Here in Australia we have an election tomorrow, and one of the things the Coalition has promised as part of their energy plan is nuclear power. We’re told 19 out of 20 major nations either already use nuclear power or are building that capacity, so we’re the odd ones out. Nuclear is going to solve all our problems.

The child’s version

I remember when I first heard about nuclear power. It was in a simple “How things work” type book which I got from an op shop (before the likes of Google and Wikipedia had the answer to everything). I was probably in late primary school or early high school.

I don’t know what the book was or why I picked it, but clearly some of it stuck with me. It talked about how we discovered radioactive elements like uranium, as well as creating heavier elements like plutonium that don’t occur naturally. It included simplified diagrams of how the fission chain reaction worked, as well as how to stop that reaction going nuclear (pardon the pun). There was discussion of isotopes and enrichment and half lives and radioactive decay.

But I think looking back the biggest thing I notice is how positive a view it presented. There was so much energy locked in humble atoms that building nuclear power plants was a no brainer. Energy was going to be cheap, clean and abundant. Given I was reading it years after it was written, I think I’d have been surprised to find that most of Australia’s power was produced from coal, let alone that we had no nuclear power plants and no plans to build any.

The overall message was that nuclear was fascinating - which I’d still agree with - and it definitely wasn’t terrifying. There was no Chernobyl and no Three Mile Island - though, to be fair, the book was already old when I got it, so it might have pre-dated those disasters.

Of course, all of this is a child’s memory. I may well have misrepresented the book, and given I don’t even know the title I can’t very well check it. But I think what I’ve described gets at some of the lure of nuclear power.

The lure today

Part of the reason nuclear is back in the discussion is its status as a green power source - it doesn’t emit carbon dioxide. But it’s also, at least in principle, much closer to a like-for-like replacement for our current coal power plants than other green technologies like solar and wind power.

Nuclear power plants can provide baseline power, they can be concentrated in a few locations rather than having a larger land footprint, and they would probably require fewer changes to our current transmission and storage than other renewables.

In addition to that, I think there’s still an idea that nuclear energy should be cheap and abundant. After all, doesn’t that wonderful equation E = mc² tell us that matter stores vast quantities of energy?

When the Coalition first started talking about nuclear, it felt like they’d decided that they really had to have some green policy, and so nuclear was it.

The reality

Nuclear power plants are big and expensive to build. They’re frequently associated with budget and schedule overruns (what makes it much harder to generate that cheap and abundant power…). They also require a lot of water to run, which is a concern in Australia.

In addition, nuclear waste requires ongoing management - possibly long past the operating lifespan of the nuclear power plant that produced it. If you’d asked child-me what needed to be done with it, I’d probably have said something like “take it somewhere safe and seal it up and then leave it”. In practice, the waste isn’t just highly radioactive - it will continue to generate significant quantities of heat, and so must be actively cooled for a number of years. Even after that process it will remain radioactive for thousands of years, so will continue to need careful treatment.

Nuclear power also introduces the risk of disasters affecting hundreds of thousands or millions, whether caused by natural disasters, terrorism, or just system and human error. And the efforts to avoid or minimise those disasters also increases the difficulty (and cost) of building and running nuclear power.

Finally, nuclear power generation is banned at the federal level as well is in several of the states (including my own state of Victoria). Perhaps those bans will be overturned in future - but it’s just another hurdle in the path of the cheap, abundant nuclear energy dream.

To be clear, nuclear power plants aren’t the only projects subject to budget and schedule overruns, nor is nuclear the only technology where the reality falls short of the ideal.

Coal power plants also require water (though less than nuclear), and as well as the dreaded CO² they also emit various heavy metals and pollutants, none of which are good for our health or the environment.

Renewable power sources need to be manufactured, installed, and maintained. They also need upgrades to both transmission and storage.

But I think nuclear energy has some significant concerns which other power generation sources don’t have, and those concerns need to be considered.

What about 2030?

If you’ve been hearing anything about our urgent need for climate action, you’ve probably heard the numbers 2030 and 2050. 2030 (a mere five years away now…) is meant to be the date to have locked in significant emissions reductions, while by 2050 emissions are meant to be zero (or at least “net zero”).

It’s here that the difference between the approach of our two major parties becomes clear. Labor have set a target of 43% reduction by 2030, and part of how they plan to achieve that number is to significantly increase the role of renewables like solar and wind in the grid. The Coalition have pledged to repeal that target.

Where does nuclear energy fit in this picture? 2035 seems to be the most optimistic estimate for having even one nuclear power plant operating. With the budget and schedule overruns I’ve talked about, the 2040s seem more likely.

Sure, 2030 and 2050 are somewhat arbitrary dates, but they also matter. No matter how green nuclear may be, we can clearly say it won’t have any impact on 2030 emissions in Australia. 2050 is still a while away, but any overruns will make 2050 targets harder to meet.

In practice, the main effect of the nuclear plan seems to be kicking the can down the road. It’s slowing the transition to renewables that is already underway, and trying to keep fossil fuel power generators open for longer.

Last election, the Coalition promised “technology not taxes”, which seemed to boil down to “If we continue business as usual, something will come along later to save us”. This time round it’s nuclear that will come along to save us - and we know it’s not coming any time soon.

But what about cost of living?

Like I wrote the other day, the magic words at the moment are “cost of living”. Much of the election has been fought on cost of living.

Last time round, Labor promised that power bills would be lower under their government, and instead they’ve gone up. The Coalition have tried to tie this to the speed of the renewables rollout, and thus to argue for slowing it down.

My Liberal MP promises to lower costs through a balanced energy mix, including more renewables and more gas (and who could argue with a balanced energy mix? 😉). Under their plan, he says, gas will also be more available and cheaper, and that will bring down prices. Great for cost of living if it works, of course, but it also means more emissions.

This is where nuclear comes in:

We will ensure cheap, clean and reliable energy over the long term by replacing retired coal plants (in seven locations) with zero-emissions nuclear energy.

As I’ve said, I’m not clear on the “cheap” part, but even ignoring that - the major role nuclear plays right now is ensuring that “climate” is a future concern, which can be readily ignored in favour of the all important present concern known as “cost of living” (and getting elected, of course)…

How about fusion?

Fusion power is the futuristic version of nuclear power. And it has the same lure as our current nuclear power, really - cheap, abundant energy. It also doesn’t have the same nuclear waste issue, which is convenient.

However, I’m pretty sure it’s been “at least 20 years away” for all my lifetime, so it’s even less likely to help us now with either cost of living or emissions reductions. Even if we do get it working, I gather it could have many of the same issues - expensive to build, more expensive to run than expected, and perhaps even needing a lot of water.

It could be a gamechanger - but I’m not holding my breath…

Conclusion

I think nuclear power has concerning risks that other forms of energy generation don’t have.

But for this election, I don’t think we even need to look too hard at those - just ask whether nuclear will actually achieve the stated goals. And it seems pretty clear from the long lead time and high set up costs that whether you’re looking at cost of living or at climate, in the short and medium term it won’t meet those goals.

In the long term it’s theoretically possible that it might (though I’m skeptical). But in a world where we want climate action now, nuclear power looks like an expensive and potentially dangerous distraction.