New report reveals technical and market implications for small modular nuclear reactors in Australia
Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering Media Release
A new report released today from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has found the nascent state of small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) globally means that a mature market for the technology may emerge in the late 2040s.
The technology is yet to be proven technically and financially, given there is currently a dearth of reliable, publicly verifiable information about operational full-scale prototype SMRs around the world.
As current coal-fired power stations begin to retire and there is an urgent need for mature, low carbon technologies to fill the energy supply gap, the time it will take to establish a mature SMR market, including appropriate legislative and regulatory settings, means that it won’t be possible to fill this gap with SMR technology this decade.
The least risky option would be for Australia to procure SMRs once several models have been established and are proven and operational in other OECD countries.
Alternatively, Australia could choose to enter the SMR market at an earlier pre-mature-market stage of development, which would carry a significant financial cost and technical risk.
The report notes that for a nuclear energy industry in Australia to be considered, federal and state moratoria on nuclear power would need to be lifted, a national nuclear regulator established, and an appropriately skilled workforce to be grown. In addition, SMRs will not succeed without broad social acceptance of the technology over their entire life cycle.
ATSE President Dr Katherine Woodthorpe AO FTSE said that from a technology and engineering perspective, SMRs could form part of the future energy mix for Australia, however this is unlikely until a market is fully formed, which would be likely in the mid to late 2040s.
“SMR technology could provide low carbon energy compatible with Australia’s current electricity system, however as an emerging technology, there is considerable uncertainty around commercial viability and some of these potential benefits,” Dr Woodthorpe said.
“Overall, the associated timescales, expense, skills gap, legal and regulatory barriers, and social acceptance of nuclear power means the technology is high-risk when compared to existing energy options.
“Sourcing a prototype SMR is a higher-risk proposition for both technical and commercial reasons.
“Non-partisan analysis is required to objectively examine technology readiness and the role of nuclear technology in the long-term. However, this should not detract from the rapid deployment of renewable technologies that are ready and available here and now.
ATSE supports a technology-neutral approach to the energy transition which requires that all options are considered on their merits.
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12 comments
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uncletimrob -
Phil Pryor -
Fred -
Terence Mills -
leefe -
Andyfiftysix -
Fred -
Clakka -
Terence Mills -
New England Cocky -
Clakka -
Ken Fabian
Return to home pageApparently Dutts and his mates have it all worked out and will prove these pesky experts wrong!
Why pay experts for advice when you can make shit up on the spot and get people to believe you?
We stopped making unsaleable and shitty cars long ago. We do not run our own shipping for essential trade. We cannot house our people, as we lack a skills based workforce in sufficient numbers. We do not produce household electrical goods, or whitegoods anymore. We pock and scrape Australia, under the controls of fat egotistical selfish wasters. AND, some Duttonite dill and dunce wants us to spend up HUGE on nuclear technology, when we can’t possibly maintain it all, understand it. Can Dutton ride a dinky?
Phil: This is akin to creating a new airliner manufacturing industry in Oz from scratch. We haven’t got the infrastructure or allied industries and you wouldn’t want a supply chain issue to affect power generation if simply imported. So what happens in the case where a design flaw is uncovered? Do we shut down all SMRs of the same design, given they are the product of a “cookie cutter” approach? Would the industry effectively become a collection bespoke SMRs due to low volume of builds accompanied by higher build and running costs?
Dutton keeps on talking up Ontario Canada as having cheaper electricity than Australia but again he lies for convenience.
The wholesale cost of electricity in Ontario from nuclear power is about $110 per megawatt hour. That’s more expensive than wholesale prices in most Australian states.
The Australian Energy Market Operator reported wholesale prices were $87/MWh in NSW, $67/MWh in Tasmania, $55/MWh in South Australia, and $52/MWh in Victoria for the first quarter of 2023, according to its latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report.
Queensland was the only outlier, recording $118/MWh.
We need to fact check both sides of politics but particularly Dutton as he will not sit down and allow in-depth analysis of his proposals and costings (where available) and his door stops are rarely fact checked.
2040? I’d be gobsmacked if anyone had managed to get a viable pprototyppe up and running by then.
anyone who has half a brain can see that nuclear’s window of opportunity has closed. Honestly do you need money wasted with report after report saying its expensive and uninsurable. People have voted with their wallets in australia….solar panels over the incumbents. Gas generators are at life end so do need to be replaced soon , not in the year 2525. Nuclear is dead…….
Terence, isn’t it obvious Dutton is following the Trump doctrine, say anything stupid and the base lights up. Tell as many lies as you can get away with. Normalise stupidity and nobody will question you anymore. Lies by omission are STILL LIES.
Andy56: It is likely to be much darker than normalising stupidity, rather as justification for new gas to “fill in the short fall”.
DeuteriumDutts will no doubt say Dr Katherine’s comments taken in context, are irrelevant and should be ignored, in preference for the dynamic insights of defiance king Ted NetO’Brain.
I have written to the ABC calling for them to bring Q&A out of mothballs and dedicate a program (or series of programs) to discuss nuclear energy in the Australian context and renewable energy capabilities generally, with a panel made up of experts, academics and international professionals and limited input from politicians.
I am concerned about the range of unhelpful reporting and blatant misinformation current being peddled and I find all the talk around, for instance, the Capital Battery providing the ACT with a 100 MW stand-alone battery capable of storing up to 200 MWh of energy unhelpful when it can only supply up to 2 hours of power in reserve.
We need more informed discussion on this important subject.
Uhm ….. forgive my Mathematical bent but 2024 to 2050 is 26 years when the is no nuclear power, only successful alternative energy generation like is happening on a gigantic scale at Uralla NSW, but also elsewhere. So if nuclear is NOT available now why would we want to introduce it in 2050 by which time battery technology will have improved in leaps & bounds and maybe even some smart scientist will have world out how Tesla did all those magic tricks with electricity without power lines.
Yeah, the renewables ‘firming’ game is changing at a rate of knots. It seems quite likely that in the not to distant future, LNG may be relegated to the scrapheap of alsorans.
The latest battery tech of sodium-ion batteries seem to be showing much promise. See The Conversation salt battery revolution, and MIT’s tech review sodium-ion battery game-changer
And you may like me, be astonished, but there is under development stretchable mouldable flexible polymer batteries. Currently mooted for insertion into human / animal bodies for things such as pacemakers, and brain / nerve stimulation.
As bad as waiting for fusion – 7 decades so far and still waiting for mass manufactured SMR’s.
In any case the LNP don’t care about emissions – never have – but holding out for nuclear works well as “oh, too bad, we have to keep using fossil fuels”, with added opportunities for endless delays with greenie blaming.
There are reasons – none good for the climate – that the most vocal proponents of nuclear energy are pro fossil fuels climate science deniers first and Renewable Energy deniers second. I note that none of their advocacy or rhetoric is about fixing global warming, it is about saving the economy from Renewable Energy. If emissions targets come into it at all they are seen as international agreements they think of as collective green foolishness.
Saving fossil fuels from global warming is their goal, not Australia and the world from global warming.