Former Ansto CEO Dr Adi Paterson says the world is starting to see a big shift in nuclear energy, which will reduce the price of electricity in a reliable and safe manner. “We’re seeing a big nuclear world and then the microreactors and the small reactors are starting to come online in various places,” Dr Paterson told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

From STOP THESE THINGS

Nuclear power’s renaissance is the inevitable response to the wind and solar transition’s inevitable failure.

Sunshine and weather-dependent solar and weather-dependent wind are no match for serious generation sources, like safe, reliable and affordable nuclear.

Incapable of delivering electricity on demand, wind and solar have never been true competitors with coal, gas or nuclear power generators.

Instead, over the last twenty years or so, they have been like a parasitic cancer, eroding and destroying the power grids that host them. When you hear wind and solar advocates talking about maintaining the existing generators until they can find some magic bullet storage system or make hydrogen gas (presumably economically), it’s like a tumour realising that if the host dies, it dies too.

Wind and solar will continue to bleed the system dry until power consumers recognise that the whole system is terminal. Coupling routine power rationing and mass blackouts with rocketing power prices, should do the trick.

Numerous countries in Europe have worked out that their power systems need urgent resuscitation, and are delivering with the construction of new generation nuclear plants.

The Finns are in, the French led the way (and they’re demanding more) and the Italians have also eagerly signed up to Europe’s nuclear power renaissance. The Swedes, not to be outdone, have ditched their impossible-to-meet 100% renewable energy target (simply because it was premised on adding ever-increasing intermittent wind and solar capacity) – and is on track to build 10 large-scale nuclear plants, with palns to lift their ban on uranium mining giving it access its own fuel supply, independent of Russia. All sensible stuff.

But not a bit of it in Australia. Not yet, anyway.

Sky News’ Chris Kenny talks to Adi Paterson about how the chaotic (occasional) delivery of wind and solar power is driving an inevitable demand for nuclear power.

‘Reliable and safe’: World seeing global shift to nuclear energy
Sky News Australia
Chris Kenny and Adi Paterson
26 October 2023

Former ANSTO CEO Dr Adi Paterson says the world is starting to see a big shift in nuclear energy, which will reduce the price of electricity in a reliable and safe manner.

“We’re seeing a big nuclear world and then the microreactors and the small reactors are starting to come online in various places,” Dr Paterson told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

Dr Paterson said it’s essential Australia transitions to nuclear energy as the quality of Australia’s electricity goes down.

“South Australia is losing jobs because renewables don’t just provide a challenge to the standard coal base power but if you have too much of it, what they call instantaneous penetration of 100 per cent,” he said.

“You actually reduce the quality of the frequency control that means 800 jobs have already left South Australia.”

Transcript

Chris Kenny: Now two years ago today here on Sky News, we had my documentary, Going Nuclear, in which I spoke to experts here and around the world about why nuclear energy was the logical solution to Australia’s and the world’s net-zero dilemma. You know the story. It’s a dense form of energy. It doesn’t require massive amounts of land for new transmission lines and wind and solar farms, and it doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. Here’s a reminder of what the doco contained. In this clip, it starts off with a look at small modular reactors or SMRs.

Video: As we shut down coal-fired power stations like this one in Port Augusta, SMRs could quickly replace them onsite.

My understanding is you could actually deliver to that site an SMR, connect it into the transmission grid and virtually flick the switch.

Yes, it is capable of fitting in with existing grid infrastructure and therefore replacing existing fossil fuel coal-fired power stations and that’s a real advantage. Because the grid costs can be expensive. So if you have a solution that can plug and play, you don’t need to upgrade all of your grid to accommodate it.

The younger generation is being brought up in a world where climate change is front and centre. And when you look at the facts and the science and you look at the data and you compare all of the energy generation sources that we have, nuclear has such a good story to tell from a climate change perspective. But also enabling us to continue our current way of life and indeed improve it.

Chris Kenny: Yeah, it’s all about the future generations and they might wonder why the boomers are so hung up on the so-called risks of nuclear energy. Well, let’s see if the debate has advanced over the past two years by catching up with one of the experts from that doco, Adi Paterson, who used to run Australia’s research and medical nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.

Adi, good to talk to you again.

Dr Adi Paterson: It’s good to be back.

Chris Kenny: Two years on. Tell me, how do you think the debate has changed over the past two years?

Dr Adi Paterson: I think the two big things that have changed is we are starting to see a big shift globally. The Finnish reactor, which was apparently too expensive and took too long, is now on and has reduced the price of electricity to a third of what it was. So we know that they can look expensive, but your electricity gets cheaper, more reliable and safer, frankly.

Chris Kenny: And other changes.

Dr Adi Paterson: I think the big other changes that happened, many countries like Canada has just completed a big prefab of its nuclear power plants. We’ve seen many new to nuclear countries start up their reactors, the UAE for example. So we are seeing a new big nuclear world and then the microreactors and the small reactors are starting to come online in various places.

Chris Kenny: Yeah. Now let’s talk about what’s happened in the political debate in Australia because there’s been a significant shift. The coalition, especially under our opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has been very strong on nuclear. Just have a look at what he said even today. This is Peter Dutton, earlier today.

Peter Dutton: We’ve started the debate in relation to the small modular reactors around nuclear that can firm up the renewables in the system. In Ontario, they’ve got about 60 to 70% of nuclear firming up their renewables. They pay half the kilowatt-hour rate that we do here in Australia. So if we want to halve our electricity prices, we should look to the examples we see in Ontario and elsewhere.

Chris Kenny: Yeah, that’s pretty forward-leaning stuff from Peter Dutton. Adi, it seems obvious that the next federal election you’re going to have a nuclear policy from the coalition. Exactly what it’s going to say we don’t know yet. A nuclear proposal versus the government still holding out. Will that be a good step?

Dr Adi Paterson: I think it’s an essential step. The quality of electricity is going down. South Australia is losing jobs. Because renewables don’t just provide a challenge to the standard coal-fired base load power. But if you have too much of it, what they call instantaneous penetration of a hundred percent, which is a strange term, you actually reduce the quality of the frequency control. That means that 800 jobs have already left South Australia. Precision manufacturing is under threat in the place where we want to have nuclear propulsion in submarines.

Chris Kenny: Yeah. You talk about having that, I think it’s great we’re going to have that political contest. But with something as controversial, as volatile as this issue, don’t we need bipartisan support? We’ve just seen with referendums how you really need bipartisan support to get them delivered. Might it not be the same with nuclear energy?

Dr Adi Paterson: I think it’s true. When I worked with the Obama administration in the US, there was bipartisan support. That has intensified recently. I think that most of the democratic world has got over the anti-nuclear fever of the previous generations. But most important, the cost of electrons and quality of electricity that we need for a modern, post-manufacturing but smart economy means that you have to have quality electricity. We cannot have quality electricity with intermittent renewables.

Chris Kenny: Yeah, we’re getting more expensive and less reliable energy every day at the moment. Now, I just want to get you on the technology here because the coalition keeps pushing these SMRs, the small modular reactors. There’s this new technology and there’s no doubt if they come off the assembly line from Rolls-Royce or some of the other major manufacturers, that’d be a great fit for some locations in Australia. But that’s also politically easy to talk about that. Isn’t there more of an obvious need for maybe some modern versions of traditional fixed nuclear large reactors, say in a place like the Hunter Valley or the Latrobe Valley?

Dr Adi Paterson: I’m a big supporter of gigawatt scale. The big plants, in a way they’re the anchor tenants of a really reliable electricity grid. I’m also a big fan of these microreactors. You know the big red middle of Australia, microreactors replacing the diesel grid. We need the microreactors. We might need small modular reactors in some places. But to get the simplest, quickest, and most elegant solution that we need, it’s gigawatt scale reactors where we’ve got coal plants now.

Chris Kenny: When you’ve looked at the energy challenges, the zero emissions challenges for not just Australia but the world, when I talked to you during that documentary two years ago, you said that the facts, the science, the economics are also obvious that this is inevitable. It’s going to happen sometime. So therefore the quicker we move surely, the cheaper and more effective it’s going to be.

Dr Adi Paterson: To me the real test was Sweden, because Sweden had really been channelling Australia and they’ve changed their minds. They’ve realised that with all of the wind they put up and all the intermittency they put into their grid, they couldn’t make it work. Sweden used to have its own nuclear capability back in the day of making tiny little reactors, but they’re now going to go and build the next generation of reactors. They’ve got bipartisan support. I don’t think it’s a street fight. I think it’s people working together for the best solution for Australia.

Chris Kenny: It’s time for us to catch up.

Dr Adi Paterson: It’s grownups in the room and it’s for a grownup future, to be frank.

Chris Kenny: Adi, thanks so much for joining us. Great to hear from you again.

Dr Adi Paterson: Thank you very much.

Chris Kenny: Adi Paterson, he used to head up ANSTO and therefore run the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor site south of Sydney, which is not used for energy. It’s used for research and for medical supplies.
Sky News