The pond was astonished. There the pond was, sitting innocently and a little sleepily, catching up with the reptile news via Media Watch, and then these lines came up:
After all, News Corp and The Australian have been barracking for nuclear power for ages.
Yet even there the pickings were slim.
The Australian found two farmers who liked the idea, and celebrated with this positive headline on the front page:
Early thumbs up in rural electorates - The Australian, 20 June, 2024
Repeating the line in a big spread inside where columnist Judith Sloan, who’s normally a champion of privatisation, was calling it sensible for the government to own and build the nuclear industry.
Dame Groan?
Say what? Dame Groan as a vile, socialist, pinko prevert, valiantly in support of government ownership of a public facility?
Say it ain't so. The pond was sure Paul Barry was pulling the pond's leg in an almost indecent way. No way that Dame Groan would turn full-on Commie Bolshie swine, no way would she become a Comrade.
The pond had resolved not to go back to check on moments lost during its Melbourne sojourn - too much like a Tamworth dog returning to its vomit in the noon day sun - but the pond suddendly gottsta kno ... just hadsa ta kno ...
What a mistake.
Whaddya kno. She did go full Commie swine socialist pinko prevert ...
A little further down the page she kept at it, all in, all the way...
Assuming that Labor hadn’t seen the light by that stage, it would simply be too uncertain for private investors to pony up the large amounts of capital needed to construct the plants. In time, the government can opt to sell down their stakes in the plants, but that would be a consideration for another time.
The reality is that the energy transition is basically in tatters. Investment in RE has stalled as various governments keep changing the rules. The options for storage and its cost are major impediments. It has come to a bizarre point where state governments are subsidising the continuation of coal-fired plants to achieve net zero – go figure. In the meantime, those living in rural and regional areas are understandably arcing up about the environmental damage that RE installations cause.
The nuclear debate is one we should have, and Dutton is showing remarkable pluck in initiating it. At least voters will be in no doubt what the Coalition stands for.
Ya got to hand it to Punxsutawney Pete... he's a miracle worker, turning a dedicated free enterprise hater of government ownership into a slobbering, fawning devotee of public ownership.
It actually made the pond excited at the thought of Dame Groan groaning away this morning.
With a barely suppressed yawn, the pond had thought it would just be another day where either renewables or migrants copped a Groaning (or perhaps migrant whales suffering at the hands of windmills), but maybe the pond would be copping another dose of championing public ownership.
Indeed, indeed, it was a full nuking, though perhaps unwise to start off with one of those comical memes that have been doing the rounds ...
It seemed unwise for the reptiles to start off with the actual meme. All Dame Groan's splendid arguments suddenly went in one ear and straight out the other, and all the pond could remember was the Media Watch closer, featuring a bout of NIMBYism playing havoc with the data, and talk of that bloody fish and The Simpsons...
And the reptiles found the stupid meme irresistible too, and so ruined the Groaning at the get go, and it didn't get any better for the Dame ...
Forget about the routine about all the waste fitting into a Coke can, good as that was, the Graudian had a story titled The Coalition says its nuclear plants will run for 100 years. What does the international experience tell us? The average age of an active nuclear reactor worldwide is about 32 years – and a live plant reaching even 60 has ‘never happened’, an expert says.
Good old Ted shoots and scores again:
Of the active 416 nuclear reactors, the mean age is about 32 years. Among the 29 reactors that have shut over the past five years, the average age was less than 43 years, Schneider says.
There are 16 reactors that have been operating for 51 years or more. “There is zero experience of a 60-year-old operating reactor, zero. It never happened. Leave alone 80 years or beyond,” he says. (The world’s oldest, Switzerland’s Beznau, has clocked up 55 years with periods of outages.)
CSIRO’s report looked at a 30- or 40-year life for a large nuclear plant as there was “little evidence presented that private financing would be comfortable” with risk for any longer.
As plants age, maintenance costs should increase, as they have in France. That’s not the case in the US, though, with declining investment in the past decade even as the average reactor age has jumped from 32 to 42 years.
“You have two options as to the outcome: either you hit an investment wall, so you have to have massive investments all over the place at the same time, or you get a very serious safety or security problem somewhere,” Schneider says.
US plants have been running an “incredible” 90% of the time over the past decade. Compare that with France’s load factor in 2022 of just 52%, he says.
“The best offshore wind farms in Scotland have a five-year average load factor of 54%.”
There was some other amusing stuff in the piece:
During the past two decades, it’s a similar story of 102 reactors opened and 104 shutting. As with most energy sources, China has been the biggest mover, adding 49 during that time and closing none. Despite that burst, nuclear provides only about 5% of China’s electricity.
Last year, China added 1GW of nuclear energy but more than 200GW of solar alone. Solar passed nuclear for total power production in 2022 while wind overtook it a decade ago.
“In industrial terms, nuclear power is irrelevant in the overall global market for electricity generating technology,” he says. As for small modular reactors, or SMRs, nobody has built one commercially. Not even billionaire Bill Gates, whose company has been trying for 18 years.
The CSIRO report examined the “contentious issue” of SMRs, and noted that one of the main US projects, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, was cancelled last November. Even then, its estimated costs in 2o2o of $18,200/kiloWatt, or more than double that of large-scale plants at $8,655/kW (in 2023 dollars).
So at least some nations are still building large reactors?
Of the 35 construction starts since 2019, 22 were in China and the rest were Russian-built in various nations. Russia sweetens its deals by agreeing to handle the waste from the plants it builds.
“The US has blacklisted CGN and CNNC, which are the two major [Chinese] state-owned nuclear companies [in China] that could respond to an international call for tender,” Schneider says. “So could you imagine that Australia would hire a Chinese company under those conditions to build nuclear reactors?”
The pond could have gone on quoting, but the link's there and the pond needs to finish up Comrade Groaner with a final gobbet ...
All that's available at the moment are cartoons ...
At this point, the pond supposes it should do its ritual observation of the day's reptile offerings, which in the excitement of the Dame's Groaning the pond plumb forgot to do ...
Nothing to note there - yet again the Lehrmann matter occupies the extreme far right of the digital edition, and the only matter of interest is that Ellie is carrying the can rather than Dame Slap.
The pond has resolutely refused to take the reptiles' obsessive compulsive coverage with even a hint of white powder and so moved to the comments section below ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, ancient Troy is really stretching things. An echo of Kennedy versus Nixon? And who is the orange Jesus playing?
Say what you will about Tricky Dick, and back in the day, the pond said plenty, including a lot about alleged pacifier, in reality war criminal Henry Kissinger, there's no way that Tricky Dick would have blathered on endlessly about sharks and batteries in a clown car cavalcade ...
The pond doesn't need ancient Troy's lame attempt at faux gravitas, the pond needs a little comedy ...per the Beast ... (paywall)
Among the wackiest prop bets available online includes lines on who’ll mispronounce a politician’s name first, an over-under on how many times Vladimir Putin will be mentioned, and who’ll interrupt moderators first.
All three of those bets are available on BetOnline, an offshore sportsbook that’s not regulated in the U.S. but controversially accepts wagers from Americans.
While the outfit itself is arguably shady, the wagers provide a unique insight into how some political experts think Thursday’s showdown, which will air without an audience on CNN at 9 p.m., might shake out.
Among the quirkier prop bets is an over-under on how many times Biden will say “folks” during the 90-minute debate. BetOnline has that over-under listed at 4.5 “folks mentioned.”
Other over-unders include how many times Hunter Biden will be mentioned (2), how many times Trump will utter “fake news” (1.5), and how many times the words “stolen” or “rigged” will be used (3.5).
The website also offers a number of “first to” bets, which requires gamblers to pick which candidate they think will do something first. For those, Biden is favored to be the first to say “shut up” and sip from a water bottle. Trump, meanwhile, is favored to be the first to interrupt moderators and to suggest his opponent is on drugs.
There’s also wagering options on more long-shot scenarios. That includes bets being accepted on Biden losing his footing or Trump saying, “Drill baby drill.” Each of those bets have odds of +1000, meaning a winning $100 bet would return $1,100.
Among the even more far-fetched offering includes “Biden to have a five-second brain freeze” (+1200), “Biden to fall asleep” (+1200), “either candidate to walk off” (+1400), and “Trump to say ‘Bing Bong’” (+2000).
Most other betting lines are a bit more standard. That includes a line on which topic will be mentioned first by moderators, with the economy listed as the favorite followed by foreign policy and healthcare.
Wagers are also being accepted on whether Biden and Trump shake hands pre-debate, which oddsmakers suspect they won’t do, and whose first answer will be longer, which slightly favors Biden. There’s even odds offered on what pattern each candidate’s ties will be, with “solid” favored for both men.
BetOnline is also accepting bets on who will win the debate, using post-debate polls to determine a winner.
As of Monday morning, BetOnline listed Trump (-150) as a slight favorite to outperform Biden (+110). Those odds mean that a $100 wager on a Trump victory would return $150, while the same amount on Biden would return $210.
BetUS, another offshore gambling site, listed Biden and Trump as having the same odds to win at -120 each. The site said it’d use polls “co-sanctioned with CNN” to determine a winner, assuming one is quickly available.
“If no such poll, any from YouGov, Ipsos or aggregate of those two if necessary,” the betting market rule stated. “If none of those three, bets are void.”
A third gambling website, Polymarket, has collected hundreds of thousands in crypto wagers regarding the debate. Its website said the most popular bet has been whether the debate itself will even take place as scheduled.
It lists a number of words that may or may say during the debate, which includes “Fake News,” “Dementia,” “Crack,” and “Sleepy Joe.”
So the pond had no time for ancient Troy and his faux attempt at gravitas and meaningless comparisons - gamble responsibly - but did spare a thought for the shocked, startled, neigh frankly astounded, echo Chambers ...
What a hoot, and what a pity the pond's talk of a keen Kean(e) had already been used. As usual, there was a cartoon to go ...
Talk about consternation at jobs for good old Liberal boys ... it fair warmed the cockles in the pond's heart to see the echo Chambers in such a flutter ...
It's even harder to imagine Punxsutawney Pete and Little to be Proud Of coming up with figures to wax lyrical about ... and as for that line about the desperate need for certainty and an end to the climate and energy wars, the echo Chambers had the pond rolling Jaffas down the aisles.
Talk to the hand, or at least to Punxsutawney Pete and Little to be Proud Of about that one. They revived the climate and energy wars with an exceptional brain fart, and are responsible for all that's followed, including this cartoon from the infallible Pope ...
James Leo Herlihy, although best known for his novel ‘Midnight Cowboy’, wrote ‘All Fall Down’, made into an underrated movie with Eva Marie Saint, Warren Beatty and Karl Malden. In the novel ‘All Fall Down’ Herlihy introduces an autodidact, Ralph, who has taken in quantities of what he sees as knowledge, without proceeding to convert that knowledge to understanding, let alone wisdom. At one stage Ralph says -
ReplyDelete‘Listen - I had a talk with some snotnose college kid in a saloon one night. You know what he said : Glass - now get this - glass, is more perfectly elastic than rubber. . . . . . Well, I turned to the poor bastard, and I said, “Listen, if we leave the world to birds like you, we’ll end up looking through rubber windows, and screwing with glass contraceptives.”
Ralph and Clinton had a good laugh over this remark.’
What you have given us this day of the Dame Groan brought Ralph to mind. She tells us that ‘we must have an informed, thorough discussion of the issues and the options that are available.’ OK - she pre-empts the acceptable sources of information for that discussion, (any nuclear plant that did now come in on time and first-guess budget is automatically excluded) so has ‘No doubt, the Coalition will release more details on costings so voters can make a sober assessment of the case for nuclear energy.’
Except that - it has been done already - in the GenCost reports, supported by work commissioned by AEMO, and delivered by Aurecon. Everything our Dame wants to see on the horizon was up there a month or so ago, but she chose to tell those snotnose college types that we should not leave the world to birds like them.
And I doubt that any subscribers to the Flagship ‘had a good laugh’ over any of her remarks.
Loved you going the y'artz Chadders because what else is there to do?
DeleteDame Groan provided a few costings of the hopeful kind, immediately disprovable by real world events ... and to wriggle out of them, all she had was a weasel words salad ...
...The good news is that there is a tonne of overseas data to establish some accurate costings, including from some of the recent successful builds in Korea and the UAE. There is not much point trawling up some older instances where costs massively blew out and there were substantial delays, such as the UK’s Hinkley Point C. This project was poorly conceived with a French design and Chinese financing. Apart from an offtake guarantee at a minimum strike price, there were no government funds provided to the project. Numerous changes were made during the course of construction and the various UK heads of government were never supportive, particularly former prime minister Theresa May.
Similarly, the much delayed and costly American plant in Georgia was hampered by a nuclear regulatory authority that was essentially anti-nuclear. The regulatory costs alone were over the top. But with industry now heading to that state, there is already talk of building another.
The Coalition has made the sensible decision that there will be one design only (for the larger-scale plants) so the economies of scale and scope can be captured. The French have mastered this approach now – President Emmanuel Macron has announced eight new plants – and other countries now accept this as best practice.
The figure for a one-gigawatt plant is likely to be about $8bn to $10bn. The plants will be modularised, which provides additional flexibility. There will be some need to upgrade transmission lines but the costs will not be substantial...
And so on. You only have to read Dame Groan on the matter of public investment, and the blow outs that always happen, whether nuking subs or nuking public transport, to show that Dame Groan has abandoned her stance as a sharp disciplinarian of the public sector to a fey delusional believer in unicorns ...but what great comedy material she provides, and movie references she inspires ...
Yeah, yair, but you know the reptiles have no connection - physical or mental - to the real world, Chad. So Groany is just being her 'happy world' self as usual.
DeleteAny'ow, the glass-rubber elasticity thing has been around for yonks - along with the 'glass is actually a liquid' thing too:
https://www.vedantu.com/jee-main/which-one-of-the-following-substances-possess-physics-question-answer
High-taxed Australia doesn’t need a hike in the GST
DeleteBy JUDITH SLOAN
12:00AM DECEMBER 12, 2015
...the point of taxation is to raise revenue that then can be spent by governments for various purposes. Think defence, welfare payments, health, education, and the list goes on.
In this context it is worth revisiting Milton Friedman’s famous four quadrants of spending to assess the likelihood that revenue is spent efficiently and effectively. The first quadrant is about people spending their own money on themselves. The second is people spending their own money on other people. The third is about spending other people’s money on themselves. And the final one is spending other people’s money on other people. There is a descending degree of care, in terms of meeting preferences of the recipients and achieving value for money, as we shift through the quadrants.
Governments spending taxpayers’ money is a clear fourth quadrant example. While there is a variety of factors that motivate governments, one clear driving force is the desire to be re-elected. What this means is taxpayers’ money will be directed to achieve this aim even if the spending is wasteful and benefits small numbers of people.
We have seen an alarming trend, which has accelerated under the Abbott-Turnbull government, towards the federal government using taxpayers’ money for local projects, the funding of which should be the responsibility of local or state governments or, indeed, private individuals.
I have the misfortune of being Facebook friends with several federal politicians and they are always bragging about using taxpayers’ money to fund the upgrade of some tiny local airport, fixing some local intersection or upgrading a local leisure centre.
This is pure pork-barrelling using other people’s money. The people of Australia really have no particular interest in seeing the leisure centre in a salubrious part of Sydney improved.
These politicians seem to have forgotten the principle of subsidiarity (OK, most of them couldn’t spell it), which dictates that matters ought to be managed and funded by the smallest (least centralised) competent authority. Moreover, federal taxes should be directed to federal ends, the benefits of which accrue to all Australians, not just a few voters who live in marginal electorates. (I’m leaving out the complication of vertical fiscal imbalance to keep things simple.)
This is the second lesson: governments cannot be trusted to spend taxpayers’ money sensibly, in terms of securing value for money or ensuring the benefits are widely spread.
In other words: Nuke the country, nuke private ownership ...
Once upon a time, Comrade Groan was a professor of economics at Flinders University. She holds degrees from the University of Melbourne and the London School of Economics. These days, she is an entitled scribbler for the Murdoch press, regularly recycling a small number of pet subjects on which she holds ideological and prejudice-based views. Recently, however, she has demonstrated a surprising ideological flexibility, based perhaps on managerial perspective.
ReplyDeleteShe remains, however, a cliched and tedious bore.
I should also add that she continues to display a remarkable ability to make bold statements without providing supporting evidence; for example, just why recent examples of nuclear plant development in South Korea and the UAE would be a reliable basis for Australian costs. Indeed, hasn’t the Dame frequently groaned that Australians are bloody useless at developing, with endless delays and cost blowouts?
DeleteJust imagine living near - or even worse, working in - a 100 year-old nuclear reactor!!
ReplyDeleteEspecially if they have to be refueled every 6-7 years like a nuclear powered submarine:
Delete"Refueling and reconditioning (ROH) is a lengthy process that involves replacing spent nuclear fuel with new fuel and general maintenance repair, refurbishment, and often modernization of the entire ship. In the United States Navy, this process usually takes one to two years for submarines and up to almost three years for an aircraft carrier."
https://www.coastguardsouth.org.nz/how-often-do-nuclear-ships-refuel
So, how often and how long for an SMR (if such mythical beings ever spring into existence) ?
Three-eyed Joan as a starter!
ReplyDeleteGiven that the Coalition's announcement is a fantasy, it also seemed brave for Sloan to begin with "once upon a time.."
In an analysis on the opposition's announcement, Ian Verrender stated: "Even when they are running flat out, the cost of electricity generation is much higher than for renewables, according to the CSIRO and most reputable economists and analysts."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/dutton-nuclear-power-renewable-energy-liberal-party/104016288
Conclusion: Judith Sloan is not counted in the group of reputable economists. Verrender's analysis shows the problem with the comparison with France, but Joan's vision is blurred by that extra eye.
I enjoyed the part about a nuclear regulatory authority causing costs to blow out. The regulatory authority is there to ensure adherence to international treaties on development of nuclear facilities as well as safety measures. But who cares about that? Get rid of regulation.
Not everyone thinks like Sloan on South Korea's nuclear energy system either:
"The establishment of distributed energy systems, which enables to increase local self-sufficiency in electricity supply and introduce distributed energy-friendly markets, will bring about a paradigm shift in the current electricity supply system, which is dominated by the centralized power supply system and KEPCO's monopoly on electricity transmission, distribution, and sales.[28] In a distributed energy system, the role of nuclear power may also be reduced in the long term. Furthermore, the issue of SNF storage is likely to remain a significant obstacle to the expansion of nuclear power in the absence of solution to the nuclear waste disposal. Overall, the nuclear energy expansion policy will be an ‘unstable’ strategy on the way to carbon neutrality."
https://hk.boell.org/en/2023/04/14/south-koreas-unstable-nuclear-energy-policy-lee-through-moon-yoon-governments
Yet there we all were thinking the opposition and the reptiles were all for stability.
Mate, the only solution to "the nuclear waste disposal" problem is for somebody to actually (eventually) come up with a working nuclear fusion generator. Any guess as to how long that might be ? And will we ever get SMR fusion generators.
DeleteAnd just as a side matter, what is your guess for the lifespan expectancy (ie now until extinction) of homo saps saps. Will we last for a million years? And will we still have wingnuts and reptiles if we do ? And why, having gone to all the minute omnicient's trouble of creating us and a whole universe to house us, will our god sentence us to extinction ? Or are we immortal too like the Trinity ?
A fairy tale - but I’m not too sure about “Happily Ever After”.
Deleteerratum - 'any nuclear plant that did now come in on time and first-guess budget' should read 'any nuclear plant that did not come in on time and first-guess budget'.
ReplyDeleteI suspect others who commented, understood from the context - but it was sloppy, so apology.
Umm, seems to make some kinda sense both ways, Chad.
DeleteThis should throw the hive into a crisis
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2024/jun/25/julian-assange-prison-release-live-updates-plea-deal-return-australia-wikileaks-leaves-uk
Where is the Riddster when he's really needed ?
ReplyDelete"Analysis of high-resolution drone imagery concludes 97% of corals died at a Lizard Island reef between March and June this year."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/26/most-of-it-was-dead-scientists-discovers-one-of-great-barrier-reefs-worst-coral-bleaching-events