Scott Morrison: ‘No issue’ with nuclear power but it doesn’t stack up via Financial Review

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he has “no issue” with nuclear power except it doesn’t stack up as an investment compared to Hydro Tasmania’s “Battery of the nation” project.

Mr Morrison told broadcaster Alan Jones that he would do whatever it takes to bring electricity prices down but when it came to nuclear power, “I don’t have any issues” but the “investment doesn’t stack up”.

He compared nuclear power unfavourably with Hydro Tasmania’s Battery of the nation – a proposal to develop thousands of megawatts of pumped hydro capacity in addition to the island state’s existing hydro capacity to back up rapidly expanding solar and wind power.

[….]

Nuclear referendum

Before that, former telecoms executive Ziggy Switkowski recommended in a 2006 report for the Howard government that Australia build 25 nuclear power stations around the country to produce a third of the nation’s power.

But then opposition leader threatened to make the next election in 2007 “a referendum on nuclear power” and the government quickly dropped the idea.

[…]

The total cost of two new reactors with a combined 2235 MW capacity being built by Southern Co. at the Vogtle nuclear power station in Georgia, US, has now reached $US27 billion ($38 billion), The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

Losing race

Britain’s 3200 MW Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, being built by French government-controlled EDF, has a budgeted cost £20 billion ($37 billion).

[…]

By contrast, coal and biomass costs have remained flat and the costs of wind and utility scale solar photovoltaic power have “respectively fallen by 67 per cent and 86 per cent as the cost of components have plummeted and efficiency has increased—two trends that are projected to continue.”