Australian Energy (opens in new tab)

The TLDR is the fission nuclear path in Australia is BS - it is only furthered by those who stand to make directly or indirectly a lot of money from getting the idea to the build stage - before the public get sick of the mounting costs and a realisation of security implications ... if Australia needs nuclear submarines ... single points of failure ... would a distributed power generation system and power generation closer to consumer not be better?

Where to start ... interesting thoughts but there are larger elements which will play a more important role in the energy market outcome in the next 2 or more decades. Solar panels are not the only option for making use of solar power - there's already power plants overseas using the raw power to heat up salt or metal for power production around the clock, assuming not too many wet and cloudy days, Australia's inland areas can provide many suitable sites that are not yet utilised. I also expect a significant fraction of energy storage will be ammonia based ... ammonia fuel cells already exist and as every year goes by, so do better and more efficient methods discovered to produce ammonia -- so it's just a matter of time before a workable method of implementing it for regular household users is found. I expect once there's widespread adoption, storage won't be anhydrous ammonia but aqua ammonia for safety reasons.

Getting to the bottom of the nuclear energy noise -- the first thing to embrace is; that much of the pro nuclear noise has stirred up a rushed this is what works on paper costings, the second is; much of the pro nuclear noise is promoted by those in or around the Australian Liberal Party and large business orientated entities likely to make ludicrous (read insane) amounts of money directly and indirectly from the road of nuclear implementation - and for those outside of Australia or unfamiliar or just plain forgot, the political party referenced here is the same bunch of people that a few years ago primarily blamed wind farms (for a while at least, and remember their expert help didn't do much to correct them) in one of its southern states for a weather event where the wind blew down a number transmission towers cutting power to a great proportion of the population down that way - I shit you not. Yes of course not enough money had been spent on the transmission infrastructure -- and it may be time for the Australian govt. to start thinking about implementing a few underground DC-DC very high voltage links to ensure a more robust electricity network.

The nuclear noise presently in the average news feed shares a lot of similarity to the biofuel saga. Firstly the anti ethanol BS of the late 70s here in Australia around the cane industry, where every "study" or on paper costings declared it was too expensive and cost more than fossil fuel being retailed at the bowser for regular fuel. Later this millennium there's been a push for biodiesel or simply biofuel which understandably satisfies the desire for individuals to use non fossil fuels or waste vegatable oil which is a very good idea if the feed stock is cheap enough. There's been lots of development over the last 20 years as well and there's a great number of things that are deep rabbit holes, - some is just hype, but some is very interesting too. More recently there's been PR stunts like getting jet planes to run on biofuel - still a worthwhile effort on its own - however along with the rest of the media attention biofuels get, it has proved to be a great distraction from a reality that is not greatly mentioned and still isn't being discussed -- it gets all rather moot when one discovers the present liquid fossil fuel cracking plants can use vegetable oil as a feed stock and from what I read, said to produce near identical fuel ... it's a wtf, ok I understand backyard biofuel setups or small business setups that re-purpose waste oil ... but obviously on a grand scale it makes more sense use already existing assets to process 100,000 ton or more of vegetable oil into fuels we can use without any change whatsoever to the current vehicle market - except maybe the feed stock was a bit greener - sure there are likely to be more extra costs and perhaps a shorter working life of a cracking plant and a different waste product that needs to be addressed, but ...

On solar panels - what sort of panels makes a difference. With the version where the silicon cell is compounded (for about the quickest way I can think to describe it) as a South Australian company did a few years ago, a little bit of shading doesn't mean a disproportionate drop off in energy production. Regular silicon cells the power output is not a straight line as per amount of sunlight received. But in a decade or more I expect a greater variety of panels to be in use, for instance including those that can make power at night. [1]

Summing up, long before a nuclear power plant gets up and running, the public will finally realise any nuclear power here is a liability, any such plant is an attack target - I doubt it'd happen but for those who need to waste 25 billion plus on nuclear submarines it just might ... the waste storage area will be another big headache and it isn't like how it might have been with little or no security - both the plants and storage dumps will have a high cost of security attached to them on a yearly basis ... and finally realise Australia typically gets a truck load more sunshine than those places that opt and use nuclear power.

[1] https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/anti-solar-cells-phot... (2020)