The pond regrets to advise that this will be the last post from the deep south, as the pond is about to head into the darkest wastelands for a while ...
This is a double disappointment. Firstly on observing the statue of Matthew Flinders parked near the C of E (don't believe the Anglican rebrand, the Angles are innocent) Cathedral, for the convenience of pigeons needing somewhere to do a dump ...
... the pond had hoped to do an epic piece on Religion and the Rise of Colonialism, which would have been more than a match for Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism ... and would have been vastly superior to Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ...
Secondly, there came news of plans to end the world, in Former Trump national security adviser urges resumption of nuclear testing, Robert O’Brien says US should abandon moratorium but experts say proposal would hasten global nuclear arms race.
This was splendid news, as wiser minds than the pond once observed that Melbourne is a top notch place from which to watch the end of the world. The pond might have thought about staying over for a good view of the light show ...
As usual, being the Graudian, there were links to knockers and neighsayers ...
But Dr Strangelove is one of the pond's favourite movies and the pond has always dreamed of joining a Vera Lynn singalong while riding a nuke to earth.
The spoilsports weren't having any of it ...
...Jeffrey Lewis, a professor and nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California, said a resumption of testing around the world would throw away US advantages that were locked in when the moratorium began more than three decades ago.
“When the test ban happened, the US had done more than 1,000 explosions and had the most advanced computing capabilities in the world, so we had the best data and the best computers, and we were in a position of enormous advantage relative to the Russians, and certainly relative to the Chinese,” Lewis said.
“The Russians had conducted a smaller number of nuclear explosions, and I think that they were not as well-instrumented as ours were … and then the Chinese were way behind,” he added.
“China now has supercomputers comparable to the ones in the US, and so the Chinese laboratories would learn vast amounts about miniaturising nuclear weapons, [and about] making nuclear weapons more reliable, that we already know in the US. Whereas, comparatively, we would learn very, very little.”
Lewis said making more fissile material would be pointless. The US is estimated to have a stockpile of 87.6 tonnes of plutonium and 483 tonnes of highly enriched uranium, enough for tens of thousands more warheads without the need to make any more.
Lewis said the main point of the O’Brien article was to appeal to “an audience of one” – Trump – by putting forward radical ideas that spur outrage from liberals and the arms-control community.
He likened it to the punk rock movement: “Putting a safety pin through your ear is not because you think it looks good or it feels good, but because it outrages the normies.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has unveiled long-awaited detail of his pledge to build nuclear reactors in Australia, confirming that two nuclear plants would be producing electricity by the middle of next decade and be built with public funding under a government-owned business model.
The Coalition revealed there would be seven nuclear plants at the sites of former coal power plants:
Lithgow and the Hunter Valley in NSW, Loy Yang in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Collie in Western Australia and Port Augusta in South Australia.
Congratulations to the winners.
“We know the government has a renewables-only policy which is not fit for purpose. No other country in the world can keep the lights on 24/7 with the renewables-only policy,” Dutton said at an announcement in Sydney on Wednesday morning.
“Today we announce seven locations that we have looked at in great detail over a long period of time that can host new nuclear sites, and that’ll be part of an energy mix with renewables and significant amounts of gas into the system, particularly in the interim period.”
He said the new assets would be owned by the Commonwealth, which would form partnerships with experienced nuclear companies tasked with building and operating them.
But he conceded his policy had not yet been costed. “We will have more to say in relation to the cost in due course and, as you know, we’ve done this in a step-by-step process. The focus today is on the sites,” Dutton said.
The opposition leader also acknowledged he would need to convince state premiers, who have their own bans on nuclear that would need to be overturned.
“Somebody famously said: I would not stand between a premier and a bucket of money, and we’ve seen the premiers in different debates before, where they’ve been able to negotiate with the Commonwealth. And we’ll be able to address those issues,” Dutton said.
Dutton said a Coalition government would start by building either small modular reactors, which is nascent technology not yet in commercial production, or a large scale reactor, like the AP1000 or APR1400. He said the small reactors could be operating by 2035, while the larger ones would produce electricity by 2037.
The CSIRO has found the first nuclear reactors could not be built until 2040 and would cost up to $16 billion each.
Dutton’s announcement will end months of speculation about the proposed locations and sharpen the political debate after he reignited the nation’s climate wars by pledging to dump the government’s target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.
He has said the Coalition remains committed to net zero emissions by 2050 but will not reveal its interim climate targets until after the federal election, due by May next year.
David Littleproud: What I’m saying is that we are obviously all for renewables in the right place.
… [but] why wouldn’t we look at all of the options?
… This is a great move for regional Australia to give us the jobs. But we’re not turning our back on the opportunities, but we’re just saying - understand our lived experience.
Because you know what, we count, too.
And your food security depends on us. And if we can’t produce it, your food prices go up. So, we’ve been pragmatic.
The National party have made this commitment to net zero by 2050. But [this] linear pathway is not just hurting metropolitan families. It’s hurting our wallets but our lifestyles and our capacity to make a living.
And I’m saying to everybody – please, understand that every Australian should be given a go through this and we can do it together if we back ourselves to do this with the know-how, and adopt it here in this country and regional Australia will come with you and continue to deliver for you.
Once again the doubters and the knockers and the neighsayers were out and about ... but the pair fought on gamely ...
Dutton draws comparisons to green hydrogen or Aukus when talking about non-existant (sic, it's the Graudian) nuclear technology
What about the fact that the technology doesn’t exist?
Peter Dutton: Again, green hydrogen doesn’t exist in the world at the moment. Here in our country, the prime minister is proposing that that will be a replacement*.
At the moment, the Aukus submarine doesn’t exist. But we know that the technology is there, and we know that the technology that exists in the nuclear propulsion systems on those submarines, posed to be used by our country, but already used by others, is there and it’s able to be translated.
That’s why you look at the 2035 and not … 2028 or whatever it might be. So you give yourself plenty of room and that’s the sensible approach to it. We’ve taken a prudent approach, but it is all about bringing down electricity prices and keeping the lights on and that’s what we’re doing.
* Snowy Hydro 2.0 – which includes the Kurri Kurri green hydrogen plant – was established under the Turnbull Coalition government.
There were cavils about the timeline, easily knocked for six:
Dutton can’t say which countries have deployed nuclear technology during proposed similar timeframe
What is the timeline?
Peter Dutton: So in terms of the first two ... we say between 2035 and 2037, depending on which technology you use. And then, out into the 2040s. So ahead of 2050.
And that is achievable. It’s a sensible rollout. And given capacity constraints within infrastructure providers etc, that is a reasonable runway for them over the 2040s as well.
What other countries have done it in that timeline? Dutton can’t say:
There are 450 ... How many reactors around the world? About 450.
And the fact that is you can look at different factors in each environment. I mean, some will roll out more quickly than others. In some cases, they’re going for a bespoke build, which is of no interest to us, whatsoever.
The technology is available. When you look at products that Westinghouse has, or Hitachi or GE, and you look at the Canadian experience, there’s the ability to roll out and we’ve spoken with a number of companies in the infrastructure space about the timelines that we’re proposing and people feel comfortable with those.
Ted was there too, chipping in, with cost and government subsidy simply not an issue ...
Coalition says nuclear drives prices down but dodges questions on cost
The Coalition continue to dodge the questions about cost.
Ted O’Brien says: When it comes to all households and all businesses benefitting from zero emissions in the mix, we will have plenty of time in due course to talk about the costings once we release them here in the Australian context.
… We are putting Australians at the centre. When it comes to doing the modelling [we are] putting consumers at the centre. There is no reason why – as you scan the rest of the world, nuclear drives prices down – that it wouldn’t be the same here in Australia. And, indeed, I believe that that is precisely what is going to happen.
Still the sceptics kept blathering away while the visionaries outlined a vision which handily would only. be seen long after they'd left the stage:
Amy’s analysis: is NSW a nuclear state?
Peter Dutton is talking about Lucas Heights there. That site manufactures radioactive medicine. It is at a very different scale to a nuclear reactor which would power the energy sector.
He also says, correctly, that Aukus will involve nuclear. But again, that is for a submarine reactor, which is still much smaller than a nuclear reactor used for power.
Dutton does not go into those differences: Since 1958 Lucas Heights has operated successfully, I saw talk the other day, what will happen to house prices? What happened to house prices in Lucas Heights? They went up similarly to other suburbs here in New South Wales.
What will happen in Osborne where Premier Malinauskas signed up to the Aukus deal? A reactor will be there … Australian uniforms will sleep in the submarine alongside the reactor in a safe way.
Osborne is a matter of kilometres from local communities. In Henderson, WA, then premier McGowan signed up to the Aukus deal, [where] nuclear reactors in the submarines will be there alongside residential and industrial areas.
So those premiers have shown a level of pragmatism before we signed up to Aukus, nobly believed it could happen. Everyone said the premiers would not agree, but they did.
We will work with the premiers because it is in our national interest.
On and on it went, as Ted and Punxsutawney Pete nuked the cat and the pigeons:
The AFR’s running commentary, handily noted by an esteemed correspondent, had Bowen saying it was a fantasy that failed at the first hurdle.
Down below were some choice items:
Victoria’s Liberal leader sidesteps nuclear debate
Patrick Durkin
Victoria’s Liberal Opposition Leader John Pesutto has tried to sidestep today’s nuclear debate, repeating that it has no plans for nuclear as a state opposition.
“It may well be that a future federal government initiates a national discussion on nuclear power, noting that there is a moratorium currently in place nationally,” Pesutto said.
“Our focus as a state opposition, as the alternative government, is on addressing the current shortfalls in energy, particularly with gas shortfalls which the ACCC and AEMO have both among others identified as confronting Victorians in the coming years. That’s where our focus will be.”
Expert questions nuclear costs, timeline
Tess Bennett
Tony Wood, the director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute, has questioned whether the proposed nuclear power plants will be online before coal is phased out.
Apart from the social licence question, the big challenge facing the Coalition’s proposal is whether it can be achieved between 2035 and 2050, Mr Wood told the ABC.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to build seven government-owned nuclear power stations by 2050, with the first unit to be operational in just over a decade.
“Can we seriously have them online, given the coal-fired power stations will close between now and 2035?” Mr Wood said.
“The costs look very high. All the numbers we’ve seen so far suggest they will be very high, and higher than the alternative.
“I’ve got no problem with nuclear technology per se. I’ve travelled to many countries where nuclear is used and I’ve never been worried about it, and I think the idea that you could build nuclear fundamentally is not stupid by any means.”
Dutton’s nuclear plans a “smokescreen” for coal and gas
Tom McIlroy
The Climate Council has accused Peter Dutton’s Coalition of engaging in a “radioactive greenwash”, suggesting the policy for a shift to nuclear power in Australia is designed to hide its commitment to coal and gas.
Chief executive Amanda McKenzie says Dutton’s plans will also delay an urgently needed shift to renewable energy in the economy.
“The winners from this scheme are the multinational coal and gas corporations who will keep polluting until well past mid-century. On the other hand, as a result of this scheme, Australians will suffer from worsening unnatural disasters due to climate pollution,” McKenzie says.
“Communities are being pummelled by heatwaves and dangerous bushfires one week, and extreme rainfall and flooding the next.
“Dutton’s scheme is: let the climate burn, let the mega-fires burn, let the sea levels rise, let the heat become unbearable.”
McKenzie warned that Australia has no nuclear workforce and no waste facilities.
“Nuclear reactors are a dangerous delay tactic that would mean climate pollution explodes in the next two decades.”
Queensland premier negative on Coalition plan for nuclear power
Andrew Messenger
The Queensland premier, Steven Miles, has slammed nuclear power as “four to six times more expensive” than the alternatives.
Peter Dutton announced plans for two nuclear plants for the sunshine state this morning, in Tarong and Callide, both near existing coal plans. Miles:
We know that nuclear reactors are four to six times more expensive. So think about that. That means your electricity bill could go up four to six times to fund these nuclear reactors that the LNP wants to build in Queensland.
And that is not to mention how future generations - my kids, your kids - will need to manage dangerous radioactive nuclear waste, forever. That’s what that plan means.
The state has a legislated plan to transition to 80% renewables by 2035, when Dutton says the first nuclear plant would come online. Queensland also has state legislation banning nuclear power generation.
South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, says nuclear power is safe and has “an important role to play in the global energy mix as we pursue a decarbonised future”. But, he says, the question is whether it’s economical:
And what we know is that from report after report is that in the Australian context, it will make power more expensive. So why on Earth would we pursue it?
Malinauskas says it’s also “normal” to announce the cost of policies, which opposition leader Peter Dutton failed to do:
That means one of two things. Either Peter Dutton knows how much it’s going to cost and he’s refusing to tell people. Or, he’s making a massive policy commitment without knowing how much it’s going to cost. Either way, it’s an extraordinary position.
Western Australia’s energy, environment and climate action minister, Reece Whitby, says opposition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan makes “absolutely no sense to Australia, and particularly to WA”. It would lead to “massive, massive increases in power bills”, he said.
Whitby said building a nuclear power industry would be hugely expensive and take a long time, and that WA had plentiful renewable resources in the meantime. He said:
In Australia you have no legislative or regulatory landscape or infrastructure for nuclear, you have no workforce. It’s going to take a long long time – I think at least 20 years or more – and we don’t have time to waste. This is the worst possible case you can imagine. Peter Dutton, I think, is lacking courage… he must know this is a crazy plan. He must know that it won’t work.
Nuclear energy was a “unicorn that will never arrive” and a way for coal supporters to keep the coal industry going, Whitby said.
The same esteemed correspondent offered a link to Rolls Royce but the pond was blocked, only to be vastly relieved that the good SMR news could be found
here. It was from 2021 but it carried the reassuring news that SMRs were just around the corner and would run for 60 years! The first five will come with TruCoat to ensure longevity, and while none have actually been built,
Poland is a goer.
The Australian Liberal-National opposition’s proposal to build nuclear power stations on the sites of old coal-fired plants is misguided. The policy would perpetuate Australia’s concentration of electricity generation and worsen our vulnerability to air and missile attack.
Renewable-energy installations, by contrast, are numerous, dispersed and therefore much less profitable for an enemy to destroy. They’re also far easier and quicker to fix. And energy storage capacity, another source of resilience, necessarily grows as they’re built.
The current concentration of large slabs of generation capacity in coal-fired stations is already a vulnerability. They’re attractive targets. A single attack by a few strike missiles might knock out a plant and its large chunk of power supply.
Chinese bombers, submarines and carrier-launched aircraft could attack them using guided bunker-busting bombs, regular air-to-ground missiles or hypersonic ones with tungsten penetrators. Russia is indeed targeting power stations in its war against Ukraine, typically hitting them with missiles and drones.
If a big power station’s energy comes from nuclear reactors instead of boilers burning fossil fuel, a strike could cause an environmentally devastating release of radioactive material. If we had nuclear power stations, they would in fact be things that an enemy could use against us.
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster resulted in radioactive contamination of about 150,000 square kilometres reaching as far as 500km from the plant. It released more radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. In 2007 the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies reported: ‘a nuclear power plant contains more than 1000 times the radiation that is released in an atomic bomb blast’. The Chernobyl experience suggests that destruction of a large nuclear station on the site of the Eraring coal-fired plant in New South Wales might render the port of Newcastle inoperative and perhaps force the evacuation of 800,000 people in the city and Central Coast.
Most of Australia’s coal-fired power stations are in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Replacing at least some with nuclear plants, as the opposition suggests, would therefore expose much of the population to frightening wartime risk. Attacks could result in long-term crippling of the economy by rendering cities uninhabitable. They would raise the cost to Australia for continuing any war...
On and on he went, an endless spoilsport and fusspot.
At that point, the pond realised the real implications, and they were incredibly serious ... long dreary mornings reading endless reptile screeds about the wonders to be seen from nuking the country ...
Despite Peter Dutton this morning unveiling “details” of his plan to build a fleet of nuclear power plants across the country by 2040, we’re still no closer to understanding exactly how the Liberal leader will achieve such an improbable feat.
Dutton has committed the Coalition to building seven reactors on the sites of coal-fired power stations: two in Queensland, at Tarong and Callide, two in NSW, at Liddell and Lithgow, one at Port Augusta in SA, one at the current Loy Yang A site in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, and one at Muja in south-western WA.
There is a little detail in the timing. The glossy brochure handed out by the Coalition claims “the timeline for establishing a civil nuclear program in Australia including building two establishment projects is 10 to 12 years from the government making a decision until zero emissions nuclear electricity first enters the grid.”
Separately, it also states “a federal Coalition government will initially develop two establishment projects using either small modular reactors or modern larger plants such as the AP1000 or APR1400. They will start producing electricity by 2035 (with small modular reactors) or 2037 (if modern larger plants are found to be the best option).”
That timeline is at odds with the CSIRO’s estimate that nuclear could not be deployed until 2040 at the earliest. There are no small modular reactors currently in operation in any developed country, and the US project touted by the Coalition, NuScale in Idaho, was shut down in November due to soaring costs.
According to the CSIRO’s costings, seven reactors at $8.6 billion each for a 1000MW reactor, would cost $60.2 billion, however the first build would suffer a first of a kind premium of up to 100% in addition to that. That does not include a cost blow-out of 20-30% of a kind that has characterised nearly all major infrastructure projects in Australia over the past two decades.
According to the CSIRO, small modular reactors will cost two to three-and-a-half times more than large-scale nuclear plants per unit of output.
Dutton has also confirmed what Crikey has long pointed out — the reactors will have to be publicly owned, meaning taxpayers will fund the $60-90 billion cost.
“The Australian government will own these assets, but form partnerships with experienced nuclear companies to build and operate them,” Dutton said this morning.
This reduces, but does not remove, one of the key impediments to any nuclear build — that companies will refuse to invest in their construction because of a potential change in government, with a new government restoring a nuclear ban. The Coalition would likely offer onerous break fees as part of any deal with companies interested in building reactors, in order to deter future governments from halting construction.
It will also mean the Commonwealth will enter the power generation industry at a truly colossal scale, far beyond what any state government has ever managed. Dutton has made a commitment to a radical expansion in the size and role of the federal government.
However, there remains the biggest hurdle of all: state governments. The Coalition might be able to purchase existing sites from private companies to build the reactors — though not in Queensland, where Callide and Tarong are government-owned. But it will not be able to build reactors without state cooperation, including the repeal of state prohibitions on nuclear power. Dutton joked this morning about premiers and buckets of money, but his chances of convincing Labor governments in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia to allow nuclear power plants appear slim.
Dutton may have more luck in Queensland, with his own party, the Liberal Nationals, set to take power in October. However, state LNP leader David Crisafulli appeared to kill that off this week, saying when asked about repealing Queensland’s ban on nuclear power “the answer is no, and I’ve made my view very clear on that.”
Then came the killer climax:
...More realistically, it’s all intended as a distraction from abandoning climate action and maintaining fossil fuel-based power. Dutton and his colleagues were in power for nine years and never expressed the slightest interest in pursuing nuclear power — or even removing the Howard government’s ban on it. There’s a reason for that — in Australia, it’s a ludicrously expensive fantasy.
Consider the pond distracted, but then the pond has always had a soft spot for unicorns.
...The U.S. isn’t the only country dealing with Mother Nature’s immoderate effects. This month alone, over 730 fires have been detected in Brazil’s Pantanal region, the largest tropical wetland on the planet, according to the country’s National Institute of Space Research.
It’s a record high in Pantanal for the month of June, which was previously 435 fires in June 2005, according to CNN.
Extreme heat in Cyprus and Greece reached upward of 110°F last week, causing officials to temporarily shut down the Acropolis, close public schools and limit other outdoor attractions.
According to the Washington Post, two elderly people died in Cyprus after suffering from heatstroke. An additional three elderly patients are being treated at various hospitals in the region for heatstroke symptoms, according to reports.
The debilitating heat is also plaguing India, where temperatures were so hot that a one-of-its-kind insurance policy made payouts to 50,000 women across 22 districts to help them cope with the economic impacts of extreme heat.
Meanwhile, 14 Jordanian pilgrims died while on a holy trip to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry reported Sunday that they died as a result of exposure to extreme sun and heat, according to the New York Times. An additional 17 pilgrims are missing.
Heavy rains are affecting southern and central Chile as well, reportedly killing one person, causing damage to over 2,000 homes and forcing around 150 people to be evacuated from their homes, according to Sky News. (The link has the links to the stories)
An esteemed pond correspondent also offered these annotations. Cold:
France:
While at
Crikey, the pond couldn't help but notice a couple of great items.
Cam Wilson's story gave the game away in the header: Tucker Carlson’s Australian tour ticket prices have been slashed with hundreds of seats still available, Seats at one of the Clive Palmer-backed events are now listed at less than a quarter of their original price. (Paywall)
Even at 50 bucks, it's at least $49.99 too much, and maybe it'd be better to hang on to the cent too.
Daanyal Raeed's story (paywall) was an ominous reminder that reptile studies would have to resume soon:
Much has been made, including in Crikey’s pages, of the incendiary column in The Australian last week by contributor Francis Galbally that likened the Greens to the Nazis and Adam Bandt to Adolf Hitler.
Despite the article’s incoherence, Media Watch host Paul Barry managed to make enough sense of it to tear into the broadsheet on Monday night, calling the piece a “new low for a once-proud paper, and an absolute disgrace”.
Amid the outrage, a tipster alerted us to an unnoticed element of the column. Galbally is the owner and chair of a cybersecurity firm called Senetas, which itself owns an Israeli security outfit called Votiro. Votiro, per its CEO, services “most” Israeli government departments.
This may go some length to explaining Galbally’s views on the war in Gaza — but when Crikey approached The Australian with questions, the paper was silent. Crikey asked whether it was aware of Galbally’s business interests prior to publication, and whether it considered them a relevant element to disclose in the column. The Australian did not respond for comment.
It's a bit late to be noting
Media Watch, but all the same, herpetology studies are just around the corner ...
...So who at The Australian read this column and thought it was a good idea to run it? And why?
Even if they didn’t want to spike it for being crazy, stupid and offensive, didn’t the lawyers warn that it was likely to be hugely defamatory?
After all Hitler jailed and killed his political opponents, started a world war in which 70 million people died, and ordered the killing of six million Jews.
Surely, it wouldn’t be hard to prove the Greens are not similar to the Nazis and that Adam Bandt is not Adolf Hitler, if he sued.
But whatever happens, The Australian should take that column down and apologise. It is a new low for a once proud paper and an absolute disgrace.
The pond has only one quibble with those yarns.
A once proud paper?
The reptiles have always been proud, in the manner of that snake in Snakes and Ladders ... but pride isn't something to be esteemed.
It was a killer, always on 98, a bloody long way down too, and the result's a rag that's been in free fall since the days of Adrian Deamer ... and apparently incapable of making a comment when it comes to breaking Godwin's Law ...
Never mind, the good news this day is that everything is in hand, it's the best of all possible best worlds, and the visionaries will fix things by 2050 ...
And so to end with an immortal Rowe, celebrating impending salvation, and then, in due course, the pond's return to herpetology studies...
