Today, I want to highlight and respond to a trope from the anti-nuclear scene. The argument goes like this: "Building nuclear power plants is costly and takes too long. We can only spend our money once. Therefore, wanting nuclear power plants is a delaying tactic to keep the fossil industry alive".
This is complete rubbish, with a caveat.
First, the money part of the argument. For years, we've been told that solar and wind are getting cheaper, and this is true, to an extent. Building wind turbines and installing solar panels have been getting cheaper.
What is however always overlooked when people make this argument are the costs of infrastructure and 'firming', which means you're having backup for whenever the sun isn't shining and the wind not blowing.
A few examples:
- The Belgian energy hub island that's going to connect their offshore wind parks to land has spiralled out of control. Originally estimated at €2.2 billion it now costs €7.5 billion. A planned connection to Denmark was cancelled because costs were too high.
- Speaking of Denmark, both rounds of their latest tenders for offshore wind failed as no one was interested in the offer the government was making. Again, due to spiralling costs.
- Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, a 2.6 GW park currently being built, is spiralling upward to $11 billion.
- The Netherlands is paying around €100 billion to install the infrastructure for their offshore wind, a doubling of earlier estimates.
All these examples show how nuclear is in reality competitive to solar and wind.
This brings me to the time argument: "we need to do something NOW" is a worn out call from anti-nuclear propagandists.
This is a reflection of how the only-renewable folk don't want to have any nuclear at all: they project this stance in reverse on people who argue for nuclear energy, claiming we don't want to build wind and solar.
While some people on the pro-nuclear side naively think we can achieve zero carbon emissions with only nuclear energy in an acceptable timeframe, most don't. We want to build it all.
As a matter of fact, if we'd only focus on renewables, this would have two consequences:
1. Remember the backup I was talking about that solar and wind need? Yeah, if we're not building nuclear power plants, this is going to be fossil gas (mostly), for decades to come. The Belgian Greens for example, who had a minister in the relevant position in the previous federal government, insisted on building two big gas plants, as part of her nuclear phase out.
2. Without nuclear energy, we simply won't be generating enough clean energy to power industrial society. This isn't the case everywhere of course. In an empty continent like Australia I'm sure you in principle have plenty of room to build all the wind turbines you'll ever need, but in crowded and highly industrialised Europe this is a very different story. The Netherlands for example wants to build 70 GW of wind turbines in the North Sea, which would generate up to 275 TWh annually. This is less than half we'll be needing in 2050. We can and must build a lot of solar and wind on land as well, but without an equivalent of 20 large nuclear reactors, the options are either expensive import from outside Europe or deindustrialising society.
I did promise a caveat: in the Australian nuclear debate, this argument is also used a lot against the Liberal party. While I read on their website that "renewables have a role to play", in the public discourse they're pretty quiet on this. In a bad faith reading, it could indeed be the case that Peter Dutton wants to delay the rollout of renewables, doesn't actually have serious plans for nuclear energy, and just uses it as a device to keep the fossil industry in Australia alive for a bit longer. I hope I'm wrong on this and Dutton and co elaborate on this in the election campaign.
Without nuclear energy, we wouldn't see a realistic path to zero carbon emissions. Anyone arguing for an only-renwable path is putting forward the real delaying tactic, supporting fossil industry interests for decades to come. Don't let them gaslight you.
