future. Now that would have sounded, that probably still
sounds crazy to people, but I think to get hung up solely on the kind of energy solutions we have
now and not think about the future of humanity under an even cleaner future would be a mistake.
Well fusion is the unicorn and if it rides in to save us, great.
Well, it's a unicorn that powers the sun. So it's the problem is like most unicorns, it exists.
It exists in the sun back here in the real world, Michael, it doesn't exist and it may well happen.
And that would be terrific. It would be fantastic. But I don't think we can really base our planning
around fusion showing up at a certain point. I agree. I think for the foreseeable future,
and this is 2050, 2060, the solutions we have are the ones we have to scale and use and it's
about the mix. And the issue around those time frames, if you think fusion is going to be here
around 2050, that's about the time you're starting to get a return on your investment in fission in
traditional nuclear. Well, and I would end my part of this debate by saying an energy system
is best having an energy mix and the right time to start long-term initiatives is yesterday,
not today. And some of those investments are going to be in things that you turn out not to need.
But if we could perfectly predict the future, we'd make a whole lot of better choices.
So we have to live in the world we're in. And on that point, I'll just go back to
these engineers. What do they know? So the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences
and Engineering, who I would say they are in and they are self-declared in the energy agnostic
camp. So they're happy to look at any solution as long as it's viable and they don't want to rule
any solutions out. I'll just read their conclusion. In Australia, renewable technologies such as solar
and wind are proven and mature with widespread deployment underway, large-scale nuclear will
be outcompeted by renewables in the current time frame and does not appear a viable economic option
in the short to medium term. So they leave open the longer term. Importantly, focusing on nuclear
power now could distract from the transition away from fossil fuels, send mixed signals to industry
and hamper efforts to deploy renewable technologies at pace. While nuclear technology may eventually
have a role in Australia, Australia's present critical technology mix focuses on renewable
technologies, particularly wind, solar, pumped hydro and battery storage areas where Australia has
a technological geographic and mineral advantage. I don't think I can put it any better than that,
which is yes, there may be a role at some point for nuclear, but don't let it be a distraction
from the absolutely vital transition to renewables. And I'll end by saying I think this has been a
civil nuclear debate and I think the best thing for the country is to have more of that kind of
public discussion. I hope the podcast has helped. Thanks very much. Thank you, Michael.